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A tributary of the mighty Ganges River, the Yamuna River breached the “high flood level” mark on Wednesday for the first time in 45 years, according to the Central Water Commission. Adnan Abidi/ReutersThe river overflowing has also led to school and office closures, along with likely water shortages, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said. Members of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) evacuate stranded residents from a flooded locality, after a rise in the water level of the Yamuna River, in New Delhi on July 13, 2023. People rescue cows from a flooded locality after a rise in the water level of the Yamuna River due to heavy monsoon rains, in New Delhi on July 13, 2023. Trucks are seen partially submerged in a flooded street after the Yamuna River overflowed due to monsoon rains, in New Delhi on July 13, 2023.

Persons: Atishi Marlena, ”, Marlena, Adnan Abidi, Arvind Kejriwal, Kejriwal, Money Sharma Organizations: New, New Delhi CNN, Central Water Commission, Public Works Department, Force, CNN, Response Force, Reuters Transport, state’s, Getty Locations: New Delhi, India’s, Haryana, Delhi, India, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Khoh, Pauri, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh

☆ Bob Iger to Remain as Head of Disney Through 2026
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( Brooks Barnes | More About Brooks Barnes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

A spokeswoman for Mr. Iger said he was unavailable for an interview. In recent months, as Disney’s troubles have increased, senior executives have privately pressed Mr. Iger to renew. In its statement on Wednesday, Disney took pains to point out that it was the board, not Mr. Iger, that pushed for an extension. Mr. Iger is betting that streaming services will return the company to growth. But Disney+ has been shedding subscribers, and a broader streaming division remains unprofitable, losing nearly $2 billion since the start of the fiscal year.

Persons: Iger, Disney, Mark G, Parker, “ Indiana Jones, ”, ESPN —, ’ Organizations: Disney, ESPN, SAG Locations: Hollywood, Hulu

☆ Farmers Insurance pulls out of Florida, affecting 100,000 policyholders
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( Jordan Valinsky | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —Farmers Insurance will stop offering its policies in Florida, including home, auto and umbrella policies, in a change that will force thousands of people to change their insurance provider. Farmers serves 100,000 customers in Florida but said there will be no impact to customers who use Farmers’ owned subsidiaries like Foremost Signature and Bristol West. “Such policies will continue to be available to serve the insurance needs of Floridians,” Farmers Insurance spokesperson Trevor Chapman said in a statement. Florida requires affected policyholders to receive a 120-day notice that their policies aren’t being renewed. Earlier this week, Farmers limited new homeowners insurance policies in California because of high costs and wildfire risks.

Persons: Trevor Chapman, don’t, aren’t, ” Mark Friedlander, ” Friedlander, hasn’t, ”, Friedlander, It’s, Hurricane Ian, Harvey Organizations: New, New York CNN — Farmers Insurance, Farmers, Bristol West, ” Farmers Insurance, ”, Insurance Information Institute, CNN, Insurance, Institute, Atlantic, National Oceanic, Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, Farm, Allstate Locations: New York, Florida, California

☆ Heineken, Unilever and Oreo maker Mondelez accused of breaking promises to leave Russia
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-10 | by ( Matt Egan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

It’s shameful and unethical.”Sonnenfeld, who has testified before Congress about companies leaving Russia, is not accusing these corporations of breaking the law. ‘Implied endorsement of the Putin regime’The “poster child” for this problem is the popular Dutch brewing giant Heineken, Sonnenfeld said. In March 2022, just one month after the invasion of Ukraine, Heineken won praise for promising to leave Russia. “We expect a significant financial loss to the Heineken company. The Yale research said Mondelez shows “no tangible signs of progress towards exiting” and continues to do business in Russia.

