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Stock market today: Wall Street closes lower, giving S&P 500 another losing week

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:48 GMT

NEW YORK — Wall Street capped a choppy week of trading with a broad slide for stocks Friday, giving the S&P 500 its second losing week in a row. The benchmark index fell 1.2%, its first loss in three days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.8% and the Nasdaq composite gave back 1.6%. U.S. automaker stocks proved to be resilient after members of the United Auto Workers union walked off the job at several plants overnight. Ford slipped 0.1% and General Motors rose 0.9%. Shares in Stellantis gained 1.9% in trading on the Milan Stock Exchange in Italy.The market posted some gains earlier this week following several healthy indicators on the economy. Wall Street has been watching economic updates ahead of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy meeting next week. The central bank is expected to hold interest rates steady after spending much of the last two years pushing rates higher in its bid to tame inflation.Boosting market sentiment this week was a report Thursda...

Climate change could bring more storms like Hurricane Lee to New England

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:48 GMT

BOSTON (AP) — When it comes to hurricanes, New England can’t compete with Florida or the Caribbean.But scientists said Friday that the arrival of storms like Hurricane Lee this weekend could become more common in the region as the planet warms, including in places such as the Gulf of Maine.One recent study found climate change could result in hurricanes expanding their reach more often into mid-latitude regions, which includes New York, Boston and even Beijing. Factors in this, the study found, are the warmer sea surface temperatures in these regions and the shifting and weakening of the jet streams — strong bands of air currents that encircle the planet in both hemispheres. “These jet stream changes combined with the warmer ocean temperatures are making the mid latitude more favorable to hurricanes,” Joshua Studholme, a Yale University physicist and l ead author on the study. “Ultimately meaning that these regions are likely to see more storm formation, intensification and pe...

Kansas to no longer change transgender people’s birth certificates to reflect gender identities

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:48 GMT

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas will no longer change transgender people’s birth certificates to reflect their gender identities, the state health department said Friday, citing a new law that prevents the state from legally recognizing those identities.The decision from the state Department of Health and Environment makes Kansas one of a handful of states that won’t change transgender people’s birth certificates. It already was among the few states that don’t change the gender marker on transgender people’s driver’s licenses.Those decisions reverse policies that Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration set when she took office in 2019. They came in response to court filings by conservative Republican state Attorney General Kris Kobach to enforce the new state law. Enacted by the GOP-controlled Legislature over Kelly’s veto, it took effect July 1 and defines male and female based only on the sex assigned to a person at birth. John Hanna...

Michigan man cleared of killing 2 hunters to get $1 million for wrongful convictions

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:48 GMT

DETROIT (AP) — The state of Michigan has agreed to pay $1.03 million to a man who spent nearly 21 years in prison for the deaths of two hunters before the convictions were thrown out in February.Jeff Titus, 71, qualified for compensation under the state’s wrongful conviction law, which pays $50,000 for every year behind bars. Records show Court of Claims Judge James Redford signed off on the deal on Aug. 23.“Our goal is to hold accountable those who are responsible for the harm done to Mr. Titus. The state’s acknowledgment of his wrongful conviction is a start,” attorney Wolfgang Mueller said Friday.Titus had long declared his innocence in the fatal shootings of Doug Estes and Jim Bennett near his Kalamazoo County land in 1990.He was released from a life sentence earlier this year when authorities acknowledged that Titus’ trial lawyer in 2002 was never given a police file with details about another suspect. Thomas Dillon was an Ohio serial killer whose five victims betwe...

S&P/TSX composite ekes out small gain Friday, U.S. markets fall

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:48 GMT

TORONTO — Strength in battery metals and financial stocks helped Canada’s main stock index eke out a small gain Friday, while U.S. markets fell, led by losses in tech.The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 54.50 points at 20,622.34.In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 288.87 points at 34,618.24.The S&P 500 index was down 54.78 points at 4,450.32, while the Nasdaq composite was down 217.72 points at 13,708.33.The Canadian dollar traded for 73.93 cents US compared with 73.99 cents US on Thursday.The November crude contract was up 41 cents at US$90.02 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down six cents at US$2.64 per mmBTU.The December gold contract was up US$13.40 at $1,946.20 an ounce and the December copper contract was down two cents at US$3.80 a pound.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 15, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD=X)The Canadian Press

Italian leader Giorgia Meloni vows to take ‘extraordinary measures’ to deal with a migrant influx

