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)

By Chavi Mehta and Katie Paul

(Reuters) – Wall Street is losing patience over Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg’s enormous and experimental bets on his metaverse project that helped drive up the company’s overall costs by a fifth in the third quarter.

Investors rushed to dump Meta Platforms Inc’s stock after hours, pushing it down 20% and wiping $67 billion off its market value after the company posted its fourth straight decline in quarterly profit.

The Facebook-parent said its overall expenses could rise as much as 16% next year and anticipates that operating losses at Reality Labs – the unit responsible for bringing the metaverse to life – “will grow significantly” next year.

One Meta shareholder had recently voiced concerns calling the company’s investments “super-sized and terrifying”. Analysts on Wednesday called them “confusing and confounding” and Meta’s inability to cut costs “extremely disturbing”.

On a post-earnings conference call, Jefferies analyst Brent Thill asked executives: “I think kind of summing up how investors are feeling right now is that there are just too many experimental bets versus proven bets on the core … I think everyone would love to hear why you think this pays off.”

In the July-September quarter, losses at Reality Labs ballooned to a whopping $3.67 billion from $2.63 billion a year earlier. Revenue nearly halved.

“It would be a mistake for us to not focus on any of these areas that will be fundamentally important to our future,” Zuckerberg said on the call.

“I know that sometimes when we ship a product … people say: ‘Hey, you’re spending all this money, and you’ve produced this thing,’ and I think that’s not really the right way to think about it.”

“…we’re doing leading work that will become … eventually mature products at different cadences in different periods of time over the next five to 10 years.”

He spoke about the company’s various efforts, including a recently unveiled virtual and mixed reality headset called Quest Pro that is priced at $1,500 and a social metaverse platform where people can express themselves via avatars.

He said Meta is investing in two other areas: augmented reality and neural interfaces.

BIG GAMBLE

“The metaverse … feels like a one big gamble given the economic crisis,” said Paolo Pescatore, an analyst at PP Foresight, adding that the journey ahead was going to be “long and painful”.

“People are not rushing out of their seats to buy a VR headset or even watch 360 degree videos … The new device still feels like an expensive toy,” he said.

At a time when other tech companies such as Microsoft and Google-parent Alphabet are cutting jobs or slowing hiring, Meta’s headcount surged 32% in the third quarter from the end of the second.

In an open letter to Zuckerberg on Monday, Meta shareholder Altimeter Capital Management called on Meta to streamline by cutting jobs and capital expenditure.

The fund suggested Meta cap annual investments in the metaverse to $5 billion instead of the current $10 billion.

(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru and Katie Paul in Palo Alto, Calif, additional reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; Writing by Sayantani Ghosh; Editing by Sam Holmes)

By Joyce Lee

SEOUL (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics’ de facto leader Jay Y. Lee was named executive chairman on Thursday, a symbolic move confirming that South Korea’s most valuable company will be officially run by the third generation of its founding family.

The change reflects a role Lee, 54, has held since his father, the late patriarch and Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee, was hospitalised in 2014, analysts said. The elder Lee died in 2020.

Lee has been vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, the crown jewel of South Korea’s biggest business conglomerate, since 2012.

“The Board cited the current uncertain global business environment and the pressing need for stronger accountability and business stability in approving the recommendation,” Samsung said in a statement.

The appointment comes as Samsung, the world’s biggest maker of memory chips and smartphones, faces mounting business headwinds amid a sharp downturn in worldwide tech demand, caused by soaring inflation, interest rates and a gloomy economic outlook.

Samsung reported a 31% drop in third-quarter profit on Thursday and said geopolitical uncertainties were likely to dampen demand until early 2023, as the global economic downturn slashed appetite for electronic devices.

(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Stephen Coates)

(Reuters) -Billionaire Elon Musk said he paid a visit to Twitter Inc’s headquarters in San Francisco on Wednesday, ahead of a court-ordered deadline to close his $44 billion deal for the social media platform.

“Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!” said the caption of a video that Musk tweeted in which he was walking into the Twitter office carrying a sink in his hands.

Hours earlier, he hinted at being the company’s top boss after updating his profile’s bio to “Chief Twit”.

Twitter confirmed Musk would visit the San Francisco office this week, but declined to comment further.

Banks have started to send $13 billion in cash backing Musk’s takeover of Twitter in a sign that the deal is on track to close by the end of the week, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Once final closing conditions are met, the funds will be made available for Musk to execute the transaction by the Friday deadline, the report added.

