Новости за 22.09.2023

Surgeons have transplanted a pig’s heart into a dying man in a bid to prolong his life. He's only the second patient to undergo such an experimental feat. Doctors said Friday that the man was cracking jokes and able to sit in a chair two days after the transplant. The doctors at University of Maryland Medicine said 58-year-old Lawrence Faucette wasn’t eligible for a traditional heart transplant. While the next few weeks will be critical, doctors were thrilled at his early response to the genetically modified pig organ. Читать дальше...

Two federal lawsuits filed over former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s decision last year to place thousands of shipping containers along the U.S.-Mexico border have been dismissed after the state said it would pay the U.S. Forest Service $2.1 million to repair environmental damage. The Sept. 15 dismissal of the cases in U.S. District Court ends the fight over the double-stacked containers placed as a makeshift border wall last year. Ducey sued in U.S. District Court seeking to stop the federal government from preventing placement of the containers. Читать дальше...

The White House is preparing to direct federal agencies to get ready for a shutdown after House Republicans left town for the weekend with no viable plan to keep the government funded. Speaker Kevin McCarthy says the House will return next week to start voting on the latest plan. He has just five days until the Sept. 30 deadline. A hard-right flank of Republicans has essentially seized control and is demanding spending cuts. McCarthy was unable to persuade his rebellious flank to approve a temporary funding measure to prevent closures. Читать дальше...

The Biden administration is appealing a federal judge's order requiring the Interior Department to expand next week’s scheduled sale of Gulf of Mexico oil and gas leases by millions of acres. The Thursday night ruling rejected a scaled-back plan announced last month by the Biden administration as part of an effort to protect an endangered whale species. As originally proposed in March, the Sept. 27 sale was would have made 73 million acres (30 hectares) of offshore tracts available for drilling leases. Читать дальше...

The president of the United Auto Workers said Friday the union will expand its strike against major automakers by walking out of 38 General Motors and Stellantis plants in 20 states.

This week’s new entertainment releases include an album from Ed Sheeran centered on his relationships, a spinoff of “The Bachelor” starring a 72-year-old widower and Wes Anderson returns for a second time this year with “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Jesse L. Martin returns to NBC in “The Irrational,” playing a behavioral science expert with a keen understanding of what makes people tick, and Reba McEntire joins “The Voice” as a coach for a new season. Also, Eve... Читать дальше...

Fall gets its official start this weekend in the Northern Hemisphere. This year's autumnal equinox arrives on Saturday. But what does that mean? The Earth's axis is tilted at an angle as it travels around the sun. On the equinox, the Earth's orbit lines up so both hemispheres get the same amount of sunlight. This means day and night last about the same amount of time, and marks the start of a new season. Solstices are the opposite. They happen when the Earth is tilted most strongly toward or away from the sun... Читать дальше...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is "at the cusp” of a historic breakthrough leading to a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia. In an address to the U.N. General Assembly on Friday, Netanyahu said “peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia will truly create a new Middle East.” The U.S. has been seeking to broker an agreement in which Saudi Arabia would normalize relations with Israel in exchange for a U.S. defense pact, aid in developing a civilian nuclear program and progress toward creating a Palestinian state. Читать дальше...

Across New York City, civil society groups and large philanthropies meet on the sidelines of the United Nations while world leaders gather at the annual General Assembly. Nonprofit organizations send their senior leaders at significant expense to make sure their voices are heard in the right rooms. Activists come from around the world to try to influence the decisions of international politicians. Many staffers who keep NGOs running day-to-day gather to chart new paths forward. This year, many civil... Читать дальше...

Two Virginia Beach parents have filed a lawsuit seeking to force their local school system to adopt Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s new model policies for the treatment of transgender students. The lawsuit alleges that local school boards must enact the policies adopted earlier this year by the Youngkin administration. Those policies roll back many accommodations for transgender students urged by the previous Democratic administration. Last month, the Virginia Beach School Board narrowly... Читать дальше...

European Union antitrust enforcers have slapped Intel with a fresh $400 million fine in a long-running legal fight that the chipmaker appeared to have won last year. The European Commission imposed the fine Friday after a court threw out an original 1.06 billion-euro penalty issued in 2009 over allegations that the company used illegal sales tactics to shut out smaller rival AMD. The 27-nation EU top antitrust watchdog accused Intel of abusing its dominant position in the global market for x86 microprocessors... Читать дальше...

Amazon’s Prime Video will begin showing adds during shows and movies early next year, joining other streaming services that have added different tiers of subscriptions. The company said Friday that members of Amazon Prime can pay $2.99 per month in the U.S. to keep their service ad-free. Amazon says limited advertisements will be aired during shows and movies starting early next year so that it can “continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of... Читать дальше...

Smog containing gases from a restive Philippine volcano has sickened dozens of students and prompted 25 nearby towns and cities to shut their schools as a health precaution. Authorities say there is no imminent threat of a major eruption of Taal Volcano, which remains at a low level of unrest in Batangas province south of Manila. But they say its emission of sulfur dioxide-laden steam in recent days caused skin, throat and eye irritation for at least 45 students in nearby towns. Classes were suspended... Читать дальше...

