The rapid rise in disposable electronic cigarette, or vape, usage is creating a tidal wave of pollution, and it’s raising serious environmental concerns. Aron Ranen reports from New York City about one woman who is trying to make a difference.
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Відповідне рішення ухвалили у зв’язку з погіршенням безпекової ситуації
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Усі служби працюють для ліквідації наслідків обстрілу
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A memorial run has been held in Simi Valley, California to honor 13 U.S. service members killed three years ago during a suicide bombing as U.S. troops were withdrawing from Afghanistan. VOA’s Genia Dulot attended this year’s run and spoke to two Gold Star families as well as the event organizer, whose son survived the attack at the Kabul airport.
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Міська адміністрація нагадує, що продовжується атака дронів-камікадзе на столицю. Повітряна тривога в Києві триває понад шість годин
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На місці працюють рятувальники та ремонтні бригади, додав очільник області
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska — One person was killed and three were injured by a landslide that prompted a mandatory evacuation in the Alaska city of Ketchikan, authorities said.
Three people were transported to Ketchikan Medical Center following the landslide, which struck around 4 p.m. Sunday and damaged homes and infrastructure, the Ketchikan Gateway Borough and City of Ketchikan said in a joint statement Sunday.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy declared an emergency for Ketchikan, while Borough Mayor Rodney Dial and city Mayor Dave Kiffer issued a separate emergency declaration.
“Friends, is with a heavy heart we relay that a landslide in the city has taken a life, caused several injuries, damaged homes and impacted our community,” Dial said in the statement.
Kiffer said the loss of life was “heartbreaking, and my heart goes out to those who lost their homes.”
“In my 65 years in Ketchikan, I have never seen a slide of this magnitude. With the slides we have seen across the region, there is clearly a region-wide issue that we need to try to understand with the support of our State geologist,” Kiffer said.
Two of the victims were admitted to the hospital and one was treated and released. All other individuals have been accounted for, the statement said.
Multiple homes were impacted by the landslide and a mandatory evacuation was ordered for residents of Third Avenue and nearby streets, while a shelter was set up at Ketchikan High School, the borough and city said.
A potential secondary landslide area was identified to the south of the original slide location and crews were standing by, the statement said.
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За оцінкою українського командування, загалом армія РФ втратила близько 608 820 військових
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Це перший вихід російських кораблів-ракетоносіїв у Чорне море за тиждень
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Beijing — China on Sunday expressed its opposition to the latest U.S. sanctions on Chinese companies over their alleged ties to Russia’s war in Ukraine, saying it will adopt necessary measures to safeguard the rights and interests of the country’s businesses.
The U.S. announced Friday sweeping sanctions on hundreds of firms in Russia and across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, accusing them of providing products and services that enable Russia’s war effort and aiding its ability to evade sanctions. The U.S. Department of State said it was concerned by “the magnitude of dual-use goods exports” from China to Russia.
The Ministry of Commerce in China in its statement firmly opposed the U.S. putting multiple Chinese companies on its export control list. The move bars such companies from trading with U.S. firms without gaining a nearly unobtainable special license.
The ministry said the U.S. action was “typical unilateral sanctions,” saying they would disrupt global trade orders and rules, as well as affect the stability of the global industrial and supply chains.
“China urges the U.S. to immediately stop its wrong practices and will take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interest of Chinese companies,” it said.
The U.S. action is the latest in a series of thousands of U.S. sanctions that have been imposed on Russian firms and their suppliers in other nations since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The effectiveness of the sanctions has been questioned, especially as Russia has continued to support its economy by selling oil and gas on international markets.
According to the U.S. State Department, some China-based companies supplied machine tools and components to Russia companies.
China has tried to position itself as neutral in the Ukraine conflict, but it shares with Russia high animosity toward the West.
