2025-12-06 07:17

MOSCOW, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Ukrainian drones targeted Russia's Ryazan and Voronezh regions overnight, causing damage but no casualties, local governors said on Saturday. The attack sparked a fire on the roof of a multi-storey residential building, and debris from drones fell into the grounds of "an industrial facility," Ryazan governor Pavel Malkov said. Sign up here. Malkov did not name the facility. Ukraine has previously repeatedly targeted a local refinery. Ukraine has ramped up drone attacks deep inside Russia, aiming to knock out oil refineries, depots and pipelines. Ukrainian drones have struck at least 17 major refineries this year. In the Voronezh region, governor Alexander Gusev said a drone strike damaged a fuel station, a school and several residential buildings. Russia's Defence Ministry said its air defences shot down 116 Ukrainian drones overnight. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-drones-hit-russias-ryazan-voronezh-regions-governors-say-2025-12-06/

2025-12-06 06:51

IndiGo faces biggest crisis in its 20-year history Hundreds of passengers stranded for fifth day Pilot unions oppose India exempting IndiGo from pilot safety norms MUMBAI/BENGALURU, Dec 6 (Reuters) - India's aviation watchdog on Saturday warned airline IndiGo of regulatory action after it cancelled thousands of flights over the last week, stranding passengers and forcing government action to limit a surge in airfares caused by the crisis. The country's biggest airline, IndiGo cancelled the flights because of a shortage of pilots after it failed to plan adequately for new rules limiting how many hours they work. Sign up here. The civil aviation watchdog sent the notice to IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers, giving him 24 hours to respond and say why regulatory action - which can include penalties and suspension of officials - should not be taken against the airline. As the CEO "you have failed in your duty to ensure timely arrangements for conduct of reliable operations," said the notice, signed by Directorate General of Civil Aviation official, Ravinder Singh Jamwal. The notice is confidential but was reviewed by Reuters. IndiGo did not respond to a request for comment on the warning. Earlier in the day, India capped airfares, which have been driven higher by the increase in demand for flights operated by other carriers. IndiGo cancelled another 385 flights on Saturday, the fifth day of the crisis. The government on Friday announced exemptions from the new rules for the carrier and laid on additional trains to help clear the backlog. Delhi airport posted on X on Saturday that flight operations were steadily resuming. Cancellations however continued at many airports. The Civil Aviation Ministry said it would "continue to closely monitor fare levels through real-time data and active coordination with airlines". Fares were last capped during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The Indian government said a one-way fare for a journey up to 500 kilometers cannot be more than 7,500 rupees ($83), whereas for journeys between 1,000 and 1,500 km - such as the New Delhi-Mumbai route - should be capped at 15,000 rupees ($167). That was well under the 20,419 rupee ($227) price advertised by Air India on its website for a Delhi-Mumbai flight on Saturday. BIGGEST CRISIS IN INDIGO'S TWO-DECADE HISTORY The flight cancellations are the biggest crisis in IndiGo's 20 years of operation. The airline has a more than 60% market share in the world's most-populous country and has prided itself on on-time performance and affordable fares. IndiGo (INGL.NS) , opens new tab has said it failed to plan adequately for the November 1 deadline to implement the stricter rules on night flying and weekly rest for pilots. It only suffered a roster crisis this week as December is the peak time for holidays and weddings in India. On Friday, more than 1,000 IndiGo flights were cancelled. After the government announced the exemptions to the rules for IndiGo, the airline said it could return to normal operations between December 10 and 15. On Saturday, IndiGo cancelled 124 flights in Bengaluru, 109 in Mumbai, 86 in New Delhi and 66 in Hyderabad, airport sources told Reuters. Hundreds of passengers gathered outside Bengaluru and Mumbai airports on Saturday, some unaware of the cancellations, according to Reuters witnesses. Satish Konde had to catch a connecting flight from Mumbai to the western city of Nagpur and had checked in before being told it was cancelled. "I am waiting for my luggage to be returned," he said. PILOTS CRITICISE THE EXEMPTION, SAYING SAFETY COMES FIRST The new pilot rest and duty rules capped the number of night landings to two from six and restricted the maximum number of hours a pilot can fly in the night to 10 hours. For now, IndiGo has been exempted from both measures until February 10. The new rules also said that if a pilot takes personal leave, that cannot be counted in calculating his weekly rest period of 48 hours. That restriction too has been put on hold for all airlines, given the IndiGo crisis. That has upset pilot labour groups, who told the government that safety must not be compromised to make up for IndiGo's poor planning, the head of the Federation of Indian Pilots, C.S. Randhawa, told Reuters. The Airline Pilots Association of India objected on Friday, calling the relief for IndiGo "selective dispensation". The norms "exist solely to safeguard human life," the association said in a letter to the government. Other major Indian airlines, including Air India and Akasa, have not had to cancel flights due to the new rules. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/india-air-travel-chaos-eases-indigo-crisis-still-leaves-hundreds-stranded-2025-12-06/

