2024-06-22 04:57

SHANGHAI, June 22 (Reuters) - Six people have been found with no signs of life after going missing a week ago during landslides caused by heavy rainfall in China's southeastern province of Fujian, state television CCTV reported on Saturday. Rescue workers found them after extensive searches since losing contact with the victims on Sunday, CCTV said. Unusually heavy rains have hit southern China after an early start to the annual flooding season. The death toll reached 38 on Friday in Meizhou city in China's southern Guangdong province, where downpours led to flash floods and mudslides that destroyed thousands of low-rise houses and damaged roads and crops, CCTV said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/six-feared-dead-landslides-chinas-fujian-province-cctv-says-2024-06-22/

2024-06-22 01:54

MEXICO CITY, June 21 (Reuters) - U.S. health safety inspectors are gradually restarting inspections of avocados and mangos in Mexico needed to export the farm commodities to the United States, the U.S. ambassador said in a statement on Friday. Ambassador Ken Salazar stressed that more work needs to be done to ensure the safety of inspectors, after a security incident in Michoacan state last weekend caused U.S. authorities to pause the safety checks. "It's still necessary to make progress to guarantee the safety (of the health safety inspectors) before we can achieve full functioning," said Salazar, pointing to recent aggressions they faced. The ambassador did not go into further detail, but he did express optimism more progress can be made at meetings scheduled for next Monday with government and private sector representatives. Avocados, in particular, are a top Mexican farm export to its northern neighbor worth billions of dollars each year, as demand for the fruit has steadily grown. Mexico's top-producing Michoacan state, where the security incident took place, has for years dealt with extortion rackets perpetrated by powerful organized crime groups that has sought to profit from the lucrative trade. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-restarting-avocado-mango-checks-mexico-after-week-long-pause-2024-06-22/

2024-06-21 23:35

June 22 (Reuters) - A Russian-installed official said on Saturday that Ukrainian attack drones again struck Enerhodar, a town near the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, after drones earlier in the week hit two of the town's electric substations. Eduard Senovoz, the top official in Enerhodar, said on Telegram that two drones exploded on Saturday in a residential area and a resident was hurt. Another drone was downed. In attacks on Wednesday and Friday on Enerhodar, a few km (miles) from the nuclear plant, he previously said one of Enerhodar's substations was destroyed, while the other was damaged. Power was cut to most residents. An official at the occupied Zaporizhzhia station, Europe's largest nuclear plant with six reactors, had initially reported that it was unaffected by those military actions. But the Russian management of the station said on Telegram on Saturday, before the latest drone strikes, that some "infrastructure facilities" including the transport department and print shop experienced disruptions following the attacks earlier in the week. Nuclear safety measures remained fully operational, it said. Ukrainian officials have made no comment on the incidents and Reuters could not independently confirm the reports. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the attacks exposed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's disregard for nuclear safety. "In view of the Zelenskiy regime's total inability to negotiate anything, our country will take all necessary measures to deny the Kyiv regime all means of carrying out such strikes," Zakharova said on the ministry's website. Russian troops seized the Zaporizhzhia plant in the early days of the February 2022 invasion, and Moscow and Kyiv have since routinely accused each other of endangering safety around it. It produces no electricity at the moment. Russian news agencies quoted Yevgeny Yashin, director of communications at the Zaporizhzhia station, as saying the damaged substation in Enerhodar could be repaired. Russia launched mass attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in the first winter of the conflict and resumed a long series of attacks in March. Kyiv says the renewed attacks have knocked out half of Ukraine's energy-generating capacity and forced blackouts. Russian missiles and drones damaged energy facilities in southeastern and western Ukraine on Saturday, wounding at least two energy workers and forcing record electricity imports, officials said. Ukraine has stepped up its use of drones this year to attack Russian oil facilities. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-drones-knock-out-two-substations-russia-installed-officials-say-2024-06-21/

2024-06-21 22:31

June 21 (Reuters) - A merchant vessel reported an explosion in its vicinity 126 nautical miles east of Yemen's port city of Aden, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said late on Friday. "The crew are reported safe and the vessel is proceeding to its next port of call," UKMTO said in an advisory note, without identifying the vessel. The Yemeni militant Houthi group has been launching drone and missile strikes in the key waterway since November in what it says is solidarity with Palestinian militants in Gaza. In over 70 attacks, the group has sunk two vessels, seized another and killed at least three seafarers. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/merchant-vessel-reports-explosion-its-vicinity-off-yemens-aden-2024-06-21/

