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Juul Labs to pay $462 million settlement to California, 5 other states

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:26 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Embattled electronic cigarette-maker Juul Labs Inc. will pay $462 million to six states and the District of Columbia, marking the largest settlement the company has reached so far for its role in the youth vaping surge, New York Attorney General Letitia James said Wednesday.The agreement with New York, California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico and Washington, D.C. marks the latest in a string of recent legal settlements Juul has reached across the country with cities and states.The vaping company, which has laid off hundreds of employees, will pay $7.9 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the company violated the state’s Consumer Credit and Protection Act by marketing its products to underage users, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced Monday. Last month, the company paid Chicago $23.8 million to settle a lawsuit.Minnesota's case against Juul went to trial last month with the state's Attorne...

Key suspect in EU corruption scandal to move to house arrest

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:26 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgian authorities have decided to move the key suspect at the heart of the corruption scandal rocking the European Union’s assembly from jail and place her under house arrest, the federal prosecutor’s office said Wednesday.Spokesman Antoon Schotsaert told the Associated Press that former parliament vice president Eva Kaili would remain under electronic surveillance while the investigation into the money-for-political favors case continued. Even though the decision was taken Wednesday, it was still unclear exactly when she would be allowed to leave prison.The Greek lawmaker was removed as vice president after she was taken into custody late last year on charges of corruption, money laundering and membership in a criminal organization. She denies wrongdoing, her lawyers said.Belgian prosecutors suspect that Kaili was among several people that were allegedly paid by Qatar and Morocco to influence decision-making at the assembly. Both countries deny the allegatio...

Amazon worker injuries dip last year, but higher than 2020

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:26 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon’s total injury rate for warehouse workers took a dip last year, but injuries were still worse than they were in 2020, according to an analysis released Wednesday by a coalition of labor unions. The report, which was compiled by the Strategic Organizing Center and examines data Amazon has submitted to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said the company’s injury rate was 6.9% in 2022, compared to 7.9% the year before. In 2020, that number was 6.6%.The findings mirror a similar report Amazon released this year, showing the same injury rate for its warehouses, as well as a recordable injury rate of 6.7% across its U.S. operations, compared to 7.6% in 2021. Injuries at Amazon have typically been higher compared to its peers in the industry, which critics and labor safety experts blame on the company’s fast-paced warehouses that track productivity and allow customers to get their packages quickly. The report released Wednesday said Amazon’s injury ra...

Bank turmoil led Fed officials to forecast fewer rate hikes

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:26 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Turmoil in the banking system after two major banks collapsed led many Federal Reserve officials to envision fewer rate increases this year out of concern that banks will reduce their lending and weaken the economy.The heightened uncertainty surrounding the banking sector also helped Fed officials coalesce around their decision to raise their benchmark rate by just a quarter-point, rather than a half-point, despite signs that inflation was still too hot, according to minutes of the Fed’s March 22-23 meeting.The Fed also revealed Wednesday that its staff economists have forecast that a pullback in lending resulting from the banking turmoil will cause a “mild recession” starting later this year. The minutes noted that this forecast depends on how severe the consequences of the industry’s troubles prove to be and to what extent it will cause a cutback in lending.Overall, the minutes showed that the banking troubles injected significant uncertainty into the Fed’s decis...

Aide: Jailed Russian opposition leader ill, perhaps poisoned

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:26 GMT

MOSCOW (AP) — Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in failing health because of a new suspected poisoning and is back in a punishment cell after a few days in regular confinement, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.Anna Veduta, a Washington, DC-based vice president of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, told The Associated Press the 46-year-old Navalny fell ill last Friday when he was let out of the punishment cell and put in a conventional cell. He had lost about 18 pounds over the past 15 days. On Monday, Navalny wrote on Twitter, he was put back in a punishment cell for another 15-day term.An ambulance was called early Saturday because of acute stomach pains but Navalny received no diagnosis, one of his lawyers, Vadim Kobzev, wrote on Twitter after visiting him in prison.“We believe he is slowly being administered low doses of poison” in pills he is given without identification, Veduta said.A video documentary about Navalny won an Oscar last month. The documen...

