MEXICALI, Mexico (Reuters) -Construction worker Brian Larreta’s job is tough any day of the year, but scorching temperatures this month in northern Mexico have made it a dangerous feat. In Mexicali, a city of over a million people on Mexico’s northern border across from California, temperatures soared to 50 Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) this week, forcing…
By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -The United Nations raised concerns on Friday with a letter from Syria that allows it to resume using a shuttered border crossing to deliver aid to northwest Syria from Turkey after U.N. Security Council approval of that route expired on Monday. In a note to the Security Council, seen…
By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) -The U.S. Virgin Islands said it wants JPMorgan Chase to pay at least $190 million, and possibly much more, to resolve its lawsuit accusing the largest U.S. bank of ignoring the disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking. In a Friday filing in federal court in Manhattan, the territory…
By James Oliphant (Reuters) -Republican U.S. presidential contenders attending a forum of Christian conservatives in Iowa that typically focuses on social issues found themselves on Friday having to explain their support for Ukraine in its war with Russia to a skeptical crowd. The forum in Des Moines, sponsored by the Family Leader, an influential Iowa…
By Dawn Chmielewski (Reuters) -Like a plot from the anthology television series “Black Mirror,” the Screen Actors Guild says it is battling the studios for control over the digital replicas of performers that could be used “for the rest of eternity.” The studios counter that they have offered groundbreaking protections from misuse of images. Artificial…
By Caroline Valetkevitch NEW YORK (Reuters) – The S&P 500 ended down slightly on Friday, with bank and financial shares mostly lower on the day following quarterly reports that kicked off earnings season, but all three major U.S. stock indexes posted solid weekly gains. Offsetting some of the declines, UnitedHealth Group’s stock rallied following its…
By Timothy Gardner (Reuters) -Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC asked the U.S. Supreme Court in a filing on Friday to vacate stays imposed by a federal court halting construction of a portion of its West Virginia-to-Virginia natural gas pipeline. On July 10, an appellate court in Virginia halted construction of the last short section of the…
By Tom Westbrook, Rae Wee and Hannah Lang SINGAPORE/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Bitcoin was hovering near its highest so far this year on Friday after crypto investors took encouragement from a legal victory in which the cryptocurrency XRP was ruled not to be a security. A U.S. judge said on Thursday that Ripple Labs Inc did…
By Rollo Ross and Danielle Broadway LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Striking Hollywood actors joined film and television writers on picket lines for the first time in 63 years on Friday, cheering and chanting outside major studios with calls for higher streaming-era pay and curbs on use of artificial intelligence. The twin strikes will add to the…
By Brendan Pierson (Reuters) – A federal judge in Kentucky ruled Friday that the state can enforce its law banning the use of puberty-blocking drugs and hormones for transgender children while it appeals his earlier order blocking the law. Last month, U.S. District Judge David Hale found that the ban likely violated the U.S. Constitution….
