 President Biden is pressuring Congressional leaders to pass a bill to prevent a nationwide railway strike. Several rail unions voted to reject a Biden-backed deal that would have raised wages for rail workers, saying that it fell short of their demands. More: - In September, railway companies and some rail workers unions tentatively agreed to a deal brokered by the Biden Administration.
- Since then, four of the 12 unions representing more than 100,000 rail workers voted against the agreement.
- The proposal would have raised wages by nearly 25% between 2020 (when the last deal expired) and 2024.
- But critics said that it failed to fix the scheduling issues that rail workers have long complained about.
- Ian Jeffries, the CEO of the Association of American Railroads, encouraged Congress to pass legislation barring a strike by rail workers.
Zoom Out: - The American Trucking Association estimated that an additional 450,000 trucks would be needed to compensate for the lost transportation capacity that would come with a rail strike.
- A nationwide rail strike would disrupt the transportation of key materials including lumber, coal, and chemicals, as well as cars and other consumer goods.
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 A Qatari official told British TV host Piers Morgan that between 400 and 500 workers died in the construction of stadiums for the ongoing World Cup. Human rights groups have criticized Qatar for the mistreatment of migrant workers in the leadup to the global soccer tournament. More: - The 400 to 500 number given by Hassan Al-Thawadi, secretary general of Qatar's Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, is the highest estimate yet offered by a Qatari official.
- After clips of the interview were aired, the Supreme Committee issued a statement saying that there were just "3 work-related deaths and 37 non-work-related deaths."
- The statement said that 414 workers died in Qatar between 2014 and 2020, adding that the death toll was for "all work-related fatalities nationwide in Qatar, covering all sectors and nationalities."
Zoom Out: - 88% of Qatar's population of three million people is foreign-born, and 95% of the country's labor force is composed of migrants.
- Most of the migrant workers hail from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Philippines.
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The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has agreed to acquire HSBC's Canadian arm for $10.1B in what would be the largest-ever bank deal in the country. The deal, which would involve the transfer of nearly $100B in assets from HSBC to RBC, will require regulatory approval. More: - HSBC, which is headquartered in London, serves more than 780,000 retail, commercial, and investment-banking clients across 130 Canadian branches.
- RBC expects the deal to add 6% to its earnings-per-share compared to 2024 consensus estimates.
- The sale is part of HSBC's efforts to turn its focus to Asian and Middle Eastern markets.
Zoom Out: - Canada's financial services industry is dominated by six banks, some of which have made major acquisitions in recent years.
- Bank of Montreal Group announced the acquisition of BNP Paribas' Bank of the West for $16.3B last December.
- TD Bank Group announced that it would buy First Horizon Corp. for $13.4B in early 2022.
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 GOOD NEWS: The New England Aquarium in Boston saved the lives of over 150 sea turtles that were stranded on New England beaches. The turtles suffered from dehydration and pneumonia as a result of hypothermia. More: - The turtles suffered from "cold-stunning," which occurs when they get trapped in Cape Cod Bay and are unable to move to warmer waters.
- According to the aquarium, 700 turtles were stranded in 2021, up from around 50 turtles a year two decades ago.
- Volunteers working with the Massachusetts Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary rescued 120 Kemp's ridley turtles, a critically-endangered species, and 33 green turtles.
- They took the turtles to the aquarium, where they were nursed back to good health.
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 Merriam-Webster picked "gaslighting" as the 2022 word of the year. Searches for the word, which is used to describe psychological manipulation that leads to self-doubt, soared by 1,740% in 2022. More: - The term originated in the 1938 play "Gas Light," in which the lead male character convinces his wife that she is going insane.
- The husband dims the gas light and tricks her wife into believing that it is not going darker in their home.
- A 1944 film adaption of the play starring Ingrid Bergman won two Academy Awards.
- Merriam-Webster said that the modern usage of the term is largely driven by "the vast increase in channels and technologies used to mislead" people.
- Some of the most-searched words of 2022 include oligarch, omicron, codify, LGBTQIA, sentient, loamy, raid, and queen consort, Merriam-Webster said.
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 Archaeologists in England unearthed a Roman-era hot steam room in a barn, along with several mosaics. The Roman villa where the structure was found was first discovered in 2021 and has since been granted protected status as a historical monument. More: - The villa is believed to have belonged to wealthy landowners in between the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D.
- The barn contained a hot steam room and a cold plunge pool.
- Archaeologists also found a three-panel Roman mosaic depicting scenes from the Homerian epic "The Iliad," and a second mosaic with a kaleidoscopic geometric design.
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- Billionaire Leon Black, a co-founder of Apollo Global Management, was sued by a woman claiming he raped her at Jeffrey Epstein's home in 2002.
- Croatia, which is set to join the Eurozone at the start of 2023, passed its first-ever Euro-denominated budget.
- China launched three astronauts into space aboard the Shenzhou-15 spacecraft. The taikonauts, one of whom was aboard the Shenzou-6 mission in 2005, aim to complete the first-ever handover at China's Tiangong space station.
- AMC told employees on Tuesday that it plans significant layoffs. CEO Christina Spade is stepping down after three months at the helm.
- Tech innovation is surging in education, finance, health care, and other industries. See what your competitors are building with Crowdbotics.*
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 Summer Night Moon by Erik "Eero" Nikolai Järnefelt. 1889
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 |  | Daniel Smith is an Inside Analyst who currently resides in Miami, Florida. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Daniel spent the last four years as a PhD candidate in Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. He is fascinated by tech, business, politics, venture capital, and everything in between. When he’s not writing for Inside he can be found kicking a ball on the nearest rugby pitch. Follow him on Twitter @DanSmithInside. |  | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is the author of "Things You Can Do," an illustrated book about climate action. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
Segment is an API-first analytics solution that empowers 15,000+ startups to scale their data infrastructure. | |
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