By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker, who has said he opposes abortion with no exceptions, faced fresh allegations on Wednesday from a second woman who said he pressured her to have an abortion and paid for the procedure after a six-year relationship with him.

Walker, who hopes to unseat Democratic incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia in a Nov. 8 election that could determine which party controls the Senate, has already denied allegations from another woman who claims he paid for her to have an abortion in 2009 and that she later gave birth to one of his children.

Neither woman has revealed her identity publicly. The first to come forward provided supporting documents to the Daily Beast, an online media outlet, including a check.

“I’m done with this foolishness. I’ve already told people this is a lie,” Walker said when asked about the claim, according to video posted by Atlanta media. He has called the first woman’s assertions a “flat-out lie.”

Reuters has not been able to independently confirm either woman’s claim.

The woman making the new claim, identified only as “Jane Doe,” spoke by phone to a news conference organized by attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles.

“Herschel Walker is a hypocrite, and he is not fit to be a U.S. senator,” the woman said. “We don’t need people in the Senate who profess one thing and do another. Herschel Walker says he is against women having abortions. But he pressured me to have one.”

Allred said the woman had years of documents, including receipts and greeting cards, documenting her romantic relationship with Walker from the late 1980s through the 1990s. She showed some of these at the news conference.

The woman told reporters she became pregnant in April 1993. The former NFL football star encouraged her to have an abortion and gave her the money to pay for one, she said.

She said she went to a Dallas clinic intending to have an abortion, but decided against it and left. She said that Walker talked her into going forward with the procedure and drove her to the clinic the next day, where she went ahead with the abortion.

“He pressured me to have an abortion and personally ensured it occurred by driving me to the clinic and paying for it,” the woman said in a voice heavy with emotion.

Republicans have sought to characterize the allegations against Walker as a “smear” campaign by Democrats and instead have emphasized the potential for the toss-up Georgia race to decide which party controls the Senate in the last two years of Democratic President Joe Biden’s term.

Walker, a political novice endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has said he opposes abortion, including for rape, incest or to protect the health or life of the mother.

Allegations about abortion represent the latest scandal for Walker, a first-time candidate for office who has also faced allegations of domestic violence.

Warnock, who serves as pastor at the Atlanta church once led by Martin Luther King Jr., backs access to abortion and other reproductive healthcare, saying on his campaign website that the U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade “cannot stand.”

Recent polls show the race to be close, with Warnock holding a lead of a few percentage points, though short of the 50% threshold needed to avoid a Dec. 6 runoff election.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone, Cynthia Osterman and Jonathan Oatis)

By Johan Ahlander

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Swedbank on Thursday reported a better-than-expected operating profit for the third quarter, underpinned by strong income from mortgages.

The Swedish bank said in a statement its quarterly operating profit rose 24% to 8.70 billion crowns ($801 million) from 7.03 billion crowns posted last year, beating the 7.19 billion crowns seen by analysts in a Refinitiv poll.

“The quarter was marked by high and rising inflation and the response by central banks to tackle this,” Swedbank CEO Jens Henriksson said during a conference call. “Due to our position and business model, our net interest income benefits from this.”

Soaring inflation, fuelled in part by the Russia-Ukraine crisis, has seen central banks rapidly hiking rates, lifting interest income at Swedish banks but also squeezing households and businesses and depressing stock markets, potentially driving a rise in loan losses in the coming quarters.

“So far, we have not seen any material changes to the credit quality. The reservations we have made of 600 million crowns are macro and model-driven,” Henriksson said.

Swedbank, a rival of banks such as Handelsbanken, SEB and Nordea, said its interest income, which includes revenue from mortgages, rose to 8.36 billion crowns from 6.79 billion crowns a year ago and above the 7.56 billion analysts had forecast.

Commission income fell to 3.63 billion crowns from 3.80 billion crowns last year, beating the 3.53 billion seen by analysts.

