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UK inflation falls unexpectedly, though Bank of England still set to raise rates

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:52:30 GMT

LONDON (AP) — U.K. inflation has fallen unexpectedly to its lowest level since Russia invaded Ukraine, raising hopes that the Bank of England’s widely expected interest rate increase Thursday will be its last — for now. The Office for National Statistics said Wednesday that price rises, as measured by the consumer price index, moderated to 6.7% in the year to August, down from 6.8% in July. The decline took inflation to its lowest level since February 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to soaring energy and food prices.The agency credited lower hotel and airfare costs and a moderation in food price rises for the decline. That helped offset an increase in energy costs on the back of higher crude oil prices.The decline was unexpected. Most analysts had expected inflation to increase to around 7% in light of the increase in prices at the pump.Though the surprise drop was encouraging, inflation is still way above the Bank of England’s target rate of 2% and hig...

Azerbaijan and Armenian forces reach cease-fire deal for breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh, reports say

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:52:30 GMT

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenian news reports said a cease-fire agreement with Azerbaijan was reached Wednesday to end the two days of fighting in the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region. Thew deal was announced by the authorities of the separatist region of Azerbaijan and would take effect at 1 p.m. local time, the reports said. The agreement was reached through negotiations with the Russian peacekeeping contingent in the region and envisages the withdrawal of Armenian military units and equipment from Nagor-Karabakh and disarming the local defense forces, the reports said.No further details were immediately available.The development came after explosions rocked parts of Nagorno-Karabakh earlier in the day, after Azerbaijani forces on Tuesday launched used heavy artillery fire on Armenian positions in the region . Local officials said scores of people were killed or wounded.Azerbaijan has called the artillery fire an “anti-terrorist operation” and said it will continue until the sep...

Armenian news reports say a cease-fire agreement with Azerbaijan has been reached in Nagorno-Karabakh fighting

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:52:30 GMT

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenian news reports say a cease-fire agreement with Azerbaijan has been reached in Nagorno-Karabakh fighting.Source

On 50th anniversary of Billie Jean King’s ‘Battle of the Sexes’ win, a push to honor her in Congress

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:52:30 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Billie Jean King’s victory in the “Battle of the Sexes” was a milestone moment as women pushed for equality on the playing field and beyond. On the 50th anniversary of that match against Bobby Riggs — still the most-watched in tennis history — King will move toward becoming the first female individual athlete to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.Three U.S. senators will introduce a bill Wednesday that would award the honor to King, the tennis Hall of Famer and activist who was a driving force behind the creation of the women’s pro tour and equal prize money for men and women.“She’s both a role model for women and girls everywhere, but she’s also a battle-tested warrior for women’s rights and equality,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, one of the bill’s leaders in the Senate along with Sens. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.King has already celebrated the 50th anniversaries this year of the WTA Tour a...

Michal Probierz succeeds Fernando Santos as coach of Poland’s national soccer team

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:52:30 GMT

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Michal Probierz has been appointed as coach of Poland, the president of the national soccer federation said on Wednesday.Probierz, who is promoted from the under-21 team, takes over from Portuguese Fernando Santos.Santos was fired last week with Poland fourth in its five-team European Championship qualifying group. Santos, who led his native Portugal to the Euro 2016 title, was dismissed after almost nine months in the job. “The Poland team coach is Michal Probierz,” federation president Cezary Kulesza wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “This is the best possible choice. I wish the new coach good luck.”Probierz, who will be 51 on Sunday, previously coached a string of teams including Greek side Aris Salonika and Polish clubs Gornik Zabrze and Widzew Lodz.A news conference with Kulesza and Probierz is due to take place in Warsaw at noon local time. Poland is behind leader Albania, Czech Republic and Moldova in Euro Group E qualifying after losing three of...

Will this computer lab do for the DC area what the PC did for Silicon Valley?

