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Inside the far-right push to criminalize women who get abortions None - Far-right group Operation Save America is traveling the country to push for the legislation to put women in jail for getting an abortion. NBC News’ Stephanie Gosk spoke with the groups director, Jason Storms, who explained why he believes abortions should be criminalized. May 21, 2024
Sirens sound in Tel Aviv as Hamas launches new missile attacks None - Sirens sound in Tel Aviv as Hamas launches new missile attacks Hamas' military wing the Al-Qassam Brigades launched a barrage of missiles on Tel Aviv, causing sirens to blare for the first time in months.May 26, 2024
In one North Carolina county, it's 'growth, growth, growth.' But will Biden reap the benefit? None - Just 81,000 people live in rural Chatham County in North Carolina, where there are more than 1,000 farms In one North Carolina county, it's 'growth, growth, growth.' But will Biden reap the benefit? SILER CITY, N.C. -- At the epicenter of President Joe Biden’s promised economic boom, a slow tractor can still halt traffic. Just 81,000 people live in rural Chatham County, North Carolina. There are 1,076 farms. The old mill now houses a dance studio, a grocer and a steakhouse. For work, many people have no choice but to commute to nearby Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh. But after years of careful planning, Chatham County has started to change. The new Wolfspeed factory — six football fields long — overlooks I-64 and will soon produce advanced wafers for computer chips. Automaker Vinfast is scheduled to open a factory as well. Both projects stem in large part from incentives that Biden signed into law. Developers, including the Walt Disney Corp., plan to build several thousand new homes. “When the right opportunity came along, we were there and we were ready,” said Greg Lewis, who owns the steakhouse. “It is growth, growth, growth.” That same economic story is being replicated in a number of other critical battleground states, including Arizona and Georgia. But while the kind of enthusiasm voiced by Lewis would usually mean a strong tailwind for an incumbent president, so far this election year there is little evidence from polling that Americans are giving Biden credit for the gains as voters still focus instead on inflation still climbing at 3.4% annually. Places like Chatham County show how this year’s presidential campaign offers two conflicting visions for America's economic future. Voters face a decades-defining choice about what can do more for growth: former President Donald Trump's preference for tax cuts skewed toward business and the wealthy or the targeted government investments backed by Biden as well as possible tax increases to fund programs for the middle class. The county backed Biden over Trump in 2020 but sits in the solidly Republican congressional district of Rep. Richard Hudson. He voted against the Democratic president's policies and his office declined to answer questions about whether the investments in his district are a positive. Just how much the influx of federal and private sector money affects the political dynamics in North Carolina and beyond will have a lot to say about who will win November's presidential election. Biden is campaigning on how his policies have helped pump hundreds of billions of dollars in private and federal investment into companies, helping to revive the faded computer chip sector and pioneer newer technologies such as electric vehicles, solar panels and artificial intelligence. But so far, the investments have not significantly swayed the public. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, maintains that Biden’s ideas would wreck the economy and that EVs will flop against a proven fuel such as gasoline. He says corporate tax cuts would do more to bolster growth by letting companies choose their own path, and a threat of higher tariffs would cause them to keep their factory jobs inside the United States. “Would everybody like to buy an electric car?” Trump asked at a recent rally, where he was met with a chorus of “No!” When Biden spoke at Wolfspeed’s headquarters in Durham last year, he described its chips as not just powering the economy but protecting it from supply chain disruptions and competition from China. “It’s a game changer,” he said. “We’re turning things around in a big way.” The new Wolfspeed factory has begun installing its industrial furnaces that heat to half of the sun's temperatures. The factory is prepared to start production by the end of the year, while many of the other announced government incentives around the country are still blueprints or in the construction phase. Pending administration approval, the company may receive support through tax credits from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. It also has applied for funding through the Commerce Department as part of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. Wolfspeed CEO Gregg Lowe said the potential for government support has been “very important” as the company has sought to produce more silicon carbide, a material that increases the efficiency of computer chips. He said the material will “lead to one of the most important transitions in the history of semiconductors,” allowing EVs, solar panels, data centers and other technologies such as energy storage to work better. Even if the company is more focused on its business than electoral politics, the changes in Chatham County go beyond the factory in ways that could matter in November. People can see the new hotel, the new gasoline stations and the acres of lots set aside for new housing. County Commissioner Karen Howard, a Democrat, said the debate is being forced as Democrats point to what they say is clear evidence they are delivering on their promises. Howard stressed that the gains came as a result of years of county officials' groundwork for sustainable growth that was then complemented by federal policies. “It feels like Republicans have turned a blind eye to what voters want,” she said. “Tax cuts for the biggest boys in the world never got down to the person who is barely scraping by.” Howard said the expected total of 1,800 jobs at the Wolfspeed facility will transform households. “When we say it's making generational change for these families, you now have individuals who will make more than their entire family did in a year,” Howard said. But Republicans in North Carolina's legislature say investments in the state had more to do with their own policies than the incentives from Biden. GOP lawmakers are making the argument that the impact of inflation during Biden's presidency matters more to voters. “We’ve lowered taxes, grown the state economy and built the nation’s best workforce," said Phil Berger, president pro tempore of the North Carolina Senate. "Bidenomics here means higher costs for families and businesses, which is what voters will remember when heading to the polls.” Both Trump and Biden have committed to increasing factory production in the U.S. and making it less reliant on countries such as China. So far, the numbers suggest that Biden’s policies have done more for manufacturing than Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. Census Bureau figures show that the annualized rate of factory construction spending peaked at $82 billion annually under Trump. As of last March, adjusting for inflation, it has more than doubled under Biden to a record $223 billion. The president has also added more manufacturing jobs than Trump did before the disruptions caused by the 2020 pandemic. But that does not mean Biden’s industrial strategy is a sure thing. Chatham County records indicate that Vinfast has scaled down the footprint of its EV plant, with the company saying in a statement that it's "currently reviewing the construction of the factory.” Administration officials say success will require breakthroughs to lower the production costs of advanced computer chips relative to Asia. More drivers will also need to switch to EVs and reverse the recent slowdown in sales. Some Republicans see room both for some of Biden's policies as well as tax cuts, saying that a mix was the optimal course for success. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., voted for the CHIPS and Science Act, which funds semiconductor plants. Tillis said after touring Wolfspeed's new factory that the combination of tax breaks and government financial support has been key for attracting new factories. “At the end of the day, it’s the balance that makes the difference,” he said in an interview outside the factory. As Wolfspeed's Lowe explained it, the chips produced by the company's factory will help the U.S. to compete against China in the EV, solar panel and artificial intelligence sectors. He happens to drive an EV made by Lucid that contains his own company’s chips, which help give it an impressive range of 516 miles, enough for him to drive to his Ohio hometown with a single charging stop. The CEO did not speculate about the outcome of the election, but he said technologies such as silicon carbide represent “a monumental change in the history of semiconductors” that is helping to remake the economy. In short, he sees no going back. “I tell our people this all the time, you know, in 30 years you’re going to look back to this moment and it’s going to be your mission control, Apollo 13 moment, where you say, ‘I was there when this technology switched.’”