Swedbank said high inflation, especially in the Baltic countries, meant that full-year expenses were likely to be around 1% higher than the cost cap of 20.5 billion crowns.

($1 = 10.8585 Swedish crowns)

(Reporting by Johan Ahlander, Editing by Terje Solsvik, Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Lincoln Feast.)

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Germany’s Lufthansa gave an upbeat forecast for air travel on Thursday, saying it expected demand to remain strong, with high average yields, as holidaymakers splash out on tickets.

Consumer demand for travel in Europe is holding up despite record-high euro zone inflation, with travellers willing to pay higher fares, according to recent statements by airlines including Ryanair and easyJet.

Lufthansa said on Thursday that the continued high premium demand from leisure travellers was especially remarkable, with load factors in Business and First Class exceeding pre-pandemic levels. Its yields, a metric of profitability, jumped by 23% in the third quarter versus 2019, reaching a new record high.

“With this sort of commentary even at the end of October, by when the airline should have significant visibility into November (one of the softest months in a typical year), we could be looking at an industry confounding fears of a macro-driven slowdown even as Europeans turn the heating on,” Bernstein analyst Alex Irving said.

Lufthansa plans to offer around 80% of its pre-pandemic capacity at its airlines in the fourth quarter, which should help it achieve a quarterly operating profit, it said as it published full quarterly financial results.

The group last week raised its forecast for full-year adjusted operating profit to over 1 billion euros ($980 million), boosted by strong demand for air travel that continued its post-COVID recovery.

The company had previously expected adjusted operating profit (EBIT) of more than 500 million euros.

In the third quarter, it posted adjusted EBIT of 1.13 billion euros ($1.14 billion), up from 251 million a year earlier, it said on Thursday.

($1 = 0.9930 euros)

(Reporting by Ilona Wissenbach; writing by Maria Sheahan, editing by Kirsti Knolle and Jason Neely)

By Mike Spector and Dan Levine

Tesla Inc is under criminal investigation in the United States over claims that the company’s electric vehicles can drive themselves, three people familiar with the matter said.

The U.S. Department of Justice launched the previously undisclosed probe last year following more than a dozen crashes, some of them fatal, involving Tesla’s driver assistance system Autopilot, which was activated during the accidents, the people said.

As early as 2016, Tesla’s marketing materials have touted Autopilot’s capabilities. On a conference call that year, Elon Musk, the Silicon Valley automaker’s chief executive, described it as “probably better” than a human driver.

Last week, Musk said on another call Tesla would soon release an upgraded version of “Full Self-Driving” software allowing customers to travel “to your work, your friend’s house, to the grocery store without you touching the wheel.”

A video currently on the company’s website says: “The person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.”

However, the company also has explicitly warned drivers that they must keep their hands on the wheel and maintain control of their vehicles while using Autopilot.

The Tesla technology is designed to assist with steering, braking, speed and lane changes but its features “do not make the vehicle autonomous,” the company says on its website.

Such warnings could complicate any case the Justice Department might wish to bring, the sources said.  

Tesla, which disbanded its media relations department in 2020, did not respond to written questions from Reuters on Wednesday. Musk also did not respond to written questions seeking comment. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.  

Musk said in an interview with Automotive News in 2020 that Autopilot problems stem from customers using the system in ways contrary to Tesla’s instructions.

Federal and California safety regulators are already scrutinizing whether claims about Autopilot’s capabilities and the system’s design imbue customers with a false sense of security, inducing them to treat Teslas as truly driverless cars and become complacent behind the wheel with potentially deadly consequences.

The Justice Department investigation potentially represents a more serious level of scrutiny because of the possibility of criminal charges against the company or individual executives, the people familiar with the inquiry said.

As part of the latest probe, Justice Department prosecutors in Washington and San Francisco are examining whether Tesla misled consumers, investors and regulators by making unsupported claims about its driver assistance technology’s capabilities, the sources said.

