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7 renovations that can impact your home insurance

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:45 GMT

Cate Deventer | Bankrate (TNS)Homeowners might choose to renovate to create more living space, update their home’s design or even put in a pool. Whatever the reason, homeowners may want to consider if their renovations could impact their home insurance policy. Some renovations may prompt you to adjust your coverage types or limits, while others may actually save you money on your insurance premium. Bankrate’s insurance editorial team explores how seven popular home renovations may impact your home insurance rates.Renovations that increase home insurance ratesA home renovation may increase the value of your home, but it can also drive up the cost of your home insurance. In addition to the expense of the renovation, you may see higher premiums if your renovation pushes you to increase your coverage limits or exposes you to greater liability.1. Building a swimming poolIn certain locations, adding a pool to your home can increase its value and offer an incentive to would-be buyers. Howe...

UPS reaches tentative contract with 340,000 unionized workers potentially dodging calamitous strike

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:45 GMT

By HALELUYA HADERO (AP Business Writer)NEW YORK (AP) — UPS has reached a tentative contract agreement with its 340,000-person strong union, potentially averting a strike that threatened to disrupt logistics nationwide for businesses and households alike. The agreement was announced after UPS and the Teamsters came back to the negotiating table Tuesday to talk over remaining sticking points in the largest private-sector contract in North America. Negotiators had already reached tentative agreements on a host of issues but remained at odds on contentious issues like pay for part-time workers who make up more than half of the UPS employees represented by the union. The Teamsters called the tentative agreement “historic” and “overwhelmingly lucrative” in a prepared statement. Under the tentative agreement, existing full- and part-time UPS union workers will get $2.75 more per hour in 2023, and $7.50 more per hour over the length of the five-year contract. T...

4 takeaways from Netflix’s money shows

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:45 GMT

By Chanelle Bessette | NerdWalletIn the past year, streaming service Netflix has released two financially focused offerings: the film “Get Smart With Money” and the series “How to Get Rich.” Both feature powerhouse financial influencers who help people reevaluate their approaches to money to educate and empower them. Here are four takeaways that you can apply to your own life, no matter your financial situation.Takeaways From ‘Get Smart With Money’The “Get Smart With Money” documentary features well-known financial writers, bloggers and podcasters who share their expertise on how to become better at managing money. Here are a couple of lessons they imparted.1. Emotion management is key to money managementIn “Get Smart With Money,” some of the featured participants were dealing with significant debt or with the challenges of living paycheck to paycheck. The stress, fear and frustration that come with money can significantly impact how you manage it.Tiffany Aliche, a finan...

Israeli doctors walk off the job, more strikes may be looming after a law weakening courts passed

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:45 GMT

By ISABEL DEBRE and JULIA FRANKEL (Associated Press)JERUSALEM (AP) — Thousands of Israeli doctors walked off their jobs, labor leaders threatened a general strike and senior justices rushed home from a trip abroad on Tuesday, a day after the government’s approval of a law that weakens the country’s Supreme court. Critics say the legislation will erode the system of checks and balances.Four leading Israeli newspapers covered their front pages in black ink — an ominous image paid for by an alliance of high-tech companies. The only words on the pages were in a line at the bottom: “A black day for Israeli democracy.”Monday’s vote — on the first of a series of measures that make up Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s divisive judicial overhaul — reverberated across the country. It came despite seven months of fierce popular resistance, Netanyahu’s promises of an eventual compromise and a rare warning against the overhaul f...

Malden man who tried to hire a hitman to kill his wife sentenced to prison; FBI agent posed as a contract killer

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:45 GMT

A Malden man who got caught trying to hire a hitman to kill his wife, because that “contract killer” was actually an undercover FBI agent, has been sentenced to prison.Massimo Marenghi, 57, on Monday in Boston federal court was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs to 10 years in prison and three years of supervised release.In March, Marenghi pleaded guilty to one count of murder-for-hire.“Domestic violence is a truly haunting reality that is far too pervasive in our society. At its core, that is what the prosecution of Mr. Marenghi was all about,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy. “He was looking to engage in the most extreme form of domestic violence by plotting the murder of his wife.“While the vast majority of domestic violence situations do not involve the federal criminal law, when this office has an opportunity to hold people accountable for this type of despicable conduct, we will spare no effort in prosecuting such...