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:48 GMT

ROME (AP) — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni vowed Friday to take “extraordinary measures” to deal with an influx of migrants, including calling anew for a naval blockade of North Africa, after a week in which more than 6,000 people arrived within a day on the island of Lampedusa from Tunisia.Meloni invited the head of the European Commission to visit Lampedusa with her to see the conditions firsthand and called for a new European Union migration deal with Tunisia to be put into effect. In a video distributed by her office, Meloni said that Europe needs a “paradigm change” to cope with a series of factors in Africa — conflict, instability, soaring grain prices and climate crises — that she warned could spur millions of people to risk their lives to come to Europe.“Obviously, Italy and Europe cannot welcome this massive influx of people, especially when these migrant flows are being managed by unscrupulous traffickers,” she said.Lampedusa, which is closer to Africa than the Itali...

Court sentences main suspects in Belgium’s deadliest peacetime attack to 20-year to life terms

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:48 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — A Belgian court on Friday sentenced six men to sentences ranging from 20 years to life in prison on charges of terrorist murder in connection with 2016 suicide bombings that killed 32 people and wounded hundreds at Brussels airport and a busy subway station, the country’s deadliest peacetime attack.A chief suspect, Salah Abdeslam, was given a 20-year sentence for involvement in a shootout days before the March 22, 2016 attacks. It happened after police discovered him and another suspect by accident when they inspected what they thought was an empty apartment. Four officers were hurt.Abdeslam was already serving a life sentence without parole in France over his part in attacks that hit Paris cafes, the Bataclan theater and France’s national stadium in 2015. Both the Paris and Brussels attacks were linked to the same Islamic State network.Taking the stand at a high security court in Brussels on Monday before the jury and magistrates retired to deliberate on sentences, ...

Outrage boils in Seattle and in India over death of a student and an officer’s callous remarks

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:48 GMT

SEATTLE (AP) — Outrage grew Friday over a Seattle police officer’s remark that the life of a young woman killed by a speeding patrol car had “limited value.” Diplomats from India are asking for an investigation following the death of the Indian graduate student as people in Seattle protested the officer’s callous jokes caught on bodycam video.The footage released this week shows Officer Daniel Auderer, vice president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, joking with the rank-and-file police union’s president after a different officer’s speeding police car on Jan. 23 slammed into Jaahnavi Kandula at a crosswalk.Protesters on Thursday evening gathered at the Seattle intersection where the 23-year-old graduate student was fatally struck by Officer Kevin Dave’s SUV. The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is conducting a criminal review of the crash.Auderer responded to the crash to evaluate whether Dave was impaired, The Seattle Times reported. Dave ...

A look at the articles of impeachment against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:48 GMT

The Texas Senate is deliberating 16 articles of impeachment against state Attorney General Ken Paxton after a two-week trial. Paxton, a Republican and star of the conservatives legal movement, was suspended from office in May when the GOP-controlled House voted 121-23 to impeach him on 20 articles that include bribery and abuse of public trust. Most of the articles deal with Paxton using his office to benefit a wealthy donor, Nate Paul, prompting eight of the attorney general’s top deputies to report him to the FBI in 2020.The Senate did not take up four of the articles. Three of those date back to Paxton’s pending 2015 felony securities fraud case, including lying to state investigators. The other is related to Paxton’s ethics filings in the impeachment trial. Paxton would be permanently removed from office if he is convicted of any of the articles.A look at the 16 articles the Senate is considering and the four that it set aside:DISREGARD OF OFFICIAL DUTYARTICLE 1 – Protecti...

West Virginia University makes wide-ranging cuts to academic programs and faculty

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:48 GMT

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Despite shouts of “stop the cuts” from students, West Virginia University’s board voted Friday to make wide-ranging reductions to academic programs and faculty positions as it grapples with a $45 million budget shortfall.The state’s largest university will drop 28 of its majors, or about 8%, and cut 143 of the faculty positions, or around 5%. Among the cuts are one-third of education department faculty and the entire world language department, although there will still be seven language teaching positions and students can take some language courses as electives. The university in Morgantown has been weighed down financially by a 10% drop in enrollment since 2015, revenue lost during the pandemic and an increasing debt load for new building projects.Students chanting slogans and holding signs, including one that read, “This isn’t the WVU that I fell in love with,” briefly interrupted Friday’s meeting just prior to the board’s vote. Dozens of speakers, i...