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Today: March 07, 2025
Today: March 07, 2025
The Los Angeles Post

The Los Angeles Post

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Political

Blinken heads to China this weekend on mission to salvage sinking ties and keep communications open

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China this weekend as part of the Biden administration’s push to repair deteriorating ties between Washington and Beijing and keep lines of communication open, the State Department said Wednesday. Blinken will be the most senior U.S. official to visit China since President Joe Biden took office. His visit had initially been planned for earlier this year but was postponed indefinitely after the discovery and shootdown of what the U.S. said was a Chinese spy balloon over the United States. Since then, however, there have been lower-level engagements between

Blinken heads to China this weekend on mission to salvage sinking ties and keep communications open
World

Vodafone, Three to merge UK mobile phone operations to capitalize on 5G rollout

Two of the U.K.’s four mobile phone operators agreed Wednesday to merge their businesses to capitalize on the rollout of next-generation 5G wireless technology in the country. The tie-up of Vodafone U.K. and Three U.K., which is owned by Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison, would create Britain’s biggest mobile phone player, with a combined 27 million customers. But the deal is likely to face stiff regulatory scrutiny because it will reduce the number of mobile networks down to three. Vodafone will account for 51% of the merged firm, with CK Hutchison owning the rest. Vodafone will have an

Vodafone, Three to merge UK mobile phone operations to capitalize on 5G rollout
World

What you should know as the Fed nears the peak of its rate-hiking cycle

The Federal Reserve’s likely decision Wednesday afternoon to leave interest rates alone for the first time in 11 meetings will raise hopes that it may be nearing the end of its rate-hiking campaign to cool inflation. That’s not to say the Fed is done raising rates. Most economists foresee another increase or two, starting as soon as next month. And even after the Fed has stopped hiking, it’s likely to keep borrowing rates at a peak for months to come. Consumers would still have to bear the weight of higher-cost auto loans, mortgages, credit cards and

What you should know as the Fed nears the peak of its rate-hiking cycle
Health

Adjusting jobs to protect workers' mental health is both easier and harder than you might think

Work doesn’t have to make you feel burned out. Luis Alvarez/DigitalVision via Getty Images U.S. employees are increasingly struggling with mental health challenges tied to their jobs, such as depression, anxiety and burnout. We’re professors who research how employees interact and workplace well-being. After noticing that research on mental health and work had not kept up with the increasing prevalence of mental health challenges, we reviewed existing findings on mental health and work to see how scholars can best investigate these issues going forward. We found that employers could greatly reduce the causes of many of their employees’ mental health

Adjusting jobs to protect workers' mental health is both easier and harder than you might think
Economy

Inside the black box of Amazon returns

Retailers’ costs for managing returns are rising. Ronny Hartmann/picture alliance via Getty Images E-commerce may make shopping more convenient, but it has a dark side that most consumers never see. Say you order an electric toothbrush for Father’s Day and two shirts for yourself from Amazon. You unpack your order and discover that the electric toothbrush won’t charge and only one shirt fits you. So, you decide to return the unwanted shirt and the electric toothbrush. Returns like this might seem simple, and often they’re free for the consumer. But managing those returns can get costly for retailers, so much

Inside the black box of Amazon returns
Political

Refugees are living longer in exile than ever before, with complex consequences for them and their host communities

Rohingya girls share a laugh in Kutupalong, the world’s largest refugee camp in Bangladesh. Paula Bronstein/Getty Images The number of people forced from their homes, primarily because of conflict or climate change, is on the rise, topping 100 million people in 2022 – more than double the number of displaced people in 2012. About a third of those 100 million people are refugees. Refugees live in a legal limbo that can increasingly stretch for decades. And the number of people remaining refugees for five years or longer more than doubled over the past decade, topping 16 million in 2022. These

Refugees are living longer in exile than ever before, with complex consequences for them and their host communities
Health

Wildfire smoke and dirty air are also climate change problems: Solutions for a world on fire