Wildfires in Algeria kill at least 34 and injure hundreds but 80% now extinguished, officials say

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:45 GMT

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — Fires raging through forests, mountain villages and towns in northern Algeria have left at least 34 people dead, with 23 of them in the coastal region of Bejaia, according to authorities and a local radio station keeping track of the grim toll.The blazes were being drastically curtailed. The Interior Ministry said Tuesday that 80% of the fires, which started Sunday, had been put out, the daily El Watan newspaper reported. A ministry statement quoted by the paper credited uninterrupted mobilization of firefighters, the use of firefighting aircraft and a drop in wind and in temperatures. Among those killed in hard-hit Bejaia were 10 soldiers encircled by flames during an evacuation, the Defense Ministry reported Monday night.In neighboring Tunisia, the official TAP news agency reported one death, a school principal who died of asphyxiation from a fire in Nafza, in the northwest. That was one of several areas in Tunisia’s northwest where firefighters battl...

Marine veteran freed from Russia in 2022 prisoner swap is injured while fighting in Ukraine, US says

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:45 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former U.S. Marine who was released from Russia in a prisoner swap last year has been injured while fighting in Ukraine, the State Department said Tuesday.Trevor Reed was injured several weeks ago, according to a person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. He has been taken to Germany for medical care, said State Department spokesman Vedant Patel.“I want to be explicitly clear about something. Mr. Reed was not engaged in any activities on behalf of the US government,” Patel said in a statement. “And as I indicated, we have been incredibly clear warning American citizens, American nationals, not to travel to Ukraine, let alone participate in fighting. As you know, we are not in a place to provide assistance to evacuate private US citizens from Ukraine, including those Americans who may decide to travel to Ukraine to participate in fighting.”Reed was r...

A judge blocks limits on asylum at US-Mexico border but gives Biden administration time to appeal

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:45 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday blocked a rule that allows immigration authorities to deny asylum to migrants who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border without first applying online or seeking protection in a country they passed through. But the judge delayed his ruling from taking effect immediately to give the administration time to appeal. The order from U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar of the Northern District of California takes away a key enforcement tool set in place by the Biden administration as coronavirus-based restrictions on asylum expired in May. The use of a rule known as Title 42 allowed the U.S. to expel millions of people starting in early 2020 on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.The new rule imposed severe limitations on migrants seeking asylum. It included room for exceptions and did not apply to children traveling alone. Tigar’s order will not take effect for two weeks.Immigrant rights groups that sued argued it was a violation of U.S....

Plane fighting Greek island wildfire crashes killing both pilots, as Italian blaze claims 2 lives

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:45 GMT

RHODES, Greece (AP) — A Greek air force water-dropping plane crashed while diving into a wildfire in southern Greece on Tuesday, killing both pilots, as authorities battled blazes that have been raging for days across the country amid a return of heat wave temperatures.Summer wildfires blamed on climate change have also struck other Mediterranean countries, leaving at least 34 people dead in Algeria and two people dead in southern Italy Tuesday.A state ERT TV video showed the bright yellow CL-215 aircraft releasing its load of water on the island of Evia before its wingtip apparently snagged in a tree branch. Moments later it disappeared into a deep fold in the ground from which a fireball erupted.The air force said the pilots, aged 34 and 27, both died in the crash. The plane had no ejection system.Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis cancelled a planned visit to Cyprus for Wednesday, and Greece’s armed forces declared three days of mourning.“They offered their lives to save lives,” ...

Jury delivers verdict over Brussels extremist attacks that killed 32

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:45 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — A jury on Tuesday found six people guilty of terrorist murder for extremist attacks in 2016 that killed 32 people, Belgium’s worst peacetime violence, according to Belgian media.Among those convicted was Salah Abdeslam, who is already serving a life sentence in France for his role in the 2015 attacks on Paris. Both the Brussels and Paris attacks were claimed by the Islamic State group.The verdict was reported by public broadcaster RTBF, newspaper Le Soir and news websites HLN and Nieuwsblad.The 12-person jury is reading out the verdict after nearly three weeks of deliberation. Terrorist murder was among various charges suspects were facing. Sentencing will be decided in a separate process, not before September. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. The following is AP’s previous story. A jury is expected to issue a verdict Tuesday over Belgium’s deadliest peacetime attack, suicide bombings at the Brussels airport and a busy subway station in 2016 that killed 32 peopl...