Hundreds of skiers are lowered to safety after a tree crashes into a cable, bringing cable car gondolas in the Italian Dolomites to a halt. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).
Booming sales of cold drinks at Starbucks have created a problem: growing amounts of plastic waste from the single-use cups that Frappuccinos, Refreshers, cold brews and other iced drinks are served in. The coffee giant said Thursday it plans to alleviate some of that waste with new disposable cups that contain up to 20% less plastic. Amelia Landers, Starbucks’ vice president of product innovation, said the Seattle-based company spent the last four years developing the new containers.
The spring homebuying season is off to a sluggish start as home shoppers contend with elevated mortgage rates and rising prices. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell 4.3% in March from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.19 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. Existing home sales also fell 3.7% compared with March last year.
Russia is making overseas travel harder for some officials due to fears that foreign powers may try to gain access to state secrets during the worst crisis in relations with the West for more than 60 years, nine sources told Reuters. The Federal Security Service (FSB) is putting pressure on employees across government ministries not to leave Russia at all, even to visit so-called 'friendly' countries that have not imposed sanctions against Moscow, the sources said. Foreign travel was highly restricted during Soviet times and even before the Ukraine war those with access to certain secret information were banned from leaving Russia.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is including the TikTok divest-or-ban bill in an aid package for Ukraine and Israel.
Senior U.S. and Israeli officials will hold a virtual meeting on Thursday about Israel's plans for the southern Gaza city of Rafah as Washington seeks alternatives to an Israeli offensive, a U.S. official said. President Joe Biden has urged Israel not to conduct a large-scale offensive in Rafah to avoid more Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza, where Palestinian health authorities say more than 32,000 people have been killed in Israel's assault. The meeting comes as Israel considers launching an attack on Iranian targets in response to Iran's launching of a barrage of drones and ballistic missiles last weekend against Israel.
Global stock markets mostly rose Thursday with traders mulling the outlook for US interest rates as Federal Reserve officials questioned the need for a cut anytime soon."The stock market has found it increasingly difficult to maintain intraday gains as participants have been in more of a de-risking mode following five straight monthly gains that have stretched valuations to a point that have clashed with rising interest rates," said market analyst Patrick O'Hare at Briefing.com.
When the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in 2010 and spewed many millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the disastrous spill damaged the economy, devastated the environment and required thousands of regular people to help clean it up. Many of them got sick, but a settlement was supposed to help. BP agreed to pay workers who got ill after exposure to oil and a chemical dispersant used to break it up.
In the United States, she said, “the flipside'' of unexpectedly strong economic growth is that it ”taking longer than expected'' to bring inflation down. Georgieva also warned that government debts are growing around the world. On Tuesday, the IMF said it expects to the global economy to grow 3.2% this year, a modest upgrade from the forecast it made in January and unchanged from 2023.
Google has fired more than two dozen employees for protesting the company's $1.2 billion contract to provide the Israeli government and military with cloud and artificial intelligence services.
The United States on Thursday announced new sanctions on Iran targeting its unarmed aerial vehicle production after its missile and drone strike on Israel last weekend. The U.S. Treasury Department statement said the measures targeted 16 individuals and two entities enabling Iran’s UAV production, including engine types that power Iran’s Shahed variant UAVs, which were used in the April 13 attack. Treasury said it was also designating five companies in multiple jurisdictions providing component materials for steel production to Iran’s Khuzestan Steel Company (KSC), one of Iran’s largest steel producers, or purchasing KSC’s finished steel products.
If Israel targets Iranian nuclear sites, Iran "will surely and categorically reciprocate with advanced missiles against their own nuclear sites."
When a deadly explosion destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, 134 million gallons of crude erupted into the sea over the next three months — and tens of thousands of ordinary people were hired to help clean up environmental devastation from the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Recognizing that some members of cleanup crews had likely become sick, BP agreed to a medical claims settlement two years after the 2010 disaster. Through the settlement, BP has paid ill workers and coastal residents a tiny fraction — $67 million — of the billions the company has spent on restitution for economic and environmental damage.
The U.S. and U.K. on Thursday imposed a new round of sanctions on Iran as concern grows that Tehran’s unprecedented attack on Israel could fuel a wider war in the Middle East. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control targeted 16 people and two entities in Iran that produce engines that power the drones used in the April 13 attack on Israel. OFAC also sanctioned five firms involved in steel production and three subsidiaries of Iranian automaker Bahman Group — which is accused of materially supporting Iran's military and other sanctioned groups.
Speaker Mike Johnson is being lobbied by his members to raise the threshold required to trigger a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair, according to multiple GOP sources – a move that would help ensure he can pass foreign aid bills and still keep his job without needing to rely on Democrats to bail him out.
Investors are counting down to earnings from Netflix, the first of the "Magnificent" group of companies to report.
Traumatised 10-year-old students stare at their destroyed schools in Gaza, a grim reminder of the education and time with friends in the playground lost since the war erupted over six months ago. It's all a grim reminder of the education and dreams those who represent the future of Gaza -- a densely packed strip of land with severe shortages of water, food, medicine and healthcare -- have lost since the conflict erupted on Oct. 7. Hamas militants attacked Israel, killed 1,200 people and took over 200 hostages according to Israeli tallies, in a surprise operation that pointed to major Israeli intelligence failures.
Rates of sudden unexpected infant deaths have not gone down significantly over the last 20 years, and in some racial groups the numbers are rising.
Bill Barr, once an attorney general for Donald Trump who has since emerged as one of his most prominent critics, said on Wednesday that despite his differences with his former boss, he will support “the Republican ticket” in November.
A judge in Tunisia sentenced a journalist and political commentator to six months in prison in the country's latest assault on members of the media who criticize the government. Mohamed Boughalleb, who had been charged with insulting a public official, was sentenced Wednesday and will remain behind bars, where he has been since his arrest last month after an official lodged a complaint against him. The official alleged he was harmed by Boughalleb's commentary linking him to corruption and misuse of public funds.
In 'Deep Sky,' JWST comes to the really big screen with an abundance of data and no shortage of tears.
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