gstar28 download In the end, the couple's 7-year journey of frying meatballs with 500,000 jins of radish is not just a story of culinary success, but a testament to the power of the human spirit. It is a reminder that with hard work, dedication, and a never-say-die attitude, anything is possible. And for that, they are eternally grateful - to themselves, to each other, and to the universe that conspired to make their dreams a reality.

The 707 Special Forces, known for their exceptional skills in covert operations and strategic missions, were considered the pride of South Korea's military. With a history of successful and daring missions, including hostage rescues and counter-terrorism operations, the unit was held in high regard both domestically and internationally. The sight of a 707 Special Forces soldier in action struck fear in the hearts of their adversaries and garnered respect from their allies.GenSun Roofing Celebrated as Pennsylvania's Leading Commercial Roofing Company 11-21-2024 11:12 PM CET | Politics, Law & Society Press release from: ABNewswire Communities throughout Pennsylvania recognize GenSun Roofing as the premier provider of commercial roofing solutions. Choosing a trustworthy contractor for commercial roofing projects in Pennsylvania can often feel overwhelming. However, a quick survey of local businesses and online reviews reveals that GenSun Roofing stands out as the top choice for PA commercial roofs [ http://www.GenSunCommercialRoofs.com/ ]. Celebrating this achievement, GenSun Roofing proudly acknowledges its consistent five-star ratings across multiple review platforms - a testament to over three decades of dedicated service and expertise. "Building our business on core principles like fairness, hard work, quality craftsmanship, and integrity has been the key to our growth," commented Jim Contreni from GenSun Roofing. "We are deeply grateful to our commercial clients across Pennsylvania who have entrusted us with their roofing and general contracting needs." GenSun Roofing specializes in Flat Roofs, Metal Roofs, and Shingled Roofs, offering comprehensive material warranties, annual inspections, full labor guarantees, and even 0% financing options to meet various client needs. The company's team of certified professionals is committed to using the highest quality materials and the latest industry techniques to ensure each project exceeds client expectations. Understanding the financial considerations businesses face, GenSun Roofing is always eager to provide free estimates. In many cases, installing a new roof on a commercial building can be as affordable - or even more so - than repairing an aging one. With this insight, clients are often pleasantly surprised to discover they can save money while investing in a new roof that offers greater longevity than a repair would. Customer satisfaction remains at the forefront of GenSun Roofing's mission, as evidenced by the positive feedback they continually receive. A recent client, remarked in a glowing five-star review, "I could not be happier with the entire process of having GenSun Roofing work on our job! Absolute top professionals for a commercial roof in PA." In addition to their commercial roofing services, GenSun Roofing offers a wide range of solutions, including residential roof installations, solar roofing, siding for both commercial and residential properties, window installations, gutter systems, kitchen and bathroom renovations, additions, and more. The company is also highly regarded for its work with churches and other religious institutions throughout the region. "Whether it's a small repair or a large-scale commercial project, we approach each job with the same level of dedication and attention to detail," added Contreni. "Our goal is to provide top-tier service for all PA commercial roofs, ensuring our clients have peace of mind knowing their properties are protected." For more information, to request a free estimate, or to schedule an appointment, please visit https://gensuncommercialroofs.com [ https://gensuncommercialroofs.com/ ]. Media Contact Company Name: GenSun Roofing Contact Person: Coach Jim Contreni Email:Send Email [ https://www.abnewswire.com/email_contact_us.php?pr=gensun-roofing-celebrated-as-pennsylvanias-leading-commercial-roofing-company ] Phone: 973-310-6445 Country: United States Website: https://gensuncommercialroofs.com This release was published on openPR.

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One of the key drivers of China's export growth has been the resilience of the country's manufacturing sector. Despite disruptions in the global supply chain and reduced external demand, Chinese manufacturers have adapted quickly to the changing market conditions and have continued to export a wide range of products to countries around the world.The Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Dr. Musa Adamu Aliyu (SAN) has revealed that prosecution of cases is the most critical in the fight against corruption. Director, Public Enlightenment and Education. Spokesperson for the Commission, Demola Bakare, in a press statement, Wednesday in Abuja, said Dr. Aliyu stated this on while delivering a welcome address at a Capacity Building Workshop for Judges on the Promotion of Public Policy and Interest of Justice in the Prosecution of Corruption Cases and Other Related Offences, organised by the ICPC in collaboration with the National Judicial Institute (NJI), Wednesday in Abuja. According to the ICPC Boss, investigation and prosecution of cases are pivotal to achieving success in anti-corruption efforts, adding that the perception of the ordinary man on the street is tied to trial of cases in courts and the recoveries of proceeds of corruption. “The investigation and prosecution mandate of the Commission is very critical in the fight against corruption, especially the prosecution of cases in court, which is part of the enforcement process. This prosecution of cases is the most critical in the fight against corruption as the perception of the ordinary man in the street is tied to the trial of cases in court and recoveries of looted funds,” he emphasised. He said Dr. Aliyu seized opportunity to draw the attention of the Judges on the need to integrate technology into trial of cases, revealing that “in the fight against corruption globally and in the trial of cases, new case management systems are being innovated for an effective and efficient justice delivery system”. According to the anti-graft agency boss, “the new norm now is the admissibility of electronically generated evidence and the introduction of technology in the administration of justice in our judicial system”. The xhairman also told the judges that the workshop was necessary, as the justice sector remained the fulcrum of concern in the fight against corruption. “The justice sector remains a focal point of concern, particularly regarding bribery involving stakeholders in the justice sector,” he further stated. He revealed that “despite limited public contact, judicial officials exhibit relatively high bribery prevalence, emphasizing the need for targeted anti-corruption measures in this sector.” In a keynote address, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Hon. Justice Kudirat M.O. Kekere-Ekun, reminded the participants that the role of judicial officers in ensuring effective prosecution of corruption cases could not be dispensed, adding that the Judiciary remains the cornerstone of the criminal justice system in Nigeria. Represented by Hon. Justice Salisu Garba Abdullahi, the Administrator of NJI, the CJN pointed out that the workshop, which was a platform for capacity building, had underscored the judges’ collective commitment to advancing the administration of justice and combating corruption in the society. Blueprint reports that the workshop brought together, judges across Nigeria with the focus on building the capacity of the senior judicial officers in areas of justice system, forfeiture laws, money laundering, and the integration of technology into cases of trial.

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BOSTON (AP) — Two men, including a dual Iranian American citizen, have been arrested on charges that they exported sensitive technology to Iran that was used in a drone attack in Jordan that killed three American troops early this year and injured dozens of other service members, the Justice Department said Monday. The criminal case in federal court in Massachusetts charges the men, identified as Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi and Mohammad Abedininajafabadi, with export control violations. U.S. officials blamed the January attack on the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias that includes Kataib Hezbollah. Three Georgia soldiers — Sgt. William Jerome Rivers of Carrollton, Sgt. Breonna Moffett of Savannah and Sgt. Kennedy Sanders of Waycross — were killed in the Jan. 28 drone attack on a U.S. outpost in northeastern Jordan called Tower 22. In the attack, the one-way attack drone may have been mistaken for a U.S. drone that was expected to return back to the logistics base about the same time and was not shot down. Instead, it crashed into living quarters, killing the three soldiers and injuring more than 40. Tower 22 held about 350 U.S. military personnel at the time. It is strategically located between Jordan and Syria, only 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Iraqi border, and in the months just after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and Israel’s blistering response in Gaza, Iranian-backed militias intensified their attacks on U.S. military locations in the region. Following the attack, the U.S. launched a huge counterstrike against 85 sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iran's Revolutionary Guard and Iranian-backed militia and bolstered Tower 22’s defenses. Tucker and Copp reported from Washington. Get any of our free daily email newsletters — news headlines, opinion, e-edition, obituaries and more.None

