Новости за 11.04.2024

Federal investigators say the driver of a Ford electric SUV involved in a February fatal crash in Texas was using the company’s partially automated driving system before the wreck. The National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday that data from the 2022 Mustang Mach E SUV showed that Ford’s “Blue Cruise” driver-assist system was in use ahead of the Feb. 24 crash. The wreck is one of two recent fatal crashes involving Ford Mustang Mach Es that are under investigation by the NTSB and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate rose to its highest level in five weeks, a setback for prospective homebuyers during what’s traditionally the busiest time of the year for home sales. The average rate on a 30-year mortgage rose to 6.88% from 6.82% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.27%. Rates have been mostly drifting higher in recent weeks as stronger-than-expected reports on employment and inflation. Many economists still expect that mortgage rates will ease moderately later this year... Читать дальше...

Some Muslim and Arab American leaders have grown frustrated with the outreach from President Joe Biden's White House as the war in Gaza drags on. They say private meetings with officials at all levels of the administration have failed to lead to meaningful changes in U.S. support for Israel, and they're unwilling to continue talking. The fractured relationship could jeopardize the Democratic president's reelection campaign and help pave the way for Republican Donald Trump to return to the White House. Читать дальше...

Four railroads have asked federal appeals courts to throw out a new rule that would require two-person train crews in most circumstances. The identical challenges were filed this week in appellate courts across the country. They call the Federal Railroad Administration's new rule arbitrary, capricious and an illegal abuse of discretion. The rail industry has long opposed such a rule. They say safety data doesn't support it and crew size should be determined by negotiations. But regulators and unions... Читать дальше...

Powerful storms are rumbling over parts of the southeastern U.S. as more severe weather takes aim at parts of the Ohio Valley. The storm system has already been blamed for at least one death in Mississippi and flooded streets in the New Orleans area. Damage has been reported from Texas to the Florida Panhandle. More than 100,000 customers lack power. Now forecasters say parts of Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia will be near the bull's-eye of a new area of concern Thursday. The Storm Prediction Center says those areas could see some tornadoes... Читать дальше...

Shop for a home now or hold out for possibly lower mortgage rates? That’s a question confronting many home shoppers this spring homebuying season amid widespread expectations that mortgage rates could come down once the Federal Reserve begins lowering its own short-term rate. Economists generally anticipate that the average rate on a 30-year mortgage could start declining later this year after surging to a 23-year high of nearly 8% in late October. Holding out for more attractive rates could give homebuyers some financial breathing room. Читать дальше...

Union officials say steelworkers at Britain’s largest steel production plant have voted to go on strike for the first time in 40 years. They will protest the planned cuts of 2,800 jobs by Indian owner Tata Steel. The Unite trade union said Thursday that 1,500 of its members at the south Wales plant and the nearby smaller Newport Llanwern steelworks backed the strike action. In January, Tata said it would close both blast furnaces at Port Talbot as part of plans to make its unprofitable U.K. operation leaner and greener... Читать дальше...

If you daydream about getting a break from stress, you might picture a restful week of vacation or a long weekend away. But some folks have found ways to take longer or more varied time away from the routine. Maybe it's extended leave from a job. Or just working remotely somewhere new to experience a different lifestyle. Call them mini sabbaticals, adult gap years or just gap months. A group called the Sabbatical Project says extended breaks can help individuals and companies alike by reducing employee exhaustion. Читать дальше...

Amazon is adding artificial intelligence visionary Andrew Ng (EE-ng) to its board of directors. Ng is known for leading AI teams at the Chinese tech company Baidu and Google, where his team taught a computer system to recognize cats in YouTube videos without ever being taught what a cat was. In 2017, he founded the Palo Alto, California-based AI Fund, which invests in entrepreneurs building artificial intelligence companies. The Seattle company also said Thursday that Judy McGrath, a former CEO of MTV and current Amazon board member... Читать дальше...

Instagram says it’s deploying new tools to protect young people and combat sexual extortion, including a feature that will automatically blur nudity in direct messages. The social media platform said in a blog post on Thursday that the new features are part of its work to fight sexual scams and other forms of “image abuse” and to make it tougher for criminals to contact teens. Sexual extortion, or sextortion, involves persuading a person to send explicit photos online and then threatening to make... Читать дальше...

China has announced rare sanctions against two U.S. defense companies over what it calls their support for arms sales to Taiwan. Beijing claims the self-governing island democracy as its own territory to be recovered by force if necessary. The announcement freezes the assets of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems held within China. It also bars their management from entering the country. Filings show General Dynamics operates a half-dozen Gulfstream and jet aviation services operations in China. Читать дальше...

The Premier League says it will use semi-automated offside technology from next season. Clubs reached a unanimous decision on the introduction of the AI-based technology at a Premier League meeting. The new system is set to launched during the first half of the season. The league says “the technology will provide quicker and consistent placement of the virtual offside line, based on optical player tracking." It says high-quality broadcast graphics will "ensure an enhanced in-stadium and broadcast... Читать дальше...

