Japan’s central bank on Tuesday raised interest rates for the first time since 2007, taking them above zero and closing a chapter in its aggressive bid to stimulate an economy that has long struggled to grow.

In 2016, the Bank of Japan took the unorthodox step of cutting borrowing costs below zero, an effort to revive borrowing and lending and stimulate the country’s stagnant economy. Negative interest rates – which central banks in some European economies have also adopted – mean savers pay to leave their money in a bank, giving them an incentive to spend it instead.

But Japan’s economy has recently begun to show signs of stronger growth: After years of low inflation, inflation has accelerated, boosted by larger-than-usual wage increases. Both are indications that the economy may be on a path to more sustainable growth, allowing the central bank to tighten its interest rate policy, years after other major central banks quickly raised rates in response to a jump in inflation.

Even after Tuesday’s rate hike, Japan’s interest rates are far behind those of the world’s other major developed economies. The Bank of Japan’s policy rate was raised to a series zero to 0.1 percent of minus 0.1 percent.

The bank said in a statement on Tuesday that it had concluded that the economy was in a “virtuous cycle” between wages and prices, meaning wages rose enough to cover rising prices, but not so much that they would limit corporate profits. Japan’s headline inflation rate was 2.2 percent in January, according to the latest available data.

The central bank also scrapped a policy of buying Japanese government bonds to control how high market interest rates can rise, encouraging companies and households to borrow cheaply. The bank had slowly eased policy over the past year, resulting in higher debt yields as the country’s growth prospects improved.

The bank said negative interest rates and other steps it had taken to stimulate the economy “have fulfilled their role.”

In many countries, a rise in inflation has troubled consumers and policymakers, but in Japan, which has often suffered from growth-sapping deflation, the recent price rise was welcomed by most economists. The Japanese stock market, buoyed by the bullish economy and corporate reforms that favor shareholders, has attracted large sums of money from investors around the world, causing the Nikkei 225 index to recently break a record high since 1989. The Nikkei rose slightly on Tuesday after the Bank of Japan’s announcement.

The move away from negative interest rates, which should help shore up the country’s weak currency, is seen by investors as another key step in Japan’s turnaround.

“It is another milestone in the normalization of monetary policy in Japan,” said Arnout van Rijn, portfolio manager at Robeco, who set up and led the Dutch fund manager’s Asia office for more than a decade. “As a long-term Japan follower, this is very important.”

Bets on a rate hike intensified this month after the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, the country’s largest association of trade unions, said its seven million members would get pay increases averaging more than 5 percent this year, the biggest annual negotiated increase since 1991. contributed to an average wage increase of approximately 3.6 percent in 2023.

Before the results of the wage negotiations were announced, investors had expected the Bank of Japan to wait longer before raising interest rates.

Accelerating wage growth is a crucial sign to policymakers that the economy is strong enough to generate some inflation and is able to withstand higher interest rates. Like other major central banks, the Bank of Japan targets annual inflation of 2 percent; the rate is already almost at or above that level two years.

The increase in wages indicates that companies and employees expect higher prices to continue, Van Rijn said. “People no longer believe that prices will fall, so that trickles down to wage demands.”

The Bank of Japan concluded in its statement that “it is very likely that wages will continue to rise steadily this year, following strong wage growth last year.”

Shizuka Nakamura, 32, a resident of Yokohama, a port city south of Tokyo, said she had seen prices rise. “I feel the rising cost of living,” said Ms. Nakamura, who has an administrative job at a construction company. She recently had a child.

“My friends who are around my age and have had children all say things like diapers and baby food are getting more expensive,” she said.

The Bank of Japan’s interest rate move was also significant because it was the last major central bank to abandon its negative interest rate policy. They and central banks in Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and the eurozone have broken monetary policy taboos by pushing interest rates below zero – essentially meaning savers pay banks to hold their money and creditors get less back than lend them out – in an attempt to spur economic growth after the 2008 financial crisis. (Sweden ended negative rates in 2019, and the other European central banks followed in 2022.)

Negative central bank policy rates have rocked global bond markets, with more than $18 trillion of debt trading at negative yields at its peak in 2020. Now that inflation and economic growth have returned and central banks are cutting policy rates, have increased – usually much more aggressively than Japanese – virtually none – debt now has a negative yield.

Rising interest rates in Japan make investing in the country relatively more rewarding for investors, but the Federal Reserve’s target interest rate is still about five percentage points higher and the European Central Bank’s four points higher. While foreign investors have started to funnel cash into the country, yields abroad are still attractive for Japanese investors, even as the Fed and ECB are expected to cut interest rates, prompting a rapid repatriation of cash to Japan is hindered.

