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UPS workers approve 5-year contract, capping contentious negotiations that threatened deliveries

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

By HALELUYA HADERO and MATT OTT (AP Business Writers)The union representing 340,000 UPS workers said Tuesday that its members voted to approve the tentative contract agreement reached last month, putting a final seal on contentious labor negotiations that threatened to disrupt package deliveries for millions of businesses and households nationwide. The Teamsters said in a statement that 86% of the votes casts were in favor of ratifying the contract. They also said it was passed by the highest vote for a contract in the history of the Teamsters at UPS. The union also said more than 40 supplemental agreements were also ratified, expect for one that covers roughly 170 members in Florida. The national master agreement will go into effect as soon as that supplement is renegotiated and ratified, it said. “Our members just ratified the most lucrative agreement the Teamsters have ever negotiated at UPS,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement. R...

Ticker: Feds approve wind farm off Rhode Island; UPS workers approve contract

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

A planned offshore wind farm moved a step closer to construction Tuesday with the Department of the Interior announcing it has approved the project, to be located in federal waters near Rhode Island south of Martha’s Vineyard.The Revolution Wind project will have an estimated capacity of more than 700 megawatts of renewable energy, capable of powering nearly 250,000 homes, and is expected to create about 1,200 jobs during construction, regulators said.It’s the department’s fourth approval of a commercial-scale, offshore wind energy project, joining the Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts, the South Fork Wind project off Rhode Island and New York, and the Ocean Wind 1 project off New Jersey.The plan identifies possible locations for the installation of 65 wind turbines and two offshore substations.Revolution Wind will create a fund to compensate for losses by recreational and commercial fisheries in Rhode Island and Massachusetts — as well as fisheries from othe...

Patriots claim defender off waivers from Panthers, cut WR

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

The Patriots have added size to their defensive front by claiming nose tackle Marquan McCall off waivers from the Carolina Panthers.The Patriots waived/injured wide receiver Tre Nixon to make room for McCall. Nixon suffered an injury during Saturday’s preseason game with the Green Bay Packers. He’ll revert to injured reserve if he clears waivers.McCall, who’s listed at 6-foot-3, 345 pounds, was a surprise cut by the Panthers. He was starting for Carolina’s defense earlier this summer.Related ArticlesNew England Patriots | Patriots 53-man roster projection: How many rookie receivers make the cut? New England Patriots | Mac Jones details ideal role as QB in Patriots’ offense New England Patriots | Bill Belichick not aware of any Patriots pursuit of Aaron Rodgers New England Patriots | Bill Belichick honors Tom Brady even before Patriots’ Week 1 tribute New England Patriots | Patrio...

Have home prices bottomed? While low housing inventory stymies sales, bidding wars prop up prices

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

By ALEX VEIGA (AP Business Writer)LOS ANGELES (AP) — The U.S. housing market remains in a deep sales slump, but the worst declines may be over when it comes to home prices.While home sales have fallen 22.3% through the first seven months of the year versus the same stretch in 2022, prices are being propped up by buyers competing for a near-record low inventory of properties on the market.The national median sales price rose to $406,700 last month, marking its first annual increase since January and the second month in a row that it’s been above $400,000, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.Home prices didn’t start falling on an annual basis until February, and even then the decline was modest, with the steepest drop 3% in May. That five-month streak of annual drops ended last month, when the median sales price rose 1.9% versus July last year. It’s now a eye-popping 45% higher than it was in July 2019.So, where do prices go from here? Homebuyers ...

Mac Jones has made one significant change in Patriots training camp this year

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

FOXBORO — Mac Jones isn’t only leaning on his offensive line and playmakers for help this summer. The Patriots quarterback is also picking the brains of his defensive teammates, and it’s led to veteran safety Adrian Phillips seeing a “way better quarterback” nearly four weeks into training camp.It’s been apparent on the practice field. Jones had perhaps his best practice as a Patriots quarterback Thursday in Green Bay during joint practices with the Packers. He followed that up with an impressive performance in Saturday’s preseason game.The Patriots were expected to conduct a quarterback competition this summer. Jones never let backup Bailey Zappe get close enough to challenge him based on his play on the field.“I’ve seen him grow and change a lot. I don’t want to give too much detail into it just because I don’t want to give up his little tidbits,” Phillips said. “He took last year on the chin. He’ll be the first one to tell you...

