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Disney to hike streaming prices and crack down on password sharing amid pressure on earnings

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:44 GMT

Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger vowed to make its streaming services profitable via a planned October price hike on its ad-free Disney+ and Hulu plans and a crackdown on password sharing expected to extend through next year.The increases, expected to take effect later this year, will raise the monthly cost of ad-free Disney+ by $3, or roughly 27%, to almost $14. The cost of ad-free Hulu will likewise rise $3 to almost $18 — a 20% hike that will make it more expensive than the most popular ad-free tier at Netflix.Iger spoke following Disney’s release of mixed earnings for its fiscal third quarter ended July 1. The company reported a substantial net loss while shedding customers in both domestic and international markets. Overall, Disney reported a 4% increase in revenue for the quarter but swung to a net loss of $460 million from a year-earlier profit of $1.4 billion. Disney shares, which closed at $87.49, rose roughly 2.5% to around $90 in after-hours trading.While Disney reporte...

What’s driving Maui’s devastating fires, and how climate change is fueling those conditions

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:44 GMT

A dangerous mix of conditions appear to have combined to make the wildfires blazing a path of destruction in Hawaii particularly damaging, including high winds, low humidity and dry vegetation. Experts also say climate change is increasing the likelihood of more extreme weather events like what’s playing out on the island of Maui, where at least six people have been killed and a historic tourist town was devastated. “It’s leading to these unpredictable or unforeseen combinations that we’re seeing right now and that are fueling this extreme fire weather,” said Kelsey Copes-Gerbitz, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia’s faculty of forestry. “What these … catastrophic wildfire disasters are revealing is that nowhere is immune to the issue.”Here’s a look at the Maui fires, and what’s behind them:WHAT’S FUELING THEM?Major differences in air pressure drove unusually strong trade winds that fanned the destructive f...

Toronto doc director Daniel Roher remembers Robbie Robertson as risk-taker and artist

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:44 GMT

TORONTO — An Oscar-winning Toronto director who credits Robbie Robertson with helping to launch his career remembered the legendary singer-songwriter as a risk-taker and musical talent who “created a bridge across time.”Daniel Roher says he felt a great loss upon learning the gravelly voiced rocker died Wednesday in Los Angeles. Robertson was 80.Before he won an Oscar in March for “Navalny,” a portrait of Vladimir Putin critic Alexei Navalny, Roher wrote and directed “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson And The Band.”The documentary, which opened the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019, traces the formation of one of the most enduring groups in popular music, including interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Martin Scorsese and Peter Gabriel.Roher says he was an unknown filmmaker when Robertson gave him his big shot, mirroring the way rockabilly star Ronnie Hawkins gave Robertson his big shot at age 16 and unleashed a musical talent whose blended influences w...

Minister launches review of B.C. port strike case to uncover ‘structural issues’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:44 GMT

VANCOUVER — Federal Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan is launching an examination of the recently resolved British Columbia port dispute to see if “structural issues” in negotiations led to a 13-day work stoppage last month.In a written statement released Wednesday through social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, O’Regan said officials will immediately begin by reviewing reports on previous, similar disputes.O’Regan said the goal is to create “a harmonious working environment” between unions and employers in future collective bargaining, in order to prevent future stoppages similar to the port strike from happening.“Another dispute and disruption on that scale is still possible, and that’s not good enough,” O’Regan said in the statement. “The workers and businesses that depend on our ports deserve long-term solutions. They deserve answers.”The port labour dispute between the International Longshore...

UN says agreement to reopen crossing to Syria’s northwest will safeguard independent UN operations

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:44 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The agreement the United Nations reached with Syria to reopen the main border crossing from Turkey to its rebel-held northwest for six months “safeguards” the independence of U.N. operations and allows it to provide aid to all parties, the U.N. said Wednesday.The agreement, which was announced Tuesday night, will reopen the Bab al-Hawa crossing, which had been used for 85% of deliveries to the northwest Idlib region, home to about 4.1 million people.U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the U.N. is ready to resume operations through Bab al-Hawa as soon as possible but it will take some time to get trucks moving and “I don’t expect anything to happen in the next few days.”The U.N.-Syria “understanding” on Bab al-Hawa, announced by Haq Tuesday evening, followed his announcement earlier in the day that Syria agreed to keep two other crossings to the northwest, Bab al-Salameh and al-Rai, open for three months until Nov. 13.Haq said Wednesday that Secretary-General ...