Ahead of another donor conference for Syria, humanitarian workers fear more aid cuts None - Syria's devastating civil war, now in its 14th year, remains largely frozen and so are efforts to find a viable political solution to end it BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Living in a tent in rebel-held northwestern Syria, Rudaina al-Salim and her family struggle to find enough water for drinking and other basic needs such as cooking and washing. Their encampment north of the city of Idlib hasn't seen any aid in six months. “We used to get food aid, hygiene items," said the mother of four. "Now we haven’t had much in a while.” Al-Salim's story is similar to that of many in this region of Syria, where most of the 5.1 million people have been internally displaced — sometimes more than once — in the country's civil war, now in its 14th year, and rely on aid to survive. U.N. agencies and international humanitarian organizations have for years struggled with shrinking budgets, further worsened by the coronavirus pandemic and conflicts elsewhere. The wars in Ukraine and Sudan, and more recently Israel's war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip are the focus of the world's attention. Syria's war, which has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of of 23 million, has long remained largely frozen and so are also efforts to find a viable political solution to end it. Meanwhile, millions of Syrians have been pulled into poverty, and struggle with accessing food and health care as the economy deteriorates across the country’s front lines. Along with the deepening poverty, there is growing hostility in neighboring countries that host Syrian refugees and that struggle with crises of their own. Aid organizations are now making their annual pitches to donors ahead of a fundraising conference in Brussels for Syria on Monday. But humanitarian workers believe that pledges will likely fall short and that further aid cuts would follow. “We have moved from assisting 5.5 million a year to about 1.5 million people in Syria,” Carl Skau, the U.N. World Food Program's deputy executive director, told The Associated Press. He spoke during a recent visit to Lebanon, which hosts almost 780,000 registered Syrian refugees — and hundreds of thousands of others who are undocumented. “When I look across the world, this is the (aid) program that has shrunk the most in the shortest period for time,” Skau said. Just 6% of the United Nations' appeal for aid to Syria in 2024 has so far been secured ahead of Monday's annual fundraising conference organized by the European Union, said David Carden, U.N. deputy regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria. For the northwestern region of Syria, that means the U.N. is only able to feed 600,000 out of the 3.6 million people facing food insecurity, meaning they lack access to sufficient food. The U.N. says some 12.9 million Syrians are food insecure across the country. The U.N. hopes the Brussels conference can raise more than $4 billion in “lifesaving aid” to support almost two-thirds of the 16.7 million Syrians in need, both within the war-torn country and in neighboring countries, particularly Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. At last year's conference, donors pledged $10.3 billion — about $6 billion in grants and the rest in loans — just months after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Turkey and much of northern Syria, killing over 59,000 people, including 6,000 in Syria. For northwestern Syria, an enclave under rebel control, aid "is literally a matter of life and death” this year, Carden told the AP during a recent visit to Idlib province. Without funding, 160 health facilities there would close by end of June, he said. The International Rescue Committee’s head for Syria, Tanya Evans, said needs are “at their highest ever," with increasing numbers of Syrians turning to child labor and taking on debt to pay for food and basics. In Lebanon, where nearly 90% of Syrian refugees live in poverty, they also face flagging aid and increasing resentment from the Lebanese, struggling with their own country's economic crisis since 2019. Disgruntled officials have accused the refugees of surging crime and competition in the job market. Lebanon’s bickering political parties have united in a call for a crackdown on undocumented Syrian migrants and demand refugees return to so-called “safe zones” in Syria. U.N. agencies, human rights groups and Western governments say there are no such areas. Um Omar, a Syrian refugee from Homs, works in a grocery store in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli — an impoverished community that once warmly welcomed Syrian refugees. For her work, she gets to bring home every day a bundle of bread and some vegetables to feed her family of five. They live rent-free in a tent on a plot of land that belongs to the grocery store’s owners. “I have to leave the kids early in the morning without breakfast so I can work,” she said, asking to be identified only by her nickname, Arabic for “Omar’s mother.” She fears reprisals because of heightened hostilities against Syrians. The shrinking U.N. aid they receive does not pay the bills. Her husband, who shares her fears for their safety, used to work as a day laborer but has rarely left their home in weeks. She says deportation to Syria, where President Bashar Assad's government is firmly entrenched, would spell doom for her family. “If my husband was returned to Syria, he’ll either go to jail or (face) forced conscription,” she explains. Still, many in Lebanon tell her family, "you took our livelihoods,” Um Omar said. There are also those who tell them they should leave, she added, so that the Lebanese "will finally catch a break." ___ Albam reported from Harbnoush, Syria.
Zimbabwe authorities mix charm with force in an attempt to shore up the world’s newest currency None - Zimbabwe authorities mix charm with force in an attempt to shore up the world’s newest currency HARARE, Zimbabwe -- The introduction of the world's newest currency in April inspired a reggae artist to record a song praising the ZiG, or Zimbabwe Gold. The catchy tune, titled “Zig Mari,” received generous play on state television and radio. The musician, Ras Caleb, received a car and $2,000 — ironically paid in greenbacks, not the new ZiGs — from a businessman with close ties to Zimbabwe's ruling party and President Emmerson Mnangagwa; he said he wanted to reward an act he considered “patriotic.” Although money typically doesn't require publicity, Zimbabwe's sixth national currency in 15 years needs all the help it can get. Desperate to halt a money crisis underlining the country’s economic troubles, the government launched the gold-backed ZiG, the latest attempt to replace the Zimbabwe dollar, which had been battered by depreciation and often outright rejection by people unwilling to put their faith in it. Senior officials from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the ruling ZANU-PF party embarked on a flurry of public rallies and meetings to encourage the skeptical population to now embrace the ZiG ahead of the U.S. dollar — also legal tender in the southern African nation. Commercial jingles heralding the currency flooded the airwaves along with Caleb's single. Yet despite the charm offensive, the ZiG is facing a familiar problem: public mistrust and structural barriers that have people still clamoring for U.S. dollars. Although the ZiG has largely held its value on the official market, it has tumbled on the black market, where $1 can be exchanged for up to 17 ZiGs. Authorities are also using force to prop up the new banknotes. They have packed jail cells with dozens of street currency dealers, and frozen the accounts of businesses accused of undermining the ZiG. Law enforcement agents have arrested more than 200 street currency dealers on allegations of flouting foreign currency exchange regulations, national police spokesman Paul Nyathi said. The government accuses them of undermining and devaluing the new currency by using exchange rates higher than the official one. Twin brothers Tapiwa and Justice Nyamadzawo, 24, were arrested two weeks after the launch of the new currency after allegedly selling undercover detectives cellphone airtime worth $10 at a rate of 15 ZiGs per dollar, according to court papers. The official exchange rate was just over 13 ZiGs per dollar. Like other currency traders, the twins were denied bail and remain in pretrial detention on charges that carry a maximum prison term of 10 years. The crackdown is incongruous, because Zimbabwe has a long history of street currency dealers whose unofficial rates often carry the day. Many shops and merchants also ignore the official rate and only accept the local currency at their own rates. And many vendors, particularly in the unlicensed sector that employs more than 80% of adult Zimbabweans, still only accept the dollar. What's more, the government has allowed some businesses, such as gas stations, to refuse to accept the ZiG in favor of U.S. dollars. Some departments, like the office that issues and renews passports, also accept only greenbacks. Many others still list their fees in U.S. dollars, although they accept the equivalent in local currency. The government has announced fines up to 200,000 ZiG or about $15,000, for businesses that fail to stick to the official exchange rate. Authorities have also frozen bank accounts of some businesses on accusations of rejecting the new currency or trading using exchange rates higher than the official rate. The Reserve Bank didn't name the affected businesses. Zimbabwe has a long and tumultuous history of monetary instability. The ZiG is the sixth currency used following the spectacular 2009 collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar amid hyperinflation of 5 billion percent, one of the world’s worst currency crashes. The government printed a 100-trillion Zimbabwe dollar banknote to keep up with spiraling prices that saw a loaf of bread going for more than 500 million Zimbabwe dollars. John Mushayavanhu, the governor of Zimbabwe's central bank, has hyped the ZiG as a first step toward eventual de-dollarization. The U.S dollar accounts for more than 80% of transactions in the country, according to Mushayavanhu, who wants the ratio to be 50% by 2026. But for now, the allure of the almighty dollar remains. Across Zimbabwe, it is widely used for paying rent, school fees and to buy groceries. Many citizens, including government workers, take their local currency earnings to the black market to trade for dollars. The government has said it is working on mechanisms that include opening bureau de changes for individuals to access dollars “for small transactions.” Economists and business groups have warned, meanwhile, that the use of force is unlikely to lead to more confidence in the ZiG or halt the black market traders. “They will work to ensure that the police do not catch them,” Sekai Kuvarika, the chief executive of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, told a hearing of parliament’s finance and industry committees. Street currency dealers holding wads of money and openly soliciting for clients were a feature of Zimbabwe's urban architecture for years. They have deserted their familiar spots since the crackdown began in April and appear to have taken their business underground. Many now use social media and instant messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook to connect with customers. Maxwell Chisanga, 28, a resident of the capital, Harare, said a shop where he works pays him in ZiGs, but he needs U.S. dollars for everyday transactions. “My landlord needs her rent in dollars so I have no choice but to look for it on the black market,” Chisanga said. Economist Prosper Chitambara said lack of faith in the local currency and demand for U.S. dollars will continue driving the black market despite the crackdown. “The solution is to build public confidence in the local currency. Otherwise, arrests will not work as long as people are hungry for U.S. dollars, which they cannot get from official channels,” Chitambara said. ___ AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