Central bankers in Japan have also suggested a slow shift in policy, wary that raising rates too quickly could undermine growth before it takes hold.

Kiuko Notoya reporting contributed.

Like thousands of people in southern Arizona, Josh Ramos' fate is intertwined with the University of Arizona. His mother's job as an accountant at the university supports Mr. Ramos's family and education by making him eligible for a degree. discount that reduces his tuition fees by 75 percent.

“This job has brought us a lot of stability,” said Mr. Ramos, 18, a freshman.

But the University of Arizona surprised the state late last year by announcing a $177 million award shortage in its annual budget of over $2 billion. As the 40,000-student campus prepares for layoffs, Mr. Ramos is concerned. About his mother's work. About having to drop out. About the future of his family.

And the entire state is concerned that Southern Arizona will suffer as the region's largest, most trusted employer loses credibility and trust.

The unrest has shaken the heavily Democratic city of Tucson, where many residents and university officials blame mismanagement at the top.

They say university leaders have landed in catastrophe by spending millions of dollars on top salaries, athletics, risky expansion efforts and tuition subsidies for out-of-state students. Now they worry that middle-class workers and Arizona students will be hit hardest by budget cuts.

“It will touch the heart of Tucson,” said Leila Hudson, associate professor and chair of the faculty.

Other flagship public schools including Penn State And University of West Virginia have recently suffered budget cuts due to inflation and declining enrollment. But the problems in Arizona irritated many people there, because the school was flourishing. The number of students and income are increasing and the university is making money more money from research subsidies and government funding.

University administrators say inflation, the pandemic and widespread overspending have contributed to the financial problems, and they are trying to balance the budget without hurting the university's academics or research. They say that despite the shortage, the university is not in danger of running out of money.

“The university has lost some credibility in the community, and we need to regain some trust,” John Arnold, the interim chief financial officer, said in an interview. Mr. Arnold is also executive director of the Arizona Board of Regents, which oversees Arizona's public universities.

The university's response has failed to satisfy critics and Democrat Katie Hobbs. In a letter She told university leaders last month that there was “no coherent vision” for a way forward, criticizing the school for a lack of accountability and transparency and threatening to change its leadership.

To some, the financial mess points to a widening class divide in higher education, where top administrators and coaches can earn $1 million a year while lower-level instructors and part-time teachers say they get by on less than $50,000.

Faculty members say they have already been furloughed during the pandemic, and teaching positions and staff jobs have remained empty in recent years. As they struggled to keep up, they said, the university bought a struggling for-profit online university and spent more than $60 million to keep the athletic department afloat.

University President Robert C. Robbins struck an optimistic tone on Feb. 9 update who described the school's financial plans and said, “I am confident that together we will emerge from this challenge stronger.”

But that hasn't allayed the fear and anger on campus that grew after The Arizona Daily Star reported that Lisa Rulney, the university's chief financial officer, who resigned amid the mess, had stayed on as a consultant and was still receiving a $500,000 salary. Ms Rulney did not respond to requests for comment.

“We're all on the same stormy sea, but they're in yachts and we're in rafts,” said Gary Rhoades, an education professor who has spent months poring over the university's spending to understand the roots of the problems.

The university has now frozen hiring and pay increases, and faculty members who have been following the budget discussions said they are bracing for as many as 1,000 job losses. Earlier this month, the government asked individual schools and departments to outline cuts from 5 to 15 percent.

A union representing campus workers says a handful of people on one-year contracts have already been fired.

Students and campus employees have responded by holding protests outside the administration building, urging leaders to “cut off the top.”

They urged the university to start with its dozens of vice presidents, rather than targeting rank-and-file employees. Mr. Arnold, the interim head of finance, said the university would scrutinize “every” vice president. Expanding bureaucracies have also plagued and led to other universities and colleges higher administrative costs and tuition fees.

The gap between the university's five- and six-figure workforce is particularly acute in a city like Tucson, population 540,000, where an influx of buyers during the pandemic has pushed median home prices to $$$.385,000 from about $250,000.

Even the university food bank is burdensome: It announced this winter that rising prices and more users had forced it to stop offering hygiene products and cut back on some of its food options.

“I'm so excited to work here, and I feel like the school isn't excited to have me,” said Spencer Gantt, who works in information technology and is a member of United Campus Workers Arizona, the local union that represents the most of the demonstrations against layoffs.

