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U.S. voters believe the economy is improving, but a public opinion poll shows that this perception is not easily translated into favorable votes toward President Joe Biden. According to the results of a poll of 1,500 U.S. voters conducted by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 3rd from the 21st to the 28th of last month (margin of error ±2.5% points), 31% of respondents said they were concerned about the economy over the past two years during President Biden’s term.

He answered that it has improved.

This is a 10-percentage point increase compared to the WSJ poll conducted in December last year. Additionally, the number of respondents who said their financial situation was going well was 43%, up 9 percentage points compared to the survey in December last year.

This suggests that voters’ perception of the U.S. economic situation has improved significantly in recent months. However, although this change in economic awareness is a positive factor for President Biden, there does not seem to be a clear change in public opinion toward the incumbent president.

When the two former and incumbent presidents face off in the upcoming presidential election in November, former President Donald Trump (47%) led President Biden (45%) within the margin of error. Although the gap was narrowed compared to the WSJ opinion poll in December last year (4 percentage points), the amount of change was relatively small compared to the improved perception of economic conditions.

The reason why positive economic perceptions do not lead to a clear increase in the incumbent president’s approval rating is that negative perceptions of rising prices remain.

In fact, despite the significant slowdown in inflation indicators, three-quarters of respondents still believed that the rate of inflation was outpacing the rate of household income growth. The proportion of respondents who said that President Biden is controlling prices properly was 37%, which is 7 percentage points higher than the survey conducted in December last year, but still only about one-third of all respondents.

Furthermore, the WSJ explained that the fact that voters’ interests are focused on immigration issues is also cited as a background. President Biden’s ‘old age risk’ is also the biggest obstacle making it difficult for him to be re-elected. 73% of WSJ survey respondents considered President Biden’s age (81) too old to serve his second term.

On the other hand, 52% of respondents said that former President Trump (77) was too old. Concerns about President Biden’s age also appear in the results of other recently conducted opinion polls.

According to a survey conducted by the New York Times (NYT) and Siena University on 980 registered voters in the United States from the 25th to the 28th of last month, 73% of respondents answered that Biden is too old to properly perform the duties of president.

Among voters who said they supported Biden in the 2020 presidential election, this proportion of responses reached 61%. On the other hand, only 42% of respondents said that former President Trump was too old to properly perform his duties as president.

The Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling as early as the 4th on whether former U.S. President Donald Trump, who is suspected of inciting the Capitol riot by his supporters to overturn his presidential election defeat, can be blocked from running for president.

According to AP and Bloomberg News, the Federal Supreme Court announced on its website on the 3rd that it plans to rule on at least one case on the 4th. Because the Federal Supreme Court does not normally announce on which day it will make a ruling on a case, it is unknown which case will be sentenced on that day. However, American media predicted that the Supreme Court may announce its decision on the Colorado Supreme Court ruling that disqualified former President Trump from running, given that it is unusual for the Supreme Court to announce the sentencing date in this way.

Previously, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that former President Trump’s name should be removed from Colorado’s primary ballot, believing that former President Trump’s incitement of supporters to storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021, with claims of ‘election fraud’ was an act of participation in insurrection. This was a ruling applying Article 14, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution, which stipulates that public officials who have sworn to support the Constitution cannot hold public office again if they participate in rebellion or rebellion.

Former President Trump objected to this and appealed to the Supreme Court. The U.S. media reported that it is unusual for the Supreme Court to announce the sentencing date on the weekend because it is assumed that the Colorado case will be decided. Supreme Court Justices usually announce their rulings from the judge’s bench in court, but the Justices will not appear in court on the 4th. Sentencing details will be posted on the Federal Supreme Court website after 10 a.m.

The American media believed that the election schedule may have influenced the date of the Supreme Court’s ruling. It is an analysis that the Federal Supreme Court may have kept in mind the need to resolve uncertainty surrounding former President Trump’s eligibility to run before ‘Super Tuesday’ on the 5th. On Super Tuesday, presidential primaries will be held in 15 states, including Colorado, where this lawsuit was initiated.

On this day alone, approximately 35% of the total delegates who must receive support to become the Republican Party’s presidential candidate are decided. For this reason, the Colorado Republican Party asked the Supreme Court to decide before Super Tuesday.

If the ruling is made today, the results are expected to apply not only to Colorado but also to other states where similar lawsuits have been filed.

Former President Donald Trump’s fine for fraudulent lending increased from $355 million to more than $450 million. This is because former President Trump, who announced his intention to appeal, was trying to raise money to deposit the fine, and interest for delay before the ruling was added.

According to the final ruling entered by Judge Arthur Engoron of the Manhattan District Court in New York on the 23rd, former President Trump’s fine increased to at least $454 million, Washington Post (WP), ABC News outlets reported on the 25th.

