Category: US

Minneapolis
CNN
 — 

The number of first-time claims for unemployment insurance fell unexpectedly to 190,000 for the week ending January 14, according to Department of Labor data released Thursday.

The latest total is the lowest in 15 weeks and far below economists’ expectations of 214,000, according to consensus estimates on Refinitiv.

The steady level of initial claims, which are considered a proxy for layoffs, show that the labor market remains tight.

Continuing claims, which measure the number of people filing for ongoing unemployment benefits, totaled 1.65 million for the week ending January 7. That’s up from the previous monthly tally of 1.63 million.

Weekly jobless claims data is volatile and frequently subject to revision, especially around the holidays.

The four-week moving average of initial claims, which lessens some of that volatility, was 212,500, down from 214,250 during the last week of December. Through 2019, that four-week moving average hovered at around 218,000, Labor Department data shows.

The US labor market has remained strong despite pandemic-related ripple effects, geopolitical uncertainty, soaring inflation and the Federal Reserve’s attempts to knock down the surging prices.

“The Fed would welcome a more substantial slowing in job growth,” said Stuart Hoffman, senior economic adviser for PNC Financial Services, in a statement Thursday. “Right now, the labor market is too tight for the Fed, and job growth is too strong, with average monthly gains of 247,000 payroll jobs in the three months through December 2022.”

In recent months, job growth has slowed and layoff announcements — particularly from technology firms — have become more widespread. But that doesn’t necessarily equate to more joblessness, said Robert Frick, corporate economist at Navy Federal Credit Union.

“While layoffs from high-profile firms make the headlines, plenty of firms are desperate for more workers, especially tech workers. Those workers are in high demand from the auto industry to the Department of Veterans Affairs to not-for-profits,” he said.

“The labor market is still so tight that many tech workers, and workers with other skills, are snapped up well before they need to collect an unemployment check. And they are more likely to be snapped up by smaller firms, which have a much greater demand for workers than major corporations,” Frick added.

CNN
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Sarah Michelle Gellar isn’t afraid to embrace the idea of a comeback, and is excited to be back playing to her strengths.

The “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” star, who largely stepped away from the spotlight in 2014 to focus on her family, is starring in and executive producing the new Paramount+ series “Wolf Pack,” which is being billed as a teen-focused supernatural thriller, much like the iconic series for which she’s most known.

Except this time around, she’s happy to be respected as a leader of this pack.

“There was a time when I had a reputation of being … difficult,” Gellar, using air quotes, told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published on Wednesday. “Anyone that knows me knows it came from the fact that I always put in 100 percent. I never understood people who don’t.”

Gellar says that now, in her position as executive producer, she feels responsible for the safety of the younger stars on set – especially because she’s been in their shoes before.

“I hope that I’ve set up an infrastructure, a safety net for these actors that I didn’t have,” she said. “My generation just didn’t have that.”

Gellar starred in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” for a total of seven seasons from 1997 to 2003. She took on the role when she was just 17.

After the show, she starred in films and took on some TV roles, including a short-lived comedy TV series on CBS alongside the late Robin Williams.

She sees “Wolf Pack” as a return to her horror roots and an “homage” to what she’s known for, she told the publication.

“If I do things that speak to the fan base,” she added, “and gather some new people along the way, maybe I branch out again. It’s not a next act for me, but it’s certainly a new chapter.”

“Buffy” has enjoyed a cult following since its time on air, but recent years have brought to light stories about the show’s behind-the-scenes turmoil. Gellar herself called the set “toxic” in an interview last year with the Los Angeles Times.

Though she now says she’ll “never tell my full story,” she remains “proud” of the show’s legacy, she told THR.

“I will always be proud of what my castmates did, what I did,” she said. “Was it an ideal working situation? Absolutely not. But it’s OK to love Buffy for what we created because I think it’s pretty spectacular.”

Paris
CNN
 — 

French workers are set to take to the streets Thursday to protest radical reforms to the country’s pension system that, if implemented, will require most people in France to work two years longer before retirement.

Eight of France’s largest unions – covering transportation, education, police, executives and public sectors – called for Thursday to be the “first day of strikes and protests” against the proposed pensions reform.

Widespread strikes are expected, and it may be “a hellish Thursday” on public transport networks, Transport Minister Clement Beaune warned French broadcaster France 2 Tuesday. Paris’ transport authority predicts “very disrupted” service on the city’s transport network.

One in five flights in and out of Paris’ Orly airport will be cancelled for the day, according to France’s civil aviation authority, due to striking air traffic control workers. The authority said that this did not exclude the possibility of further delays and cancellations to the remaining flights.

Some 70% of primary school teachers are also expected to strike across France, according to the main union for this sector, Snuipp-FSU, with one in three primary schools in Paris closed. The Snes-FSU Union said some 50% of secondary school teachers in France will also be on strike.

France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told French radio station RTL Wednesday that more than 10,000 police and gendarmerie officers will be deployed across France Thursday in the face of protests; 3,500 of these will be in Paris.

The government has defended the reforms as a book-balancing and progressive policy change, which will see the pensions deficit brought to heel in 2030.

