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Stock market today: Wall Street heads for another winning week as stocks steady

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:50 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is steadying Friday and clawing back some of its tech-driven losses from a day before, keeping it on track for another winning week.The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher in early trading and on pace for its eighth winning week in the last 10. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 17 points, or less than 0.1%, at 35,207, as of 9:50 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher a day after tumbling to its worst loss in more than four months.Roper Technologies rallied 4% for one of the larger gains in the S&P 500 after it reported better profit and revenue for the spring than analysts expected. The company, which looks to dominate niche tech markets, also raised its financial forecasts for the full year.On the losing side of Wall Street was American Express, which fell 4.9%. It reported stronger profit for the spring than expected, but its revenue fell short of forecasts.Railroad operator CSX was also a heavy weight on the market and fell 4.8...

Beetlejuice II filming set in Vermont is haunted by souvenir seekers

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:50 GMT

EAST CORINTH, Vt. (AP) — Souvenir hunters are haunting the Beetlejuice II movie set in Vermont.State police are investigating two thefts, one of a large lamppost topped with a distinctive pumpkin decoration and the other a 150-pound abstract art piece taken from the vicinity of a cemetery.Someone bundled up the lamppost, covered it with tarp and fled at a high rate of speed in a pickup truck on July 14, while the theft near the cemetery took place several days later, state police said Thursday.The sequel to the 1988 movie is filming in East Corinth, near the New Hampshire border. The original Tim Burton horror comedy about a home haunted by ghosts played by Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin, and also starring Winona Ryder, also was filmed in East Corinth. For the new movie, Michael Keaton is reprising his role as the “bio-exorcist” Beetlejuice. The sequel also features “Wednesday” star Jenna Ortega and others. The movie is due to be released next year.Source

Lakeland Financial: Q2 Earnings Snapshot

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:50 GMT

WARSAW, Ind. (AP) — WARSAW, Ind. (AP) — Lakeland Financial Corp. (LKFN) on Friday reported net income of $14.6 million in its second quarter.The bank, based in Warsaw, Indiana, said it had earnings of 57 cents per share.The holding company for Lake City Bank posted revenue of $96 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $60 million, beating Street forecasts._____This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on LKFN at https://www.zacks.com/ap/LKFNSource

MetroCity: Q2 Earnings Snapshot

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:50 GMT

DORAVILLE, Ga. (AP) — DORAVILLE, Ga. (AP) — MetroCity Bankshares, Inc. (MCBS) on Friday reported net income of $13.1 million in its second quarter.The bank, based in Doraville, Georgia, said it had earnings of 51 cents per share.The company posted revenue of $52.2 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $29.7 million, surpassing Street forecasts._____This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on MCBS at https://www.zacks.com/ap/MCBSSource

Deputy kills dog that attacked, seriously injured man

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:50 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — A Larimer County deputy shot and killed a dog that was attacking a man and left him with serious injuries. On Thursday, a Larimer County Sheriff's Office deputy was driving near Lincoln Avenue and 1st Street in Fort Collins when he said he noticed a man struggling with a large dog near Buckingham Park.As the deputy got closer to the scene, he saw that the dog was actively biting the man who was unable to get away. Coroner: Altitude contributed to hiker’s death in RMNP LCSO said the deputy physically intervened in the dog attack, with several other bystanders attempting to help as well.The dog was briefly separated from the man, but quickly re-engaged and attacked once again. Off-duty Adams County deputy arrested for assault after fight outside of a Walmart The sheriff's office said the deputy then fired his weapon, striking and killing the dog. He applied a tourniquet to the man before he was taken to a local hospital and treated for serious injuries. “Given the ...