2024-06-21 22:08

Spirit Aero up following report of Boeing nearing buyout deal Sarepta surges on expanded use of gene therapy Indexes mixed: Dow up 0.04%, S&P down 0.16%, Nasdaq down 0.18% June 21 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed marginally lower on Friday, weighed down by a decline in Nvidia shares for a second straight day, which dragged down the technology sector. Technology (.SPLRCT) New Tab, opens new tab was the biggest loser among the 11 major S&P 500 sectors, down 0.84%, weighed by Nvidia, while communication services (.SPLRCL) New Tab, opens new tab led the gain. “It's Nvidia's game, and the rest of us are just pretending to be here,” said Michael Green, chief strategist at Simplify Asset Management in Philadelphia. "Basically all the activity is now concentrated in Nvidia call options," he added. "Seven million option contracts Nvidia have traded. That's something in the neighborhood of three or four times the quantity of contract volume that would have traded for the market in total five years ago." The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) New Tab, opens new tab rose 15.57 points, or 0.04%, to 39,150.33, the S&P 500 (.SPX) New Tab, opens new tab lost 8.55 points, or 0.16%, to 5,464.62 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) New Tab, opens new tab lost 32.23 points, or 0.18%, to 17,689.36. Shares of megacaps Microsoft (MSFT.O) New Tab, opens new tab, Alphabet (GOOGL.O) New Tab, opens new tab, Amazon.com (AMZN.O) New Tab, opens new tab rose between 0.92% to 1.89%. Apple (AAPL.O) New Tab, opens new tab slipped 1.04%. “We've had a very strong run, especially in the S&P over the last couple weeks. So not surprised to see things kind of take a pause and settle down,” Zachary Hill, head of portfolio management at Horizon Investments in Charlotte, North Carolina. Friday's trading could be more volatile than usual due to triple witching, the simultaneous expiration of stock options, stock index options, and stock index futures. U.S. business activity reached a 26-month high in June amid a rebound in employment, while easing price pressures suggested the recent inflation slowdown may continue. Flash services PMI increased to 55.1 this month, above expectations of 53.7, while manufacturing PMI edged up to 51.7, compared with expectations of a dip to 51. May home sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.11 million units versus expectations of 4.10 million units. Money markets are still pricing in a 58% chance of a 25-basis point rate cut in September, and still expect about two rate cuts this year, according to LSEG's FedWatch data. AI chip firm Nvidia (NVDA.O) New Tab, opens new tab dropped 3.22%, while semiconductor stocks Qualcomm (QCOM.O) New Tab, opens new tab, Broadcom (AVGO.O) New Tab, opens new tab and Micron Technology (MU.O) New Tab, opens new tab were down between 1.36% and 4.38%. Wall Street's bumper gains since the final leg of 2023 have been primarily driven by the likes of Nvidia and a handful of other heavily weighted stocks linked to artificial intelligence. Analysts, however, have raised concerns whether the strong increase in their valuations is sustainable. Shares of Spirit AeroSystems (SPR.N) New Tab, opens new tab rose 6.00% following a Reuters report that Boeing (BA.N) New Tab, opens new tab is nearing a deal to buy back the airplane parts supplier after months of talks. Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT.O) New Tab, opens new tab soared 30.14% after the U.S. FDA allowed expanded use of the company's gene therapy for patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy aged four and older. Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.03-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 98 new highs and 73 new lows on the NYSE. The S&P 500 posted 23 new 52-week highs and 2 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 34 new highs and 186 new lows. Volume on U.S. exchanges was 17.68 billion shares, compared with the 12.05 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/wall-street-futures-edge-lower-ahead-business-survey-data-2024-06-21/

2024-06-21 21:20

June 21 (Reuters) - Investment management firm VanEck plans to charge a fee of 0.20% on its proposed spot ethereum exchange-traded fund, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday. The SEC approved applications from Nasdaq, CBOE and NYSE last month to list ETFs tied to the price of ether, potentially paving the way for the products to begin trading later this year. Nine issuers, including VanEck, ARK Investments/21Shares and BlackRock (BLK.N) New Tab, opens new tab, hope to launch ETFs tied to the second-largest cryptocurrency after the SEC in January approved bitcoin ETFs in a watershed moment for the industry. A spot ethereum ETF allows investors to gain exposure to the price of ethereum without the complications and risks of owning ethereum directly. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/technology/vaneck-sets-020-fee-proposed-spot-ethereum-etf-2024-06-21/