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State Farm stops home insurance sales in California, citing wildfire risks

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:20:56 GMT

New York (CNN) — State Farm is stopping new home insurance sales in California, citing wildfire risks and skyrocketing construction costs, the company announced Friday.The insurance giant stopped accepting applications for all business and personal lines property and casualty insurance in California on May 27. However, State Farm’s decision does not affect existing auto insurance.“State Farm General Insurance Company made this decision due to historic increases in construction costs outpacing inflation, rapidly growing catastrophe exposure, and a challenging reinsurance market,” the company said in a statement.California has seen an average of more than 7,000 wildfires each year, consuming an average of over 2 million acres, over the past five years, according to data from the governor’s office. Scientists and California authorities blame the climate crisis for the intensity of the fire seasons.State Farm, which is the largest provider of auto and home insurance ...

Piping plover population rebounds on North Shore to Cape Cod beaches

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:20:56 GMT

Efforts to protect the piping plover population are paying off in a big way. The piping plover is a small shorebird native to North America.The state has seen an incredible increase in the number of breeding pairs, from just 135 to more than a thousand.Lyra Brennan is the director of Massachusetts Audubon Society’s Coastal Waterbird Program in Cape Cod. She said the return of the piping plovers is exciting for all beachgoers.“We’re giving people a chance to see there’s wildlife right here next to us on the beach where maybe we grew up going and they weren’t there 20 years ago,” she said. “Getting to see that and being able to point out the chicks to folks’ families, it’s really rewarding to be able to share that success with people who love the beach.”But the increase likely means more beaches are ramping up restrictions to protect the birds. Piping plovers are tiny, and the chicks look like cotton balls. They also tend to blend in with the ...

Eloy Jiménez is back with the Chicago White Sox after undergoing an appendectomy earlier this month

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:20:56 GMT

Eloy Jiménez singled and scored on May 5 against the Cincinnati Reds. It was his eighth straight game with a hit.The next day, the Chicago White Sox outfielder/designated hitter was in the hospital as he underwent an appendectomy.Jiménez returned Sunday as the Sox concluded their four-game series against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park.Jiménez made remarkable progress in a short amount of time.“He had his mind right,” Sox manager Pedro Grifol said Thursday. “His mind was good. He wanted to come back and be a part of this. We want him to be a part of this.“He was pushing, we were pushing. He’s done a great job with his rehab, not only physically but mentally.”Jiménez is slashing .258/.321/.423 with four homers and 15 RBIs in 25 games. He is 14-for-33 (.424) with two home runs, eight RBIs, six runs and a 1.109 OPS during the eight-game hitting streak. He played in three games for Double-A Birmingham during a rehab assignment....

Polls close in Turkey as voters choose between Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu in presidential runoff

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:20:56 GMT

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey began counting ballots Sunday evening in a runoff presidential race that will decide whether the country’s longtime leader stretches his increasingly authoritarian rule into a third decade, or is unseated by a challenger who has promised to restore a more democratic society.Turkey does not have exit polls, but preliminary results are expected within hours after polls closed at 5 p.m.The final decision could have implications far beyond Ankara. Turkey stands at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, and it plays a key role in NATO.Erdogan’s government vetoed Sweden’s bid to join NATO and purchased Russian missile-defense systems, which prompted the United States to oust Turkey from a U.S.-led fighter-jet project. But it also helped broker a crucial deal that allowed Ukrainian grain shipments and averted a global food crisis.President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been at Turkey’s helm for 20 years, was favored to win a new five-year term in the second-round r...

Biden and GOP reach debt-ceiling deal. Now Congress must approve it to prevent calamitous default

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:20:56 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — An “agreement in principle” between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy would raise the nation’s legal debt ceiling, but now Congress has only days to approve a package that includes spending cuts and would avert a potentially disastrous U.S. default.The compromise announced late Saturday risks angering both Democratic and Republican lawmakers as they begin to unpack the concessions. Negotiators agreed to some Republican demands for increased work requirements for recipients of food stamps that House Democrats had called a nonstarter. But bargainers stopped short of greater spending cuts overall that Republicans wanted.Support from both parties will be needed to win congressional approval before a projected June 5 government default on U.S. debts. Lawmakers are not expected to return to work from the Memorial Day weekend before Tuesday, at the earliest, and McCarthy has promised lawmakers he will abide by the rule to post any bill for 72 hour...