‘Paw Patrol’ top dog among children’s categories at Canadian Screen Awards

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:26 GMT

TORONTO — The preschool favourite “Paw Patrol” is top dog among children’s categories at the Canadian Screen Awards, nabbing three awards including best preschool series.The animated TVO series about rescue pooches led winners at an afternoon bash celebrating the best in children’s and animation shows.The best animated series title went to “The Snoopy Show” on Apple TV Plus; best children’s or youth fiction show went to CBC Gem’s “Detention Adventure” and the best non-fiction show went to TVO’s “All-Round Champion.”“Paw Patrol” also nabbed best direction and best sound in animation, while “All-Round Champion” also scored best picture editing. YTV’s “The Hardy Boys” was another multiple winner, grabbing awards for best direction and best writing for children’s or youth.The daytime event was to be followed by an evening gala celebrating the best in lifestyle and reality TV. Two more CSA shows Thursday will honour top digital and film productions, while a final bash Friday will a...

Lawsuit: Guards beat, taunt inmate with, ‘You can’t breathe’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:26 GMT

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Advocates for prisoners’ rights have filed a civil rights lawsuit against state corrections officers who allegedly ignored requirements that they videotape a prison-cell encounter with an inmate who says he was sexually abused, beaten without provocation and taunted with words that evoked the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of police.The New Mexico Prison & Jail Project filed the civil lawsuit Tuesday seeking damages in U.S. District Court on behalf of a Black inmate against five state Corrections Department officers, in connection with an April 2021 confrontation at the Northeast New Mexico Correctional Facility in Clayton.The advocacy group reconstructed events from the testimony of the plaintiff and other inmate witnesses, along with unredacted portions of an internal investigation by the Correction Department’s Office of Professional Conduct.Officers told investigators that the inmate was restrained physically and with pepper spray after swingin...

Joe O’Biden? President feels he’s ‘coming home’ in Ireland

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:26 GMT

CARLINGFORD, Ireland (AP) — With the sound of bagpipes piercing the fog, hundreds of townspeople turned out Wednesday in the seaside Irish village of Carlingford on a cold, wet and windy afternoon to welcome the American president as one of their own.President Joe Biden gazed out at the water from the stone balcony of Carlingford Castle, which would have been the last Irish landmark that Owen Finnegan, Biden’s maternal great-great-grandfather, saw before sailing for New York in 1849. “It feels like I’m coming home,” Biden said as he was led on a tour and looked out over Carlingford Lough, a bay that empties into the Irish Sea. The president often cites his Irish lineage as a driving force in his public and private life.As for the soggy weather, “It’s fine! It’s Ireland!” Biden said.The excitement was palpable even before his arrival in County Louth, on Ireland’s east coast, after a 90-minute drive from Dublin. Well-wishers and curiosity seekers lined the motorcade route ...

Biden urges Northern Ireland to sustain peace, reap gains

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:26 GMT

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — President Joe Biden said Wednesday that Northern Ireland must “not go back” to the violence that scarred it for years before a U.S.-brokered peace deal 25 years ago, nudging politicians to resolve a political crisis that has left this part of the United Kingdom without a functioning government.Speaking of the economic growth Northern Ireland has experienced since the Good Friday Agreement ended 30 years of sectarian bloodshed, Biden said: “It’s up to us to keep this going.”On his first presidential visit to Northern Ireland, Biden dangled the prospect of more American investment to help fuel economic growth — especially if Belfast’s fractious politicians resolve a stalemate that has put their government on pause.“The simple truth is that peace and economic opportunity go together,” Biden said during a speech at Ulster University’s new campus in Belfast. He said the glass-clad downtown building would have been unthinkable during the years of bombings ...

Prime Minister Trudeau says it’s up to provinces to make Orange Shirt Day a holiday

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:26 GMT

WINNIPEG — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is encouraging provinces and territories to step up reconciliation efforts with Indigenous Peoples but stopped short of saying they should make the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, commonly called Orange Shirt Day, a statutory holiday. Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson recently announced her Progressive Conservative government would not be making that day a provincial statutory holiday this year, citing the need for ongoing consultations. The federal government made the day a statutory holiday for its workers and federally regulated workplaces in 2021.The decision to do so is in response to one of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 calls to action. The prime minister said the federal government has moved forward on “living up and fulfilling” that call.“That is a day that Indigenous Peoples wanted to be marking truth and reconciliation, and all the challenges and difficulties that came from that,...