Overseeing everything from state finances and human resources to property, real estate management, and construction services, the , is the backbone of the State of Oklahoma. Spearheading a “whole-of-state” approach to essential services, OMES strives to increase efficiency, reduce financial and administrative overheads, and eliminate the duplication of effort, making it easier for the state’s agencies and affiliates to focus on their core missions. As a part of its mandate, OMES also provides expert guidance and drives continuous improvement to support its agency stakeholders. At the heart of OMES, the division oversees the vast infrastructure and technology that secures and connects nearly 180 state agencies, boards, and commissions to over four million Oklahomans. Michael Toland, State Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), explains the complexity of IS’s ongoing efforts and the challenges involved in gathering everything under the OMES umbrella: “It has been more than a decade-long process,” says Toland. “Historically, each state organization had its own infrastructure, creating a hodgepodge of on-premises cloud and hybrid systems running on mainframes, Windows and Linux servers, and even some Macintosh workstations. That has left us in a situation where we have old systems trying to interact with our modern architectures.” Understanding that a reactive, piecemeal approach to security, problem-solving, and infrastructure modernization was not a viable strategy for long-term progress, OMES wanted a strategic partner to help it proactively achieve the following goals: “A core goal of our whole-of-state approach is to ensure that every department has access to the best resources, best security, and the best software, putting our weakest link on par with our strongest and securing and making the state stronger overall,” Toland explains. Before it could address its transformation goals, the State of Oklahoma had a more pressing problem — DDoS attacks affecting both its own and other public web services. “There were six or seven attacks directed against .gov domains that lasted as long as 24 hours,” says Justin Baustert, OMES Oklahoma Cyber Command Defense Engineering Manager. “They didn't only target Oklahoma — other states and even other governments were affected.” After identifying the incidents as NXDOMAIN flood attacks — automated assaults that overwhelm servers with requests for non-existent or invalid domain records — IS sought an immediate solution. To achieve higher levels of visibility into its security tooling, OMES chose to partner with Cloudflare directly. Its goal was to leverage Cloudflare’s knowledge and technical expertise firsthand while implementing the full range of Cloudflare , especially , against recurring attacks. With Cloudflare DNS management — administered from either the Cloudflare interface or customer toolsets via the Cloudflare API — OMES was able to easily absorb the incoming DDoS attacks, strengthening the chain of trust with features like built-in, . “We wanted to manage DNS with our own tools and push our changes to Cloudflare,” says Christopher Little, Former OMES Linux and DNS Team Lead. “From a technical perspective, having the ability to use the tools we already had while leveraging the power of DDoS mitigation from a single vendor made Cloudflare our only option.” OMES set up and configured Cloudflare DNS Management in four hours. It then mitigated the NXDOMAIN attacks and secured the State of Oklahoma’s websites over the next two days. Automated rulesets, machine learning, behavioral analysis, and threat fingerprinting native to , and provided additional security for layers 1 to 7 of the State of Oklahoma’s public infrastructure. “We deployed Cloudflare over the weekend, moving everything from our primary, on-premises DNS so that Cloudflare could neutralize any further attacks on the global network before they hit our servers,” says Toland. “Deflecting the attacks that knocked down the state's public-facing infrastructure is a great success story for us — our appliances could never handle the volume Cloudflare can.” Since countering the DDoS attacks, the State of Oklahoma has expanded Cloudflare’s role in its transformation and consolidation efforts. Leveraging Cloudflare’s single control interface and unlimited scalability, OMES is streamlining the way it manages and secures its public-facing and legacy systems, especially for the state’s smaller, less-resourced organizations. “We use it primarily to protect our legacy applications, but Cloudflare DNS is the foundation of all our communications,” says Baustert. “If our DNS isn't working, neither is anything else.” According to Toland, the security benefits of folding OMES’ partnership with Cloudflare into Oklahoma's statewide transformation objectives have ramifications well beyond the state’s borders. Improving security locally contributes to an enhanced security posture across the entire US, especially as other states embrace and promote the whole-of-state IT and cybersecurity ethos. “In government, our systems are all interconnected — we are all integrated and we all share data,” says Toland. “If an agency or municipality with a weaker security posture experiences a breach, that vulnerability could creep across the entire country. Security is much simpler when everybody has the same tooling. With the services and expertise of Cloudflare universally available, we can identify, contain, and minimize the damage before it happens.” Partnering with Cloudflare enables OMES to efficiently and cost-effectively secure around 180 state agencies and services — helping streamline operations for 32,000 employees and benefitting millions of users. “With Cloudflare, we have been able to build out our capabilities while reducing our costs,” says Little. “By wrapping Cloudflare solutions into our service portfolio, we can distribute our expenses more effectively, improving the quality of service for every state agency irrespective of its size or budget.” Having the expertise of Cloudflare engineers, security, and support teams on call also reduces the expense of maintaining redundant resources and helps bridge gaps in localized institutional knowledge. Embracing the challenges of consolidation — despite the scope of its responsibilities and the size of the State of Oklahoma’s infrastructure — OMES continues to make widespread improvements to their web security and performance initiatives. Cloudflare is a central part of that transformation strategy. “As part of our growth, we will continue our strategic planning and alliances with partners like Cloudflare who can guide and assist us, showing us how to extract full value from the services it offers,” says Toland. “To us, success means leveraging every Cloudflare feature available.”Moreover, Disneyland's commitment to cleanliness, organization, and overall visitor experience plays a crucial role in attracting students for self-study sessions. The theme park's impeccable maintenance and attention to detail create a conducive and comfortable environment for studying, free from distractions and disruptions. 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SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who led US crackdown on cryptocurrencies, to step downIt's been just over a month since Apple released the iPad mini 7 , refreshing its smallest tablet with a new Apple Intelligence-capable A17 Pro chip. MacRumors videographer Dan Barbera has been using the ‌iPad mini 7‌ as a replacement for the iPad Pro for the last several weeks, and he has some thoughts to share on Apple's latest iPad . Apple doesn't make a small keyboard for the ‌iPad mini‌, so unless you have a third-party accessory like a Bluetooth keyboard, typing needs to be done with the on-display keyboard. Adding a keyboard does help the situation, but you're still working with a smaller-sized display. For playing games, using social media apps, checking email, and browsing the web, the ‌iPad mini‌ is perfect. The A17 Pro chip means that it's ideal for any mobile game you want to play, and even though the small screen might be a downside, it's powerful enough for Final Cut Pro. The A17 Pro supports Apple Intelligence , plus there's 8GB RAM, so you get all of the latest AI features. With support for the Apple Pencil Pro, note taking, drawing, and sketching are great on the ‌iPad mini 7‌. The ‌iPad mini‌ is essentially almost as powerful as Apple's other, larger iPads, and it is just as capable, so there's little compromise other than screen size when choosing it. It's a great travel companion and daily use tablet, but it might be frustrating if you need something to use to get work done.Kinder Morgan Inc. stock rises Tuesday, outperforms market

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MOUNT PLEASANT – After she was handed the keys to the town of Mount Pleasant, retired tennis star Shelby Rogers had one question. “What can I use these for?” Rogers asked Mount Pleasant Mayor Will Haynie. Lowcountry teams sweep state tennis titles The question was ironic, because it was the town of Mount Pleasant that was one key to helping Rogers unlock her tennis potential years ago. “It’s where I started,” Rogers said as kids practiced at the Mount Pleasant Tennis Complex on Thursday afternoon. “And if I wasn’t from here, I would not have had the career I’ve had.” Rogers, who is 32 and retired this year at the U.S. Open in August, was honored by her hometown on Nov. 21, and will be inducted into the S.C. Tennis Hall of Fame this weekend in Hilton Head. Haynie declared Nov. 23 “Shelby Rogers Day” in Mount Pleasant, and said that Rogers will act as the grand marshal of the Mount Pleasant Christmas parade. Rogers also will have a court named after at the tennis complex on Whipple Road. Charleston's Emma Navarro wins, Shelby Rogers heads for prime time at US Open “I spent a lot of time here at Whipple Road, running around the courts and the fields, playing tag,” Rogers said. “The memories are flooding back tonight, and having everyone here to share this moment is really special.” One person on hand was tennis coach Bryan Minton, who gave Rogers her first lesson when she was seven years old at the Family Circle Tennis Center on Daniel Island. “The first day I saw here, I told the tennis director, “This girl has some potential, do you mind if I take her under my wing?” Minton said. “So yeah, it was literally the first day I saw her.” Born in Mount Pleasant, Rogers turned pro when she was 17 after a dominant junior career. She won more than $5.6 million in her pro career, rising to a high of No. 30 on the WTA Tour in August of 2022. Rogers reached the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open and the French Open. She earned a reputation as a giant-killer on the WTA Tour, with victories over stars such as Serena Williams, Simona Halep, Ash Barty, Petra Kvitova and Elena Rybakina. Tributes for Charleston tennis star Shelby Rogers after retirement news Growing up, Rogers famously worked as a ballkid at the Family Circle Cup on Daniel Island and played in the tournament (now the Credit One Charleston Open) 13 times. She's also been an analyst on TV broadcasts, and plans to be on hand for the Charleston Open next year.Gabriel mimics Gyokeres in cheeky goal celebration in Arsenal win over Sporting in Champions League

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Online debate over foreign workers in tech shows tensions in Trump's political coalitionSia Piang out of jail, dept confirms