Bank of America and Barclays declined to comment on the report when contacted by Reuters, while Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the six months of a dramatic back-and-forth since Musk announced his $54.20 per share bid, Twitter initially resisted the deal by adopting a poison pill and later sued the world’s richest man after he announced plans to abandon the offer on concerns about spam accounts on the platform.

Earlier this month, Musk proposed to proceed with his original $44 billion bid, calling for an end to the lawsuit by Twitter.

The Tesla Inc CEO notified co-investors who committed to help fund the Twitter deal that he plans to close it by Friday, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

Equity investors including Sequoia Capital, Binance, Qatar Investment Authority and others have received the requisite paperwork for the financing commitment from Musk’s lawyers, Reuters reported.

Twitter shares were up about 1.1% at $53.91 in extended trading, slightly below Musk’s offer price.

(Reporting by Eva Mathews and Juby Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

By Hannah Lang, Doina Chiacu and Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden pledged on Wednesday to crack down on surprise fees consumers are forced to pay on cable bills, hotel rooms and concert tickets, while U.S. financial regulators declared bank fees for bounced checks and overdrafts unfair.

“These are junk fees,” President Joe Biden told reporters at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. “They benefit big corporations. Not consumers. Not working families. And that changes now.”

Biden signaled his administration would look at concert tickets, hotels and airfares shortly after the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued guidance that surprise overdraft fees and unexpected depositor fees for bounced checks are likely unlawful.

The White House said the move could eliminate billions in banking fees.

Overdraft fees can catch consumers off guard when their online accounts still show a positive balance, while some customers may find they owe a fee for depositing a check that they did not know was bad, the CFPB said.

The agency said that both fees likely violate the Consumer Financial Protection Act’s prohibition on unfair fees that are unavoidable to consumers.

In a fact sheet, the White House noted that bank overdraft and non-sufficient funds fees accounted for an estimated $15.5 billion in revenue for banks in 2019.

Pressure by the regulator pushed revenue from such fees down 90% at Bank of America this summer.

Biden added that the Federal Trade Commission had started work on a rule last week to crack down on “unfair and deceptive fees across all industries.”

He cited processing fees for concert tickets and resort fees at hotels as two items his administration is examining.

“We’re just getting started. There’s tens of billions of dollars and other junk fees across the economy that I’m directing my administration to reduce or eliminate,” Biden said.

“We applaud President Biden’s advocacy for fee transparency in every industry, including live event ticketing,” Live Nation Entertainment Inc said in a statement.

“This only works if all ticketing marketplaces go all-in together, so that consumers truly have accurate comparisons as they shop for tickets.” Shares of the company, which owns Ticketmaster, fell 4% on Wednesday.

Biden’s remarks follow a meeting the White House Competition Council held last month, in which he ordered federal agencies to take steps to reduce or eliminate hidden fees, charges and add-on costs, which he said were weighing on family budgets.

The administration has come under intense pressure to tamp down inflation that has hit four-decade highs.

(Editing by David Holmes and David Gregorio)

(Reuters) -Credit Suisse is nearing a deal to sell its securitized-products group to investors Apollo Global Management and Pacific Investment Management Co, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported about the development, said Credit Suisse will give details of the sale and other measures for a planned strategy change on Thursday.

The consortium including Pimco, a big bond manager, and Apollo, a large alternative asset manager, beat out a group comprised of Centerbridge Partners and Martello Re Ltd., a life and reinsurance company, the WSJ report added.

Credit Suisse and Pimco declined to comment, while Apollo, Centerbridge and Martello did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

Last week, Reuters reported that money managers Janus Henderson Group and investment firms including Blue Owl Capital Inc are weighing potential offers for the Swiss bank’s U.S. asset management unit.

The beleaguered Swiss lender is seeking buyers for its businesses as part of a multi-pronged effort to revise its strategy and raise capital following a string of scandals and financial setbacks.

The restructuring is being closely watched by Swiss regulator Finma, which is in regular contact with the bank, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters last week, highlighting the sensitivity of the revamp.

But with just a day to go before Credit Suisse’s strategic review update, it remains unclear what businesses can be sold and for what price – critical pieces in a jigsaw that will determine how much the bank may have to ask of shareholders.

(Reporting by Mehnaz Yasmin in Bengaluru and Anirban Sen in New York; Additional reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Rashmi Aich)

By Jihoon Lee and Choonsik Yoo

SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea’s economic growth fell to its slowest in a year in the third quarter despite slightly beating expectations, as poor net exports offset pent-up spending, and analysts warned of further headwinds for the trade-reliant economy.

