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A levy on drivers of older cars with dirtier engines has pushed many of them off London’s roads, reducing pollution that’s been blamed for thousands of deaths in the capital each year. Yet some Londoners still resent the £12.50 ($15.80) daily charge for entering the Ultra Low Emission Zone. When city officials expanded it to London’s outskirts last August, resistance coalesced online, and some of the cameras that monitor ULEZ compliance were vandalized. The hostile reaction showed the risk of tr ....
A long-brewing crisis in European agriculture has burst into the open as farmers block roads and key border crossings and dump manure in front of public buildings. They’re angry about cheap food imports, subsidy cuts and a growing list of environmental directives that they say is pushing them out of business. Farmers represent little more than 4% of Europe’s workforce, but their grievances resonate with voters, making it hard for politicians to dismiss their demands. ....
For banks, lucrative transactions often pay so well because they carry high levels of risk meaning, they may end up not being lucrative at all. Some of the world’s biggest banks are living that reality after having to sell, at discounts as high as 35%, much of the roughly $80 billion in “hung debt” they raised to facilitate mergers and leveraged buyouts before deal activity slowed to a crawl. The only thing worse than selling debt at a discount is not being able to sell it except at a level co ....
With so much information available at the touch of a keyboard or screen, it’s easier than ever to take the work of others and pass it off as one’s own. Plagiarism, as the transgression is known, has taken center stage in a cultural battle involving high-profile figures in US academia, finance and politics. Artificial intelligence tools are creating new opportunities to reuse work created by others, but they also might provide new ways to detect when someone has done so. ....
The troubled life of US President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, took a new turn for the worse with his Dec. 7 indictment on federal tax charges. He was already under indictment on federal gun charges, and his plea deal on both matters had fallen through in federal court five months earlier. Both sets of charges aren’t just trouble for him, but for his father as well. Conservative media have long tried to tie Hunter Biden’s activities to his father. In September, a committee in the Republican-controll ....