Washington
Left-wing Washington Post slams Harris’ price-gouging crackdown plan: ‘Squandered the moment’
Even the Washington Post isn’t buying Vice President Kamala Harris’ plan to slap socialist price controls on groceries.
The longtime, left-leaning broadsheet — owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos — published a scathing editorial ripping the Democratic presidential nominee for claiming price gouging is causing inflation and, rather than offer a legit plan to fix it, offering only “populist gimmicks.”
With food prices surging more than 20% nationwide during the Biden-Harris administration, Harris, during a North Carolina rally earlier Friday, unveiled economic policies she’d enact during her first 100 days as president that include enforcing government price controls on groceries.
Instead of “level[ing] with voters” and saying “inflation spiked in 2021 mainly because the pandemic snarled supply chains, and that the Federal Reserve’s policies, which the Biden-Harris administration supported, are working to slow it,” the veep “opted for a less forthright route: Blaming big business,” the newspaper wrote.
Bezos, a supporter for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, purchased the newspaper in 2013, but he began taking a more active role in its operations in the past year.
The billionaire’s powerhouse portfolio — which includes e-commerce king Amazon and the Whole Food Market chain — would likely be impacted by Harris’ Commie-friendly policy ideas like having the Federal Trade Commission enforce a federal ban on price gouging that includes dishing out hefty penalties to companies that set exorbitantly high prices.
“Ms. Harris says she’ll target companies that make ‘excessive’ profits, whatever that means,” the editorial board barked.
However, it slammed her idea to dole out $25,000 to help first-time homeowners with their down payments, saying it “risks putting upward pressure on prices.”
“Thankfully, this gambit by Ms. Harris has been met with almost instant skepticism, with many critics citing President Richard M. Nixon’s failed price controls from the 1970s. Whether the Harris proposal wins over voters remains to be seen, but if sound economic analysis still matters, it won’t.”
The editorial board had a warmer opinion of Harris’ housing plan, saying it is “built on a slightly firmer foundation” and called her tax incentives “clever.”
“Such a measure might make sense if Ms. Harris paid for it by eliminating other demand-side housing subsidies, such as the mortgage interest deduction, a roughly $30 billion annual drain on federal revenue that benefits many wealthy Americans — but she does not,” the newspaper wrote.
It also said Harris’ “firmest ground” was her proposal to increase the child tax credit from $2,000 per child to $3,600, among other tax breaks.
The Harris campaign did not immediately return messages.
Washington
Washington Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury announces she’s pregnant
Trinity Rodman signs record deal with Washington Spirit
USWNT forward Trinity Rodman signed a three-year deal with the NWSL’s Washington Spirit. The deal makes Rodman the highest-paid female footballer in the world.
unbranded – Sport
Washington Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury has announced that she and her husband Matt are expecting a baby in July.
The couple made the announcement in a video on the Spirit’s social media channels, holding a baby goalkeeper jersey on the pitch at Audi Field.
Kingsbury becomes the most recent Spirit star to go on maternity leave, following defender Casey Krueger, midfielder Andi Sullivan and forward Ashley Hatch.
Sullivan gave birth to daughter Millie in July, while Hatch welcomed her son Leo in January.
Krueger announced she was pregnant with her second child in October.
Kingsbury has served as the Spirit’s starting goalkeeper since 2018, and has been named the NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year twice (2019 and 2021).
The 34-year-old has two caps with the U.S. women’s national team, and was named to the 2023 World Cup roster.
The club captain will leave a major void for the Spirit, who have finished as NWSL runner-up in back-to-back seasons.
Sandy MacIver and Kaylie Collins are expected to compete for the starting role while Kingsbury is on maternity leave.
The Spirit kick off their 2026 campaign on March 13 against the Portland Thorns.
Washington
Washington state board awards Yakima $985,600 loan for Sixth Avenue project design
YAKIMA, Wash. — Yakima could soon take a major step toward redesigning Sixth Avenue after the Washington State Public Works Board awarded the city a $985,600 loan.
The loan was approved for the design engineering phase of the Sixth Avenue project. The funding can also be used along Sixth Avenue for utility replacement and updated ADA use.
The Yakima City Council must decide whether to accept the award. If the council accepts it, the city’s engineering work will move forward with the design of Sixth Avenue.
The cost of installing trolley lines is excluded from the plan. The historic trolleys would need to raise the funds required to add trolley lines.
The award is scheduled to be discussed during next week’s City Council meeting.
Washington
Microsoft promises more AI investments at University of Washington
Microsoft will ramp up its investment in the University of Washington.
Brad Smith, the company’s president, made the announcement at a press conference with University of Washington President Robert Jones on Tuesday.
That means hiring more UW graduates as interns at Microsoft, he said.
And he said all students, faculty, and researchers should have access to free, or at least deeply-discounted, AI.
“ Some of it is compute that Microsoft is donating, and some of it is pursuant to an agreement where, believe me, we give the University of Washington probably the best pricing that anybody’s gonna find anywhere,” Smith said. He assured the small group of reporters present that it would be “many millions of dollars of additional computational resources.”
The announcement today didn’t include any specific numbers.
But Smith said Microsoft has already invested $165 million in the UW over several decades.
He pointed to Jones’ vision to spur “radical collaborations with businesses and communities to advance positive change,” and eliminate “any artificial barriers between the university and the communities it serves.”
Microsoft’s goal is for AI to help UW researchers solve some of the world’s biggest problems without introducing new ones.
At Tuesday’s announcement, several research students were present to demonstrate how AI supports their work.
Amelia Keyser-Gibson is an environmental scientist at the UW. She’s using AI to analyze photographs of vines, to find which adapt best to climate change.
It’s a paradox: AI produces carbon emissions. At the same time, it’s also a new tool to help reduce them.
So how do those things square for Keyser-Gibson?
“ That’s a great question, and honestly, I don’t know the answer to that,” she said. “I’m highly aware that there’s a lot of environmental impact of using AI, but what I can say is that this has allowed us to make research innovations that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.”
“If we had had to manually annotate every single image that would’ve been an undergrad doing that for hours,” Keyser-Gibson continued. “And we didn’t have the budget. We didn’t have the manpower to do that.”
“AI exists. If we don’t use it as researchers, we’re gonna fall behind.”
Microsoft reports on its own carbon emissions. But like most AI companies, it doesn’t reveal everything.
That’s one reason another UW student named Zhihan Zhang is using AI to estimate how much energy AI is using.
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