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Bud Light brewer confident it can win back US drinkers, but sales are still down after backlash

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:19 GMT

Anheuser-Busch InBev said Tuesday that revenue growth in most of its global regions was offset by a drop in North American sales in the third quarter, in a sign of continuing fallout from a promotion with a transgender influencer.The world's largest brewer and parent company of Bud Light said its revenue climbed 5% to $15.6 billion for the July-September period. That was in line with Wall Street's estimates, according to analysts polled by FactSet. But revenue in the United States tumbled 13.5%. Bud Light sales plunged in early April amid a conservative backlash after the brand sent a commemorative can to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Bud Light also angered supporters of transgender rights who felt it abandoned Mulvaney. Top spots to drink local hard cider around Denver U.S. retail dollar sales of Bud Light were down 29% in the four weeks ending Oct. 21 compared to same period a year ago, according to Nielsen data compiled by Bump Williams Consulting. They are down nearly...

Police: Miami woman arrested after threatening to kill partner, assaulting her with saucepan

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:19 GMT

A Miami woman is facing multiple charges, including robbery, battery, and assault with a deadly weapon, following an incident that allegedly unfolded due to a dispute.Roquanda Veronica McKay,35, and the victim, who have been in a romantic relationship for approximately one year and seven months and have lived together for about eight months, reportedly engaged in an argument on Monday at their Miami-Dade residence. The dispute escalated when McKay armed herself with a saucepan and struck the victim in the head with it, according to the arrest report. She also reportedly grabbed a nightstand and hurled it at the victim. Police said McKay then armed herself with a knife and began cutting their bedroom mattress.The victim started recording McKay, who allegedly snatched the victim’s cellular phone from her hands. McKay left the residence with the victim’s property but returned later. At that point, McKay reportedly placed a knife on the victim’s neck and threatened to ...

Israeli forces confirm deadly strike on Gaza refugee camp

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:19 GMT

Dozens of Palestinians were killed and more than 150 injured after Israeli forces said they launched an attack on Gaza’s largest refugee camp, Jabalia, in the northern part of the occupied Palestinian territory, according to Reuters. The Jabalia refugee camp is the largest of eight refugee camps in Gaza with over 116,000 Palestinian refugees, according to the UN’s refugee agency. Israel’s military said, according to Haaretz, that they “have taken control of Hamas military stronghold in Jabalia” and announced they had killed a Hamas commander.This announcement comes as Israel expanded its war to include a ground operation into Gaza in recent days as Western leaders struggle to send a unified message on the Israel-Hamas war and the thousands of civilian casualties. Israel has gradually increased the number of its troops in the Gaza Strip, as part of what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the “second stage of the war,” without referring to a gr...

Suggestive graffiti worries French Jews after Hamas attacks

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:19 GMT

Paris police are investigating after dozens of Jewish symbols were painted on buildings in the French capital, local prosecutors said Tuesday, as antisemitic acts continue to spike following Hamas’ attack in southern Israel in early October.Some 60 stars of David were daubed overnight on walls in the city’s 14th district, the prosecutors said in a written statement to POLITICO, prompting them to launch a probe into “property damage aggravated by the circumstance that it is because of origin, race, ethnicity or religion.”The Paris office cautioned, however, that it was not yet known whether the graffiti was hostile in intent.It has “not been established that this star has an anti-Semitic connotation, but this cannot be dismissed out of hand,” the prosecutors stated. “On the other hand, the public prosecutor’s office feels it necessary to investigate the underlying intention of these tags, particularly in view of the geopolitical context...

Ukraine steps up campaign for new weapons as Washington pivots to Israel crisis

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:19 GMT

Ukrainian officials and allies in Europe are ramping up their lobbying campaign in the U.S. for new weapons and training, as Washington’s support for the war appears imperiled by new House leadership and a crisis in the Middle East.In the most recent example, a delegation of Ukrainian officials, troops and advisers visited America’s capital late last week to share Kyiv’s latest wish list: U.S. Marine Corps training on conducting ship-to-shore operations; new air defenses to take down the Russian glide bombs that are devastating Ukrainian forces; and the long-range, single-warhead version of the Army Tactical Missile System the Biden administration secretly shipped to Ukraine last month.The representatives who came to the U.S. were aware that they needed to tailor their message to the moment.In an interview, Roman Tychkivskyy, a former Ukrainian marine who now works for Ukraine’s defense ministry, compared Russians to Hamas, the terrorist group that killed 1,400 Israelis in...

