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France’s Macron aims to push economic and immigration reforms despite political challenges

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:22:32 GMT

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to make key economic, immigration and education reforms despite France’s divisions and political challenges that have included months of protests against pension changes and recent rioting over a teen killed by police.Macron said in a wide-ranging interview with Le Point magazine published Thursday that he will meet next week with the country’s “main political leaders” for talks about issues confronting France. The talks would be aimed at proposing new bills and possibly referendums, he said.Macron last year lost his majority in the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, forcing him to use political maneuvering to pass any new legislation. That was “no big deal,” he said in the interview, noting that his centrist government managed to pass some new laws since then with support from members of the center-left and the traditional right.Macron wants to avoid a repetition of the major political crisis prompted by the p...

Support grows for sustainable development, a ‘bioeconomy,’ in the Amazon

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:22:32 GMT

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — If all goes according to plan, in a few weeks people will be sipping a shake that Marcelo Salazar has been developing for three years, made from the Amazon jungle’s cornucopia. His company Mazo Mana Forest Food has partnered with communities that live from the forest and gather the Brazil nuts, cocoa beans, acai, mushrooms, fruits and other ingredients that go into the drinks. They have received some backing from a business incubator based in Manaus that focuses on sustainable forest businesses, to counter an economy based on logging and ranching.“To turn the game around, I think it takes a new generation of ventures that combine different business models,” Salazar said. Some hope sustainable ventures like this will be part of a new “bioeconomy,” a buzzword at the Amazon Summit in Belem in early August, where policymakers voiced eagerness to protect the rainforest and provide a livelihood for tens of millions of rainforest residents. But beyond general sup...

Vivek Ramaswamy takes center stage, plus other key moments from the first Republican debate

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:22:32 GMT

Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have dominated the Republican presidential nomination fight for much of the year. Neither dominated the debate stage Wednesday night.Trump, of course, decided to skip the GOP’s opening presidential primary debate given his overwhelming lead in the polls. DeSantis showed up, but he was overshadowed for much of the night by political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy. And there was no shortage of aggressive performances from the others on stage either. Former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie were aggressive when given the opportunity. It took more than an hour for moderators to ask about Trump’s legal battles, a discussion previewed with a video of the Atlanta jail where he will surrender on charges Thursday.The former president scheduled counterprogramming with an interview aired on X, formerly known as Twitter, while his team suggested that the debate w...

Uber raises minimum age for most California drivers to 25, saying insurance costs are too high

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:22:32 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Uber raised the minimum age requirement for most of its new drivers in California to 25 on Thursday under rules the company said are necessary because of the rising costs of commercial auto insurance in the state.The new rule applies only to drivers signing up to transport passengers with Uber’s ride-hailing platform, and not for those delivering food with Uber Eats. Previously drivers as young as 19 could sign up.Those under 25 who activated their accounts prior to Wednesday can continue to drive for Uber, the company said.Insurance rates for Uber’s California drivers are significantly higher than for personal vehicles or taxi drivers, according to a company statement announcing the change.“As a result of these lopsided requirements, personal injury attorneys have created a cottage industry specializing in suing rideshare platforms like ours, pushing Uber’s California state-mandated commercial insurance costs to rise by more than 65% in just two yea...

Stock market today: Tech stocks rally after blowout Nvidia profit, while rest of Wall Street drifts

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:22:32 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Technology stocks are jumping in early trading following a blowout profit report from Nvidia, but moves for the rest of Wall Street are more muted. The S&P 500 was 0.3% higher early Thursday, continuing a strong week that has trimmed its loss for August so far. The Dow was little changed and the Nasdaq composite was leading the market with a 0.5% gain. Nvidia was at the center of the run after it reported much stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected. That raised hopes that this year’s frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology isn’t just hype. Nvidia rose 4.9%. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street was mixed in premarket trading early Thursday after chipmaker Nvidia reported blowout earnings, pushing Nasdaq futures higher.Futures for the S&P 500 gained 0.6% before the bell, the Nasdaq jumped 1.3%, while Dow futures lagged, inching back 0.1%.That comes a day after Wall Street...

