A lot of the characters are the same for President-elect Joe Biden but the scene is far starker as he reassembles a team of veteran negotiators to get back into the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.President Donald Trump worked to blow up the multinational deal to contain Iran’s nuclear program during his four years in office, gutting the diplomatic achievement of predecessor Barack Obama in favor of what Trump called a maximum pressure campaign against Iran. Down to Trump's last days in office, accusations, threats and still more sanctions by Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Iran's decision to spur uranium enrichment and seize a South Korean tanker, are helping to keep alive worries that regional conflict will erupt. Iran on Friday staged drills, hurling volleys of ballistic missiles and smashing drones into targets, further raising pressure on the incoming American president over a nuclear accord.Even before the Capitol riot this month, upheaval at home threatened to weaken the U.S. hand internationally, including in the Middle East’s nuclear standoff. Political divisions are fierce, thousands are dying in the pandemic and unemployment remains high.Biden and his team will face allies and adversaries wondering how much attention and resolution the U.S. can bring to bear on the Iran nuclear issue or any other foreign concern, and whether any commitment by Biden will be reversed by his successor. “His ability to move the needle is ... I think hampered by the doubt about America’s capacity and by the skepticism and worry about what comes after Biden,” said Vali Nasr, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Nasr was an adviser on Afghanistan during the first Obama administration.Biden's pick for deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman, acknowledged the difficulties in an interview with a Boston news show last month before her nomination.“We’re going to work hard at this, because we have lost credibility, we are seen as weaker” after Trump, said Sherman, who was Barack Obama’s lead U.S. negotiator for the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement. She was speaking of U.S. foreign objectives overall, including the Iran deal. Biden's first priority for renewed talks is getting both Iran and the United States back in compliance with the nuclear deal, which offered Iran relief from sanctions in exchange for Iran accepting limits on its nuclear material and gear.“If Iran returns to compliance with the deal, we will do so as well,” a person familiar with the Biden transition team’s thinking said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak on the record. “It would be a first step.”But Biden also faces pressure both from Democrats and Republican opponents of the Iran deal. They don't want the U.S. to throw away the leverage of sanctions until Iran is made to address other items objectionable to Israel, Sunni Arab neighbors, and the United States. That includes Iran's ballistic missiles and substantial and longstanding intervention in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq. Biden promises to deal with all that too.Getting back into the original deal “is the floor and not the ceiling” for the Biden administration on Iran, the person familiar with the incoming administration’s thinking on it said. “It doesn’t stop there.”“In an ideal world it would be great to have a comprehensive agreement” at the outset, said Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “But that’s not how these negotiations work.”Connolly said he thought there was broad support in Congress for getting back into the deal.Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser for the conservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies who worked as an Iran adviser for the Trump administration in 2019 and this year, questioned that.Lawmakers in Congress will balk at lifting sanctions on Iran's Revolutionary Guard and other Iranian players the U.S. regards as supporters of terrorism, and balk, too, at giving up on financial pressure meant to block Iran from moving closer to nuclear weapons, Goldberg predicts.“This is a real wedge inside the Democratic Party,” Goldberg said.Sanctions by Trump, who pulled the U.S. out of the accord in 2018, mean that Iran’s leaders are under heavier economic and political pressure at home, just as Biden is. The United States' European allies will be eager to help Biden wrack up a win on the new Iran talks if possible, Nasr said. Even among many non-U.S. allies, “they don’t want the return of Trump or Trumpism." Biden served as Obama's main promoter of the 2015 accord with lawmakers once the deal was brokered. He talked for hours to skeptics in Congress and at a Jewish community center in Florida. Then, Biden hammered home Obama’s pledge that America ultimately would do everything in its power to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons, if diplomacy failed.Besides tapping Sherman for his administration, Biden has called back William Burns, who led secret early talks with Iran in Oman, as his CIA director. He’s selected Iran negotiators Anthony Blinken and Jake Sullivan as his intended secretary of state and national security adviser respectively, among other 2015 Iran players.It’s not yet clear if Biden will employ Sherman as his principal diplomatic manager with Iran, or someone else, or whether he will designate a main Iran envoy. Sherman has also been instrumental in U.S. negotiations with North Korea.The Obama's administration's implicit threat of military action against Iran if it kept moving toward a weapons-capable nuclear program could look less convincing than it did five years ago, given the U.S. domestic crises. A new Middle East conflict would only make it harder for Biden to find the time and money to deal with pressing problems, including his planned $2 trillion effort to cut climate-damaging fossil fuel emissions.“If war with Iran became inevitable it would upend everything else he’s trying to do with his presidency,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an expert on Iran and U.S. Middle East policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Biden and his team are very mindful of this. Their priorities are domestic.”

