Washington Financial News

Bitcoin in the US. Would-be Bitcoin ETF issuers have been given until Monday morning in Washington to submit any last-minute revisions to their pending applications, Bloomberg News has reported. The US Securities and Exchange Commission itself has until Jan. 10 to take action on at least one of those applications, and crypto insiders have speculated the regulator will use that date to announce a slew of decisions at once. There are two technical requirements that must be fulfilled before a spot-backed Bitcoin ETF can start trading. First, the SEC must sign off on so-called 19b-4 filings by the exchanges that would list the ETFs. Second, the regulator must approve the relevant S-1 forms, which are the registration applications from the would-be issuers — a list that includes BlackRock and Fidelity. The SEC is planning to vote on the exchanges’ filings, the 19b-4s, in the coming days, Bloomberg News has reported. The regulator may or may not then take action on the issuers’ applications, the S-1s, around the same time. If the SEC grants both sets of required approvals, the ETFs could start trading as soon as the next business day.

climate change have sort of become a sing-along anthem in many jurisdictions around the world. The recent COP 28 meeting was primarily about climate change and the action that the world needs to take collectively. However, while governments continue to talk, establish conventions, and introduce policies, citizens across the globe need to realise that they too have an equally important role to play. But the problem is worse than people think. According to the WHO, there are 3.6 billion people already living in places that are highly susceptible to climate change. A recent report in the Washington Post shows that the world is set to pass a catastrophic warming threshold by the 2030s. The report was based on findings by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which revealed that the world will surpass its warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius, leading to climate disasters that will be too severe for people to adapt. When a person is obese, or at risk of cancer, diabetes, or heart disease, they make crucial lifestyle changes. In the same vein, making lifestyle changes can be a crucial step towards averting the gloomy future that climate change portends if no action is taken. One of the smartest decisions a person can take is future-proofing their lifestyle by making climate-friendly choices, such as embracing the electric vehicle.

By Wayne Cole

By Valerie Insinna and David Shepardson

A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Wayne Cole.

By Valerie Insinna and Tim Hepher

By Hannah Lang

By Kanishka Singh and Richard Cowan

Gaza Strip, let's take stock of the situation. The Israeli military has reportedly signaled that they have wrapped up major combat in northern Gaza, saying it has completed dismantling Hamas' military infrastructure there. Israeli defense forces spokesperson Rear Adm.

By Ari Rabinovitch, Simon Lewis and Nidal al-Mughrabi

By Valerie Insinna, Tim Hepher and David Shepardson

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by half last year, according to figures released Friday, as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government bolstered environmental policing to crack down on surging destruction. However, the news was far less bright from the crucial Cerrado savanna below the rainforest, where clear-cutting hit a new annual record last year, rising by 43 percent from 2022, according to the national space research agency's DETER surveillance program. Satellite monitoring detected 5,152 square kilometers (nearly 2,000 square miles) of forest cover destroyed in the Brazilian Amazon last year, down 50 percent from 2022. That still represented a loss 29 times the size of Washington DC in Brazil's share of the world's biggest rainforest, whose carbon-absorbing trees play a vital role in curbing climate change. Meanwhile, the Cerrado, a biodiversity hotspot whose ecosystems are intricately linked with the Amazon's, lost over 7,800 square kilometers of native vegetation last year, the highest since monitoring began in 2018. «We saw some important victories on the environment in 2023. The significant reduction in deforestation in the Amazon was a highlight,» said Mariana Napolitano of environmental group WWF-Brasil. «But unfortunately we aren't seeing the same trend in the Cerrado… That is harming the biome and the extremely important ecosystem services it provides.

PTI. Members of the Coast Guard, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) will also be on election duty to oversee security arrangements. Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) will take command of security arrangements in 45 bordering upazilas while the Bangladesh Navy will operate in 19 districts, including Bhola and Barguna.

The Wire. Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars mentioned that in 2018, India had spent $66,046 on combined common charges for two units at Trump World Tower on Turtle Bay. The report further provides a projection of this figure over the four years of Trump’s administration giving a total of $264,184.

AP. Biden further blamed Trump for all the chaos and deaths. He said, "Because Donald, because of Donald Trump’s lies, they died because these lies brought a mob to Washington," reported AP.

As the federal debt reaches record levels, financial advisors anticipate rising tax rates that will affect financial planning.

By Lucia Mutikani

Global real estate adviser Jenna Stauffer argues the American dream of home ownership still exists during her appearance on Mornings with Maria.

President Joe Biden's administration is providing $162 million to Arizona high-tech manufacturer Microchip Technology to support the domestic production of computer chips

A top federal transportation safety official is harshly criticizing Washington's regional transit agency, saying a “poor safety culture” led to an October 2021 derailment that caused hundreds of new Metro railcars to be pulled from service

The nation’s employers added a robust 216,000 jobs last month, the latest sign that the American labor market remains resilient even in the face of sharply higher interest rates