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Stock market today: Asian shares mostly higher as investors await US inflation, China economic data

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:44 GMT

Stock prices were mostly higher in Asia on Monday as investors awaited U.S. inflation figures and China’s latest economic data. Benchmarks fell in Hong Kong and Tokyo but rose in Shanghai, Sydney and Seoul. A surge in oil prices has added to worries that inflation may not be waning as hoped in the U.S and other major economies. That could lead the Federal Reserve and other central banks to keep interest rates higher for longer, which would hurt prices for shares and other investments. Over the weekend, China reported a slight increase in its own inflation data, suggesting deflationary pressures seen as a sign of weakness in its slowing economy might be easing. The government is due to report industrial output for August later in the week. “We expect inflation to rebound further over the coming months, as policy support drives a modest recovery in China’s economic momentum,” Zichun Huang of Capital Economics said in a commentary.The Shanghai Composite index gained 0.6% to 3,133.85, w...

Lahaina’s fire-stricken Filipino residents are key to tourism and local culture. Will they stay?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:44 GMT

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Ambulance and fire truck sirens wailed outside as Elsie Rosales stripped linens from king-sized mattresses at a beachfront resort in Lahaina.She tried to focus on the work, but was beset by dread: Had a wildfire taken the home she scrimped to buy on a housekeeper’s wages?It had. And now Rosales, like many other Filipino housekeepers used to cleaning hotels, is living in one with her family, a poignant example of how the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century has afflicted Maui’s heavily Filipino population.“All our hard work burned,” Rosales told The Associated Press in an interview conducted in Ilocano, her native language. “There is nothing left.”The disaster has prompted fears about what will become of Lahaina’s community and character as it rebuilds. Many are concerned residents like Rosales won’t be able to afford to live in Lahaina after the community is rebuilt, and that affluent outsiders seeking a home in the oceanfront town will price them ou...

Patients need doctors who look like them. Can medicine diversify without affirmative action?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:44 GMT

DETROIT (AP) — Dr. Starling Tolliver knew she wanted to become a doctor. Yet, as a Black girl growing up in Akron, Ohio, it was a dream that felt out of reach.She rarely saw doctors who looked like her. As a child, she experienced severe hair loss, and struggled to find a dermatologist who could help. Tolliver made a pact with two childhood best friends to become doctors who would care for Black and underserved communities like their own. Now 30, she is in her final year of dermatology residency at Wayne State University in Detroit. She plans to spend her career caring for the body’s largest organ, where differences in melanin give humans the skin colors underpinning the construct of race. In dermatology, only 3% of U.S. doctors are Black.Despite her success, the girls’ pact remains unfulfilled. While her friend Charmaine became a nurse, Maria, who wanted to become a pediatrician, was killed in their hometown at the age of 19. Her friend’s death only strengthened her res...

What to know about the Morocco earthquake and the efforts to help

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:44 GMT

An earthquake has sown destruction and devastation in Morocco, where death and injury counts continue to rise as rescue crews dig out people both alive and dead in villages that were reduced to rubble.Law enforcement and aid workers — both Moroccan and international — have arrived in the region south of Marrakech that was hardest hit by the magnitude-6.8 tremor Friday night and several aftershocks. Residents await food, water and electricity, and giant boulders now block steep mountain roads.Here’s what you need to know:WHAT ARE THE AREAS MOST AFFECTED?The epicenter was high in the Atlas Mountains about 70 kilometers (44 miles) south of Marrakech in Al Haouz province.The region is largely rural, made up of red-rock mountains, picturesque gorges and glistening streams and lakes. For residents like Hamid Idsalah, a 72-year-old mountain guide from the Ouargane Valley, it is unclear what the future holds.Idsalah relies on Moroccan and foreign tourists who visit the region due to its pro...

Pennsylvania Republicans have the candidate they want for US Senate. They just need him to run.

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:44 GMT

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republicans trying to recapture the U.S. Senate majority have the candidate they want in Pennsylvania. Now they just need David McCormick to run.Almost since the moment he lost last year’s Senate GOP primary, McCormick has floated the possibility that he would again seek the party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate, this time to challenge three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey.McCormick has shown up at local party events, raised money for Republican candidates, hired staff, done a publicity tour for his new book and made the rounds of conservative podcasts. In short, everything a candidate might do — except announce his candidacy.“At this point, if Dave McCormick doesn’t run, it’ll be the biggest head fake in Pennsylvania political history,” said Vince Galko, a Republican campaign strategist based in northeastern Pennsylvania.Republicans, perhaps, have done just about everything they can think of to entice McCormick to join a 2024 ticket th...