Harris heads to Florida ready to forcefully condemn state’s new Black history standards

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:50 GMT

(CNN) — Vice President Kamala Harris will travel Friday to Jacksonville in a last-minute trip to forcefully condemn a newly approved set of standards for teaching Black history by the Florida Board of Education, directly wading into one of the cultural flashpoints that have assumed new prominence ahead of the 2024 election.It’s the latest example of Harris acting as a rapid response voice for the administration, quickly deploying around the country in the immediate aftermath of a controversial vote or law being passed to offer forceful pushback of moves taken by state Republicans on guns, abortion and education.The trip, added to Harris’ schedule Thursday, is meant to highlight the Biden administration’s disagreement with the controversial standards, a White House official said.Harris will be the first Biden administration official in the state since the rules were approved and will discuss the “fight to protect fundamental freedoms, specifically, the freedom to learn and teach Amer...

Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and other tech firms agree to AI safeguards set by the White House

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:50 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and other companies that are leading the development of artificial intelligence technology have agreed to meet a set of AI safeguards brokered by President Joe Biden’s administration.The White House said Friday that it has secured voluntary commitments from seven U.S. companies meant to ensure their AI products are safe before they release them. Some of the commitments call for third-party oversight of the workings of commercial AI systems, though they don’t detail who will audit the technology or hold the companies accountable.A surge of commercial investment in generative AI tools that can write convincingly human-like text and churn out new images and other media has brought public fascination as well as concern about their ability to trick people and spread disinformation, among other dangers.The four tech giants, along with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and startups Anthropic and Inflection, have committed to security testing...

Fragments of skull believed to be Beethoven’s returned to Vienna from US for scientific analysis

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:50 GMT

(CNN) — Fragments of a skull believed to have been that of composer Ludwig van Beethoven have been donated to a university in Austria after spending decades in the United States.The pieces of bone were donated to the Medical University of Vienna by American businessman Paul Kaufmann, who discovered them in a safety deposit box in a French bank following his mother’s death in 1990.It later emerged that the bones, which were contained in a tin faintly engraved with the word “Beethoven,” had been acquired from the estate of his mother’s great-uncle, Franz Romeo Seligmann.Seligmann, who died in 1892, had been a physician, medical historian and anthropologist in Vienna. The skull pieces, now referred to as the Seligmann fragments, came into his possession in 1863 during a reburial of Beethoven’s bones for study purposes.Over the course of his 56 years, Beethoven famously suffered from progressive hearing loss, as well as gastrointestinal problems and liver disease.In 1802, 25 years befor...

Cupkin children’s cups sold on Amazon recalled over newly-detected lead levels

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:50 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — More than 345,000 children’s cups are being recalled due to lead levels that exceed the federal content ban, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Thursday.Soojimus is recalling 8-ounce and 12-ounce models of its Cupkin Double-Walled Stainless Steel Children’s Cups — sold in various colors on Amazon and the Cupkin website from 2018 through earlier this year.Consumers in possession of the recalled Cupkin cups are urged to stop using them immediately and contact Soojimus for a full refund. No illnesses or injuries related to the recall have been reported to date.According to Cupkin, liquid in the now-recalled cups is “not exposed to lead due to the double walled construction.” The exposure to lead can occur if the cup bottoms are mistreated, the brand said.In a response to the recall on its website, Cupkin noted that it initiated the voluntary recall after receiving consumer feedback and conducting additional testing. Lead was not detected during the p...

Pro-war Putin critic Igor Girkin arrested

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:50 GMT

Igor Girkin, a former soldier-spy and critic of President Vladimir Putin’s conduct of the war against Ukraine, was arrested on Friday after the latest in a series of diatribes against the Kremlin chief appeared to go too far.Girkin, who goes by the nom de guerre Strelkov (“Shooter”), gained notoriety in 2014 when he led a band of irregular troops into Eastern Ukraine and briefly became the breakaway region’s defense minister. He was convicted in absentia of murder by a Dutch court over his role in shooting down a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet, a tragedy that cost 298 lives.The 52-year-old has since reinvented himself as an ultra-nationalist military commentator and has delivered a series of withering critiques of Russia’s war aims and strategy in Ukraine.In a statement posted to Girkin’s Telegram channel, his wife Miroslava Reginskaya said that representatives of Russia’s Investigative Committee — an anti-corruption and crime-fighting agency — had taken ...