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Stocks on Wall Street mixed amid expectations for rate hike

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:14 GMT

By STAN CHOE (AP Business Writer)NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks on Wall Street are mixed in their first trading after a report heightened speculation the Federal Reserve may tap the brakes a little harder on financial markets and the economy. The S&P 500 was 0.2% lower in Monday afternoon trading. It did not trade on Friday, when data showing a resilient U.S. jobs market heightened expectations the Fed would hike interest rates again at its next meeting. Technology stocks were falling more than the rest of the market, which helped drag the Nasdaq composite to a loss of 0.4%, as of 1:15 p.m. Eastern time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was steadier, and it was up 63 points, or 0.2%, at 33,549. Higher rates tend to hit tech and other high-growth stocks the hardest, and Apple and Microsoft were two of the heaviest drags on the S&P 500. Each fell at least 1.1%. Tesla also dropped 1.3% after it cut prices on its entire U.S. model lineup for the third time this year. It’s ...

Jonathan Isaac expects to be ready for start of Magic’s 2023-24 season

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:14 GMT

Jonathan Isaac expects to be ready for the start of the Orlando Magic’s 2023-24 season, he told the Orlando Sentinel.Isaac confirmed this expectation when speaking with reporters during the Magic’s exit interviews Monday.His 2022-23 was cut short less than two months after making his long-awaited comeback. Isaac had season-ending surgery on March 3 to repair a torn left adductor muscle (inner thigh).He was sidelined from August 2020 until Jan. 11 after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee on Aug. 2, 2020, during the league’s restart in its Disney World bubble.Isaac had surgery on the right hamstring last March while rehabbing from the left knee injury.He made his return with the Magic’s G League affiliate, the Lakeland Magic, earlier this year and played three games for Lakeland before making his return to Orlando in the Jan. 23 win over the Boston Celtics.Isaac ended the season with averages of 5 points, 4 rebounds and ...

Chairwoman Vargas calls for Nathan Fletcher's immediate resignation

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:14 GMT

SAN DIEGO — San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chair Nora Vargas is holding a news conference Monday to announce the introduction of a resolution of no confidence on Supervisor Nathan Fletcher.The board will hold an emergency meeting Tuesday where they will vote to call on Fletcher to resign from his county position immediately.Fletcher has been accused of sexual assault and harassment in a lawsuit by a former Metropolitan Transit System employee.Vargas announced that she would provide details on the resolution of no confidence and the next step for the county moving forward at the Monday news conference.Fletcher previously announced that the effective date for his resignation would be May 15, after his medical leave from office.In a news release, Vargas said she supported Fletcher's resignation after he "personally admitted he had failed to hold the principles of the position and Office of the County Board of Supervisors."The full letter requesting the vote of no confidence can ...

British PM urges NIreland politicians to go back to work

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:14 GMT

LONDON (AP) — U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak praised the bravery of political leaders who struck the Good Friday peace accord 25 years ago Monday, as he urged Northern Ireland’s current politicians to return to work.While the peace deal largely brought an end to 30 years of hostilities, the Northern Ireland Assembly has been in limbo for more than a year since the main unionist party pulled out of the government to protest new post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland. Sunak discussed the importance of compromise in reaching the April 10, 1998 peace deal and called for redoubling efforts toward economic opportunity, prosperity, and stability. “It is a promise we must continue to fulfill,” he said. “So we must get on with the business of governance.”Sunak is set to greet U.S. President Joe Biden when he arrives Tuesday night in Belfast for a four-day visit to Northern Ireland and Ireland. The White House said Biden would mark the progress since the agreement was struck and unders...

A list of recent high-profile shootings in the US

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:14 GMT

The latest high-profile shooting in the United States happened Monday in Louisville, Kentucky, when at least four people were killed at a downtown bank. The shooting is the 15th mass killing, in which four or more people died other than the perpetrator, in the country this year.Other notable episodes of gun violence in the past year: NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE Three students and three adults were killed inside The Covenant School in Nashville on March 27. The suspect, a former student, was killed by police. HALF MOON BAY, CALIFORNIA A farmworker killed seven people in back-to-back shootings in a case of workplace violence at two Northern California mushroom farms on Jan. 23. A suspect is facing charges. MONTEREY PARK, CALIFORNIA A 72-year-old man killed 11 and wounded nine in a shooting at a Lunar New Year dance in Monterey Park on Jan. 21. The suspect later died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot woun...

