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Stock market today: Wall Street ticks higher as earnings season ramps up

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:56:44 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is edging higher Monday ahead of a week full of updates about where profits for big U.S. companies are heading. The S&P 500 was up 0.3% in midday trading, coming off its seventh winning week in the last nine. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 65 points , or 0.2%, at 34,574, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.6% higher.Stocks elsewhere around the world slipped after China reported weaker economic growth for the spring than economists expected. Its recovery following the removal of anti-COVID restrictions has fallen short of forecasts. While that’s helped to limit inflation globally, it’s also diluted a main engine of growth for the world’s economy.The weak data from the world’s second-largest economy helped weigh on crude prices, with benchmark U.S. oil slipping 0.8% to $74.82 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 0.9% to $79.16 per barrel. The hope among investors is that the disappointing fig...

Nicolas Cage to skip Fantasia Festival in Montreal due to SAG-ACTRA strike

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:56:44 GMT

MONTREAL — A Montreal film festival says Nicolas Cage will no longer make an appearance due to the Hollywoodactors’ strike.Cage had been set to receive the career achievement award at the Fantasia International Film Festival, which celebrates genre cinema such as horror and science fiction.Cage’s latest film, “Sympathy for the Devil,” is to premiere at the festival on Saturday, but he will no longer be in attendance. The performers union SAG-AFTRA began a strike last Friday, and its rules prohibit members from promoting studio films.In a notice on its website, Fantasia says it will provide regular updates about other SAG members who had planned to attend.The festival, which runs from July 20 to Aug. 9, says it supports the actors, as well as the striking Writers Guild of America, and hopes the unions get a fair deal soon.This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 17, 2023.The Canadian Press

Hollywood plunges into all-out war on the heels of pandemic and a streaming revolution

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:56:44 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — To get a sense of just how much animosity is flying around Hollywood these days, watch how Ron Perlman responded to a report that the studios aimed to prolong a strike long enough for writers to lose their homes.Perlman, the hulking, gravel-voiced actor of “Hellboy,” leaned into the camera in a since-deleted Instagram live video to vent his anger. “Listen to me, mother-(expletive),” Perlman said. “There’s a lot of ways to lose your house.”Three years after the pandemic brought Hollywood to a standstill, the film and TV industry has again ground to a halt. This time, though, the industry is engaged in a bitter battle over the how streaming — after advancing rapidly during the pandemic — has upended the economics of entertainment.Having weathered plague, Hollywood is now fully at war in its own “Apocalypse Now” double feature. When tens of thousands Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artist hit the picket lines last week, joining 11,000 WGA...

Key Russian bridge to Crimea is struck again, with Moscow blaming Kyiv for attack that killed 2

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:56:44 GMT

TALLINN, Estonia — An attack before dawn Monday damaged part of a bridge linking Russia to Moscow-annexed Crimea that is a key supply route for Kremlin forces in the war with Ukraine, forcing the span’s temporary closure for a second time in less than a year. Two people were killed and their daughter was injured. Vehicle traffic on the Kerch Bridge came to a standstill, while rail traffic across the 19-kilometer (12-mile) span also was halted for about six hours.The strike was carried out by two Ukrainian maritime drones, Russia’s National Anti-Terrorist Committee said.Ukrainian officials were coy about taking responsibility, as they have been in past strikes. But in what appeared to be a tacit acknowledgment, Ukrainian Security Service spokesman Artem Degtyarenko said in a statement that his agency would reveal details of how the “bang” was organized after Kyiv has won the war.The bridge previously was attacked in October, when a truck bomb blew up two of its sections and required ...

1 dead and 50 injured in a bus crash on a major highway in southeastern Czech Republic

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:56:44 GMT

Two buses collided on a Czech highway in the southeast of the country, killing at least one person and injuring about 50, officials said on Monday.One of the bus drivers was killed, police said, according to preliminary information from the site.The regional rescue service said the accident took place near the second-largest Czech city of Brno, on the D2 highway.Some of the seriously injured people were transported by helicopters to nearby hospitals, it said.Police said the highway that links Czechia with the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava, had to be closed in both directions. Long lines of traffic formed on the highway, causing delays.An investigation into the cause of the crash is now underway. Prague, The Associated Press