這篇文章 Trouble at home may change Biden's hand in Iran nuke talks 最早出現於 The China Post, Taiwan。

GENEVA (AP) � Swiss authorities are preparing to lift a freeze on tens of millions of dollars’ worth of assets linked to former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, a decade after the longtime autocrat was driven from power in an uprising that set off the so-called “Arab Spring” movement.The release that could benefit relatives of Ben Ali, who fled with his family to Saudi Arabia in 2011 and died in 2019, has drawn the fury of advocacy groups in Tunisia who say the stash in Swiss banks should go to the Tunisian people.The assets, totaling 60 million Swiss francs at the time (about $67 million today), were frozen for a maximum of 10 years as part of a Swiss government order that targeted the funds of Ben Ali and nearly 50 of his relatives. The value of the assets has changed over time based on exchange rates, investment and other factors, the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs said. The department said Swiss authorities repeatedly reached out to Tunisian counterparts before the expiration of the freeze at midnight from Monday to Tuesday. Many of the assets faced two levels of freeze -- one under the federal 10-year order, and another based on pending criminal proceedings and judicial cooperation agreements, the department said. A coalition of non-governmental organizations appealed to Tunisian President Kais Saied seeking an extension of the freeze. Ben Ali, who served as president for more than 23 years, fled with his family to Saudi Arabia after mass protests erupted across the north African country � partly out of anger over systemic state corruption and the large wealth that his inner circle had accumulated. He was survived by his wife, Leila Trabelsi, and children.Global Finance Integrity, a U.S.-based think tank that tracks illicit financial flows, has estimated that Ben Ali’s total wealth could amount to roughly $9 billion in countries including Canada, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland.Calls for the return of the assets have risen as Tunisia’s economic crisis has deepened. Economic output shrank 9% last year, while unemployment levels and attempts by Tunisians to migrate by sea to Europe have soared. “These are ill-gotten goods which have to be relocated to Tunisia and be invested in the Tunisian economy” said Khayem Chemli of the international legal aid group Avocats Sans Frontieres, or Lawyers Without Borders. Tunisian politician Abdellatif El Mekki wrote on Facebook: “Most importantly, it’s a cause of national honour.”In a press release, the Tunisian presidency said Saied had raised the issue in meetings with Prime Minister Zichem Mechichi and the governor of Tunisia’s Central Bank with the view of restoring assets “looted” by the old guard � but gave no further details.___Ebel reported from Tunis, Tunisia. Bouazza ben Bouazza in Tunis contributed to this report.

這篇文章 Swiss to lift freeze on millions linked to ex-Tunisia leader 最早出現於 The China Post, Taiwan。

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) � The Dutch government on Monday said it is wiping out debts owed to the tax office and other government departments by parents caught up in a fraud scandal that caused the Cabinet to resign last week.State Secretary for Finance Alexandra van Huffelen said the decision means that the thousands of parents who were wrongly accused of fraud by the tax office will get all of the 30,000 euro ( $36,300) payment promised to each of them last week. “I believe that parents deserve a completely clean slate so they can use the compensation to really make a new start,” Van Huffelen said in a statement.The government of Prime Minister Mark Rutte quit Friday over a scathing parliamentary report titled “Unprecedented Injustice,” that said tax office policies aimed at rooting out fraud with benefit payments to parents with children in day care violated “fundamental principles of the rule of law.” Thousands of parents were affected over several years and many were plunged into debt. Van Huffelen said she is in talks with private organizations such as banks and housing organizations about them also clearing debts of parents affected.Although Rutte's government has resigned, it remains in power in a caretaker capacity until a new ruling coalition is formed after a general election scheduled for March 17.

