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Retail sales up 0.4% in April, buoyed by solid job market and declining prices in some areas

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:06:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans picked up their spending modestly in April, spending money online and dining out, buoyed by a solid job market and a retreat in prices for some things. Car sales also rose despite prices that continue to soar, according to the Commerce Department report issued Tuesday. But consumers are facing plenty of challenges heading into the second half of the year from tightening credit to a weaker job market. Retail sales increased 0.4% in April compared with March, when sales decreased 0.7%. That is the first retail sales increase since January, when unusually warm weather and a big jump in Social Security benefits juiced spending. Retail sales data from the U.S. are not adjusted for inflation unlike many other government reports, so the headline increase only matched the monthly rise of 0.4% in the government’s consumer price index for April. That indicates that shoppers are struggling to keep up with inflation. Sales at car and auto parts dealers rose 0.4%. Busin...

Executives from failed banks questioned on CEO pay, risk management at Senate hearing

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:06:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Executives from two of three banks that recently failed appeared in front of the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday to respond to questions about why their banks went under and what regulators could have done to avoid the calamities.Along with questions about how these banks failed, senators used the hearing to also address executive pay and whether senior executives in the U.S. are being rewarded more for short-term gains — like rising stock prices — than for ensuring their companies’ long-term health. Executives at Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic Bank were paid millions of dollars over their tenures up until their banks failed, the bulk of the compensation coming in the form company stock. That stock is now largely worthless but the CEOs still pocketed millions from the planned sales of their shares before the banks’ collapse. Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Democratic chair of the Senate Banking Committee, took aim at executive compensation t...

Crypto rules get final approval to make Europe a global leader on regulation

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:06:00 GMT

LONDON (AP) — The European Union’s sweeping set of beefed-up cryptocurrency rules got final approval from member states Tuesday, giving the 27-nation bloc a global lead in regulating the freewheeling sector. The European Council adopted the package of rules — known as Markets in Crypto Assets, or MiCA — in the final step of the bloc’s legislative process. European Parliament lawmakers endorsed the rules in April, and they’re expected to start taking effect in phases starting in July 2024. The tighter European scrutiny follows a spate of high profile crypto scandals including the collapse of trading firm FTX and the implosion of the TerraUSD stablecoin. The rules are aimed at improving transparency and combating money laundering and will cover stablecoins — which are usually tied to a hard currency or a commodity like gold that make them less volatile than normal cryptocurrencies. Other digital tokens as well as bitcoin-related services such as trading platforms and...

About one-quarter of small forest fire in southern Nova Scotia contained

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:06:00 GMT

LITTLE HARBOUR, N.S. — A small wildfire near Nova Scotia’s southern coast is about one-quarter under control. Patricia Jreige, a spokeswoman for the Department of Natural Resources, said today the size of the fire in the Little Harbour area of Shelburne County was about 56 hectares as of 10 a.m.She says firefighting units deployed sprinkler systems to help protect structures in the affected area.Jreige says power has been cut to customers for safety.There are about eight firefighters and one helicopter involved in suppressing the fire.Jreige says the department is working closely with municipal and emergency officials to determine when it is safe to restore power.This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 16, 2023.The Canadian Press

Senegal opposition leader’s trial postponed after day of violence

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:06:00 GMT

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The rape trial of Senegal’s main opposition leader Ousmane Sonko that was due to open on Tuesday in the capital has been postponed until May 23.The delay came after 24 hours of unrest linked to the case against the prominent politician in the West African nation in which the interior ministry says three people died, including a police officer killed by a reversing armored car.Police and Sonko’s supporters clashed Monday in the southern city of Ziguinchor where youths threw stones and used tree trunks to barricade streets leading to Sonko’s house. In the capital, Dakar, around 20 buses were burned in the unrest, which saw protesters hurled stones and firebombs at police, with security forces responding with tear gas. The judge of the criminal chamber of the Dakar high court postponed Sonko’s trial to give lawyers for key witnesses time to go over the court files. Sonko was charged based on a woman’s accusations that he raped her in 2021 when sh...