2025-12-06 05:42

Dec 6 (Reuters) - The EU will take a top-down approach to building a cross-border energy grid, as the bloc's Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen warned of billions lost from bottlenecks and failures to match supply with demand, the Financial Times reported on Saturday. Brussels will develop a plan to identify where investment is needed and will find projects to fill those gaps to push EU countries to better co-ordinate energy infrastructure across borders and sectors, the report added. Sign up here. Jorgensen told the Financial Times that the "biggest danger" to the bloc’s decarbonisation and energy security goals was the slow construction of its power grid. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eu-plans-strategic-overhaul-fix-energy-grid-bottlenecks-ft-reports-2025-12-06/

2025-12-05 23:42

Warner Bros gains after Netflix agrees to buy the company Investors assess inflation and consumer sentiment data Ulta Beauty soars after raising forecasts Indexes up: Dow 0.22%, S&P 0.19%, Nasdaq 0.31% NEW YORK, Dec 5 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks closed out the trading week with slight gains on Friday as the latest flurry of economic data kept elevated expectations for a Federal Reserve interest rate cut next week intact. In the wake of the 43-day government shutdown, market participants have been digesting delayed economic data as the backlog slowly dwindles, while also looking to secondary indicators to gauge the health of the economy. Sign up here. Delayed data from the Commerce Department showed consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of economic activity, rose 0.3% in September to match the estimate of economists polled by Reuters, after a downwardly revised 0.5% gain in August. In addition, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index increased 0.3% after gaining 0.3% in August, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said. In the 12 months through September, the PCE Price Index advanced 2.8% after rising 2.7% in August. Both were in line with forecasts. A separate report from the University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers showed consumer sentiment improved in early December to 53.3, topping the 52 forecast. Markets were pricing in an 87.2% chance of a 25-basis-point rate cut at this month's Fed meeting, according to CME's FedWatch Tool , opens new tab, although the meeting is expected to have a large number of dissenting voters over concerns about persistent inflation. Expectations for a cut were below 30% two weeks ago until several Fed officials voiced support for a rate reduction. "Investors are looking ahead to next week. We get a little bit more in the way of economic data ... but all eyes will be on the Fed meeting on Wednesday, and right now there's a very high likelihood the Fed will cut rates by another quarter point," said Michael Sheldon, vice president and senior portfolio manager at Washington Trust Wealth Management, in New Haven, Connecticut. "Then, the question is what they say following the meeting and whether they give any hints about future policy." The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) , opens new tab rose 104.05 points, or 0.22%, to 47,954.99, the S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab gained 13.28 points, or 0.19%, to 6,870.40 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) , opens new tab gained 72.99 points, or 0.31%, to 23,578.13. For the week, the S&P 500 gained 0.31%, the Nasdaq rose 0.91%, and the Dow climbed 0.5%. All three indexes recorded a second straight weekly advance. Shares of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD.O) , opens new tab climbed 6.3% after Netflix (NFLX.O) , opens new tab agreed to buy its TV, film studios, and streaming division for $72 billion, ending a weeks-long bidding war. Netflix shares closed 2.9% lower, while Paramount Skydance , one of the other bidders for Warner Bros, tumbled 9.8%. Communication services (.SPLRCL) , opens new tab was the best-performing of the 11 S&P 500 sectors with a gain of nearly 1% as it set a record closing high. The S&P 500 healthcare index (.SPXHC) , opens new tab declined after a group of vaccine advisers scrapped a longstanding recommendation that all U.S. children receive the hepatitis B shot at birth. The benchmark S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab is about 1% shy of a record high, but small-cap stocks have rallied strongly over the past two weeks with the Russell 2000 (.RUT) , opens new tab up 0.8% this week after a 5.5% jump last week as they are seen as likely to benefit strongly from rate cuts. "All the low-quality, unprofitable, highly levered businesses have been high beta, high volatility, that's been the best performing stocks," said Jed Ellerbroek, portfolio manager at Argent Capital Management in St. Louis. "A lot of that is just due to rates coming down a fair amount and expectations for rates to come down further." Ulta Beauty surged 12.7% after the beauty retailer raised its annual sales and profit forecasts. Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.01-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.22-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq. The S&P 500 posted 33 new 52-week highs and seven new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 116 new highs and 61 new lows. Volume on U.S. exchanges was 16.2 billion shares, compared with the 17.72 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days. https://www.reuters.com/business/wall-st-futures-steady-investors-await-key-inflation-report-2025-12-05/