Boy thrown from carnival ride at Illinois community festival

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:56:44 GMT

ANTIOCH, Ill. (AP) — Carnival rides were shut down at an Illinois community festival after a 10-year-old boy was thrown from his seat and seriously injured, authorities said.The boy was riding Moby Dick, which locks people in at the shoulders and then goes up and down as speed increases. The boy was thrown Sunday as the ride was moving at Antioch’s Taste of Summer, 60 miles (96.5 kilometers) northwest of Chicago, near the Wisconsin border.“The carnival was packed, and so a lot of people experienced seeing it,” said Charles Smith, operations commander at the Antioch police department. “It’s a traumatic event for our community.”The boy was in critical condition when taken to a hospital, WLS-TV reported, though his condition Monday wasn’t immediately known.Mayor Scott Gartner shut down rides at Taste of Antioch after the boy was injured.There have been other incidents on summer rides this year. On July 2, eight people were trapped upside down on a roller coaster at a festiv...

York police helicopter, K-9 units track down multiple suspects in Vaughan

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:56:44 GMT

York Regional Police made multiple arrests following separate collisions in Vaughan after two men fled the scene of the crash, and helicopter footage showed one of them hiding from police by climbing a tree.Police said it happened near Rutherford Road and Canada’s Wonderland Drive just after 10 a.m. on July 12, when witnesses reported two men in a cube van crashed with an SUV.Investigators allege the suspects took off on bikes retrieved from the van’s cargo compartment and fled into a swampy area near Major Mackenzie Drive.One suspect was immediately arrested, and the other was tracked down by a Canine Unit and York police helicopter spotted hiding in a tree from officers. With assistance from a police service dog, the suspect was taken into custody without incident, police said.Authorities said the cube van was reported stolen from a rental service on July 7 in London, Ont.A 29-year-old man of no fixed address is charged with possessing property obtained by crime exceed...

'Smokeageddon' was unprecedented. We can expect more of the same.

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:56:44 GMT

(The Hill) - Meteorologists struggled to explain "Smokeageddon," the acrid campfire haze that settled over the East Coast and Midwest last month, and with good reason: It was unprecedented. Before this summer, code purple and code maroon air quality alerts, the two most dire categories, were almost unknown in the eastern United States. The American Lung Association, which collects air data, recorded exactly 10 code purple air days in the East or Midwest between 2000 and 2021, each reported by a single county. In those 21 years, no Eastern county reported a code maroon day. Over three weeks in June, dozens of cities logged purple and maroon alerts, triggered by wildfire smoke that drifted south from Canada. Wildfire smoke has menaced the West in recent years, an era of rising temperatures and erratic rainfall, fed by global warming. Yet, until this summer, the smoke had mostly spared the East. Jenna Krall, an assistant professor and air quality expert at George Mason U...

Why is a single senator blocking military promotions? And what does it mean for the Pentagon?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:56:44 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville is waging an unprecedented campaign to try to change Pentagon abortion policy by holding up hundreds of military nominations and promotions, forcing less experienced leaders into top jobs and raising concerns at the Pentagon about military readiness.Senators in both parties — including Republican Leader Mitch McConnell — have pushed back on Tuberville’s blockade, but Tuberville is dug in. He says he won’t drop the holds unless majority Democrats allow a vote on the policy.For now, the fight is at a stalemate. Democrats say a vote on every nominee could tie up the Senate floor for months. And they don’t want to give in to Tuberville’s demands and encourage similar blockades of nominees in the future.Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said that holding up the promotion of military leaders, most of whom have dedicated their lives to protecting the country, “is one of the most abominable and outrageous things I have ever seen in this...

These notable movies, TV shows are on hold because of the actors strike

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:56:44 GMT

(NEXSTAR) – When actors joined screenwriters in authorizing a strike last week, it became the first dual strike between the two major unions in about 60 years. As long as the strike lasts, union rules say actors are not to do any part of their jobs. They are not allowed to promote their work on podcasts or at premieres. They are barred from doing any production work including auditions, readings, rehearsals, voiceovers or wardrobe fittings. And of course, they're also not allowed to shoot new content. Naturally, that has many major productions on hold for the time being. While "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning" aired in theaters around the country over the weekend, production on its sequel ("Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two") was delayed by the strike, NBC News confirmed. Filming was supposed to resume after Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, and the film's other actors finished promotion of the "Part One" release, according to NBC. Hollywood actors join screenwrite...