Officials conducting their inquiry could ultimately pursue criminal charges, seek civil sanctions or close the probe without taking any action, they said.

The Justice Department’s Autopilot probe is far from recommending any action partly because it is competing with two other DOJ investigations involving Tesla, one of the sources said. Investigators still have much work to do and no decision on charges is imminent, this source said.

The Justice Department may also face challenges in building its case, said the sources, because of Tesla’s warnings about overreliance on Autopilot.

For instance, after telling the investor call last week that Teslas would soon travel without customers touching controls, Musk added that the vehicles still needed someone in the driver’s seat. “Like we’re not saying that that’s quite ready to have no one behind the wheel,” he said.

The Tesla website also cautions that, before enabling Autopilot, the driver first needs to agree to “keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times” and to always “maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle.”

Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney in Detroit who prosecuted automotive companies and employees in fraud cases and is not involved in the current probe, said investigators likely would need to uncover evidence such as emails or other internal communications showing that Tesla and Musk made misleading statements about Autopilot’s capabilities on purpose.  

SEVERAL PROBES

The criminal Autopilot investigation adds to the other probes and legal issues involving Musk, who became locked in a court battle earlier this year after abandoning a $44 billion takeover of social media giant Twitter Inc, only to reverse course and proclaim excitement for the looming acquisition.

In August 2021, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into a series of crashes, one of them fatal, involving Teslas equipped with Autopilot slamming into parked emergency vehicles.

NHTSA officials in June intensified their probe, which covers 830,000 Teslas with Autopilot, identifying 16 crashes involving the company’s electric cars and stationary first-responder and road maintenance vehicles. The move is a step that regulators must take before requesting a recall. The agency had no immediate comment. 

In July this year, the California Department of Motor Vehicles accused Tesla of falsely advertising its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving capability as providing autonomous vehicle control. Tesla filed paperwork with the agency seeking a hearing on the allegations and indicated it intends to defend against them. The DMV said in a statement it is currently in the discovery stage of the proceeding and declined further comment.  

(Additional reporting by Hyunjoo Jin and David Shepardson; Editing by Deepa Babington)

By Noah Browning

LONDON (Reuters) – The drop in Russian fossil fuel exports after its Ukraine invasion this year will transform the global energy landscape for decades and can help to hasten a green energy transition, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday.

The IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook acknowledges the economic hit from reduced supplies of Russian oil, natural gas and coal but is keeping an environmental best case scenario in which no investment in new fossil fuel projects is needed.

The IEA’s report said the global energy crisis is causing profound and long-lasting changes that could hasten the transition to a more sustainable and secure energy system.

“Energy markets and policies have changed as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, not just for the time being, but for decades to come,” said IEA executive director Fatih Birol.

“The energy world is shifting dramatically before our eyes. Government responses around the world promise to make this a historic and definitive turning point towards a cleaner, more affordable and more secure energy system”, Birol added.

Short-term gaps created by the reduction in fossil fuel supplies from Russia will need to be plugged from elsewhere.

The strongest candidates are projects with “short lead times” which rapidly bring oil and gas supplies to market without locking in dependency.

Global clean energy investment is set to rise to more than $2 trillion a year by 2030, up by half from current levels, while “international energy markets undergo a profound reorientation in the 2020s as countries adjust to the rupture of Russia-Europe (energy) flows, the IEA said.

The IEA last year stunned the energy industry by saying lower demand and a rise in low emissions fuels made new oil and gas fields beyond 2021 unnecessary in its most climate-friendly Net Zero Emissions scenario.

PEAKS

On Russia, the IEA said the country, which is the world’s largest fossil fuel exporter, will never regain the share of the global energy supply mix it had before its invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s supply of internationally traded energy will fall to 13% by 2030 from about 20% in 2021, the IEA projects.

The IEA also said global demand for every type of fossil fuel is set for a peak or plateau for the first time in the agency’s history of modelling.

