Archives for June 2021

The Latest: Portugal’s surge in cases highest since February

LISBON, Portugal — Portugal is experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases, with the government set to review its pandemic rules on Thursday.

The European Union country reported 1,350 new cases on Wednesday, the highest daily total since February. Experts say the delta variant first identified in India may be driving the spread. The Lisbon region has accounted for almost 1,000 of the new cases.

Portugal was the worst-hit country in the world in January, when daily cases peaked at more than 16,000. Nearly 7,000 COVID-19 patients were in the hospital and close to 1,000 were in ICUs. Now, hospitals have 351 virus patients, with 83 in intensive care.

A nation of 10.3 million people, Portugal has inoculated 42% of its population with a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 25% have had both shots.

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GM, Ford outdo each other with electric vehicle investments

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors will raise its spending on electric and autonomous vehicles and add two U.S. battery factories as it gambles that consumers will eagerly switch from gasoline to the new technology.

The announcements Wednesday came as crosstown rival Ford said its entire Lincoln luxury brand lineup would be electric or gas-electric hybrid by 2030, including four fully electric vehicles.

For months, the automakers have been one-upping each other with electric vehicle announcements, which have fueled stock price increases for both companies.

GM wouldn’t give details about where it will build the new plants, but Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson said they would be similar in size to two factories now under construction in Lordstown, Ohio, and Spring Hill, Tennessee. Those factories each will employ more than 1,000 workers and cost about $2.3 billion.

The new plants were to come later in the decade, but now have been pulled forward and are expected to be in operation around 2025. They are part of GM’s plan to spend $35 billion on electric and autonomous vehicles from 2020 to 2025. The company also said it will switch more U.S. assembly plant capacity to electric vehicles, but gave no details Wednesday.

The Associated Press reported Monday that GM would announce new battery plants this week.

GM has previously said it would spend $27 billion on electric and autonomous vehicle development by 2025 as it rolled out 30 new electric vehicles worldwide. Jacobson said the company would increase the number of electric vehicles but gave no details.

Electric vehicles accounted for less than 2% of U.S. vehicle sales last year, largely in luxury brands. But industry analysts are predicting big growth later in the decade as EVs move beyond tech-savvy early adopters.

Jacobson said GM is seeing success with its a new version of its Chevrolet Bolt hatchback and a new Bolt small SUV, giving it confidence that electric vehicle adoption is reaching an inflection point. “The Bolts have done well for us,” he said. “This is really no-regrets capital. We know that we will need those battery plants as we further our goals.”

Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives said GM and Ford are continually trying to outdo each other with electric vehicle announcements. “This is an EV arms race going on in Detroit with Ford and GM competing for market and mind share in this green tidal wave,” Ives said in an email.

Both automakers, he said, are competing for what’s expected to be a $5 trillion market during the next decade. GM came out earlier than Ford, but Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford is trying to “catch up and not be viewed as the little brother,” he said.

“We view EV as the biggest transformation in the auto industry since the 1950s, and it’s shaking up the Detroit auto stalwarts in a major way as they chase after Tesla,” Ives said.

Also Wednesday, GM raised its first-half pretax earnings guidance from $5.5 billion to between $8.5 billion and $9.5 billion, with net income of $6.2 billion to $7 billion.

On a conference call with reporters, Jacobson said the increase comes as GM continues to see strong demand for its vehicles, and because it has been able to mitigate production losses due to a global shortage of computer chips. He said the company was able to pull some chip deliveries ahead from the third quarter, and it remains cautious about the full year.

GM also announced more deals to sell its battery and hydrogen technology to other companies. GM said it will build two electric vehicles for EV and hydrogen partner Honda, and it will supply hydrogen fuel cells for Liebherr Aerospace. Earlier the company said it would supply batteries and fuel cell technology to Pittsburgh-based locomotive maker Wabtec, and it would supply fuel cells to heavy truck maker Navistar.

Ford said Wednesday the Lincoln brand’s first fully electric vehicle will go on sale next year, but gave no details. The company said that by mid-decade it expects that half of Lincoln’s global sales will be zero emissions vehicles.

