Author: MNK News

By Leika Kihara, Satoshi Sugiyama TOKYO (Reuters) -The Bank of Japan kept interest rates unchanged on Thursday and its governor offered few clues on how soon it could push up borrowing costs, sending the yen and bond yields tumbling on fresh doubts over the near-term chances of a rate hike. As widely expected, the nine-member board maintained its short-term policy rate at 0.25% in a sign policymakers preferred to tread cautiously amid uncertainty over U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s economic plans. But hawkish board member Naoki Tamura dissented and proposed, unsuccessfully, to raise interest rates to 0.5% on the view that…

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has reached a settlement with Amazon about alleged hazardous workplace conditions at ten of the tech giant’s facilities. Under the terms of the settlement, Amazon will pay a penalty of $145,000 and must implement “corporate-wide ergonomic measures” to reduce the risk of worker injuries. OSHA will also continue inspecting the facilities for the next two years. On the government side of the agreement, OSHA is withdrawing nine of its ten ergonomic citations against the company.Ergonomic injuries are also known as musculoskeletal disorders. These can include sprains and strains experienced on the job.A rep from…

Aave DAO delegate and service provider Aave Chan Initiative has initiated a proposal on the crypto lender’s governance forum to deploy Aave v3 on Sonic. Sonic Labs announced the mainnet launch of its layer-1 Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible blockchain Sonic on Dec. 18. The new governance proposal seeks community support that would allow the integration of Aave (AAVE) v3, currently with a total value locked of over $22 billion, to the new L1 blockchain. “This Temp Check seeks the community’s input on the deployment of Aave V3 on Sonic Mainnet,” proposal’s author ACI noted. The Sonic Foundation has committed to providing…

The state-of-the-art Robin Radar System, currently being used in the Ukraine war to detect drones, may soon be deployed to investigate the perplexing mystery drone sightings throughout the East Coast. ABC News reports that to help crack the enigma of mystery drones spotted all around New England, officials have requested the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to deploy the cutting-edge Robin Radar System. Developed by Robin Radar USA, the drone detection radar system has its roots in technology designed to detect flocks of birds near airports to prevent collisions with aircraft. Since 2014, the company has focused on creating…

Consumers can now use their pre-tax funds on iFIT’s fitness equipment following a partnership with FlexConnected fitness leader iFIT has teamed with Flex to offer Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Savings Account (FSA) payment options for its fitness products so that consumers can direct their funds on equipment such as NordicTrack and ProForm. “We’re excited to partner with Flex to empower our customers to invest in their fitness journey while leveraging their HSA/FSA benefits, further enhancing our mission to provide the most personalized and advanced fitness experiences,” iFIT chief sales officer Michael Maas said.The HSA/FSA solutions provider also announced a collaboration with Tempo and counts Centr, Forme and Echelon…

The DividendRank formula at Dividend Channel ranks a coverage universe of thousands of dividend stocks, according to a proprietary formula designed to identify those stocks that combine two important characteristics — strong fundamentals and a valuation that looks inexpensive. PepsiCo presently has an excellent rank, in the top 25% of the coverage universe, which suggests it is among the top most “interesting” ideas that merit further research by investors. Start slideshow: 10 Oversold Dividend Stocks » But making PepsiCo an even more interesting and timely stock to look at, is the fact that in trading on Thursday, shares of PEP…

A couple walks past a Tesla showroom in Chongqing, China.Getty Images In 2016, Elon Musk promised to never provide discounts for new Tesla cars, tweeting that “there can never – and I mean never – be a discount on a new car coming out of the factory in pristine condition, where there is no underlying rationale.” But in recent months, Tesla has started offering significantly cheaper leases for its best-selling Model 3 and Model Y for as little as $299 per month (a figure that bakes in a $7,500 federal tax credit that Trump wants to kill) – down from…

(Reuters) – North American graphite miners asked the U.S. government on Wednesday to impose a tariff as high as 920% on Chinese suppliers of the battery metal in order to counter what they describe as Beijing’s “malicious trade practices.” The move is the latest attempt by Western critical minerals suppliers to offset China’s widespread control of the world’s extraction and processing of the building blocks for electric vehicles and electronics. Graphite, the largest component by volume in an EV battery, can be synthetically produced or processed from naturally occurring sources. China is the largest producer of both types and earlier…

Waymo’s fleet of driverless vehicles are operating in more cities and a study indicates that may reduce crashes on roadways. The study, a non-paid partnership between Waymo itself and reinsurer Swiss Re, indicated Waymo’s cars result in fewer insurance claims than those operated by people.Swiss Re analyzed liability claims from collisions covering 25.3 million miles driven by Waymo’s autonomous cars. The study also compared Waymo’s liability claims to human driver baselines based on data from over 500,000 claims and over 200 billion driving miles. The results found that Waymo Driver “demonstrated better safety performance when compared to human-driver vehicles.”.The study…

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell reiterated the bank’s position on a Bitcoin reserve from an existing legal perspective. Speaking at a routine conference after announcing monetary decisions, Fed chair Powell stated that the U.S. central bank cannot own Bitcoin (BTC) and, thus, is unable to hold a BTC reserve. The bank regulator stressed that current laws do not authorize a Fed BTC reserve. America’s apex bank is also disinterested in any law changes that would permit a formally recognized government-managed BTC stockpile, Powell added. Powell shared the remarks shortly after the year’s last Federal Open Market Committee, where the Fed…