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Stock market today: Asian shares mixed, Tokyo falls as Bank of Japan adjusts bond purchase policy

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:52 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares were mixed on Friday after the Bank of Japan adjusted its bond purchase policy but kept its negative benchmark interest rate unchanged. Tokyo and Sydney slipped while Hong Kong and Shanghai advanced. U.S. futures were lower and oil prices fell. Japan’s central bank opted to keep its benchmark interest rate at minus 0.1% but fine-tuned its bond purchases to allow greater flexibility. The Bank of Japan said that extremely high uncertainties for the economy and prices required a more nimble approach than its previous policy. It said it would offer to buy 10-year Japanese government bonds at 1% each business day, instead of the upper limit of 0.5% that was imposed under its “yield curve control program.”The aim is still to keep long-term interest rates near zero percent, it said. Markets in Japan wobbled before Friday’s announcement. Afterward, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 2.2% to 32,144.47. The dollar weakened against the Japanese yen, slipping to 138...

India and Japan look to collaborate in building semiconductors and resilient supply chains

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:52 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — India and Japan explored collaborating in critical technologies, including semiconductors and resilient supply chains, as part of plans to reach a target of $35.9 billion Japanese investment in the country by 2027, officials said on Friday.Foreign Ministers of India and Japan, S. Jaishankar and Yoshimasa Hayashi, met in New Delhi on Thursday and also discussed ways to deepen defense equipment and technology cooperation. Hayashi is on a two-day visit to the Indian capital.Russia’s war in Ukraine has disrupted the global supply of parts and raw materials needed to complete a variety of products – from cars to computer chips.Hayashi and Jaishankar also emphasized the crucial role of a strong partnership between India and Japan in ensuring an open and prosperous Indo-Pacific region that is inclusive and rules-based, a statement by India’s External Affairs Ministry said.They discussed cooperation under multilateral and plurilateral frameworks, including the Quad grouping...

What to stream this weekend: Post Malone, ‘Beanie Bubble,’ ‘This Fool,’ Rolling Stones and ‘Heels’

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:52 GMT

Thandiwe Newton starring in a thriller, the return of the TV family wrestling drama “Heels” and a new album from Post Malone are among the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near youAmong the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are comedian Chris Estrada’s series “This Fool” returning for a second season and Zach Galifianakis starring in a movie about the creation of the ultra-collectable Beanie Babies.NEW MOVIES TO STREAM— Zach Galifianakis takes on a different kind of role in “The Beanie Bubble,” playing Ty Warner, the founder of Ty, Inc. and creator of the Beanie Babies, which in the mid-1990s surged in popularity, and resale value, for several years. The film is not exactly about him however. Based on Zac Bissonnette’s “The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute,” directors Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash Jr. look at the women around Ty — his business partner, played by Elizabe...

Takeaways from AP’s report on bodies from migrant boats buried on the beach in Senegal

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:52 GMT

SAINT-LOUIS, Senegal (AP) — In the seaside town of Saint-Louis, Senegal, officials and residents say bodies of migrants from capsized boats attempting the dangerous trip from West Africa to Spain are buried in unmarked beach graves. Most of the families of those buried will never know what happened to their loved ones.Bodies wash ashore or are found by fishermen at sea, then are buried by authorities, and lawyers and human rights experts say it’s unclear whether the deaths are documented or investigated as required by Senegalese and international law. More people are making the trip across the Atlantic in rickety wooden boats known as pirogues trying to reach Spain’s Canary Islands. With reports of capsized boats and drownings on the rise, locals say they can tell where bodies are buried by the bits of thick rope and black plastic resembling body bags that stick out from mounds of sand.HOW MANY MIGRANTS ARE MAKING THE TRIP?The route from West Africa to Spain is one of the worl...

Schools lost track of homeless kids during the pandemic. Many face a steep path to recovery

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:52 GMT

PHOENIX (AP) — By the time Aaliyah Ibarra started second grade, her family had moved five times in four years in search of stable housing. As she was about to start a new school, her mother, Bridget Ibarra, saw how much it was affecting her education.At 8 years old, her daughter did not know the alphabet.“She was in second grade and couldn’t tell me any of the letters. I would point them out and she didn’t know,” Bridget Ibarra said. “She would sing the song in order, but as soon as I mixed them up, she had no idea.”“I just didn’t know what letters were which,” says Aaliyah, now 9. “I know them now.”The family’s struggles coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic that forced Aaliyah to begin her school experience online. Unfamiliar with a computer, Aaliyah was regularly kicked out of the virtual classroom, her mother said. Teachers complained she was not looking at the screen and took too many breaks.Zoom school was especially difficult for Aaliyah because she was homel...