AP Business SummaryBrief at 5:15 p.m. EST"In light of the novelty and difficulty of this case, the court should consider staying the statutory deadline to grant more breathing space to address these issues," Trump's legal team wrote, to give him "the opportunity to pursue a political resolution." Trump was fiercely opposed to TikTok during his 2017-21 first term, and tried in vain to ban the video app on national security grounds. The Republican voiced concerns -- echoed by political rivals -- that the Chinese government might tap into US TikTok users' data or manipulate what they see on the platform. US officials had also voiced alarm over the popularity of the video-sharing app with young people, alleging that its parent company is subservient to Beijing and that the app is used to spread propaganda, claims denied by the company and the Chinese government. Trump called for a US company to buy TikTok, with the government sharing in the sale price, and his successor Joe Biden went one stage further -- signing a law to ban the app for the same reasons. Trump has now, however, reversed course. "Now (that) I'm thinking about it, I'm for TikTok, because you need competition," he recently told Bloomberg. "If you don't have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram -- and that's, you know, that's Zuckerberg." Facebook, founded by Mark Zuckerberg and part of his Meta tech empire, was among the social media networks that banned Trump after attacks by his supporters on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. The ban was driven by concerns that he would use the platform to promote more violence. Those bans on major social media platforms were later lifted. In the brief filed on Friday, Trump's lawyer made it clear the president-elect did not take a position on the legal merits of the current case. "President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute," John Sauer wrote in the amicus curiae -- or "friend of the court" -- brief. "Instead, he respectfully requests that the court consider staying the act's deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case, thus permitting President Trump's incoming Administration the opportunity to pursue a political resolution of the questions at issue in the case." ft/ahaJack White Shares Sweet Birthday Post for ‘Great’ Meg White: ‘Love You So Much’PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Saquon Barkley wanted to be a student in team history before he had a chance to make some with the Eagles. The running back who had just signed with Philadelphia for $26 million guaranteed took a deep dive on some of the franchise’s greats out of the backfield. He learned about Wilbert Montgomery. Brushed up on LeSean McCoy. Barkley then put them in his sights — and this week against Carolina, he could become the top single-season rusher in Eagles history. Get past those two Eagles Hall of Famers and the target narrows: McCoy has a chance to break Eric Dickerson's NFL single-season rushing mark of 2,105 yards, set in 1984. “That's your goal,” Barkley said. “You want to come in here, you want to leave a legacy on a place, on a franchise.” Here's where things stand with Barkley in his pursuit of records: — Barkley has an NFL-best 1,499 yards rushing through 12 games, an average of 124.9 yards per game. At that pace and with one more game to play than Dickerson, he would surpass the NFL mark that's stood for 40 years. — Barkley needs to run for 108 yards against the Panthers to break McCoy's Eagles record of 1,607 yards set in 2013. Montgomery ran for 1,512 yards in 1978. “I'm aware of the things I can accomplish,” Barkley said. “The way I accomplish that is sticking to the script.” The Eagles (10-2) have won eight straight to take control of the NFC East and remain in the hunt for the No. 1 seed in the conference. Barkley — with a little help from Jalen Hurts — has largely led the way and moved into MVP consideration. The former New York Giant also ranks third in the league with 11 rushing touchdowns. It's reasonable to expect Barkley to pile on the yards against Carolina (3-9). The Panthers are 32nd in the league against the run and just allowed Tampa Bay's Bucky Irving to run for a career-high 152 yards last week (he had never broken 100). “It’s incredible what he is doing. The record has stood up for a while. I mean 17 games or 14 games, it’s ridiculous,” Panthers defensive lineman Shy Tuttle said. “It’s a record that has been held for a long time and whoever breaks it, Saquon or someone else, it’s an incredible achievement.” Barkley leads the NFL with four rushing touchdowns of 25-plus yards this season and tied Montgomery for the most 100-yards games in an Eagles season with eight. “You get to see the player on Sundays. We get to see the person every other day during the week,” offensive coordinator Kellen Moore said. “He’s special. At the end of the day, he’s a special teammate, special person. The way he connects with everyone, rallies everyone together. He’s one of the best.” Panthers running back Chuba Hubbard is eager to get back on the field and put last week behind him. Carolina’s leading rusher had a costly fumble in overtime last Sunday against Tampa Bay as the Panthers were driving for a potential game-winning field goal, resulting in a 26-23 loss to division rival Tampa Bay. A dejected Hubbard remained on the bench for several minutes after the loss. “You definitely use it as motivation,” Hubbard said. “I have come a long way and I know what it’s like to play great football. That was a big mistake on my end, but I don’t just lose all of the work I have put in because of that one mistake.” Bryce Young is beginning to show he can be a factor with his legs, scoring on a 10-yard run last week against the Buccaneers. However, Young still receives plenty of good-natured ribbing from his teammates when it comes to his sliding ability, which the QB has previously admitted is limited because he wasn’t much of a baseball player. “He definitely has to work on his slide,” Hubbard said. “He has been making people miss so he hasn’t had to slide like that a lot. I mean I’m not trying to hate on my dog’s slide but it’s just a work in progress. He will be all right.” Panthers guard Robert Hunt said it’s always interesting playing in Philadelphia because of the team’s passionate fan base. Last year, while Hunt was playing for the Dolphins, he said an Eagles fan attempted to board the Miami team bus. “They have some characters there — some people who don’t really give a damn,” Hunt said. “He was trying to trash-talk us. But he was confident and that is what makes them them.” Hunt said the fan never made it on the bus. “Aw hell no, we would have stomped that boy,” Hunt said with a laugh. “He tried. He was talking his noise. Good for him. I don’t want to say you want a fan base like that, but you want a fan base that cares about the team.” AP Sports Writer Steve Reed in Charlotte, North Carolina, contributed to this report. AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL

New Paper Calls for More Diversity and Inclusivity in Neuroscientific ResearchWall Street experienced a notable surge on Wednesday, with tech stocks propelling the Nasdaq beyond the landmark 20,000-point threshold for the first time. This came in the wake of a U.S. inflation report which heightened expectations for a Federal Reserve interest rate cut. The Labor Department indicated a significant rise in U.S. consumer prices for November, aligning with market predictions. While the S&P 500 and Nasdaq posted gains, the Dow dipped amid erratic trading. Notably, sectors including technology, communication services, and consumer discretionary services saw positive movement, whereas healthcare and utilities recorded losses. In related developments, Tesla shares achieved a 4% increase, hitting a new high after the U.S. presidential election. Meanwhile, Nvidia, Alphabet, and Amazon also saw gains. In contrast, pharmacy benefit managers such as Cigna and CVS declined following new legislative pressures. On the Nasdaq, advancing stocks significantly outnumbered decliners, reflecting the broader uptrend in tech stocks. (With inputs from agencies.)

Samsung Galaxy S25 Series: Will Prices Hold Steady or Skyrocket?Beth Dooley | (TNS) The Minnesota Star Tribune The holidays loom large. Parties, gift-shopping, school programs, recitals, family gatherings — there’s really no time to cook. Related Articles Restaurants Food and Drink | Roasted orange delivers big flavor in this smoky chicken traybake Restaurants Food and Drink | Winter can be a time of culinary abundance. Experts share tips on eating nutritiously Restaurants Food and Drink | Recipe: How to make Peanut Butter Dog Biscuits your pup will love Restaurants Food and Drink | Simple fixes give after-dinner cocktails some holiday flair. Here are 5 recipes from the pros Restaurants Food and Drink | Recipe: Upside-down puff pastry apple tarts are both sweet and easy to make But there is! Here are three quick and easy recipes you can hustle to the table in 30 minutes or less. Relax, take a deep breath and know that dinner is served. Serves 4. Making grilled cheese for more than one can be tricky. Here, the sheet pan does the work; the sandwiches are ready all at once. Try our suggested fillings or just enjoy them plain in all their gooey deliciousness. From Beth Dooley. Directions Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a large sheet pan with parchment paper. Spread the butter to the edge of 4 slices of bread. Place the slices butter-side down on the sheet pan. Top with the sliced cheese and add a layer of the filling, then top with the remaining slices of bread. Put the pan in the oven and cook until the butter is thoroughly melted and bottom slices are turning golden and the cheese is melting, about 8 to 10 to minutes. Flip the sandwiches. Continue cooking until the top layer of bread begins to turn golden and the cheese is melted. Turn the oven to broil and toast the top layer, watching closely, this goes quickly, about 30 seconds to 1 minute. Flip the bread and toast the other side, about 15 to 20 seconds or so. Remove, cut and serve. Quick Skillet Chicken with Lemon, Tahini and Warm Spices will come together quickly and can be served on a bed of greens or pasta. (Ashley Moyna Schwickert/For the Minnesota Star Tribune) Serves 4 to 6. A simple marinade of pantry staples — lemon, tahini, olive oil and a little honey — keeps the chicken moist and becomes the sauce for finishing the dish. Serve on a bed of dark greens or cooked rice. From Beth Dooley. Directions In a large bowl, whisk together the lemon, tahini, honey and olive oil. Measure out 1⁄2 of the mixture into a separate bowl. This is to sauce the chicken after it’s cooked. If it seems too thick, whisk in a little water. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and pound with the flat edge of a knife to even out the width a bit. Put the chicken into the bowl of marinade and turn to coat. Film a heavy skillet with more oil and set over high heat. When the oil begins to ripple, add the chicken, reduce the heat to medium and cook, flipping after about 5 to 7 minutes, and continuing, until cooked through, about 10 to 15 minutes. (The chicken should reach 165 on an instant-read thermometer when done.) Remove the chicken from the skillet, set on a cutting board to rest for about 10 minutes. Slice the meat in long strokes against the grain. Serve on a bed of greens or rice, garnished with a drizzle of sauce, chopped herbs and a few thinly sliced lemons. Pass additional sauce on the side. One-Pot Pasta with Sausage, Tomato and Spinach is a quick but hearty meal for busy, chilly nights. (Ashley Moyna Schwickert/For the Minnesota Star Tribune) Serves 4 to 6. You only need one pot for this simple pasta. The sausage adds the seasoning, the onions turn sweetly golden, cherry tomatoes burst into a luscious sauce. A squeeze of lemon at the end livens things up. From Beth Dooley. Directions Film a large heavy pot or Dutch oven with the oil and set over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until it turns limp and golden, about 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in the sausage, breaking apart with a spatula until it crumbles, about 4 to 5 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and the stock, scraping up the bottom of the pan to release browned bits that stick to the bottom. Bring to a boil. Add the pasta, stirring well and continue boiling for about 4 to 5 minutes. Turn the heat down to a brisk simmer, stirring to keep the pasta from sticking to the bottom of the pot. If the sauce becomes too thick and the pasta begins to stick, stir in water, about 1⁄4 cup at a time. Simmer until the sauce is mostly absorbed and the pasta is tender, about 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the spinach, then stir in the cheese. Add lemon juice to taste. Serve garnished with the chopped parsley. Beth Dooley is the author of “The Perennial Kitchen.” Find her at bethdooleyskitchen.com. ©2024 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit at startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Union Minister of Railways, Information & Broadcasting, and Electronics & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, on Wednesday addressed the Lok Sabha. While answering the questions from the Members of Parliament, Vaishnaw highlighted several significant initiatives and achievements of the Indian Railways. Speaking on a wide range of topics, the Minister detailed efforts to enhance passenger convenience, improve operational efficiency, ensure safety, and promote transparency in recruitment processes. From infrastructural advancements to innovative train services, the Minister emphasized the Railways' commitment to serving the diverse needs of the nation. While speaking in Parliament, the Union Minister for Railways emphasized the balanced focus on both economically weaker and others by maintaining a ratio of 2:3 for non-AC coaches and 1:3 for AC coaches. To meet the growing demand for general coaches, a special manufacturing program has been launched, aiming to produce 12,000 general coaches. Out of this, 900 have already been added this financial year, with a target of manufacturing 10,000 more, ensuring convenience for unreserved category passengers. While answering question from Member of Parliament, the Union Minister detailed the extensive preparations for the upcoming Mahakumbh. A total of 13,000 trains have been planned to cater to the anticipated surge in passengers, reflecting a focused effort to serve middle-class and economically weaker families. The Minister highlighted the operational efficiency of the Railways during the Chhath and Diwali festivals. During these periods, approximately 7,900 special trains transported over 1 crore, 80 lakhs passengers without major inconveniences, showcasing the commitment to passenger convenience during peak travel seasons. In response to the question, the Minister said that the induction of the Amrit Bharat train series, designed entirely for non-AC passengers. Equipped with cutting-edge technology similar to Vande Bharat trains, these trains offer a noise and jerk-free travel experience. Plans are underway to produce 50 additional Amrit Bharat trains after the successful operation of the initial fleet over the past ten months. The Minister highlighted the Namo Bharat train initiative, designed for short-distance city pairs with high-frequency shuttle services. Two Namo Bharat trains are already operational, and after performance evaluations, large-scale production will be initiated. This step aims to replicate European regional train standards for the Indian middle class. The Union Minister cited the recent Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) examination as a model of transparency and efficiency. With 1.26 crore candidates participating across 211 cities, the examination concluded without a single paper leak or incident. As a result, 1,30,581 young individuals secured employment, setting a benchmark for fair recruitment processes. Addressing demands for a structured recruitment process, the Minister said the Railways have introduced an annual calendar for exams. Recruitment for 58,642 positions is currently underway, with over 11 lakh candidates recently participating in the loco pilot selection process. He assured Parliament of the Railways' commitment to providing maximum employment opportunities transparently. The Minister said that all unmanned authorized level crossings are today 100% manned or eliminated by constructing a flyover or underpass. 12,000 flyovers and underpasses have been constructed in these 10 years. This achievement ensures enhanced safety and efficient train operations, marking a significant milestone in railway infrastructure development.