Teck ramps up rhetoric against Glencore offer, pushes own plan to spilt company

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:14 GMT

VANCOUVER — Teck Resources Ltd. has ramped up its rhetoric against a unsolicited takeover bid by Swiss mining giant Glencore while arguing for its own restructuring plan.Glencore’s proposal is a “non-starter for Teck,” said chief executive Jonathan Price on a conference call Monday.“This is not just about price. We also see serious structural flaws in the proposal that Glencore has put forward, and we believe that that proposal, looked at as a whole, would destroy value for Teck shareholders and that it has significant execution risk.”Glencore came out last week with a proposed all-share merger that offered a 20 per cent premium to B class shares and would leave Teck investors holding about a quarter of the combined company. Glencore said it planned to split up the combined company into two divisions, with one focused more on metals and another on coal. The proposition is similar to Teck’s existing plan to split along the same lines, which goes to a vot...

Empty tank cars derail in Texas rail yard, no injuries

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:14 GMT

KENDLETON, Texas (AP) — Three empty tank cars derailed but remained upright in a Southeast Texas rail yard on Monday, the train’s owner said, and no one was hurt.A locomotive leaked fuel but it was contained, Kansas City Southern spokesperson C. Doniele Carlson said in a statement.The derailment took place at around 7 a.m. in Kendleton, Texas, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Houston, Carlson said.“No injuries were reported and there is no track damage,” she said. The impacted rail line was expected to reopen later Monday morning.Officials with the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office said they did not respond to the incident because it was contained to the rail yard.The cause of the derailment is under investigation, Carlson said. Federal regulators and members of Congress are urging railroads to do more to prevent derailments after recent fiery wrecks involving hazardous chemicals in Ohio and Minnesota prompted evacuations.The Associated Press

Bombs targeting Pakistani police in SW kill 4, wound 22

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:14 GMT

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Two roadside bombs hours apart targeted police vehicles in volatile southwestern Pakistan on Monday killing at least four people and wounding 22, mostly civilian pedestrians, a government spokesperson said.The first attack in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, killed two police officers and two civilians. Hours later, another bomb in the city went off near a police vehicle, wounding four people, police said.In a statement, the outlawed Baluchistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the first attack. The BLA, which was designated a terrorist group by the United States in 2019, said its fighters targeted the vehicle of a police officer who was behind the arrest of members of the group. Although such attacks are common, t he Pakistani Taliban have also stepped up assaults on troops and police across Pakistan since November, when they ended a monthslong cease-fire with the government.Pakistan has been battling an insurgency in Baluchistan for mo...

The anime hit ‘Suzume’ and Shinkai’s cinema of cataclysm

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:14 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Makoto Shinkai was never the same filmmaker after the 2011 earthquake stuck Japan. When the tsunami and quake ravaged the Tōhoku region of northern Japan and prompted a nuclear meltdown, Shinkai, a now 50-year-old director and animator of some of the most popular anime features in the world, could feel his sense of storytelling crumbling.“The shock to me was that the daily life that we had become accustomed to in Japan can suddenly be severed without any warning whatsoever,” says Shinkai. “I had this odd, foreboding feeling that that could happen again and again. I began to think about how I wanted to tell stories within this new reality.”The three blockbusters that have followed by Shinkai — “Your Name,”“Weathering With You” and the new release “Suzume” — have each tethered hugely emotional tales to ecological disaster. In “Your Name,” a meteor threatens to demolish a village, an event that dovetails with a body-switching romance. In “Weathering With You,” a runaway...

Ottawa to negotiate schedule for new icebreakers as existing fleet nears end of life

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:14 GMT

OTTAWA — The federal government says it doesn’t know when Quebec shipyard Chantier Davie will deliver a fleet of new icebreakers to the Canadian Coast Guard.Officials say the schedule will depend on negotiations with the shipyard, which was formally added to Ottawa’s multibillion-dollar shipbuilding strategy last week.There are long-standing concerns about the Coast Guard’s existing icebreakers and whether replacements will arrive in time.Auditor General Karen Hogan noted in a report last year that the fleet is already on average more than 40 years old, increasingly prone to breakdowns and expensive to maintain.Hogan concluded there was little room for delays if Ottawa wants to maintain its current icebreaking capabilities, which are critical for keeping Canada’s waterways open to trade and resupplying northern communities.University of Calgary professor Rob Huebert says the government’s decision to buy three second-hand icebreakers from Davie will help...