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☆ Montenegro court releases crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon on bail
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BELGRADE, May 12 (Reuters) - A court in Montenegro agreed on Friday to release Do Kwon, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur charged in the U.S. with a multibillion-dollar fraud, on bail of 400,000 euros ($440,320), pending a trial on local charges. Following his arrest in Montenegro in March, the U.S. District Court in Manhattan made public an eight-count indictment against Do Kwon for securities fraud, wire fraud, commodities fraud and conspiracy. He was detained with Han Chang-joon, Terraform Labs' former finance officer, who will also be released on bail of 400,000 euros. "The court ... found that the possibility of losing the posted bail of 400,000 euros each, works sufficiently to dissuade them from any desire to flee," the statement said. Montenegrin police arrested Do Kwon and Chang-joon at Podgorica airport as they tried to board a flight to Dubai.

☆ We traveled the continent in our Airstream, and now we're turning it into a permanent jungle home where we can raise our daughter and live off the land
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Kristen Sarah and Siya Zarrabi spent five years transversing the continent in their 1976 Airstream. Now, they've settled in Costa Rica and are building a $60,000 home around the travel trailer. Their young daughter prompted the move — they wanted her to be surrounded by nature. Loading Something is loading. We found a vintage one from 1976 on Craigslist, and we drove four or five hours to pick it up.

☆ AI could cause patients harm as a result of bias and errors, health experts say
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Public health experts say AI poses a risk to human health, per the BMJ Global Health journal. The use of AI in healthcare could worsen social and health inequalities, they added. Public health experts are raising the alarm about the potential risks that artificial intelligence could have on human health. AI experts, including one researcher dubbed the "Godfather of AI," have recently raised concerns against the new technology. The letter cited potential risks to humanity and society, including the spread of misinformation and widespread automation of jobs.

☆ Wellness travel is rising among a particularly weary group of travelers — parents
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Monica Pitrelli | Morgan Awyong | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

But a new survey shows parents increasingly want in on a trend that isn't often aimed at families: wellness travel. The data showed an emerging picture of family travel — one in which parents may be starting to prioritize their own needs alongside those of their children. Traveling for physical health is up eight points among parents since last year, said Lindsey Roeschke, travel and hospitality analyst at Morning Consult. Planning a wellness family vacationThough some wellness resorts only allow adults, places like The Farm at San Benito welcome guests of all ages. Planning your own wellness tripRather than a resort stay, parents can plan their own wellness trips based on their interests.

LONDON, May 9 (Reuters) - Ecuador sealed the world's largest "debt-for-nature" swap on record on Tuesday, selling a new "blue bond" that will funnel at least $12 million a year into conservation of the Galapagos Islands, one of the world's most precious ecosystems. Tuesday's $656 million "Galapagos Bond," as it has been dubbed, will run until 2041 and gave investors that bought it a 5.645% "coupon" or interest rate, its bankers said. Ecuador sovereign bonds currently yield from 17% to 26%, but the new bond has an $85 million 'credit guarantee' from the Inter-American Development Bank and $656 million of political risk insurance from the U.S. International Development Finance Corp (DFC), effectively making it less risky. The driver has been the remote Galapagos Islands, some 600 miles (970 km) off Ecuador's mainland coast, that inspired Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Scott Nathan, the chief executive of DFC, said people needed to "stay tuned" for similar deals in other countries and the Galapagos deal had been a long time coming.

☆ A fund manager who's outperformed 99% of his peers in 2023 shares exactly how he finds undervalued gems that others overlook — and his 7 favorite stocks to buy now
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( James Faris | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Portfolio manager Mark Costa, who runs the Brandes International Small Cap Value Fund (BISAX) alongside three of his colleagues, is among the top investors so far this year. The outstanding run for Costa's fund this year follows a difficult 2022 for international stocks, in which the fund fell by 8.7% but still managed to crush its index, which lost 18.4%. "Over the long run, we can generate very strong risk-adjusted returns because of the quality of the businesses," Costa said. 7 top international stocks to buy nowCosta said that right now he's finding strong opportunities in the aerospace and defense, banking, consumer staples, and healthcare industries. After providing an overview of his investing strategy, Costa shared seven of his favorite stocks to buy and hold right now.