Reuters reported that this is the existing fine ($355 million) plus interest accrued during the three-month trial. The fines for former President Trump’s eldest son, Trump Jr., and his second son, Eric, also increased from $4 million to $4.7 million (including interest) each.

The interest on all fines, including former President Trump’s, is $114,000 per day, most of which is interest on former President Trump’s fines. This amount continues to accumulate until the fine is paid or deposited. Former President Trump can appeal the ruling within 30 days from the date the final ruling was issued, but to do so, he must deposit the amount equivalent to the fine through cash or bonds.

Separately, former President Trump must pay $83.3 million in damages for defamation to fashion columnist E. Jean Carroll, according to a ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. This also requires a deposit for appeal. Since most of former President Trump’s assets are tied up in real estate, it is unclear whether he has enough cash for deposit.

In this regard, former President Trump’s lawyer is negotiating with surety companies to provide as few assets as collateral as possible, WP reported. Furthermore, the newspaper reported that former President Trump’s team is considering a plan to share the risk by dividing the fine between several bond companies because the size of the fine is so large.

Guarantee companies that issue bonds required for deposit usually require cash or assets from customers as collateral. However, in the case of former President Trump, there is a risk in using real estate as collateral from the guaranteed company’s perspective. This is because assessing the value of assets may be difficult in a situation where former President Trump was fined for inflating the value of assets.

In addition, former President Trump may need to maintain a certain amount of cash and assets to maintain existing loans, he said, WP said. Although the current loan terms are not known, in the case of former President Trump’s past loan from Deutsche Bank, it was stipulated that if the loan failed to maintain liquidity of $50 million and net assets of more than $2.5 billion, it would be in default.

Tesla’s humanoid robot ‘Optimus’ has evolved to the point where it can walk like a human. On the 24th, Tesla CEO Elon Musk released a video of ‘Optimus’ walking on his X (old Twitter).

The 1 minute and 18 second video shows this humanoid robot, which resembles a human being, walking around the lab on two legs like a human. Although it seemed a bit hesitant, this robot walked smoothly on its own without relying on people or falling. Musk only posted the title “Optimus strolling around the lab” without any specific mention of the video. This Optimus video was released about a month ago on the 16th of last month. At the time, Musk posted a video of Optimus folding his shirt.

The 31-second video shows Optimus taking a shirt out of a basket with his fingers, spreading it out on a table, and then folding it. This robot is the ‘2nd generation’, an evolved version of ‘Optimus’ that Tesla unveiled in December last year. Tesla introduced at the time that it could walk about 30% faster than before and move five fingers smoothly.

In the video, Optimus stretches out his arms forward, kneels at a 90-degree angle, picks up an egg with his thumb and forefinger, carefully places it on a cooking pot, and dances to the music. Tesla first announced plans to begin developing humanoid robots in 2021 and then unveiled the Optimus prototype in late September 2022.

At the time, Musk held the ‘Tesla AI Day’ event and showed off the Optimus prototype, promising that “robots will create a prosperous future and a future without poverty.” He said, “We will make Optimus a very high-performance robot and mass-produce millions of units,” and that orders can be received for less than $20,000 (approximately 26 million won) within 3 to 5 years.

This video of Musk was posted a day after news broke that big tech companies were investing heavily in Figure AI, a competitor in the humanoid robot field. On the 23rd, Bloomberg News reported that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and NVIDIA are investing in Figure AI. It was reported that they would invest $100 million and $50 million, respectively, in this startup.

Microsoft (MS) and ChatGPT developer OpenAI are also reported to have invested $95 million and $5 million, respectively, in this startup . The news agency reported that venture capital of $25 million, and LG Innotek and Samsung investment organizations also pledged $8.5 million and $5 million, respectively. Figure AI will be founded in 2022 by engineers from Tesla and Boston Dynamics, a robotics company.

It is developing an AI-based robot that looks and moves like a human, and introduced a robot called ‘Figure 01’ in March last year. The goal is to enable it to perform dangerous tasks that humans cannot do and to solve the problem of insufficient labor. As the craze for AI technology grows, competition in the development of humanoid robots has become more intense.

In addition to Optimus and Figure AI, ‘1X Technology AS’ is developing a bipedal robot with ChatGPT, and a Canadian startup Sanctuary AI is developing a humanoid robot called Phoenix.

While the number of obstetrics and gynecology clinics is increasing nationwide due to declining birth rates, there are many general hospitals without obstetrics and gynecology departments in rural areas of Virginia, which means that mothers are experiencing great difficulties.

According to the media outlet Axios, there are currently 29 general hospitals in rural areas of Virginia, but 20 of them, or about 70%, do not have obstetrics and gynecology departments to take care of the health of pregnant women or newborns.