McCarthy juggles government shutdown and Biden impeachment inquiry as House returns to messy fall

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:44 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is a man who stays in motion — enthusiastically greeting tourists at the Capitol, dashing overseas last week to the G7 summit of industrial world leaders, raising funds back home to elect fellow Republicans to the House majority.But beneath the whirlwind of activity is a stubborn standstill, an imbalance of power between the far-right Republicans who hoisted McCarthy to the speaker’s role yet threaten his own ability to lead the House.It’s a political standoff that will be tested anew as the House returns this week from a long summer recess and McCarthy faces a collision course of difficult challenges — seeking to avoid a government shutdown, support Ukraine in the war and launch an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.“They’ve got some really heavy lifting ahead,” said the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, John Thune of South Dakota.McCarthy is going to “have his hands full trying to figure out how to navigate a...

UK leader Sunak chides China after a report that a UK Parliament staffer is a suspected Beijing spy

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:44 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Rishi Sunak chastised China’s premier on Sunday for “unacceptable” interference in British democracy, after a newspaper reported that a researcher in Parliament was arrested earlier this year on suspicion of spying for Beijing.Sunak said he raised the issue with Premier Li Qiang when the two met at a Group of 20 summit in India. He told British broadcasters in New Delhi that he’d expressed “my very strong concerns about any interference in our parliamentary democracy, which is obviously unacceptable.”The two men met after the Metropolitan Police force confirmed that a man in his 20s and a man in his 30s were arrested in March under the Official Secrets Act. Neither has been charged and both were bailed until October pending further inquiries.A Chinese Embassy statement called the allegations “completely fabricated and nothing but malicious slander.” China urges “relevant parties in the U.K. to stop their anti-China political manipulation,” the statement ...

Small island states lead the world in historic climate justice case to protect oceans

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:44 GMT

A landmark international climate justice case will begin hearings in Hamburg today (11 September), as small island nations seek to clarify the obligations of States to prevent the catastrophic damage caused to our oceans by carbon emissions.The case has been referred to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) by The Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS), asking the court to determine whether CO2 emissions absorbed by the ocean should be considered pollution, and if so, what obligations countries have to avoid such pollution and protect the marine environment.The ocean generates 50% of the oxygen we need, absorbs 25% of all carbon dioxide emissions and captures 90% of the excess heat generated by these emissions. Excessive carbon pollution CO2 causes harmful chemical reactions such as coral bleaching, acidification and deoxygenation, and jeopardises the ocean’s ongoing ability to absorb carbon dioxide and safeguard life on...

Suspect arrested in fatal downtown L.A. Metro stabbing

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:44 GMT

Authorities with the Los Angeles Police Department announced the arrest of a suspect in connection with the fatal stabbing of a 23-year-old man on a Metro train late last week.  The deadly encounter occurred on Sept. 7 around 5:20 p.m. Transit Services Division Officers were on the platform at the station when they were alerted to the stabbing, which happened on the Metro B (Red) Line train, according to an LAPD news release. L.A. County Metro security seen outside Metro's Pershing Square station in downtown L.A. where a stabbing occurred on Sept. 7, 2023. (KTLA)Officers located the victim, identified as Jesse Rodriguez, who was suffering from a stab wound. They attempted to render aid until medical personnel with the Los Angeles Fire Department responded and took the 23-year-old to the hospital, where he later died of his injuries.  On Sept. 8, police released a photo of the suspect, now identified as Randy Nash.  LAPD released an image of a man wanted in connection ...

Los Gatos: 9/11, Flight 93 hometown heroes remembered 22 years later

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:44 GMT

LOS GATOS — The names of the 40 passengers and crew members killed on Sept. 11, 2001, when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, were read out on the eve of the 22nd anniversary of the terrorist attack — making special mention of two local men who for years have been hailed as hometown heroes for their actions on that day.The Flame of Liberty Memorial, situated among the redwoods next to the Los Gatos Civic Center, served as a backdrop for Sunday’s Remembering 9/11 ceremony, where a crowd of veterans and local residents paid their respects as a 21 gun salute rang out.Though thousands of miles from Ground Zero, the tragedy has always felt close for the town of Los Gatos — even 22 years later — since Los Gatos High School alumni Mark Bingham and Todd Beamer were two of the nearly 3,000 people killed on Sept. 11, 2001.More than two decades later, Los Gatos Mayor Maria Ristow thinks about her former one-year-old who is now 23.̶...