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Firecrackers popped, incense was offered at temples and dancers and drummers paraded Wednesday in Asia and farther afield as millions around the world celebrated the Lunar New Year.From Beijing to Havana, the holiday known as the Spring Festival in China, Tet in Vietnam and Seollal in Korea is a major festival celebrated in many countries. Wednesday marked the start of the Year of the Snake, one of 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac.Throngs of people in down jackets filled a Beijing park for a “temple fair” on a sunny but chilly day. Some rang bells and tossed coins into containers in the shape of gold bars for good luck, while others ate traditional snacks from food stalls and took photos with a person dressed up as the God of Wealth.The Lunar New Year is a time to wish for good luck and prosperity in the coming year for oneself and others.“The past year was a very busy one for me, because I had to take care of both my kid and my work,” said Beijing resident Jiang Hecang. “In the Year of the Snake, I wish my kid will grow healthily and my work can remain stable. Then I can be happy enough.”In Malaysia, the crackling of firecrackers greeted the new year outside Guan Di temple in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, followed by lion dances to the rhythmic beat of drums and small cymbals.Ethnic Chinese held incense sticks in front of them and bowed several times inside the temple before sticking the incense into elaborate gold-colored pots, the smoke rising from the burning tips.Hundreds of people lined up on the eve of the Lunar New Year at the Wong Tai Sin Taoist temple in Hong Kong in a bid to be among the first to put incense sticks in the stands in front of the temple’s main hall at 11 p.m.“I wish my family will be blessed. I hope my business will run well. I pray for my country and wish people peace. I hope this coming year is a better year,” said Ming So, who visits the temple annually for the late-night ritual.Many Chinese who work in bigger cities return home during the eight-day national holiday in what is described as the world’s biggest annual movement of humanity. The exodus turns Beijing, China’s capital, into a bit of a ghost town, with many shops closed and normally crowded roads and subways emptied.Traditionally, Chinese have a family dinner at home on New Year’s Eve. On the Lunar New Year, many visit temples to pray and attend temple fairs to watch performances and buy snacks, toys and other trinkets.“I bring my children here to experience the atmosphere, because the New Year atmosphere is fading,” Beijing resident Wang Xinxin said at a temple fair at Ditan Park, the former Temple of Earth in the Ming and Qing dynasties.“Children like mine don’t have much idea what New Year was like in Beijing before, but here we can still see some elements of it,” Wang said.The government has curtailed non-official celebrations, with major cities outlawing the noisy firecrackers that once reverberated around Beijing and left some blocks enshrouded in smoke.Many Chinese take advantage of the extended holiday to travel in the country and abroad. Ctrip, an online booking agency that operates Trip.com, said the most popular overseas destinations this year are Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, the United States, South Korea, Macao and Vietnam.In Moscow, Russians cheered, waved and took smartphone photos of drummers, costumed dancers and long dragon and snake figures held aloft in a colorful procession that kicked off a 10-day Lunar New Year festival on Tuesday night.The Chinese and Russian governments have deepened ties since 2022, in part to push back against what they see as U.S. dominance of the world order.Visitors shouted “Happy New Year” in Russian and expressed delight at being able to experience Chinese food and culture in Moscow, including folk performances and booths selling snacks and artwork.Cuba’s small Chinese community celebrated the Lunar New Year on Tuesday night with a parade of glowing lanterns and dragons winding their way through the narrow streets of Chinatown.The island was once home to one of the largest and oldest Chinese communities in the Americas. Now, a much smaller community celebrates major holidays with a Cuban twist, blending rum and cigars with traditional Chinese cuisine. Associated Press video journalists Wayne Zhang in Beijing, Alice Fung in Hong Kong and Syawalludin Zain in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this story. Ken Moritsugu, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Republican Representative Eric Burlison of Missouri has introduced a new bill, the Life at Conception Act, which proposes a federal ban on abortion. The full text of the bill is not yet available, but a press release this week from his office notes, This landmark legislation declares that unborn children are ‘persons’ under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing their right to life to be legally recognized and protected. At a time when Republicans are seeking to narrow the definition of who is a citizen under the 14th Amendment by eliminating birthright citizenship, they are also using the 14th Amendment to extend personhood to fetusesan indication of who is and isn’t considered a person with rights according to GOP philosophy. I am proud to introduce the Life at Conception Act, which reaffirms the original intent of the 14th Amendment by declaring that the term person includes all human beings from the moment of conception . . . It is a scientific fact that life begins at conception, Burlinson wrote on his Facebook page. Personhood for a fetus, however, may come at the cost of personhood for a mother. Abortion bans have been linked with delays in medical treatment for women who are miscarrying, deaths in cases of risky pregnancies, as well as the increased criminalization of pregnant women. Even in cases where a mothers life is not at stake, abortion bans can impact the quality of medical carefor both women and the communities they live in. According to a 2023 study, states with abortion bans are seeing fewer applications from medical students for residency programs, particularly OB/GYN residency programs. Applications for OB/GYN residencies dropped by 6.7% in states with abortion bans but increased by 0.4% in states without restrictions. In a 2024 study, 11% of oby-gyns said they left states with abortion bans, while their colleagues who stayed described struggling with larger workloads and to hire replacements. Burlison bill currently has 68 cosponsors. It would need a majority of votes to pass (218 of 435) and move to the Senate. If it were to move to the Senate, it would need 51 votes out of 100 to pass. However, if the bill got filibustered, it would need 60 out of 100 votes to pass. Currently, Republicans hold 53 out of 100 votes in the Senate.