Friday's preholiday travel breaks the record for the most airline travelers screened at US airports None - A record was broken ahead of the Memorial Day weekend for the number of airline travelers screened at U.S. airports Friday's preholiday travel breaks the record for the most airline travelers screened at US airports ATLANTA -- A record was broken ahead of the Memorial Day weekend for the number of airline travelers screened at U.S. airports, the Transportation Security Administration said Saturday. More than 2.9 million travelers were screened at U.S. airports on Friday, surpassing a previous record set last year on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, according to the transportation security agency. “Officers have set a new record for most travelers screened in a single day!” the TSA tweeted. “We recommend arriving early.” The third busiest day on record was set on Thursday when just under 2.9 million travelers were screened at U.S. airports. In Atlanta, the world's busiest airport had its busiest day ever. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport broke a traffic record on Thursday when 111,000 passengers, airlines crew and airport employees were screened at security checkpoints. The second busiest day followed on Friday when 109,960 people were screened, according to the TSA. With 104.6 million passengers, the Atlanta airport was the busiest in the world last year, according to Airports Council International. U.S. airlines expect to carry a record number of passengers this summer. Their trade group estimates that 271 million travelers will fly between June 1 and August 31, breaking the record of 255 million set last summer. AAA predicted this will be the busiest start-of-summer weekend in nearly 20 years, with 43.8 million people expected to roam at least 50 miles from home between Thursday and Monday — 38 million of them taking vehicles. The annual expression of wanderlust that accompanies the start of the summer travel season is happening at a time when Americans tell pollsters they are worried about the economy and the direction of the country. In what had long been celebrated every May 30 to honor America’s fallen soldiers, Memorial Day officially became a federal holiday in 1971, observed on the last Monday in May. Jason Redman, a retired Navy SEAL who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, told The Associated Press last year that he honors the friends he’s lost. Thirty names are tattooed on his arm “for every guy that I personally knew that died.”
G7 officials make progress but no final deal on money for Ukraine from frozen Russian assets None - Finance officials from the Group of Seven rich democracies say they have moved toward agreement on a U.S. proposal to squeeze more money for Ukraine from Russian assets frozen in their countries FRANKFURT, Germany -- Finance officials from the Group of Seven rich democracies said they had moved toward agreement on a U.S. proposal to squeeze more money for Ukraine from Russian assets frozen in their countries. But the ministers left a final deal to be worked out ahead of a June summit of national leaders. “We are making progress in our discussions on potential avenues to bring forward the extraordinary profits stemming from immobilized Russian sovereign assets to the benefit of Ukraine,” the draft statement said, without providing details. Despite the progress made at the the meeting in Stresa, on the shores of Lago Maggiore in northern Italy, a final decision on how the assets will be used will rest with the G7 national leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, next month at their annual summit in Fasano, in southern Italy. Host Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said that “progress has been made so far” but that there were “legal and technical issues that have to be overcome.” “It is not an easy task but we are working on it,” he said at a news conference following the end of the meeting. Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko joined the finance ministers and central bank heads at their concluding session on Saturday. “I am satisfied with the progress," he told journalists afterwards. He said the G7 ministers “are working very hard to find a reliable construction for Ukraine.” The U.S. Congress has passed legislation allowing the Biden administration to seize the roughly $5 billion in Russian assets located in the U.S., but European countries have a strong voice in the matter since most of the $260 billion in Russian central bank assets frozen after the Feb. 24, 2022, invasion are held in their jurisdictions. Citing legal concerns, European officials have balked at outright confiscating the money and handing it to Ukraine as compensation for the destruction caused by Russia. Instead, they plan use the interest accumulating on the assets, but that’s only around $3 billion a year — about one month’s financing needs for the Ukrainian government. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is pushing for borrowing against the future interest income from the frozen assets. That would mean Ukraine could be given as much as $50 billion immediately. But the proposal has run into concerns from European members about the legal complexities, and about concerns that Russia could retaliate against the diminished number of Western companies and individuals who still have holdings in Russia, or against the Euroclear securities depository in Belgium where the bulk of the funds is held. Russia has published a decree from President Vladimir Putin allowing confiscation of assets of U.S. companies and individuals as compensation for any Russian assets seized in the United States. The ministers also discussed what to do about China’s outsized, state-backed production of green energy technology, which the U.S. considers a threat to the global economy. The U.S. has imposed major new tariffs on electric vehicles, semiconductors, solar equipment and medical supplies imported from China. Included is a 100% tariff on Chinese-made EVs, meant to protect the U.S. economy from cheap Chinese imports. The U.S. position has been that Chinese overcapacity is an issue not just for the U.S. but also for other G7 and developing countries. That’s because China’s selling of low-priced goods threatens the existence of competing companies around the world. The G7 is an informal forum that holds an annual summit to discuss economic policy and security issues. The member countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Representatives of the European Union also take part, but the EU does not serve as one of the rotating chairs. —— Colleen Barry contributed from Milan.
No more cute snaps of Mount Fuji over a convenience store. A screen was built to stop tourist crowds None - A Japanese town known for some of the best views of Mount Fuji has raised a large black screen to block the view and deter tourists from overcrowding the stretch of street No more cute snaps of Mount Fuji over a convenience store. A screen was built to stop tourist crowds TOKYO -- Sorry, the screen is now up — no more snapping cute photos of Mount Fuji from a popular sidewalk spot in the Japanese town of Fujikawaguchiko. Known as a place that offers some of the best views of the iconic Japanese mountain, the town last month started erecting a large black screen on a stretch of a street to block the view and deter tourists from overcrowding the place. A particularly popular photo location was outside a Lawson convenience store, from where a photograph taken at a particular angle would make it seem as if Mount Fuji was sitting atop the store roof. The tourists, mostly foreigners, even dubbed the spot “Mt. Fuji Lawson.” But the townspeople were unhappy — visitors would block the narrow sidewalk, take photos on the busy road or walk into neighbors’ properties in pursuit of their shot, officials said. On Tuesday, construction of the 2.5 meter (8.2 feet) high black mesh net — stretching for 20 meters (66 feet) along the sidewalk — was completed. Still, there are other places tourists can find their sweet photo spot. This week, Yamanashi prefecture, also home to the Yoshida Trail — the most popular of the four routes to summit the 3,776-meter (12,300-feet-) high mountain — introduced a booking system ahead of this year's Fuji climbing season to ease overcrowding, littering and safety risks. Under the new plan, only up to 4,000 climbers will be allowed to enter the trail per day for a hiking fee of 2,000 yen (about $18), with an option of donating an additional 1,000 yen (about $9) for conservation during the climbing season, which starts July 1 and runs until Sept. 10. Only those with reservation for an overnight stay at huts along the trail are allowed to hike beyond the 5th of the 10 stations between 4 p.m. and 3 a.m., a measure to stop “bullet climbing,” or rushing to the summit without adequate rest, which officials say puts lives at risk. Designated a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in 2013, Mount Fuji used to be a place of pilgrimage. Today, it's popular among hikers who climb the summit to watch the sunrise. But tons of trash left behind, including plastic bottles, food and even clothes, have become a major concern. Over-tourism has also become a growing issue at other popular tourist destinations such as Kyoto and Kamakura. Last year, Japan had more than 25 million visitors, and the figures in 2024 are expected to surpass nearly 32 million, a record from 2019, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization.
