Month: June 2023

US decides to rejoin UNESCO and pay back dues, to counter Chinese influence

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FILE – The logo of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is seen during the 39th session of the General Conference at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, Saturday, Nov. 4, 2017. The United States is ready to rejoin the U.N. cultural and scientific agency UNESCO – and pay more than $600 million in back dues — after a decade-long dispute sparked by the organization’s move to include Palestine as a member. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)

By ANGELA CHARLTON Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — U.N. cultural and scientific agency UNESCO announced Monday that the United States plans to rejoin — and pay more than $600 million in back dues — after a decade-long dispute sparked by the organization’s move to include Palestine as a member.

U.S. officials say the decision to return was motivated by concern that China is filling the gap left by the U.S. in UNESCO policymaking, notably in setting standards for artificial intelligence and technology education around the world.

The U.S. and Israel stopped funding UNESCO after it voted to include Palestine as a member state in 2011, and the Trump administration decided in 2017 to withdraw from the agency altogether the following year, citing long-running anti-Israel bias and management problems. Continue reading

Money stored in Venmo and other payment apps could be vulnerable, financial watchdog warns

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FILE – The Venmo app is displayed on an iPad on March 20, 2018, in Baltimore. Customers of Venmo, PayPal and CashApp should not store their money for the long term with these apps because their funds might not be safe during a financial crisis, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warned on Thursday, June 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

By KEN SWEET AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Customers of Venmo, PayPal and CashApp should not store their money with those apps for the long term because the funds might not be safe during a crisis, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warned Thursday.

The alert comes several weeks after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic Bank, which all experienced bank runs after fearful customers with uninsured deposits pulled their money en masse.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insures bank accounts up to $250,000. But money stored in Venmo or CashApp or Apple Cash is not being held in a traditional bank account. So, if there is an event similar to a bank run with those payment apps, those funds may not be protected. Continue reading

UPS strike looms in a world grown reliant on everything delivered everywhere all the time

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A United Parcel Service driver pilots his truck, in New York, Thursday, May 11, 2023. More than 340,000 unionized United Parcel Service employees, including drivers and warehouse workers, say they are prepared to strike if the company does not meet their demands before the end of the current contract on July 31. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

By MATT OTT and HALELUYA HADERO AP Business Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Living in New York City, working full time and without a car, Jessica Ray and her husband have come to rely on deliveries of food and just about everything else for their home. It has meant more free time on weekends with their young son, rather than standing in line for toilet paper or dragging heavy bags of dog food back to their apartment.

“I don’t even know where to buy dog food,” said Jessica Ray of the specialty food she buys for the family’s aging dog.

There are millions of families like the Rays who have swapped store visits for doorstep deliveries in recent years, meaning that contentious labor negotiations now underway at UPS could become vastly more disruptive than the last time it happened in 1997, when a scrappy upstart called Amazon.com became a public company. Continue reading

As rising oceans threaten NYC, study documents another risk: The city is sinking

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FILE — Waves wash over the seawall near high tide at Battery Park in New York, Oct. 29, 2012, as Hurricane Sandy approaches the East Coast. If rising oceans aren’t worry enough, add this to the risks New York City faces: The metropolis is sinking under the weight of its skyscrapers, apartment buildings, asphalt and humanity itself — and will eventually become flooded by the Hudson River and Atlantic Ocean. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File)

By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — If rising oceans aren’t worry enough, add this to the risks New York City faces: The metropolis is slowly sinking under the weight of its skyscrapers, homes, asphalt and humanity itself.

New research estimates the city’s landmass is sinking at an average rate of 1 to 2 millimeters per year, something referred to as “subsidence.”

That natural process happens everywhere as ground is compressed, but the study published this month in the journal Earth’s Future sought to estimate how the massive weight of the city itself is hurrying things along.

More than 1 million buildings are spread across the city’s five boroughs. The research team calculated that all those structures add up to about 1.7 trillion tons (1.5 trillion metric tons) of concrete, metal and glass — about the mass of 4,700 Empire State buildings — pressing down on the Earth. Continue reading