President Joe Biden is gathering Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a first-of-its-kind White House summit. Thursday's meeting is aimed at demonstrating Washington, Manila and Tokyo are in lockstep in their concerns about China’s military assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific. Senior Biden administration officials say the leaders will announce their nations' coast guards will hold a joint patrol in the Indo-Pacific this year, a follow-up on law enforcement... Читать дальше...

Russia has successfully test-launched a new heavy-lift rocket from its Far Eastern space complex, a lift-off that comes after two aborted attempts earlier this week. The first attempt to launch the Angara-A5 rocket from the Vostochny spaceport on Tuesday was canceled about two minutes before the scheduled liftoff. The second attempted launch Wednesday was also aborted by the automatic safety system, which registered a flaw in the engine start control mechanism. Thursday’s launch is the fourth for the Angara-A5... Читать дальше...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands more firearms dealers across the U.S. will have to run background checks on buyers when selling at gun shows or other places outside brick-and-mortar stores, according to a Biden administration rule that will soon go into effect.

A Vietnam court has sentenced real estate tycoon Truong My Lan to death in the country’s largest financial fraud case ever, state media Thanh Nien said. The 67-year-old chair of the real estate company Van Thinh Phat was accused of fraud amounting to $12.5 billion — nearly 3% of the country’s 2022 GDP. She illegally controlled the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 to 2022 to siphon of these funds through thousands of ghost companies and by paying bribes to government officials. The... Читать дальше...

Asian shares are mixed after U.S. stocks fell on worries that what seemed like a blip in the battle to bring down inflation is turning into a troubling trend. South Korean shares were little changed after the ruling conservative party suffered a crushing defeat in a parliamentary election. Oil prices edged higher and U.S. futures were flat. On Wednesday, the S&P 500 lost 0.9% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gave back 1.1%. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.8%. Traders pulled back on bets for coming... Читать дальше...

Most news organizations hold its journalists to strict ethical standards to avoid conflicts of interest either real or perceived. Is the same true for its bosses? Outside corporate positions held by NBC Universal News Group chief Cesar Conde and CNN boss Mark Thompson reveal an ethical issue that has received little discussion. Should people who supervise news organizations, even if their background is more corporate than journalistic, be held to the same standards as their journalists? A former top executive at NBC News... Читать дальше...

Frightening to some, exciting to others, baffling to many: Artificial intelligence has been called an economic game changer, a threat to democracy or even an existential threat to humanity. Members of Congress need to figure out how to regulate the industry in a way that encourages its potential benefits while mitigating the worst risks. But first they have to understand it. To educate themselves, lawmakers have created a task force and invited experts to explain how AI could transform our lives. Читать дальше...

South Florida researchers are using biodegradable drinking straws to prevent laboratory-grown coral from becoming really expensive fish food. Scientists around the world have been working for years to address the decline of coral reef populations. One solution has been to grow new coral in a lab and then place them in the ocean. Marine researcher Kyle Pisano said the problem is that predators like parrot fish attempt to bite and destroy the newly transplanted coral, leaving them with less than a 40% survival rate. Читать дальше...

As he prepares to bring the first of Donald Trump’s four criminal prosecutions to trial, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg finds himself at the center of a political firestorm. Since his election two years ago, Bragg, a former law professor, has often spoken about his unease with the job’s political demands. The upcoming trial, over hush money payments allegedly made by Trump during the 2016 election, will test Bragg’s efforts to portray himself as apolitical in the face of relentless attacks from Trump and his supporters. Читать дальше...

Dusty Farr used to be someone else. Before his transgender daughter was suspended after using the girls’ bathroom at her Missouri high school. Before the bullying and the suicide attempts. Before she dropped out. Before he filed a lawsuit. Before all that, he was in his own words “a full-on bigot.” Now, he has found himself in the unlikely role of fighting bathroom bans that have proliferated at the state and local level in recent years. He explains it this way: “When it was my child, it just flipped a switch. Читать дальше...

A joyful celebration of the end of Ramadan devolved into panic Wednesday in Philadelphia after rival groups exchanged gunfire, leaving at least three people injured. Hundreds of parents and children fled the Eid al-Fitr event in the city's Parkside neighborhood after the 2:30 p.m. shooting. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel says about 30 shots rang out during a gunfight between rival groups. Bethel says that five people are in custody. They include a 15-year-old boy who police say had a gun and was shot in the leg and shoulder. Читать дальше...

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announced a major shift Wednesday in the city’s response to the migrant crisis. This move follows failed attempts to get federal aid and major cuts to the city’s budget as Denver served about 41,000 migrants since the end of 2022. Denver is moving away from days- to weeks-long stays in hotel rooms and shelters and toward longer, more intensive support for fewer people. That includes connecting people with apartments for up to six months, job and skill training, food assistance and help with asylum applications. Читать дальше...

President Javier Milei of Argentina has kicked off a visit to the United States, where he'll meet with tech billionaire Elon Musk, as the libertarian leader seeks an infusion of cash to overhaul Argentina’s embattled economy. Milei started his four-day trip in Miami, where he received an honor from the Orthodox Jewish community Wednesday at a local synagogue. His one-on-one meeting with Musk is set for Friday in Texas, where Milei will also tour a factory for Tesla, Musk’s electric car company, and meet with other business leaders. Читать дальше...