South Africa's 4 big political parties begin final weekend of campaigning ahead of election None - South Africa’s four main political parties have begun a final weekend of campaigning before a possibly pivotal election that could bring the country’s most important change in 30 years JOHANNESBURG -- South Africa's four main political parties began the final weekend of campaigning Saturday before a possibly pivotal election that could bring the country's most important change in three decades. Supporters of the African National Congress, which has been in the government ever since the end of white minority rule in 1994, gathered at a soccer stadium in Johannesburg to hear a speech by party leader and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. The ANC is under unprecedented pressure to retain its parliamentary majority in Africa's most advanced country. Having seen its popularity steadily decline over the last two decades, Wednesday's election could be a landmark moment when the party once led by Nelson Mandela drops below 50% of the national vote for the first time, although it's still widely expected to win the largest share. Several polls have the ANC's support at less than 50%, raising the possibility that it will have to form a national coalition. That would also be a first for South Africa's young democracy, which was only established 30 years ago with the first all-race vote that officially ended the apartheid system of racial segregation. As thousands of supporters in the ANC's black, green and gold colors attended its last major rally before the election, Ramaphosa recognized some of the grievances of South Africans, which include high levels of poverty and unemployment that mainly affect the country's Black majority. “We have a plan to get more South Africans to work," Ramaphosa said. “Throughout this campaign, in the homes of our people, in the workplaces, in the streets of our townships and villages, so many of our people told us of their struggles to find work and provide for their families.” The main opposition Democratic Alliance party had a rally in Cape Town, South Africa's second-biggest city and its stronghold. Party leader John Steenhuisen made a speech while supporters in the DA's blue colors held up blue umbrellas. “Democrats, friends, are you ready for change?” Steenhuisen said. The crowd shouted back “Yes!” Even though the ANC's support has shrunk in three successive national elections and appears set to continue dropping, no party has emerged to overtake it — or even challenge it. But losing its majority would be the clearest rejection yet of the famous party that was at the forefront of the anti-apartheid movement and is credited with leading South Africans to freedom. Some ANC supporters also expressed their frustration, as the country of 62 million people battles poverty, desperately high unemployment, some of the worst levels of inequality in the world, and other problems with corruption, violent crime and the failure of basic government services in some places. “We want to see job opportunities coming and basically general change in every aspect,” ANC supporter Ntombizonke Biyela said. “Since 1994 we have been waiting for ANC, it has been long. We have been voting and voting but we see very little progress as the people, only a special few seem to benefit.” While conceding to some failures, the ANC has pointed out that South Africa is a far better place than it was during apartheid, when a set of race-based laws oppressed the country's Black majority in favor of a small white minority. The ANC was also widely credited with success in expanding services to millions of poor South Africans in the decade after apartheid, even if critics say it has lost its way recently. "There are many problems in South Africa, but nobody can deny the changes that have happened since 1994, and that was because of the ANC,” said 42-year-old Eric Phoolo, another supporter of the ruling party. As some voters have turned away from the ANC, it has led to a slow fracturing of South African politics, rather than a single opposition party rising. Disaffected South Africans have gone to an array of different opposition parties, some of them new. Dozens of parties are registered to contest next week's election. South Africans vote for parties and not directly for their president in national elections. Parties then get seats in Parliament according to their share of the vote and the lawmakers elect the president — which is why the ANC losing its majority would affect the 71-year-old Ramaphosa's hopes of being reelected smoothly for a second and final five-year term. If the ANC goes below 50%, it would likely need an agreement with other parties to have the votes in Parliament to reelect Ramaphosa, once a protege of Mandela. The far-left Economic Freedom Fighters had their last big preelection gathering in the northern city of Polokwane, the hometown of fiery leader Julius Malema. “The people of South Africa must decide if they want unemployment," Malema said. The new MK Party of former South African President and former ANC leader Jacob Zuma was also campaigning in a township just outside the east coast city of Durban, although Zuma didn't attend the event. The 82-year-old Zuma rocked South African politics when he announced late last year he was turning his back on the ANC and joining MK, while fiercely criticizing the ANC under Ramaphosa. Zuma has been disqualified from standing as a candidate for Parliament in the election because of a previous criminal conviction, but MK is still allowed to use his image as its leader and he continues to campaign. His daughter, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, attended the rally, where MK followers chanted: “Run, Ramaphosa, run." ___ Gerald Imray reported from Cape Town, and Farai Mutsaka from Durban. ___ AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
Sunak dashed for July election because hopes of UK economic recovery are fading None - There was an economic logic to Rishi Sunak’s election dash, a decision that defied earlier predictions of a vote in the autumn or even winter. The prime minister could see that hopes of a recovery were fading, and with them his chances of redemption as the architect of Britain’s future prosperity. Unemployment was going to continue rising. Inflation, after falling steadily over the past year, could bounce back in the autumn. And interest rates, which are a burden for mortgage payers and indebted businesses alike, looked like remaining stubbornly high. This all meant an economy that had looked set a few months ago to be gathering strength without generating higher inflation – and with flat prices allowing the Bank of England to reduce the cost of borrowing – would be at best a neutral factor in the election, and at worst a stick for Labour to beat the government with. A vote-enhancing outcome was still possible, but the balance of risk had shifted – and not in Sunak’s favour. Crucial to this outlook for the economy were less-than-sunny reports from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). They both predicted that, after a modest bounceback from last year’s recession, the momentum to drive growth would be lacking until at least next year. Graph shows slow slow of uk economy since end of pandemic Graph shows slow slow of uk economy since end of pandemic The OECD was especially pessimistic: it poured buckets of cold water on Sunak’s aspirations by suggesting that annual growth this year would be just 0.4%. The IMF pitched in with a slightly higher increase of 0.7%. Official figures published after these reports showed that in the first three months of the year the economy grew by 0.6%, but privately many economists thought this would be revised down at a later date, and that with the Conservatives still in charge, growth would not climb above 1% for 2024. Some Tory strategists, keen on playing a longer game, focused their hopes on a bigger drop in inflation through the year than was expected by the major international forecasters. If inflation fell below the Bank of England’s target of 2% and stayed there, these insiders believed, the central bank would be duty bound to reduce interest rates. Three or four cuts could, they thought, see the rate drop from its current 5.25% to nearer 4%, generating a feelgood factor that could disguise stagnation in the wider economy. Graph shows inflation from 2010 to 2024 Graph shows inflation from 2010 to 2024 The Capital Economics consultancy has predicted that inflation will follow this path, falling dramatically over the next few months and staying low, triggering a series of interest rate cuts. However, some forecasters sit firmly on the other side of the fence, arguing that inflation could return, as it has in the US. One of the reasons Joe Biden has failed to benefit from an economic bounce can be found in the inflation figures that dropped earlier this year to almost 3% before rising back to 3.5% in March and staying at about that level in April. The US central bank has made it clear that interest rates are on hold until there are clear signs of inflation dropping back consistently to 2%. UK inflation dropped to 2.3% in April, but that was a smaller-than-expected fall, and once analysts dug into the data, they found signs of persistently high price rises in the services sector that were likely to prevent overall inflation falling much further. This persuaded the financial markets that the UK was likely to follow the Federal Reserve and push back the first interest rate cut, possibly to November. Sunak was also shocked by the IMF’s assessment of the public finances and its view that a £30bn gap had appeared between what the government expected to spend and its forecast revenues over the next five years. The IMF said that, to be certain of stabilising debt by 2029-30, the government would need to increase borrowing, raise taxes or make savings equivalent to 1% of GDP – roughly £30bn. Deficit figures from the Office for National Statistics supported this view, showing that the government was off to a poor start in April, the first month of the financial year. Graph shows unemployment increase in the first quarter of 2024 Graph shows unemployment increase in the first quarter of 2024 A July election allows Sunak to boast about figures that register a modest return to growth in the first quarter, low unemployment and rising consumer confidence. He can say inflation is falling, and there is every sign it will have dropped again when figures for May appear – on 19 June, two weeks before polling day. Such bragging is unlikely to win favour with a public battered by waves of unnecessary economic shocks, from Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit to Liz Truss’s mini-budget fiasco. The millions of people barely able to cope with shop prices 20% higher than they were in 2021 will also need a more substantial recovery before they can smile again. The logic for Sunak of going to the polls early is clear. What is more difficult to discern is how it changes the outcome.
