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Takeaways from Fed Chair Powell's speech at Jackson Hole

Published

1 year ago

August 23, 2024

Takeaways from Fed Chair Powell's speech at Jackson Hole

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell all but proclaimed victory in the fight against inflation and signaled that interest rate cuts are coming in a much-anticipated speech Friday in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Under Powell, the Fed raised its benchmark rate to the highest level in 23 years to subdue inflation that two years ago was running at the hottest pace in more than four decades. Inflation has come down steadily, and investors now expect the Fed to start cutting rates at its next meeting in September — an expectation that essentially got Powell’s endorsement Friday.

Declaring Victory

“My confidence has grown that inflation is on a sustainable path back to 2%,” Powell said in his keynote speech at the Fed’s annual economic conference in Jackson Hole.

He noted that inflation, according to the Fed’s preferred gauge, had fallen to 2.5% last from a peak of 7.1% two years ago. Measured by the better known consumer price index, inflation has dropped from a peak 9.1% in mid-2022 to 2.9% last month. Both are edging closer to the Fed’s 2% target.

Powell sounded confident that the Fed would achieve a so-called soft landing — containing inflation without causing a recession. “There is good reason to think that the economy will get back to 2% inflation while maintaining a strong labor market,’’ he said.

Higher rates contributed to progress against inflation, as did the easing of supply chain bottlenecks and worker shortages that caused shipping delays and higher prices as the economy bounded back with unexpected strength from COVID-19 lockdowns.

Signaling Rate Cuts

Powell suggested Friday that rate cuts are all but inevitable. “The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks,” he said.

Last year, the Fed had predicted that it would trim rates three times this year. But the cuts kept getting pushed back as the progress against inflation faltered early in 2024. Since then, the steady drop in inflation has resumed, giving the Fed more confidence that victory was in sight.

Abandoning the Good Ship “Transitory’’

Powell acknowledged that he and his Fed colleagues misjudged the inflationary threat when it emerged in early 2021. At the time, they expected the flareup of higher prices to be short-lived — the temporary consequence of pandemic-related supply chain disruptions. The pressure, they thought, would fade “fairly quickly without the need for a monetary policy response — in short, that the inflation would be transitory.’’

They weren’t alone in their optimism. “The good ship Transitory was a crowded one,’’ Powell said, ”with most mainstream analysts and advanced-economy central bankers on board.’’

But the word “transitory″ came back to haunt the Fed as inflation proved more intractable than expected. It spread from goods that were subject to supply chain backlogs into services, where it is harder to dislodge without raising rates and risking severe economic pain in the form of layoffs and higher unemployment. The Fed proceeded to raise rates 11 times in 2022 and 2023.

A Little Humility

Powell admitted that policymakers and economists have struggled to understand and respond to an economy that has been unpredictable since COVID-19 hit in early 2020. First, the pandemic shut down commerce and companies collectively slashed millions of jobs. Then the economy roared back with unexpected vigor, setting off inflationary pressures that been dormant since the early 1980s. When the Fed belated responded with aggressive rate hikes, economists predicted the hiring borrowing costs would cause a painful recession. But it didn’t.

“The limits of our knowledge — so clearly evident during the pandemic — demand humility and a questioning spirit focused on learnings lessons form the past and applying them flexibly to our current challenges,’’ Powell said.

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Video: Toronto Police Officers Charged in Drug and Corruption Investigation

Published

7 hours ago

February 5, 2026

Press Room

Video: Toronto Police Officers Charged in Drug and Corruption Investigation

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Toronto Police Officers Charged in Drug and Corruption Investigation

Eight Toronto police officers were charged in an investigation, which began after a prison manager was targeted by three hit men. The investigation unraveled a crime network and and revealed a connection to the police officers who have been accused of participating in organized criminal activity and drug trafficking.

: “The allegations of criminal corruption include bribery, obstruction of justice, drug trafficking, theft of personal property, breach of trust, and the unauthorized access and distribution of confidential information. Our belief is that member was doing his job effectively, was ethical and had complete integrity in his position, and that those actions, his commitment to integrity in his position, was what spawned the criminal actions against him. We are alleging that some police officers who were collecting personal and private information unlawfully and distributing it to members of organized crime, which ultimately resulted in serious harm in our communities.” “This is a painful and unsettling moment. Organized crime is corrosive. That it infected our service is unacceptable.” “The investigators involved held a mirror to the face of the criminal justice system, and to our policing institution to uncover the truth.”
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Eight Toronto police officers were charged in an investigation, which began after a prison manager was targeted by three hit men. The investigation unraveled a crime network and and revealed a connection to the police officers who have been accused of participating in organized criminal activity and drug trafficking.

By Meg Felling

February 5, 2026

World

Britain drags feet on IRGC terror designation as Iran-linked center allegedly sells extremist merchandise

Published

8 hours ago

February 5, 2026

Press Room

Britain drags feet on IRGC terror designation as Iran-linked center allegedly sells extremist merchandise

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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government is facing intense criticism over its failure to swiftly outlaw Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The development comes as a London-based Islamic center has been accused of selling merchandise supporting terrorism.

