State regulators considering whether to approve Dominion Energy Virginia’s plans for a nearly $10 billion offshore wind farm are being asked to consider extra protections to shield customers from possible cost overruns and other project risks
read more...FRANKFORT, Ky. — Charles Booker has won the Democratic primary election for the U.S. Senate in his bid to stop a decadeslong winning streak by Kentucky Republicans. Booker defeated three opponents in the Democratic primary.
read more...Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui says our country doesn’t value talent even after international validation, and how his upcoming film has no buyers on OTT as well.
read more...By Lidia Kelly and Ronald Popeski (Reuters) -Peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine have stagnated, officials said on Tuesday, with
read more...By Nick Carey LONDON (Reuters) - British startup Wayve said on Wednesday it will use supercomputer infrastructure designed for the
read more...Jeff McNeil and Dominic Smith helped New York chip away at Miles Mikolas, Trevor Williams was sharp in a spot start and the Mets beat the St. Louis Cardinals 3-1 to open a doubleheader
read more...By Natalia Zinets MARIUPOL, Ukraine (Reuters) -More than 250 Ukrainian fighters surrendered to Russian forces at the Azovstal steelworks in
read more...Tesla CEO Elon Musk says his deal to buy Twitter can’t “move forward” unless the company shows public proof that less than 5% of the accounts on the platform are fake or spam
read more...Voters in five states cast their ballots in Tuesday's primaries, but two GOP contests in Pennsylvania will offer the greatest insight into the future of the Republican Party with candidates who have denied the results of the 2020 election running for both the Senate and gubernatorial nod in the state.
read more...With just two weeks left in Yemen's two-month cease-fire, the U.N. envoy to the war-torn country says talks with the government and Houthi rebels are going on right now and he hopes the truce will be extended
read more...(Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told his Yemeni counterpart on Tuesday that it was important to secure
read more...State officials say plans to execute a Georgia man who killed an 8-year-old girl and raped her 10-year-old friend 46 years ago will not be carried out as scheduled Tuesday night
read more...SOUTHAMPTON, England (Reuters) - Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp said it was "not likely but possible" that his team could pip
read more...Zach and Tori's decision to move out of the farm makes everyone uncomfortable and creates awkwardness between the family members
read more...(Bloomberg) -- A unit of Allianz SE pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to pay $5.8 billion after misrepresenting the
read more...Caryn Chandler worked at the Roloff Family Farm as a farm assistant and rose to fame following a romance with Mark Roloff
read more...Klay Thompson, Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors are one step closer to playing for another championship as they prepare to tip off Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals against the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday night
read more...(Reuters) - Ukrainian former world boxing heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko has called on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ban
read more...The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol is rejecting a request from the Justice Department for access to the committee’s interviews, for now
read more...Hunger and food insecurity have reached catastrophic levels in Afghanistan. The World Food Program reports that almost 20 million people -- about half the country's population -- are in desperate need of food.
read more...By Steve Keating TULSA, Oklahoma (Reuters) - Tiger Woods's comeback after nearly losing his leg in a car crash continues
read more...The “eye-watering” amount of taxpayers’ money lost to fraudsters who exploited Covid support schemes could be even higher than previously feared, MPs have warned. The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has estimated that £4.9bn has been lost from loans issued to ineligible businesses during the pandemic. But the Public Accounts Committee said the total sum squandered “could go even higher” because of unknown amounts lost to fraud and error from grant funding given to businesses via local authorities. Labour MP Meg Hillier, chair of the committee, said the government had offered “an open goal to fraudsters and embezzlers and they have cashed in – adding billions and billions to taxpayer woes”. In a damning report, the committee said it was worried that attempts to recover lost money will be in vain “as the money will have been spent and the trails will have long ago gone cold”. Chancellor Rishi Sunak has denied “ignoring” Covid support scheme fraud, and has promised that the government would “do everything we can” to recover money stolen by fraudsters. MPs condemned BEIS officials over the billions lost to error and fraudsters from Covid loans – saying they “did not sufficiently identify or reflect the potential risks from organised economic crime”. Suitcases filled with cash from the Covid loans were seized at the border as suspected embezzlers attempted to smuggle them out of the country, The Times reported last month. The committee also found that the department distributed £21.8bn of Covid grant funding to businesses through local authorities, but still “lacks information on recipients” of this money. BEIS officials have only estimated the level of fraud and error in under half of these grants – but already expects over £1bn of that to be lost. MPs called on the government to set out exactly how it will work with councils across the UK to calculate “robust” fraud and error estimates – and do more to recover