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The former Tory chancellor, now chairman of the British Museum, suggested Sir Keir Starmer had contributed to a warmer spirit of the negotiations over the famous ancient artworks. Greece has long called for the return of the Marbles, also known as the Parthenon sculptures, and maintains they were illegally removed from Athens’ acropolis during a period of foreign occupation. The British Museum – where they are currently on display – is forbidden by law from giving away any of its artefacts, and the Government has no plans to change the law to permit a permanent move. But under Mr Osborne’s leadership, the museum is negotiating the possibility of a long-term loan of the sculptures, in exchange for rolling exhibitions of famous artworks. No 10 has indicated the Prime Minister is unlikely to stand in the way of such a deal. Speaking on Political Currency, the podcast he hosts alongside former Labour politician Ed Balls, Mr Osborne said the museum was “looking to see if we can come to some arrangement where at some point some of the sculptures are in Athens, where, of course, they were originally sited”. He added: “And in return, Greece lends us some of its treasures, and we made a lot of progress on that, but we’re still some distance from any kind of agreement.” The Greek government has suggested negotiations with the museum have taken a warmer tone since Labour came to power in the summer. Mr Osborne appeared to concur with this view and praised Sir Keir’s hands-off approach, adding: “It is not the same as Rishi Sunak, who refused to see the Greek prime minister, if you remember, he sort of stood him up. “So it seems to me a more sensible and diplomatic way to proceed.” Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek premier, discussed the Elgin Marbles with Sir Keir when they met on Tuesday morning at Downing Street, he said after returning to Athens. Mr Mitsotakis has signalled his government is awaiting developments on the negotiations. A diplomatic spat between the Greek leader and Mr Sunak emerged last year when the then-prime minister refused to meet his counterpart. Mr Mitsotakis had compared splitting the Elgin Marbles from those still in Athens to cutting the Mona Lisa in half. The marble statues came from friezes on the 2,500-year-old Parthenon temple and have been displayed at the British Museum for more than 200 years. They were removed by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century when he was British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Some of the remaining temple statues are on display in the purpose-built Acropolis Museum in Athens, and Greece has called for the collections to be reunited.

WASHINGTON — The United States is expected to announce that it will send $1.25 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, U.S. officials said Friday, as the Biden administration pushes to get as much aid to Kyiv as possible before leaving office on Jan. 20. The large package of aid includes a significant amount of munitions, including for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems and the HAWK air defense system. It also will provide Stinger missiles and 155 mm- and 105 mm artillery rounds, officials said. The officials, who said they expect the announcement to be made on Monday, spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public. The new aid comes as Russia has launched a barrage of attacks against Ukraine’s power facilities in recent days, although Ukraine has said it intercepted a significant number of the missiles and drones. Russian and Ukrainian forces are also still in a bitter battle around the Russian border region of Kursk, where Moscow has sent thousands of North Korean troops to help reclaim territory taken by Ukraine. Earlier this month, senior defense officials acknowledged that that the Defense Department may not be able to send all of the remaining $5.6 billion in Pentagon weapons and equipment stocks passed by Congress for Ukraine before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in. Trump has talked about getting some type of negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia, and spoken about his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin . Many U.S. and European leaders are concerned that it might result in a poor deal for Ukraine and they worry that he won't provide Ukraine with all the weapons funding approved by Congress. The aid in the new package is in presidential drawdown authority, which allows the Pentagon to take weapons off the shelves and send them quickly to Ukraine. This latest assistance would reduce the remaining amount to about $4.35 billion. Officials have said they hope that an influx of aid will help strengthen Ukraine’s hand, should Zelenskyy decide it’s time to negotiate. One senior defense official said that while the U.S. will continue to provide weapons to Ukraine until Jan. 20, there may well be funds remaining that will be available for the incoming Trump administration to spend. According to the Pentagon, there is also about $1.2 billion remaining in longer-term funding through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which is used to pay for weapons contracts that would not be delivered for a year or more. Officials have said the administration anticipates releasing all of that money before the end of the calendar year. If the new package is included, the U.S. has provided more than $64 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022.Ulta Beauty: Beware Of Getting Caught Up In The Relief Rally (Rating Downgrade)

