https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/01/first-republic-bank-seized-jp-morgan/
Gift link: https://wapo.st/3oVMC58

“Our government invited us and others to step up, and we did,” JP Morgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon said in a company statement. “Our financial strength, capabilities and business model allowed us to develop a bid to execute the transaction in a way to minimize costs to the Deposit Insurance Fund.”

JP Morgan is not assuming First Republic’s corporate debt or preferred stock, it said in a statement.

First Republic’s failure is expected to cost the FDIC about $13 billion, the agency said. The money will come from the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund, which insured banks pay into every quarter.

First Republic’s 84 offices in eight states will reopen as branches of JPMorgan, and depositors will be able to access all of their money when they open Monday.

The closure and sale of First Republic comes seven weeks after the abrupt failure of Silicon Valley Bank in California prompted an extraordinary federal rescue effort aimed at averting a wider financial crisis.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65406559



According to the prosecutors, he posted repeatedly about "troubling" violent acts including a potential mass shooting. He allegedly described building an "assassination van" and driving around shooting people in a "crowded urban or suburban environment".

He also allegedly searched for multiple recent mass shootings on his government computer, including Uvalde and the Las Vegas shooting.

The filing also said a search of Mr. Teixeira's home had uncovered "a virtual arsenal of weapons, including bolt-action rifles, rifles, AR and AK-style weapons, and a bazooka". The defendant kept his gun locker with multiple weapons approximately two feet from his bed, according to the court filing.

It added that he was suspended from high school when a classmate overheard him making threats and discussing Molotov cocktails as well as other weapons.

He discussed violence and murder online and was prone to making "racial threats", prosecutors wrote.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/04/21/drought-conditions-pollen-dc-virginia-maryland/



Virtually the entire D.C. and Baltimore region is experiencing moderate drought, according to new data from the U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday, a week after drought conditions crept into portions of the area for the first time since 2019.

Soil moisture levels have dropped particularly low, dipping below the fifth percentile across most of the area. The dry weather has helped fuel outdoor fires, contributed to a punishing pollen season, decreased river flow rates and started to impact crops.

Precipitation is currently running about 5 inches below normal since the start of the year. Jeremy Geiger, a hydrologist at the National Weather Service office serving the Washington region, said the current drought is similar to drought conditions in 2017, which peaked with moderate to severe drought in late February and March, in that both were part of a prolonged period of below-normal precipitation.

“The April of 2017 drought was pretty long-lived and originally began back in October of 2016 and continued through the middle parts of May of 2017,” Geiger wrote in an email. The drought in 2019, which began in September, “was more of a flash drought that occurred due to a really dry 2½-month period,” he added. “The 2019 drought ended due to a large rainfall event that produced almost six inches of precipitation toward the end of October of 2019.”

So far, the main impacts of the current drought have been to increase fire risk and exacerbate a pollen season that started early with dual peaks in February and April. The Potomac River and local farmers are starting to feel some impacts as well.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2023/04/19/alexandria-potomac-yard-metro-station/

The station will be the 98th in the Metrorail system, coming months after the Silver Line extension added six stations



A new Metro station that civic and business leaders say they are counting on as the economic centerpiece for Alexandria’s future will open May 19, officials announced Wednesday, after nearly a year of delays caused by permitting, labor and supply issues.

The opening will be the latest growth indicator for a transit system that has expanded its regional footprint and ridership levels in recent months while emerging from the pandemic and a train shortage. The station is also a key component of Alexandria’s efforts to remake the 295-acre former railroad yard site into a bustling urban center.

The station’s initial planned opening date of April 2022 was pushed to the summer. In July, Metro announced the station’s automatic train control system needed to be redesigned after it didn’t meet requirements. Than a planned fall opening was postponed after crews ran into problems with soil and other issues.





Much of the delay originated from an assortment of issues that emerged from the pandemic, including a labor shortage that also affected construction work and supply chain issues, said Andy Off, Metro’s chief infrastructure officer. The project also had a more complex permitting process than other stations, having to conform to the likings of the National Park Service, freight railroad CSX and a special architectural review because it lies in a historic district.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/11/business/resale-popular-clothing-brands-2023/index.html

Re-worn clothing is a fast-growing market overall that’s expected to reach $70 billion in sales by 2027, from sales of $44 billion in 2023, the report said. As many as 75% of consumers have shopped, or are open to shopping, for secondhand clothing – and demand has only grown during the pandemic.

Among value-and-sustainability focused Gen Zers, the affinity for purchasing clothing that isn’t new is particularly strong, with 83% of younger shoppers having shopped or open to buying secondhand clothing, according to the report.



James Reinhart, CEO of ThredUp, said difficult macro-economic factors, including persistent inflation in consumer goods, has helped drive more momentum in the marketplace.

At the same time, he said inflation has also pushed up prices even for secondhand goods. “Prices are up broadly just as they are everywhere else in retail,” he said.

In this environment, he said secondhand shoppers are hyper-focused on value, especially when buying clothes, and mid-tier brands are sitting in this sweetspot. Among those brands, the report showed 30% of the top 20 offer their own resale programs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/04/11/sesame-allergy-law-consequences/
Gift Link: https://wapo.st/3ZTAFtC



Scouring the labels of what their children had eaten, both mothers were horrified to discover that sesame was now listed as an ingredient in the cheeseburger, the bread and other baked products that had previously been sesame-free. “I’d been unknowingly poisoning [Mia] for several weeks,” said McDermott, who lives in Philadelphia.

What happened? On Jan. 1, a law intended to safeguard the more than 1.5 million Americans with a sesame allergy — including the McDermott and Tibbs children (and, full disclosure, my son as well) — took effect. The law mandates, among other things, careful cleaning to prevent cross-contact between food products with and without sesame.

In a twist few would have expected, however, many food companies have chosen to add small amounts of sesame flour to products that were previously sesame-free, instead of conducting the careful cleaning required for foods without sesame.

The result? Foods that sesame-allergic kids and adults have eaten safely for years are now potentially life-threatening.



Because companies are adding sesame in the form of flour, not seeds, the added allergen is invisible to the eye, making it more dangerous — especially when food is served in group settings, like schools and summer camps, where labels aren’t nearby, advocates say.