Spas, bars and luxury hotels: how Britain’s historic buildings are being sold off to the highest bidder None - Outside the Box is a cafe in the scenic spa town of Ilkley, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales; a good-natured, relaxing place where you can enjoy a reasonably priced enchilada at the tables that spill out on to the pavement. It’s a social enterprise, dedicated to giving skills and confidence to the people with Down’s syndrome and other learning disabilities who enthusiastically staff it, so as to “release their full potential” and help them lead “more independent and fulfilled lives”. It occupies the Arcade, a glass-roofed, stone-fronted, iron-balustraded Victorian structure that had fallen into disuse until the cafe and its associated administrative rooms moved there in 2019. The building belongs to Bradford council, which recently announced that this and 154 other assets were being considered for sale, in order to plug a gap in the local authority’s finances by raising a hoped-for £60m. The OWO is a five-star hotel in Whitehall, London, an Edwardian baroque palazzo that was formerly the old War Office – “London’s most storied address”, as the hyperbolic blurb has it. It is run by the Raffles hotel chain, following a six-year “definitive transformation” by the transnational conglomerate Hinduja Group and the investment management firm Onex Holding, for a total project cost of $1.5bn (£1.2bn). Here guests can stay in ornate spaces touched by association with figures such as Winston Churchill, TE Lawrence and Ian Fleming, who all used to work in the building. Prices start at £1,000 a night for rooms and £20,000 a night for “heritage” suites. Or you might buy one of the development’s 85 residences, including a 7,700 sq ft penthouse, for up to £20m. View image in fullscreen Described by the Victorian Society as a ‘magnificent community asset’, the Municipal Buildings in Liverpool were sold in 2017 for £10.2m to the Singaporean Fragrance Group and are now the Municipal Hotel and Spa. Photograph: Henryk Sadura/Alamy The OWO, which opened last autumn, is one outcome of an austerity-driven programme to raise money by selling off valuable public buildings. The possible disposal of the Arcade in Ilkley is a current manifestation of the same idea, expanded to local authorities all over the country and their portfolios of generally more modest assets. New policies under consideration by the levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, which would allow sales of “investment properties” to meet budget shortfalls without government approval, are likely to accelerate the scale and rate of prospective disposals by desperate, cash-strapped councils. Matthew Topham of the campaign group We Own It, which opposes privatisation and supports “21st-century public ownership”, says that the effect of these changes “will be like turning the taps on full”. All councils will go bust over the next two years. It’s just a matter of when Local Government Association spokesperson Other examples include Nottingham city council, which declared itself in effect bankrupt last November, and does “not rule out” the sale of the city’s castle – with all its Robin Hood associations – and the astonishing Elizabethan mansion of Wollaton Hall. Municipal Buildings in Dale Street, Liverpool, described by the Victorian Society as a “magnificent community asset”, was sold in 2017 for £10.2m to the Singaporean Fragrance Group, with half the proceeds spent on fixing potholes, and is now a hotel. It’s hard to overstate how radical these changes could be. Almost all of the country’s local cultural infrastructure, which we have taken for granted since Victorian times, is up for grabs. There are obvious financial questions. Does it make sense to treat asset sales as revenue? What happens when the last possible properties have been flogged off, but vast shortfalls still appear in the balance sheets of local authorities and national government? How do councils replace the revenues they currently earn from at least some of their properties? How likely is it that the public will get the best possible prices from what look like fire sales in distressed circumstances? John Grogan, the Labour former MP for the Ilkley constituency, who is likely to win his seat back in July’s general election, argues that “selling at speed never tends to give best value”. The loss of assets, he says, will “limit the ability of the council to shape and encourage economic regeneration in the future”. Rob Whiteman, the chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, told the Guardian that Gove’s idea would be a “directive to break the rules – an allowance given to break all known usual accounting convention”. View image in fullscreen Nottingham city council declared itself in effect bankrupt last November, and has not ruled out selling the city’s castle. Photograph: Ian Dagnall/Alamy It’s also a cultural and social issue. Does it matter if spaces of national government, and of history and magnificence, are handed over to enjoyment by the rich? Not much, says the former Conservative cabinet minister Oliver Letwin, who spent most of his working life in halls and corridors of power. “Grand and historic doesn’t make any difference to the workings of government,” he says. “In fact they can make them worse. People can quite easily get a grandiose idea of their own significance. If you’re working in a room where Disraeli or Churchill sat, you might make the very grave mistake of thinking you’re as significant as them.” Sometimes, says Simon McDonald, formerly permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, “some buildings need to have a high impact in order to work for the country. They need to look like the serious surroundings of an important player.” He also believes that it’s good if those who work there “understand our history” and “know where we came from”. And does it matter if more modest items of local history are absorbed into the private sector? Yes, says the director of the Victorian Society, James Hughes. Such buildings are “expressions of enormous local civic pride” that “help bind communities together. You lose an awful lot,” he says, if they’re sold, “while achieving very little. You’re plugging minuscule amounts of gaping holes in public finances.” In the early years of David Cameron’s coalition government, an organisation called the Government Property Unit was set up, now the Office of Government Property, which boasts that it has overseen the “collection of over £3bn capital receipts from the sale of surplus land and property”, saved “over £1bn pounds in annual costs”, and reduced by 5% the “average space that a civil servant uses in government offices”. Its plums included opulent monuments from the high imperial age – products of a conscious desire to project British prestige and power. One was Admiralty Arch, the imposing ceremonial portal that leads from Trafalgar Square to the Mall and Buckingham Palace, commissioned by Edward VII as a memorial to his mother, Queen Victoria. The arch was sold in 2015 for £65.5m to Prime Investors Capital, a business run by the Spanish businessman and self-professed history lover Rafael Serrano, who in 2022 sold it on to the property billionaire Reuben brothers. It is to open as a hotel in 2025, after some delays, with the usual luxury trimmings of spa, underground ballroom, roof terrace and top-of-the-range interior design, as the Admiralty Arch Waldorf Astoria. “How exquisite that sounds,” said a gushing piece in the Tatler. “It will be a love letter, and tribute to, the world.” Another was the War Office, sold in 2016 for £350m, across Whitehall from Horse Guards Parade – an affair of giant Ionic columns, oversized statuary and deeply scored rustication, flanked by domed towers inspired by the work of Christopher Wren. Its interior contains a grand staircase balustraded in orange and grey marble, veinous as meat on a butcher’s slab, overlooked by a balcony