Jobs like Mr. Gantt's are perhaps among the most vulnerable. A financial plan released this month showed that the university would make cuts in administrative areas such as human resources, marketing, communications and, to Mr. Gantt's dismay, information technology.

“I'm very scared,” he said. He worried that he wouldn't have a job in a month and said he didn't even know if he was at risk of being fired. He's putting off changing the oil in his Toyota Corolla until he has some certainty.

Some students and employees say they are noticing the consequences of the money problems. Samantha Gonsalves Wetherell, 21, said she was saddened that the university was delaying the release of a climate action plan, which she spent much of her student years helping to create.

“We are all looking for answers, but no one knows,” says Maria Sohn Hasman, program coordinator at the university. “I wake up every day wondering if this is the day I'm going to be fired.”

The university has yet to detail any cuts, but says it plans to save $27 million by permanently eliminating positions. It also said it would hire outside consultants to scrutinize the athletics department's finances and a polarizing new online venture, the University of Arizona Global Campus.

The university started the program by paying $1 in 2020 to acquire a for-profit online school called Ashford University. The deal added tens of thousands of new online students to the university's roster.

But critics say it also saddles the university with more than $200 million in new costs and ties the university to a school that stands And federal Officials say students have been duped by being misled about the cost and value of their degrees, leaving them with little other than debt.

Tuesday the Arizona Board of Regents released a report detailing how and why it acquired Ashford, in response to Arizona's governor demanding more information about the deal. The board said it had not “set aside” concerns about Ashford's business practices, and said Ashford had assured the university that those “practices had been corrected.”

Attorneys representing Ashford's parent company did not respond to requests for comment.

The university said its global campus has been “cash positive” for the university to date, largely because the university received a cash infusion with the acquisition. According to the university's budget projections, the global campus is expected to have a $2.5 million deficit this budget year but will make money next year.

Pam Scott, university spokeswoman, said the new campus will allow the university to “provide access to high-quality, world-class education to thousands of additional students – students who might not otherwise have the opportunity.” Since the takeover, the university says it has shifted its focus from recruiting students to keeping students in school and on the path to success.

With almost 17,000 employeesthe university is the largest employer in the Tucson area, and it says it's pumping it through $4 billion every year in the economy.

Even amid the turmoil, the sunny, red-brick campus bustles with energy and academic achievement.

Huge mirrors, built in a university laboratory under the football stands, are used to see into the deepest corners of the room. Students in a campus building that resembles a desert canyon are busy learning about sustainable desert agriculture. Scientists who have pioneered the science of studying tree rings are using them to decipher climate change and ancient disasters.

One afternoon last week, Hadi Alim, 22, flew by as he pondered whether his family would have a future on campus. His father, who maintains the university's computer networks, has started driving for Uber in case he loses his job.

Mr Alim, a university student studying sustainable built environments, pays his own tuition, which he said he was only able to afford because of the discount he receives as the son of an employee. He said he went to study abroad, somewhere cheaper, as a way out.

“I'm just trying to take it one day at a time,” he said, “and graduate as quickly as possible.”

The United States has experienced an increase in clean energy projects, representing more than $200 billion new investments since President Biden signed a comprehensive climate bill into law over a year ago. But the election and the potential for a Republican takeover are raising concerns that key parts of the law could be upended.

Former President Donald J. Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, has repeatedly attacked central elements of the Inflation Reduction Act, including tax breaks for purchasing electric vehicles. As a result, business leaders have faced questions in recent weeks about the possibility that the legislation could be rolled back or changed in ways that could impact their clean energy investment decisions.

Republican lawmakers have tried unsuccessfully to repeal much of the law since it passed entirely with Democratic votes in 2022. Company officials and energy researchers say a broad repeal of the law remains unlikely as many new projects create jobs and generate investment. in Republican districts.

But a Republican administration would most likely try to influence the programs in other ways, such as through regulatory changes that would not require an act of Congress. That could have a significant impact on which companies and industries benefit from the programs and could hinder the achievement of the Biden administration's climate goals.

“We have to win the presidency and both houses” of Congress, said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “Otherwise it's all on the chopping block.”

The Inflation Reduction Act includes several tax credits and other subsidies to encourage companies to deploy more clean energy projects. It also includes tax breaks for consumers to offset the costs of electric vehicles, heat pumps and other energy-efficient appliances.

Thomas Pyle, the president of the American Energy Alliance, which represents fossil fuel interests, said a “large portion” of the bill's provisions would most likely be on Republicans' “target list.”