2025-12-05 23:29

Temperatures plunge as much as 20 degrees below average Chill stretches from Plains to mid-Atlantic, New England Cold snap hits records from Iowa prairie to upstate New York Dec 5 (Reuters) - A blast of Arctic air gripped much of the central and eastern portions of the U.S. on Friday in sub-freezing temperatures well below normal for this time of year, setting records from Iowa and Michigan to New York. The frigid weather pattern stemmed from a fluctuation in the clockwise circulation of polar air, also known as the polar vortex, that was drawing icy air from Canada into northern tier of the U.S., according to meteorologist Marc Chenard of the U.S. Weather Prediction Center outside Washington. Sign up here. The Arctic chill, plunging temperatures much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit below average, began on Thursday and was expected to persist in waves over the next week or two, making it the most extensive and intense cold snap of the season, Chenard said. The official start of winter is still more than two weeks away. "Cold air is spilling into the central and eastern parts of the country, coming down from the Arctic," he said. The deep freeze stretched from the northern Plains through the Great Lakes region and Ohio Valley into the mid-Atlantic and New England. Colder-than-normal temperatures, though still above freezing, were expected to dip into the Southeast, according to Chenard. Local weather forecasts in Indiana and Oklahoma called for the possibility of freezing fog, tiny super-cooled water droplets suspended in air that can freeze on exposed surfaces, causing a dangerous road condition known as black ice. On Thursday, temperatures fell to new benchmark lows in more than a dozen places across Iowa and parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota, Chenard said. Iowa, where temperatures have been tracked since 1895, accounted for most of the record cold, including an all-time low on Thursday of 19 degrees below zero in the prairie town of Spencer, a full 10 degrees colder than its previous record of minus-9 degrees set in 2005. Detroit appeared to have set a record low on Friday morning of 5 degrees above zero, 1 degree colder than the standing record, while the New York City-area airports of John F Kennedy and LaGuardia both posted low readings of 20 degrees, setting or tying their respective previous records, according to Chenard. In upstate New York, the temperature plummeted to an apparent new bone-chilling record of minus-22 degrees, exceeding the previous record low of negative 20. In addition to unseasonable cold, snow was expected in parts of the mid-Atlantic, the Midwest and Rockies through Saturday, the National Weather Service said. A storm system crossing the northern Plains and Midwest on Saturday will bring the potential for heavy snow at times, according to the forecast. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/arctic-blast-grips-central-northeastern-us-sub-freezing-cold-2025-12-05/

2025-12-05 22:29

Dec 5 (Reuters) - U.S. electrical grid operator PJM Interconnection said on Friday that it received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Thursday to simplify its rules for connecting generation resources at the distribution level. FERC has allowed PJM to drop a rule that required certain distribution-level interconnections to be processed under federal instead of state and local rules. Sign up here. Starting April 28, 2026, all resources in PJM’s region will be processed under state and local rules and agreements. PJM said the change will help reallocate time and resources to their work on transmission-level interconnections and provide greater clarity to project developers earlier in the interconnection process. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/pjm-gets-ferc-approval-simplify-connection-distribution-level-resources-2025-12-05/