Shares of GM rose 2.6% in early trading Wednesday, after the battery plant and spending announcements were made. They were trading at $62.35, near a record high. Ford shares were up just under 1% to $15.12.

GM also said that CEO Mary Barra is in Washington to meet with legislators and the administration of President Joe Biden on federal pollution and fuel economy standards.

Biden is in the process of reversing former President Donald Trump’s rollback of pollution limits and plans to announce stricter standards in July.

On CNBC Wednesday, Barra said she’s optimistic that legislators will expand tax credits to jump-start purchases of electric vehicles. Currently there’s a $7,500 federal credit for EV purchasers, and there are proposals to expand it to as much as $12,500. But once a manufacturer sells 200,000 electric vehicles, the tax credit is phased out. GM and Tesla have hit the cap and can’t offer the credit anymore.

“We really think being a first mover shouldn’t be something that’s penalized as we look at EV adoption,” Barra said. “We’re going forward with a full portfolio, but we think to level the playing field, having everybody have that same opportunity is going to be important.”

Security flaw found in 2G mobile data encryption standard

BERLIN (AP) — Cybersecurity researchers in Europe say they have discovered a flaw in an encryption algorithm used by cellphones that may have allowed attackers to eavesdrop on some data traffic for more than two decades.

In a paper published Wednesday, researchers from Germany, France and Norway said the flaw affects the GPRS – or 2G – mobile data standard.

While most phones now use 4G or even 5G standards, GPRS remains a fallback for data connections in some countries.

The vulnerability in the GEA-1 algorithm is unlikely to have been an accident, the researchers said. Instead, it was probably created intentionally to provide law enforcement agencies with a “backdoor” and comply with laws restricting the export of strong encryption tools.

“According to our experimental analysis, having six correct numbers in the German lottery twice in a row is about as likely as having these properties of the key occur by chance,” Christof Beierle of the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, a co-author of the paper, said.

The GEA-1 algorithm was meant to be phased out from cellphones as early as 2013, but the researchers said they found it in current Android and iOS smartphones.

Cellphone manufacturers and standards organizations have been notified to fix the flaw, they said.

The Latest: EU warns ties with Russia likely to get worse

GENEVA (AP) — BRUSSELS — The European Union’s top diplomat is warning that the bloc’s testy relations with Russia will probably get worse and that EU member countries must not let Moscow divide them.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said ties with Russia are “at the lowest level” and the likelihood they will improve soon remains “a distant prospect.”

His remarks came Wednesday as President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin were meeting in Geneva for a high-stakes summit amid tensions between the West and the Kremlin.

Borrell’s comments were made as he unveiled his recommendations Wednesday for new strategy toward Russia.

EU leaders will debate it at their next summit on June 24-25. But EU member countries are deeply divided over the best approach to take with Moscow. Russia is the EU’s biggest natural gas supplier and plays a pivotal role in a series of international conflicts and issues.

GENEVA — A former U.S. ambassador to Russia says he “can guess” why U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin will not have a joint news conference after their summit in Geneva on Wednesday.

Michael McFaul, who served as U.S. Ambassador in Moscow between 2012 and 2014, recalled that the last joint press conference between Putin and a U.S. president — Donald Trump — in Helsinki in 2018 “was terrible for American national interests.”

The Helsinki news conference was considered a “win” for the Russian side after Trump appeared to side with Putin over his own security agencies on allegations of Russian election interference.

This year, the White House opted against a joint news conference after the summit between Putin and Biden, deciding it did not want to appear to elevate Putin at a time when the U.S. president is urging European allies to pressure Putin to cut out myriad provocations.

After the talks, Putin and Biden are scheduled to hold their own separate news conferences, one after another.

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GENEVA — The Swiss government is going to reimburse scores of Geneva businesses that have been forced to close because of security measures linked to the Russia-U.S. summit on Wednesday.

Geneva officials adopted a decree Wednesday to compensate the owners of shops that ended up inside the security perimeter set up around the meeting of Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin.

Laurent Paoliello, a spokesman for the regional security department, said the funds would come from the federal government, but cautioned that it wouldn’t be a “blank check.”