Global emissions of fossil fuels leading to climate change will peak by 2025, as coal use falls within the next several years, natural gas demand plateaus by 2030, and oil demand levels off in the middle of the next decade before falling.

“One of the effects of Russia’s actions is that the era of rapid growth in natural gas demand draws to a close,” the IEA said, pointing to a rise in global demand for gas of less than 5% between last year and 2030.

(Reporting By Noah Browning. Editing by Jane Merriman)

By Luis Jaime Acosta

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s Congress on Wednesday approved a law to allow President Gustavo Petro to seek peace deals with leftist rebels and criminal groups tied to drug trafficking via negotiations and processes of surrender.

Petro, the country’s first leftist president, has proposed a process of “total peace” to bring Colombia’s internal armed conflict of almost six decades to an end.

Fighting in the Andean country has left at least 450,000 dead and millions displaced.

The new law will enable Petro to begin peace talks with guerrilla organization the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissident groups from the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who reject a 2016 peace deal.

Petro also has the green light to begin talks with criminal groups accused of drug trafficking such as the Clan del Golfo.

“This is the first step towards the deepening of democracy, solidarity, inclusion, but above all the start of definitively turning the page on the bloodbath in which we are still immersed, of the delay to which the armed conflict subjects us, which should lead us towards total peace, where life is dignified,” Interior Minister Alfonso Prada told reporters.

Colombia’s Senate and the House of Representatives will still have to agree on whether young people can avoid military service in exchange for performing activities that further peace.

The Senate voted to block the proposal, while the House of Representatives approved it.

The government and the ELN said this month they will reestablish peace talks in November, though they have yet to announce a start date or a location.

Petro in August proposed a multilateral ceasefire between armed groups and Colombia’s military while peace efforts move forward.

The new law will allow illegal armed groups to move to temporary locations where orders for their capture and potential extraditions will be suspended until talks are concluded.

It will also include a provision for a new peace fund to guarantee social investments in areas affected by violence and the presence of illegal armed groups.

Both leftist rebel groups and criminal gangs, which together count some 6,000 fighters, are involved in extortion, homicides, drug trafficking and illegal gold mining, according to security sources.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

By Eduardo Baptista and Anand Katakam

BEIJING (Reuters) – Xi Jinping emerged from the 20th Communist Party Congress with a precedent-breaking third leadership term and a Politburo Standing Committee made up entirely of loyalists, cementing his place as China’s most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong.

Under Xi’s decade in power, China has undergone profound change, both domestically and within the global context.

Here are some of the ways that China has changed under Xi.

1. Perceptions of China in the West and U.S.-allied countries have worsened

U.S.-China relations have deteriorated sharply in recent years, a decline that accelerated under former U.S. President Donald Trump’s hawkish turn on Beijing. But western perceptions have also been worsened by concerns over human rights as well as China’s increasing aggression towards Taiwan.

Perceptions of China among the West and U.S.-allied countries https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/jnvwygwokvw/chart_eikon.jpg

2. Xi’s campaign against corruption

Upon taking office, Xi initiated a signature drive to root out corruption within the Communist Party, which has proven popular with the public and which numerous analysts say has also been a useful tool for eliminating political opponents.

Corruption cases under Xi https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/lgvdkmmgdpo/chart.png

3. The taming of once-unruly borderlands

The regions of Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong, all far from Beijing, have long created headaches for China’s ruling Communist Party.

Xi launched unprecedented, sweeping security crackdowns that brought the borderlands under control.

In Xinjiang, that included the internment of an estimated one million minority Muslim Uyghurs in camps; in Hong Kong, Beijing responded to major anti-government protests in 2019 with a sweeping national security law.