Persons: Vladimir Putin, Jeff Sonnenfeld, Philip Morris, ” Sonnenfeld, “, ”, ‘, Putin, Sonnenfeld, Steven Tian, ExxonMobil –, ” Heineken, ” Mondelez, Mondelez, That’s, Lipton, Mark Dixon, Nestle, Kit Kat, Purina, Sbarro, Carl’s Jr, Carl’s, Yale, Tim Calkins, Calkins Organizations: New York CNN Business, Yale, Heineken, Unilever, CNN, ”, Institute . Yale, BP, ExxonMobil, Nabisco, Kyiv School of Economics, Agency, Nestle, WeWork, Mondelez, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Restaurants Holdings, CKE, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Moscow, Russian, ”, American, South Africa

In the war-torn Chechnya region, Mr. Kadyrov built up a private fiefdom while professing loyalty to no official but Mr. Putin himself. A judo sparring partner from Mr. Putin’s youth became a construction billionaire and built Mr. Putin’s landmark bridge to Crimea. And then there was Mr. Prigozhin, who has said that he met Mr. Putin in 2000 as a St. Petersburg restaurateur. In Ukraine, as Mr. Prigozhin tells it, Wagner troops were only called in after Mr. Putin’s initial invasion plan failed. But Mr. Putin seemed to vacillate on his own support for Mr. Prigozhin.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Yevgeny V, Prigozhin, Putin’s, “, ”, —, “ Putin, Tatiana Stanovaya, ” Mr, Ramzan Kadyrov, Aleksandr G, Lukashenko, Mr, Wagner, tycoons, Boris N, Yeltsin, Kadyrov, Prigozhin’s, K.G.B, Donald J, Trump, Weeks, ’, Putin “, Andrei Soldatov, Prigozhin “, ” Mark Galeotti, ” Neil MacFarquhar, Valerie Hopkins Organizations: Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, ., Reuters, Federal Security Service, Kremlin, Television, Defense, Defense Ministry, Center for Locations: Russia, Moscow, Russian, Rostov, Chechnya, Belarus, Russia’s, Don, Ukraine, Putin’s, Crimea, St, Petersburg, United States, Syria, Africa, Ukrainian, Bakhmut

The Bradleys are among almost 3,600 pieces of military equipment Ukraine has lost in the war, according to Oryx. Meanwhile, the website says it has documented the loss of more than 10,600 pieces of Russian military equipment. In a statement in Monday, Moscow claimed it had destroyed multiple Ukrainian armored vehicles in the Zaporizhzhia region. However, Russian anti-tank troops stand in their way, cold-bloodedly turning Western armored vehicles into scrap heaps,” the Russian Ministry of Defense said. While Russian forces continue to hold the city, Ukraine’s forces have concentrated their efforts on areas to the northwest and southwest.

Persons: Jakub Janovsky, Bradley, Bradleys, Rebecca D’Angelo, Artur Widak, ” D’Angelo, James “ Spider ” Marks, ”, Hanna Maliar, Maliar, Mark Hertling, ” Hertling, CNN’s Jim Acosta, “, ” Serhii Cherevatyi, Cherevatyi, Hertling Organizations: CNN, US Bradley, Washington, US, 841st Transportation Battalion, 2nd Battalion, 70th Armored Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, Bradley Fighting, US Army, Russian Ministry of Defense, Deputy, Russia’s Ministry of Defense, Vostok, Russian Defense Ministry, Russian Locations: Ukraine, Russia, Donetsk, Nowa Deba, Poland, Bradleys, Moscow, Zaporizhzhia, Russian, Velyka, Makrivka, Ukrainian, Neskuchne, Urozhaine, Orikhiv, Bakhmut

☆ The case for a 2023 US recession is crumbling
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Matt Egan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

New York CNN —Many CEOs, investors and economists had penciled in 2023 as the year when a recession would hit the American economy. But the case for a 2023 US recession is crumbling for a simple reason: America’s jobs market is way too strong. Zandi is growing more confident that 2023 won’t be the year when a downturn will begin. “We’re running out of time for a 2023 recession,” Justin Wolfers, an economics professor at the University of Michigan, told CNN. Friday’s jobs report did offer some conflicting signals, especially in the household survey, which economists put less weight on because it tends to be noisier.