He said the payments would be doled out after a thorough analysis over the coming weeks of revenue shortfalls by what he said could amount to about 100 enterprises.

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GENEVA — Peace activists unfurled a huge banner in Lake Geneva on Wednesday calling on the Russian and U.S. presidents to slash their nuclear arsenals.

Campaigners in a sailboat spread the banner, reading “Peace and Security Through Disarmament,” in the water so that it could be seen from the sky soon before Russian President Vladimir Putin landed at the Geneva airport for a summit with U.S. President Joe Biden.

It was an initiative by Swiss anti-nuclear group Campax, which is urging the leaders to not only get rid of existing warheads but also stop investing in developing new ones, arguing that would set an example for other nuclear powers.

The action was among multiple mini-protests around Wednesday’s summit, their first since Biden took office.

The leaders are expected to talk about arms control. Anti-nuclear groups say the U.S. and Russia account for nearly 90% of the world’s nuclear arsenals.

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GENEVA — President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin have finished the first round of their summit talks Wednesday and are proceeding to the first of two larger meetings in Geneva.

Biden and Putin first met accompanied by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and a pair of translators.

Two additional sessions are planned Wednesday afternoon with the leaders to be joined by additional aides and translators.

On the U.S. side, the larger meetings are set to include Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan and National Security Council Russia experts Eric Green and Stergos Kaloudis.

The Russian delegation is to include Lavrov, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov, Lavrov’s deputy Sergei Ryabkov, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian military Gen. Valery Gerasimov, Russian ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov, as well as Kremlin envoys on Ukraine and Syria and Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Overall, the summit is projected to last four to five hours before each leader holds a press conference.

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GENEVA — President Joe Biden’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin began with minutes of unusually fierce shoving and shouting among U.S. and Russian journalists and security forces.

Organizers at Wednesday’s summit in Geneva opened the meeting room to journalists for what’s normally a few minutes of news media filming and shouting questions before talks start.

On Wednesday, however, Russian and U.S. security forces and officials initially blocked journalists as they tried to enter the room.

The scene then devolved into minutes of chaos inside the meeting room.

American journalists described Russian security and news media grabbing them by the arms and clothes to try to hold them back. U.S. journalists tried to shoulder their way in, and a U.S. reporter was knocked to the ground.

Before the scene calmed, some in the crowd shouted they were being crushed in the melee.

Biden and Putin initially sat awkwardly in front of the press, but then watched and at times laughed at the tumult.

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WASHINGTON — The White House says that President Joe Biden was not suggesting to reporters that he trusts Russian President Vladimir Putin with his reaction to a reporter’s question in Geneva.

At the start of a high-stakes summit in Geneva, Biden appeared to suggest that he can take the Russian leader at his word, nodding his head during a photo opportunity when asked by a reporter if Putin can be trusted.

Communications director Kate Bedingfield said later there was a “chaotic scrum with reporters shouting over each other” in that moment.

She argued that Biden “was very clearly not responding to any one question” when a journalist asked if he trusted Putin.

Journalists and security officials were shoving to get into the small room where Biden and Putin are meeting.

Bedingfield said Biden was “nodding in acknowledgment to the press generally.”

She noted that Biden on Monday told reporters that his approach with Putin would be to “verify, then trust.”

Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki later said that the president “wasn’t responding to any question or anything other than the chaos.”

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GENEVA — Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked President Joe Biden and expressed wishes for a “productive” meeting as the two kicked off their meeting in Geneva Wednesday.

Putin told Biden upon first meeting him he was thankful for the gathering as he knew the U.S. president “had a long trip and lots of work.” But the Russian president emphasized that there are “lots of questions accumulated in Russia-U.S. relations that require discussion on the highest level.”

The two are expected to address everything from cybercrime to Russia’s alleged interference in U.S. elections during their meeting.

Biden, who has spoken to Putin over the phone, told the Russian leader that “it is always better to meet face to face.”

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GENEVA — Swiss President Guy Parmelin welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden for the start of their summit under blue skies, wishing them a “fruitful dialogue” in Geneva — which he touted as a “city of peace.”