The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by a seasonally-adjusted 0.3% in real terms from the previous quarter, the Bank of Korea estimated on Thursday, marking the slowest growth since the third quarter of 2021.

Economists have pointed to growing challenges for Korea’s economy as sustained high inflation, rapidly rising interest rates worldwide and continuing global supply-chain disruptions sap demand both at home and abroad.

“Today’s figure, although appearing okay, is already about the past while the future is getting more difficult both in terms of domestic and global demand,” said Park Sang-hyun, chief economist at HI Investment & Securities.

Despite managing positive growth, a breakdown of the figures showed Asia’s fourth-largest economy was losing momentum quickly in the face of cooling global demand, a wave of policy tightening and high inflation.

Net exports dragged the economy down by 1.8% as imports grew much faster than exports, offsetting pent-up private consumption and corporate investment in production facilities after most COVID-19 curbs were removed.

Economists in a Reuters poll had expected the economy to grow just 0.1% quarter-on-quarter in the July-September period, slowing from a 0.7% gain in April-June.

On an annual basis, the economy expanded by 3.1% in the third quarter after a 2.9% gain in the second quarter. The outcome was ahead of expectations for 2.8% growth.

The data came amid market speculation that the Bank of Korea may consider slowing the pace of monetary policy tightening, having already raised the policy interest rate by a total of 250 basis points since August last year.

The BOK raised interest rates by a bigger-than-usual 50 basis points early this month and flagged more to come, but a split vote prompted some commentary that the central bank could moderate the future pace of tightening.

(Reporting by Jihoon Lee and Choonsik Yoo; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Richard Pullin)

By Uday Sampath Kumar

(Reuters) -Adidas AG terminated its partnership with rapper and fashion designer Ye on Tuesday after he made a series of antisemitic remarks, a move that knocked the musician off the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires.

Adidas put the tie-up, which has produced several hot-selling Yeezy branded sneakers, under review this month.

“Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech,” the German company said on Tuesday.

“Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness,” it said.

Forbes magazine said the end of the deal meant Ye’s net worth shrank to $400 million. The magazine had valued his share of the Adidas partnership at $1.5 billion.

The remainder of Ye’s wealth comes from real estate, cash, his music catalogue and a 5% stake in ex-wife Kim Kardashian’s shapewear firm, Skims, Forbes said.

Representatives for Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

For Adidas, ending the partnership and the production of Yeezy branded products, as well as stopping all payments to Ye and his companies, will have a “short-term negative impact” of up to 250 million euros ($248.90 million) on net income this year, the company said.

Ye has courted controversy in recent months by publicly ending major corporate tie-ups and making outbursts on social media against other celebrities. His Twitter and Instagram accounts were restricted, with the social media platforms removing some of his online posts that users condemned as antisemitic.

In now-deleted Instagram posts earlier this year, the multiple Grammy award-winning artist accused Adidas and U.S. apparel retailer Gap Inc of failing to build contractually promised permanent stores for products from his Yeezy fashion line.

He also accused Adidas of stealing his designs for its own products.

On Tuesday, Gap, which had ended its partnership with Ye in September, said it was taking immediate steps to remove Yeezy Gap products from its stores and that it had shut down YeezyGap.com.

“Antisemitism, racism and hate in any form are inexcusable and not tolerated in accordance with our values,” Gap said in a statement.

European fashion house Balenciaga has also cut ties with Ye, according to media reports.

“The saga of Ye … underlines the importance of vetting celebrities thoroughly and avoiding those who are overly controversial or unstable,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData.

Adidas poached Ye from rival Nike Inc in 2013 and agreed to a new long-term partnership in 2016 in what the company then called “the most significant partnership created between a non-athlete and a sports brand.”

The tie-up helped the German brand close the gap with Nike in the U.S. market.

Yeezy sneakers, which cost between $200 and $700, generate about 1.5 billion euros ($1.47 billion) in annual sales for Adidas, making up a little over 7% of its total revenue, according to estimates from Telsey Advisory Group.

Shares in Adidas, which cut its full-year forecast last week, closed down 3.2%. The group said it would provide more information as part of its upcoming Q3 earnings announcement on Nov. 9.

($1 = 1.0044 euros)

(Reporting by Mrinmay Dey, Uday Sampath and Aishwarya Venugopal in Bengaluru and Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles; Editing by Tomasz Janowski, Sriraj Kalluvila, Bernadette Baum, Anil D’Silva and Cynthia Osterman)

(Reuters) – Skechers USA Inc said on Wednesday its executives escorted Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, out of a Los Angeles corporate office, after the rapper and fashion designer “showed up unannounced and uninvited”.