Persons: Mark Zandi, won’t, ” Zandi, “, Justin Wolfers, “ We’ve, payrolls, Wolfers, They’ve, ” Wolfers, ” Macy’s, Zandi, Joe Brusuelas, Morgan Stanley Organizations: New, New York CNN, Federal Reserve, Moody’s, CNN, University of Michigan, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bank of America, Challenger, RSM Locations: New York, ”

☆ Debt ceiling deal won’t have much impact on the US economy, analysts say
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Bryan Mena | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

The US economy is the world’s largest, so the relatively modest effects on growth could be good news for investors who feared the debt ceiling crisis could have posed a greater and more widespread drag. Here’s what’s in the proposed deal and how it would show up in the broader economy. What’s in the debt ceiling dealThe deal would suspend the federal government’s $31.4 trillion debt limit through January 2025. The debt deal and GDPEconomists at Goldman Sachs expect the deal to reduce federal spending by as much as 0.2% of gross domestic product per year over the two years of the deal, compared with their baseline estimate. “Getting this uncertainty out of the way for markets and decision makers has a real impact,” said Mike Skordeles, head of US economics at Truist Advisory Services.

Persons: Joe Biden, Mark Zandi, Biden, Goldman Sachs, ” Goldman Sachs, Ian Shepherdson, Gregory Daco, ”, Mike Skordeles, Zandi, ” Michael Reynolds Organizations: DC CNN, House Republicans, Moody’s, CNN, Internal Revenue Service, Congressional, Pantheon, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Truist Advisory Services, Investment, “ Locations: Washington, West Virginia

☆ The number of available US jobs surged in April
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Alicia Wallace | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Minneapolis CNN —The number of available jobs in the United States unexpectedly rose in April, bucking economists’ predictions after a three-month stretch of declines. Economists were expecting 9.375 million job openings, according to consensus estimates on Refinitiv. As openings rose in April, so did the ratio of available jobs to Americans looking for work. Job openings started skyrocketing in 2021 as America’s economy sought to fully recover from the deep job losses suffered the year before, at the pandemic’s onset. The number of available jobs set records and bounced around those heights for much of the past two years.

Persons: Mark Hamrick, there’s, Matthew Martin, JOLTS, Martin Organizations: Minneapolis CNN, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal, Bankrate, Fed, Labor, Survey, Oxford Economics Locations: Minneapolis, United States, US

The annual shareholder meetings of Exxon Mobil and Chevron, scheduled for Wednesday, are set to be largely sedate, as they will be held virtually. Despite the drama, however, climate-focused shareholder activists are being forced to rethink their approach, two years after the tiny hedge fund Engine No. 1 won a stunning victory over Exxon, Vivienne Walt writes for DealBook. Activists have failed to win more than 50 percent in many key proxy votes since then. And it comes despite major investors backing shareholder activists’ efforts: Norway’s $1.4 trillion sovereign wealth fund, for instance, has pledged to side with them on climate issues on the ballot at Exxon and Chevron.

☆ Opinion | Beyond the ‘Matrix’ Theory of the Human Mind
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-28 | by ( Ezra Klein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

“We can produce more information,” Mark said. Our processing capability is the bottleneck.”Email and chat systems like Slack offer useful analogies here. Few have thought through the costs that will impose on those who are supposed to respond to all this new text. Our societywide obsession with speed and efficiency has given us a flawed model of human cognition that I’ve come to think of as the Matrix theory of knowledge. But that misses much of what’s really happening when we spend nine hours reading a biography.

☆ Analysis: Why we may need a stock market plunge to solve the debt ceiling crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( Matt Egan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

They know how it ends: with politicians waiting until the last minute before giving in and finally raising the debt ceiling before disaster strikes. On Friday, it looked like the White House and Republicans were getting closer to a deal on the debt ceiling before talks unexpectedly broke down. In 2011, the most serious near-default in American history, markets experienced volatility in the days and weeks before Washington reached a last-minute deal to raise the debt ceiling. None of this is to say markets are completely ignoring the debt ceiling drama today. The debt ceiling is a manufactured crisis that officials could have dealt with months ago.

☆ Fact Check-Ukrainian coat of arms predates use of trident symbol by far-right nationalists
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The Ukrainian coat of arms, a trident, is an official symbol of the country and dates back over a thousand years. The blue shield with a gold trident-like symbol is seen on the Military of Defense of Ukraine site and is currently listed as the country’s official coat of arms (here). FAR-RIGHT NATIONALISTS ADOPTED THE SYMBOLFar-right Ukrainian nationalists during the pre-WW2 era “naturally used symbols that were historically associated with Ukraine,” Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Center on Extremism said, including what is now the Ukrainian coat of arms. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), was founded in 1929 to “liberate Ukraine from Soviet rule and create an independent Ukrainian state,” according to Reuters reporting from 2015 (here). While far-right Ukrainian nationalists have used the trident symbol, the symbol is from a millennium earlier, is on Ukraine’s coat of arms, and is not proof Zelenskiy is connected to extremists.