People wore face masks as wildfire smoke from Canada turned New York City’s sky orange on June 7, 2023. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images As the eastern U.S. and Canada reeled from days of thick wildfire smoke in early June 2023, millions of people faced the reality of climate change for the first time. Shocking images of New York under apocalyptic orange skies left many people glued to air quality indices and wondering whether it was safe to go outside. What they might not realize is that the air many of them breathe isn’t healthy even when wildfire smoke isn’t

Wildfire smoke and dirty air are also climate change problems: Solutions for a world on fire
Arts

How Black Americans combated racism from beyond the grave

The addition of a simple ‘Mr.’ or ‘Mrs.’ could be a quiet act of resistance. Rae Tucker/Find a Grave The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently published a story about a Black cemetery in Buckhead, a prosperous Atlanta community. The cemetery broke ground almost two centuries ago, in 1826, as the graveyard of Piney Grove Baptist Church. The church has been gone for decades; the cemetery now sits on the property of a townhouse development. It is overgrown, with most of its 300-plus graves unmarked. The article describes how some of the buried’s descendants and family members are trying to get the property

How Black Americans combated racism from beyond the grave
World

Inflationary pressures continue to ease, producer prices drop 0.3%

Wholesale prices in the United States dropped 0.3% from April to May, another sign that inflationary pressures continue to ease in the face of repeated interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. The Labor Department’s producer price index — which measures inflation before it reaches consumers — rose 1.1% last month from May 2022, it said Wednesday, the smallest year-over-year gain since Dec. 2020. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core wholesale inflation was up 0.2% last from April and 2.8% from a year earlier. Unleashed by an unexpectedly strong economic recovery from 2020’s COVID-19 recession,

Inflationary pressures continue to ease, producer prices drop 0.3%
Political

Ex-NSA employee gets 14 days in jail for storming Capitol with members of white nationalist movement

A former National Security Agency employee has been sentenced to two weeks of imprisonment for storming the U.S. Capitol along with associates described by authorities as fellow followers of a white nationalist movement. Federal prosecutors had recommended 30 days of imprisonment for Paul Lovley, who lived in Halethorpe, Maryland. Lovley, 24, worked as an information technology specialist for the NSA before riot on the Jan. 6, 2021, according to prosecutors. NSA spokesperson Cameron Potts referred questions about Lovley and his employment to the Justice Department, which did not elaborate in court filings on the nature of his work for the

Ex-NSA employee gets 14 days in jail for storming Capitol with members of white nationalist movement
World

German opposition party launches legal challenge to reform meant to shrink parliament

A German opposition party on Wednesday launched a legal challenge against an electoral reform designed to reduce the size of the country’s increasingly bloated parliament. The Barvarian center-right Christian Social Union is one of two opposition parties that have been vehemently critical of the legislation, which lawmakers approved in March, and see their future place in parliament at risk. They accuse Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition of cobbling together constitutionally dubious rules to favor itself. The party’s general secretary, Martin Huber, said it has filed a complaint to Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court against the “undemocratic, anti-federalist, manipulative

German opposition party launches legal challenge to reform meant to shrink parliament
World

Reds prospect Elly De La Cruz still soaring after incredible big league debut

There may have been 30 people inside Kauffman Stadium on Tuesday with a view of the field, including a couple of workers who were busy hosing off seats hours before the game, yet all would occasionally turn to see where the ball landed when they heard the crack of the bat. Inside the cage, hat flipped backward a la Ken Griffey Jr. and with a left-handed swing nearly as sweet, was the hottest thing to hit baseball in quite some time. Elly De La Cruz pounded ropes into the stadium’s massive alleys and soared shots

Reds prospect Elly De La Cruz still soaring after incredible big league debut
World

AI chip race heats up as AMD introduces rival to Nvidia technology

Advanced Micro Devices has revealed a new artificial intelligence chip in its race to compete with rival chipmaker Nvidia in supplying the foundation for a boom in AI-fueled business tools. The semiconductor company, based in Santa Clara, California, described its new MI300X chip as “the world’s most advanced accelerator for generative AI.” It’s expected to attract interest from big cloud providers such as Amazon or Microsoft, but AMD hasn’t specified which cloud provider might use it. CFRA senior equity analyst Angelo Zino predicted this month that that AMD’s MI300 processor “will see significant interest from cloud