☆ Portugal's president to address the nation after rift with PM
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

LISBON, May 4 (Reuters) - Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will address the nation at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Thursday, a spokesperson for the presidency said, after his rift with Prime Minister Antonio Costa increased the risk of a political crisis. The conservative president had made clear he wanted Galamba out and said he disagreed with Costa's decision after previously having warned that he could disband parliament if the government lost credibility. Costa's Socialists won an outright parliamentary majority in January 2022, but his third government in a row has been plagued by instability, although analysts see it surviving - for now at least. More than 10 ministers and secretaries of state have left their posts in the past year, at least two of them linked to scandals at airline TAP. Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; editing by Andrei KhalipOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[1/2] Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro leaves his home following a search operation, in Brasilia, Brazil, May 3, 2023. REUTERS/Adriano MachadoBRASILIA, May 3 (Reuters) - Brazilian police on Wednesday raided former President Jair Bolsonaro's home and seized his cell phone as part of an investigation into his COVID-19 vaccination records. The investigation may answer questions about how Bolsonaro, a strident coronavirus skeptic who vowed never to get a COVID vaccine, was registered as vaccinated in health records made public in February. Bolsonaro confirmed the raid on his home in Brasilia to journalists and reiterated that he had never taken a COVID vaccine. Police said they were investigating "false data" allegedly added to a national COVID-19 database between November 2021 and December 2022, when Bolsonaro was president.

LISBON, May 2 (Reuters) - Portugal's infrastructure minister submitted his resignation on Tuesday as a scandal around state-owned airline TAP widened, just four months after his predecessor resigned over the same issue, but the prime minister said he would keep him in the job. Galamba's predecessor, Pedro Nuno Santos, resigned in December in the wake of a scandal involving an irregular severance payment to a former executive board member of TAP. Ourmières-Widener has since been fired after an official inspection found that the severance was illegal. On Sunday, Costa said that neither he nor any member of the government had given orders to SIS to recover the laptop. ($1 = 0.9089 euros)Reporting by Sergio Goncalves and Catarina Demony; Editing by Andrei KhalipOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ A 31-year old real-estate investor with a 134-unit portfolio shares the strategy he's using to sidestep high mortgage rates and buy properties with none of his own money
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( William Edwards | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Seller-financing is when a property owner agrees to sell their property to the buyer directly instead of using a bank. For one, they might be able to command a higher price if they're able to offer a lower interest rate than one could get from a bank. That translates to $13,125 per month in interest payments alone for eight years. It's enough to cover their interest payments, he said. He added: "Those are the same people who call me for deals, they're the same people who sometimes sell me property, they're the same people who have financed me.

WASHINGTON, April 27 (Reuters) - The United States will expand a family-reunification parole program currently available to Cubans and Haitians to include additional nationalities, U.S. officials said on Thursday, as part of a suite of measures aimed at curbing record border crossings. The program will be expanded to nationals of Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in an effort to create new lawful pathways for migrants, the officials said during a briefing with reporters. Biden, a Democrat seeking re-election in 2024, has struggled politically with record numbers of migrants caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. Reuters reported on Wednesday that the United States is also discussing increased refugee processing in Ecuador and Costa Rica. The family reunification program is distinct from a program that Biden launched in January that allows up to 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela with U.S. sponsors to enter the country by air.

Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky and human resources head Beth Galetti sent notes to staffers informing them of the job cuts. I wanted to let you know that conversations with impacted AWS employees started today, with notification messages sent to all impacted employees in the U.S., Canada, and Costa Rica. In other regions, we are following local processes, which may include time for consultation with employee representative bodies and possibly result in longer timelines to communicate with impacted employees. To those to whom we are saying goodbye today, thank you for everything you have done for this business and our customers. In other regions, we are following local processes, which may include time for consultation with employee representative bodies and possibly result in longer timelines to communicate with impacted employees.

