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Below are several charts setting out how ESG funds have held up so far this year. Reuters GraphicsTECH REBOUNDESG equity funds enjoyed a quarter of net inflows, even after the March withdrawals, beating non-ESG equity funds, which lost money. ESG funds have historically owned bank shares because of their relatively lower carbon emissions, Boakye said, although versus traditional funds their exposure to banks is generally lower. Across the quarter ESG bond funds managed to attract more cash than they lost. Reuters GraphicsOUTPERFORMINGThanks to the rebound in tech shares and other sectors shunned in 2022, ESG equity funds outperformed traditional funds during the quarter.

April 6 (Reuters) - Canada on Thursday said it will deploy a military aircraft to Japan to support implementation of United Nations Security Council sanctions against North Korea. North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs. China and Russia have also blamed joint military drills by the United States and South Korea for provoking Pyongyang. Meanwhile, Washington has accused Beijing and Moscow of emboldening North Korea by shielding it from more sanctions. For the past several years, the Security Council has been divided over how to deal with Pyongyang.

☆ Young victim of Brazil daycare center attack is buried
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/3] Parents stands alongside the coffin, that contains the remains of their 5-year-old, Bernardo Cunha Machado, who was killed by a man inside a daycare center, during a wake at the Sao Jose cemetery, in Blumenau, Santa Catarina, Brazil April 6, 2023. REUTERS/Vinicius BretzkeBLUMENAU, April 6 (Reuters) - Residents of Blumenau, a city in Southern Brazil, gathered on Thursday at a cemetery to attend the burial of one of the four children killed by a man armed with a small axe in a local daycare center. On Wednesday, a 25-year-old man scaled the wall of the daycare center, killed four children and wounded five others, before turning himself in. Police said three boys - two aged 4 and one aged 5 - and one girl aged 7 were killed. The attack came nearly a week after a 13-year-old student stabbed a teacher to death and wounded five others in a Sao Paulo school.

Here is a snapshot of pending and passed legislation seeking to restrict or protect access in 2023. KANSAS: Although Kansans voted in favor of state abortion rights on a ballot measure last year, the Republican-led state Senate has passed a prohibition on prescribing abortion pills via telemedicine. The Republican-led state is currently enforcing a total abortion ban, with exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother. MONTANA: The Republican-led state Senate has passed a bill seeking to overturn a 1999 state Supreme Court ruling that found that the state constitution protected a right to abortion. SOUTH CAROLINA: Despite the fact that the state Supreme Court recently struck down a six-week abortion ban in a 3-2 vote, Republicans have introduced a near-total abortion ban and a six-week ban this year.

☆ Brazil's Bolsonaro testifies in scandal over Saudi jewelry gift
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] A customs employee opens the box containing the jewelry with diamonds gifted to Bolsonaro and former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro by the Saudi government which was seized by customs officials, at Sao Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport, in Guarulhos, Brazil, March 14, 2023. One of the jewelry sets given to then First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro and valued at 16.5 million reais ($3.26 million) was seized by customs officials in the backpack of a government aide returning from Saudi Arabia. Bolsonaro returned two other gift packages after Brazil's federal audit court ordered him to do so. Several officials from the Bolsonaro administration unsuccessfully tried to recover the main jewelry present from customs at Sao Paulo's Guarulhos international airport, according to local media. Another gift, received from the United Arab Emirates -- a rifle and a pistol -- was handed over to the federal police.

Sentencing Commission approved new guidelines on Wednesday that will expand federal inmates' ability to qualify for compassionate release from prison. The First Step Act, signed into law by former President Donald Trump in 2018, expanded compassionate release criteria for sick and elderly federal inmates. Requests for compassionate release then surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, with 7,014 motions filed in fiscal year 2020. The new compassionate release guidelines approved on Wednesday expanded the criteria for what can qualify as "extraordinary and compelling reasons" to grant compassionate release, and it will give judges more discretion to determine when a sentence reduction is warranted. Among the new categories that could make an inmate eligible for compassionate release is if he or she becomes the victim of sexual assault by a corrections officer.