Disagreement between the U.S. and China is increasing across trade and global influence issues. Reports from the recent Asian economic summit show a bitterness in it. Established economies like the U.S. and Australia want to develop a naval base in Papua New Guinea to contain China. The U.S. is cautioning poorer countries from borrowing money from China. Excerpts below from a BBC report show the deep levels of enmity. Apec summit ends without statement over US-China division - BBC News An Asian economic summit has ended without a formal leaders' statement for the first time because of US-China divisions over trade. The US and China revealed competing visions for the region at the summit. The two countries have been engaged in a tit-for-tat trade war this year. During the summit, the US said it would join Australia in developing a naval base in Papua New Guinea, in an apparent move to curb China's growing influence. Mr Pence later said he was prepared to "more than double" the tariffs imposed on Chinese goods. He also criticised China's massive Belt-and-Road infrastructure programme, warning smaller countries that "opaque" Chinese development loans led to "staggering debt". He urged countries to work with the US instead, saying the US did not "coerce, corrupt or compromise your independence". Old economies are never pleased to see emerging economies that are more flexible, energetic, and pro-active in creating new trade models. The Belt and Road Initiative is a development strategy adopted by the Chinese government involving infrastructure development and investments in Silk Road countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa on both overland and sea routes. Building infrastructure in these countries is a much sounder economic model than locating mobile multi-national enterprises or military bases or occupation. The downside is that it can involve incurring substantial debt which eventually requires getting a country’s finances into better shape to afford repayments in order to own the assets. Beijing’s multi-billions dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been called a Chinese Marshall Plan, a state-backed campaign for global dominance, a stimulus package for a slowing economy, and a massive marketing campaign for something that was already happening – Chinese investment around the world. Between 2014 and 2016, China's total trade volume in the countries along the Belt and Road exceeded $3 trillion, created $1.1 billion revenues, and 180,000 jobs for the countries involved. Is the U.S. losing ground to China? Should countries refrain from borrowing from China? What are the implications for Europe of a prosperous Silk Road economy? The Silk Road really is an attempt to extend Chinese soft power utilising exactly the same free market principles much espoused by the west for much of the last two centuries. Building a base in Papua New Guinea, which I believe is somewhat North of Australia, seems to be out of the strategic plan of drawing new lines further and further back and issuing dire warnings if China dare cross that new line. It was hugely funny watching the Americans in particular warning of China's attempted influence in the South China Sea. The irony was magnificent. It was the equivalent of the Chinese or Russians warning of increased American naval activity off Hawaii. To answer the question- the new Silk Road plans are a solid indicator that Beijing understands exactly what Washington was preaching through World Trade Organisation talks for many decades middleground said: Disagreement between the U.S. and China is increasing across trade and global influence issues. Reports from the recent Asian economic summit show a bitterness in it. Established economies like the U.S. and Australia want to develop a naval base in Papua New Guinea to contain China. The U.S. is cautioning poorer countries from borrowing money from China. Excerpts below from a BBC report show the deep levels of enmity. Apec summit ends without statement over US-China division - BBC News An Asian economic summit has ended without a formal leaders' statement for the first time because of US-China divisions over trade. The US and China revealed competing visions for the region at the summit. The two countries have been engaged in a tit-for-tat trade war this year. During the summit, the US said it would join Australia in developing a naval base in Papua New Guinea, in an apparent move to curb China's growing influence. Mr Pence later said he was prepared to "more than double" the tariffs imposed on Chinese goods. He also criticised China's massive Belt-and-Road infrastructure programme, warning smaller countries that "opaque" Chinese development loans led to "staggering debt". He urged countries to work with the US instead, saying the US did not "coerce, corrupt or compromise your independence". Old economies are never pleased to see emerging economies that are more flexible, energetic, and pro-active in creating new trade models. The Belt and Road Initiative is a development strategy adopted by the Chinese government involving infrastructure development and investments in Silk Road countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa on both overland and sea routes. Building infrastructure in these countries is a much sounder economic model than locating mobile multi-national enterprises or military bases or occupation. The downside is that it can involve incurring substantial debt which eventually requires getting a country’s finances into better shape to afford repayments in order to own the assets. Beijing’s multi-billions dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been called a Chinese Marshall Plan, a state-backed campaign for global dominance, a stimulus package for a slowing economy, and a massive marketing campaign for something that was already happening – Chinese investment around the world. Between 2014 and 2016, China's total trade volume in the countries along the Belt and Road exceeded $3 trillion, created $1.1 billion revenues, and 180,000 jobs for the countries involved. Is the U.S. losing ground to China? Should countries refrain from borrowing from China? What are the implications for Europe of a prosperous Silk Road economy? Click to expand... There are two types of people those who have money and those who don't. Guess who always comes out on top. Lumpy Talbot said: To answer the question- the new Silk Road plans are a solid indicator that Beijing understands exactly what Washington was preaching through World Trade Organisation talks for many decades Click to expand... Agree China has learned well and are developing quickly and quietly. There should be export opportunities for many European countries if their enterprises are willing to do the work required to develop new markets. A strong Asian-European gateway would be welcome. Is there any region that the US hasn't insulted or attacked recently (apart from Saudi Arabia)? Thinking further on the dynamics of the new Silk Road policy it certainly makes sense from the Chinese point of view. The outlay and scope of the project matches a series of Trade Agreements, with such huge amounts of Chinese infrastructure investment they get to influence the voting patterns at the UN with many countries along the route while simultaneously the US is retracting its spend outside the US and becoming more internally focused (the Chinese have the money to spend, the US doesn't). It is clever in that it is a mix of Monopoly and Risk at exactly the right time. If you think back to Reagan's supercharging the US economy in the 80s which effectively drove the Soviet Union into financial collapse the Americans are in no position to get into an economic pissing match with Beijing so it is the right thing for Beijing to do in filling the international vacuum. They have such huge reserves of foreign currency and the Yuan about to emerge as an exchange currency, along with the ability to directly intervene in domestic economics way beyond any level that could be contemplated in the west, that they really are the bankers in the Monopoly game now. And the Silk Road project gives them a strategic spending target allied to both economic and political gains. As for the winners and losers, the countries along the route closest to Chinese interests probably won't feel any different. It gets interesting as you get to Pakistan and India, where India is fuming about the Chinese infrastructure spend in Pakistan and refusing to have anything to do with the Silk Road project accordingly, which doesn't bother China or Pakistan all that much. The western European plans will be interesting- I believe significant infrastructure projects and new links are planned right through to Rotterdam. Might give some European countries a bit more hesitation in following the US line on voting at the UN ultimately. Heh- just remembered that the High Speed Rail Line between London and the Channel Tunnel is already owned by a subsidiary company owned ultimately by Li Ka-Shing, the multibillionaire who is a senior economic advisor to the politburo in Beijing. Socratus O' Pericles said: There are two types of people those who have money and those who don't. Guess who always comes out on top. Click to expand... Those who print it! Socratus O' Pericles said: There are two types of people those who have money and those who don't. Guess who always comes out on top. Click to expand... Yes two types of persons but three types of empire: past, present, and future. It will be future empires that will have the money! Around 90 countries in the Belt Road Initiative (BRI) so it is much different than more recent bilateral engagements by the U.S. Infrastructural projects deliver employment at local level even if it is only housing and feeding the workers. The Belt and Road Initiative: Country Profiles | HKTDC The future will be a bullet train across Europe and Asia. middleground said: Yes two types of persons but three types of empire: past, present, and future. It will be future empires that will have the money! Around 90 countries in the Belt Road Initiative (BRI) so it is much different than more recent bilateral engagements by the U.S. Infrastructural projects deliver employment at local level even if it is only housing and feeding the workers. The Belt and Road Initiative: Country Profiles | HKTDC Click to expand... I agree. The Chinese have money and lots of it and are posseors of a model that will make many trillions more. Exaggeration of THEIR debt problem is nonsense: Most people think of China's growth coming from its burgeoning export sector. But it has a very strong domestic economy and a large public spending program – its called ‘nation building’. ... [T]here is no discussion [in China] about the country drowning in debt and all of that nonsense. [The Chinese] know full well that they are sovereign in their own currency and can deficit spend to further their sense of public purpose." : From "The government really is instrumental in creating growth" by Bill Mitchell, 20 January 2016 Click to expand... Here is the start of the EU strategic response to the Belt Road Initiative: Europes Belt and Road | The Diplomat Reminds me of a man at the post-Christmas sales rush, quietly queueing while all the goods are being snatched up by experienced shoppers Not everyone happy about the possible economic changes that the One Belt Initiative may bring to traditional communities according to a BBC website report: Gunmen have killed at least four people in an attack on the Chinese consulate in the Pakistani port city of Karachi. Gunshots were heard at about 09:30 local time (04:30 GMT) outside the consulate in the upmarket Clifton area. Police shot dead three attackers. Separatist militants who oppose Chinese investment projects in western Pakistan say they carried out the attack. China's ambition widens to include Greenland in the One Belt initiative: How Greenland could become China's Arctic base - BBC News middleground said: Yes two types of persons but three types of empire: past, present, and future. It will be future empires that will have the money! Around 90 countries in the Belt Road Initiative (BRI) so it is much different than more recent bilateral engagements by the U.S. Infrastructural projects deliver employment at local level even if it is only housing and feeding the workers. The Belt and Road Initiative: Country Profiles | HKTDC The future will be a bullet train across Europe and Asia. Click to expand... Except China is a nasty totalitarian dictatorship that eats people up and spits them out. Any comparison between it and western democracies are fraudulent. middleground said: Not everyone happy about the possible economic changes that the One Belt Initiative may bring to traditional communities according to a BBC website report: Gunmen have killed at least four people in an attack on the Chinese consulate in the Pakistani port city of Karachi. Gunshots were heard at about 09:30 local time (04:30 GMT) outside the consulate in the upmarket Clifton area. Police shot dead three attackers. Separatist militants who oppose Chinese investment projects in western Pakistan say they carried out the attack. Click to expand... We have a tale of two ports, 100km apart: Chabahar in Iran, developed with Indian support, and China’s Gwadar port in Pakistan. There are teething troubles with both: https://www.newdelhitimes.com/suicide-bomber-attack-irans-chabahar-port/ Karachi attack: A gunfight in Karachi shakes up Pakistan and China's all-weather alliance - The Economic Times China’s relationship with Pakistan involves a lot more money but also far more resentment. The Pakistanis are well aware of Chinese attitudes to Muslims and South Asians and, given Pakistani levels of paranoia never being much being much below 11/10, we should be in for quite the show. In a way the Belt & Road initiative is really just marketing for what has been going on for a long time. For instance in Africa while the West has long walked away it is China that has stepped in to build infrastructure, power plants, ports, railways and healthcare etc. This has been going on for so long now, that it is what was really behind George W Bush suddenly professing concern over Africa and boosting AIDS spending, if any of you remember that far back. But as usual with the US it was too little, too late, with no strategic long-term commitment and follow-through. In another sense it is an interesting throwback 2000 years to the era of the Roman and Han empires, except with modern technology, telecoms and transport links, which could have interesting and unforeseeable consequences. There's also more than a touch of Mackinder's century-old Heartland/World-Island theory of geo-political dominance. Definitely one to watch - though, as with Mao and the French Revolution, we'll all be long dead before the full implications and consequences of this become obvious. It's way too big and complicated to make specific predictions about the project as a whole. Its success or otherwise will be based on the extent to which the projects service existing demand or create new demand. Chinese infrastructural investment is massively inefficient in some respects and utterly awe-inspiring in other respects. It's hard to apply a hard and fast rule to something that is half-politics and half-economics. However I hope it works out as economic growth on that scale is definitely not a zero sum game. Maybe the U.S. will make it illegal for countries to cooperate together on the Silk road? Congress beating a drum about NOPEC with threat of sanctions against countries that collaborate to work together for a stable oil market: Bill allowing U.S. to sue OPEC drawing renewed interest | Reuters What's next will the EU be sanctioned as an illegal cartel? middleground said: Maybe the U.S. will make it illegal for countries to cooperate together on the Silk road? Congress beating a drum about NOPEC with threat of sanctions against countries that collaborate to work together for a stable oil market: Bill allowing U.S. to sue OPEC drawing renewed interest | Reuters What's next will the EU be sanctioned as an illegal cartel? Click to expand... The US would be outraged by a similar infringement of its own sovereignty.KYIV, Ukraine — NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks Tuesday after Russia attacked a central city with an experimental, hypersonic ballistic missile. escalating the nearly 33-month-old war. The conflict is “entering a decisive phase,” Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday, and “taking on very dramatic dimensions.” Ukraine’s parliament canceled a session as security was tightened following Thursday’s Russian strike on a military facility in the city of Dnipro. In a stark warning to the West, President Vladimir Putin said in a nationally televised speech the attack with the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was in retaliation for Kyiv’s use of U.S. and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory. Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks Friday during a meeting with the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense, representatives of the military-industrial complex and developers of missile systems at the Kremlin in Moscow. Putin said Western air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile. Ukrainian military officials said the missile that hit Dnipro reached a speed of Mach 11 and carried six nonnuclear warheads, each releasing six submunitions. Speaking Friday to military and weapons industries officials, Putin said Russia will launch production of the Oreshnik. “No one in the world has such weapons,” he said. “Sooner or later, other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development. “We have this system now,” he added. “And this is important.” Putin said that while it isn’t an intercontinental missile, it’s so powerful that the use of several of them fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with strategic — or nuclear — weapons. Gen. Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with nuclear or conventional warheads, echoing Putin’s claim that even with conventional warheads, “the massive use of the weapon would be comparable in effect to the use of nuclear weapons.” In this photo taken from a video released Friday, a Russian serviceman operates at an undisclosed location in Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov kept up Russia's bellicose tone on Friday, blaming “the reckless decisions and actions of Western countries” in supplying weapons to Ukraine to strike Russia. "The Russian side has clearly demonstrated its capabilities, and the contours of further retaliatory actions in the event that our concerns were not taken into account have also been quite clearly outlined," he said. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, widely seen as having the warmest relations with the Kremlin in the European Union, echoed Moscow’s talking points, suggesting the use of U.S.-supplied weapons in Ukraine likely requires direct American involvement. “These are rockets that are fired and then guided to a target via an electronic system, which requires the world’s most advanced technology and satellite communications capability,” Orbán said on state radio. “There is a strong assumption ... that these missiles cannot be guided without the assistance of American personnel.” Orbán cautioned against underestimating Russia’s responses, emphasizing that the country’s recent modifications to its nuclear deployment doctrine should not be dismissed as a “bluff.” “It’s not a trick ... there will be consequences,” he said. Czech Republic's Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky speaks to journalists Friday during a joint news conference with Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andriiy Sybiha in Kyiv, Ukraine. Separately in Kyiv, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský called Thursday’s missile strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe.” At a news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Lipavský also expressed his full support for delivering the necessary additional air defense systems to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks.” He said the Czech Republic will impose no limits on the use of its weapons and equipment given to Ukraine. Three lawmakers from Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, confirmed that Friday's previously scheduled session was called off due to the ongoing threat of Russian missiles targeting government buildings in central Kyiv. In addition, there also was a recommendation to limit the work of all commercial offices and nongovernmental organizations "in that perimeter, and local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, who said it's not the first time such a threat has been received. Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate said the Oreshnik missile was fired from the Kapustin Yar 4th Missile Test Range in Russia’s Astrakhan region and flew 15 minutes before striking Dnipro. Test launches of a similar missile were conducted in October 2023 and June 2024, the directorate said. The Pentagon confirmed the missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate-range missile based on its RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile. Thursday's attack struck the Pivdenmash plant that built ICBMs when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. The military facility is located about 4 miles southwest of the center of Dnipro, a city of about 1 million that is Ukraine’s fourth-largest and a key hub for military supplies and humanitarian aid, and is home to one of the country’s largest hospitals for treating wounded soldiers from the front before their transfer to Kyiv or abroad. We're all going to die someday. Still, how it happens—and when—can point to a historical moment defined by the scientific advancements and public health programs available at the time to contain disease and prevent accidents. In the early 1900s, America's efforts to improve sanitation, hygiene, and routine vaccinations were still in their infancy. Maternal and infant mortality rates were high, as were contagious diseases that spread between people and animals. Combined with the devastation of two World Wars—and the Spanish Flu pandemic in between—the leading causes of death changed significantly after this period. So, too, did the way we diagnose and control the spread of disease. Starting with reforms as part of Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s, massive-scale, federal interventions in the U.S. eventually helped stave off disease transmission. It took comprehensive government programs and the establishment of state and local health agencies to educate the public on preventing disease transmission. Seemingly simple behavioral shifts, such as handwashing, were critical in thwarting the spread of germs, much like discoveries in medicine, such as vaccines, and increased access to deliver them across geographies. Over the course of the 20th century, life expectancy increased by 56% and is estimated to keep increasing slightly, according to an annual summary of vital statistics published by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2000. Death Records examined data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to see how the leading causes of death in America have evolved over time and to pinpoint how some major mortality trends have dropped off. According to a report published in the journal Annual Review of Public Health in 2000, pneumonia was the leading cause of death in the early 1900s, accounting for nearly 1 in 4 deaths. By the time World War I ended in 1918, during which people and animals were housed together for long periods, a new virus emerged: the Spanish Flu. Originating in a bird before spreading to humans, the virus killed 10 times as many Americans as the war. Many died of secondary pneumonia after the initial infection. Pneumonia deaths eventually plummeted throughout the century, partly prevented by increased flu vaccine uptake rates in high-risk groups, particularly older people. Per the CDC, tuberculosis was a close second leading cause of death, killing 194 of every 10,000 people in 1900, mainly concentrated in dense urban areas where the infection could more easily spread. Eventually, public health interventions led to drastic declines in mortality from the disease, such as public education, reducing crowded housing, quarantining people with active disease, improving hygiene, and using antibiotics. Once the death rates lagged, so did the public health infrastructure built to control the disease, leading to a resurgence in the mid-1980s. Diarrhea was the third leading cause of death in 1900, surging every summer among children before the impacts of the pathogen died out in 1930. Adopting water filtration, better nutrition, and improved refrigeration were all associated with its decline. In the 1940s and 1950s, polio outbreaks killed or paralyzed upward of half a million people worldwide every year. Even at its peak, polio wasn't a leading cause of death, it was a much-feared one, particularly among parents of young children, some of whom kept them from crowded public places and interacting with other children. By 1955, when Jonah Salk discovered the polio vaccine, the U.S. had ended the "golden age of medicine." During this period, the causes of mortality shifted dramatically as scientists worldwide began to collaborate on infectious disease control, surgical techniques, vaccines, and other drugs. From the 1950s onward, once quick-spreading deadly contagions weren't prematurely killing American residents en masse, scientists also began to understand better how to diagnose and treat these diseases. As a result, Americans were living longer lives and instead succumbing to noncommunicable diseases, or NCDs. The risk of chronic diseases increased with age and, in some cases, was exacerbated by unhealthy lifestyles. Cancer and heart disease shot up across the century, increasing 90-fold from 1900 to 1998, according to CDC data. Following the post-Spanish Flu years, heart disease killed more Americans than any other cause, peaking in the 1960s and contributing to 1 in 3 deaths. Cigarette smoking rates peaked at the same time, a major risk factor for heart disease. Obesity rates also rose, creating another risk factor for heart disease and many types of cancers. This coincides with the introduction of ultra-processed foods into diets, which plays a more significant role in larger waistlines than the increasing predominance of sedentary work and lifestyles. In the early 1970s, deaths from heart disease began to fall as more Americans prevented and managed their risk factors, like quitting smoking or taking blood pressure medicine. However, the disease remains the biggest killer of Americans. Cancer remains the second leading cause of death and rates still indicate an upward trajectory over time. Only a few types of cancer are detected early by screening, and some treatments for aggressive cancers like glioblastoma—the most common type of brain cancer—have also stalled, unable to improve prognosis much over time. In recent years, early-onset cancers, those diagnosed before age 50 or sometimes even earlier, have seen a drastic rise among younger Americans. While highly processed foods and sedentary lifestyles may contribute to rising rates, a spike in cancer rates among otherwise healthy young individuals has baffled some medical professionals. This follows the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020. At its peak, high transmission rates made the virus the third leading cause of death in America. It's often compared to the Spanish Flu of 1918, though COVID-19 had a far larger global impact, spurring international collaborations among scientists who developed a vaccine in an unprecedented time. Public policy around issues of safety and access also influences causes of death, particularly—and tragically—among young Americans. Gun control measures in the U.S. are far less stringent than in peer nations; compared to other nations, however, the U.S. leads in gun violence. Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens (around 2 in 3 are homicides, and 1 in 3 are suicides), and deaths from opioids remain a leading cause of death among younger people. Globally, the leading causes of death mirror differences in social and geographic factors. NCDs are primarily associated with socio-economic status and comprise 7 out of 10 leading causes of death, 85% of those occurring in low- and middle-income countries, according to the World Health Organization. However, one of the best health measures is life expectancy at birth. People in the U.S. have been living longer lives since 2000, except for a slight dip in longevity due to COVID-19. According to the most recent CDC estimates, Americans' life expectancy is 77.5 years on average and is expected to increase slightly in the coming decades. Story editing by Alizah Salario. Additional editing by Kelly Glass. Copy editing by Paris Close. Photo selection by Lacy Kerrick. This story originally appeared on Death Records and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio. Get local news delivered to your inbox!

