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Xi Jinping hints China could send new pandas to US as ‘envoys of friendship’

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

(CNN) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping suggested Wednesday China could send new pandas to the United States, calling them “envoys of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples,” in the latest gesture aimed at easing fraught ties between the two powers.“I…learned that the San Diego Zoo and the Californians very much look forward to welcoming pandas back,” Xi told American business leaders during a speech in San Francisco on Wednesday.“We are ready to continue our cooperation with the United States on panda conservation, and do our best to meet the wishes of the Californians so as to deepen the friendly ties between our two peoples.”Xi delivered the remarks hours after he held extensive talks with US President Joe Biden, where the two leaders made positive steps in stabilizing rocky relations between the world’s top two economies.China loans pandas to more than 20 countries around the world as envoys of friendship from Beijing – a program that’s often referred to as “panda di...

Red Sox sign former top pitching prospect to minor league deal

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

The Red Sox made a pair of additions on Thursday, signing left-hander Helcris Olivarez to a minor league deal and right-hander Luis Cabrera as an international free agent, according to the club’s transaction log.Olivarez has an intriguing history and some potential upside. The 23-year-old was once regarded as a top pitching prospect in the Colorado Rockies organization whose fastball previously touched 100 mph. He has spent most of the past two seasons injured but reportedly sat in the mid-90s when he recently took the mound during an instructional league game, according to Red Sox Stats on Twitter.Originally signed by the Rockies in 2016 as an international free agent, Olivarez pitched two seasons in the Dominican Summer League before arriving in the U.S. in 2019. That season he made 11 starts in rookie ball, posting a 4.82 ERA with 61 strikeouts in 46.2 innings, and in 2020 he made a strong impression at the organization’s alternate training site amid the COVID-19 pand...

How lawmakers in Texas and Florida undermine COVID vaccination efforts

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

Amy Maxmen | KFF Health News (TNS)Katherine Wells wants to urge her Lubbock, Texas, community to get vaccinated against COVID-19. “That could really save people from severe illness,” said Wells, the city’s public health director.But she can’t.A rule added to Texas’ budget that went into effect Sept. 1 forbids health departments and other organizations funded by the state government to advertise, recommend, or even list COVID vaccines alone. “Clinics may inform patients that COVID-19 vaccinations are available,” the rule allows, “if it is not being singled out from other vaccines.”Texas isn’t the only state curtailing the public conversation about COVID vaccines. Tennessee’s health department homepage, for example, features the flu, vaping, and cancer screening but leaves out COVID and COVID vaccines. Florida is an extreme case, where the health department has issued guidance against COVID vaccines that runs counter to scientific studies and advice from the Centers for Disease Contro...

Massachusetts Republicans willing to use newfound leverage over shelter funding

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

Massachusetts Republicans gained unique leverage over the fate of a $2.8 billion spending bill that includes funding for emergency shelters after Democrats failed to strike a deal early Thursday morning.Now, the minority party says they are willing to use their newfound power.Some Republicans said they are ready to hold up the larger bill if they are not satisfied with its contents after Democratic leadership kicked negotiations into informal sessions, where any one lawmaker can block advancing legislation.After several weeks of voicing concerns about handing an extra $250 million to Gov. Maura Healey to respond to an overburdened shelter system for migrant and homeless families, legislative conservatives could find themselves coalescing around the idea of residency requirements.Sen. Ryan Fattman said Republicans “definitely have leverage” and “should use that leverage” as he pointed to amendments he filed during the Senate’s debate of the supplemental budget that would have put in ...

Why some Gen Z savers and financial experts say to put down the apps and budget by hand

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

Erin McCarthy | The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)When Abby Bailey tried the popular budgeting app Mint, she wasn’t sold.To Bailey, the app didn’t feel user-friendly — her bank and credit card accounts, for instance, couldn’t sync, she said. She wanted more personalized spending categories. And she felt like the platform, which its owner, Intuit, recently announced is shutting down, provided more of a retrospective look at her monthly spending, as opposed to a tool for holding herself accountable.The 25-year-old opted, instead, for what might be considered an old-fashioned strategy to some of her Gen Z peers: She made a budget herself.“It makes me more aware,” said Bailey, an occupational therapist who lives in Philadelphia’s Center City and uses a digital spreadsheet she always keeps open on her laptop.Bailey has encouraged others her age to try manual budgeting, too. As a side hustle, she started selling her budgeting templates on Etsy for $5 each, a one-time purchase less expe...

