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Stock market today: Asian shares mixed after Fed chair inflation comments

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:22 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were trading mixed Thursday following a retreat on Wall Street after the Federal Reserve chair made comments that indicated inflation still isn’t under control. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 was flat at 33,575.63. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 1.6% to 7,196.10. South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.4% to 2,593.20. Trading was closed in Hong Kong and Shanghai for Dragon Boat Festival, a national holiday. Shares rose in India.The Chinese markets being closed brought a break from jitters about possible renewed tensions in the U.S.-China relationship after President Joe Biden referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping as a dictator. That pushed “back against the idea that the U.S.-China relationship could be warming with Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit,” said Yeap Jun Rong, market analyst at IG.Blinken was in Beijing recently where both sides agreed to “stabilize” badly deteriorated ties. But Blinken said China was not ready to resu...

Where abortion laws stand in every state a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:22 GMT

In the year since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that ended nearly a half-century of a nationwide right to abortion, states have enacted contrasting policies on the issue. The Dobbs decision overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that protected the right to an abortion until fetal viability, which is generally considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks of pregnancy.Lawmakers, governors, courts and voters are all shaping policies — and more changes are in the pipeline.A state-by-state breakdown of where things stand:STATES WHERE ABORTION IS BANNED THROUGHOUT PREGNANCYALABAMALaw adopted in 2019 took effect after Dobbs.Exception: Woman’s life or health.ARKANSASLaw adopted in 2019 took effect after Dobbs.Exceptions: Woman’s life.IDAHOLaw adopted in 2020 took effect after Dobbs.Exceptions: Rape, incest and life of the woman. A judge has blocked enforcement in cases of medical emergencies.The state also has a law maki...

New Zealand debates whether ethnicity should be a factor for surgery waitlists

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:22 GMT

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealanders this week were debating a thorny health care issue — whether ethnicity should be a factor in determining when patients get surgery.It turns out that in some parts of Auckland, the country’s largest city at 1.4 million people, clinicians have been using an algorithm to adjust where patients sit on elective surgery waitlists. Clinical need remains the top factor, but the algorithm also takes into account how long patients have been on the waitlist, where they live, their financial circumstances, and their ethnicity.Indigenous Māori and Pacific Island patients are given a higher priority on the list, pushing down white New Zealanders and other ethnicities. The idea is to balance out longstanding inequities in the publicly funded health system.“At the moment, there is clear evidence Māori, Pacific, rural and low-income communities have been discriminated against by the health system,” Prime Minister Chris Hipkins told reporters. The al...

Is it chicken? Here’s how the first bite of ‘cell-cultivated’ meat tastes

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:22 GMT

When I told friends and family I was reporting on the first chicken meat grown from animal cells, their first comment was “Eww.” Their second comment was: “How does it taste?”The short answer (you’ve probably heard this sentence before in other contexts): Tastes like chicken.The longer answer, which folds in the “Eww” response, is more nuanced. Yes, it’s strange to think of eating a totally new kind of meat — chicken that doesn’t come from a chicken, meat that will be sold as “cell-cultivated” chicken after the U.S. Agriculture Department on Wednesday gave the green light to two California firms, Upside Foods and Good Meat.But it’s also interesting (and exciting!) to taste test the first offerings of a new era in meat production, which aims to eliminate harm to billions of animals slaughtered for food — and to dramatically reduce the environmental effects of grazing, growing feed for those animals and dealing with their animal waste.FACING UP TO T...

Immigration drove white, Asian population growth in US last year

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:22 GMT

Without immigration, the white population in the U.S. would have declined last year. Immigration also propelled the expansion of the Asian population, which was the fastest-growing race or ethnic group last year in the U.S., while births outpacing deaths helped propel growth in Hispanic, Black, tribal and Hawaiian populations. Population estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau show what drove changes in different race, ethnic and age groups last year, as well as since the start of COVID-19’s spread in the U.S. in April 2020. The country had grown to 333.2 million people by the middle of last year, a 0.4% increase over the previous year, according to the 2022 population estimates.For white residents in the U.S., immigration drove the expansion. Without it, the white population, including those who identify as more than one race, would have dropped last year by more than 85,000 people instead of growing meagerly by more than 388,000 residents, or 0.1%. When the foc...

