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☆ UK to extend its energy price support scheme to non-domestic customers
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Dec 29 (Reuters) - The UK will extend its Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS) for non-domestic customers in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the country's department for Business, Energy & Industrial strategy said in a statement on Thursday. The scheme will provide a discount on gas and electricity unit prices for non-domestic customers like businesses, voluntary sector organizations such as charities, and public sector organizations such as schools, hospitals and care homes. The government will also provide a fixed payment of 150 pounds ($180) to all non-domestic consumers that are not on the gas grid or use alternative fuels, with "top-up" payments for large users of heating oil based on usage. The extension of the energy price support scheme comes at a time when energy-intensive businesses in the country are struggling with the soaring cost of power. ($1 = 0.8315 pounds)Reporting by Gokul Pisharody in Bengaluru; Editing by Tom HogueOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Death toll rises to at least 55 as freezing temperatures and heavy snow wallop swaths of U.S.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-26 | by ( Mithil Aggarwal | Melissa Chan | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

(Photo by John Normile/Getty Images)A "once-in-a-lifetime" blizzard has killed at least 55 people in the United States, including 25 in western New York's Erie County, officials said Monday morning. Snow was expected to fall in Erie County into Tuesday afternoon. Nationwide, temperatures plummeted, and huge snow drifts have trapped people inside their homes and snarled travel. The medical examiner's office in Erie County determined the 25 deaths there to be directly related to the blizzard, Poloncarz said. The county executive said a "good portion" of those deaths occurred in Buffalo, and that many died from heart problems while shoveling or snow blowing.

The storm will begin to organize on Wednesday, bringing snow and wind to the Rockies and northern Plains. On Thursday, heavy snow with strong winds will move into the Midwest, Great Lakes and central Plains. Even the Southeast will experience strong winds. As snow is falling across the Midwest and Great Lakes, the I-95 corridor will be getting lashed with torrential rain and strong winds. Despite the precipitation ending late Friday, strong winds lingering in the first half of Saturday could continue to spark delays until the winds subside.

☆ Britain is 'resolute' on nurses' pay, senior minister says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Dec 18 (Reuters) - The British government is "resolute" it will not budge on nurses' pay, senior minister Oliver Dowden said on Sunday, ahead of a planned second nationwide walkout by the profession over an average pay offer of 4% while inflation runs at more than 10%. Its leader Pat Cullen said on Friday that unless ministers "start playing ball by taking part in meaningful negotiations" over pay, nurses would continue to take action. "Governments have had every chance to act but they have chosen to turn their backs on us," she said. Dowden said nurses' pay was recommended by an independent pay review body, which had determined that nurses would receive a minimum rise of 1,400 pounds, equating to about 4% on average. Britain is facing a wave of industrial action this winter, including rail and postal services as well as healthcare.

While the Northeast and New England contend with the winter storm on Friday, parts of the Plains entered their third day in a row of blizzard conditions. The cold won’t stop there. This cold outbreak will last into next week and expand south and east with time. Looking at the week leading up to ChristmasThe week leading up to Christmas could have two big weather stories. The second story, which has the lower confidence but is likely to garner the bigger headlines, is a potential winter storm for the East.

☆ U.K. Nurses Stage Biggest Ever Strike as Health System Strains
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Max Colchester | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Nurses at a picket line outside Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, on Thursday, during the mass walkout from the National Health Service. LONDON—British nurses Thursday staged their largest mass walkout, stretching the country’s already creaking nationalized healthcare system and ratcheting up pressure on a government grappling with severe economic headwinds. Tens of thousands of nurses went on strike for the day across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, arguing that they are underpaid, as the National Health Service struggles to digest double-digit inflation and a vast backlog of work caused by the pandemic. They plan another day of strikes next week, along with ambulance drivers, who said they would only pick up patients suffering life-or-death emergencies.

☆ Turkey's Baykar launches new jet-powered drone, aiming for air-to-air combat
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Omer Berberoglu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/5] Kizilelma (Red Apple), Turkish defence firm Baykar's first jet-powered unmanned aerial combat vehicle (UCAV), flies over Corlu near Istanbul, Turkey December 14, 2022. Turkey's new drone powered by a jet-engine shows similar exterior features to fifth generation fighter jets. Baykar says in addition to conventional drone missions, Kizilelma will be able to conduct air-to-air engagements. After it got removed from the F-35 fighter jet program, Turkey converted its vertical take-off aircraft carrier, which is still under construction into a drone carrier. The carrier will serve as a base for Kizilema and other drones in use by the Turkish military.