UK, US slated to announce AI safety partnership

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:19 GMT

LONDON — London and Washington are to announce a “close collaboration” on AI safety as early as Wednesday, a U.K and U.S. official confirmed to POLITICO. The collaboration is expected to marry new guardrails the White House placed on artificial intelligence development in this week’s executive order (EO) with existing work by the United Kingdom’s “Frontier AI Taskforce.”“We plan to announce close bilateral collaboration with the U.S. safety institute this week,” a U.K. official close to the planning of Britain’s AI safety summit told POLITICO. The person was granted anonymity to talk about the summit, which will take place at Bletchley Park on Nov. 1 and 2. Both countries will be announcing their own version of the institutes as the summit kicks off. In a speech Wednesday in London, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is representing the Biden administration at the summit, will announce the United States AI Safety Institute, which will be housed at the Department o...

A heavily armed man was found dead at a Colorado amusement park. Officials say he may have been planning a devastating attack

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:19 GMT

(CNN) — A man armed with guns and explosive devices was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at a Colorado amusement park, potentially averting “an attack of devastating proportions,” officials said.The 20-year-old’s body was found in a women’s bathroom Saturday morning before the scheduled opening time of the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park in Glenwood Springs, the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office said. It appears he entered the park illegally after it had last closed.He was “armed with a semi-automatic rifle and semi-automatic handgun and multiple, loaded magazines for both weapons,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “He was wearing body armor and what appeared to be a ballistic helmet. Additionally multiple improvised explosive devices, (IEDs), were discovered with the suspect and in a vehicle associated with the suspect.”“We are, to say the least, extremely lucky that he did not fulfill whatever plan he may have intentioned,” Garfield County S...

‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ review: Pizza and killer animatronics? On second thought, how about tacos somewhere?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:19 GMT

Michael Phillips | Chicago Tribune“Five Nights at Freddy’s” isn’t half as scary as one or two of the parent-vs.-parent brawls I witnessed a few years ago at Chuck E. Cheese’s, but that’s another story, too intense for any storytelling medium.Let’s talk about this story. Video game creator Scott Cawthon’s Chuck E.-inspired 2014 phenomenon takes place in a decrepit Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzajoint, with the requisite ball pit, wonky electrical wiring and smell of death, with a whiff of sheet cake. Its threatening animatronic creatures — a bear, a bunny, a one-pawed fox, a face-eating robo-bird — run the place at night, and are inhabited by the disintegrating bodies and tortured souls of children who … well, spoiler there, a little late on the warning, sorry, moving on.In the game, you take the role of night security guard Mike. You monitor the barely functional surveillance cameras and, once the robot killers come for you, you try to stay alive. There’s a labyrinth of backstory, dripped ou...

True or false: The Tyson Bagent fairy tale has reached the end for the Chicago Bears after Sunday’s shaky performance

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:19 GMT

Another week. Another loss. Another set of performance and injury issues to sift through. The Chicago Bears didn’t expect to be approaching the midpoint of their season this way, still unable to win consecutive games and staying far more relevant in the 2024 draft conversation than they are in the 2023 playoff picture.Sunday’s 30-13 blowout to the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., once again confirmed the Bears as a struggling team lacking the playmaking firepower to consistently beat quality opponents.As that latest defeat settles in, Tribune writers Dan Wiederer and Colleen Kane play a game of tTrue or false with four prominent topics.Kane: True or false? After Sunday’s shaky performance against the Chargers, the Tyson Bagent fairy tale is effectively over.Wiederer: Wait. What? Are we being serious here, Chicago? Are we seriously trying to implement a super-speed round for quarterback evaluation that offers only two starts before definiti...

Massachusetts judge takes appeal to governor’s shelter cap under advisement

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:19 GMT

A Suffolk County judge did not make an immediate ruling Tuesday afternoon on a Healey administration plan to cap the number of families in emergency shelter, saying a decision could come Wednesday as the state barrels closer to a capacity limit the governor has outlined.Lawyers for Civil Rights filed a lawsuit last week and requested a preliminary injunction on the self-imposed emergency shelter capacity limit, a move that riled homeless and housing advocates who said it will force some families to live outside as colder weather sets in.But Gov. Maura Healey and the state’s housing department argue Massachusetts has neither the funds, capacity, nor personnel to keep expanding the emergency shelter system through a sweeping network of hotels and motels. State officials projected capacity could be reached as early as Wednesday.In court, Lawyers for Civil Rights Attorney Jacob Love focused on a requirement in the fiscal 2024 state budget that the administration must produce a report fo...