這篇文章 Dutch government wipes out debt for parents in fraud scandal 最早出現於 The China Post, Taiwan。

JERUSALEM (AP) � The World Health Organization has raised "concerns" about the unequal distribution of coronavirus vaccines in Israel, which has given shots to more than 20% of its population, and the occupied territories, where Palestinians have yet to receive any, an official said Monday.Rights groups say Israel has the responsibility as an occupying power to provide vaccines to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel says it has no such obligation and that its own population � including Arab citizens � is the priority, but that at some point it might consider sharing its supplies.The Palestinian Authority has accused Israel of “racism” for not sharing its vaccines, but it has made no formal request to Israel and says it is procuring its own supplies through a WHO program and agreements with private companies.The dispute reflects global inequality in access to vaccines, as wealthy countries vacuum up the lion's share of doses, leaving poorer countries even farther behind in combating the public health and economic effects of the pandemic. It has also emerged as another flashpoint in the decades-old Mideast conflict, even as the virus has wreaked havoc on both sides.“We’ve raised a number of public health concerns and equity concerns about this unequal distribution of vaccines or unequal access to vaccines," Dr. Gerald Rockenschaub, head of the WHO office for the Palestinian territories, told The Associated Press.“We have discussions with the Israelis on a number of levels, also from higher levels of our organization, trying to explore the option, whether Israel could consider to allocate vaccines" to the Palestinians, he said, adding that the “primary target” would be front-line health workers.Israel boasts one of the earliest and most successful vaccination campaigns in the world, with some 2 million doses administered since late December in a population of more than 9 million. The campaign includes Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinians living in annexed east Jerusalem.Israel captured east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 war, territories the Palestinians want for their future state. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and two years later the Islamic militant group Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces. The Palestinian Authority administers parts of the occupied West Bank and helps coordinate health care in Gaza. Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said last week that Israel has been “closely cooperating” with the Palestinian Authority since the beginning of the crisis and might consider sharing vaccines at some point. “But we do have to understand that our first and foremost responsibility is to vaccinate the citizens of the state of Israel,” he told the AP.Israeli and international rights groups say Israel is required to provide vaccines under international law related to military occupation. Critics point to the fact that hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers in the West Bank are eligible for the vaccine because they are Israeli citizens, while the 2.5 million Palestinians living in the territory are not.“Nothing can justify today’s reality in parts of the West Bank, where people on one side of the street are receiving vaccines, while those on the other do not, based on whether they’re Jewish or Palestinian,” Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch said in a statement. “Everyone in the same territory should have equitable access to the vaccine, regardless of their ethnicity.”Under the Oslo accords signed in the 1990s, the Palestinian Authority is responsible for health care in the territories it administers, while both sides are to work together to combat epidemics.The Palestinian Authority hopes to get its first doses in the coming weeks through a WHO program known as COVAX, which aims to procure vaccines for needy countries but has been slow to get off the ground. Rockenschaub said the Palestinians would receive their first doses from the program as early as the beginning of February “under ideal circumstances.” The Palestinian Authority's reluctance to publicly ask Israel for help could reflect concerns that doing so would open it up to allegations from Israel and others that it was unable to provide for its own people or that it is not ready for statehood. Rockenschaub declined to weigh in on the political dispute, but said that from a public health standpoint Israel has an interest in the Palestinians being vaccinated.“It will be very difficult to ensure full protection of the Israeli population while not ensuring also that adequate vaccinations are done on the Palestinian side," he said, pointing to the estimated 140,000 Palestinians who regularly cross into Israel for work.He added that it's important to ensure that Palestinian medical workers are adequately protected “so that their health system doesn't collapse.”

這篇文章 WHO raises 'concerns' about Mideast vaccine inequity 最早出現於 The China Post, Taiwan。