Merab Dvalishvili names date for Petr Yan world title rematch after his win over Deiveson Figueiredo at UFC MacauWASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is expected to announce that it will send $1.25 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, U.S. officials said Friday, as the Biden administration pushes to get as much aid to Kyiv as possible before leaving office on Jan. 20. The large package of aid includes a significant amount of munitions, including for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems and the HAWK air defense system. It also will provide Stinger missiles and 155 mm- and 105 mm artillery rounds, officials said. The officials, who said they expect the announcement to be made on Monday, spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public. The new aid comes as Russia has launched a barrage of attacks against Ukraine’s power facilities in recent days, although Ukraine has said it intercepted a significant number of the missiles and drones. Russian and Ukrainian forces are also still in a bitter battle around the Russian border region of Kursk, where Moscow has sent thousands of North Korean troops to help reclaim territory taken by Ukraine. Earlier this month, senior defense officials acknowledged that that the Defense Department may not be able to send all of the remaining $5.6 billion in Pentagon weapons and equipment stocks passed by Congress for Ukraine before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in. Trump has talked about getting some type of negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia, and spoken about his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin . Many U.S. and European leaders are concerned that it might result in a poor deal for Ukraine and they worry that he won't provide Ukraine with all the weapons funding approved by Congress. The aid in the new package is in presidential drawdown authority, which allows the Pentagon to take weapons off the shelves and send them quickly to Ukraine. This latest assistance would reduce the remaining amount to about $4.35 billion. Officials have said they hope that an influx of aid will help strengthen Ukraine’s hand, should Zelenskyy decide it’s time to negotiate. One senior defense official said that while the U.S. will continue to provide weapons to Ukraine until Jan. 20, there may well be funds remaining that will be available for the incoming Trump administration to spend. According to the Pentagon, there is also about $1.2 billion remaining in longer-term funding through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which is used to pay for weapons contracts that would not be delivered for a year or more. Officials have said the administration anticipates releasing all of that money before the end of the calendar year. If the new package is included, the U.S. has provided more than $64 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022.

KYIV, Ukraine — NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks Tuesday after Russia attacked a central city with an experimental, hypersonic ballistic missile. escalating the nearly 33-month-old war. The conflict is “entering a decisive phase,” Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday, and “taking on very dramatic dimensions.” Ukraine’s parliament canceled a session as security was tightened following Thursday’s Russian strike on a military facility in the city of Dnipro. In a stark warning to the West, President Vladimir Putin said in a nationally televised speech the attack with the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was in retaliation for Kyiv’s use of U.S. and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory. Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks Friday during a meeting with the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense, representatives of the military-industrial complex and developers of missile systems at the Kremlin in Moscow. Putin said Western air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile. Ukrainian military officials said the missile that hit Dnipro reached a speed of Mach 11 and carried six nonnuclear warheads, each releasing six submunitions. Speaking Friday to military and weapons industries officials, Putin said Russia will launch production of the Oreshnik. “No one in the world has such weapons,” he said. “Sooner or later, other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development. “We have this system now,” he added. “And this is important.” Putin said that while it isn’t an intercontinental missile, it’s so powerful that the use of several of them fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with strategic — or nuclear — weapons. Gen. Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with nuclear or conventional warheads, echoing Putin’s claim that even with conventional warheads, “the massive use of the weapon would be comparable in effect to the use of nuclear weapons.” In this photo taken from a video released Friday, a Russian serviceman operates at an undisclosed location in Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov kept up Russia's bellicose tone on Friday, blaming “the reckless decisions and actions of Western countries” in supplying weapons to Ukraine to strike Russia. "The Russian side has clearly demonstrated its capabilities, and the contours of further retaliatory actions in the event that our concerns were not taken into account have also been quite clearly outlined," he said. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, widely seen as having the warmest relations with the Kremlin in the European Union, echoed Moscow’s talking points, suggesting the use of U.S.-supplied weapons in Ukraine likely requires direct American involvement. “These are rockets that are fired and then guided to a target via an electronic system, which requires the world’s most advanced technology and satellite communications capability,” Orbán said on state radio. “There is a strong assumption ... that these missiles cannot be guided without the assistance of American personnel.” Orbán cautioned against underestimating Russia’s responses, emphasizing that the country’s recent modifications to its nuclear deployment doctrine should not be dismissed as a “bluff.” “It’s not a trick ... there will be consequences,” he said. Czech Republic's Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky speaks to journalists Friday during a joint news conference with Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andriiy Sybiha in Kyiv, Ukraine. Separately in Kyiv, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský called Thursday’s missile strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe.” At a news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Lipavský also expressed his full support for delivering the necessary additional air defense systems to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks.” He said the Czech Republic will impose no limits on the use of its weapons and equipment given to Ukraine. Three lawmakers from Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, confirmed that Friday's previously scheduled session was called off due to the ongoing threat of Russian missiles targeting government buildings in central Kyiv. In addition, there also was a recommendation to limit the work of all commercial offices and nongovernmental organizations "in that perimeter, and local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, who said it's not the first time such a threat has been received. Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate said the Oreshnik missile was fired from the Kapustin Yar 4th Missile Test Range in Russia’s Astrakhan region and flew 15 minutes before striking Dnipro. Test launches of a similar missile were conducted in October 2023 and June 2024, the directorate said. The Pentagon confirmed the missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate-range missile based on its RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile. Thursday's attack struck the Pivdenmash plant that built ICBMs when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. The military facility is located about 4 miles southwest of the center of Dnipro, a city of about 1 million that is Ukraine’s fourth-largest and a key hub for military supplies and humanitarian aid, and is home to one of the country’s largest hospitals for treating wounded soldiers from the front before their transfer to Kyiv or abroad. We're all going to die someday. Still, how it happens—and when—can point to a historical moment defined by the scientific advancements and public health programs available at the time to contain disease and prevent accidents. In the early 1900s, America's efforts to improve sanitation, hygiene, and routine vaccinations were still in their infancy. Maternal and infant mortality rates were high, as were contagious diseases that spread between people and animals. Combined with the devastation of two World Wars—and the Spanish Flu pandemic in between—the leading causes of death changed significantly after this period. So, too, did the way we diagnose and control the spread of disease. Starting with reforms as part of Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s, massive-scale, federal interventions in the U.S. eventually helped stave off disease transmission. It took comprehensive government programs and the establishment of state and local health agencies to educate the public on preventing disease transmission. Seemingly simple behavioral shifts, such as handwashing, were critical in thwarting the spread of germs, much like discoveries in medicine, such as vaccines, and increased access to deliver them across geographies. Over the course of the 20th century, life expectancy increased by 56% and is estimated to keep increasing slightly, according to an annual summary of vital statistics published by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2000. Death Records examined data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to see how the leading causes of death in America have evolved over time and to pinpoint how some major mortality trends have dropped off. According to a report published in the journal Annual Review of Public Health in 2000, pneumonia was the leading cause of death in the early 1900s, accounting for nearly 1 in 4 deaths. By the time World War I ended in 1918, during which people and animals were housed together for long periods, a new virus emerged: the Spanish Flu. Originating in a bird before spreading to humans, the virus killed 10 times as many Americans as the war. Many died of secondary pneumonia after the initial infection. Pneumonia deaths eventually plummeted throughout the century, partly prevented by increased flu vaccine uptake rates in high-risk groups, particularly older people. Per the CDC, tuberculosis was a close second leading cause of death, killing 194 of every 10,000 people in 1900, mainly concentrated in dense urban areas where the infection could more easily spread. Eventually, public health interventions led to drastic declines in mortality from the disease, such as public education, reducing crowded housing, quarantining people with active disease, improving hygiene, and using antibiotics. Once the death rates lagged, so did the public health infrastructure built to control the disease, leading to a resurgence in the mid-1980s. Diarrhea was the third leading cause of death in 1900, surging every summer among children before the impacts of the pathogen died out in 1930. Adopting water filtration, better nutrition, and improved refrigeration were all associated with its decline. In the 1940s and 1950s, polio outbreaks killed or paralyzed upward of half a million people worldwide every year. Even at its peak, polio wasn't a leading cause of death, it was a much-feared one, particularly among parents of young children, some of whom kept them from crowded public places and interacting with other children. By 1955, when Jonah Salk discovered the polio vaccine, the U.S. had ended the "golden age of medicine." During this period, the causes of mortality shifted dramatically as scientists worldwide began to collaborate on infectious disease control, surgical techniques, vaccines, and other drugs. From the 1950s onward, once quick-spreading deadly contagions weren't prematurely killing American residents en masse, scientists also began to understand better how to diagnose and treat these diseases. As a result, Americans were living longer lives and instead succumbing to noncommunicable diseases, or NCDs. The risk of chronic diseases increased with age and, in some cases, was exacerbated by unhealthy lifestyles. Cancer and heart disease shot up across the century, increasing 90-fold from 1900 to 1998, according to CDC data. Following the post-Spanish Flu years, heart disease killed more Americans than any other cause, peaking in the 1960s and contributing to 1 in 3 deaths. Cigarette smoking rates peaked at the same time, a major risk factor for heart disease. Obesity rates also rose, creating another risk factor for heart disease and many types of cancers. This coincides with the introduction of ultra-processed foods into diets, which plays a more significant role in larger waistlines than the increasing predominance of sedentary work and lifestyles. In the early 1970s, deaths from heart disease began to fall as more Americans prevented and managed their risk factors, like quitting smoking or taking blood pressure medicine. However, the disease remains the biggest killer of Americans. Cancer remains the second leading cause of death and rates still indicate an upward trajectory over time. Only a few types of cancer are detected early by screening, and some treatments for aggressive cancers like glioblastoma—the most common type of brain cancer—have also stalled, unable to improve prognosis much over time. In recent years, early-onset cancers, those diagnosed before age 50 or sometimes even earlier, have seen a drastic rise among younger Americans. While highly processed foods and sedentary lifestyles may contribute to rising rates, a spike in cancer rates among otherwise healthy young individuals has baffled some medical professionals. This follows the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020. At its peak, high transmission rates made the virus the third leading cause of death in America. It's often compared to the Spanish Flu of 1918, though COVID-19 had a far larger global impact, spurring international collaborations among scientists who developed a vaccine in an unprecedented time. Public policy around issues of safety and access also influences causes of death, particularly—and tragically—among young Americans. Gun control measures in the U.S. are far less stringent than in peer nations; compared to other nations, however, the U.S. leads in gun violence. Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens (around 2 in 3 are homicides, and 1 in 3 are suicides), and deaths from opioids remain a leading cause of death among younger people. Globally, the leading causes of death mirror differences in social and geographic factors. NCDs are primarily associated with socio-economic status and comprise 7 out of 10 leading causes of death, 85% of those occurring in low- and middle-income countries, according to the World Health Organization. However, one of the best health measures is life expectancy at birth. People in the U.S. have been living longer lives since 2000, except for a slight dip in longevity due to COVID-19. According to the most recent CDC estimates, Americans' life expectancy is 77.5 years on average and is expected to increase slightly in the coming decades. Story editing by Alizah Salario. Additional editing by Kelly Glass. Copy editing by Paris Close. Photo selection by Lacy Kerrick. This story originally appeared on Death Records and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio. Get local news delivered to your inbox!Arizona WR Tetairoa McMillan to enter 2025 NFL DraftImmigrant rights groups fear harsh policies and potential legal pressure could accelerate in second Trump term. As Donald Trump prepares for his return to the White House on January 20, immigrant rights groups are bracing in anticipation of a crackdown promised by the president-elect and his allies. With hardliners like Stephen Miller and Tom Homan selected for key positions related to immigration, humanitarian groups in both the United States and Mexico say they are determined to press forward with their work, but have no illusions about the challenges ahead. “I’m expecting it to be exponentially worse than the first term,” Erika Pinheiro, director of the immigrant rights group Al Otro Lado, told Al Jazeera. “I think political persecution is going to be supercharged,” she added, saying she believes rights groups will face spurious legal challenges meant to take up time and resources. Interviews, campaign speeches and policies floated by Trump and his advisers suggest an ambition to fundamentally reshape the US immigration landscape, with a blitz campaign of mass deportations as well as potential attacks on longstanding rights such as birthright citizenship. While rights groups say they are prepared to challenge such efforts, they also concede that a second Trump administration will be bolstered by a popular election victory and Republican majorities in Congress, along with experience gained from battles on immigration during Trump’s first term in office. Mass deportations Several immigrant rights groups that spoke with Al Jazeera said that not all of Trump’s plans for a second term are clear, but all agreed that one effort, in particular, would be front and centre come January: a campaign to round up and deport large numbers of undocumented people living in the United States. Advisers such as Miller , an architect of policies such as the ‘ Muslim Ban ’ and a “zero-tolerance policy for criminal illegal entry” – which intentionally separated migrant parents from their children during Trump’s first term – have suggested that the number of undocumented people could be in the millions. “He [Trump] seems far more prepared than in his first term,” Vicki Gaubeca, associate director of US immigration and border policy at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera. “He’s stated over and over again that his day one agenda will be to carry out mass deportations, so we’re fully expecting to see that,” she added, noting that it remains to be seen how the administration will muster the resources necessary to carry out such a large-scale plan. Miller, who was recently named as Trump’s deputy chief of staff, has previously said that such an effort would include using the armed forces and national guard units and will come in the form of a blitz meant to disorient rights groups. Trump himself recently stated that a national emergency would be declared and the military mobilised to help facilitate deportations. “Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error,” Miller told The New York Times in November 2023, adding that Trump would use a “vast arsenal” of federal powers to carry out sweeping deportations. “The immigration legal activists won’t know what’s happening,” he added. Legal concerns Several activists and organisations also expressed concern that humanitarian work at the border and assistance for undocumented people could itself come under growing pressure. “We are not terrorists, we are not promoting irregular migration. We’re trying to help people and save lives. Putting water in the desert is not a crime. Humanitarian aid is not a crime. But they can turn it into one, if they choose,” Dora Rodriguez, a humanitarian worker who does work on both sides of the border near Tucson, Arizona, told Al Jazeera. “But these are my morals. These are my duties,” she added. “You have to find the courage.” Others said that a series of investigations launched by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton against immigrant rights groups such as the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center could serve as a template for increased prosecution. Paxton also led an effort to shut down a migrant shelter in El Paso, arguing that offering assistance to people suspected of being undocumented was equivalent to human smuggling. “I’m looking to Texas as a premonition of what’s coming,” Pinheiro, the director of Al Otro Lado, said. “Groups that work on both sides of the border are being accused of facilitating migration.” “I expect some of us will face criminal prosecution in the coming years. We’re very careful to follow the letter of the law. But these are bogus lawsuits. What can you do to prepare for that?” she added. Activists in Arizona, one of four US states that share a border with Mexico, say they are also concerned. During the first Trump term, a humanitarian volunteer named Scott Warren with the group No More Deaths faced felony charges for providing assistance to undocumented people at an aid station in the desert. The group sets up such facilities to offer food, water and medical assistance to stranded migrants whose lives are often at risk after travelling through inhospitable terrain for days at a time. Warren was acquitted in 2019, but activists fear that such efforts may soon return. “Under Trump, we expect Border Patrol and [anti-immigrant] militia groups to be more emboldened than ever and to operate with more impunity than ever, as we saw under Trump’s first term,” No More Deaths said in a statement shared with Al Jazeera. “But we will not back down from our mission and our work.” ‘You need to prepare yourselves’ Rights groups are trying to ready themselves for Trump’s return to the White House, and advise members of their communities to do the same. “We’re gearing up for whatever may come,” Father Pat Murphy, director of the Casa Del Migrante shelter in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, told Al Jazeera. He hopes the Mexican government will do more to help humanitarian organisations on the Mexican side of the border overwhelmed by the strain that would accompany mass deportations. “There are always going to be people who are trying to come. They feel they have no alternative but to try to cross into the US,” he added. “Some make it, others don’t.” Rodriguez, the humanitarian worker in Arizona, said she has seen an increase in anxiety among families in the US with undocumented members. In a recent television interview, Homan, the border tsar, was asked if there was any way to conduct mass deportations without splitting up families . Many immigrant families are “mixed status”, meaning that some may have legal status while others may not. “Of course there is,” said Homan. “Families can be deported together.” “There are people who have been here for 20 or 30 years and have no criminal records, and they still feel terrified that they will be taken away from their families,” said Rodriguez. “We are telling people in our communities, ‘You need to know your rights, you need to know what to do if a family member is arrested, you need to prepare yourselves.’”