Boston settles drug testing discrimination suit for $2.6M

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

Boston has settled a decades-old lawsuit over discriminatory hair drug testing for $2.6 million.“This settlement puts an end to a long, ugly chapter in Boston’s history,” said Oren Sellstrom, Litigation Director at Lawyers for Civil Rights, one of the two firms who represented the black police officer plaintiffs, in an emailed statement. “As a result of this flawed test, our clients’ lives and careers were completely derailed. The City has finally compensated them for this grave injustice.”The test at the heart of the lawsuit was one employed by the city to detect the presence of controlled substances in hair follicles, which the plaintiffs in the nearly 20-year-old lawsuit argued came back with disproportionate numbers of false positives for black people. Experts in the case testified that not only was the test unable to reliably distinguish whether drug remnants found in hair were the result of ingestion — which would be the point for the testing — or from exterior contamination.W...

Ticker: Jobless claims rise; Mortgage rates retreat from high

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

More Americans filed for jobless claims last week and while the labor market remains broadly healthy, there are growing signs that it may finally be cooling.Applications for unemployment benefits rose by 13,000 to 231,000 for the week ending Nov. 11, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s the most in three months.Overall, 1.87 million people were collecting unemployment benefits the week that ended Nov. 4, about 32,000 more than the previous week and the most in almost two years. It was the sixth straight week that continuing claims rose.“Job growth remains strong, and businesses have yet to start reducing their workforce in a significant way,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics. “But the continuing claims data are pointing to some softening in labor demand, in line with what the Fed wants to see.”Mortgage rates retreat from highThe average rate on 30-year fixed mortgages retreated to 7.66% this week, down fr...

Is ‘the pivot’ finally happening? 30-year mortgage backs off from 8%

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

Jeff Ostrowski | (TNS) Bankrate.comThe average rate on 30-year fixed mortgages retreated to 7.66% this week, down from 7.69% the previous week, according to Bankrate’s weekly national survey of large lenders.The slight reprieve could signal a prolonged drop in mortgage rates, says Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The average rate on 30-year home loans recently topped 8%, but that’s changing because of a number of factors, including a slowing job market and signs that the Federal Reserve’s ongoing war on inflation is working. Meanwhile, 10-year Treasury yields, an informal benchmark for 30-year mortgage rates, have dropped from 5% to 4.5% in recent days.“The pivot may have already occurred this week,” Yun said Wednesday during the annual Realtors conference in Anaheim, California. “The bond market has already said, ‘We’re pivoting.’”At the beginning of November, all eyes were on the Fed. The central bank sets policy that indirectly affects ...

Texas jury convicts woman of fatally shooting cyclist Anna “Mo” Wilson in jealous rage

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

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas jury on Thursday convicted a woman of murder in the May 2022 shooting death of rising professional cyclist Anna Moriah Wilson in a case that led investigators on a 43-day international search for the killer.Kaitlin Armstrong, 35, faces up to life in prison when sentenced. Prosecutors said Armstrong gunned down the 25-year-old Wilson in a jealous rage. Wilson, who was also known as “Mo,” had briefly dated Armstrong’s boyfriend several months earlier. Wilson had gone swimming and to a meal with him the day she was killed.A Vermont native and former alpine skier at Dartmouth, Wilson was an emerging star in pro gravel and mountain bike racing. She was visiting Austin ahead of a race in Texas where she was among the favorites to win. Investigators said Armstrong tracked Wilson to the apartment where she was staying and shot her three times.Armstrong briefly met with police before selling her vehicle and using her sister’s name and passport to fly to Costa Ric...

Photographer found shot to death in violence plagued Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez

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

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A photographer for a newspaper in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, which has been dominated by drug cartels, was found shot to death, prosecutors said Thursday.The body of news photographer Ismael Villagómez was found in the driver’s seat of a car just after midnight Thursday in Ciudad Juarez, a violence-plagued city across the border from El Paso, Texas. Villagómez’s newspaper, the Heraldo de Juarez, said he was found dead in a car that he had registered to use for work for a ride-hailing app. Given low salaries, it is not uncommon for journalists in Mexico to hold down more than one job. The newspaper said his phone was not found at the scene. Ciudad Juarez has been dominated by drug cartels and their turf battles for almost two decades, and gangs often object to photos of their victims or their activities being published.Carlos Manuel Salas, a prosecutor for the northern border state of Chihuahua, said authorities are investigating whether Villagómez h...