“If we don’t pass this reform the books will not be balanced, which means that we will have to lower the pensions for retired people or increase the contributions of working people, thus reducing purchasing power of French people,” Government MP Stephanie Rist told CNN Wednesday.

Despite anger on the street, the government – lacking a parliamentary majority – still has a constitutional avenue to crowbar the reforms past lawmakers and into law.

But many have blasted the reforms as ill-timed at best; at worst, an insult to hard-working people in France.

“This reform falls at a moment where there is lots of anger, lots of frustration, lots of fatigue. It’s coming at the worst moment, in fact,” CFE-CGC union chief François Hommeril told CNN Tuesday, pointing to the inflation that has wracked Europe this year following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Government spokesperson Olivier Veran told journalists Wednesday that 40 percent of French workers will be able to leave work before 64 under the proposed regime thanks to exceptions for those who started work early or in physically taxing jobs.

“We have the most protective, the most developed system in Europe,” for pensions, he said, adding, “Even after the reforms, we will retire in France better off and earlier than in almost all eurozone countries.”

Pensions reform has long been a controversial issue in France, with street protests halting reform efforts in 1995, and successive governments facing stiff resistance to reforms that eventually passed in 2004, 2008 and 2010.

CNN
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A Washington court unsealed search warrant documents used to retrieve evidence from the home and office of Bryan Kohberger, the 28-year-old accused of killing four University of Idaho students in November, according to documents made publicly available by Law & Crime Wednesday.

“These warrants and associated applications were sealed, due to the sensitive nature of the investigation at that time. Since then, an extensive probable cause affidavit has been unsealed in Latah County, Idaho, which has alleviated the need for sealing of the Return of Service here in Washington,” the court documents say.

Read the unsealed search warrants in the Bryan Kohberger investigation

Kohberger faces four counts of first-degree murder in the fatal stabbings of Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20.

The suspect was a graduate student at Washington State University’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology and lived in Pullman, Washington, at the time of his arrest last month.

Items retrieved from his residence included “a collection of dark red,” cuttings from a pillow of reddish-brown stain, and part of a mattress cover with stains.

Other items listed include a nitrate-type black glove, store receipts and a Dickies tag, several hair strands, dust from a vacuum, a Fire TV stick and a computer tower, among other things.

There is no mention of potential items retrieved from the suspect’s office. It is not yet clear if anything was retrieved, or if information surrounding the execution of that search warrant is still under seal.

The victims were found murdered in an off-campus home November 13, killed with what investigators believe was a knife.

Investigators linked Kohberger to the crime scene after DNA on a tan leather knife sheath found lying next to one of the victims was linked to DNA on trash recovered from Kohberger’s family home, according to the probable-cause affidavit that led to his arrest.

Law enforcement also traced the ownership of a white Hyundai Elantra seen in the area of the killings to Kohberger, according to two law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation.

A judge last week scheduled a preliminary probable cause hearing to begin June 26 after Kohberger waived his right to a speedy hearing. He has been held without bail in the Latah County jail in Idaho since his extradition from Pennsylvania, where he was arrested almost seven weeks after the murders.

Kohberger has not yet entered a plea.

CNN
 — 

A woman and boy were killed by a polar bear that had been chasing residents in a tiny, remote community in Alaska, state troopers said Tuesday.

The bear had chased residents after entering the western Alaska town of Wales before attacking the woman and boy, an Alaska State Troopers dispatch report said.

The bear was shot and killed by another resident as it attacked the two victims, according to the report.

The victims have been identified as Summer Myomick, 24, and her 1-year-old son, Clyde Ongtowasruk, Austin McDaniel, communications director for the Alaska Department of Public Safety, said in a statement Wednesday.

Troopers and Alaska Department of Fish and Game personnel have been working to travel to Wales following the attack, but have been waylaid by weather.

“Poor weather conditions in the region and the lack of runway lights in Wales prevented Troopers and Alaska Department of Fish and Game personnel from making it to Wales,” McDaniel said Wednesday. “Troopers are continuing to make efforts to fly to Wales today.”

Wales is on the coast of western Alaska and has a population of 168, according to the US Census.

Reports of polar bear attacks on humans are extremely rare, a 2017 study published by The Wildlife Society found. “From 1870-2014, we documented 73 attacks by wild polar bears, distributed among the 5 polar bear Range States (Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia, and United States), which resulted in 20 human fatalities and 63 human injuries,” it found.

But melting ice due to climate change has led to a corresponding change in bear behavior and made human encounters with bears more likely, CNN previously reported.

Residents of Churchill in northern Manitoba, Canada, sometimes called the “polar bear capital of the world,” told CNN in 2021 that bear encounters were becoming more common. Thousands of tourists visit each fall in hopes of catching a glimpse of a bear.

Bear season in the area peaks in October and November, just before Hudson Bay refreezes and bears begin migrating north and congregating near the shore.

In recent decades, bear season has been lasting longer because of climate change, residents say. The ice is melting sooner and freezing later, keeping the bears on land longer.

But attacks on humans remain rare. The last one was in 2013, according to the Reuters news agency, and there hadn’t been a fatal attack since the early 1980s, CNN reported in 2021.