LISBON, Portugal (AP) � Stricter lockdown rules are being enacted in Portugal, the government announced Monday, as a surging COVID-19 pandemic sets grim records and pushes hospitals to the limit of their capacity.Prime Minister António Costa said too many people had taken advantage of exceptions included in the lockdown that began last Friday, with authorities reporting 70% of normal movement over the weekend.“We are going through the most serious phase of the pandemic” so far, Costa said, urging people to comply with the rules. “This is no time for finding loopholes in the law.”He announced that January sales at stores are banned, as are gatherings of any number of people in public areas. More police will be deployed outside schools, which remain open, to prevent students forming groups. Traveling between districts is to be prohibited at weekends, while stores and supermarkets will have shorter opening times.The pandemic has gained momentum since Christmas, when restrictions on gatherings and movement were eased for four days. Costa said experts predict cases will continue to rise through Jan. 24. Portugal’s 14-day case notification rate per 100,000 people has almost doubled in less than two weeks, reaching 901 -- the fifth highest of the 31 countries monitored by the European Centre for Disease Control, a European Union agency.Health authorities reported Monday 167 new deaths and 276 hospitalizations the previous day -- both daily records. The number of deaths in Portugal during the pandemic surpassed 9,000, almost one fourth of them since Jan. 1.That has placed the public health system under severe strain, with some hospitals running out of beds and having to send patients to other hospitals.More than 5,000 COVID-19 patients are in hospital wards, almost double the number at the end of last year and a new maximum. Also, 664 patients are in intensive care, up from 483 in just over two weeks.Portugal is holding a presidential election next Sunday. Candidates are campaigning under restrictions on gatherings.___Follow AP coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at:https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemichttps://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccinehttps://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

這篇文章 Portugal tightens lockdown as pandemic surge breaks records 最早出現於 The China Post, Taiwan。

ATLANTA (AP) � Speakers at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. holiday celebration in Atlanta called Monday for a renewed dedication to nonviolence following a turbulent year in which a deadly pandemic, protests over systemic racism and a divisive election capped by an attack on the U.S. Capitol strained Americans' capacity for civility.“This King holiday has not only come at a time of great peril and physical violence, it has also come during a time of violence in our speech � what we say and how we say it,” said the Rev. Bernice King, the slain civil rights leader's daughter. "It is frankly out of control and we are causing too much harm to one another.”The coronavirus pandemic forced the annual King Day service at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church online during the 35th celebration of his birthday as a national holiday. His family was among a sparse group wearing masks and sitting far apart amid mostly empty pews as others delivered remarks remotely.Bernice King said the toll of the pandemic, lingering outrage over killings of unarmed Black people and the deadly siege in Washington by supporters of President Donald Trump all underscore an urgent need to pursue what her father called “the beloved community” � a world in which conflict is solved nonviolently and compassion dictates policy.She quoted her father’s words from more than 50 years ago: "There is such a thing as being too late.”“We still have a choice today � nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation,” Bernice King said, again reciting the words of her father. "This may well be mankind’s last chance to choose between chaos and community.” U.S. Sen.-elect Raphael Warnock, Ebenezer's pastor, appealed for unity following his election in a runoff election Jan. 5.“Let us stand together, let us work together,” Warnock said, calling the COVID-19 pandemic a reminder that all people are “tied together, as Dr. King said, in a single garment of destiny.” “Because we’re dealing with a deadly airborne disease, my neighbor coughs and I’m imperiled by the cough of my neighbor,” Warnock said. "That doesn’t make my neighbor my enemy. That means that our destiny is tied together.”Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Had he lived, he would have turned 92 on his birthday last Friday.

這篇文章 King Day service calls for nonviolence amid turbulent times 最早出現於 The China Post, Taiwan。