Hong Kong Police Force budget https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/dwpkronyavm/chart.png

Imprisonments in Xinjiang https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/zdvxolwgjpx/chart.png

Public security budget for Tibet https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/akpezdrjkvr/chart.png

4. Turning up the heat on Taiwan

All Chinese leaders since Mao have stressed the importance of “reunifying” China with the self-governed island of Taiwan.

But tensions across the Taiwan strait have sharply increased under Xi, with the People’s Liberation Army increasing its activity around the island in recent years, from military drills to a spike in incursions into the island’s air defense identification zone.

The August visit to Taipei by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi provoked Chinese military exercises on an unprecedented scale.

Chinese military aircraft entering Taiwan’s air defense identification zone https://graphics.reuters.com/TAIWAN-CHINA/movankeompa/chart.png

5. The state is increasingly taking the economic lead

Xi has ratcheted up state control and guidance of the economy, including a wide-ranging crackdown on the most free-wheeling sectors of the private sector, especially online platforms and for-profit education.

The clampdown on those sectors, as well as the impact of ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, has pushed up urban unemployment and pushed down consumer confidence.

Mood in China’s Private Sector https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/lgpdkmkelvo/Mood%20in%20China’s%20Private%20sector.png

6. Slowing growth, rising incomes

The era of yearly double-digit growth ended before Xi took office and the rate of growth has been declining, which was inevitable as the size of the economy grows.

Incomes have steadily risen under Xi.

A growing number of analysts warn that China’s investment-heavy, infrastructure-driven model is increasingly unsustainable, with further slowdown ahead.

China’s Annual GDP growth https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/akvezdwdgpr/qHV9B-china-s-annual-gdp-growth.png

China’s per capita GDP https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/jnvweqdmmvw/cTMIa-china-s-per-capita-gdp.png

7. The quashing of dissent, the expansion of censorship

Xi has cracked down on domestic critics and protests, eliminating space for dissent, while censorship inside China’s “Great Firewall” steadily intensifies.

Detention of individuals in secret jails https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/zjpqkxgdwpx/chart.png

China’s Internet freedom https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/lbvggroaevq/chart_eikon.jpg

8. The world’s largest military grows, modernises

The People’s Liberation Army, led by Xi, has been closing the gap with the United States, including on the high seas, with major implications for tensions surrounding Taiwan, as China ratchets up its capability to seize the island on what some U.S. officials warn is a shortening timeline.

China’s naval expansion in the past decade https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/gdvzqrrbepw/chart.png

9. China leads on green tech – and in pollution

While China struggles to shake its dependence on coal, it has become the global leader in the manufacture of electric vehicles and won plaudits for its pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. Most visibly, air quality in China has steadily improved over the past decade.

China’s air quality https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/egpbkzxzavq/4tDrQ-china-s-air-quality(1).png

China’s coal production https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/lgvdwrzrlpo/SuI5F-china-s-coal-production.png

Share of coal in China’s total energy mix https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/lbvgnqeqgpq/IP2hY-share-of-coal-in-china-s-total-energy-mix.png

Electrical vehicles production https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/byvrjzwzjve/jZ4nB-electrical-vehicles-production(1).png

10. Extreme poverty eliminated, inequality persists

Xi describes elimination of extreme poverty in China as one of the key Communist Party achievements of the past decade.

Inequality, however, has proven a tougher challenge – especially the gap between urban and rural incomes – something Xi is seeking to tackle with his “common prosperity” policy.

China’s official Gini coefficient numbers show that despite a slight decline in recent years, it still has one of the highest income inequalities among large economies, along with the United States.

Income inequality in China https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/zjpqjqynmvx/chart_eikon.jpg

China’s rural poverty rate https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-CONGRESS/gdvzyzlxopw/eNDnl-china-s-rural-poverty-rate.png

(Graphics by Anand Katakam; Reporting by Eduardo Baptista, David Stanway, Martin Pollard, Kevin Yao, Samuel Shen, Marius Zaharia, Beijing and Shanghai newsrooms; Writing by Eduardo Baptista; Editing by Tony Munroe and Lincoln Feast)

By Liangping Gao and Ryan Woo

BEIJING (Reuters) -Profits at China’s industrial firms fell at a faster clip in the January-September period as COVID-19 curbs and a property crisis continued to weigh heavily on factory activity, piling pressure on firms grappling with weak demand and high costs.

