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Prime Day, competing sales offer first shot at holiday shopping

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:28:09 GMT

Amazon has announced the dates for its ninth annual Prime Day sale: July 11 and 12.As in recent years, there’s a ton of hype around the sale, and for good reason. Prime Day deals rival Black Friday prices, according to NerdWallet’s 2022 analysis. Like last year, other retailers like Target and Walmart are likely to feature competing sales that overlap with Prime Day but have not made announcements yet.Prime Day “has absolutely become its own phenomenon,” says Claire Tassin, lead retail and e-commerce analyst at Morning Consult, a company specializing in global market research and survey data. Although summer sales have been around for a while as a way for retailers to clear out summer inventory and make way for fall and holiday shopping, “Amazon really does set the calendar at this point,” says Tassin.Last year, shoppers spent a record $11.9 billion during the two-day Prime event, according to data from Adobe Analytics.There’s some mystery as to what products and categories wi...

Missing OceanGate Expeditions Titanic sub updates: Rescuers hear underwater ‘banging’ noises, ‘there is cause for hope’

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:28:09 GMT

The rescuers searching for the missing OceanGate Expeditions sub with five people on board have heard underwater “banging” noises in the search area, some “cause for hope” with limited time left to find the sub that explores the Titanic wreck site.The U.S. Coast Guard out of Boston and partner agencies have been desperately searching for the missing 21-foot submersible research vessel.The sub on Sunday morning lost contact during a dive, about 900 miles east of Cape Cod. Thursday is when the 96-hour oxygen supply is expected to end for the five people on board.Early Wednesday morning, the Coast Guard shared that some underwater noises have been heard in the remote area of the North Atlantic Ocean.“Yesterday, the Canadian P-3 (aircraft) detected underwater noises in the search area,” Capt. Jamie Frederick, the First Coast Guard District response coordinator, said during a Wednesday afternoon press conference in Boston.“As a result, ROV (remot...

USCG: No timeline on ending Titanic sub search despite ticking clock

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:28:09 GMT

(NewsNation) — The U.S. Coast Guard is stressing the search for a missing submersible remains a search and rescue mission despite concerns over dwindling oxygen supplies for the five passengers aboard. In a press conference Wednesday afternoon, the Coast Guard said they have exponentially expanded the search area. The surface search now covers an area two times the size of Connecticut and the underwater search area extends two and a half miles deep.U.S. Coast Guard Capt. James Frederick said the search is now focused on an area where Canadian aircraft detected underwater noises. The noises are being analyzed by a team of Navy experts to determine if they are biological or man-made.On Tuesday, a Canadian aircraft searching for the missing Titan submersible detected "underwater noises" from the vicinity of the location the crew was touring the wreck site of the Titanic ocean liner. The crew searching for the sub heard noises every 30 minutes and again four hours later after additional...

CPA Canada says provincial organizations severing ties over governance disagreements

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:28:09 GMT

TORONTO — The organization representing chartered professional accountants across Canada said it was blindsided by news that two of its provincial counterparts have decided to part ways amid disagreements over how best to govern the profession.CPA Canada announced Tuesday evening that the provincial bodies representing members in Quebec and Ontario decided to sever ties with the national governing body.The two provincial organizations, CPA Ontario and the Quebec CPA Order, announced their decisions in separate press releases, saying this would enable them to better support members.The provincial bodies made the move over ongoing discussions about the governance structure of the national organization, according to CPA Canada president and CEO Pamela Steer, who said they are seeking stronger representation at the national board.Steer said she found out the provincial organizations were severing ties at what appeared to be around the same time as provincial members learned about the mo...

Capitol rioter who shocked police officer with stun gun is sentenced to over 12 years in prison

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:28:09 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A California man who drove a stun gun into a police officer’s neck during one of the most violent clashes of the U.S. Capitol riot was sentenced on Wednesday to more than 12 years in prison.Daniel “D.J.” Rodriguez yelled, “Trump won!” as he was led out of the courtroom where U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced him to 12 years and seven months behind bars for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. Only two other Jan. 6 defendants have received longer prison terms so far after hundreds of sentencings for Capitol riot cases.The judge said Rodriguez, 40, was “a one-man army of hate, attacking police and destroying property” at the Capitol.“You showed up in (Washington) D.C. spoiling for a fight,” Jackson said. “You can’t blame what you did once you got there on anyone but yourself.” Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone ‘s body camera captured him screaming out in pain after Rodriguez shocked him with a stun gun while he was surrounde...

