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Callahan: The Patriots’ season is now hurry up and wait

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:21:04 GMT

FOXBORO — For the next five and a half weeks, Bill Belichick will continue standing for press conferences on Wednesday.He’ll stand his ground, defiant and dismissive as his program crumbles around him; a Redwood blowing in a hurricane.Later on Wednesday, the Patriots will practice. Then they will practice again, at least once or twice, to close the week. And soon enough, they’ll shuttle off for game-day travel.Come Sunday, the players will believe, against all odds, hope and sense of reality, they should win. But we all know how enough of those games will end to know how this season ends.The Patriots are fated to slump to a 2-15, 3-14 or 4-13 finish. Once they’re done mud-wrestling the Jets in a regular-season finale only a coach’s mother could love, it’s on to 2024.Until then, what are they playing for?Unofficially, the Pats’ postseason chances were pronounced dead last month. Those odds will receive their last rites Sunday if the Pats lose, and ...

Autoworkers strike cut Ford sales by 100,000 vehicles and cost company $1.7 billion in profits

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:21:04 GMT

DETROIT (AP) — A six-week United Auto Workers strike at Ford cut sales by about 100,000 vehicles and cost the company $1.7 billion in lost profits this year, the automaker said Thursday.Additional labor costs from the four-year and eight-month agreement will total $8.8 billion by the end of the contract, translating to about $900 per vehicle by 2028, Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said in a company release. Ford will work to offset that cost through higher productivity and reducing expenses, Lawler said.The Dearborn, Michigan, automaker re-issued full-year earnings guidance that was withdrawn during the strike, but it trimmed its expectations. The company now expects to earn $10 billion to $10.5 billion before taxes in 2023. That’s down from $11 billion to $12 billion that it projected last summer.Ford said the strike caused it to lose production of high-profit trucks and SUVs. UAW workers shut down the company’s largest and most profitable factory in Louisville, Ke...

Pressure builds to eliminate fossil fuel use as oil executive takes over climate talks

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:21:04 GMT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Pressure to phase out fossil fuels mounted Thursday on the oil company chief who took over fragile international climate negotiations that opened in Dubai amid concerns about what some say is contradictory dual roles.The climate talks newly installed boss began on the hot seat and not just because the planet keeps smashing heat records this year. Days before the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP28) began, reports published meeting preparation notes that linked efforts by the United Arab Emirates national oil company ADNOC to push fossil fuel sales at the same time its CEO and new COP president, Sultan al-Jaber, was meeting to curb climate change. Burning coal, oil and gas is a chief cause of global warming.Even though al-Jaber vehemently denied the revelations from the BBC and others, several climate negotiations experts say it will likely change the tenor and maybe even the outcome of the two weeks of intense negotiations, taking place abo...

Pope says he has acute bronchitis, doctors recommended against travel to avoid change in temperature

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:21:04 GMT

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis said on Thursday that he is suffering from acute, infectious bronchitis and that doctors recommended he cancel his planned visit to Dubai this weekend to avoid the quick changes in temperature that would be involved.“As you can see, I’m alive,” Francis quipped at the start of an audience with participants of a symposium on health care ethics.It was one of nine audiences Francis had scheduled for Thursday, suggesting he was still managing to carry a heavy workload despite his illness.Francis, who turns 87 in a few weeks and had part of one lung removed as a young man, came down with the flu last week and is on antibiotics. On Tuesday, the Vatican announced he was cancelling his planned participation in the U.N. climate conference on doctors’ orders.“The reason is that it’s very hot there, and you go from heat to air conditioning,” Francis told the health care workers. “Thank God it wasn’t pneumonia. It’s a very acute, infectious bronchitis.”Previously the Vat...

Still alive! Golden mole not seen for 80 years and presumed extinct is found again in South Africa

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:21:04 GMT

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Researchers in South Africa say they have rediscovered a species of mole with an iridescent golden coat and the ability to almost “swim” through sand dunes after it hadn’t been seen for more than 80 years and was thought to be extinct.The De Winton’s golden mole — a small, blind burrower with “super-hearing powers” that eats insects — was found to be still alive on a beach in Port Nolloth on the west coast of South Africa by a team of researchers from the Endangered Wildlife Trust and the University of Pretoria.It had been lost to science since 1936, the researchers said.With the help of a sniffer dog, the team found traces of tunnels and discovered a golden mole in 2021. But because there are 21 species of golden moles and some look very similar, the team needed more to be certain that it was a De Winton’s.They took environmental DNA samples — the DNA animals leave behind in skin cells, hair and bodily excretions &#...