☆ Nigeria gets World Bank funding for social program ahead of fuel subsidy cut
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Felix Onuah | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] A participant stands near a logo of World Bank at the International Monetary Fund - World Bank Annual Meeting 2018 in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, October 12, 2018. REUTERS/Johannes P. ChristoABUJA, April 5 (Reuters) - Nigeria has secured $800 million from the World Bank to scale up its national social program ahead of the removal of its costly but popular subsidies on petrol in June, Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed said on Wednesday. Ahmed said the government was considering cash transfers and mass transit buses for workers to ease the pain of the subsidy removal on the most vulnerable segment of its population. She added that the country has registered ten million households, which is equivalent to 50 million people on its vulnerable list. Ahmed said discussions were going on at different levels of government and with members of the incoming administration of President-elect Bola Tinubu on the subsidy removal.

☆ Migrants cried for help in Mexico fire but no one came, survivor recalls
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Lizbeth Diaz | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Thick suffocating smoke was filling the cell where he was held with over 60 other migrants in northern Mexico, but there was no way out. "We screamed for them to open the cell door, but no one helped us," Caraballo, 26, said through tears during a phone interview from his hospital bed. He is anxious to get better so he can be fully reunited with his family and start a new life in the United States. Like millions of others, Caraballo and his family fled Venezuela's economic and political crisis, setting off for the United States last October. The young father was the first to be able to cross into the United States, via the government's CBP One scheme which allows some migrants to formally enter the United States, but returned to Mexico in February after his infant daughter fell ill.

☆ Reactions as former President Donald Trump arraigned in New York City
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

April 4 (Reuters) - Donald Trump has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury after a probe into hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, becoming the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges. The charges from an investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg come as Trump seeks the Republican nomination to run again in 2024. REPRESENTATIVE JAMAAL BOWMAN:“Take responsibility, hold yourself accountable, and go away,” Bowman, a Democrat of New York, said when reporters asked if he had a message for Trump. SENATE MAJORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER:Schumer, a Democrat of New York, tweeted: "I believe that Donald Trump will have a fair trial that follows the facts and the law. Trump was a president of many firsts — none of which were good for our country.

☆ Repeating radio signal leads astronomers to an Earth-size exoplanet
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —Astronomers have detected a repeating radio signal from an exoplanet and the star that it orbits, both located 12 light-years away from Earth. The signal suggests that the Earth-size planet may have a magnetic field and perhaps even an atmosphere. The researchers believe the radio signal was created by interactions between the planet’s magnetic field and the star. How strong radio waves occurIn order for the radio waves to be detectable on Earth, they must be very strong, the researchers said. “This research shows not only that this particular rocky exoplanet likely has a magnetic field but provides a promising method to find more.”

☆ After immigrant deaths at border, calls to end U.S-Canada asylum pact grow louder
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Molly Cone | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The deaths come less than two weeks after the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) pact was amended, allowing refugee claimants to seek asylum in the first safe country they arrive in. Protesters presented a petition to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, whose ministry is responsible for border patrol and policing in Canada. Critics say this policy separates families and pushes immigrants to try to cross the border via deadly informal routes. Total of eight people from two families died last week trying to enter the United States from Canada by boat across the St. Lawrence River near Akwesasne, Quebec. Canada and United States have maintained that STCA has is the best way to manage the world's longest land border.

☆ Beep! The barcode turns 50, who invented it?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Dayun Park | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The barcode, that rectangle of thick and thin parallel lines seen on seemingly every grocery product, package, prescription bottle and piece of luggage is turning 50 years old. There’s hardly any products now that don’t use a barcode for identification.”Who got there first? A replica of a package of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit Chewing Gum used in a Smithsonian museum exhibition. The Wall Street Journal, in a 2022 obituary of Collins, gives the nod of inventing the barcode to him. Years later, the Smithsonian had a replica of that Wrigley’s gum installed in a museum exhibition on the history of the barcode.

☆ Brazil targets Asian e-commerce giants, local companies in tax push
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BRASILIA, April 3 (Reuters) - Brazil will soon unveil tax measures, including a crackdown targeting Asian e-commerce giants and curbs on some company tax benefits, as it looks to raise more than 100 billion reais ($20 billion), Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said on Monday. The e-commerce measures come in response to complaints from local retailers about unfair competition from Asian giants such as AliExpress, Shein, and Shopee. He later told journalists that combating the practice, which Haddad called "smuggling", should generate 7 billion reais to 8 billion reais in new revenue for the government. The most significant impact will come from the government's move to seek approval from the Federal Supreme Court to disallow companies from receiving tax breaks from states on operating expenses, which result in them paying less federal tax. The tax reform proposal should be voted in the Lower House by July and in the Senate by October, Haddad said.

