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May 02, 2024
 

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WASHINGTON UPDATE

COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Apr 8, 2004
The campaign-finance floodgates open
WASHINGTON -- Only 208 days are left in this presidential campaign. From the intensity that both President George W. Bush and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry are going at it, you would think that decision day is next week. The advertising is pouring out over the airwaves at mid-October frequency and the tone of the campaign rhetoric seems a bit frantic for so early in the battle.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Mar 21, 2004
Bush morphs into a scrappy candidate
WASHINGTON -- Mid-March is a time of significant anniversaries:
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Mar 11, 2004
War of money, words begins
WASHINGTON -- For the political junkie, we are entering the best of times, or the worst of times. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry clinched the Democratic nomination for the presidency on March 2 (Super Tuesday), exactly eight months to the day before the general election on Nov. 2. With President George W. Bush unopposed for his party's nomination, the gladiators are now in the arena and ready to begin a great, 241-day battle.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Feb 23, 2004
Casting calls begin for vice presidency
WASHINGTON -- Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry has the Democratic nomination for president nearly wrapped up with his victory in Wisconsin last Tuesday, giving him victories in 15 of the 17 primaries and caucuses contested to date. There will be some mopping up, and then a cakewalk to his hometown of Boston to be crowned the nominee on July 28 at the Democratic National Convention.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Feb 6, 2004
Candidates in sudden death
WASHINGTON -- What a difference a month can make in the campaign to win the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. As the election year started, we had a front-runner with a big bankroll and double-digit leads in the polls: Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was threatening to run away with the nomination, or so it seemed.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Jan 7, 2004
Dean shows green is still king in American politics
WASHINGTON -- Things look a little rosier in the U.S. economy at the moment, with the stock market roaring at last. You may remember that 2002 was the worst year for the stock market for 25 years. The Dow closed in 2002 at 8,341.63, down 16.8 percent. In 2003 it closed at 10,453.92, the highest in almost two years. America's unemployment rate is trickling down a bit and people's confidence is definitely on the upswing.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Dec 11, 2003
Internet levels fundraising field for Howard Dean
WASHINGTON -- You may never have heard of Zephyr Teachout, a 31-year-old teacher from up north, but she is close to being the Gutenberg of the Internet Age for politicians.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Nov 24, 2003
End in sight for campaign-finance limits
WASHINGTON -- The experts are calling it the end of the road for the public-finance system that has propped up our presidential nominating system for 30 years. Candidate George W. Bush started the ball rolling by declining the opportunity to take federal money in his race in 2000 -- opting instead for unlimited spending and raising a record $106,000,000. He is topping that now with probably twice that amount in his current contest for re-election, and now, two Democratic candidates are opting out of the matching-funds program to avoid the spending limits that would come with the federal money.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Oct 23, 2003
Bush backers open their purses
WASHINGTON -- It has stopped! U.S. President George W. Bush's men have determined that his slide has ended. The latest round of polling has him in the mid to low 50s.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Oct 9, 2003
Primaries and polls
WASHINGTON -- Here we are less than four months away from the actual start of the 2004 presidential race. Delegates will begin to be selected in late January. The preliminary season is in its final stage. The third quarter of 2003 proved to be reasonably decisive for the Democrats.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Sep 18, 2003
Iraq, bad economy drag Bush down
WASHINGTON -- It cannot be easy these days to be selling the White House story line. Chickens are coming home to roost from every direction. Ever since President George W. Bush went on his working vacation to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, his carefully constructed houses of cards in economic and world affairs have started coming unglued.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Aug 21, 2003
California's political circus comes to town
WASHINGTON -- California Gov. Gray Davis will need more than a little luck to carry the day in the gubernatorial recall election now set for Oct. 7. As the campaign starts, he needs to gain ground quickly and mightily to remain in office. The voters are prepared to vote to oust him by margins ranging from 55 to 67 percent, depending on whose polls you read. And if that is not enough, the media blitz of the challengers, particularly Arnold Schwarzenegger, has left the governor without much visibility.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Jun 23, 2003
U.S. deficit skyrocketing to new heights
WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush cheered millions of American fathers last week by enabling them to contemplate how to spend a tax bonus of $400 per child that will be arriving just in time for their late summer vacation this year. They should be happy with that.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
May 29, 2003
Bush tax package passes but will it buoy the economy?
WASHINGTON -- You cannot say he did not work for it. U.S. President George W. Bush saw his beloved tax package pass Congress last Friday, with Vice President Dick Cheney casting the deciding vote in the Senate. The president had been working coast to coast the last few weeks to drum up support for his newest tax bill, which he says will create jobs the economy needs to right itself.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
May 12, 2003
Flush with victory in Iraq, Bush sets his sights on defending the White House in 2004
WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush last week became the first American president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to declare victory in a foreign war. FDR named May 8, 1945, V-E Day for victory in Europe, and Aug. 14, 1945, V-J Day for victory over Japan. Bush proclaimed May 1, 2003, V-I Day, in grand fashion from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln steaming home from action.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Apr 20, 2003
Nice work so far but can U.S. pay up?
WASHINGTON -- By now there is very little doubt that the armed forces of the United States are quite phenomenal. The display of technology, tactics, teamwork, discipline and control in the four-week campaign that has taken control of Iraq has been quite a show, a demonstration of military power that is well beyond that of any other nation.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Apr 7, 2003
U.S. racks up victories, and a huge debt
WASHINGTON -- After months of ducking the question of how much the war would cost, President George W. Bush sent Congress a request for just under $80 billion in new funds. It responded by moving quickly, with both the Senate and House Committees approving bills to give the president his money, but it declined to give him the blank check that he sought.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Mar 9, 2003
Rifts widen for U.S. ahead of war vote
WASHINGTON -- We wait and watch. Iraqi President Sadaam Hussein is cooperating. Or is he? He is destroying some missiles that United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix says are too powerful. But is that enough? U.S. President George W. Bush does not seem convinced. "Pure showmanship and more stalling," he calls it as he continues his relentless pressure on the Hussein.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Feb 22, 2003
Antiwar fever rises as the economy sinks
WASHINGTON -- Two big questions have dominated Washington this week. When will this horrible, cold winter end? And when will the war in Iraq begin? While they are different subjects with different consequences, they are getting about equal time in the capital's conversation content.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Jan 23, 2003
Affirmative action challenged
WASHINGTON -- As so many Republicans turned from the embarrassment caused by Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi and began to give the appearance of really caring about racial harmony and equity, the leader of the party, President George W. Bush, took several actions that threaten to cast new darkness on the situation.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Did Japan intervene to prop up the yen? Analysts think it did.
A man walks past an electronic board displaying the exchange rate for the yen against the U.S. dollar (right) in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.
Number of vacant homes in Japan hits record high of 9 million
A vacant house in Tokyo is seen demolished in January 2020.
Weak yen fattens tourist wallets in Japan
People visit the Ameya Yokocho market in Tokyo's Ueno district during the Golden Week holiday on Tuesday.
Kishida sets sights on energy and climate in South America trip
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will use a policy speech in Sao Paulo to set out his vision for ties between Japan and South America, almost 10 years after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe advocated for stronger ties between the two in the same city.
Yellow sand allergy: A health issue made worse by climate change
A screenshot of the Meteorological Agency's satellite image of clouds and yellow sand (in pink) on Sunday.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.

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