The footwear maker “has no intention of working with West,” it said in a statement.

Skechers’ comments come a day after sportswear brand Adidas AG ended its partnership with West, following a series of antisemitic comments from the celebrity.

“We condemn his recent divisive remarks and do not tolerate antisemitism or any other form of hate speech,” Skechers said.

Reuters was not immediately able to contact Ye’s representatives for comment.

Apparel company Gap Inc, which terminated its tie-up with West in September, is also taking immediate steps to remove Yeezy Gap products from its stores and shut down YeezyGap.com.

Shares of California-based Skechers were up nearly 1% in extended trading, after closing down nearly 10% on Wednesday.

The company on Tuesday forecast current-quarter sales below Wall Street estimates after missing third-quarter earnings expectations, dented by higher operating costs and a hit from foreign exchange rates.

(Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

By Harshita Swaminathan

(Reuters) -Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd on Thursday reported a rise in annual cash profit, surpassing market expectations, as its home loans business improved and higher interest rates boosted margins in the second half.

ANZ said its home loan application times were back in line with industry peers, following an overhaul to address processing delays that had kept the lender from cashing in on a COVID-driven housing boom.

Shares, however, dropped as much as 4.6% to A$24.67 in their worst intraday loss since June, against a broader financial index that was down 1.4%, as the lender also flagged headwinds arising from wage and vendor cost inflation.

“Despite higher costs we see upside to consensus FY23 core earnings as the NIM leverage has become more obvious,” analysts at Citi said in a note.

The lender also aims to introduce a fully automated digital home loan to further bolster its mortgage loans business, and is planning a pilot programme of a digital home loan in the coming weeks.

ANZ’s group net interest margin, a key measure of profitability, grew 10 basis points from the first half to 1.68% in the second half of the year.

Runaway inflation has pushed the Australian central bank to pursue its most aggressive tightening cycle in decades, boosting margins for banks that had grappled with record-low interest rates for the past two years.

The bank said it expects the environment to be supportive for margins in the first half, although any change from the exit margin is likely to be more modest.

Annual cash profit from continuing operations was A$6.52 billion ($4.23 billion), beating a Visible Alpha consensus estimate of A$6.31 billion.

The bank proposed a final dividend of 74 Australian cents per share, compared with 72 cents last year.

($1 = 1.5408 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Harshita Swaminathan and Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

By Brendan O’Brien

(Reuters) – Darrell Brooks, a Wisconsin man who killed six people and injured dozens of others when he drove his SUV into a Christmas parade near Milwaukee last year, was found guilty on Wednesday of intentional murder and other charges.

A 12-member jury convicted Brooks, 40, of more than 76 charges, including six counts of intentional homicide, each of which carries a mandatory penalty of life in prison.

Brooks, wearing a suit and tie and a blue surgical mask over his nose and mouth, bowed his head against his clasped hands while Waukesha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Dorow read the verdicts.

Brooks was accused of deliberately driving his sport utility vehicle through police barricades on Nov. 21 and plowing into crowds of people participating in the annual parade in Waukesha, about 15 miles (25 km) west of downtown Milwaukee.

The dead ranged in age from 8 to 81, and more than 60 others were injured, including at least 18 children. Among the casualties were members of a dance troupe known as the “Dancing Grannies.”

Brooks, a Milwaukee resident, represented himself during the three-week trial.

During his closing argument on Monday, Brooks told the jury that he had no intention of hurting anyone. He said he sounded the vehicle’s horn as he drove through the crowd, attempting to warn people to get out of the way.

“When you ride through a parade route and roll over children … your intent is known, Mr. Brooks,” Waukesha County District Attorney Sue Opper said during closing arguments. “That’s not an accident.”

Before the verdicts were read on Wednesday, Brooks asked the judge to rule on several motions, including a request for a mistrial. She denied all of them as she waited for the jury to return to the courtroom.

On numerous occasions during the proceedings, Dorow admonished Brooks for failing to follow court rules and arguing with her. She removed Brooks from the courtroom several times, sending him to another room where he watched the proceedings.

At one point, Brooks took off his shirt in the other room, before Dorow, seeing him on a camera feed visible in the courtroom, stopped the proceedings and gave the court a break, journalists covering the trial reported.