☆ Survivor of Mexico detention fire and his family cross into U.S.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-01 | by ( Lizbeth Diaz | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Jose Luis GonzalezEl PASO, April 1 (Reuters) - After her husband survived a fire which killed dozens of migrants at a detention center in northern Mexico, Venezuelan Viangly Infante crossed into the United States on Saturday, in search of new opportunities for her three children. "The storm has passed," Infante, 31, said while holding back tears as she walked to the vehicle which would take her to a migrant center in El Paso. The family had arrived in Ciudad Juarez just before the new year, but only Caraballo managed to cross into the United States. Mexican authorities have shut down the detention center and arrested five people over the migrants' deaths, including INM staff, a private security agent, and a Venezuelan accused of starting the fire. In the days following the fire, the U.S government announced it would aid those affected, with Infante's family the first to receive help.

☆ Verizon, AT&T to get full C-Band use, extend some 5G safeguards - letter
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( David Shepardson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Last year, Verizon and AT&T voluntarily agreed to delay some C-Band 5G usage until July as air carriers worked to retrofit airplane altimeters. Reuters first reported in February that the FAA, Verizon and AT&T were in talks to reach a new agreement that sought to extend some voluntary mitigations beyond July 1. Verizon said Friday it "agreed to final voluntary commitments that will allow our company to fully use our C-band spectrum for 5G by the previously agreed to deadline of July 1." The FAA said Friday it continues "to work closely to ensure a safe co-existence in the U.S. 5G C-band environment." UScellular said the "agreement results from collaboration and coordination with the FAA, FCC, and our industry partners to ensure UScellular can deploy our C-band spectrum without delay."

☆ U.S. lawmakers introduce bipartisan bill to help news media negotiate with Big Tech
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers reintroduced a bill to allow news organizations to join together to negotiate ad rates with tech giants such as Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google. The measure would allow news broadcasters and publishers with fewer than 1,500 full-time workers to jointly negotiate ad rates -- many of which face financial struggles. The bill was introduced by Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee, along with Senator John Kennedy, a Republican. The News/Media Alliance, a media trade association, praised the bill it says will protect and sustain local journalism. Reporting by Diane Bartz; additional reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Aurora EllisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Companies United States Department of Agriculture FollowWASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) - Rural small businesses and farmers will be eligible to apply for $1 billion in grants to invest in clean energy beginning Saturday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the White House announced on Friday. The money, funded by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), will be distributed through the USDA's Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) and is meant to further the Biden administration's efforts to cut climate-harming emissions across the American economy. The grant money can be used to install renewable energy systems - like solar panels, wind turbines, or biomass projects like anaerobic digesters that process animal manure to generate renewable fuels like biogas - or to make energy-efficient improvements, the USDA said. The funded projects will create jobs, reduce emissions, and improve rural resiliency in the face of a changing climate, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on the press call. The IRA provided more than $2 billion for REAP, which the administration anticipates will fund projects for 41,500 farms and small businesses, according to the USDA website.

☆ Mexican probe into missing students beset by delays and failure, watchdog says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), human rights experts who have tracked the investigation, on Friday urged the military to cooperate with informational requests, and for prosecutors to issue more arrest orders. "We have insisted on the need for verifying and carrying out these arrest orders," she told a news conference. Prosecutors last year called for the arrests of 83 military, police and government officials, among others, with 21 of the arrest orders later withdrawn. Buitrago said the GIEI has now sent evidence to prosecutors supporting the arrest orders that were dropped. The rights experts said the military had told them that certain documents and records did not exist even after the GIEI had obtained some of those same records.

March 31 (Reuters) - A judge has rejected Amazon.com Inc's (AMZN.O) bid to dismiss California's antitrust lawsuit accusing the online retailer of illegally forcing merchants to accept policies that cause consumers to pay artificially high prices. California Attorney General Rob Bonta had sued Seattle-based Amazon last September. The lawsuit sought to block Amazon from enforcing policies that bar the sale of goods more cheaply elsewhere, and to pay damages and penalties. Washington, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine is appealing a judge's March 2022 dismissal of his similar lawsuit against Amazon. The case is California v Amazon.com Inc, Superior Court of California, San Francisco County, No.