Massachusetts has about 184,000 people on a waitlist for the state’s public housing. Yet a WBUR and ProPublica investigation found that nobody is living in nearly 2,300 state-funded apartments, with most sitting empty for months or years due to state and local mismanagement. Units have been vacant for years because the state implemented a flawed online waitlist system and has provided insufficient funding for staff and building repairs.

Many baseball fans, especially older ones, originally fell in love with America’s pastime by listening to ballgames on AM radio. In fact, next month will mark the 100th anniversary of the first World Series broadcast to a national radio audience. But a century later, some consider AM stations a dying medium in the modern age of digital technology. Several major automakers are eliminating broadcast AM radio from newer models, prompting lawmakers on Capitol Hill to propose legislation that would prevent the practice for safety and other reasons. Читать дальше...

British competition regulators has signaled that Microsoft’s restructured $69 billion deal to buy video game maker Activision Blizzard is likely to receive antitrust approval. The Competition and Markets Authority said Friday that the revamped proposal “substantially addresses previous concerns” about stifling competition in the emerging cloud gaming market. The watchdog says the updated offer “opens the door to the deal being cleared,” though there are lingering concerns. Microsoft has offered remedies... Читать дальше...

The Justice Department says a contractor for the U.S. government who is originally from Ethiopia has been arrested on espionage charges, accused of providing a foreign country classified information that he downloaded and printed from his work computer system. The contractor is identified as Abraham Teklu Lemma; he had a top secret security clearance and access to classified information through contracting positions with the departments of State and Justice. According to court documents, he used... Читать дальше...

Asian shares are mixed after another slump on Wall Street driven by expectations for U.S. interest rates to stay high well into next year. Hong Kong and Shanghai advanced while Tokyo, Seoul and Sydney declined. Oil prices were higher. Japan's central bank kept its benchmark interest rate at minus 0.1% as expected but pledged flexibility in its policies. On Thursday, the S&P 500 lost 1.6%, its worst drop since March. Big Tech stocks have tumbled after the Federal Reserve indicated Wednesday it... Читать дальше...

President Joe Biden’s education chief says he’s open to using “whatever levers” are available — including federal money — to discourage colleges from giving preference to the children of alumni and donors. In an interview with The Associated Press, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona says legacy admissions must be revisited for the sake of diversity on campuses following the recent Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action. In a step beyond his previous comments, Cardona says he will consider taking stronger action to deter the practice. Читать дальше...

After a dip in illegal crossings that followed policy changes in May, the Biden administration is again on its heels as more asylum-seekers cross the U.S. border from Mexico. In Southern California, migrants camp in remote mountains waiting to be processed. In Eagle Pass, Texas, nearly 9,000 migrants have arrived this week, prompting authorities to close a border crossing to reassign officials to the influx. Border crossings have closed for similar reasons in San Diego and El Paso, Texas. On Wednesday... Читать дальше...

Marie Ronny and Kyan Bovee expect their futures to take off. Literally. The Black teens from Detroit are part of a free program teaching youths aged 14 to 19 how to fly. The Tuskegee Airmen Flight Academy also exposes students to careers in aviation, an industry in which people of color are traditionally underrepresented. Their classrooms are the skies above Detroit’s Coleman A. Young municipal airport and inside a hangar also serving as home to the Tuskegee Airmen National Museum. The program offers... Читать дальше...

A top official of upcoming international climate negotiations hopes to prove critics wrong and surprise them with a “course correction” for an ever-warming world. But don’t expect that big a turn. In an interview with The Associated Press, Adnan Amin says he also knows what activists, critics and the head of the United Nations really want – a phase-out of fossil fuels that cause climate change. He says it looks unlikely, but a lesser phase-down is inevitable. Amin is the CEO and No. 2 official at... Читать дальше...

Some medical providers are dropping continuing gender-affirming care for minors, even though it remains legal. In Missouri and North Dakota, health systems and advocates blame provisions in the laws that would make it easier to sue doctors and their employers for injuries related to the treatment, even many years later. At least 22 states have enacted bans or restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors in the past few years. Some of them allow puberty blockers and hormone therapy to continue for children who have already started it. Читать дальше...

Lahaina residents are bracing for what they'll find when they return to the ruins of their homes after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century killed at least 97 people and destroyed thousands of buildings. Authorities on Monday will begin escorting the first residents back into the burn zone. For many it will be the first time back to their properties since the Aug. 8 wildfire. Darryl Oliveira, Maui Emergency Management Agency interim administrator, says the goal of the supervised visits... Читать дальше...

Australia’s government has reported a $14.2 billion budget surplus for the last fiscal year. It's the first time the nation’s books have been balanced in 15 years, with the government citing low unemployment and high prices for the country's commodities, including iron ore, coal and gas. The surplus confirmed Friday for the year that ended June 30 is larger than the $2.8 billion result forecast in May. But Treasurer Jim Chalmers says he is not anticipating another budget surplus for the current fiscal year. Читать дальше...