☆ Netflix is already losing masses of customers over its password-sharing ban. Here's how it's clamping down around the world.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

In Spain, users have gone on a canceling spree. Netflix is pushing ahead with its password-sharing clampdown — and research shows that scores of customers have gone on a canceling spree. In Spain, where password-sharing rules were enforced in early February, Netflix subscribers have been on a canceling spree, per Bloomberg. Citing research from Kantar, Bloomberg reported that Netflix lost more than one million users in Spain during the first three months of 2023. Netflix has tested other rules aimed at stamping out password-sharing, including temporary-access codes for traveling, Insider previously reported.

☆ Internal email shows Amazon has started laying off cloud employees as part of its plan to cut 9,000
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Amazon Web Services began laying off cloud employees on Monday, an internal email shows. The cloud unit's professional services team, ProServe, is one of the units being cut, two people said. Amazon Web Services began laying off employees on Monday as part of Amazon's plan to trim 9,000 jobs across the company, according to an internal email viewed by Insider. I wanted to let you know that conversations with impacted AWS employees started today, with notification messages sent to all impacted employees in the U.S., Canada, and Costa Rica. In other regions, we are following local processes, which may include time for consultation with employee representative bodies and possibly result in longer timelines to communicate with impacted employees.

☆ Elephant seals amaze scientists with their ability to sleep 1,200 feet deep under the ocean to avoid predators
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( Isobel Van Hagen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Elephant seals drift downwards in a "sleep spiral" when deep diving in the ocean, a new study found. Sleeping while deep diving allows the seals to avoid predators, scientists believe. The seals fall into sleep during deep dives of up to 377 meters, which is around 1,235 feet, to avoid predators. "This is not light sleep but real paralytic, deep sleep that would have humans snoring. The recordings showed the diving seals going into a sleep stage known as "slow-wave sleep" before transitioning into REM sleep, which leads to a kind of "sleep spiral" or sleep paralysis, experts found.

☆ 13 hot spots for real-estate investors seeking solid rental income returns and cheaper property instead of high prices and taxes, according to an expert who's spent 2 decades investing around the glob
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( Laila Maidan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

With the right locations, he believes investors could double their cash investment in the next five years based on property appreciation and rental income. you'll also need to pay taxes on rental income which varies by state. If you plan on generating short or long-term rental income, find a strong rental or property manager. If you're on a budget but want to invest in a good shorter-term rental property for Airbnb, look in high-traffic destinations, he said. Top picks for short-term rental income are internationalized destinations that have easy air access, great amenities, and a lack of hotel competition.

The remarks brought a strong retort from Washington, where a White House spokesman accused Lula of "parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda." Lula is a pragmatic politician," one of the diplomats told Reuters, requesting anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. Lula has suggested Ukraine needs to make concessions to end the war and Russia could return recently invaded territory but keep Crimea. The European Union has also rejected Lula's suggestion that both Ukraine and Russia are to blame for the war. Earlier this year, Lula turned down a reported German request to supply artillery ammunition to Ukraine.

☆ Portugal's government in hot water as TAP airline scandal deepens
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Sergio Goncalves | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LISBON, April 21 (Reuters) - Portugal's government fired the chief executive of flag carrier TAP last month without a legal assessment of the move, Finance Minister Fernando Medina has acknowledged, deepening a high-profile scandal around the state-owned airline. His remarks in parliament late on Thursday contradicted claims by two fellow ministers a day earlier that the government had obtained a legal opinion backing the decision. This heightens chances of the state losing a potential lawsuit by the sacked executives worth millions of euros. After Ourmières-Widener called her sacking "illegal", the main opposition Social Democrats warned that unless the decision had proper legal backing, the state could lose an eventual court dispute. In a tweet, Liberal Initiative party leader Rui Rocha called the situation a "festival of incoherence and total disrespect for parliament".

☆ Elephant seals enter 'sleep spiral' during ocean dives
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

The researchers refer to this as a “sleep spiral.”The research marked the first time scientists recorded brain activity in free-ranging wild marine mammals, capturing data from 104 sleep dives. Then she attached them to 13 juvenile female elephant seals that are part of a colony at Año Nuevo State Park in Pescadero, California. In shallow waters, the elephant seals even reached the seafloor, where they would rest. During REM sleep, elephant seals enter a "sleep spiral." Elephant seals sleep the most along the coast and near their foraging grounds, and that data could be used to see how shipping traffic could affect the seals.