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E-Commerce
President Donald Trump may want lower interest rates, but the Federal Reserve will almost certainly keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged at its two-day policy meeting that ends Wednesday.It is likely to be a quiet start to an eventful year for the central bank. Trump said last week in Davos, Switzerland, that he would bring down energy prices, then “demand” that the Fed lower borrowing costs.Later, when asked by reporters if he expected the Fed to listen to him, he said, “yes.” Presidents in recent decades have avoided publicly pressuring the Fed out of deference to its political independence.Outside of a U.S. President bending norms, the Fed also faces challenges in achieving its economic objectives. Inflation remains above its 2% target: Its preferred measure is at 2.4%, though core pricesconsidered a better gauge of where inflation is headedrose 2.8% in November from a year ago.Fed officials, led by Chair Jerome Powell, want to thread a moving needle: By keeping borrowing costs higher, the Fed hopes to slow borrowing and spending enough to reduce inflation, but without causing a painful recession.Powell said in December that the central bank has entered a “new phase,” in which it expects to move more deliberately after cutting its key rate to 4.3%, from 5.3% in the final three meetings of 2024. In December, Fed officials signaled they may reduce their rate just twice more this year. Goldman Sachs economists believes those cuts won’t happen until June and December.A cut in March is still possible, though financial markets’ futures pricing puts the odds of that happening at just one-third.As a result, American households and businesses are unlikely to see much relief from high borrowing costs anytime soon. The average rate on a 30-year mortgage slipped to just below 7% last week after rising for five straight weeks. The costs of borrowing money have remained high economy-wide even after the Fed reduced its benchmark rate.That is because investors expect healthy economic growth and stubborn inflation will forestall future rate cuts. They recently bid up the 10-year Treasury above 4.80%, its highest level since 2023.Another reason for caution among Fed policymakers this year is that they will want to evaluate any changes in economic policy by the Trump administration. Trump has said he could slap tariffs of 25% on imports from Canada and Mexico as early as February 1. During his presidential campaign he threatened to impose taxes on all imports.The Trump administration has also said it will carry out mass deportations of migrants, which could push up inflation by reducing the economy’s ability to produce goods and services. At the same time, some economists say Trump’s promises to deregulate the economy could lower prices over time.When Trump imposed tariffs on a limited number of imports in 2018 and 2019, Fed economists expected the biggest impact to fall on economic growth, with the inflationary impact being relatively minor. As a result, when growth did slow, the Fed ended up cutting its key rate in 2019, rather than raising it to fight off any inflationary impact.On Wednesday, Fed officials could also change the statement that they release after each meeting to upgrade their assessment of the labor market, a signal that rate cuts may be delayed.In December, the statement included a mildly pessimistic take: “Labor market conditions have generally eased, and the unemployment rate has moved up but remains low.” In the summer and fall, employers slowed their hiring. The rise in the unemployment rate had unnerved Fed officials and was a big reason they reduced their key rate by an unusually large half-percentage point in September.Earlier this month, Fed governor Chris Waller cited weaker hiring as evidence that the Fed’s key rate is “restrictive,” meaning it is acting as a brake on the economy and should bring down inflation over time. If rates are restrictive, that means the Fed would have more room to cut them if inflation were to decline further.Yet this month, just a few days after Waller’s remarks, the December jobs report showed that hiring accelerated and the unemployment rate slipped to a low 4.1% from 4.2%.The healthier employment numbers suggested that hiring has at least levelled off. If it stays as strong as last month, the improved job gains would suggest the Fed’s rate isn’t restrictive at all, and few, if any, rate cuts are needed. Christopher Rugaber, AP Economics Writer
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E-Commerce
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