For this reason, pregnant women living in rural Virginia must drive an average of 29.2 miles to receive necessary medical services, such as regular checkups, and in Lee County, they must travel more than 66 miles, which is a huge inconvenience.

The New York Times (NYT) reported on the 18th that after real estate mogul former President Donald Trump was elected president, the ‘Trump’ brand contributed to lower real estate values. According to reports, real estate brokerage City Realty assessed that the value per unit area of seven Trump-branded condominiums in Manhattan, New York, fell by an average of 23% between 2013 and 2023.

The NYT reported that real estate market research company ATTOM analyzed the results using a different methodology and found that the value per unit area of these buildings fell by an average of 17% during the same period.

Real estate values, which had been on the rise since 2013, peaked in 2016 when former President Trump was elected president and then turned downward. In contrast, City Realty analyzed that the four condominiums in Manhattan that removed the Trump brand logo from their buildings between 2018 and 2019 rose 9% in value between 2013 and 2023, outpacing the average growth rate of the Manhattan condominium market, which rose 8% in the nearby period.

Regarding the results of this analysis, Eric Trump, former President Trump’s second son and the actual executive of the Trump Organization, said in an email response, “Data can be manipulated to tell any story you want, but our building is the most expensive per unit area in the world.” “There is no change in the fact that it is being sold, and this cannot be denied,” he countered. However, looking at the status of high-end condominium transactions in 2023 analyzed by City Realty analysts, the NYT reported that, contrary to Eric Trump’s claims, Trump-branded properties are far from the most expensive properties sold in Manhattan.

The NYT reported that the most expensive Trump-branded property was also ranked 47th among the top 100 properties in Manhattan by transaction amount last year. Previously, former President Trump compared the value of the Trump brand to that of Coca-Cola during a civil trial on fraud loan charges and claimed that the actual asset value was higher than the book value, saying, “I did not even reflect the brand, which is my best asset, in the books.”

On the 16th of February, the Manhattan District Court in New York ruled that former President Trump should pay a fine of $355 million.

President Joe Biden criticized former President Trump, who said he would not help North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies even if they were attacked by Russia if they did not sufficiently cover defense costs. According to Reuters, President Biden said in a statement on the 11th, “My opponent, Donald Trump, has made it clear that if he comes back to power and Russia attacks our NATO allies, he will abandon them and let Russia ‘do whatever it wants.’ “He pointed out.

President Biden emphasized, “The job as commander-in-chief of the military is the ultimate responsibility (of the president), and those who hold the office of president must take this responsibility seriously.” He criticized former President Trump’s remarks as “horrible and dangerous,” calling them a “green light” for Russia to attack not only Ukraine but also Poland and the Baltic countries.

He added, “Sadly, these are predictable comments from a man who, on his first day back in the White House, pledged to be as dictatorial as the dictators he admired.” Earlier, at a rally held in South Carolina the previous day, former President Trump argued that NATO allies should take responsibility for their own security even if Russia attacks, saying, “I will encourage them (Russia) to do whatever they want.”

Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is competing with Trump in the Republican presidential primary, also criticized former President Trump’s remarks in a CBS interview that day, saying that he was helping Russian President Vladimir Putin invade Ukraine and murder his political opponents, saying, “We should not take the side of thugs.”

When asked whether she would adhere to NATO’s collective security principle, which states that if one member state is attacked, all member states respond, former Ambassador Haley replied, “Absolutely yes. NATO has been successful for the past 75 years.”

A shocking incident occurred in which a female tourist was shot by a teenager who was caught stealing from a sporting goods store near Times Square in the centre of Manhattan while living in a temporary shelter for Venezuelan immigrants. According to the New York Police Department (NYPD), around 7 p.m. on the 8th, three teenagers stole clothing and sneakers from the second floor of the JD Sports Store near Times Square, and confronted a security guard in the lobby who was trying to retrieve the stolen items.

During this process, one of the three men shot the security guard. The security guard ducked to avoid the bullet, but Tagliele Ribeiro Lemos (38), a female tourist from Brazil nearby, was hit by a stray bullet. During this process, the gunman fired his gun twice at the police who rushed to the scene and were chasing him.

After issuing a wanted order, the police arrested the shooter in Yonkers around 3:30 p.m. on the 9th, the day after the incident. ABC News and others reported that the arrested shooting suspect was 15-year-old Jesus Alejandro Rivas Figueroa. Figueroa reportedly came to New York City from Venezuela in September of last year and was living in a temporary immigrant shelter at the Stratford Hotel on West 70th Street in Manhattan.

