内容摘要：Alvaro Velasco, 66, placed tape over the eyes of a juvenile to help it remain calm during transport.

Alvaro Velasco, 66, placed tape over the eyes of a juvenile to help it remain calm during transport.

“Successive US administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs,” Moody’s said in a news release last week.“Over more than a decade, US federal debt has risen sharply due to continuous fiscal deficits. During that time, federal spending has increased while tax cuts have reduced government revenues,” it said.

The downgrade marked the first time Moody’s has lowered Washington’s credit score since 1949, the year it began rating US government debt.Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has said he would balance the budget while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has repeatedly said the administration is aiming to lower its borrowing costs.But Trump’s attempts to cut spending through Elon Musk’s

Department of Government Efficiencyhave fallen far short of its initial goals. As things stand, Washington’s debt is growing by about $1 trillion every three months.

Meanwhile, it is not yet clear if attempts to raise revenues through

– which sparked concerns about a trade war and global slowdown – will work. Most economists think they won’t.So we ate cold food for suhoor and saved the fire for iftar.

After bakeries shut down due to the gas shortage last month, reliance on fire increased – not just for our family but for everyone. Many people built makeshift clay ovens or fires in alleyways or between tents to bake loaves of bread.Thick, black smoke hangs heavy in the air – not the smoke of death from missiles, but the smoke of life that kills us slowly.

Each morning, we wake up coughing – not a passing cough, but a deep, persistent, choking cough that rattles through our chests.Then, my brother and I walk to the edge of our neighbourhood, where a man sells wood from the back of a cart. He gathers it from bombed-out buildings, fallen trees, broken furniture, and the ruins of homes and schools.