Новости за 19.12.2023

If two of the latest Apple Watches are on your holiday shopping list, don’t dawdle for much longer because the devices won’t be available to buy in the U.S. later this week.

St. Louis political leaders and people connected to a shuttered nursing home are calling for accountability after the facility's sudden, unannounced closure. Northview Village Nursing Home shut down on Friday, with shuttle buses brought in to take residents to more than a dozen other St. Louis-area care centers. Days later, some relatives still haven’t found where their loved ones were sent, and at least one manager said the Northview Village residents arrived at her nursing home without records or medication lists. Читать дальше...

In an unusual series of legal actions, Brazilian prosecutors have sued multinational meatpacker JBS and three smaller slaughterhouses for allegedly buying cattle directly from illegal ranches in a protected area. The lawsuits include a type of evidence that is turning heads among Brazilian environmental autorities — transit documents that purport to show a direct sale of cattle from deforested protected areas to the meatpackers. Usually when deforestation beef is at issue, the cattle have had their origin obscured. Читать дальше...

A state panel says Minnesota’s new state flag should feature an eight-pointed North Star against a dark blue background shaped like the state, with a solid light blue field at the right. The commission picked it Tuesday as a replacement for an older design that many Native Americans consider offensive. Commissioners also finalized a new state seal that depicts a loon. Unless the Legislature rejects them, the new flag and seal become official April 1. The current state flag depicts a Native American... Читать дальше...

Regulators have unanimously approved an additional 6% rate increase to pay for remaining costs at Georgia Power Co.’s Plant Vogtle. The rate increase approved Tuesday is projected to add $8.95 a month to a typical residential customer’s current monthly bill of $157. It would take effect in the first month after Vogtle’s Unit 4 begins commercial operation, projected to be sometime in March. A $5.42 rate increase already took effect when Unit 3 began operating over the summer. The Georgia Public Service... Читать дальше...

New York state will create a commission tasked with considering reparations to address the persistent, harmful effects of slavery in the state under a bill signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday. The bill signing comes at a time when various places throughout the United States attempt to figure out how to best reckon with the country’s dark past. New York now follows California, which became the first state to form a reparations task force in 2020. Other states including Massachusetts and New Jersey have considered similar legislation... Читать дальше...

U.N. Security Council members are in intense negotiations on an Arab-sponsored resolution to spur desperately needed humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza during some kind of a halt in the fighting, trying to avoid another veto by the United States. U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood told reporters Tuesday morning that negotiations were still underway. Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh of the United Arab Emirates said she hoped the council could vote on a resolution early Tuesday afternoon. The council postponed... Читать дальше...

Funeral services are being held for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court. President Joe Biden and Chief Justice John Roberts are scheduled to speak at the Tuesday services. O’Connor was an Arizona native who served as an unwavering voice of moderate conservatism on the high court for more than two decades. The rancher’s daughter was nominated in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan and came to wield considerable influence on the nine-member court. O’Connor retired at age 75 and died Dec. Читать дальше...

Scientists have been anticipating the eruption of a volcano in southwestern Iceland for several weeks and in November, authorities evacuated the fishing town of Grindavik as a precaution. Then, when the eruption happened on Monday night, it wasn't a surprise. Though the area, known broadly as Fagradalsfjall volcano, had been dormant for some 6,000 years, it flared to life in March 2021. The latest eruption appears to be larger and more powerful than those in recent years, but experts say it's unlikely to impact air travel. Читать дальше...

In preparation for 2024, you can shore up your finances by creating some financial New Year’s resolutions for yourself. Some ways you might do this include getting a bank account with a higher interest rate; focusing on student loan repayment by investigating ways to reduce your payment amount; building your financial knowledge and setting goals; using AI chatbots; and setting up recurring donations to a nonprofit organization. By creating a plan for your year, you can motivate yourself to improve... Читать дальше...

Utility crews are working to restore power to hundreds of thousands of customers in Maine and some rivers continued to rise in New England following a powerful storm that hit the northeastern U.S.

Germany’s main national railway operator Deutsche Bahn has launched an effort to sell logistics unit DB Schenker as the company seeks to concentrate on its core business at home. Schenker has about 76,600 employees in more than 130 countries. The state-owned parent company describes it as one of the world’s top four logistics firms. Deutsche Bahn issued an announcement Tuesday that it's considering selling “the entire share capital of Schenker AG in an open, transparent and nondiscriminatory process.”... Читать дальше...