At the time of the attack, Brooks was out on bail on a domestic abuse charge. He was arrested near the scene and has been in custody ever since.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Howard Goller)

By Lizbeth Diaz

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Ana Villalobos remembers what she went through to get from Venezuela to the United States: going hungry, sleeping in the open and crossing rivers and forests with her young son.

She cries upon reflecting on the journey, knowing it bore no fruit. Now, Villalobos is asking for a humanitarian flight to return to her homeland. 

Tens of thousands of Venezuelan migrants are now stranded in Mexico or its southern neighbors after a new plan was announced by the United States that, in practice, has closed the door to Venezuelans fleeing on foot.

Dozens of Venezuelans like Villalobos and her eight-year-old son arrived on Tuesday night at a migrant house in Mexico City funded by the Catholic Church while awaiting a seat on a humanitarian flight.

“I want to return to my country because they shut the door on us, in our faces,” the 27-year-old said.

Villalobos, a single mother, left the western Venezuelan state of Zulia a few months ago with her only son.

After working for a few months in Colombia, she managed to save enough money to start the long journey to the United States, even crossing the dangerous Darien Gap, an almost-impassable mountainous rainforest between Panama and Colombia.

In recent years, 7.1 million Venezuelans have left their country, according to United Nations figures, escaping the protracted economic and social collapse of the once-prosperous oil nation.

Human rights advocates have criticized the fact that Mexico continues to sign agreements with the United States when it does not have space to receive more migrants or displaced nationals who also hope to migrate to the United States.

“Everything seems easy to them, simply saying ‘leave them here,’ but where? In the streets?” said Luis Carbajal, director of the Human Mobility Pastoral movement in the Archdiocese of Mexico.

‘IT’S ALWAYS ‘NO”

A dozen migrants interviewed by Reuters at a shelter in Mexico City said that their nation’s embassy had told them that it would seek support from the Mexican government to launch humanitarian flights to Caracas.

A first flight returning Venezuelan migrants from Mexico departed on Tuesday, two Mexican officials told Reuters. Travelers paid a reduced rate of $200 per person, the officials said.

Since 2018, the government of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro has implemented a voluntary repatriation plan called “Return to the Homeland” to facilitate the return of migrants who lack the means to do so themselves.

Through June of this year, some 30,000 Venezuelans had returned home from 19 Latin American countries, according to government figures.

The Mexican foreign ministry told Reuters a flight paid for by the Mexican government carrying Venezuelan migrants was scheduled to leave on Wednesday.

The announcement was made while dozens of Venezuelans protested outside Mexico’s foreign ministry in Mexico City, demanding help.

“It’s been terrible because it’s always ‘no’ in Mexico. I can’t work, the doors are closed to us, we can’t leave, we can’t enter, they don’t let us cross into the United States,” said Kerlyn Mora, a Venezuelan migrant at the protest.

(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Writing by Kylie Madry; Editing by Sandra Maler)

By Parisa Hafezi

DUBAI (Reuters) -The militant group Islamic State said it carried out an attack on a Shi’ite Muslim shrine in Iran on Wednesday which killed 15 people, escalating tensions in a country reeling from a wave of protests and prompting warnings of a response from Tehran.

Iranian officials said they had arrested a gunman who carried out the attack at the Shah Cheragh shrine in the city of Shiraz. State media blamed “takfiri terrorists” – a label Tehran uses for hardline Sunni Muslim militants like Islamic State.

The group has claimed previous attacks in Iran, including deadly twin bombings in 2017 which targeted Iran’s parliament and the tomb of the Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Wednesday’s killing of Shi’ite pilgrims came on the same day that Iranian security forces clashed with increasingly strident protesters marking the 40-day anniversary since the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman.

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi blamed the protests sweeping Iran for paving the ground for the Shiraz attack, and President Ebrahim Raisi said Iran would respond, according to state media.

“Experience shows that Iran’s enemies, after failing to create a split in the nation’s united ranks, take revenge through violence and terror,” said Raisi, speaking before Islamic State released its claim of responsibility.

“This crime will definitely not go unanswered, and the security and law enforcement forces will teach a lesson to those who designed and carried out the attack.”

The semi-official Tasnim news agency said the attacker shot an employee at the shrine entrance before his rifle jammed and he was chased by bystanders.

He managed to fix his gun and opened fire on his pursuers, before entering a courtyard and shooting worshippers. Several women and children were among the dead, it said.