It was a moment in the sun for Switzerland both literally and figuratively.

Parmelin, whom Swiss media have poked fun at for his allegedly poor English, spoke in French — his native language and one historically associated with fine diplomacy. He used the opportunity to promote Switzerland’s image for neutrality and as a hub of international diplomacy.

“Switzerland is very honored to welcome you for this summit, and it is delighted — in line with its tradition of good offices — to support dialogue and mutual understanding,” said Parmelin, flanked by Putin and Biden on the steps of Villa La Grange, the 18th century manor house overlooking Lake Geneva that hosted the landmark U.S.-Russia summit on Wednesday.

“I wish you both, Mr. Presidents, a fruitful dialogue in the interest of your two countries and the world,” he said.

He then quipped “Best wishes, and goodbye” in both English and Russian.

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GENEVA — President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are starting their diplomatic talks in Geneva.

The two were first greeted by the Swiss president before sitting down for a small meeting that includes just Biden, Putin, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, with a translator for each side. They’ll then move to larger talks, which will include more senior aides and are expected to last hours.

The two plan to discuss everything from cybercrime to Russia’s alleged interference in America’s elections, as well as arms control and Russia’s intrusion in Ukraine.

Both sides have played down expectations for any major breakthroughs, but both Biden and Putin have stressed the need to restore more stable relations between the two nations.

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GENEVA — President Joe Biden has arrived at the 18th-century manor house in Geneva where he’ll hold high-profile talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Biden is set to meet in person with the Russian president for the first time in a decade. He last met Putin when the Russian leader was prime minister and Biden was serving as vice president, in March of 2011. He has since called Putin both a “killer” and a “worthy adversary.”

The two are likely to discuss some issues that also were central to their 2011 meeting, like trade and arms control. But this meeting comes at a low point in diplomatic relations between the two nations.

Biden says he hopes to find areas of “cooperation” with Putin, but he’s also expected to confront the Russian president on cybercrime, Russia’s interference in U.S. elections and other issues that have contributed to frosty relations between the two countries.

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GENEVA — Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is frequently late at high-level meetings, arrived on time at the 18th century Villa La Grange in Geneva for his high-stakes summit with President Joe Biden.

The Russian leader landed in Geneva and traveled to the summit venue, located in the Swiss city’s largest park, in a Russian-made Aurus limousine that was airlifted from Moscow for the summit along with a fleet of other vehicles.

Putin, 68, who has received a Russian-made vaccine against the coronavirus, wasn’t wearing a mask. However members of his delegation were wearing masks.

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GENEVA — Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived at a lakeside villa in Geneva for his summit with U.S. President Joe Biden.

The two leaders are set to start their meeting accompanied by their top diplomats and a pair of translators. Other senior officials plan to join them for two successive rounds of talks that are expected to last for several hours Wednesday.

Topics on the summit agenda include strategic stability, cyber security, climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and the Arctic. Putin and Biden also are expected to cover regional crises in Ukraine, Syria and Libya, as well as the Iranian nuclear program and Afghanistan.

Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, sought to moderate expectations for the summit but strongly emphasized the meeting’s importance amid the strained ties between Moscow and Washington.

“It’s the first such meeting that takes place at a time when the bilateral relations are extremely bad,” Ushakov told reporters this week. “Both parties realize it’s time to start dealing with the issues that have piled up.”

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GENEVA – Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in the Swiss city of Geneva for a summit with U.S. President Joe Biden.

Their meeting comes amid soaring Russia-U.S. tensions. The summit agenda covers a broad range of issues, from arms control and cybercrime to the pandemic and a diplomatic tug-of-war between Moscow and Washington.

The White House and the Kremlin have sought to downplay expectations for Wednesday’s summit. But Biden and Putin have both emphasized the importance of a direct dialogue to try to negotiate a more stable and predictable relationship despite the sharp policy differences between the United States and Russia.

Ties between the two powers have remained at post-Cold War lows over Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, accusations of Russian interference in elections, hacking attacks and other irritants.

The two leaders are scheduled to meet for four or five hours at a lakeside mansion.