The Biden administration is moving to conserve groves of old-growth trees on federal land by revising management plans for national forests and grasslands across the U.S. The proposal Tuesday comes as climate change amplifies the threats that forests face from wildfires, insects and disease. It would sharply limit commercial timber harvests in old growth forests while allowing logging to continue on “mature forests” that have not yet reached old growth status. The timber industry has fought against... Читать дальше...

Vice President Kamala Harris is planning a nationwide series of events focused on abortion. Her first stop is Wisconsin on Jan. 22. The date would have been the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized abortion nationwide. The court overturned the decision in 2022 in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Harris said in a statement that she would “continue to fight for our fundamental freedoms.” Democrats successfully harnessed anger over... Читать дальше...

World shares are mostly higher after a seven-week winning streak on Wall Street cooled. U.S. futures were flat and oil prices edged higher. The dollar gained against the yen after the Bank of Japan kept its ultra-lax monetary policy unchanged, as expected. On Monday, the S&P 500 added 0.5% and the Dow was little changed. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.6%. Worries about attacks in the Red Sea have led oil and natural gas giant BP and other companies to halt shipments along that major trade route. Читать дальше...

Haven’t ordered any of your holiday gifts yet? Well, you might find solace in discovering some of America’s biggest retailers are working to increase their shipping speeds to please shoppers expecting faster and faster deliveries. Walmart, Target and Amazon are all-in on the shipping wars, a move retail experts say will help them maintain a competitive edge against low-cost Chinese retailers Shein and Temu. For Walmart and Target, their investments are also aimed at narrowing the gap in delivery speed with Amazon... Читать дальше...

Google has agreed to pay $700 million and make several other concessions to settle allegations that it had been stifling competition against its Android app store — the same issue that went to trial in another case that could result in even bigger changes. Although Google struck the deal with state attorneys general in September, the settlement’s terms weren’t revealed until late Monday. The disclosure came a week after a federal court jury rebuked Google for deploying anticompetitive tactics in its Play Store for Android apps. Читать дальше...

The Bank of Japan has kept its longstanding easy credit policies unchanged, saying it will watch price and wage trends before raising its negative benchmark interest rate. The BOJ policy decision was widely expected. But investors and analysts have speculated that the central bank is tip-toeing toward a shift due to price increases that have left inflation above its 2% target. The U.S. dollar gained against the Japanese yen and stock prices surged after Tuesday's decision. The benchmark rate of negative... Читать дальше...

Since the pandemic first upended American education, an estimated 50,000 students are still missing from any kind of U.S. school. That’s according to an Associated Press analysis of public, private and homeschool enrollment as of fall 2022, and U.S. Census data in 22 states, plus Washington, D.C. The reasons students left school during the pandemic are varied, and still not fully understood. The number of missing students has fallen significantly from the fall of 2021, when over 230,000 students were still unaccounted for in an analysis by AP... Читать дальше...

Thousands of kids went missing from schools during the pandemic. For some who have tried to return, school paperwork has proved a daunting obstacle. In Atlanta, one family's four kids have been home since March 2020, ultimately unenrolled for poor attendance. To sign them back up, their mom must present several identification, health and residency documents — including one that must be notarized. Without a driver's license or a working phone, mom Tameka has found the task overwhelming. Records show... Читать дальше...

At the dawn of 2023, the specter of Saudi Arabia’s growing influence on pro golf — and sports in general — served not only as a moral conundrum for players and their fans, but also, some argued, as an existential threat to the multibillion-dollar professional-sports industry itself. Twelve months later, it's a different conversation, now virtually devoid of concern about supposed “sportswashing” and more fixed on just how rich the Saudis might make all these athletes before they’re done investing. Читать дальше...

Until recently, the Chinese manufacturer behind Elf Bar e-cigarettes was able to slip its products passed U.S. customs officials. That’s according to public records reviewed by The Associated Press. The colorful vaping device has become the most popular disposable e-cigarette in the world. It has generated hundreds of millions in sales and quickly emerging as the top choice of underage U.S. teens who vape. But Elf Bar is not alone. Records show makers of rival disposable electronic cigarettes also routinely mislabel their shipments from China... Читать дальше...