from which Churchill used to make inspirational speeches to the building’s staff. It has been used, as has Admiralty Arch, as a location for James Bond films. Its six-year renovation, overseen by the architects EPR, with the assistance of 11 different firms of interior designers, in places revs up the splendour, in others domesticates it. An eight-metre-high crystal chandelier, like two vast flower heads placed one above the other, adds yet more magnificence to the grand stair. The Levee Rooms – from where directions were given to army personnel in the field and which still had maps of Iraq on the wall when the Ministry of Defence moved out – an imposing sequence of spaces with oak panelling and pilasters and ornate plaster vaults 10.5 metres off the floor, has become a suite. Its main axis now terminates in an old-school copper bath tub, with other sanitary fittings contained in tall structures that resemble vertically stretched four-poster beds. The hotel celebrates, or trades on, the building’s history, with rooms and suites named after brave spies and soldiers. Was it really the best possible outcome to make all that magnificence into a glibly branded commodity? There are rooftop bars and dining rooms with views of Westminster’s pinnacles of power. The complex’s main courtyard contains a shining circular stainless steel restaurant pavilion designed by an alumnus of Zaha Hadid Architects, DaeWha Kang, which, while claiming inspiration from the flower paintings of the nature-loving Georgia O’Keeffe, is finished in the kind of paint they use on Aston Martins. A six-storey basement was hollowed out, the mountainous masonry of the old building propped above it, to house a swimming pool and 600-person ballroom, into which can be driven (as has already happened) a Formula One car. This opulence, impressive if a touch joyless, is a world away from Bradford’s financial troubles. The council faces a shortfall of £72m this year, which, according to its leader, Susan Hinchcliffe, is because of cuts in government funding – a 60% cut in real terms since 2010, or £350m a year – and escalating costs of children’s and adults’ social care, which now account for 87% of its budget. These are in turn the result of greater demand arising from increasing hardship and the growing costs of privately run care services. The Yorkshire Post reported last November that the council pays £312,000 per child each year for them to stay in privately run care homes. According to the Bradford Children and Families Trust, an independent organisation with government-appointed board and chair, the council needs to spend £250m this year to look after children, which is more than the £233m it received in council tax. Hence its announcement in February of the assets it is thinking of selling. The council is made of a constellation of towns and rural areas, as well as the city of Bradford itself, and its list is a motley one, spread out among its sprawling domain. It includes farmland, car parks, care homes and office buildings. Some of the properties serve or served civic purposes; some were bought under investment strategies that sought to generate revenue for the council. The handsome Georgian building that was formerly Bingley’s town hall and still contains council offices may, it has been suggested, become a hotel. The Picture House in Keighley, a playful 1913 building that houses an independent cinema, is on the list. So is the 17th-century Old Manor House in Manningham, a Grade II-listed structure acquired by the council in 2020 to save it from terminal decay. View image in fullscreen The Arcade in Ilkley, West Yorkshire. The home of social enterprize Outside the Box is being considered for sale by Bradford council. Photograph: Brenda Kean/Alamy And the list includes Ilkley’s Arcade, home to Outside the Box. The council promises that existing leases will be transferred to new owners, leaving tenants unaffected, but buyers seeking to maximise their returns will surely, in the longer term, be tempted to evict less profitable users. Compared with the old War Office, these are modest structures. The Arcade looks as if it might fit in the OWO’s ballroom. But according to We Own It’s Matthew Topham, formerly a resident of Ilkley and now of Leeds, they constitute a “joint heritage set of cultural assets that work for us”. A town like Keighley is, he says, “a place like so many that has had its industry stripped away. It has had its heart ripped out, great buildings boarded up, promises of levelling up that never came true.” Those that remain in use “give a community a sense of itself”. Bradford’s plight is severe, but not fundamentally different from that faced by councils up and down the country. Many are struggling with similar crises arising from the growing cost of their statutory obligations and reduced funding. In some cases, as the government from time to time likes to allege, incompetence might play a part. Bradford, according to Topham, “is a sign of things to come”. What’s happening there “is coming for the vast majority of councils”. “All councils will go bust over the next two years,” said a Local Government Association spokesperson, as quoted by Susan Hinchcliffe, “it’s just a matter of when.” It would be absurd to say that a council should never sell its property, especially those that were bought as investments in the first place, but it’s clearly not sustainable to finance local government by flogging off its assets. At some point, sooner rather than later, they will run out. In 2014, Northampton borough council (as it was then) controversially sold an ancient Egyptian sculpture in the collection of Northampton Museum for £15.8m, but its successor, West Northamptonshire Council, is currently unable to sign off its accounts in the face of enormous debt. In which case some other way has to be found of paying for councils’ services. Topham favours what he calls “the commonsense approach you get in every other country: devolution of tax-raising powers to local government, and public ownership of public services”. View image in fullscreen The old War Office in Whitehall, London, is now a luxury hotel, OWO, owned by the family ranked No 1 on the latest Sunday Times rich list. Photograph: John Athimaritis Meanwhile, little pieces of the nation’s soul will be put up for sale. The case of the old town hall in Sheffield, bought by a private company in 2004 and currently disused and deteriorating, does not inspire confidence in the custodianship of private buyers. You also have to wonder what investors might do in order to wring maximum value from the public assets they acquire, whether it’s a care home or a library or an Elizabethan stately home. The notorious overcharging of privately run hospital car parks gives some idea. Those grand old ministry buildings have become trophies of the super-rich: Gopi Hinduja and his family, owners of the OWO, are No 1 on the latest Sunday Times rich list; the Reuben brothers and their family, who own the Admiralty Arch, are No 3. You could argue that the War Office building has been restored to a standard and extent that the public sector might never have got round to achieving. It is also slightly more accessible than it was in the past – while it’s not exactly welcoming to the casual nonpaying, not-well-healed visitor, a place that was originally designed as a fortress does at least allow the public inside. But was it really the best possible outcome to make all that magnificence and history into a glibly branded commodity, to convert the memories of heroism and armed conflict into a premium product? Is there no alternative to making what were impermeable and sometimes run-down government offices into luxury hotels? It’s hard to imagine other major countries being so cavalier with their past. And if the £350m received for the old War Office sounds like a lot, it is nothing compared with the billions spaffed up the wall on dodgy Covid PPE contracts, and Liz Truss’s economic disaster.