For example, a new administration could impose stricter requirements on the types of electric vehicles that qualify for the $7,500 tax credit, Mr. Pyle said. Some Republican lawmakers have already pushed for stricter limits on electric vehicle parts in an effort to boost domestic production and reduce the country's dependence on China. That could reduce the number of eligible vehicles, potentially hindering progress toward the Biden administration's goal of having electric vehicles make up half of new car sales by 2030.

Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, said a Republican administration could also try to limit the number of locations eligible for tax credits that offset the cost of installing electric vehicle charging stations. The Biden administration has released guidelines allowing a wide range of locations, covering much of the country outside major cities, to qualify.

Mr. Trump has done that important aspects attacked of the bill on the campaign trail, including the electric vehicle tax breaks, which he said were aimed at “rich people” to buy “luxury electric cars.”

“We are a nation whose leaders demand all electric cars, despite the fact that they don't go far, cost too much and whose batteries are produced in China,” Trump said. a meeting in New Hampshire last month.

He also has targeted wind energyarguing that natural gas is a much cheaper option and that wind installations are 'ruining our plains and fields'.

The Trump campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Questions about a possible rollback of the law have begun to permeate calls about corporate profits. In January, John Ketchum, the CEO of NextEra Energy, an energy company that develops and operates renewable projects across the country, was asked about the sustainability of the Inflation Reduction Act's provisions in the event of a “Republican trifecta.” In response, Mr. Ketchum said he thought a repeal was unlikely because many of the benefits flowed to Republican states and rural communities.

“It certainly benefits Democrats for obvious reasons, but it also has a big benefit for Republicans,” Mr. Ketchum said.

For now, clean energy business leaders are betting that Republicans would have a hard time repealing the legislation even if they controlled both chambers of Congress. Since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, more than half of announced major clean energy projects and 67 percent of all announced jobs related to them have been in Republican districts, according to an analysis by E2, a nonprofit environmental organization.

“It's not like it's going to be a piece of cake for Republicans to do this,” Mr. Pyle said.

And some changes in the law could be welcomed by the US industry.

A Republican administration could make it easier for companies to access lucrative tax breaks for hydrogen production, said Sasha Mackler, executive director of the energy program at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Biden administration officials have proposed strict limits on the credit aimed at encouraging hydrogen production with the least impact on carbon emissions. Most hydrogen is currently made from natural gas, through a process that produces greenhouse gases. Environmental groups and some hydrogen developers have praised the rules, but other companies and industry groups have criticized the proposal.

David Carroll, chief renewables officer at Engie North America, an energy company that builds and operates large-scale solar, wind and battery storage projects, said in an interview that officials were watching potential rollbacks “very, very closely.” While he acknowledged there was a chance the law could be reversed or changed, he said the number of jobs it had brought to Republican-led states like Indiana and Texas would likely play a major role in lawmakers' decision-making.

“If you really look at our development portfolio and what we have invested in, it has primarily benefited Republican districts,” Mr. Carroll said.

White House officials have made the same point by warning of Republican efforts to change the climate law.

“Extreme Republicans in Congress would harm their own constituents by repealing the Inflation Reduction Act, which would eliminate more than 100,000 jobs already created in their districts while raising prices for prescription drugs, health care and utility bills.” , said White House spokesman Michael Kikukawa. said in a statement.

Still, there is an expectation among energy researchers and business groups that Republicans would try to do so roll back parts of the lawpartly because lawmakers will try to offset the costs of extending Trump's tax cuts, which are set to expire in 2025. The estimated cost of the Inflation Reduction Act's energy incentives has actually doubled since it was passed, largely because forecasters believe the legislation will be more popular than they initially expected.

Lori Esposito Murray, chair of the Conference Board's Economic Development Committee, said the issue is reminiscent of Republicans' repeated attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which underwent some changes but largely remained a “viable program.” .

“Business leaders need to keep in mind that policies can change,” Ms Murray said. “How significant these changes will be remains to be seen.”

Jeanna Smialek reporting contributed.

When Buckingham Palace announced on Monday that King Charles III had been diagnosed with cancer and would be suspending his public commitments to undergo treatment, it predictably set off a firestorm of questions.

What kind of cancer? How advanced? What form of treatment? How long would he be sidelined? And the essential, if often unspoken, question when a patient is faced with a potentially existential threat to health: would he survive?

Paradoxically, the palace has fueled this madness by revealing more about the king's medical condition than about Queen Elizabeth II or any other former British monarch. It said this was done at the insistence of Charles himself, who “wanted to share his diagnosis to avoid speculation and in the hope that it could increase public understanding for everyone around the world affected by cancer.”

