A massive fire at a south Louisiana oil refinery sent a tower of black smoke billowing into the air above the Mississippi River Smoke billows from a tank fire at the Marathon Petroleum facility in Garyville, La., Friday, Aug. 25, 2023. Garyville is located about 40 miles up the Mississippi River from New Orleans. (Chris Granger/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP) The Associated Press…

Lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried say prosecutors have delivered another four million pages of documents on the FTX founder six weeks before trial ByLARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press FILE – FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried leaves Manhattan federal court, June 15, 2023, in New York. Lawyers for Bankman-Fried said Friday, Aug. 25, that prosecutors have delivered another four million pages of documents for the FTX founder to examine…

Grocery delivery company Instacart is going public. The San Francisco-based company filed paperwork Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The IPO is expected to happen in the next few weeks. Instacart said it plans to trade on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the stock symbol “CART.” The number of shares and the price haven’t yet been determined, the company said. PepsiCo has agreed…

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Auto workers have voted overwhelmingly to give union leaders the authority to call strikes against Detroit car companies if a contract agreement isn’t reached. The United Auto Workers union said Friday that 97% have voted in favor of authorizing one or more strikes against Stellantis, General Motors and Ford. Such votes are almost always approved by large margins. Contracts between the union…

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — The howling winds and perpetual darkness of the Antarctic winter were easing to a frozen spring when mechanic Liz Monahon at McMurdo Station grabbed a hammer. If those in charge weren’t going to protect her from the man she feared would kill her, she figured, she needed to protect herself. It wasn’t like she could escape. They were all stuck there…

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — Many women who work at McMurdo Station, the main United States research base in Antarctica, say the isolated environment and macho culture have allowed sexual harassment and assault to flourish. The National Science Foundation, which oversees the U.S. Antarctic Program, published a report in 2022 in which 59% of women said they’d experienced harassment or assault while on the ice. But…

In the first moments of the Maui fires, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electrified wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames erupted all at once in long, neat rows — those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact. Videos and images analyzed by The Associated Press confirmed those wires were among miles of line…

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Sunday it will allow its citizens staying abroad to return home in line with easing pandemic situations worldwide, as the country slowly eases its draconian coronavirus restrictions. In a brief statement carried by state media, the State Emergency Epidemic Prevention Headquarters said those returning to North Korea will be put in quarantine for a week for “proper medical…

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Terry Gou, who founded Apple supplier Foxconn, said Monday he will run as an independent candidate in Taiwan‘s presidential election, ending months of speculation. At a news conference, Gou criticized the governing Democratic Progressive Party, saying its policies have “brought Taiwan into the risk of war” with China, which claims the self-ruled island democracy as part of its territory. “I will definitely…

RENO, Nev. — Santos Brizuela spent more than two decades laboring outdoors, persisting despite a bout of heatstroke while cutting sugarcane in Mexico and chronic laryngitis from repeated exposure to the hot sun while on various other jobs. But last summer, while on a construction crew in Las Vegas, he reached his breaking point. Exposure to the sun made his head ache immediately. He lost…