‘No one will be turned away’: 988 suicide crisis helpline launches across Canada

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:21:04 GMT

TORONTO — A new toll-free, three-digit suicide prevention helpline launched across Canada on Thursday morning. People having suicidal thoughts or other mental health distress can now call or text 988 to reach a trained responder 24 hours a day, seven days a week — no matter where they live in the country. “My main message that I want to say to Canadians is that we see you, we hear you, and that you’re not alone. That if you are struggling … there is a low-barrier, easy access, warm voice on the other end of the line,” said Ya’ara Saks, federal minister of mental health and addictions, in an interview before the launch. About 12 people die by suicide in Canada every day, adding up to about 4,500 lives lost each year, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. More than 200 people in Canada attempt suicide every day. The $158.4-million project is funded and overseen by the public health agency and led by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Healt...

Russia’s Supreme Court effectively outlaws LGBTQ+ activism in a landmark ruling

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:21:04 GMT

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday effectively outlawed LGBTQ+ activism, in the most drastic step against advocates of gay, lesbian and transgender rights in the increasingly conservative country.In a statement announcing a lawsuit filed to the court earlier this month, the Justice Ministry argued that authorities had identified “signs and manifestations of an extremist nature” by an LGBTQ+ “movement” operating in Russia, including “incitement of social and religious discord,” although it offered no details or evidence. In its ruling, the court declared the “movement” to be extremist and banned it in Russia.The hearing took place behind closed doors and with no defendant. Multiple rights activists have pointed out that the lawsuit targeted the “international civic LGBT movement,” which is not an entity but rather a broad and vague definition that would allow Russian authorities to crack down on any individuals or groups deemed to be part of the “movement.”“De...

Shane MacGowan, frontman of The Pogues, dies at age 65

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:21:04 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Shane Macgowan, the singer-songwriter and frontman of “Celtic Punk” band The Pogues, best known for the Christmas ballad “Fairytale of New York,” died Thursday, his family said. He was 65.“It is with the deepest sorrow and heaviest of hearts that we announce the passing of our most beautiful, darling and dearly beloved Shane Macgowan,” his wife Victoria Clarke, his sister Siobhan and father Maurice said in a statement.The singer died peacefully with his family by his side, the statement added.The musician had been hospitalized in Dublin for several months after being diagnosed with viral encephalitis in late 2022. He was discharged last week, ahead of his upcoming birthday on Christmas Day.The Pogues fused Irish traditional music and rock’n’roll into a unique, intoxicating blend, though MacGowan became as famous for his sozzled, slurred performances as for his powerful songwriting.His songs blended the scabrous and the sentimental, ranging from carousing anthems to sna...

TD Bank reports Q4 profit down from year ago, raises quarterly dividend

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:21:04 GMT

TORONTO — TD Bank Group reported its fourth-quarter profit fell compared with a year ago, but raised its dividend.The bank says it will now pay a quarterly dividend of $1.02 per share, up from 96 cents.The increased payment to shareholders came as TD said it earned $2.89 billion or $1.49 per diluted share for the quarter ended Oct. 31, down from a profit of $6.67 billion or $3.62 per diluted share a year earlier.TD reported revenue totalled $13.12 billion, down from $15.56 billion in the same quarter last year, while its provision for credit losses amounted to $878 million, up from $617 million a year earlier.On an adjusted basis, TD says it earned $1.83 per diluted share, down from an adjusted profit of $2.18 per diluted share a year ago.Analysts on average had expected an adjusted profit of $1.90 per share, according to estimates compiled by financial markets data firm Refinitiv.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 30, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:TD)Th...

4 migrants who were pushed out of a boat die just yards from Spain’s southern coast

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:21:04 GMT

MADRID (AP) — Four migrants have died meters (yards) from shore in southern Spain after being forced out of the boat they were traveling in, officials said Thursday.The Spanish government press office in the southern province of Cádiz said 31 other people from the boat, including six children, survived the Wednesday afternoon incident and four were taken to a hospital.The press office said 27 passengers were forced out by the vessel’s drivers near Camposoto beach, which is where the four died. Another eight were forced off close to another beach, it added.A video shot by a man who works in the area showed migrants being pushed overboard from the boat and others in the choppy waters trying to swim to shore.Javier González, who runs a nautical company, said he and his son managed to rescue eight people. He said they and other workers helped the migrants on the beach.In a telephone message to The Associated Press, González said no police officers or marine rescue personnel took p...