China’s strict “zero-COVID” policy of constantly monitoring, testing and isolating its citizens to prevent the spread of the coronavirus has battered the country’s economy and manufacturing sector. Signs of weakening global demand are also weighing more heavily on export-oriented manufacturers.

Profits fell 2.3% in the first nine months of 2022 from a year earlier, after a 2.1% drop in the January-August period, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on Thursday.

The recovery in profits faces challenges as some industrial firms with high costs and declining profits have difficulties in production and operation, said Zhu Hong, senior NBS statistician, said in a statement.

“In the future, China will focus on the development of the real economy, efficiently coordinating COVID-19 prevention and control and economic development, in order to make a series of policy measures take effect.”

The bureau did not report standalone figures for September and August, but said in a separate statement that the decline in profits at industrial firms in September narrowed by 6.0 percentage points compared with the previous month.

The Shanghai Industrial share sub index is down nearly 20% so far this year.

After nearly contracting in spring, China’s third-quarter economic growth was faster than expected, helped by a raft of government measures.

September activity data showed strong industrial output, but prolonged property woes, slower exports and stubbornly weak retail sales are clouding the outlook for a more robust recovery in the longer term.

For January-September, profits at state-owned companies rose 3.8% on year while foreign, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan-invested enterprises and private firms both reported profit declines, down 9.3% and 8.1%, respectively.

However, for upstream companies, the mining sector reported high profits, with a cumulative year-on-year increase of 76.0%, while profits in the manufacturing sector fell 13.2%.

Higher oil prices and rise in import costs from a weaker yuan have also added to companies’ woes in recent months.

Zhou Maohua, analyst at China Everbright Bank, said some manufacturing industries in the middle and downstream segments were facing pressure from the cost of energy and raw materials.

The authorities should maintain their policy measures aimed at stabilising supply and prices, Zhou added.

Despite better-than-expected third quarter GDP growth, analysts at Goldman Sachs cut their fourth quarter growth forecast to 3.5% on a quarter-on-quarter annualised basis from 5.0% previously.

“High-frequency data including emerging industries PMI (EPMI), new home sales, auto sales, transportation and long holiday tourism revenue pointed to a likely weak start in Q4,” Goldman Sachs analysts said.

China Resources Cement Holdings Ltd, among the country’s largest cement producers, reported last week that its nine-month turnover fell 22% to HK$24.2 billion ($3.1 billion).

Industrial profits data covers large firms with annual revenues above 20 million yuan ($2.79 million) from their main operations.

($1 = 7.1652 Chinese yuan)

($1 = 7.8493 Hong Kong dollars)

(Additional reporting by Ella Cao; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

(Refiles to remove extraneous word in paragraph 2.)

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico City’s mayor said on Wednesday she wants to boost the number of ‘digital nomads’ in the capital after signing an agreement with short-term rental platform Airbnb, despite fears the influx is pricing residents out of the rental market.

Asked about complaints over rising rents during a press conference, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said the local administration has not seen a direct link between rental prices and Airbnb’s presence.

Sheinbaum said most digital nomads – people working online remotely rather than in an office, often in another country – choose to stay in expensive neighborhoods, where the rent is already higher than other areas of the capital, such as Condesa, Roma and Polanco.

“We do not want rents to skyrocket in the face of this situation,” she said, adding that her administration will keep monitoring the situation.

Airbnb could not be immediately reached for comment.

Average daily rates for short-term rentals across Mexico City jumped 27% to $93 in August 2022 compared with the same month in 2019, data from market research company AirDNA shows.