Trump trial in 60 seconds - day 16 None - 'Would you vote for me if I'm arrested?': Trump campaign preparing for hush money verdict
Dozens killed in airstrike on Gaza tent camp None - Dozens of people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on an area where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in tents. Video captured by NBC News showed the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood engulfed in flames that erupted after the bombardment.May 27, 2024
Big Ten and SEC are again the top conferences in revenue with athlete pay plan on horizon None - The Big Ten held a narrow edge over the Southeastern Conference in revenue for the second straight year and the Atlantic Coast Conference again ranked a distant third among the major conferences Big Ten and SEC are again the top conferences in revenue with athlete pay plan on horizon The Big Ten held a narrow edge over the Southeastern Conference in revenue for the second straight year and the Atlantic Coast Conference again ranked a distant third among the five largest college sports conferences, according to tax filings released this week. The five leagues combined to generate $3.55 billion in the 2022-23 fiscal year, with the Big Ten reporting revenue of $879.9 million compared with $852.6 million for the SEC. The ACC saw the most significant increase, going from $617 million in 2021-22 to $707 million. The Pac-12, which will see 10 of its 12 members disperse to other conferences in 2024-25, generated $603.9 million. The Big 12 was fifth at $510.7 million. The details were disclosed in the same week all five conferences and the NCAA agreed to pay a total of $2.8 billion to settle antitrust litigation that is expected to also lead to the creation of a first-of-its-kind revenue-sharing system where schools will directly pay their athletes for the first time. The Big Ten and SEC have emerged as super-conferences after a wave of realignment led to schools leaving one league for another over the past two years. The most dramatic development from that was the demise of the Pac-12, but the earning power of the Big Ten and SEC is also a major development, feeding angst and concerns among the remaining conferences. Twelve of the 14 Big Ten schools each received about $60.5 million from the conference, with 2014 additions Maryland and Rutgers getting about $58.8 million apiece. The SEC distributed $51 million to each school. Each ACC school received between $43.3 million and $46.9 million; Notre Dame, an independent in , received $22.1 million. Big 12 schools received distributions ranging from $43.8 million to $48.2 million. The Pac-12 distributed about $33.6 million to each of its members, down from $36 million the previous year. Jim Delany, who stepped down as Big Ten commissioner in 2020, received $3 million in retirement compensation and another $2.8 million in deferred pay. Kevin Warren, Delany's successor who left in April 2023, was paid $3.7 million. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey was paid about $3.6 million The ACC paid Jim Phillips about $2.8 million in his first year as commissioner. The Pac-12 paid former Commissioner George Kliavkoff $3.98 million. Larry Scott, who preceded Kliavkoff, was paid $2.28 million, including $1.5 million through a separation agreement. The Pac-12 amassed $6.7 million on legal fees, about three times more than any other conference. Bob Bowlsby, the former Big 12 commissioner, was paid $17.2 million in his final year. That included $12.3 million for the remaining three years on his contract and $2.6 million in deferred compensation. Brent Yormark earned $1.2 million in his first year as Bowlsby's successor, Four of the Power Five conference's fiscal years ended June 30, 2023; the SEC's ended Aug. 31, 2023. ___ AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports
Russia will build Central Asia's first nuclear power plant in an agreement with Uzbekistan None - Russia and Uzbekistan have signed an accord for Moscow to build a small nuclear power plant in the Central Asian country Russia will build Central Asia's first nuclear power plant in an agreement with Uzbekistan MOSCOW -- Russia and Uzbekistan signed an accord Monday for Moscow to build a small nuclear power plant in the Central Asian country, as Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in the Uzbek capital with Uzbekistan leader Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Mirziyoyev hailed the project as “vital” in remarks after the talks, noting that Uzbekistan has “its own large reserves of uranium.” Putin, in turn, vowed to “do everything in order to work effectively on Uzbekistan's (nuclear energy) market.” If the agreement is implemented, the plant would become the first in Central Asia, further increasing Russia's influence in the region. Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti quoted the Russian state-owned energy corporation, Rosatom, as saying that the project envisions building six reactors with the total capacity of 330 megawatts. According to Russian media, the two countries were earlier discussing building a nuclear power plant of a larger capacity — of 2.4 gigawatts. Putin also promised to increase gas deliveries to Uzbekistan. The talks between Putin and Mirziyoyev took place in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, where the Russian leader traveled on Sunday in his third foreign trip since being inaugurated for a fifth presidential term earlier this month. He first went to China, where he expressed appreciation for China’s proposals for talks to end the Ukraine conflict, and later to Belarus where Russia has deployed tactical nuclear weapons. The trips reflect the Kremlin's ongoing effort to shore up support amid unabating tensions with the West over the conflict in Ukraine.
Long-haul carrier Emirates sees $4.7 billion profit in 2023 None - The long-haul carrier Emirates says it saw record profits of $4.7 billion in 2023 as the airline fully took flight after the turbulent years of the coronavirus pandemic disrupted its operations DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- The long-haul carrier Emirates announced Monday it saw record profits of $4.7 billion in 2023 as the airline fully took flight after the turbulent years of the coronavirus pandemic disrupted its operations. Emirates, owned by Dubai's government, announced revenues of $33 billion, compared to $29.3 billion the year before. Profit the year prior had been $2.9 billion. The airline carried 51.9 million passengers in its 2023 financial year, as compared to 43.6 million the year prior. “Throughout the year, we saw high demand for air transport and travel related services around the world, and because we were able to move quickly to deliver what customers want, we achieved tremendous results,” Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the chairman and CEO of Emirates, said in a statement. “We are reaping the benefit of years of non-stop investments in our products and services, in building strong partnerships, and in the capabilities of our talented people.” Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, praised the airline, noting it “took off 39 years ago and the world of aviation is no longer what it was before.” “What is coming will be more beautiful, greater and better, God willing,” Sheikh Mohammed wrote on the social platform X. The Emirates' results track with those for its base, Dubai International Airport. The world's busiest airport for international travelers had 86.9 million passengers last year, surpassing numbers for 2019 just before the coronavirus pandemic grounded global aviation. The airport had 89.1 million passengers in 2018 — its busiest-ever year before the pandemic. The airport now plans to move to the city-state’s second, sprawling airfield in its southern desert reaches in the next 10 years in a project worth nearly $35 billion. The overall Emirates Group, which includes travel company dnata, as well as food, beverage and leisure holdings, reported profits of $5.1 billion off revenues of $37.4 billion. The group declared a dividend to its owner, the sheikhdom's sovereign wealth fund known as the Investment Corporation of Dubai, of $1 billion. It also gave its over 112,000 employees 20-weeks bonus pay, according to an internal email sent to staff seen by The Associated Press. The city-state, one of seven hereditarily ruled, autocratic sheikhdoms that make up the United Arab Emirates, provided Emirates some $4 billion in a bailout at the height of the pandemic. The annual report said Emirates had repaid $2.6 billion of that loan during the last financial year. In November, Emirates announced a $52 billion deal to purchase 90 Boeing 777 aircraft, 55 of them 777-9 variants and 35 of them 777-8s. Emirates will also add an additional five 787 Dreamliners to its previous order of 30 aircraft. For years, Emirates has relied on the Boeing 777 and the double-decker Airbus A380 to ferry passengers around the world. That will change in September, when Emirates says it will begin flying the Airbus A350 on routes. The airline has also embarked on a $2 billion retrofit program for its aircraft. But challenges remain for the carrier. Saudi Arabia plans to push into the market with Riyadh Air, a new carrier that made a jet deal valued around $37 billion with Boeing just last year with the flagship carrier Saudia. Climate change may be another concern as well — the wider UAE saw its heaviest recorded rainfall ever last month, which disrupted Emirates' flights for days.
‘Furiosa’ sneaks past ‘Garfield’ to claim No. 1 spot over Memorial Day weekend None - Furiosa won the holiday box office over Garfield by a hair. It was a close race, but the wasteland warrior of “ Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga ” came out slightly ahead of the plump orange cat with an estimated $32 million in ticket sales over the four-day weekend according to studio estimates Monday. “ The Garfield Movie,” a Sony release, earned $31.1 million in its first four days. The dust won’t officially settle on the showdown until Tuesday when final numbers are reported, but for now at least Warner Bros. has the No. 1 movie in the country. Including international showings, its running global earnings are at $64.8 million. But victory is a long way off for the $168 million production starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth. George Miller’s prequel stormed theaters riding on great reviews and was expected to have at least a slightly stronger debut. For Sony, the launch of the more modestly budgeted “The Garfield Movie” is a win even without the bragging rights of being in first place. The animated film featuring the voice of Chris Pratt is likely to have a long life at the box office the summer holiday beginning for school age children. With its early international release, “The Garfield Movie” has already earned over $91.1 million against its $60 million production budget. But this weekend has also been a sobering one for Hollywood as one of the worst Memorial Day weekend box office showings in decades, excluding 2020 when theaters were closed. Ticket sales are down 22% from 2023 and the gap may just get bigger as the summer goes on. Remember, at this point last year “Barbenheimer” hadn’t even happened. Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Monday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Tuesday. 1. “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” $32 million. 2. “The Garfield Movie,” $31.1 million. 3. “IF,” $21 million. 4. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” $17.2 million. 5. “The Fall Guy,” $7.7 million. 6. “The Strangers: Chapter 1,” $6.9 million. 7. “Sight,” $3.6 million. 8. “Challengers,” $1.8 million. 9. “Back to Black,” $1.4 million. 10. “Babes,” $1.2 million.
