A CNN reporter fell victim to a 'smash-and-grab' robbery while reporting on San Francisco's "rampant street crime." 

In a series of tweets on Friday, CNN correspondent Kyung Lah described how her rental car's rear window was smashed within seconds by thieves who then made off with her bags.

"Got robbed. Again," Lah wrote. "[CNN producer Jason Kravarik] & I were at city hall in San Francisco to do an interview for @CNN. We had security to watch our rental car + crew car. Thieves did this in under 4 seconds. Security stopped the jerks from stealing other bags. But seriously- this is ridiculous."

Bankers at the London branch of Silicon Valley Bank reportedly received tens of millions of dollars in bonuses just days after the Bank of England orchestrated a rescue package that led to Europe's largest lender, HSBC, buying the failed bank's subsidary for just £1, Sky News reports.

Sources described the bonus pool as "modest", and said it totalled between £15m and £20m.

It was unclear on Saturday how much had been awarded to Erin Platts, the UK bank's chief executive or her senior colleagues.

One insider said the bonus payments were a signal of HSBC's confidence in the talent base at its new subsidiary and that the buyer had been keen to honour previously agreed payments in order to help retain key staff. -Sky

On this day in 1998, President Bill Clinton settled a sexual harassment lawsuit by making an $850,000 payment. The settlement with Paula Jones, reached without the suit going to trial, heaped fuel on Clinton’s impeachment proceedings by the Republican-controlled House. (He was acquitted in a subsequent Senate trial and completed his term in office.)

In the aftermath of the settlement payment, most of which went to Jones’ attorneys, Robert S. Bennett, Clinton’s attorney, maintained that Jones’ claim was baseless, and that Clinton agreed to settle only to end the lawsuit and move on.

Webmaster addition: And nobody made a fuss about that!

There are many who believe that America’s economy has gone beyond the point of no return. In other words, we’re going down, and it’s just a matter of how far and how fast.

If that’s the case, what should you do? First of all, houses and buildings will continue to stand. Personal property will continue to exist (i.e. tools, cars, appliances etc.). With that in mind, will we be able to hold on to them? If you’re in debt, you may not be able to. For example, you buy a home for $500,000, and you have a $450,000 mortgage, and then the bottom falls out, and your property drops 50% to $250,000. It’s still a house and it provides the functions of shelter, but now, you have a $450,000 mortgage on a $250,000 house. Sadly, mortgages don’t go down when the price of homes go down. If you can keep your income in line, then you can continue to pay for it, but if you have to take a pay cut, or worse yet, you lose your job, then what? This is a real problem that takes place in a declining economy.

The following factors determine economic health; Inflation which is the increase in the supply of money and credit, deflation which is the decrease of the supply of money and credit. Currently, we are in a deflationary cycle with the supply of money having been reduced by 5% over the last year, while interest rates (credit) have gone up. Debt is becoming more expensive, and the money to pay for the debt is becoming harder to come by. What is the logical conclusion of that dilemma? Bankruptcy! SVB or Signature bank anyone? Watch out for Credit Suisse as well.

Fox News reports that Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins got heated back and forth over President Biden’s stance on Social Security. Senator Cassidy criticized the CNN host for her talking points about the president’s stance on Social Security. Cassidy went after Biden’s unwillingness to budge at all to work with Republicans are reforming a program that everyone tends to agree needs some revamping. This is something that needs to be done about this.

Air pollution is the greatest environmental health hazard to humankind, leading to over six million deaths a year and an economic cost that equates to over $8 trillion dollars.

That’s according to the World Air Quality Report 2022 released Tuesday by Swiss air quality technology company IQAir.

Statista's Anna Fleck reports that the analysis found that out of a surveyed 131 countries, regions and territories, only 13 met World Health Organization air guidelines of annual PM2.5 concentrations at or below 5 μg/m3 in 2022, many of which were in Oceania.

Webmaster addition: I guess human-caused global warming is losing traction (it snowed here yesterday morning) so they are going to dust off the air pollution scare and try to wag that at us!

As reported earlier law enforcement agencies are preparing for a possible Trump indictment as early as next week.

Earlier this year the Manhattan District Attorney’s office revived its criminal investigation into Trump’s ‘hush payments’ to porn star Stephanie Clifford, AKA, Stormy Daniels and elevated the case from a misdemeanor to a felony.

Trump has been accused of paying Daniels ‘hush payments’ in a scheme to silence her and stop the story about their alleged affair from being published in the National Enquirer.

Nearly 200 more banks may be vulnerable to the same type of risk that took down Silicon Valley Bank: The value of the assets they hold. 

There are 186 banks across the country that could fail if half of their depositors quickly withdraw their funds, a new study published on the Social Science Research Network found. Even insured depositors — those with $250,000 or less in the bank — could have problems getting their cash if these institutions face the sort of run that Silicon Valley saw a week ago.

The concern is that these banks hold a significant amount of their assets in interest-rate sensitive financial instruments like government bonds and mortgage backed securities. The value of those older, low-interest investments dropped sharply as the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates over the past year.

Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said he sees fighting climate change as a top priority for the Navy as the Biden administration proposes shrinking the fleet by two ships and worries grow about how the U.S. Navy stacks up to China’s.

"As the Secretary of the Navy, I can tell you that I have made climate one of my top priorities since the first day I came into office," Del Toro said March 1 in remarks at the University of the Bahamas.

Del Toro said he met with Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis during his visit and spoke "at length" with him about the climate crisis and focused the bulk of his remarks on climate.

Webmaster addition: Facial recognition shows that the initial violent breachers of the capitol building were Federal agents!