Mounting job vacancies push state and local governments into a wage war for workers

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:52 GMT

FULTON, Mo. (AP) — At the entrance to Missouri prisons, large signs plead for help: “NOW HIRING” … “GREAT PAY & BENEFITS.”No experience is necessary. Anyone 18 and older can apply. Long hours are guaranteed. Though the assertion of “great pay” for prison guards would have seemed dubious in the past, a series of state pay raises prompted by widespread vacancies has finally made a difference. The Missouri Department of Corrections set a record for new applicants last month. “After we got our raise, we started seeing people come out of the woodwork, people that hadn’t worked in a while,” said Maj. Albin Narvaez, chief of custody at the Fulton Reception and Diagnostic Center, where new prisoners are housed and evaluated. Public employers across the U.S. have faced similar struggles to fill jobs, leading to one of the largest surges in state government pay raises in 15 years. Many cities, counties and school districts also are hiking wages to try to retain and attract wor...

As more migrants go missing at sea, many say bodies end up on Senegal’s beaches in unmarked graves

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:52 GMT

SAINT-LOUIS, Senegal (AP) — The small mounds of sand that dot the beach in northern Senegal blend into the terrain. But thick rope juts out from beneath the piles. Pieces of black plastic bags are scattered nearby, and green netting is strewn on top. That’s how residents in the small fishing town of Saint-Louis say they know where the bodies lie. These unmarked beach graves hold untold numbers of West African migrants who are increasingly attempting the treacherous journey across parts of the Atlantic to Europe, Senegalese authorities, residents along the coast and survivors of failed boat trips told The Associated Press. Bodies wash ashore or are found by fishermen at sea, then are buried by authorities with no clarity as to whether the deaths are documented or investigated as required by Senegalese and international law, according to lawyers and human rights experts. Most of the families of those buried will never know what happened to their loved ones.The route from West Af...

Nearly 200 million people in US are under heat, flood advisories

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:52 GMT

Nearly 200 million people in the United States, or 60% of the U.S. population, are under a heat advisory or flood warning or watch as high temperatures spread and new areas are told to expect severe storms.The National Weather Service said a “dangerous” heat wave began to scorch the Northeast and mid-Atlantic on Thursday and will continue into the weekend. Severe thunderstorms and flash floods are possible for parts of the Northeast and South, New England and South Florida. Meanwhile, the string of record-breaking temperatures will persist for the Southwest and Midwest.“It’s (hitting) all the big cities,” said Bob Oravec, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center. “That’s why the population (affected) is so high.”Scientists have long warned that climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, will lead to more and prolonged bouts of extreme weather. The prediction for continued excessive heat comes a day after the World Me...

Chicago sizzles in 2023’s hottest air Friday—thermometer temps to approach 100 degrees first time in 11 years with dangerous heat indices—but a stormy break is in sight

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:52 GMT

From Tom’s National Weather Service-Chicago colleagues: Southern Lake Michigan water temps from the National Weather Service Chicago/Romeoville, IL at 9:08 AM CDT, Thursday, July 27, 2023The Michigan City water temperature sensor is located at a water intake one mile offshore and 60 feet below the water surface. It is read every day of the year.Severe weather and drenching, thundery downpours Friday night is to introduce a markedly cooler, less humid weekend. Heat advisories remain in effect in all but Lake County, Illinois Friday with excessive heat warnings Friday over many sections of the Chicagoland area.The atmosphere is awash in tropical moisture and buoyant heated air which may bubble up into a few isolated predawn and morning t-storms Friday--but also threaten to fuel vigorous late day or Friday night t-storms which may become severe and have the potential of producing HEAVY, POTENTIALLY FLOODING DOWNPOURS OVER A SWATH OF THE CHICAGO METRO AREA. Heat indices are likely to re...

NTSB blames poor track conditions for fatal 2021 derailment of Amtrak’s Empire Builder

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:52 GMT

HELENA, Mont. — Poor track conditions that should have been flagged by a freight railroad company’s inspectors caused the derailment of an Amtrak train in Montana that killed three people and injured 49 others in 2021, federal investigators said Thursday in a final report.The severity of the injuries were made worse by the Amtrak train’s lack of seatbelts and windows that weren’t strong enough to keep passengers from being ejected when the train derailed, the National Transportation Safety Board found.Amtrak’s Empire Builder derailed Sept. 25, 2021, in northern Montana while it was en route from Chicago and the Twin Cities to Seattle and Portland, Oregon, with 165 people on board, including its crew. It was traveling on tracks owned by BNSF Railway.Six people were ejected from the train’s observation car, which has larger windows and was one of three cars that ended up on its side. One person who had been riding in the observation car died, as did two people who were in the ve...