AI chip race heats up as AMD introduces rival to Nvidia technology
World

Southern Baptists refuse to let Saddleback Church back into the denomination for women pastors

The Southern Baptist Convention has refused to welcome Saddleback Church back into its fold, rejecting an appeal by the California megachurch over its February ouster for having women pastors. Southern Baptist church representatives at their annual meeting here also rejected a similar appeal by a smaller church, Fern Creek Baptist of Louisville, Kentucky, which is led by a woman pastor. The results of the Tuesday votes were announced Wednesday morning on the concluding day of the the two-day annual meeting here of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, whose statement of faith asserts that only qualified men

Southern Baptists refuse to let Saddleback Church back into the denomination for women pastors
Science

Roger Payne, who found out that whales could sing, dies at 88

Roger Payne, the scientist who spurred a worldwide environmental conservation movement with his discovery that whales could sing, has died. He was 88. Payne made the discovery in 1967 during a research trip to Bermuda in which a Navy engineer provided him with a recording of curious underwater sounds documented while listening for Russian submarines. Payne identified the haunting tones as songs whales sing to one another. He saw the discovery of whale song as a chance to spur interest in saving the giant animals, who were disappearing from the planet. Payne would produce the album “Songs of the Humpback

Roger Payne, who found out that whales could sing, dies at 88
World

Pennsylvania using tons of recycled glass nuggets to rebuild collapsed Interstate 95

Pennsylvania will truck in 2,000 tons of lightweight glass nuggets to help quickly rebuild a collapsed section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia and crews will work 24 hours a day until they can reopen the critical commercial artery, officials said Wednesday. By using the recycled glass to fill in the collapsed area, they’ll be able to avoid supply-chain delays for other materials, Gov. Josh Shapiro said. But Shapiro repeatedly declined to estimate how long it will take to get traffic flowing again on the busy East Coast highway. “We’re going to get this job done as quickly as possible,” Shapiro

Pennsylvania using tons of recycled glass nuggets to rebuild collapsed Interstate 95
World

Wisconsin governor vows to veto state budget if GOP cuts diversity dollars from university system

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said Wednesday in a newspaper report that he won’t sign the state budget if Republican lawmakers follow through on their plan to cut funding for the state university system’s diversity officers, escalating a bitter fight over dollars for the state campuses. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he wants to cut $32 million from the UW System in the state’s 2023-25 budget, an amount he said is equal to what the system spends on diversity officers. He said during a news conference Wednesday that diversity efforts have

Wisconsin governor vows to veto state budget if GOP cuts diversity dollars from university system
World

Kosovo says 3 border police officers 'kidnapped' by Serbia; Belgrade says they crossed illegally

Serbian authorities said Wednesday they have captured three “fully armed” Kosovo police officers inside Serbia near their mutual border, while Kosovo police said they have likely been “kidnapped” on Kosovo territory as they patrolled the area. The latest incident further raises tensions between Serbia and its former province. Serbia had put its troops on the border on the highest state of alert amid a series of recent clashes between Kosovo Serbs on one side, and Kosovo police and NATO-led peacekeepers on the other. Kosovo police said in a statement Wednesday that the three police officers called

Kosovo says 3 border police officers 'kidnapped' by Serbia; Belgrade says they crossed illegally
World

Kosovo says 3 border police officers 'kidnapped' by Serbia; Belgrade says they crossed illegally

Serbian authorities said Wednesday they have captured three “fully armed” Kosovo police officers inside Serbia near their mutual border, while Kosovo police said they have likely been “kidnapped” on Kosovo territory as they patrolled the area. The latest incident further raises tensions between Serbia and its former province. Serbia had put its troops on the border on the highest state of alert amid a series of recent clashes between Kosovo Serbs on one side, and Kosovo police and NATO-led peacekeepers on the other. Kosovo police said in a statement Wednesday that the three police officers called