Hamilton police say engaged couple shot dead while fleeing landlord-tenant dispute

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:20:56 GMT

Hamilton police say an engaged couple embroiled in a landlord-tenant dispute were shot dead as they fled their attacker on Saturday and “are truly innocent victims.”Sgt. Steve Bereziuk says a 27-year-old female educational assistant and a 28-year-old male electrician were shot dead just outside the home they shared in the neighbourhood of Stoney Creek. Their names have not been released.Bereziuk says the 57-year-old suspect is a landlord who barricaded himself in the home for hours after the couple died while police negotiators tried to resolve the situation peacefully.Bereziuk says he later fired shots from the home, prompting an unspecified interaction with city police.The suspect ultimately died and his death is now being probed by the Special Investigations Unit, Ontario’s police watchdog.Bereziuk says none of the people involved were known to police, a factor he says makes the situation a little more shocking. “These are not people that this should happen to,” Bereziuk sa...

Ukraine’s Kostyuk booed at French Open after no handshake with Belarus’ Sabalenka because of war

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:20:56 GMT

PARIS (AP) — Unable to sleep the night before her first-round match at the French Open against Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, the Grand Slam tournament’s No. 2 seed, Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine checked her phone at 5 a.m. Sunday and saw disturbing news back home in Kyiv.At least one person was killed when the capital of Kostyuk’s country was subjected to the largest drone attack by Russia since the start of its war, launched with an invasion assisted by Belarus in February 2022.“It’s something I cannot describe, probably. I try to put my emotions aside any time I go out on court. I think I’m better than before, and I don’t think it affects me as much on a daily basis, but yeah, it’s just — I don’t know,” Kostyuk said, shaking her head. “There is not much to say, really. It’s just part of my life.”That, then, is why Kostyuk has decided she will not exchange the usual post-match pleasantries with opponents from Russia or Belarus. And that is why she avoided a handshake — avoided...

Climate change could mean fewer ‘date nights’ for Arctic ground squirrels

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:20:56 GMT

As temperatures rise in the North, scientists say it’s affecting how Arctic ground squirrels hibernate — and it could have serious consequences for the species.The furry critters survive the harsh Arctic winters by burrowing underground and hibernating for eight months before emerging in the spring ready to eat and breed. As the males go through seasonal puberty every year, they normally wake up about a month earlier so they are ready to mate when the female Arctic ground squirrels resurface.But in a new study published in Science, researchers found that over the past 25 years, female squirrels have been ending hibernation about 10 days earlier in response to earlier spring thaw while the males have not.“If this continues, females are going to be ready to mate with males before males are physiologically able to mate with females,” said senior author Cory Williams, assistant professor in the department of biology at Colorado State University, who has been studying A...

Credit unions trending towards greater unity as tech pressures mount

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:20:56 GMT

TORONTO — From the Tobacco Workers’ Credit Union in Guelph to the New Community Credit Union in Saskatoon, the names tell part of Canada’s history even as they’re now history themselves.The two credit unions are part of a growing number that have been bought, merged or shut down over the years as a combination of pressures push increasing consolidation in the sector.While credit union numbers have been on the decline since the 1960s, insiders say rising technology demands, which ramped up during the pandemic, have led to a spike in the trend.“Over the pandemic, we’ve seen a massive shift in use of digital technology, mobile technology, not just for younger people, but through all demographics,” said Jeff Guthrie, chief executive of the Canadian Credit Union Association.The increasing technology demands of customers, whether it’s improved smartphone apps or faster money transfers, combined with rising regulatory expectations, have helped drive incr...

20-year-old man found shot in Bolingbrook backyard dies

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:20:56 GMT

BOLINGBROOK, Ill. -- A 20-year-old man is dead after he was found shot Saturday night in a backyard in Bolingbrook, police said.Sian Carter, 20, was found by officers around 11:40 p.m. in the 1000 block of Ridgewood Drive. 3 shot in Lakeview He was taken to a hospital and died.Several shell casings were recovered from the scene, police said.Additional details haven't been released.Anyone with information can also call detectives at 630-226-8620 or report tips anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 630-378-4772.