Housing activists and some researchers have said the digital nomad influx stokes inflation and transforms neighborhoods into expatriate bubbles, in a city well-known for stark divides between rich and poor.

Airbnb is also opening its platforms for Mexican residents to create tourism experiences around their daily activities, according to Sheinbaum.

The partnership between Mexico City’s government and Airbnb is also backed by UNESCO, United Nations’ cultural agency.

(This story has been refiled to remove extraneous word in paragraph 2)

(Reporting by Valentine Hilaire; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)

BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Chinese automaker Geely’s new energy vehicle subsidiary on Wednesday said its brand Farizon has raised over $300 million from a funding round led by Asian logistics firm GLP’s investment arm Hidden Hill Capital.

The new capital raise, which involves other investors such as Chinese logistics and chemical group Transfar and an investment firm backed by major Chinese investment bank CITIC Securities, came as Geely stepped up its new energy vehicle development.

Hangzhou-based Geely Holding Group, owner of Zhejiang Geely New Energy Commercial Vehicle Group which sells Farizon, is known globally with its investments in Volvo Cars and Mercedes-Benz. Geely Holding’s listed subsidiary Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd said it aims to increase the proportion of electric vehicles in its total sales to 50% in 2023.

Farizon will use much of the funding “for research & development and ecosystem development, in order to further consolidate its market-leading position in new energy commercial vehicles,” Zhejiang Geely New Energy Commercial Vehicle Group said in a statement.

Geely New Energy Commercial Vehicle did not disclose Farizon’s valuation in the statement.

The Industry Foundation of the Chinese city of Xiangtan, in the southern province of Hunan, Geely-backed GLy Capital and South Korea’s Mirae Asset also participated in the capital raise, according to the statement.

With GLP’s business presence across over 400 logistics facilities and warehouses in China, Hidden Hill Capital will help Farizon promote the rental and sales of urban logistics vehicles and marketing of refrigerated cars, and support Farizon in exploring new business models, the statement said.

Zeekr, a different electric vehicle brand backed by Geely Holding Group, last year raised $500 million in its first external funding from investors including Intel Capital, battery maker CATL and online entertainment firm Bilibili.

(This story has been corrected to reflect company’s new name to GLP in lead paragraph)

(Reporting by Roxanne Liu and Kane Wu; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – U.S. doctors are warning that a surge in cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is coinciding with an increase in COVID transmission and an earlier-than-normal flu season, raising the specter of a “tripledemic” of respiratory illness this winter.

In particular, RSV infections among young children are reportedly filling some U.S. hospitals to capacity.

“We are already seeing patients testing positive for more than one virus,” said pediatrician Dr. Ira Wardono of Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center in Tarzana, California, in a statement.

WHO IS AT RISK?

Infants are most at risk from RSV because they often cannot cough up the secretions caused by the virus and may need airway suctioning or intravenous fluids. Some may need extra oxygen. Older children and most adults typically experience mild, cold-like symptoms.

On average, RSV leads to 58,000 hospitalizations among children under age 5 and 177,000 hospitalizations among adults age 65 and older each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

RSV deaths are rare in U.S. children, but 14,000 adults die annually from the virus, with older or immunocompromised individuals at greatest risk, the CDC said.

WHAT CAN PREVENT RSV?

Infection with RSV can be prevented in the same way one would ward off any virus: staying away from people who are sick, ensuring the best possible ventilation when you are indoors, wearing a high quality mask, and keeping your hands as clean as possible, said Dr. Jay Varma, Chief Medical Adviser at Kroll.com and Director of the Weill Cornell Center for Pandemic Prevention and Response.

High-risk infants can receive preventive treatment with monthly doses of Synagis (palivizumab) from Swedish drugmaker Orphan Biovitrum. AstraZeneca Plc and Sanofi SA are hoping for U.S. and European approval of Beyfortus (nirsevimab) for preventing RSV infections in newborns and infants.