A witness at Shah Cheragh told state television: “I heard sounds of gunfire after we prayed. We went to a room next to the shrine, this lowlife came and fired a barrage of shots. Then (the bullet) hit my arm and leg, it hit my wife’s back, but thank God my child was not hit, he is seven years old.”

DAY OF CLASHES

The attack in Shiraz took place at the end of a day of confrontations across the country between security forces and protesters, with video footage showing some of the most violent clashes in more than a month of unrest following Amini’s death.

The demonstrations have become one of the boldest challenges to the clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution. A wide range of Iranians have come out on to the streets, with some calling for the downfall of the Islamic Republic and the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Security forces opened fire at mourners in Amini’s Kurdish home town of Saqez on Wednesday, according to a witness.

“Riot police shot mourners who gathered at the cemetery for Mahsa’s memorial ceremony … dozens have been arrested,” the witness said. Iranian authorities were not available to comment.

The semi-official ISNA news agency said about 10,000 people were at the cemetery, adding that the internet was cut off after clashes between security forces and people there.

Videos on social media showed crowds packing streets in many cities and the bazaars of Tehran and some other cities shut down with people chanting “Death to Khamenei”.

1500tasvir, a Twitter account focused on Iran protests with 280,000 followers, reported a “brutal crackdown” on protesters in multiple locations in Tehran, including a gathering at the Tehran Medical Association.

Video footage on social media appeared to show members of the Basij militia shooting at protesters in Tehran.

Other videos showed protesters chasing riot police and throwing stones. They also showed protesters in the holy Shi’ite city of Mashhad setting fire to a riot policeman’s motorbike. In Tehran, a protester hit a policeman, while in the city of Qazvin riot police opened fire on protesters.

Some protesters chanted: “We will fight, we will die, we will get Iran back” from its clerical rulers.

Reuters was not able to verify the authenticity of the footage.

State news agency IRNA said a member of the elite Revolutionary Guards was shot dead “by rioters” in the western city of Malayer.

An Iranian former pro-reform official said the spread of the protests appeared to have taken authorities by surprise and contrasted with the establishment’s assertions that support for the Islamic system is overwhelming.

While some analysts said prospects for the imminent dawn of a new political order are slim, activists said a wall of fear had fallen and the path to a new revolution was not reversible.

Students have played a pivotal role in the protests, with dozens of universities on strike. Hundreds of schoolgirls have joined in, chanting “Freedom, Freedom, Freedom,” despite fierce crackdowns by security forces.

State media and hardline officials have branded protesters “hypocrites, monarchists, thugs and seditionists”.

Rights groups said at least 250 protesters had been killed, including teenage girls, and thousands had been arrested.

The authorities, who have accused the United States and other Western countries of fomenting what they call “riots”, have yet to announce a death toll but state media have said around 30 members of the security forces have been killed.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi and Dominic EvansEditing by Michael Georgy, Nick Macfie and Alistair Bell)

By Jaskiran Singh

(Reuters) -Australia’s Fortescue Metals Group reported a 4.2% rise in first-quarter iron ore shipments on Thursday, boosted by higher production at its key operations in Western Australia, and said rising prices of diesel and labour bumped up costs.

The production report from the world’s No.4 iron ore miner came against the backdrop of sliding prices of the steel-making commodity as top consumer China’s strict COVID-19 curbs and under-pressure property sector have slammed its economy.

Last week, rival Rio Tinto forecast annual iron ore shipments at the lower end of its earlier forecast, while BHP said it expected macro-economic uncertainties to continue to affect supply chains, energy costs and labour markets in the short term.

Iron ore prices are on track to end 2022 at their lowest in the last three or four years and are expected to remain weakened next year too, a Reuters survey showed earlier this month.

Fortescue shipped 47.5 million tonnes (mt) of iron ore in the quarter ended September, compared with 45.6 mt a year earlier. RBC Capital Markets analyst Kaan Peker said the quarterly result was broadly in line with the brokerage’s estimates.

However, the miner’s direct costs jumped 16% to $17.69 per wet metric tonne (wmt).

The company kept its full-year guidance unchanged, expecting to ship between 187 mt and 192 mt of ore in fiscal 2023.

The miner said its Iron Bridge project would deliver 22 mt per annum of high grade magnetite concentrate, with first production scheduled for the March 2023 quarter, and reaffirmed its cost estimate at between $3.6 billion and $3.8 billion.

Fortescue’s shares inched up 0.8% to A$16.26 by 2327 GMT, while the broader market rose 0.3%.

(Reporting by Jaskiran Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli, Devika Syamnath and Rashmi Aich)