☆ Sam Zell, billionaire real estate investor, dead at 81
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Equity Residential, the company he founded decades ago, did not provide a cause of death but described Zell as an “iconic figure in real estate and throughout the corporate world.”Among his wide-ranging portfolio of investments were distressed assets in real estate and in media, including an ultimately disastrous bet on the Tribune Company. Zell had a personal net worth of $5.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Zell had a penchant for scooping up cheap real estate and selling it later at a profit, a strategy he outlined in a 1978 article titled “The Grave Dancer,” which became his nickname in the industry. But Zell’s impressive track record of successful bets was marred by a brief, unsuccessful foray into media in 2007 when he orchestrated the $8.2 billion leveraged buyout of Tribune Company. In 2018, during the rise of the #MeToo movement, Zell sparked outrage by making a lewd comment about hiring women.

☆ Officials Who Cast Doubt on Hunter Biden Laptop Face Questions
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Luke Broadwater | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

As Justice Department officials weigh the matter, the investigator overseeing the Internal Revenue Service’s portion of the case has also come forward with allegations of political favoritism in the inquiry. On Monday, a lawyer for that investigator sent a short letter to Congress that said the investigator and the rest of his team were being removed from the inquiry, which is reaching its end as officials weigh whether to pursue charges. The former intelligence officials stress that their letter stated that they had no evidence of a Russian disinformation campaign, and that they were merely stating an opinion. “The Congress is wasting its time and our money by investigating the First Amendment rights of private citizens,” Mark Zaid, a lawyer who represents seven signers of the letter, said in an interview. Democrats also argue that the letter must be understood in its proper context.

LOS ANGELES, May 9 (Reuters) - The Paramount Pictures “Transformers” film franchise has switched gears in its latest installment by adding more diversity to its lead roles, namely “In the Heights” actor Anthony Ramos and “Swarm” TV series actor Dominique Fishback. "Right, like people around the world can feel somebody in all parts of the world can watch this and go 'Yo, that's me. Problems arise when the two, who barely know one another, are thrown together with the shape-shifting robots. He's (Director, Steven Caple Jr.) like, yo, yo, yo, this is the first time you all are meeting, so it was an exercise to try and detract from our real relationship in real life,” Ramos added. Reporting by Rollo Ross and Danielle Broadway; Editing by Mary Milliken and Jonathan OatisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Premarket stocks: The Fed could be on the verge of repeating its 1970s mistake
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Julia Horowitz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

But Gary Richardson, a Federal Reserve historian, is worried policymakers — now contemplating taking a breather — still risk repeating mistakes from that era. A premature retreat could cause the Fed to lose its handle on the situation, presenting even grimmer options down the road. Quick rewind: The chair of the Federal Reserve at the time, Arthur Burns, hiked interest rates dramatically between 1972 and 1974. Inflation later roared back, forcing the hand of Paul Volcker, who took over at the Fed in 1979, Richardson said. But the comparisons reveal the high stakes for the Federal Reserve at a moment of acute uncertainty.

☆ Meta Returns to Growth After Struggling With Falling Sales
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Mike Isaac | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The debate over whether Meta is in decline may get quietened, at least for now. After three straight quarters of falling revenue, Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, on Wednesday reported that revenue for the first quarter jumped 3 percent, to $28.6 billion, from a year ago. The results, which surpassed Wall Street expectations and Meta’s own guidance, were bolstered by a growth in users. The company added 37 million daily users to Facebook, its marquee app, up 4 percent from a year earlier and a turnaround from its first-ever drop in users that it reported in early 2022. “We had a good quarter and our community continues to grow,” Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, said in a statement.