Kosovo says 3 border police officers 'kidnapped' by Serbia; Belgrade says they crossed illegally
World

Agribusiness giant Cargill not doing enough to fight deforestation, protect human rights, group says

An activist group and researchers tried to increase pressure on agribusiness giant Cargill on Wednesday to do more to fight deforestation and human rights abuse, releasing a report that accuses the company of not following through on commitments to help end such practices. The report argues that the family-owned company has been misled by its managers and now should take the lead in ensuring it carries out its promises to fight forced child labor in the cocoa industry and protect forests and other natural resources. As one of the world’s largest privately held companies and by far the largest grain

Agribusiness giant Cargill not doing enough to fight deforestation, protect human rights, group says
World

Canadian quits Chinese-founded development bank, complains 'Communist Party hacks' dominate it

A Canadian public relations manager for a Chinese-founded development bank announced his resignation Wednesday in a statement that accused it of being dominated by “Communist Party hacks” and said Canada’s interests weren’t served by being a member. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank confirmed in an email that Bob Pickard resigned as its director general of global communications and rejected his criticism as unfounded. The AIIB, seen by some as a Chinese rival to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, was founded in 2016 to finance railways and other infrastructure. It has 106 member governments including most

Canadian quits Chinese-founded development bank, complains 'Communist Party hacks' dominate it
Political

Everyone's got something to say about Trump -- except world leaders who might have to deal with him

In the final days of the 2016 U.S. election campaign, European Union leader Donald Tusk could no longer contain himself: “One Donald is more than enough!” he wrote on Twitter. When Trump was elected less than a week later, it made for an awkward start to what proved to be four difficult years of trans-Atlantic relations. As Trump becomes the first former president to face federal charges that could put him in jail, many Europeans are watching the case closely. But hardly a single world leader has said a thing recently about the man leading the race

Everyone's got something to say about Trump -- except world leaders who might have to deal with him
World

In blow to Russian LGBTQ+ community, lawmakers weigh a bill banning gender transitioning procedures

Russian lawmakers gave initial approval Wednesday to a bill that would outlaw gender transitioning procedures in yet another blow to the country’s beleaguered LGBTQ+ community. Senior lawmaker Pyotr Tolstoy, who is among the bill’s sponsors, has said it is intended to “protect Russia with its cultural and family values and traditions and to stop the infiltration of the Western anti-family ideology.” Russia’s LGBTQ+ community has been under growing pressure for a decade as President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church embarked on a campaign to preserve what they deem the country’s “traditional values.” The bill

In blow to Russian LGBTQ+ community, lawmakers weigh a bill banning gender transitioning procedures
World

Detroit-area city bans LGBTQ+ Pride flags on public property

A Detroit-area community has banned LGBTQ+ flags from publicly owned poles after a tense hourslong meeting that raised questions about discrimination, religion and the city’s reputation for welcoming newcomers. In protest, a woman speaking during the public comment portion of the Hamtramck City Council meeting kissed a woman standing next to her Tuesday night. “You guys are welcome,” council member Nayeem Choudhury said. “(But) why do you have to have the flag shown on government property to be represented? You’re already represented. We already know who you are.” Some members of the all-Muslim council said the

Detroit-area city bans LGBTQ+ Pride flags on public property
Science

Germany says climate measures will narrow but not fully close the country's emissions gap by 2030

An array of climate measures being introduced by Germany’s government will bring the country closer but not all the way toward meeting its national goals for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, officials said Wednesday. Germany’s Climate Ministry said that measures already in place or soon to become law will reduce emissions by about 900 million metric tons of carbon dioxide for the period from 2022 to 2030 — about 80% of the 1,100 million tons of the planet-warming gas the government is aiming to cut. An “emissions gap” of about 200 million tons of CO2 will

Germany says climate measures will narrow but not fully close the country's emissions gap by 2030

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