BRASILIA, March 30 (Reuters) - Brazil's far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, who never conceded defeat in last year's election, returns from self-imposed exile in Florida on Thursday to lead the opposition to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro left for the United States two days before he was due to hand over the presidential sash to Lula on Jan. 1. His return to Brazil is eagerly awaited by the party's leader Valdemar Costa Neto, who wants Bolsonaro to become the leader of the opposition to the Lula administration and lead the PL into municipal elections next year. "Bolsonaro will lead the opposition and travel around Brazil preaching the party's liberal values and helping the PL grow," he told Reuters, outlining a plan for a right-wing comeback in the 2026 presidential elections. Barreto said her ambitions may provide an outlet for the ex-president's supporters if legal probes lead electoral authorities bar him from seeking office.

☆ How to talk to your aging parents about safe driving
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Chris Taylor | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

One person may represent a danger on the roads at age 65, while another may be perfectly fine at age 85. Upgrades can help them stay safe, including technologies to keep drivers from drifting out a lane, backup cameras and various other detection systems. Special licensing requirements for elderly drivers can help screen out problems with vision and cognition. Some states require more frequent renewal for older drivers, or demand regular vision checks, or prohibit online renewals altogether. For a few hundred dollars a year, you could get a $1 million policy that should let everyone sleep better at night – both you, and your parents.

☆ A powerful 'X-class' solar flare just hit Earth. Forecasters are bracing for more sun activity in the coming days.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The sun blasted Earth with a powerful X-class solar flare on Tuesday, causing radio blackouts. Three more moderate solar flares followed, and we could see more eruptions in the coming days. This may be a precursor to even more solar activity in the coming days. NASA/SDOThat report forecast a chance of more M-class flares in the coming days, with a "slight chance" of another X-class flare on Thursday. More often, though, solar activity triggers energetic displays of Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, sometimes pushing them further south than their normal Arctic occurrence.

☆ Wall Street jumps with rosy outlooks from companies
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Caroline Valetkevitch | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Micron (MU.O) shares shot up 7.2%, boosting the Nasdaq and S&P 500, and leading gains in the PHLX semiconductor index (.SOX), which closed 3.3% higher. Lululemon surges after strong reoprtThe bulk of S&P 500 companies begin reporting on the first quarter in mid-April. On Monday, regional U.S. lender First Citizens BancShares scooped up the assets of Silicon Valley Bank. Michael Barr, Fed Vice Chair for Supervision, told Congress the scope of blame for Silicon Valley Bank's failure stretches across bank executives. The S&P 500 posted 9 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 69 new highs and 135 new lows.

☆ Wall Street gains with rosy outlooks from Micron, other companies
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Caroline Valetkevitch | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Micron (MU.O) shares were up 7%, boosting the Nasdaq and S&P 500, and leading gains in the PHLX semiconductor index (.SOX), which was up 2.6%. The memory chip maker late Tuesday forecast a drop in third-quarter revenue in line with Wall Street expectations, while it gave a rosy outlook for 2025 with artificial intelligence boosting sales. Micron is sort of a microcosm of the global economy because their chips go into so many different industries and sectors. The bulk of S&P 500 companies begin reporting on the first quarter after mid-April. The S&P 500 posted 9 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 57 new highs and 113 new lows.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which on Tuesday accused the largest U.S. retailer of illegally firing a North Carolina deli worker with Crohn's disease. According to a complaint filed in the Charlotte, North Carolina federal court, Walmart did not excuse several absences though Tucker provided doctor's notes, and rejected her requests for periodic leave or a transfer to a job nearer the bathroom. Crohn's disease is an chronic bowel disease that causes inflammation in the digestive tract, and can lead to diarrhea, abdominal pain, fatigue and weight loss. Tucker was a long-term employee who needed "flexibility" from Walmart because of her debilitating health condition, EEOC lawyer Melinda Dugas said in a statement. The case is EEOC v Wal-Mart Stores East LP, U.S. District Court, Western District of North Carolina, No.

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