2024-05-04 09:32
JAKARTA, May 4 (Reuters) - Floods and landslides triggered by heavy rain have killed 14 people in South Sulawesi, while 115 people were evacuated, the country's disaster management agency said on Saturday. The early morning floods in Luwu Regency affected more than 1,300 families and damaged more than 1,800 houses, though water levels have since started to recede in some areas, the agency said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/floods-indonesias-south-sulawesi-kill-14-2024-05-04/
2024-05-04 08:22
MOSCOW, May 4 (Reuters) - Alexander Vinnik, a Russian suspected cybercrime kingpin who was arrested in Greece in 2017, convicted of money laundering in France three years later and is now awaiting trial in California, has pleaded partially guilty, TASS news agency cited his lawyer as saying on Saturday. The lawyer, Arkady Bukh, said that as a result of the plea bargain he now expected Vinnik to get a prison term of less than 10 years. "He pleaded guilty on a restricted number of charges," TASS quoted Bukh as saying, adding that Vinnik had faced life imprisonment. "The culmination of the negotiations was a deal with the prosecutor's office. We expect that the prison term will be up to 10 years." Vinnik, accused of laundering more than $4 billion through the digital currency bitcoin, was arrested in 2017 in Greece at the request of the United States, although Moscow has repeatedly demanded he be returned to Russia. He was extradited to France from Greece where he was sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering before he was sent back to Greece and then on to the United States in 2022. The U.S. Department of Justice has said Vinnik "allegedly owned, operated, and administrated BTC-e, a significant cybercrime and online money laundering entity that allowed its users to trade in bitcoin with high levels of anonymity and developed a customer base heavily reliant on criminal activity." The maximum penalty for the U.S. charges against Vinnik is 55 years in prison, according to the U.S. Department of Justice website. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-suspected-cybercrime-kingpin-pleads-guilty-us-tass-reports-2024-05-04/
2024-05-03 23:52
May 3 (Reuters) - The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has toughened import requirements on U.S. breeding cattle over the H5N1 bird flu virus, the agency said in a statement on Friday. The first confirmed case of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in a dairy herd on March 25 and the second human case in two years on April 1 have heightened concerns in the U.S. about the spread of the virus to animals and people. The CFIA has enhanced import requirements on dairy cattle from the U.S. from April 29, the statement said. Import measures for cattle from the U.S. will now include negative HPAI test results for lactating dairy cattle, testing of milk at the retail level to look for viral fragments of HPAI, and voluntary testing of cows that are not presenting with clinical signs of the virus, the CFIA said. Since 2022, bird flu in the United States has infected over 90 million chickens, more than 9,000 wild birds and 34 dairy herds, as well as one person in Texas who came in close contact with infected cattle and another person after exposure to poultry. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/canada-toughens-import-requirements-us-breeding-cattle-over-bird-flu-concerns-2024-05-03/
2024-05-03 23:30
U.S. job growth slows, unemployment ticks higher in April Apple announces record share buyback, stock jumps Expedia tumbles after cutting revenue growth forecast Indexes up: Dow 1.18%, S&P 1.26%, Nasdaq 1.99% NEW YORK, May 3 (Reuters) - Wall Street surged to a higher close on Friday as a softer-than-expected employment report bolstered the case for rate cuts from the Federal Reserve while also providing evidence of U.S. economic resilience. All three major U.S. stock posted robust gains. The tech-heavy Nasdaq led the pack, rising 2% with an assist from Apple shares (AAPL.O) New Tab, opens new tab following the iPhone maker's record share buyback announcement. All three indexes notched their second straight Friday-to-Friday gains, capping a week in which markets were encouraged by Fed Chair Jerome Powell's more dovish-than-expected statements following Wednesday's rate decision. The Labor Department's employment report showed the U.S. economy added fewer jobs than expected, while the unemployment rate ticked higher and wage growth unexpectedly cooled. The report likely hit the sweet spot for the Fed, offering signs the labor market is softening, which Powell has deemed necessary to put inflation on a sustainable downward path. The report also provided assurances on U.S. economic health. The report prompted investors to raise bets the Fed would implement its first rate reduction in September. "The investor narrative remains the Fed and interest rates and today’s weak jobs report puts rate cuts firmly on the Fed’s 2024 agenda," said Greg Bassuk, CEO at AXS Investments in New York. "And while 'higher for longer' remains the roadmap, this economic data is being warmly embraced by investors, Wall Street and Main Street, across all sectors" Fed officials weighed in on the data. Fed Governor Michelle Bowman reiterated her willingness to hike rates if inflation progress reverses, and Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said the employment report boosted confidence the economy is not overheating. "Let's remember, it's early May; we shouldn't pretend that the year's over or somehow every card has been played," said Oliver Pursche, senior vice president at Wealthspire Advisors, in New York. "But I don't think for a second that any Fed official really believes that a rate hike is appropriate given current conditions and data." First-quarter earnings season is approaching the final stretch, with 397 of the companies in the S&P 500 having reported as of Friday morning. Of those, 77% have posted consensus-beating results, according to LSEG data. Apple surged 6.0%, after the company unveiled a record $110 billion share buyback program and beat quarterly expectations. Shares of biotech firm Amgen (AMGN.O) New Tab, opens new tab jumped 11.8% after encouraging interim data on its experimental weight-loss drug MariTide and first-quarter earnings. Travel platform Expedia (EXPE.O) New Tab, opens new tab cut its full-year revenue growth forecast, sending its shares sliding 15.