Новости за 21.12.2023

A wildcat strike by staff at Eurotunnel, which links Britain and the European continent and paralyzed dozens of Eurostar trains, has ended. It ended Thursday, the same day it began, Eurotunnel announced, promising a gradual return to service. Eurostar trains will start transporting passengers on Friday, and the rail navet known as LeShuttle, which carries vehicles and passengers, was to return to duty starting Thursday night, along with freight trains. The unannounced strike triggered by what Eurotunnel... Читать дальше...

Saturday night’s game between the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Chargers already carried significance as the first NFL game to be exclusively streamed on Peacock. 

Rudy Giuliani has filed for bankruptcy, days after being ordered to pay $148 million in a defamation lawsuit. The former New York City mayor listed nearly $153 million in existing or potential debts. Those included hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax liabilities, money he owes his lawyers and many millions of dollars in potential legal judgements in lawsuits against him. The biggest of those is the $148 million he was ordered to pay a week ago for making false statements about election workers... Читать дальше...

Authorities say 15 people have pleaded guilty to participating in a state prison contraband scheme in Maryland. Attorney General Anthony Brown's office announced this week that the scheme included the use of drones to smuggle drugs, cellphones and other items into the Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown, Maryland. In May, Brown announced that a correctional officer and civilians had been indicted on charges that they assisted the inmates in illegal activity. An investigation began in April 2022... Читать дальше...

The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that soccer’s governing bodies UEFA and FIFA acted contrary to EU competition law by blocking plans for a breakaway Super League. Emboldened by the ruling Thursday, organizers quickly revealed plans for the new competition designed to change the face of European soccer. The ruling was celebrated by Spanish soccer giants, Real Madrid and Barcelona, which have been leading the fight to get the new competition off the ground. But stiff opposition to the competition remains... Читать дальше...

Wisconsin’s top Republican wants to let voters decide whether to shorten the length of time that pregnant women can legally seek abortions. Current state laws allow abortions up until 20 weeks of pregnancy. Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Wednesday that he wants to to shorten that period to somewhere between 12 and 15 weeks. His plan would put the decision on the ballot in a statewide election, but first it would need to be passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by Democratic Gov. Читать дальше...

Apple has been rebuffed in its latest attempt to untangle a patent dispute that is pushing the company into suspending sales of two popular Apple Watch models as the holiday shopping season wraps up. The International Trade Commission rejected Apple’s bid to get around a late October order revolving around the technology used in the Blood Oxygen measurement feature on the Series 9 and Ultra 2 versions of its internet-connected watch. The decision issued Wednesday means Apple will follow through on... Читать дальше...

DeAngelo Martin killed four women in Detroit and raped two others before he was captured in 2019. The Associated Press has found that Detroit police failed to follow up on leads or take investigative steps that may have averted the killing spree. Martin pleaded guilty and is serving at least 45 years in prison. Authorities called him a serial killer who lured struggling women into vacant homes. Records show Detroit police were told in 2018 that Martin's DNA was linked to the first homicide victim. Читать дальше...

DeAngelo Martin killed four women in Detroit and raped two others before he was captured in 2019. The Associated Press has found that Detroit police failed to follow up on leads or take investigative steps that may have averted the killing spree. Martin pleaded guilty and is serving at least 45 years in prison. Authorities called him a serial killer who lured struggling women into vacant homes. Records show Detroit police were told in 2018 that Martin’s DNA was linked to the first homicide victim. Читать дальше...

The Czech Republic’s central bank has cut its key interest rate to help the country's struggling economy. The drop by a quarter of a percentage point brought the interest rate to 6.75%. It was for the first time the bank dropped the rate since June 22 last year. After inflation in the Czech Republic soared to 18.0% in September last year, it was at 7.3% in November, which is still well above the bank’s 2% target. The Czech economy contracted by 0.7% year-on-year in the third quarter, and by 0.5%... Читать дальше...

Employees at a Wells Fargo bank in New Mexico have voted to unionize, the first time that workers at a major U.S. bank have attempted to organize in the modern era.

Two brutal killings in four months have left 1,100 residents in a tiny corner of eastern Nebraska reeling.

America’s automakers have staked their futures on the notion that electric vehicles will dominate sales in the coming years, spurred by buyers determined to reduce carbon emissions and save on fuel. But so far, while EV sales are growing, their pace is falling well short of the industry’s ambitious timetable for transitioning away from combustion engines. Instead, buyers are increasingly embracing a quarter-century-old technology whose popularity has been surging: The gas-electric hybrid, which alternates... Читать дальше...