A wildfire on Maui kills at least 6 as it sweeps through historic town, forcing some into the ocean

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:44 GMT

KAHULUI, Hawaii (AP) — A wildfire tore through the heart of the Hawaiian island of Maui in total darkness Wednesday, reducing much of a historic town to ash and forcing people to jump into the ocean to flee the flames. At least six people died and dozens were wounded.Acting Gov. Sylvia Luke said the flames “wiped out communities,” and urged travelers to stay away. “This is not a safe place to be,” she said. The wind-driven conflagration swept into coastal Lahaina with alarming speed and ferocity, blazing through intersections and leaping across wooden buildings in the town center that dates to the 1700s and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Aerial video revealed entire blocks of homes and businesses flattened, including on Front Street, a popular shopping and dining area. Other images portray a scene of near-complete devastation. Smoking heaps of rubble lay piled high next to the waterfront and gray smoke hovered over the leafless skeletons of scorched trees. “It...

Canopy Growth sees $42M net loss in Q1 as cost reduction efforts continue

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:44 GMT

Canopy Growth Corp. reported a $42-million net loss in its most recent quarter, which its chief executive said was spent making “significant and sweeping changes” that left the cannabis business “simplified, asset-lite” and ready to complete in the turbulent pot market.Among the changes David Klein trumpeted on a Wednesday call with analysts were a divestment of Canopy’s retail cannabis business to reduce the company’s complexity; the closure of several facilities to leave cultivation to two, purpose-built sites; and the outsourcing of production of edibles, vapes and beverages, which will help accelerate the time it takes to get items on shelves.“While we’re pleased with the significant progress already made, our work to complete the transformation of Canopy Growth is not yet done,” he said.“Over the next weeks and throughout the remainder of the year, we’ll continue to execute on opportunities to drive efficiencies ...

An illicit, Chinese-owned lab fueled conspiracy theories. But officials say it posed no danger

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:44 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Jesalyn Harper, the only full-time code enforcement officer for the small, agricultural city of Reedley in California’s Central Valley, was responding to a complaint about vehicles parked in the loading dock of a cold-storage warehouse when she noticed a foul smell and saw a garden hose snaking into the old building. A woman in a lab coat answered her knock, and behind her were two others in plastic gloves and blue surgical masks, packing pregnancy tests for shipping. Harper said they spoke broken English and told her they were from China. Walking through the lab, she found dozens of refrigerators and ultralow-temperature freezers hooked to illegal wiring; vials of blood and jars of urine in shelves and plastic containers; and about 1,000 white lab mice being kept in crowded, soiled containers.The women said the owner lived in China, provided a phone number and email address and asked her to leave. Alarmed by what she saw, Harper, whose work mostly entails...

Closure of 3 Southern California power plants likely to be postponed, state energy officials decide

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:44 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Temperatures in many California cities are cooling down this week, but a debate is simmering on how to generate enough electricity to power the state through extreme weather events while transitioning away from a reliance on fossil fuels.The California Energy Commission voted Wednesday to extend the life of three gas power plants along the state’s southern coast through 2026, postponing a shutoff deadline previously set for the end of this year. The vote would keep the decades-old facilities — Ormond Beach Generating Station, AES Alamitos and AES Huntington Beach — open so they can run during emergencies. The state is at a greater risk of blackouts during major events when many Californians simultaneously crank up their air conditioning, such as a blistering heat wave.“We need to move faster in incorporating renewable energy. We need to move faster at incorporating battery storage. We need to build out chargers faster,” commissioner Patricia Monahan s...

Illinois Gov. Pritzker unveils butter cow and the state fair's theme: 'Harvest the Fun'

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:44 GMT

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Lorilee Schultz, whose childhood memories include munching cream puffs in the Dairy Building at the Illinois State Fair, had a special reason for attending this year's unveiling of the famed butter cow: She's part of it.The 102nd edition of the Dairy Building's crown jewel features a butter model of Schultz ready to milk one of her 60 head at Mil-R-Mor Farm in Orangeville, 131 miles (211 kilometers) northwest of Chicago. The 800-pound sculpture, created by Sarah Pratt of West Des Moines, Iowa, was unveiled Wednesday by Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Agriculture Director Jerry Costello II, serving as a soft opening for the annual agricultural extravaganza.“This year's butter cow sculpture celebrates the Illinois dairy families like mine who ‘Harvest the Fun’ of dairy every day on our farms,” Schultz told gathered reporters, slipping in a reference to the theme of this year's fair. “What is more fun than ice-cold milk, creamy ice cream and gooey cheese made with ...