Drugmaker lobbying group sues over plan to negotiate Medicare drug prices

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:28:09 GMT

A key drugmaker lobbying group has joined the legal fight against the federal government’s plan to negotiate Medicare drug prices.The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, is suing over plans laid out in the Inflation Reduction Act to give the federal coverage program more control over its pharmaceutical costs.PhRMA said in a federal court complaint filed Wednesday that the act forces drugmakers to agree to a “government-dictated price” under the threat of a heavy tax. The complaint said Congress delegated too much authority to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to set prices.It also says the program violates the due process clause of the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment “by exempting key decisions from public input and insulating them from administrative or judicial review.”The lawsuit names HHS and its secretary, Xavier Becerra, as defendants. It also names Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services...

Three years too long a wait for Line 5 reroute, Indigenous band in Wisconsin says

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:28:09 GMT

WASHINGTON — The Indigenous band that’s fighting Line 5 says three years is too long to wait for the controversial cross-border pipeline to be moved. A U.S. judge has given Enbridge Inc. until June 2026 to remove the 19 kilometres of pipe that crosses an Indigenous reservation in Wisconsin.  But the chairman of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa says that’s more than enough time for a catastrophic oil spill to happen.Mike Wiggins says he also fully expects Enbridge, which operates Line 5, to fight the order in court.District court Judge William Conley also ordered the company to pay the band US$5.1 million in compensation for operating the pipeline without permission. But band attorney Erick Arnold says the award will do little to discourage other energy companies from exploiting Indigenous communities in the future.   This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 21, 2023. The Canadian Press

Live updates | The search for the missing Titanic sub

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:28:09 GMT

Follow along for live updates on the submersible that vanished while taking five people down to the wreck of the Titanic. ____The Coast Guard says it is bringing in more ships and underwater vessels to search for a submersible missing in the North Atlantic after underwater sounds were detected, providing a glimmer of hope three days after the Titan disappeared while taking five people down to the wreck of the Titanic.Although the exact location and source of the sounds were not yet determined, they allowed searchers to focus on a more narrowly defined area. The full scope of the search was twice the size of Connecticut and 2 1/2 miles (4 kilometers) deep, said Capt. Jamie Frederick of the First Coast Guard District.“This is a search and rescue mission, 100%,” Frederick said. “When you’re in the middle of a search and rescue case, you always have hope.”But even those who expressed some optimism warned that many obstacles remain: from pinpointing the vessel’s location, to reaching it ...

Prosecutors avoid misconduct questions by dropping charges in killing of Chicago police officer

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:28:09 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — Prosecutors have dropped charges against two of three men accused of killing an off-duty Chicago police officer, including a man who spent nearly 12 years in jail awaiting trial as authorities challenged allegations of police and prosecutorial misconduct. Tyrone Clay faced nearly 80 counts and Edgardo Colon almost 20 counts in the shooting death of Officer Clifton Lewis during the robbery of a convenience store where Lewis was working as a security guard in December 2011.Colon was convicted in 2017 but the verdict was overturned in 2020 after he argued that police obtained a confession even though he’d asked for an attorney during an interrogation that lasted some 50 hours. Clay has spent almost a dozen years in jail awaiting trial while prosecutors appealed a judge’s ruling that he, too, had repeatedly asked for an attorney before giving an incriminating statement.Prosecutors dropped the charges Wednesday just ahead of a hearing where detectives and prose...

Bear that fatally attacked man at Arizona campsite didn’t have rabies

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:28:09 GMT

PHOENIX (AP) — A bear that fatally attacked a 66-year-old Tucson man at a campsite in central Arizona last week tested negative for rabies and had no apparent signs of disease, authorities said Wednesday.Anne Justice-Allen, the Arizona Game and Fish Department’s wildlife veterinarian, conducted a necropsy on the carcass of the adult male black bear that killed Steven Jackson on Friday at his property about 100 miles (161 kilometers) north of Phoenix.Jackson was killed in the Groom Creek area near Prescott.The bear acted in what appeared to be an unprovoked predatory attack, Game and Fish officials said.The bear’s cause of death was determined to be from multiple gunshot wounds from a neighbor who was trying to stop the attack. Authorities said it’s illegal to shoot or hunt a bear in Arizona unless there is an immediate threat. The bear’s brain stem was tested for rabies at the state Department of Health Services state laboratory. Arizona has recorded only one case of a b...