NEW YORK (AP) � Coronavirus deaths are rising in nearly two-thirds of American states as a winter surge pushes the overall toll toward 400,000 amid warnings that a new, highly contagious variant is taking hold. As Americans observed a national holiday Monday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo pleaded with federal authorities to curtail travel from countries where new variants are spreading.Referring to new versions detected in Britain, South Africa and Brazil, Cuomo said: “Stop those people from coming here.... Why are you allowing people to fly into this country and then it’s too late?"The U.S. government has already curbed travel from some of the places where the new variants are spreading � such as Britain and Brazil � and recently it announced that it would require proof of a negative COVID-19 test for anyone flying into the country.But the new variant seen in Britain is already spreading in the U.S., and the Centers for Disease Control and Protection has warned that it will probably become the dominant version in the country by March. The CDC said the variant is about 50% more contagious than the virus that is causing the bulk of cases in the U.S. While the variant does not cause more severe illness, it has been blamed for causing more hospitalizations and deaths because it spreads more easily. As things stands, many states are already under tremendous strain. The seven-day rolling average of daily deaths is rising in 30 states and the District of Columbia, and on Monday the U.S. was approaching 398,000 deaths overall, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University � by far the highest recorded death toll of any country in the world. One of the states hardest it during the recent surge is Arizona, where the rolling average has risen over the past two weeks from about 90 deaths per day to about 160 per day on Jan. 17. Rural Yuma County � known as the winter lettuce capital of the U.S. � is now one of the state's hot spots. Exhausted nurses there are now regularly sending COVID-19 patients on a long helicopter ride to hospitals in Phoenix when they don’t have enough staff. The county has lagged on coronavirus testing in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods and just ran out of vaccines. But some support is coming from military nurses and a new wave of free tests for farmworkers and the elderly in Yuma County.Amid the surge, a vast effort is underway to get Americans vaccinated, but the campaign is off to an uneven start. According to the latest federal data, about 31.2 million doses of vaccine have been distributed, but only about 10.6 million people have received at least one dose.Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, in a livestreamed event on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, received a shot, and urged other Marylanders to do likewise.“We’re all looking forward to the day we can take off and throw away our masks ... when we can go out for a big celebration at our favorite crowded restaurant or bar with all our family and friends,” Hogan said. “The only way we are going to return to a sense of normalcy is by these COVID-19 vaccines."Hogan’s wife, Yumi, also got a dose by a National Guard medic, as did Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford and his wife, Monica.In New York, Cuomo said the state, which has recorded more than 40,000 deaths, as “in a footrace” between the vaccination rate and the infection rate. He said federal authorities needed to improve their efforts to get vaccine doses distributed swiftly.Similar challenges are surfacing worldwide.The World Health Organization chief on Monday lambasted drugmakers’ profits and vaccine inequalities, saying it’s “not right” that younger, healthier adults in some wealthy countries get vaccinated against COVID-19 before older people or health care workers in poorer countries.Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus began WHO’s executive board meeting by lamenting that one poor country received a mere 25 vaccine doses while over 39 million doses have been administered in nearly 50 richer nations.“Just 25 doses have been given in one lowest income country � not 25 million, not 25,000 � just 25. I need to be blunt: The world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure,” Tedros said. He did not specify the country, but a WHO spokeswoman identified it as Guinea.Tedros, an Ethiopian who goes by his first name, nonetheless hailed the scientific achievement behind rolling out coronavirus vaccines less than a year after the pandemic erupted in China, where a WHO-backed team has now been deployed to look into origins of the coronavirus.“Vaccines are the shot in the arm we all need, literally and figuratively,” Tedros said. “But we now face the real danger that even as vaccines bring hope to some, they become another brick in the wall of inequality between the worlds of the world’s haves and have-nots.”

這篇文章 Coronavirus deaths rising in 30 US states amid winter surge 最早出現於 The China Post, Taiwan。