Political consultant behind fake Biden robocalls faces $6 million fine and criminal charges None - A former New Hampshire Democratic Party chair whose phone number was spoofed in artificial intelligence-generated robocalls mimicking President Joe Biden's voice ahead of New Hampshire's presidential primary says today's charges related to the case sho... CONCORD, N.H. -- A political consultant who sent artificial intelligence-generated robocalls mimicking President Joe Biden's voice to voters ahead of New Hampshire's presidential primary faces a $6 million fine and more than two dozen criminal charges. The Federal Communications Commission said the fine it proposed Thursday for Steven Kramer is its first involving generative AI technology. The company accused of transmitting the calls, Lingo Telecom, faces a $2 million fine, though in both cases the parties could settle or further negotiate, the FCC said. Kramer has admitted orchestrating a message that was sent to thousands of voters two days before the first-in-the-nation primary on Jan. 23. The message played an AI-generated voice similar to the Democratic president’s that used his phrase “What a bunch of malarkey” and falsely suggested that voting in the primary would preclude voters from casting ballots in November. Kramer is facing 13 felony charges alleging he violated a New Hampshire law against attempting to deter someone from voting using misleading information. He also faces 13 misdemeanor charges accusing him of falsely representing himself as a candidate by his own conduct or that of another person. The charges were filed in four counties and will be prosecuted by the state attorney general’s office. Attorney General John Formella said New Hampshire was committed to ensuring that its elections “remain free from unlawful interference.” “I am pleased to see that our federal partners are similarly committed to protecting consumers and voters from harmful robocalls and voter suppression,” said Formella, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Chris Sununu. Lingo Telecom said it strongly disagrees with the FCC's action, which it called an attempt to impose new rules retroactively. “Lingo Telecom takes its regulatory obligations extremely seriously and has fully cooperated with federal and state agencies to assist with identifying the parties responsible for originating the New Hampshire robocall campaign,” the company said. “Lingo Telecom was not involved whatsoever in the production of these calls and the actions it took complied with all applicable federal regulations and industry standards.” The New Hampshire calls falsely showed up to recipients as coming from the personal cellphone number of Kathy Sullivan, a former state Democratic Party chair who helped run the Biden write-in campaign. She said in an email Thursday that she hopes Kramer is learning “there is a steep price for trying to rig an election.” “The swift, decisive action by the New Hampshire Department of Justice and the FCC hopefully will deter other bad and/or stupid actors who don’t respect democracy,” she said. Kramer, who owns a firm that specializes in get-out-the-vote projects, did not respond to an email seeking comment Thursday. He told The Associated Press in February that he wasn’t trying to influence the outcome of the election but rather wanted to send a wake-up call about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence when he paid a New Orleans magician $150 to create the recording. “Maybe I’m a villain today, but I think in the end we get a better country and better democracy because of what I’ve done, deliberately,” Kramer said in February. Voter suppression carries a prison sentence of 3 1/2 to 7 years in prison. Impersonating a candidate is punishable by up to a year in jail. In an interview days after he was publicly identified as the source of the calls, Kramer said he disagreed that his robocall suppressed voter turnout, noting that Biden won the Democratic primary by a wide margin as a write-in candidate. While he did some ballot access work for another former Democratic presidential hopeful, Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, Kramer said he acted alone. “I wrestled in college. I’m ready for the fight,” said Kramer, who is scheduled to appear in court on June 5. “If they want to throw me in jail, good luck.” Since the New Hampshire robocalls, the FCC has taken steps to combat the growing use of artificial intelligence tools in political communications. In February, it confirmed that AI voice-cloning tools in robocalls are banned under existing law, and on Wednesday, it introduced a proposal to require political advertisers to disclose when they use content generated by artificial intelligence in broadcast television and radio ads. If adopted, the new rules would add a layer of transparency that many lawmakers and AI experts have been calling for as rapidly advancing generative AI tools churn out lifelike images, videos and audio clips that threaten to mislead voters in the upcoming U.S. election. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Thursday that regulators are committed to helping states go after perpetrators. In a statement, she called the New Hampshire robocalls “unnerving.” “Because when a caller sounds like a politician you know, a celebrity you like, or a family member who is familiar, any one of us could be tricked into believing something that is not true with calls using AI technology,” she said in a statement. “It is exactly how the bad actors behind these junk calls with manipulated voices want you to react.” ___ Swenson reported from New York. ___ The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. 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US applications for jobless benefits fall as labor market continues to thrive None - The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week as layoffs remained historically low levels The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week as layoffs remained historically low despite the Federal Reserve's efforts to loosen the labor market. Jobless claims for the week ending May 18 fell by 8,000 to 215,000, down from 223,000 the week before, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The four-week average of claims, which softens some of the week-to-week volatility, rose a modest 1,750 to 219,750. Weekly unemployment claims are considered a proxy for the number of U.S. layoffs in a given week and a sign of where the job market is headed. They have remained at historically low levels since millions of jobs were lost when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. in the spring of 2020. The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark borrowing rate 11 times beginning in March of 2022 in a bid to stifle the four-decade high inflation that took hold after the economy rebounded from the COVID-19 recession of 2020. The Fed’s intention was to loosen the labor market and cool wage growth, which can fuel inflation. Many economists thought there was a chance the rapid rate hikes could cause a recession, but jobs remain plentiful and the economy still broadly healthy thanks to strong consumer spending. In April, U.S. employers added just 175,000 jobs, the fewest in six months and a sign that the labor market may be finally cooling off. The unemployment rate inched back up to 3.9% from 3.8% and has now remained below 4% for 27 straight months, the longest such streak since the 1960s. The government also recently reported 8.5 million job openings in March, the lowest number of vacancies in three years. Moderation in the pace of hiring, along with a slowdown in wage growth, could give the Fed the data its been seeking in order to finally issue a cut to interest rates. A cooler reading on consumer inflation in April could also play into the Fed’s next rate decision. Though layoffs remain at low levels, companies have been announcing more job cuts recently, mostly across technology and media. Google parent company Alphabet, Apple and eBay have all recently announced layoffs. Outside of tech and media, Walmart, Peloton, Stellantis, Nike and Tesla have recently announced job cuts. In total, 1.79 million Americans were collecting jobless benefits during the week that ended May 11. That’s from up 8,000 from the previous week and 84,000 more than the same time one year ago.
China sanctions US defense-related companies and executives over Russia, Taiwan None - China has sanctioned 12 defense-related U.S. companies and 10 executives over arms sales to Taiwan and to retaliate for earlier American sanctions on Chinese companies tied to Russia BEIJING, China -- China on Wednesday sanctioned 12 U.S. defense-related companies and 10 executives over arms sales to Taiwan in retaliation for earlier American sanctions on Chinese companies tied to Russia. The entities include units of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics and other companies. Senior executives of Northrop Grumman Corporation and General Dynamics also were targeted. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the measures came after the U.S. “indiscriminately imposed illegal unilateral sanctions on a number of Chinese entities on the grounds of so-called Russian-related factors” and that the U.S. “continued to sell arms to China’s Taiwan region.” China claims the self-governed island as its own territory, to be annexed by force if necessary. It has long opposed any weapon sales by the U.S. to the island. While the U.S. does not recognize Taiwan as a country, Washington is obligated by a federal law to ensure the island’s government has the means to defend itself. Following the inauguration of Taiwan’s new President Lai Ching-te on Monday, China announced sanctions on Boeing Defense, Space and Security and two other U.S. defense companies over arms sales to Taiwan, and against Mike Gallagher, a former Republican representative from Wisconsin who has shown support for the island. The latest round of sanctions, imposed under China's Anti-Foreign Sanction Law, will freeze all assets by the businesses inside China and denying the individuals and their immediate family members visas to enter the country, including Hong Kong and Macau. The businesses and individuals will also be banned from doing any business with Chinese firms. It wasn’t immediately clear what impact these actions would have, but such sanctions are often mainly symbolic in nature. The measures come in addition to those announced last year that barred Lockheed Martin Corp. and Raytheon Technologies Corp.’s Raytheon Missiles and Defense from importing goods into China or making new investments in the country. On May 1, the US imposed new sanctions on hundreds of companies and people tied to Russia’s weapons development program, which included more than a dozen Chinese entities accused of helping Moscow to evade earlier penalties.