There is no vaccine against RSV, although Pfizer Inc is developing RSVpreF for adults. In the meantime, it is important “for everyone to get up to date on their COVID and flu vaccines,” Varma said.

WHAT IS CAUSING THIS SURGE?

Part of the increase in RSV cases is due to the relaxation of COVID-precautions, such as masking and social distancing, which reduced rates of both RSV and flu during the pandemic, Varma said.

RSV rates were unusually low in the fall/winter of 2020-2021 but increased dramatically starting in Spring 2021 and have spiked since late August.

The CDC says it cannot yet predict when the previous seasonal patterns will return.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Richard Pullin)

By Paul Lienert

DETROIT (Reuters) – The road map to fully self-driving vehicles is being rewritten once again, this time by Ford Motor Co and Volkswagen AG.

When the two automakers joined forces in July 2019 to share control of self-driving startup Argo AI, it shook up the landscape among other key players.

Wednesday’s announcement that Pittsburgh-based Argo is being shuttered and some of its employees moving to Ford and VW underscores the growing realization that automated vehicles may be even further away from mass deployment than industry executives predicted back in 2019.

“It’s become very clear that profitable, fully autonomous vehicles at scale are still a long way off,” Ford CFO John Lawler said on Wednesday.

As Ford, General Motors Co and other companies began to realize they would need to step up investment over a longer period of time, “it was never clear what the financial returns were going to be” on automated vehicles, Evangelos Simoudis, an investor, author and corporate adviser, told Reuters on Wednesday.

Regarding Ford and Volkswagen’s exit from Argo AI, Simoudis said, “I expect we will see more of those decisions.”

As the AV deployment timeline stretches out even further – after an estimated $100 billion cumulative investment by global automakers and suppliers – once-inflated valuations of self-driving companies have come crashing to earth.

VW’s initial investment in Argo in 2019 was valued at $2.6 billion, including $1 billion in cash and the $1.6 billion value of VW’s European self-driving unit, which was absorbed into Argo. VW also bought Argo shares from Ford for $500 million.

Ford previously injected $1 billion into Argo when it bought control of the company in 2017. On Wednesday, it wrote down $2.7 billion in impairment charges.

Before it acquired the stake in Argo, VW flirted with at least two other U.S.-based self-driving startups: Alphabet Inc’s Waymo and Aurora Innovation.

VW reportedly considered a $13.7 billion investment in 2018 in Waymo for a 10% stake that would have valued Waymo at $137 billion.

The value of Waymo just before then was estimated by Wall Street at $175 billion to $250 billion. Its most recent valuation by PitchBook of $30.75 billion dates to May 2020.

The market cap of Aurora, which went public nearly a year ago, has sunk to $2.5 billion, from a 52-week high of more than $20 billion.

When VW announced its initial investment in Argo in July 2019, it walked away from a development deal with Aurora, when the Silicon Valley firm was valued at $2.5 billion and backed by Hyundai Motor and Amazon.com Inc.

Hyundai eventually formed a self-driving joint venture called Motional with Aptiv. Amazon bought self-driving startup Zoox.

Argo’s most recent valuation was $7.25 billion, but that was more than two years ago, according to investor website PitchBook. The company laid off 150 employees in July, when it said it was adjusting its business plan.

The value of its nearest rival, the General Motors majority-owned Cruise, was estimated by PitchBook at $30 billion in January 2021, but its current value likely has dropped since key investor SoftBank sold its stake back to GM earlier this year. GM meanwhile is losing $2 billion a year on Cruise.

Mobileye Global went public this week, but at a third of the $50 billion valuation it was targeting earlier in its IPO.

The company, which was acquired by Intel Corp in 2017 for $15.3 billion, saw its market cap recover to more than $21 billion on Wednesday, reflecting the company’s financial strength and reputation, particularly in assisted driving systems. Intel still holds a majority stake.

(Reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit; Editing by Matthew Lewis)