Gonzaga and Baylor maintained their grip on the top two spots in The Associated Press men's basketball poll Monday.If third-ranked Villanova ever plays a game, perhaps it will make a run a them.The Bulldogs again racked up all but the two first-place votes that went to the Bears, while the Wildcats remained firmly behind the preseason top two despite not playing a game since Dec. 23. They had a pair of COVID-19 pauses broken up by a single day, including one involving coach Jay Wright, effectively sidelining them for a month.“Everyone has dealt with this,” said Wright, whose team finally gets back on the court Tuesday night against Seton Hall. “It’s not just the days you are out. It’s getting the guys going after a pause.”The same teams made up the top 5 this week, though Iowa and Texas swapped places. Luka Garza and the Hawkeyes moved into fourth after ripping Northwestern by 23 points on the road Sunday, while the Longhorns fell back a spot after their six-game winning streak was stopped by No. 12 Texas Tech in a narrow defeat earlier in the week.“Obviously the loss on Wednesday was devastating and really, really disappointing for our team and staff,” said Texas coach Shaka Smart, whose bunch rebounded to beat Kansas State on the road Saturday. “We knew we had to turn the page. The guys were really mature with their approach on Thursday in practice and their film session Friday.”Texas doesn’t play again until Saturday after its game against Iowa State was postponed.Tennessee climbed from 10th to sixth and was followed by Michigan, which remained No. 7 after losing its first game of the season to No. 17 Minnesota. Houston climbed three spots to eighth, Kansas fell three spots to ninth and Wisconsin rounded out the top 10 after following up a lopsided loss to the Wolverines with a gritty win at Rutgers.Creighton was No. 11, followed by the Red Raiders and Virginia, which rose five spots after its blowout win over No. 20 Clemson. West Virginia and Ohio State were next, with Virginia Tech climbing four spots to No. 16 on the heels of a win over Duke, which knocked the Blue Devils from the Top 25 for the first time since Feb. 8, 2016.The Golden Gophers were followed by Auburn, one of this week's poll newcomers, Missouri and Clemson. The last five in were Oregon, Illinois, Connecticut, UCLA and Saint Louis.BYE, BYE BLUE DEVILSDuke dropped to 5-3 overall and 3-1 in the ACC after losing to the Hokies last week. Their streak of 91 consecutive weeks in the Top 25 was second only to Kansas, which extended its record to 229 weeks. Gonzaga is now No. 2 at 87 weeks.“We’re still finding out about our team,” said coach Mike Krzyzewski, whose team nearly rallied from an 18-point deficit against Virginia Tech. “We had not played in an ACC game like that. ... You don’t get better without experience.”ROLLING TIDEThe Crimson Tide shot from unranked to No. 18 after improving to 6-0 in the SEC with its seventh consecutive win. The streak, which includes a victory over Tennessee, has coincided with a recharged John Petty Jr. The senior guard returned from a one-game suspension to average 15.7 points over the past six games, including 23 points in a 20-point blowout of Kentucky.“You like for guys who decide to come back for their senior year to do great things,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said. “Us being 6-0 and being in first place and (Petty) breaking the school record for 3s made � hopefully, he can play his way into first-round draft pick status and have a great senior year and get this program to where they envisioned it."IN AND OUTThe Bruins were the other newcomer to this week's poll after improving to 11-2 and 7-0 in the Pac-12 with consecutive wins over Washington State and Washington. Alabama and UCLA replaced Duke and Louisville, which was first among the other teams receiving votes after the Cardinals lost their first ACC game at Miami.___For more AP college basketball coverage: https://apnews.com/Collegebasketball and http://twitter.com/AP_Top25

這篇文章 Duke falls out of AP Top 25; Gonzaga, Baylor remain 1-2 最早出現於 The China Post, Taiwan。

Louisville is No. 1 in The Associated Press women's college basketball poll for the first time in school history.The Cardinals moved to the top spot on Monday, a day after previous No. 1 Stanford lost to Colorado. Louisville received 20 first-place votes from a 29-member national media panel. Its first game as No. 1 will be against Syracuse on Thursday.North Carolina State came in second for the Wolfpack's best ranking since Dec. 31, 1990. The new top two teams were supposed to have faced off Sunday, but N.C. State had a positive COVID-19 test in the program and hasn't played a game since Jan. 3.UConn, South Carolina and Stanford round out the first five teams in the poll. Stanford was one of nine ranked teams to lose last week.Georgia entered the poll at No. 22, the Bulldogs' first ranking since the 2018-19 season, while Iowa State was the other newcomer. Texas and Washington State fell out.___More AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

這篇文章 Louisville is No. 1 in women's AP Top 25 for 1st time 最早出現於 The China Post, Taiwan。