☆ Costa Rica president gets tougher on security as crime soars
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SAN JOSE, April 19 (Reuters) - Costa Rica's president on Wednesday presented a set of security measures in response to surging crime rates in the Central American country, which is currently on track this year to beat 2022's record murder rate. Costa Rica ended 2022 with a record 12.6 homicides per 100,000 residents, according to the judicial research agency OIJ. "We are going to mend the course we lost a long time ago," said Chaves, a week after criticizing those who condemned the security crisis. The country's main business chamber on Friday called for a state of "national emergency," fearing a hit to foreign investment and tourism. Reporting by Alvaro Murillo; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by Isabel Woodford and Jonathan OatisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Coral reef discovered in Ecuador's Galapagos Islands
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-18 | by ( ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

Quito, Ecuador Reuters —A scientific expedition has discovered a previously unknown coral reef with abundant marine life off Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands, the country’s environment ministry said on Monday. “A deepwater scientific expedition has found the first totally pristine coral reef, approximately two kilometers (1.2 miles) long, at 400 meters (deep), on the summit of a submarine mountain,” Environment Minister Jose Davalos said on Twitter. “Galapagos surprises us again.”Scientists had believed that the only Galapagos reef to survive El Nino weather in 1982 and 1983 was one called the Wellington reef, along the coast of Darwin Island, but the new discovery shows other coral has persisted, the ministry said in a statement. The South American country last year expanded the Galapagos marine reserve by 60,000 square kilometers (23,166 square miles), an extension of the 138,000 square kilometers already in place, to protect endangered migratory species between the Galapagos and the Cocos Island in Costa Rica. The Galapagos, which inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, are also home to giant tortoises, albatrosses, cormorants and other species, some of which are endangered.

☆ You may have about 2 more months left to let your mom, brother, or anyone else outside your home use your Netflix login for free
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-18 | by ( Pete Syme | Samantha Delouya | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Netflix announced it planned to start rolling out paid account sharing later this quarter. The company has already cracked down on password sharing in Canada and some European and Latin American countries. You may have less than 2 months left to share your Netflix password with people outside your home before the company starts charging for the privilege. That means that by the end of June, you may be unable to give out your Netflix password for free. The streaming giant said account sharing affected over 100 million households, which "undermines our long-term ability to invest in and improve Netflix."

☆ Interpol-led LatAm swoop seizes thousands of weapons, $5.7 bln in drugs
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MEXICO CITY, April 18 (Reuters) - Interpol said on Tuesday its largest-ever fire arms swoop across Central and South America resulted in the seizure of thousands of illegal weapons and $5.7 billion worth of drugs after unprecedented cooperation by 15 countries. The operation found 8,263 illicit firearms and nearly 306,000 rounds of ammunition, as well as 203 tonnes of drugs and 372 tonnes of drug precursors. Eleven people were rescued in Paraguay when authorities dismantled a human trafficking ring, Interpol said. It said law enforcement had reported a spike in drug-related violence over the past year, fueled by trafficking of illegal firearms. The swoop saw participation from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.

☆ EV tax credits 2023: Which models are eligible for up to $7,500 in tax credits?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Ella Nilsen | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Under the new rule, consumers can get up to $7,500 back in tax credits on eligible cars. Which models are eligible for the new EV tax credit? Nine models, mostly from foreign brands including Hyundai and Nissan, do not qualify for the new tax credit. Under the new rule, consumers can get up to $7,500 in tax credits on eligible cars. Which countries can the materials come from under the new EV tax credit rule?

☆ I'm a celebrity photographer. I captured the true nightlife-energy of famous people and refused to sell photos to paparazzi.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-15 | by ( Costa B. Pappas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Mark Hunter is a celebrity photographer who started uploading nightlife-photos to his blog in 2003. My approach to nightlife photography was very forward thinking. After every party I'd post the photos on my blog. I've learned nightlife photography is all about your reputation, working hard, and networkingI feel like I'm just as in demand now, if not more than I was back in the day. Becoming a nightlife photographer is going to be challenging because there's no formula like at a corporate job.

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