Potkin Azarmehr, a British-Iranian expert on Iran who has written extensively on Iran’s influence operations in the United Kingdom, told Fox News Digital the “Islamic Centre of England is a regime outpost.

“The head of the center is directly appointed by Iran’s supreme leader. The letter of the appointment is publicly read during the inauguration ceremony. There is not a shred of doubt that the center is used to peddle the influence of Iran’s political Islam. It is also used to recruit disgruntled British individuals who are sent to Iran for training.”

The Daily Telegraph reported in late January that U.K. authorities were investigating the Islamic Centre of England for allegedly selling Hezbollah phone cases and pro-Iranian regime key rings. Britain has sanctioned the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist movement, Hezbollah.

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A Google Maps photo showing the Islamic Centre of England in London. (Google Maps)

The pro-Hezbollah and pro–Islamic Republic goods were reportedly sold at a bazaar Dec. 14, 2025, according to the paper. One key ring displayed the words, “With the kindness of God, Seyyed Ali [Khamenei] is our leader.” The Islamic Republic of Iran’s supreme leader, Khamenei, would order the murder of thousands of Iranian demonstrators just weeks later.

The bazaar also allegedly had stickers of late IRGC global terrorist Qassem Soleimani, who was responsible for the murders of over 600 military personnel, according to the Trump administration. President Trump ordered a drone strike in January 2020 that killed Soleimani in Iraq.

Emma Schubart, a research fellow at Britain’s Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital, “The Islamic Centre of England is not an isolated religious institution; it is part of a wider ecosystem of Iranian state-linked influence operating openly in the U.K., and at the center of that ecosystem sits the IRGC.

“The U.K. Government is dragging its feet over designating the IRGC. By delaying action, ministers are allowing hostile Iranian networks to continue operating under the cover of civil society and religious life. This is a dangerous blind spot in Britain’s national security.”

The Islamic Centre of England is a registered charity. When asked about reports of the Islamic Center’s role in selling pro-terrorist merchandise, a spokesperson for the U.K.’s Charity Commission told Fox News Digital, “As part of our ongoing statutory inquiry into (the) Islamic Centre of England, we have raised concerns with the trustees about material sold by third parties at a recent event hosted at the charity’s premises. We take very seriously any alleged links between a charity and extremism or terrorism. Such links are abhorrent and corrosive to the trust on which the charitable sector depends.”

A British Union flag flies from a souvenir stall near the Houses of Parliament in London Oct. 27, 2025. (Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Azarmehr, however, countered, “The U.K. Charity Commission, the regulatory body, has been ‘investigating’ the center for five years with no decisions and no updates other than appointing an interim director, but the center carries on business as usual.

“The only tangible result is that every time you make a complaint to the charity about the center, they reply by saying that because they are investigating the center, they cannot comment.

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“The first head of the center, Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, is now a member of Iran’s powerful Assembly of Experts and a key figure in propagating Iran’s soft power abroad. Araki’s family have U.K. citizenship. The previous U.K. government, in which Alicia Kearns was part of its administration, even paid the center in excess of £100,000 in COVID-19 furlough.”

In this photo released Jan. 6, 2020, by the official website of the Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, fourth from left, leads a prayer over the coffins of Gen. Qassem Soleimani and his comrades who were killed in Iraq in a U.S. drone strike at the Tehran University campus, in Tehran, Iran. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

Kearns, who is the shadow minister for home affairs for the opposition Conservative party, is now demanding that the Islamic Center be shuttered.

“These latest revelations of terrorist tat being sold by the Islamic Centre of England are yet more evidence of why the center must be closed and those responsible for propagating terrorist propaganda face the law,” she told the Telegraph.

“The figures being idealized are responsible for the cold-blooded murder of tens of thousands of young Iranian protesters, adding to the many regional and international crimes of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

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A spokesperson for the Islamic Centre of England told Fox News Digital, “The trustees take all concerns about the center very seriously. We are currently reviewing matters pertaining to the Dec. 14 event and, in light of this, are unable to comment further at this time.”

The EU announced last week that it has classified the IRGC a terrorist entity. The U.S., Canada and Australia have previously designated the IRGC a foreign terrorist organization. The IRGC played a key role in the massacre of Iranian demonstrators last month.

Iranians gather while blocking a street during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 9, 2026. (MAHSA/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

The proliferation of pro-Iran activism unfolded last weekend in London. Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform Party in the United Kingdom, posted on X, “When people in Britain are chanting support for the thuggish regime in Iran, we are in serious trouble as a nation.”

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Video footage embedded in Farage’s post and other clips on social media shows a mix of pro-Palestinian and pro-Iran regime messaging at the protests.

Multiple Fox News Digital inquiries to the British prime minister’s office went unanswered.

Benjamin Weinthal reports on Israel, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Europe. You can follow Benjamin on Twitter @BenWeinthal, and email him at benjamin.weinthal@fox.com

World

Council of Europe chief calls for political and financial backing of Ukraine Special Tribunal

Published

10 hours ago

February 5, 2026

Press Room

The head of Europe’s leading human rights organisation, the Council of Europe, told Euronews that European countries need to provide the budgetary resources and political will to ensure accountability for Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine.