USW, Goodyear reach tentative contract

USW, Goodyear reach tentative contract

fayetteville, n.c.

The United Steelworkers and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. have reached a tentative contract agreement that covers about 7,000 workers at five plants.

Goodyear says the five-year agreement covers workers at plants in Fayetteville; Akron; Danville, Va.; Gadsen, Ala.; and Topeka, Kan.

The agreement was reached late Saturday, just before union officials said workers were ready to go on strike.

Cellphone service could be spotty for rural eclipse watchers

st. louis

If you plan to livestream next month’s solar eclipse from one of the prime viewing spots, here’s a thought: Stick the cellphone in your pocket, put on your paper glasses and enjoy the celestial wonder.

Otherwise, frustration is possible since the best places to see the eclipse Aug. 21 are largely in rural areas with spotty cell coverage. Even as the major cellphone companies temporarily upgrade service, there are no guarantees you’ll be able to post to social media as quickly as you’d like.

The solar eclipse will be seen first in Oregon and cut diagonally across 14 states to South Carolina. It will be the first seen coast-to-coast since 1918.

Cellphone companies plan to bring in temporary towers to boost connectivity at some of the big eclipse-watch events.

Companies: Apple removed privacy apps

WASHINGTON

China appears to have succeeded in eliminating software programs that enable its people to view an uncensored internet.

Companies that let people avoid the government filters said Saturday that their programs have been removed from Apple’s app store in China.

ExpressVPN, one of the companies, posted on its corporate site a message from Apple saying that its program was illegal in China. The British Virgin Islands-based software company says that all major virtual-private network apps were removed from the Apple app store in China. ExpressVPN claimed Apple was “aiding China’s censorship effort.”

Attack leaves 8 dead

MOGADISHU, Somalia

Fighters with the al-Shabab extremist group ambushed an African Union convoy in southern Somalia and killed at least eight soldiers Sunday, a Somali military officer said. The attack came hours after a car bomb in the capital killed at least five people, most of them civilians, shattering a month of relative calm in Mogadishu.

The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab fighters attacked the convoy near Bulo-Marer town in Lower Shabelle region, Col. Muhyadin Yasin said.

20,000 flee fire at fest

BARCELONA, Spain

A huge fire at a music festival in Spain forced the evacuation of more than 20,000 concertgoers and incinerated the event’s stage in Barcelona, the government said Sunday.

The fire Saturday night consumed the large outdoor stage at the “Tomorrowland” electronic music festival at Barcelona’s Parc de Can Zam. Firefighters extinguished the flames just before midnight. Firefighters said they were investigating the cause. They said there were no serious injuries.

Deadly dispute at club

VIENNA

A disagreement in a German discotheque turned deadly Sunday after the disco operator’s son-in-law left the club, returned with an assault rifle and started shooting, law enforcement officials said.

A security guard was killed and four other people were wounded, three of them seriously, during the rampage that started at the Grey club discotheque in Konstanz. The suspect was fatally shot by a police officer.

Associated Press