Figueroa shot the suspect with a .45-caliber pistol at the time of the crime. NYPD Patrol Chief John Chell said Figueroa was “a dangerous teenager with a .45 calibre handgun” and “had no regard for the loss of life.” Additionally, the police said Figueroa is a suspect in an armed robbery that occurred in the Bronx on the 27th of last month and another shooting that occurred in Midtown near Central Park in Manhattan. Two other teenagers who stole from the Times Square store along with Figueroa, ages 15 and 16, have been arrested by police. Figueroa and the two other suspects, both from Venezuela, attended school together in New York City. Meanwhile, Lemos, the Brazilian tourist who was injured after being shot by her, was taken to the hospital, treated, and then released.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 4th that the minimum wage for employees of major fast-food chains in California will rise to $20 starting in April, and large restaurant chains are predicting price increases.

According to reports, Mexican fast food chain Chipotle plans to increase menu prices at its California stores by 5 to 9 percent to cope with rising labor costs. After raising menu prices four times over the past two years in response to rising prices, additional price increases were announced in response to rising labor costs.

The WSJ reported that other fast-food companies, including McDonald’s and Jack in the Box, are also planning to increase menu prices at their California stores this year to reflect rising labor costs. The McDonald’s Store Owners Association estimates that the additional increase in labor costs this year will amount to $250,000 per year per store. This reflects the fact that the minimum wage for fast food industry workers in California will increase to $20 per hour starting in April. Considering that the current minimum wage for fast food workers in California is $16, the increase rate amounts to 25%.

Previously, California passed a bill in 2022 granting oversight of the fast-food industry to a state-appointed committee. The bill would allow the commission to increase the minimum wage to $22 per hour. As the fast-food industry strongly opposed the passage of this bill, labor unions, employer groups, and the state government reached a compromise that would set the minimum wage at $20 per hour after April 2024 and limit annual minimum wage increases from 2025. There is a bar.

Consulting company Levine Management Solutions also released an analysis showing that a $1 hourly wage increase in the fast-food industry would lead to increased costs, leading to a 2% increase in menu prices. WSJ predicted, “Eating out at restaurants in California is one of the most expensive places in the U.S., but it is expected to become more expensive in the future.”

Mainstream economists have opposed the introduction or increase of the minimum wage on the grounds that it leads to a decrease in employment for low-income people and causes economic inefficiency. In a 2021 report, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour would help lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty, but would also lead to higher prices, slower growth, and a loss of as many as 1.4 million jobs.

On the 4th, former President Donald Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, mentioned Senator Tim Scott, a black man, and South Dakota Governor Kristi Norm, a woman, as his vice-presidential candidates. This is a remark that adds weight to the rumors floating around about him being a black or female running mate.

Former President Trump said in an interview with Fox News that day, “I haven’t decided yet” regarding his vice-presidential candidate, and said, “There are too many great people within the Republican Party, and not for the time being.” Regarding the criteria for deciding on a candidate, he said, “There is always one thing: ‘Who will be a good president?’” and pointed out, “No matter who you are, an emergency can occur at any time, and this is the most important issue.”

It was recalled that the first line of succession to power in the event of the president’s death is the vice president. “I told him, ‘You’re a lot better to me than you are to yourself,’” he said, referring to a recent phone call he had with Senator Scott. “He was a good guy, but he was too low-key. But he was just as good for me as he was for me.” “He fought and protected like a tiger.”

Rep. Scott ran in the Republican presidential primary, but resigned at the end of last year and declared his support for former President Trump last month. He is accompanied by former President Trump at every major event and is pouring out a strong message. Former President Trump also mentioned the governor of Nome, a woman, saying, “She’s fighting unbelievably, too,” and pointed out that the governor of Nome had declared that she would not run in the presidential race, saying she could not beat former President Trump.

Former President Trump, who won two consecutive victories in last month’s Iowa Caucus (party vote) and New Hampshire primary (primary), the first and second presidential primaries of the Republican Party, is considered a foregone conclusion.

Ahead of the South Carolina primary on the 24th, there is a lot of speculation around former President Trump about his running mate, the vice-presidential candidate. Aides are giving advice that former President Trump should choose a black or female running mate to attract the relatively weak votes of women, people of color, and moderates. The candidates included Representative Scott, Governor Nome, Representative Ellis Stefanik, and Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Meanwhile, former President Trump said on the air today that he heard that Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, with whom he has an uneasy relationship, would support him. “I think McConnell wants to support me, and that’s what I’ve heard,” he said. “Half of the Republican Party supports me, and the rest will soon. I don’t know if he’ll support me, but I hear he wants to support me.”

“Everyone is lining up, everyone is on board,” he continued, emphasizing that “the Republican Party under Trump is a huge success.” House Republican leaders, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and Senior Vice House Leader Tom Emmer, all declared their support for former President Trump before the start of the primary.

This extremely unusual phenomenon is seen as a sign of the power of former President Trump’s popular theory.