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) New Tab, opens new tab rose 450.02 points, or 1.18%, to 38,675.68, the S&P 500 (.SPX) New Tab, opens new tab gained 63.59 points, or 1.26%, to 5,127.79 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) New Tab, opens new tab added 315.37 points, or 1.99%, to 16,156.33. Of the 11 major sectors in the S&P 500, all but energy (.SPNY) New Tab, opens new tab ended the session in positive territory, with technology (.SPLRCT) New Tab, opens new tab claiming the largest percentage gain at 3.0%. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 3.62-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.00-to-1 ratio favored advancers. The S&P 500 posted 21 new 52-week highs and one new low; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 95 new highs and 65 new lows. Volume on U.S. exchanges was 10.72 billion shares, compared with the 11.07 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/futures-rise-apple-amgen-boost-jobs-data-tap-2024-05-03/
2024-05-03 22:54
May 3 (Reuters) - Heavy rains battering Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul have killed 39 people, local authorities said on Friday, and the death toll is expected to rise as dozens still have not been accounted for. Rio Grande do Sul's civil defense authority said 68 people were still missing and at least 24,000 had been displaced as the storms affected more than half of the 497 cities in the state, which borders Uruguay and Argentina. "These numbers can still materially change over the following days as we gain access to more regions", Rio Grande do Sul Governor Eduardo Leite told reporters. In several towns, streets essentially turned into rivers, with roads and bridges destroyed. The storm also triggered landslides and the partial collapse of a dam structure at a small hydroelectric power plant. A second dam in the city of Bento Goncalves is also at risk of collapsing, authorities said, ordering people who live nearby to evacuate. In Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, the Guaiba river broke its banks, and flooded streets blocked access to the city's historic central neighborhoods. The state is at a geographical meeting point between tropical and polar atmospheres, which has created a weather pattern with periods of intense rains and others of drought. Local scientists believe the pattern has been intensifying due to climate change. Heavy rains had already hit Rio Grande do Sul last September, as an extratropical cyclone caused floods that killed more than 50 people. That came after more than two years of a persistent drought due to the La Nina phenomenon, with only scarce showers. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva traveled to the state on Thursday to visit affected locations and discuss rescue efforts with the governor. Back in Brasilia, Lula vowed on Friday that his government would support local rescue and reconstruction efforts. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/rains-southern-brazil-kill-least-31-more-than-70-still-missing-2024-05-03/
2024-05-03 21:59
HOUSTON, May 3 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) New Tab, opens new tab will take 18 to 24 months to achieve its full production synergies from its $60 billion purchase of U.S. shale oil producer Pioneer Natural Resources, the company's top shale executive said on Friday. Exxon this week closed all-stock acquisition after agreeing to an antitrust consent order that barred the former Pioneer CEO from joining its board and is moving in coming weeks to combine operations that will form the largest oil producer in the Permian basin. "You will see (oil production) grow pretty rapidly, year over year," said Bart Cahir, Exxon's senior vice president of shale, as Exxon applies its current growth strategy to the resources incorporated from Pioneer. The purchase more than doubles Exxon's output in the Permian, the top U.S. shale field, to about 1.3 million barrels per day of oil and gas. An additional 700,000 barrels per day is predicted by 2027 as Exxon combines its proprietary technologies to Pioneer's inventory - a merge that Exxon's CEO Darren Woods previously said would "create magic." Those new wells should come on stream in 12-18 months, with typically another six months to develop production, he said. "The development time horizon when you are developing at scale is around 18 to 24 months," Cahir said. "We're going to take a best-of-both approach to putting the organization together." Asked about plans to add fracking crews in the Permian this year, Cahir said he would "not going to go into the specifics.. With Pioneer's acreage, Exxon controls 1.4 million acres (566,560 hectares) of prime areas that will allow it to drill longer and more closely-spaced wells in cube format, he said. Exxon has proprietary technologies that allow it to be "very, very prescriptive and targeted in our designs. That's something that enables us to do more with less,” he said. The company expects to offer positions to the "overwhelming majority" of Pioneer employees in the next two months, he said, declining to specify any cuts to Pioneer's roughly 2,200 workers. Integration teams from both companies have been working for six months to smooth the transition process. They "have really clicked well. We're a lot more similar than we are different," Cahir said. Cahir said Pioneer's crude oil trading team fits well into Exxon's global trading organization, created more than a year ago. Exxon also will move Pioneer's oil into Exxon's pipeline and logistics, connecting the volumes to U.S. Gulf Coast plants that produce fuels and plastics, he said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exxon-take-up-two-years-hit-stride-with-pioneer-purchase-2024-05-03/