BALTIMORE (AP) � When Joe Biden entered the White House as vice president, the economy was cratering. Job losses were mounting. Stocks were crashing. Millions of Americans were in the early stages of losing their homes to foreclosure as the housing bubble burst.Biden returns to the White House as president a dozen years later with the economy battered and shaken by a pandemic. But this time is different � and it could reset the nation’s politics if Biden and Democrats can count on a level of growth not seen in a generation.Despite the 9.8 million jobs lost due to the coronavirus, there are signs the country is on the cusp of a kind of boom unseen in the Obama and Trump eras. Checking account balances have surged by $2.4 trillion since the outbreak began. Home prices are soaring because of hot demand. And each additional vaccination moves the world’s largest economy closer to fully re-opening.“If the economy is improving substantially by spring or early summer, that might actually help Biden get more of his agenda done ... because success can beget success," said Jason Furman, who was top economist for the Obama administration. He pointed to the possibility of growth easing the path for an infrastructure program and climate investments. But hanging over any effort to boost the economy is an enduring partisan divide that contributed to the deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol this month as Biden’s Electoral College victory was set to be certified. Politics is increasingly shaping how Americans feel about the economy, scrambling the political incentives for lawmakers to cooperate.There also are concerns about whether the worsening pandemic and slow pace of vaccinations thus far could portend more serious problems on the coronavirus front that could hurt the economic recovery.The potential for a boom reflects in large part the roughly $4 trillion approved so far in federal aid, with Biden last week proposing $1.9 trillion more, an unprecedented level of stimulus. The additional money, which must be approved by Congress, is intended to accelerate the vaccine rollout, reopen schools and reduce the child poverty rate to a historic low.The investment bank Goldman Sachs estimates that growth this year could be 6.6% if part of Biden's stimulus plan passes. That would be the strongest gain since 1984, when a 7.2% increase in the gross domestic product helped carry Republican President Ronald Reagan to a second term in a landslide. Wells Fargo forecasts growth of 4.6% this year, which would be the best since 1999.Still, there are plenty of economic risks facing Biden. The most bullish forecasts hinge on getting much of Biden's aid package through Congress. And any gains would probably depend on overcoming the pandemic. There is also the possibility that the added stimulus championed by Biden could be more than the economy needs, perhaps stirring inflation.But the Great Recession taught Biden's team the benefit of going big with stimulus. Incoming White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain says Biden's officials learned the hard way that the roughly $800 billion approved in 2009 to fight the Great Recession was insufficient, a mistake they’re unwilling to repeat this time. “It wasn’t large enough,” Klain said Friday at a livestreamed Washington Post event. “Our recovery lagged as a result.”During the first nine months of the Obama presidency, the unemployment rate climbed to 10% and the swift recovery that was predicted never happened as the country took years to work through housing foreclosures and rebuild its financial system. This left Obama administration officials having to argue that the economy would have been even worse without the stimulus. Republicans countered that the effort had flopped as they won control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections.“There isn’t much doubt that the economy did better in 2009 and 2010 because of the recovery act,” said Douglas Elmendorf, who was director of the Congressional Budget Office at the time and now serves as dean of Harvard University’s Kennedy School. “Too many people took the failure to hit (stronger growth) as a sign that the stimulus didn’t work, when, in fact, the economy was worse off than widely understood.” Biden can count on backing from Wall Street investors this time to borrow. Helped by supportive Federal Reserve policies, low interest rates make it easier to keep financing a stimulus and repay added debt. The interest rate on a 10-year U.S. Treasury note is about 1.15%, compared with 11.67% in 1984 when growth prospects last looked this good and the size of the federal debt was significantly smaller.Republican lawmakers still see the need for more aid to contain the pandemic, but some are voicing concerns about Biden’s desire for another big spending package. They stress that any new spending should be directed toward increasing vaccinations and that his proposal for direct checks of $1,400 per person could delay people from returning to work.“Blasting out another $2 trillion in borrowed or printed money � when the ink on December’s $1 trillion aid bill is barely dry and much of the money is not yet spent � would be a colossal waste and economically harmful,” Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said in a statement.Republican voters have already turned bearish on the economy after President Donald Trump lost. The University of Michigan reported Friday that its index of consumer expectations among Republicans plunged from a reading of 96 in October to 53 in January. That could dampen their willingness to spend and encourage Republican lawmakers to blame Democrats for any economic ills.For now, the Biden team is hoping to push through its stimulus with Republican support in the Senate. But the political tensions might force him to pursue many of his initiatives � like a $15 minimum wage and tax increases on corporations and the wealthy � with only Democratic support. Should Republicans regain control in Congress, any policies passed exclusively with Democratic backing could be quickly reversed or allowed to expire. This seesawing between conflicting policies could erode the degree of certainty that businesses and consumers need to make investments that lead to growth, said Donald Schneider, a member of the policy research team at Cornerstone Macro and former chief economist of the House Ways and Means Committee.“It is a big problem going forward if one side comes to power and makes changes and then the other side comes into power and reverses them and on and on it goes,” Schneider said.

這篇文章 Biden's test: Engineering economic boom in a partisan divide 最早出現於 The China Post, Taiwan。