You found the perfect holiday gift online. You ordered it. A notification arrived on your phone, showing the package had arrived. But when you open your doors, the parcel is nowhere to be found. If this happened to you, then count yourself as part of the unlucky group of shoppers who fall victim to package thefts. Since most police departments don’t track the crime in its own category, it's challenging to know if it's getting better or worse. But retailers and delivery companies are trying to combat it in different ways. Читать дальше...

Asian shares have slipped after Wall Street slammed the brakes on its big rally following disappointing corporate profit reports and warnings that the market had simply gone too far, too fast. U.S. futures rose while oil prices dipped. The Japanese benchmark fell 1.6%, with Toyota leading losses following an announcement it was recalling 1 million vehicles. The S&P 500 fell 1.5% Wednesday for its worst loss since beginning a monster-sized run shortly before Halloween. The Dow dropped 1.3% from its record high... Читать дальше...

A Texas prosecutor says a criminal investigation into police failures during the Uvalde school shooting will continue into 2024. Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell's remarks earlier this week pushed back expectations that a grand jury would convene before the end of the year. Mitchell says her staff are still examining the halting and haphazard police response to the May 2022 shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead. Investigators sent Mitchell their preliminary findings in January. Читать дальше...

South Korea’s top court has ordered two Japanese companies to financially compensate more of their wartime Korean workers for forced labor. The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel Corp. must give compensation to a total of 11 workers who were forced to work for the companies during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. The ruling is in line with the court's contentious 2018 verdicts that caused a huge setback in relations between the two countries. Читать дальше...

More than five years ago, someone left a kitten with twisted back legs at a Missouri animal shelter. The cat was transferred to specialists in Iowa who amputated her left hind leg. She was soon after adopted by a woman who lost her left leg after a near-fatal car accident. Now the duo has partnered with a nonprofit that registers therapy animal volunteer teams. They visit hospitals, nursing homes and even amputee support groups to aid in therapy and other activities to improve well-being in communities. Читать дальше...

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has moved over 21,000 homeless people into temporary shelter in the last year. Dozens of drug-plagued street encampments have been cleared. But the encouraging data are just a start, and it's possible the number of homeless people in the nation's second most populous city could go up again next year. The first-term Democrat was elected in 2022 promising to solve the long-running homeless crisis. But roughly 1 in 3 people who entered interim shelter this year drifted out of the system ... Читать дальше...

A romance that united sports and music fans, a celestial wonder that drew millions of eyes skyward and a spiritual homecoming for some Native American tribes were just some of the moments that inspired us and brought joy in 2023. In a year of multiple wars, deadly mass shootings, earthquakes, wildfires, sexual harassment stories and other tragedies, these events were among those that broke through the tumult of 2023 and made people feel hopeful. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's new romance, the awe-inspiring... Читать дальше...

Nineteen-month-old Elijah Jack is unable to walk like most toddlers his age. Special needs children like him often take longer than most to become independently mobile. Elijah was one of the first to get a specially designed rolling chair built by a team of biomedical engineering students at Tulane University. He now has mastered getting around on wheels — turning, stopping and steering all on his own. The chair has allowed Elijah to have a whole new level of independence. His mother now does too. Читать дальше...

Holiday travel is expected to hit its peak right around now. Airlines are confident they can handle the crowds, but it could come down to the weather. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says the government will be holding the airlines accountable to operate smoothly and treat passengers well if there are disruptions. Auto club AAA forecasts that 115 million people in the U.S. will go 50 miles or more from home between Saturday and New Year’s Day. That's up 2% over last year. Most of those people will drive... Читать дальше...

A federal judge has temporarily blocked a California law that would have banned carrying firearms in most public places, ruling that it violates the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and deprives people of their ability to defend themselves and their loved ones. The law was set to take effect Jan. 1. It would have banned people from carrying concealed guns in 26 places including public parks and playgrounds, churches, banks and zoos. It would apply whether the person has a permit to carry a concealed weapon or not. Читать дальше...

A state appeals court in Oregon has decided that the rules for a program designed to limit and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel companies are invalid. The program started in 2022 and is one of the strongest climate programs in the nation. State environmental officials say the ruling hinges on an administrative error and doesn’t touch on whether the state Department of Environmental Quality has the authority to implement the program. The Climate Protection Program targets... Читать дальше...

The Transportation Security Administration says security officers found 17 bullets concealed inside a disposable baby diaper at New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Officers pulled the otherwise clean diaper from a passenger’s carry-on bag on Wednesday after it triggered an alarm in an X-ray machine at an airport security checkpoint. According to the TSA, the passenger initially claimed he didn’t know how the bullet-filled diaper ended up in his bag. Later he suggested his girlfriend put it there, the agency said. Читать дальше...