☆ 'What a tragic day': British nurses strike in bitter pay dispute
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Farouq Suleiman | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/6] NHS nurses take part in a strike, during a dispute with the government over pay, outside St Thomas' Hospital in London, Britain December 15, 2022. An estimated 100,000 nurses will strike at 76 hospitals and health centres, cancelling an estimated 70,000 appointments, procedures and surgeries in Britain's state-funded NHS. "What a tragic day. This is a tragic day for nursing, it is a tragic day for patients, patients in hospitals like this, and it is a tragic day for people of this society and for our NHS," Pat Cullen, the head of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) union, said to the BBC on a picket line on Thursday. Polling ahead of the nursing strike showed that a majority of Britons support the action, but once the walk-outs are underway politicians will be closely monitoring public opinion.

☆ British nurses launch historic strike, as pay and staffing crises threaten the NHS
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Rob Picheta | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

“The reality is, every day, nurses across the UK are walking into understaffed hospitals,” Mackay said. “I feel really sorry for the young girls who are now trying to get into the profession, they have to pay for their training. Nurses’ pay dropped 1.2% every year between 2010 and 2017 once inflation was taken into account, according to the Health Foundation, a UK charity that campaigns for better health and health care. Christopher Furlong/Getty ImagesEarlier this year, the RCN rejected an offer by the government to increase nurses’ pay by a minimum of £1,400 ($1,707) a year, which amounted to an average rise of 4.3%, well below the rate of inflation. Members of Britain’s armed forces were being trained to drive ambulances and firefight in the event of strike action, ministers said earlier this month.

☆ Premarket stocks: How the Fed could do a smaller rate hike and still upset markets
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

That will mark its seventh and final painful hike of the year, albeit a smaller one than the last four historically high three-quarter point increases. Investors will be paying close attention to these forecasts for clues about the path of rate hikes in the new year and beyond. Now the opposite is true, the dots have become a signal that interest rates will remain elevated into the future — spooking investors and Fed watchers alike. Back in December 2021, the Fed was only expecting rates to finish this year at about 0.9%. What else: Wednesday will also bring the Fed’s latest forecasts for the unemployment rate and gross domestic product (GDP) growth.

☆ At least 5 tornadoes confirmed in Texas as storms roll through southwestern US and blizzard conditions mount in the northern Plains
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Amir Vera Jason Hanna Monica Garrett | Amir Vera | Jason Hanna | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +12 min

More than 18 million people from Texas to Mississippi are under threat of severe storms Tuesday, including tornadoes. In Mississippi, the Meridian Public School District – which serves over 4,900 students – announced they will be closed Wednesday due to the threat of severe weather. The Lawrence County and McComb School Districts also announced they were closing Wednesday due to the threat of severe weather. The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency also noted the severe weather expected in the state and asked residents to prepare. “With severe weather expected throughout Mississippi tonight and tomorrow, please review your severe weather preparedness checklist to make sure you are ready for the storms,” the agency said in a message on Twitter.

☆ Beijing and northern China hit by winter sandstorm
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Nectar Gan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —Beijing and large swaths of northern China woke to choking sand and dust on Monday, as a winter sandstorm sent air pollution levels off the charts. Beijing used to be hit by sandstorms regularly in the spring, but less so in the winter. Sandstorms also hit northern Hebei and Shanxi provinces, western Gansu, and central and western Inner Mongolia on Monday, state-run news agency Xinhua said. CFOTO/Future Publishing/Getty ImagesIn the spring of 2021, Beijing was hit by the biggest sandstorm in nearly a decade, which turned the skies an eerie shade of orange. In previous decades, each May saw at least two rounds of sandstorms, according to Xinhua.