the squandered money. The cross-party committee said it was “unconvinced” that the department’s current plans for recovering swindled money will act as a “sufficient deterrent” to those considering committing fraud. Ms Hillier said: “BEIS says it saw this risk coming, but it’s really not clear where government was looking when it set up its initial Covid response.” The senior Labour MP added: “These mistakes must be written out of future crisis responses, now, and government would do well to apply the learnings to the mounting, interrelated crises it now faces in climate change, energy supply and the cost-of-living.” Lord Agnew quit as the government’s efficiency tsar over the handling of fraudulent Covid loans in January. He accused officials of making “schoolboy errors” by handing out money to over 1,000 companies not trading at the start of the pandemic. A government spokesperson said: “We’re continuing to crack down on Covid support scheme fraud and will not tolerate those who seek to defraud consumers and taxpayers. “These schemes were implemented at unprecedented speed to protect millions of jobs and businesses. If the government didn’t move quickly, more businesses would have failed and many more jobs lost.” Read More ‘Dude from Silicon Valley’: Rishi Sunak’s reputation has ‘crashed like crypto Ponzi scheme’, says Ed Miliband Poorest families yet to receive Rishi Sunak’s promised £150 help with soaring energy bills Boris Johnson rejects Bank governor’s claim of ‘helplessness’ over cost of living crisis Government must do everything in its power to reduce Covid loan fraud hit – MPs WHO: 2nd COVID booster for most vulnerable offers benefits Idaho governor faces Trump-backed candidate in GOP primary
read more...By Daniel Leussink TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese manufacturers have become the least optimistic in more than a year about business
read more...Zach and his wife recently announced that they had moved from their Portland farm to Washington in October
read more...Brexit has increased the risk of dangerous foods reaching the UK because inspectors are shut out of the EU’s “rapid alert system”, ministers are warned today. The Food Standards Agency is still scrambling to build defences to compensate for the loss of data, the National Audit Office has found – a task made more difficult by the UK scrapping planned import checks. The regulator has admitted it needs a 65 per cent boost to its resources to “deliver the same result achieved with the EU’s system”, the report warns. In common with other regulators, Brexit has had a “negative impact on their ability to assess risks or carry out their work”, the NAO concludes. “Failures in food safety can have catastrophic consequences for human life, public confidence, the wider economy and international trade,” the watchdog points out. The chair of the Commons Public Accounts Committee highlighted the big gap between “high-minded talk of new Brexit freedoms and what it means in practice for regulation”. “Government must clearly light the way to prevent regulators fumbling around in the dark,” Meg Hillier said. Until the UK left the EU, it was part of the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), allowing it to exchange information about food safety incidents and responses across the bloc. The FSA is forced to mitigate for the information loss “using other international systems, publicly available data, or by setting up data sharing arrangements on a case-by-case basis”. However, these are at “an early stage” and “there is a risk that it may have less information about food fraud risks”, the body told the inquiry. The problem mirrors the loss of instant alerts about suspected terrorists and organised criminals. Full controls on imports from the EU were seen as part of the post-Brexit defences, but the government has abandoned them over fears of adding to the cost of living crisis. Vets have warned the move is opening the door to diseases such as African Swine Fever and “wreak havoc” on disease prevention. The UK and EU intended to begin talks on “voluntary regulatory cooperation, such as exchange of information on good regulatory practices”. However, little progress has been made, due in part to the battle between the two sides over the Northern Ireland Protocol. A “regulatory cooperation committee” has met only once and will meet only once a year in future. The NAO’s warning comes following a salmonella scare which has seen more than 100 products containing cooked chicken removed from sale by a major supplier. Cranswick Country Foods said they included sandwiches and wraps sold at Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Aldi, the Co-op, Pret a Manger and Marks & Spencer. In its evidence, the FSA said it had struck a data-sharing deal, in December 2021, with HMRC to “increase its intelligence on imports from the EU of high-risk food and feed”. “In time, it expects these new data sources to enhance its ability to identify food safety risks, but it is at an early stage in embedding their use,” the NAO stated. Gareth Davies, the head of the watchdog, said: “EU exit has had a major impact on many UK regulators. “They need to overcome many challenges if they are to manage the transition successfully, including recruiting the right specialist skills.” A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: “We will ensure our regulators are fit for purpose and working as effectively as possible.” Read More NI protocol live: PM vows unilateral action in Brexit row Tory MP wants benefits raised immediately after visit to food bank Hague attacks PM as weak and immoral over obesity plan U-turn UK forced to bridge data gap after losing full access to EU food alerts – report Analysis: What would the proposed changes to the NI protocol mean for businesses? Brexit: Lorry drivers need ‘documents partly written in Latin’ to export goods to EU
read more...