Corporate ethics czar opens forced-labour probes against Walmart, Hugo Boss, Diesel

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:22:32 GMT

OTTAWA — Canada’s corporate-ethics watchdog is investigating whether Walmart, Hugo Boss and Diesel have forced labour in their supply chains.Sheri Meyerhoffer, the Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise, issued three reports today saying none of the companies have done enough to demonstrate the products they sell in Canada are free of slave labour.The Canadian subsidiaries of all three companies are accused of relying on suppliers who source materials from Uyghur people forced to work in China’s Xinjiang region.Walmart, Hugo Boss and Diesel all say they uphold strong antislavery protocols and investigate the source of their products, but Meyerhoffer said none provided enough information about specific allegations.She says the main challenge is that products from Xinjiang are often processed in other countries, meaning that imports from countries like Vietnam could involve forced Chinese labour if they’re not carefully traced.All seven of the initial assessments the ombudspers...

Firefighters in Greece struggle to control wildfires, including the EU’s largest blaze on record

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:22:32 GMT

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Firefighters struggled Thursday against strong winds and hot, dry conditions to tame multiple wildfires ravaging Greece, including one in the country’s northeast that officials say is the largest ever recorded in the European Union.The wildfires have left 20 people dead over the last week. Eighteen of those, including two boys aged between 10 and 15, are believed to be migrants who crossed the nearby border with Turkey. Their bodies were found by firefighters near a shack in a burnt forest area near Alexandroupolis in northeastern Greece. Sixty firefighters have been injured, fire department spokesman Ioannis Artopios said.The wildfire in the Alexandroupolis region, burning for a sixth day, combined with smaller fires to create a massive inferno that has consumed homes and vast tracts of forest and triggered multiple evacuations of villages and of the city’s hospital. With more than 730 square kilometers (282 square miles) burned, the combined blaze...

The downed Russian jet carried Wagner’s hierarchy, from Prigozhin’s No. 2 to his bodyguards

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:22:32 GMT

The passenger manifest of the plane that went down in Russia is essentially a who’s who of Wagner mercenaries: Its second-in-command, who baptized the group with his nom de guerre. The logistics chief. A fighter wounded by U.S. airstrikes in Syria. At least one possible bodyguard.And, of course, Yevgeny Prigozhin himself, Wagner’s leader and mutineer who many believed was a marked man after his short-lived uprising in June against the Russian military.In all, the other passengers included six of Prigozhin’s lieutenants, along with the three-member flight crew.DMITRY UTKINFor a long time, Utkin was believed to be the founder of Wagner but many analysts now say that was a smokescreen for Prigozhin, who only recently acknowledged his leading role in the mercenary group.Utkin, a retired special forces officer, a member of the GRU military intelligence service and a veteran of Russia’s wars in Chechnya, was responsible for command and combat training, according to...

A Burmese hip-hop artist is jailed for 20 years for criticizing Myanmar’s military leaders

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:22:32 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — A 38-year-old Burmese hip-hop artist has been found guilty of criticizing Myanmar’s military-controlled government and sentenced to 20 years in prison, a family member said Thursday. The sentence given Wednesday to Byu Har, also known as Min Oat Myanmar, appeared to be the most severe so far given to any of the celebrities detained for criticizing the military rulers who seized power from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021. Byu Har was arrested at his apartment in Yangon on May 24, hours after he strongly criticized Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the military government, and the electric power minister. In a livestream on his Facebook page, he alleged they had failed to supply enough electricity to Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city. In the livestream he called Min Aung Hlaing “incompetent” and the electricity minister a “fool”, saying electricity had been better supplied during Suu Kyi’s government.Five days after his arrest...

Ukraine marks Independence Day and vows to keep fighting Russia as it remembers the fallen

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:22:32 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine on Thursday marked its second Independence Day since Russia’s full-scale invasion, with officials vowing to keep up their fight to drive out the Kremlin’s forces and local people remembering their fallen loved ones.The national holiday coincided with the war’s 18-month milestone, giving a somber mood to the commemorations.“We remember everyone who gave their lives for freedom and independence, for the free future of Ukraine,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a social media post.He said that an independent Ukraine is “what we are fighting for.”In the northeastern Kharkiv region, families visited a cemetery where fallen Ukrainian soldiers are buried.Kateryna Krotchenko, the mother of Serhii Krotchenko who was killed near Bakhmut, cleaned his grave.“He was an ordinary boy who loved life and dreamed of something,” she told The Associated Press.“Therefore, he did not accept the fact that war had come to our land and decided to (sign up) vol...