However well-intentioned the king may have been, the palace's decision to make some facts public and not others – the medical equivalent of half-raising the curtain – raised many more questions than it answered.

Britain now finds itself in an anguished middle ground, aware that its 75-year-old king has a life-threatening illness but not quite sure what that means. Could he live for many more years with treatment, as cancer survivors his age often do? Or should the British gird themselves for the death of a new sovereign?

This search for signposts in a misty landscape was evident from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's comments on Tuesday morning. Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Mr Sunak said he was “shocked and saddened” when he heard the news about Charles. But then he added: “Luckily this was caught early.”

These words of encouragement made headlines in the British news media. But when reporters pressed the spokesman at 10 Downing Street on what Mr Sunak had based his assessment on, they were referred back to the palace's original statement, which praised the “quick intervention” of Charles' medical team.

That four-paragraph document was a tug-of-war between disclosure and omission. The king had 'a form of cancer', which was discovered after his treatment for a 'benign prostate enlargement'. But the statement did not say which species. Palace officials clarified to reporters that it was not prostate cancer, which would have been the most common form of cancer discovered during a prostate procedure.

Now that that was ruled out, cancer experts put forward other theories. “Lung and bladder cancer are also common in older men,” says Mieke Van Hemelrijck, professor of cancer epidemiology at King's College London.

Commenters with no medical experience threw out possibilities: “Lymphoma?” said a royal watcher on Sky News on Monday night. The anchor quickly noticed that this was speculation. On Tuesday, Sky interviewed Joan Bakewell, a 90-year-old journalist and member of the House of Lords who has survived cancer, about the need to come to terms with your mortality.

Buckingham Palace said it would not issue regular bulletins on the king's condition. Palace officials also asked journalists not to attempt to contact doctors or other professionals treating Charles.

On Tuesday, the British media contented themselves with images of Prince Harry arriving at his father's London residence, Clarence House, for a visit. Later, a smiling King and Queen Camilla were photographed in a limousine as they returned to their country retreat at Sandringham, where Charles was recovering from his prostate procedure until last weekend.

That the palace could expect the British tabloids to withdraw from investigating the king's health is a testament to the complicated nature of the relationship between the royal family and the press. While much about the royal family is considered fair game by tabloid editors – from their legal travails to their personal lives – there are some topics on which the news media are less likely to question the family's privacy.

That power dynamic became clear late last year when the Dutch edition of a new book about the royal family included the inflammatory claim that Charles and Catherine, Prince William's wife, had expressed concerns about the skin color of the unborn child of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan.

The author, Omid Scobie, insisted the passage had been included by mistake, and the Dutch publisher withdrew the book from stores – but not before Charles and Catherine's names were widely circulated on social media.

Yet no British news organization published the names until Piers Morgan, a leading broadcaster, reported them on his program. Some media critics expected the palace to take legal action against Mr. Morgan; In the end that didn't happen.

Despite all the limitations in the palace's communications, royal historians pointed out that it had still revealed far more about Charles than previous monarchs – or even than other current members of the royal family.

The king's grandfather, George VI, had surgery in 1951 for what doctors later concluded was lung cancer. The palace withheld most details, adding to the shock when the king died five months later.

Kensington Palace has said little about the abdominal surgery that recently led to Catherine spending almost two weeks in a London hospital. Buckingham Palace informed the public in advance that Charles would enter the same hospital, the London Clinic, to undergo treatment for an enlarged prostate.

Britain's National Health Service reported that its web page with advice on how to deal with an enlarged prostate attracted eleven times as many visitors the day after the announcement as on a normal day. How long patients in the busy NHS have to wait for a prostate procedure is another question.

The tension between the royal family's right to privacy and public interest in it reflects a broader debate in Britain about privacy, a debate that is more acute than that in the United States, especially on issues such as health.

The royal family also fulfills a more ceremonial role in British society than, for example, political leaders, who some argue should be entitled to a certain degree of privacy, although the king has a special role as head of state.

Yet the royal family is not the only British institution under scrutiny for its reluctance to provide medical information. In 2020, Boris Johnson, then Prime Minister, spent three days in the intensive care unit of a London hospital with severe Covid-19. Downing Street published daily updates saying he was in 'extremely good humour'.

Only after he was discharged did Mr Johnson himself acknowledge that the nurses had saved his life by giving him oxygen throughout the night. “It could have gone either way,” he said.