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GENEVA — The acting chief of protocol for the Geneva region says staff members at the villa where U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are meeting will keep face masks on during the summit even if the two leaders don’t.

Geneva authorities require the wearing of masks in public, though there are exceptions. The requirement holds particularly in places with a lot of pedestrian traffic, such as shopping areas.

Marion Bordier Bueschi, who is managing the grand lakeside mansion that will serve as the summit site, told The Associated Press that staffers inside Villa La Grange were already wearing masks.

She said Putin and Biden would likely not wear masks during their talks on Wednesday. She noted that both leaders have been vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19 have dropped across Switzerland, and authorities are planning steps to ease the mask requirement later this month.

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GENEVA — U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are both coming to the summit table in Geneva with their own agendas and non-negotiable red lines. There will be no talk of a “reset” in U.S.-Russian relations.

Biden and his aides have made clear that he will not follow in the footsteps of his recent predecessors by aiming to radically alter the United States’ ties to Russia. Instead, the White House is looking to move toward a more predictable relationship and attempt to rein in Russia’s disruptive behavior.

Biden will push Putin on Wednesday to stop meddling in democratic elections, to ease tensions with Ukraine and to stop giving safe harbor to hackers carrying out cyber and ransomware attacks. Aides believe that lowering the temperature with Russia will also reinforce the United States’ ties to democracies existing in Moscow’s shadow.

Putin also won’t be expecting a new détente to mend the rift caused by Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Nor does he count on a rollback of the crippling U.S. and EU sanctions that have restricted Moscow’s access to global financial markets and top Western technologies.

Putin’s task now is more modest — to spell out Russia’s top security concerns and try to restore basic channels of communication that would prevent an even more dangerous destabilization. The main red line for Moscow is Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO.

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GENEVA — A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin cautioned that Putin’s talks with U.S. President Joe Biden “will not be easy” or likely yield any breakthroughs.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told The Associated Press a few hours before the Russia-U.S. summit in Geneva on Wednesday that the topics on the broad agenda “are mostly problematic.”

“We have many long-neglected questions that need to be trawled through. That’s why President Putin is arriving with an attitude to frankly and constructively set questions and try to find solutions,” Peskov said.

“No, this day cannot become historic, and we shouldn’t expect any breakthroughs. The situation is too difficult in Russian-American relations,” he continued. “However, the fact that the two presidents agreed to meet and finally start to speak openly about the problems is already an achievement. We can say that without having started yet, the summit already has a positive result, but we should not await breakthroughs.”

Peskov said the bilateral issues Russia wants to discuss include strategic stability, arms control, cooperation in regional conflicts, cooperation on the pandemic, and climate change.

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GENEVA — U.S. President Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin are set to meet for their highly anticipated summit in the Swiss city of Geneva. It’s a moment of high-stakes diplomacy that comes as both leaders agree that U.S.-Russian relations are at an all-time low.

For four months, the two leaders have traded sharp rhetoric. Biden has repeatedly called out Putin for malicious cyberattacks by Russian-based hackers on U.S. interests, for disregard of democracy in the jailing of Russia’s top opposition leader and for interfering in American elections.

Their talks on Wednesday are expected to last four to five hours. In advance, both sides set out to lower expectations. Arrangements for the meeting have been carefully choreographed and vigorously negotiated by both sides.

Putin and his entourage will arrive first at the summit site: Villa La Grange, a grand lakeside mansion set in Geneva’s biggest park. Next come Biden and his team. Swiss President Guy Parmelin will greet the two leaders.

Biden and Putin first will hold a relatively intimate meeting joined by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The talks will then expand to include five senior aides on each side.

After the meeting concludes, Putin is scheduled to hold a solo news conference, with Biden following suit. The White House opted against a joint news conference, deciding it did not want to appear to elevate Putin at a time when the president is urging European allies to pressure Putin to cut out myriad provocations.

Retirement reality check: Will it be a dream or a nightmare? Your call.

As you get closer to retirement, do you find yourself smiling a lot, or sweating? Has the sudden rise in inflation jump started thoughts about the price of food, housing, travel, medicine and what a gallon of gas may cost in 20 years?