Italian police dog with fine nose for cocaine sniffs out drugs hidden in banana shipment

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:06:00 GMT

ROME (AP) — With the help of a high-leaping dog with a fine nose for cocaine, Italian police seized more than 2,700 kilos (about 3 tons) of the drug hidden in 70 tons of boxed bananas shipped from Ecuador, authorities said Tuesday.Police estimated that the cocaine, which they described as of the finest quality, could have brought traffickers more than 800 million euros ($900 million) in street sales if it had reached its ultimate destination in Armenia. Customs police became suspicious about two containers on a cargo ship that recently arrived at the port of Gioia Tauro, in the “toe” of the Italian peninsula and a stronghold of a ‘ndrangheta organized crime clan. Police told Italian state radio that documents and a background check indicated the shippers of the bananas weren’t in the business of moving that much fruit.Officers used scanning machines and the dog, named Joel, to uncover packets of cocaine hidden in boxes stacked meters-high in container trucks.Joel leaped high a...

Putin, Zelenskyy agree to meet with ‘African leaders’ peace mission,’ says South Africa president

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:06:00 GMT

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Tuesday that his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts have agreed to separate meetings with a delegation of African heads of state to discuss a possible plan to end the war in Ukraine. Ramaphosa spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by phone over the weekend and they each agreed to host “an African leaders’ peace mission” in Moscow and Kyiv, respectively, a statement from the South African leader’s office said. The leaders of Zambia, Senegal, Congo, Uganda and Egypt plan to join Ramaphosa on the mission, the president said. He said Putin and Zelenskyy gave him the go-ahead to “commence the preparations.” No details were provided on the possible parameters of the talks. Zelenskyy has previously said he would not consider a peace deal to end the 15-month war until Russian forces withdraw completely from Ukrainian territory.U.N. Secretary-G...

Russian Duma votes to scrap Cold War armed forces deal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:06:00 GMT

MOSCOW (AP) — The lower house of Russia’s parliament on Tuesday voted unanimously to formally pull out of a key Cold War-era security deal, more than eight years after Moscow halted its participation. The vote in the State Duma came less than a week after President Vladimir Putin introduced a draft bill on May 10 “denouncing” the Treaty of Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which aimed to prevent Cold War rivals from massing forces at or near mutual borders. The deal was signed in November 1990, but not fully ratified until two years later.The Federation Council, Russia’s Kremlin-controlled upper chamber that generally rubber-stamps legislation that the Duma has approved, is scheduled to consider Russia’s pullout from the treaty next Wednesday.Moscow first announced its intention to completely withdraw from the agreement in early 2015. Since last February, Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine has seen hundreds of thousands of Russian troops pour into the country, which sha...

Blue Jays on guard after Aaron Judge’s ‘kind of odd’ glances during late-game at-bat

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:06:00 GMT

Antennas are up around the Toronto Blue Jays over Aaron Judge’s curious, if not outright suspicious, mid-at-bat glances to his right, which is to be expected for a sport still in the shadow of the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal.What exactly the New York Yankees slugger was doing during his eighth-inning at-bat Monday, when Sportsnet broadcast cameras caught him looking sideways before Jay Jackson delivered a pitch at least twice, including before his second homer of the night, wasn’t immediately clear.Blue Jays manager John Schneider described it as “kind of odd that a hitter would be looking in that direction” and added that “he’s obviously looking in that direction for a reason,” which Judge said was too quiet teammates still chirping home-plate umpire Clint Vondrak, who had just ejected manager Aaron Boone.That’s plausible enough although given that the Yankees were fined for using electronic devices to decode and share signs in 2015 and 2016, the incident is sure to...

ChatGPT’s chief to testify before Congress as concerns grow about artificial intelligence risks

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:06:00 GMT

The head of the artificial intelligence company that makes ChatGPT will testify before Congress as lawmakers call for new rules to guide the rapid development of AI technology.OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is scheduled to speak at a Senate hearing Tuesday. His San Francisco-based startup rocketed to public attention after its release late last year of ChatGPT, a free chatbot tool that answers questions with convincingly human-like responses.What started out as a panic among educators about ChatGPT’s use to cheat on homework assignments has expanded to broader concerns about the ability of the latest crop of “generative AI” tools to mislead people, spread falsehoods, violate copyright protections and upend some jobs. And while there’s no immediate sign that Congress will craft sweeping new AI rules, as European lawmakers are doing, the societal concerns brought Altman and other tech CEOs to the White House earlier this month and have led U.S. agencies to promise to crack down on ...