Investments and Business

ExxonMobil and Chevron, the largest American energy companies, said on Friday that their earnings in the first quarter fell from a year earlier, pulled down by lower refining margins and plunging natural gas prices.But the oil and gas business remains highly profitable for the two giants even at a time of moderate oil prices.ExxonMobil said that earnings were $8.2 billion in the quarter, compared with $11.4 billion in the same period a year earlier. Chevron reported a decline to $5.5 billion, from $6.6 billion a year ago.Both companies attributed their declines to lower profitability from refining crude oil into products…

For decades, the idea of standing properly upright carried considerable political and social baggage. Slouching was considered a sign of decay.In the early 20th century, posture exams became mainstays in the military, the workplace and schools, thanks in part to the American Posture League, a group of physicians, educators and health officials that formed in 1914. In 1917, a study found that roughly 80 percent of Harvard’s freshman class had poor posture. Industrialists piled on with posture-enhancing chairs, products and gadgets.But the actual science doesn’t support the conventional wisdom about proper posture, Beth Linker argues in her new book, “Slouch:…

The heights they are reaching have become comical, two golfers taking over their respective sports with such dominance that — at least for this moment — it’s difficult to imagine anyone beating them.Nelly Korda just won her fifth straight start, ending with a major, the Chevron Championship. Scottie Scheffler just won four of five starts with a Masters in the middle. The men’s and women’s world No. 1s are no longer just the best players in their sport. They are becoming two of the best ever. It’s reached the point Scheffler was playfully asked this week in Hilton Head if…

Female couples in Byron Bay can start their family at Babynova, a Colombian fertility clinic, using the ROPA method. This unique assisted reproduction technique, known as "Reception of Oocytes from Partner" (ROPA), enables both women to actively participate in the conception and gestation of their child. By sharing genetic material, they create a special bond with their baby. What does the ROPA method consist of? The ROPA method involves a process of in vitro fertilization (IVF) with unique features tailored for female couples. The steps are outlined below: Ovarian stimulation and egg retrieval: one partner undergoes ovarian stimulation through medication…

In her three decades of working with elephant seals, Dr. Marcela Uhart had never seen anything like the scene on the beaches of Argentina’s Valdés Peninsula last October.It was peak breeding season; the beach should have been teeming with harems of fertile females and enormous males battling one another for dominance. Instead, it was “just carcass upon carcass upon carcass,” recalled Dr. Uhart, who directs the Latin American wildlife health program at the University of California, Davis.H5N1, one of the many viruses that cause bird flu, had already killed at least 24,000 South American sea lions along the continent’s coasts…

Private members’ bills, particularly those from members of the Bloc Québécois, rarely make their way through the parliamentary process. But after passing the House of Commons with strong support from members of all parties, a bill from Yves Perron, who speaks for the Bloc on farming, handily passed a second vote in the unelected Senate on Tuesday.And perhaps even more surprising, it deals with a contentious issue: Canada’s supply management system, which controls production and sets minimum prices for dairy and poultry products as well as eggs.Many free-market economists and politicians cast supply management as a legalized price cartel that…

The Biden administration on Wednesday said that it would begin requiring dairy cows moving across state lines to be tested for bird flu, which has been spreading in herds for months. The new policy is part of a growing effort to stamp out the spread of a virus that federal health officials have sought to reassure Americans poses little risk to people so far.The new order, issued by the Department of Agriculture, says that lactating cows must test negative for influenza A viruses, a class that includes bird flu, before they are transported. The owners of herds with positive tests…

Dan Capuano’s funeral at St. Rita of Cascia High School on Chicago’s Southwest Side was standing-room only. Hundreds of firefighters from Chicago and around the country attended. Members of the St. Jude Knights youth hockey club were there, too, wearing their jerseys.Capuano’s sons, Andrew and Nick, played for the Knights, a Northern Illinois Hockey League program that feeds many of Chicago’s powerhouse Catholic schools. Nick was on the 2012-13 team that won the Squirt A state championship.Dan had devoted much of his time to the Knights before he died in the line of duty while fighting a warehouse fire on…

“If workers in Chattanooga get a great contract, a big raise, better health benefits, and then the same thing at Mercedes, there will be a lot more good opportunities to win good contracts in short order,” said Madeline Janis, co-executive director of Jobs to Move America, a group that seeks to create good jobs in clean technology industries.Ms. Janis, whose group is involved in unionizing factory workers in the South, said the momentum could travel beyond the auto industry to other manufacturers because employees at different companies in the region often know one another and discuss these issues. “Their brothers…

Israel has not provided evidence to support its allegations that many employees of the main U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees are members of terrorist organizations, according to an independent review commissioned by the United Nations that was released on Monday.The review did not address Israel’s allegation that a dozen employees of the agency, known as UNRWA, were involved in the Hamas-led assault on Israel on Oct. 7. “It is a separate mission, and it is not in our mandate,” said Catherine Colonna, the former French foreign minister who led the inquiry.The review was announced in January, before Israel circulated claims…