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:52:30 GMT

The ribbon cutting event for the National Quantum Lab on Sept. 19, 2023. (WTOP/John Domen) The ribbon cutting event for the National Quantum Lab on Sept. 19, 2023. (WTOP/John Domen) Quantum computing is the next big technological breakthrough and will likely be used to radically define people’s lives, helping to solve problems and make technology even smarter. But it’s not like the regular computer that you’re used to.In fact, there’s only a handful of legitimate quantum companies in the world, and none of them have labs like the one that just opened at IonQ in College Park, Maryland.It’s why University of Maryland President Darryll Pines called the D.C. area “the capital of qua...

Medina Alert: Dodge truck wanted in hit-and-run

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:52:30 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — Denver Police have issued a Medina Alert for a truck that is wanted in a hit-and-run.Just after 3 a.m. Wednesday, the Denver Police Department tweeted about the incident. Officers are investigating a hit-and-run crash between a truck and a motorcycle that resulted in serious injuries. US 285 road rage shooting suspect sought near Conifer The hit-and-run took place in the 7500 block of West Yale Avenue in the Bear Valley neighborhood next to the Bear Creek Greenbelt.A Medina Alert has been issued for a 2008 red Dodge Ram truck that has the Colorado license plate JQE-032.Anyone who may have witnessed the hit-and-run or has seen the truck is asked to call 911 immediately.FOX31 has reached out to the police for more information and possible photos of the truck.

Scientists recover RNA from an extinct species for the first time

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:52:30 GMT

(CNN) — Geneticists have for the first time isolated and decoded RNA molecules from a creature that died out long ago.The genetic material — which came from a 130-year-old Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, specimen in the collection of the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm — has allowed scientists to better understand how the animal’s genes functioned. The researchers shared their findings in a study published Tuesday in the scientific journal Genome Research.“RNA gives you the chance to go through the cell, the tissues and find the real biology that has been preserved in time for that animal, the thylacine species, right before they died,” said lead study author Emilio Mármol Sánchez, a computational biologist at the Centre for Palaeogenetics and SciLifeLab in Sweden.About the size of a coyote, the thylacine was a marsupial predator. It disappeared about 2,000 years ago virtually everywhere except the Australian island state of Tasmania, where the popu...

What will Federal Reserve do next? Any hint of future rate hikes will be key focus of latest meeting

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:52:30 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve is set to leave its key interest rate unchanged Wednesday as it seeks to guide the U.S. economy toward a “soft landing” of cooling inflation without triggering a deep recession.Chair Jerome Powell and other Fed officials have made clear that they’re now inclined to move more gradually and cautiously toward their goal of 2% annual inflation. Their more deliberative approach follows the 11 rate hikes they unleashed beginning in March 2022, which substantially raised borrowing costs for consumers and businesses.Yet with inflation pressures still underlying the economy, Powell won’t be declaring victory on Wednesday, when the Fed’s latest policy meeting ends. The attention of investors and economists will instead focus on what signals the Fed may send about its likely next actions.The clearest signal will likely come from the Fed’s 19-member interest-rate committee in the batch of economic forecasts its members issue ea...

EU lawmakers pressure member countries to complete migration deal

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:52:30 GMT

BRUSSELS — The European Parliament blocked talks on key files of the EU’s migration pact in order to compel member countries into approving the final part of the package.The assembly announced on Wednesday the suspension of negotiations on two files that introduce stricter screening of migrants at the EU’s borders. “The files of the Pact are interlinked and making progress on some proposals rather than others risks leading to a bottleneck in the negotiations,” the European Parliament wrote in a statement on Wednesday, after a meeting between key EU lawmakers working on the migration pact and representatives from the European Council. Members of the European Parliament hope that this will put pressure on EU countries to break a deadlock over the last plank of the flagship asylum deal — the so-called crisis regulation — at a key summit in Brussels next Thursday. The strategy is to link the crisis regulation to tougher screening rules — a key priority for member countries across Europe...