☆ UK strikes set to escalate as nurses prepare for ‘unprecedented’ walkout
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Anna Cooban | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

“It is pretty unprecedented,” Billy Palmer, senior fellow at Nuffield Trust, a health research firm, told CNN. While small pockets of nursing staff have walked out before, the country’s National Health Service has seen “nothing of this scale until now,” he added. ‘Enough is enough’Earlier this year, the RCN rejected an offer by the government to increase nurses’ pay by a minimum of £1,400 ($1,707) a year. Each additional 1% pay rise for nursing staff would cost the government around £700 million ($854 million), he added. Internationally, it is hard to compare UK nurses’ pay, given health care systems differ significantly between countries, but it falls somewhere in the middle of the range of comparable economies, Palmer said.

☆ 'Significant storm' to batter west with high winds and heavy snow forecast
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( Leila Sackur | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

A "significant winter storm" will dump heavy snow and make travel dangerous as it makes its way across the west of the country over the weekend, forecasters warned early Saturday. “High winds, heavy snow and heavy precipitation will reach the Pacific Northwest today, then impact California,” the National Weather Service said in a bulletin. More than 5 feet of snow is expected in the Sierra Nevada, resulting in “extremely dangerous travel, especially across mountain passes,” it added. “A winter storm with gale force winds, high intensity snowfall and feet of new snow accumulation may result in widespread avalanche activity in the mountains,” the Forest Service Sierra Avalanche Center said Friday. Elsewhere 1-3 feet of snow are expected across mountain ranges of the west coast, the NWS said.

☆ Weekend atmospheric river brings feet of snow and flooding rain
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( Allison Chinchar | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —An atmospheric river event, bringing ample amounts of moisture to the West this weekend, will gradually move across the country and bring hazardous weather to millions. The blockbuster storm will begin in the West with heavy snow, gusty winds, and coastal flooding, then move eastward, threatening potential blizzard conditions in the Midwest and tornadoes in the South. More than a dozen western states are under winter weather alerts this weekend as the potent storm system moves across the region. Heavy rain will also be notable up and down the West Coast, particularly in California, where flooding concerns exist through Sunday. Similar to a fire hose, it shoots moisture into one area for an extended period of time, resulting in very heavy rain or snow.

☆ Here's why BlackRock is forecasting a brutal global recession
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The global economy this year has faced more obstacles than a Tough Mudder, but far less optimism about coming out of it for the better. A worldwide recession is just around the corner, and BlackRock is expecting it to bring more market turbulence than ever before. The global economy is leaving a four-decade stretch of stable growth and modest inflation to enter a period of massive upheaval and instability, BlackRock analysts wrote in the firm's 2023 Global Outlook. "Recession is foretold as central banks race to try to tame inflation. What's more, BlackRock said that markets haven't fully priced in the potential magnitude of the impending recession, since earnings have yet to reflect even a small downturn.

☆ UK sees most widespread house price falls since May 2020: RICS
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( David Milliken | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said that its house price net balance - which measures the difference between the percentage of surveyors seeing rises and falls in house prices - sank to -25 in November. Price falls were particularly common in southeast and southwest England, while prices continued to rise modestly in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The RICS survey matches other measures of house price weakness from British mortgage lenders. Halifax reported on Wednesday that house prices recorded their biggest monthly drop since 2008 in November, falling by 2.8%, while Nationwide measured its biggest fall since June 2020. A Reuters poll of economists and property market analysts last month forecast house prices would drop around 5% next year, having risen about 24% since early 2020, according to official data.

☆ Premarket stocks: Why we think we're in a recession when the data says otherwise
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

New York CNN Business —It seems like you can’t go anywhere these days without colliding headfirst into another ominous prediction of imminent recession. But hidden behind those “CEO PREDICTS RECESSION” headlines lies a lot of uncertainty. “If I didn’t watch CNBC in the morning, the word ‘recession’ wouldn’t be in my vocabulary,” he said. “You just can’t see it in our data.”It’s almost as though Kirby predicted recession was imminent because other prominent voices predicted that recession was imminent. More than 10,000 ambulance workers represented by the GMB Union will strike again on December 28.

☆ Next winter storm brings threat of tornadoes, blizzard conditions and flooding early next week
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Allison Chinchar | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —Back-to-back-to-back systems will make their way across the United States over the next few days, with the last – and largest – storm bringing heavy rain, blizzard conditions and the potential for tornadoes. Along the coast, heavy rainfall and gusty winds will hammer the area with 1 to 2 inches of rainfall expected through Friday … before the main event arrives. Flash flooding, blizzard conditions and tornadoes possible next weekA blockbuster storm looks to be taking shape in the West for this weekend into early next week, threatening flash flooding, blizzard conditions and tornadoes. “As the system moves into the Plains early next week, a spring-like storm system develops,” Myers said. That threat is also increasing across the southern Plains and Gulf Coast region.