Fenway Sports Management teams up with LPGA to increase global exposure of women’s golf

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

As the Red Sox fight for their playoff lives, new ventures abound for John Henry on the golf course.Fenway Sports Management, under the Fenway Sports Group portfolio, will be teaming up with the LPGA to increase exposure of women’s golf around the world and to “expand investment opportunities in the sport,” the global marketing firm announced Tuesday.The new partnership comes less than two months after Henry and Red Sox Chairman Tom Werner said they added a team in the TGL, a high-tech golf league developed by Tiger Woods, to bolster the Fenway Sports Group portfolio.The team, along with five others, will play at a venue in Palm Beach, Fla.As for its foray into the world of professional women’s golf, Fenway Sports Management will “assist in developing and selling LPGA partnership assets worldwide,” according to a release.Officials made clear that the rest of the FSM’s sports properties, which has grown significantly, will lead to increased revenue and global exposure for the LPGA.“T...

Scorching heat in central U.S. brings warnings and tragedy as 1-year-old girl dies in hot car

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Scorching heat affecting nearly 100 million people across a huge swath of the U.S. sent schools, outdoor workers and organizers of open-air events scrambling to adjust Tuesday — and claimed the life of a 1-year-old girl left in a Nebraska day care center’s van on one of the hottest days of the year.Officers and medics were called Monday afternoon to Kidz of the Future Childcare in Omaha for an unresponsive baby inside the van, police said. The call came as temperatures reached into the upper 90s (mid-30s Celsius) and the heat index soared to around 110 degrees (43 Celsius), part of heat wave that has been plaguing the central part of the country for days.The child, Ra’Miyah Worthington, was pronounced dead at a hospital, police said. Her parents questioned why her absence at the day care wasn’t noticed.“She loved, loved, loved her family,” her mother, Sina Johnson, told the television station WOWT. “She loved her daddy. She was daddy’s little girl.”Pro...

Toronto women stranded in Trinidad after over 90 pilot sick calls cancel Caribbean Airlines flights

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

Two Toronto women are stranded in Trinidad and Tobago after a pilot strike resulted in their cancelled flight, and the airline tells them they can’t return home until September.The women, who asked to remain anonymous, had both travelled to the area for vacation separately, but when they got to the airport in Tobago this past weekend, a frustrating experience brought the strangers together.Both were scheduled to fly from Tobago to Trinidad on Sunday before returning to Toronto.“At about 4 a.m., we got an email that our 9:55 a.m. flight was moved to 1 p.m. When I got to the airport, I asked if they could put me on the 11 a.m. flight instead, and that’s when customer service let me know that all pilots called in sick the night before,” said one of the women.On August 20, Caribbean Airlines took to social media to announce that several of their international and domestic flights to and from Trinidad and Tobago had to be cancelled after a “remarkably high v...

US to appeal Mexico’s refusal to investigate labor complaint at Mexican mine

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The U.S. government announced Tuesday it is filing its first appeal ever over Mexico’s refusal to investigate labor violations involving the right to organize.The U.S. Trade Representative’s Office said it will request a dispute resolution panel to decide the case of the San Martín mine in the northern state of Zacatecas, the first time it has done that on a labor issue under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.For more than two years, Mexico had accepted more than a dozen U.S. complaints on behalf of union organizers in Mexico who claimed they were prevented from organizing freely.But since the beginning of August, Mexico has started to flatly refuse to intervene in at least two cases, marking the first time it has rejected labor complaints.On Aug. 1, Mexico’s Economy Department rejected a U.S. complaint about the San Martín mine, which produces zinc, lead, copper and silver. The mine has been locked in a longstanding dispute between two unions that c...

Serena Williams has given birth to her second baby. It’s another daughter

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

Serena Williams has given birth to a baby girl, she posted Tuesday on Instagram, almost exactly a year after her last match as a tennis star.Adira River Ohanian is the second child — and second daughter — for the 41-year-old Williams and her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Their first, Olympia, was born in 2017.Williams, who won 23 Grand Slam singles titles during a career that transcended her sport, revealed at the Met Gala in May that she was pregnant.When she told the world in August 2022 she was preparing to close her playing career, Williams cited a desire to grow her family as one of the main reasons for walking away from tennis.“Believe me,” Williams wrote last year in an essay for Vogue magazine, “I never wanted to have to choose between tennis and a family. I don’t think it’s fair. If I were a guy I wouldn’t be writing this because I’d be out there playing and winning while my wife was doing the physical labor of expanding our family.”The 2022 U.S. Open was her l...