☆ Meta opens up its Horizon Worlds VR app to teens for the first time, prompting outcries from US lawmakers
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Washington CNN —Meta is forging ahead with plans to let teenagers onto its virtual reality app, Horizon Worlds, despite objections from lawmakers and civil society groups that the technology could have possible unintended consequences for mental health. On Tuesday, the social media giant said children as young as 13 in Canada and the United States will gain access to Horizon Worlds for the first time in the coming weeks. Zuckerberg has pushed to spend billions developing VR hardware and software, even as Meta has scaled back significantly in other parts of its business. “Meta is despicably attempting to lure young teens to Horizon Worlds in an attempt to boost its failing platform,” said Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who last month, along with Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, urged Zuckerberg to reconsider letting teens use the app. Lawmakers have previously raised alarms about the impact of some of Meta’s other products, including Instagram, on younger users.

☆ Inside the Online Market for Overseas Abortion Pills
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Allison Mccann | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +17 min

A selection of abortion pill kits available online from overseas sellers. A chart of the estimated number of abortion pills provided outside the U.S. health care system from July through December 2022. For most patients, the cost of the service remains the most important factor in deciding where to get pills online. A chart showing the minimum, average and maximum cost of abortion pills from overseas providers: Aid Access, Las Libres and for-profit online sellers. A chart showing the minimum, average and maximum delivery speeds of abortion pills from overseas providers: Aid Access, Las Libres and for-profit online sellers.

☆ When you're talking to a chatbot, who's listening?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

And just last week, regulators in Italy issued a temporary ban on ChatGPT in the country, citing privacy concerns after OpenAI disclosed the breach. Google and Microsoft have since rolled out AI tools as well, which work the same way and are powered by large language models that are trained on vast troves of online data. When users input information into these tools, McCreary said, “You don’t know how it’s then going to be used.” That raises particularly high concerns for companies. The privacy policy states it may provide personal information to third parties without further notice to the user, unless required by law. “We also have guardrails in place designed to prevent Bard from including personally identifiable information in its responses,” Google said.

☆ ‘We Love NYC’ Ad Blitz Gets No Love From Residents—and That’s OK With Its Creators
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Patrick Coffee | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The Partnership for New York City, the nonprofit group behind the new “We Love NYC” ad campaign, doesn’t mind that its logo seems to be loathed by city residents ranging from newspaper columnists to pop star Joe Jonas, who offered his own version. After all, any publicity is good publicity. The project, which launched this week with the release of the new logo, offers a twist on the classic “I Love NY” mark created in 1977 by designer Milton Glaser . The purpose is to persuade New Yorkers to adopt a more optimistic outlook and improve quality of life in their city by frequenting local businesses and signing up for volunteer work, said marketing executive Maryam Banikarim, whose consulting firm, MaryamB, helped develop the campaign strategy.

☆ Fact Check-No evidence linking clouds to earthquakes, contrary to claims following Turkey-Syria quake
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Experts contacted by Reuters dismissed claims shared online conflating the events that occurred weeks apart and emphasized that there is no evidence linking cloud formations to quakes. “Lenticular clouds form from a natural interaction of the air with mountains,” Mark Wysocki, senior lecturer in Cornell University’s Earth and Atmospheric Sciences department, told Reuters by email. A diagram illustrating this process provided by Wysocki is viewable (ibb.co/PmKM019)“And earthquakes form from the natural movement of the Earth’s crust. Experts contacted by Reuters say there is no evidence linking clouds to earthquakes. The science behind the formation of lens-like-shaped clouds, or lenticular clouds, has been documented.

☆ Big Oil made $200 billion in profit last year. Shareholders won big, clean energy missed out
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Hanna Ziady | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

But the flood of cash has not delivered a commensurate boom in renewable energy investments, despite clear evidence that the world needs to move much faster with efforts to address the climate crisis. The record-setting results mark a dramatic turnaround for a sector that suffered brutal losses and slashed shareholder payouts in 2020, when pandemic lockdowns sharply reduced demand for energy and oil prices collapsed. An aerial view of the BP oil refinery in Whiting, Indiana on August 29, 2019. Tannen Maury/EPA-EFE/ShutterstockJust three years ago, BP unveiled a plan to slash oil and gas production by 40% from 2019 levels by 2030. It is also now aiming to cut carbon emissions from its oil and gas production by 20%-30% by 2030, down from the previous goal of 35%-40%.

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