☆ Full ‘cold moon’ shines bright and eclipses Mars in a rare event
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Taylor Nicioli | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —December’s full moon, also known as the “cold moon,” will shine bright in the night sky this Wednesday, peaking at 11:08 p.m. December 7 also marks the 50th anniversary of NASA’s Apollo 17 mission launch — the last time humans set foot on the moon. Moon observingThe full moon will make its way across the sky starting at sunset. It was the final mission of NASA’s Apollo program and brought the number of humans who have walked on the moon to a grand total of 12. Apollo 17 was the final lunar landing mission in NASA's Apollo program.

☆ UK strikes to hit ambulance services, hospitals and trains in the run up to Christmas
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Hanna Ziady | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

More than 10,000 ambulance workers represented by the GMB Union will strike again on December 28. Ambulance workers, like others in the UK National Health Service (NHS), “are on their knees,” according to GMB national secretary Rachel Harrison. According to The Times, one million UK workers are set to strike in December and January. The union said that critical care will be exempt from strike action but non-critical services will have lower staffing levels. The Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents 115,000 postal workers, has notified Royal Mail of additional walkouts on December 9, 11, 14 and 15.

☆ Forecasters expect a ‘prolonged rainfall event’ across the South this week
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-04 | by ( Haley Brink | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —Several days of heavy rain are forecast across portions of the southern US this week, which could improve persisting drought conditions but also lead to significant flooding. “The threat for flooding will start late Monday into early Tuesday for areas south of I-40, especially near the Alabama border,” the National Weather Service office in Nashville, Tennessee said. “If rainfall becomes especially heavy or pockets of heavy rain move across the same areas repeatedly, more significant flash flooding will occur,” the weather service in Nashville warned. Many locations across the southern US could see rain every day this week, including Memphis, according to the weather service. “Flooding may develop, starting early in the week for low lying and flood prone areas, and along small streams,” the weather service in Nashville said.

A cross-country winter storm system is expected to bring severe weather conditions to the South and Northeast. Jackson, Mississippi, is in the center of the severe weather risk area, with other cities to watch being Memphis, Tennessee; New Orleans; Birmingham, Alabama; and Shreveport, Louisiana. The storm system will shift east on Wednesday, bringing strong thunderstorms, heavy rain and wind to the East Coast. Atlanta; Mobile, Alabama; New Orleans; and Tallahassee, Florida, could all see strong storms, especially in the first half of the day. The northern side of this cross-country storm system will bring snow, which will affect the Upper Midwest.

'REFUGE FOR WINTER' AND BEYONDVisitors and more permanent residents are also arriving from Germany, which was highly dependent on Russian gas before the Ukraine war and is anxious about possible winter energy shortages. Airlines will increase by 31% the number of seats available to the Canary Islands, the regional tourism office said. Airbnb, the short-term rentals firm, said searches for winter stays in southern Europe tripled between April and June. "Even before the energy crisis, we would have liked to be in Portugal because of the weather," the 28-year-old said. "But with the energy crisis, (being in Portugal) gives us more security because of the climate."

☆ More than 2,500 U.S. flights delayed amid severe weather during post-Thanksgiving travel
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-27 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Mirna-Alsharif-Byline-Jm.Jpg | Mirna Alsharif | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

More than 2,500 flights into or out of U.S. airports were delayed as of late Sunday morning during the post-Thanksgiving travel rush as severe weather, including rain, heavy winds and snow, swept through major cities. On Sunday morning, rain pounded the Southeast, mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes regions, threatening morning travel for cities such as Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Nashville and Charlotte, North Carolina. Storm totals will range from 0.5 to 1.25 inches of rain across the eastern third of the country. Snowfall totals will range from 6 to 12 inches, with localized higher amounts possible in the higher elevations, according to the weather service. Looking ahead, this storm system will bring an enhanced risk for severe weather across the Middle and Lower Mississippi Valley on Tuesday.

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