After Western countries imposed heavy sanctions on Russian oil in response to Russia sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, China strongly stepped up its purchase of Russian oil, increasing its influence in Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin also underlined the importance of China by meeting in Beijing with Chinese leader Xi Jinping soon after being inaugurated for a fifth term in the Kremlin.
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Сьогодні з-під завалів деблоковано тіло громадянина Великої Британії. Він був працівником іноземного медіа
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HONOLULU — Hurricane Hone passed just south of Hawaii early Sunday, dumping enough rain for the National Weather Service to call off its red flag warnings that strong winds could cause wildfires on the drier sides of islands in the archipelago.
Hone had top winds of 80 mph (130 kph), according to a 2 a.m. advisory from the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu, and was moving west near the southernmost point of the Big Island, close enough to sweep the coast with tropical storm force winds and to drop up to a foot (30 centimeters) or more of rain on the windward and southeast-facing slopes of the Big Island, with locally higher amounts possible.
Hurricane Gilma, meanwhile, increased to a Category 4 hurricane Saturday night, but it was still about 1,480 miles (2,380 kilometers) east of Hilo and forecast to weaken into a depression before it reaches Hawaii.
“Hone’s main threats to the state continue to be the potential for heavy rainfall leading to flooding, damaging winds and large surf along east-facing shores,” the weather service advised early Sunday.
Some Big Island beach parks were closed due to dangerously high surf and officials were preparing to open shelters if needed, Big Island Mayor Mitch Roth said.
Hone, whose name is Hawaiian for “sweet and soft,” poked at memories still fresh of last year’s deadly blazes on Maui, which were fueled by hurricane-force winds. Red flag alerts are issued when warm temperatures, very low humidity and stronger winds combine to raise fire dangers. Most of the archipelago is already abnormally dry or in drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
“They gotta take this thing serious,” said Calvin Endo, a Waianae Coast neighborhood board member who lives in Makaha, a leeward Oahu neighborhood prone to wildfires.
The Aug. 8, 2023, blaze that torched the historic town of Lahaina was the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, with 102 dead. Dry, overgrown grasses and drought helped spread the fire.
For years, Endo has worried about dry brush on private property behind his home. He’s taken matters into his own hands by clearing the brush himself, but he’s concerned about nearby homes abutting overgrown vegetation.
“All you need is fire and wind and we’ll have another Lahaina,” Endo said Saturday. “I notice the wind started to kick up already.”
The cause of the Lahaina blaze is still under investigation, but it’s possible it was ignited by bare electrical wire and leaning power poles toppled by the strong winds. The state’s two power companies, Hawaiian Electric and the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative, were prepared to shut off power if necessary to reduce the chance that live, damaged power lines could start fires, but they later said the safety measures would not be necessary as Hone blew past the islands.
Roth said a small blaze that started Friday night in Waikoloa, on the dry side of the Big Island, was brought under control without injuries or damage.
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New York — The rally in U.S. stocks faces an important test […] with earnings from chipmaking giant Nvidia NVDA.O, whose blistering run has powered markets throughout 2024.
The S&P 500 .SPX has pared a sharp drop it suffered after U.S. economic worries contributed to a sell-off at the beginning of the month and again stands near a fresh all-time high.
Nvidia, whose chips are widely seen as the gold standard in artificial intelligence, has been at the forefront of that rally, jumping by more than 30% since its recent lows. The stock is up some 150% year-to-date, accounting for around a quarter of the S&P 500’s 17% year-to-date gain.
The company’s Aug. 28 earnings report, coupled with guidance on whether it expects corporate investments in AI to continue, could be a key inflection point for market sentiment heading into what is historically a volatile time of the year. The S&P 500 has fallen in September by an average of 0.78% since World War Two, the worst performance of any month, according to CFRA data.
“Nvidia is the zeitgeist stock today,” said Mike Smith, a portfolio manager at Allspring Global Investments, which holds the company’s shares in its portfolios. “You can think of their earnings four times a year as the Super Bowl.”