World leaders, activists in Paris seek financial response to climate emergency, poverty

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:22 GMT

PARIS (AP) — World leaders, heads of international organizations and activists are gathering in Paris for a two-day summit aimed at seeking better responses to tackle poverty and climate change issues by reshaping the global financial system.Developing nations point to an outdated system where the United States, Europe, China and other big economies that have caused most climate damage are leaving the poorest countries to deal with the consequences.The Paris talks also come as the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and a global debt crisis have led to a drop in life expectancy and an increase in poverty in most countries around the world, the United Nations Development Program reported.French President Emmanuel Macron, who organized the summit, said the fight against poverty, efforts to curb global warming and the protection of biodiversity “are closely intertwined. We therefore need to agree together on the best means to address these challenges in the poor and emerging co...

A year after fall of Roe, 25 million women live in states with abortion bans or tighter restrictions

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:22 GMT

One year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court rescinded a five-decade-old right to abortion, prompting a seismic shift in debates about politics, values, freedom and fairness.Twenty-five million women of childbearing age now live in states where the law makes abortions harder to get than they were before the ruling.Decisions about the law are largely in the hands of state lawmakers and courts. Most Republican-led states have restricted abortion. Fourteen ban abortion in most cases at any point in pregnancy. Twenty Democratic-leaning states have protected access. Here’s a look at what’s changed since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling.LAWS HAVE BEEN ENACTED IN 25 STATES TO BAN OR RESTRICT ABORTION ACCESSLast summer, as women and medical providers began to navigate a landscape without legal protection for abortion, Nancy Davis’ doctors advised her to terminate her pregnancy because the fetus she was carrying was expected to die soon after birth.But doctors in Louisiana, wh...

Rescuers make last desperate push as final hours of oxygen on missing Titanic submersible tick down

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:22 GMT

The race against time to find a submersible that disappeared on its way to the Titanic wreckage site entered a new phase of desperation on Thursday morning as the final hours of oxygen possibly left on board the tiny vessel ticked off the clock.Rescuers have rushed more ships and vessels to the site of the disappearance, hoping underwater sounds they detected for a second straight day might help narrow their search in the urgent, international mission. But the crew had only a four-day oxygen supply when the vessel, called the Titan, set off around 6 a.m. Sunday.Even those who expressed optimism warned that many obstacles remain: from pinpointing the vessel’s location, to reaching it with rescue equipment, to bringing it to the surface — assuming it’s still intact. And all that has to happen before the passengers’ oxygen supply runs out.The full area being searched was twice the size of Connecticut in waters as deep as 13,200 feet (4,020 meters). Captain Jamie Frederick of the First ...

Microsoft, U.S. regulators head to court over $69 billion deal that could reshape video gaming

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:22 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Microsoft on Thursday will try to gain clearance to complete a $69 billion takeover of video game maker Activision Blizzard in a legal showdown with U.S. regulators that will reshape a pastime that’s bigger than the movie and music industries combined.The battle will pit Microsoft’s ambition to expand its video game imprint beyond its Xbox console against the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s bid to block a deal that it contends will stifle competition and innovation to the detriment of consumers.It’s the latest twist in a deal that was announced 17 months ago. Both Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick are expected to testify at some point during five days of hearings in San Francisco before U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley that will conclude June 29.FTC lawyers will call upon experts and a top executive for Sony, the maker of the industry-leading PlayStation video game console, to show why Microso...

Air Quality issues Linger. Hot Weekend Ahead. Possible T-Storms Sunday

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:22 GMT

AIR QUALITY ISSUES to persist at least through Thursday with virtually no prospect of rain through Saturday—but building weekend heat and an influx of humid air Sunday could produce t-storms Sunday—And with a jet stream in the area, ingredients for some healthy/potentially severe t-storms coming together Sunday—this plus a review of rainfall projections off an array of computer model projectionsWe are anxiously awaiting the latest THURSDAY DROUGHT MONITOR which comes out Thursday to see how the current state of drought and its areal extent has changed.One thing which is sure from the rainfall numbers here in Chicago--and that's we continue to watch as our rainfall deficit grows. The past 2 months rank 7th driest of the past 153 years at the Chicago O'Hare site. This places that 2 month period among the driest 5% of all such periods on the books here in Chicago.Rainfall since April 1 remains at an abysmal 4.20"—just 38% of the normal for the period to date of 11.18". That means the d...