Some people can, do and should retire the first day they can. Better yet, if they are two high-paid long time feds whose starting annuity will be good and their TSP balance enough to see them through a happy, prosperous retirement. But for others retiring early — unless you are dying to join a year round shuffle-board group — might not be such a good move. Retirement could easily last 20 or 30 years — in some cases longer than you actually worked — so dollars-down-the-road are a major consideration. Or should be.

Unless you really, really love your job more than you think you’ll like inhabiting leisure world, the best bet for many is to set a first-possible-date then maybe keep working for another 1, 2 or 5 years. The financial rewards can be astounding:

By working another two years — from 60 to 62 — an employee earning $80,000 per year can boost their retirement income by almost $30,000. That’s an example of the time-is-money slogan. Big time.

My guest on Your Turn today is benefits expert Tammy Flanagan. She invented the best-days-to-retire concept. This morning at 10 am. ET streaming here or on the radio at 1500 AM in the D.C. area, she will talk about how working just a few years longer can make a massive difference in your lifetime flow of income. If you have questions for her, send them to me before showtime at mcausey@federalnewsnetwork.com.

Tammy says that just working slightly longer, retiring later than you planned can have a big time payoff. And it’s particularly true for federal workers. Most are under the Federal Employees Retirement System, which offers them benefits based on a civil service annuity (for life and partially indexed to inflation), Social Security (fully indexed to inflation) and whatever they have in their Thrift Savings Plan. Although they are likely to have more in retirement than a private sector employee earning the same salary, chances are their total income will be reduced in retirement. So financially, the longer you work the more you have to spend in retirement. And if you never retire, well, do the math.

Her theme for the show is Stop, Look and Reconsider. Here’s a preview:

Remember the “Retirement Countdown” clocks? Do they even still exist? Under the CSRS system, it was pretty simple to decide when it was time to retire. Once you were age 55, or later if you had less than 30 years of service, it made sense to retire. Set that clock and the countdown is on! Under FERS, it isn’t as easy to determine when the time is right. First of all, many retirees today want to maintain the same lifestyle, spend time traveling, and spoil the kids and grandkids. If so, you may need to replace your take home salary – and then some! Another problem is that your single paycheck is being replaced by potentially three or more streams of income: FERS retirement, TSP withdrawals, and Social Security. For some, there may be other retirement savings accounts and other pension benefits payable such as a military retirement benefit. When figuring out the shortfall or the overage, be sure to include tax withholding from each source of income along with any withholdings for insurance (FEHB, FEGLI, FEDVIP, FLTCIP, and Medicare). When it comes to withdrawing from your TSP, the sky’s the limit, but there’s no guarantee of lifetime income, so caution is required when designing a drawdown plan for your savings. For the FERS basic benefit, be sure that your federal service is creditable for eligibility and calculation. If you owe money to the retirement fund for pre-1989 non-FERS covered federal employment, military service or refunded FERS contributions – factor that into your planning. Are you married or divorced? Have you contemplated survivor benefit elections and former spouse entitlement as a result of a past divorce? Also, it is good to know the difference in a deferred, postponed, and the extra bump in the computation if you retire after age 62 with 20 or more years of service. There are lots of moving parts when it comes to navigating the road to retirement.

If you’re lucky (and planned well in advance), you will be able to proceed and retire on your desired date. If not, then you may need to make adjustments which may result in working a little (hopefully, not a lot) longer. Staying at work in the federal government will allow all three of your benefits (FERS, SSA, and TSP) to increase in value. Retiring from federal service and beginning a second (or third) career could also be an option, but be sure to continue living your previous lifestyle and save the rest. You’ll need the additional savings to make up for the possible loss of pension benefits and the reality that now all employers provide matching retirement savings contributions.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Alazar Moges

Because of their long muscular tail, kangaroos can’t move backwards. Their tail lacks flexibility and serves as basically a third leg that limits their motion. The only time you will observe them move slightly in a rearward motion is during a fight to avoid injury.

Source: World Atlas

Archives for June 2021

Nearly Useless Factoid

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