Some investors are getting ready for fireworks. Traders are pricing in a swing of around 10.3% in Nvidia’s shares the day after the company reports earnings, according to data from options analytic firm ORATS. That’s larger than the expected move ahead of any Nvidia report over the last three years and well above the stock’s average post-earnings move of 8.1% over that same period, ORATS data showed.
The results come at the end of an earnings season during which investors have taken a less forgiving view of big tech companies whose earnings failed to justify rich valuations or prodigious spending on AI. Examples include Microsoft MSFT.O, Tesla TSLA.O and Alphabet GOOGL.O, whose shares are all down since their July reports.
Nvidia’s valuations have also climbed, as the stock soared about 750% since the start of 2023, making it the world’s third-most valuable company as of Thursday, while also drawing comparisons to the dotcom bubble of more than two decades ago. The company’s shares trade at about 37 times forward 12-month earnings estimates, compared with a 20-year average of 29 times, according to LSEG Datastream.
Market sentiment could depend as much on Nvidia’s guidance as its results. Evidence that it sees robust demand will be a bullish sign that companies are continuing to invest rather than pull back in anticipation of an economic slowdown, said Matt Stucky, chief portfolio manager, equities, at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management.
Nvidia’s “connection to the largest companies in the U.S. stock market makes this a must-watch event,” he said. “The biggest piece that investors want to know is whether there is sustainability and what demand will look like in ’25 and ’26,” he said.
The trajectory of monetary policy and the U.S. economy also looms large for investors. In a Friday morning speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell offered an explicit endorsement of interest rate cuts, saying further cooling in the job market would be unwelcome.
Investors will be watching U.S. labor market data on Sept. 6 for evidence of whether last month’s unexpected downshift in employment carried over to August. Signs that employment is continuing to weaken could bring back the recession fears that rocked markets earlier this month.
A tight presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, and Republican former President Donald Trump may also whip up market uncertainty in the weeks ahead.
The August surge in stocks may make it difficult for markets to make much more headway in the near term even if Nvidia’s earnings impress Wall Street, said John Belton, a portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, which holds shares of the chipmaker.
The S&P 500 trades at 21 times expected earnings, far above its long-term average of 15.7.
“The stock market as a whole is still trading at stretched valuations so the bar remains high,” Belton said.
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Медики борються за життя пораненого чоловіка в Антонівці
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Dubai, United Arab Emirates — U.S. rapper Macklemore has announced he is cancelling an upcoming show in Dubai over the UAE’s involvement in the conflict in Sudan, charges the Gulf state has denied.
The rapper best known for hits like 2012’s “Thrift Shop” made the announcement in a post on social media on Saturday.
“I have decided to cancel my upcoming show in Dubai this October,” he said.
“Over the last several months I’ve had a number of people reach out to me, sharing resources and asking me to cancel the show in solidarity with the people of Sudan,” he said.
“Until the UAE stops arming and funding the RSF I will not perform there,” Macklemore added, referring to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that have been battling the Sundanese army.
War has raged since April 2023 between the Sudanese army, under the country’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF, which is commanded by Burhan’s former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
For months, the army has accused the UAE of supporting the RSF.
In June, Sudan’s ambassador to the United Nations Al-Harith Idriss al-Harith Mohamed called Abu Dhabi’s financial and military support for the RSF the “main reason behind this protracted war.”
The UAE has denied allegations of RSF support as “disinformation,” saying that it’s efforts are focused exclusively towards de-escalation and alleviating Sudan’s humanitarian suffering.
Macklemore has released socially aware music in the past, supporting LGBTQ+ rights while also criticizing ills including poverty and consumerism.
In his latest track released in May, Macklemore voices support for Palestinians and also praises students across the United States protesting against Israel’s war in Gaza.
The song, “Hind’s Hall,” is named after a building at Columbia University that students recently occupied and renamed after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl killed in Gaza.
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