ustar 2022 Top 10 stories of the day: FlySafair chaos woman identified | Fuel prices rise in 2025 | ‘Chilla Zille’

The 30-year-old was a key part of the plans for the South Coast club during the 2023-24 term, featuring in 40 contests across all competitions. However, Mbemba has been frozen out of the current first-team scene at Marseille, failing to play a part in a competitive match for his side this season. Regular watchers of the Premier League will remember the centre-back from his playing days at Newcastle United, for whom he was a fringe member of the squad during the club's Mike Ashley era. Mbemba turned out on 59 occasions for the Magpies between 2015 and 2018, including 12 appearances in the Championship under Rafa Benitez in 2016-17. © Imago According to Africa Foot , Leicester are eyeing up the services of a new defender during the upcoming January transfer window as they aim to avoid the drop. The report states that the relegation-threatened Foxes are considering a move for the services of Marseille man Mbemba, who is hurtling towards a New Year departure. One of the highest-paid players for Les Olympiens despite his lack of game time, the Ligue 1 club supposedly want to get rid of the defender at all costs. Leicester are not alone in their fondness of the 30-year-old, though, with both Rennes and Nantes of the French top flight seeing bids rejected for the former Newcastle star. Mbemba's current deal at Stade Velodrome expires during the summer, meaning that the January window represents the final opportunity for Marseille to earn money off the departure of the Congo international. © Imago After conceding three during the defeat at Anfield against Liverpool on Boxing Day, Leicester have now shipped 40 goals across their opening 18 Premier League matches. The Foxes have the joint-worst defensive record in the top flight alongside Wolverhampton Wanderers, a relegation rival who have shown shoots of recovery under the leadership of new head coach Vitor Pereira . Since joining at the beginning of December, Ruud van Nistelrooy has implemented a new centre-back pairing, with Conor Coady trusted to partner Jannik Vestergaard . However, with the goals continuing to fly into the Foxes net at an alarming rate, the Championship holders could have no option but to dip into the mid-season market for a new defender.Jim Lutzweiler had traveled to Plains, Ga., to find the grave of Jimmy Carter's colorful brother, Billy, whose shenanigans he had followed, and came across the epitaph for the former president's sister, Gloria. It read: "She rides in Harley Heaven." So, Lutzweiler, a 78-year-old singer, songwriter and former archivist for the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, wrote the song "Harleys, Hondas and Heaven" in her honor and sent the former president a copy. Carter wrote back that he took the CD to her grave and played it. Lutzweiler still has that letter. Actually, the Jamestown resident has 73 letters and notes from Carter — always signed "Jimmy C" — that range from theology to their mutual love of poetry. People are also reading... Something to know about Lutzweiler is that he's a natural storyteller with a divinity degree and refers to himself tongue-in-cheek as a "magnificent concert pianist trapped helplessly in the broken body of a crusty, old librarian.'" Like Carter, he's also an old Sunday school teacher with a sharp wit and recall of theology and culture. While Lutzweiler couldn't help but follow the antics of the former first brother — "I liked Billy because of my own inner redneck" — he had a lot of respect for the country's 39th president, who seemed to not let it distract him. And before Carter announced he was entering hospice care in February of 2023, Lutzweiler, who has self-published numerous books, was working on one based on his correspondence with Carter, the former peanut farmer and expert in nuclear physics. Their first correspondences date back to Oct. 31, 2000. Carter was planning to leave the Southern Baptist Convention because the organization didn't recognize women as pastors of churches. Carter accused the group of reading the Bible out of context. Lutzweiler, who was not a part of the Southern Baptist Convention at the time but had voted for Carter in 1976, wrote an essay asking him to stay — a plea to deal with differences for the greater mission of the Gospel. He started with these four words:" I like Jimmy Carter." He would go on to give four reasons — none of them politically correct, but all of them good ones, he would write — starting with Carter's smile, being that a smile could lift someone else out of a bad day. He would go on to "hit him hard," according to Lutzweiler. It is with reluctance that I characterize his departure from the SBC as unjustifiable and juvenile. If, however, he really does believe in the moderate mush, the slippery slope, that some mystical, intangible, Disneyesque Jesus is more real than the Jesus of the Scriptures, then I guess he should go, or perhaps even stay and learn. Carter had no idea who Lutzweiler was at the time, although the two had shook hands before. When Lutzweiler saw a photo of Carter and wife Rosalynn in the audience during a Statesmen Quartet concert that was later used for the gospel group's album cover, he stopped at a nearby book signing the president was holding in Minneapolis. He got the former Georgia governor to sign his album, though with slight drama. "When I pulled out my record jacket for his signature, he fairly jumped in surprise as if I had pulled out a loaded gun his Secret Service had missed," Lutzweiler said. The essay would delve deeply into theology and he would use the analogy of football teams competing for four quarters, lifting each other up when they fall and then finding themselves the best of friends off the field. "Thus it is that I am loathe to watch Jimmy depart from the SBC without protest," Lutzweiler wrote. The article was published in "The Watchmen," which was edited by a friend of Lutzweiler's and by his account might have had 600 people on the mailing list. But somebody sent it to Carter. Actually, that somebody was Lutzweiler, who used his stationary at the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, which he suspects caught Carter's eye. The conservative seminary was led by Paige Patterson, then president of the Southern Baptist Convention. "It was probably not any brilliance in my essay, which I say with forced and false humility," Lutzweiler said, "but because of my seminary stationary that President Carter replied at all." He also thinks Carter responded because he referred to him as "Brother Carter," which was not political and spoke of fellowship. "I put myself in his shoes as a brother," Lutzweiler said. Carter responded with a letter saying he enjoyed the essay but ended with references to women's roles and the governing minds of the convention. I presume that you must let your (Southern Baptist Convention) president interpret the scriptures. I agree with Texas Baptists and others that it should be Jesus. That was November 2000. Carter had written his comments on the pages of the letter Lutzweiler had written, and then sent it back to him. "It was a short note but it opened the dialogue," Lutzweiler said. Lutzweiler responded with more thoughts and challenged some of the arguments Carter made about leaving. Lutzweiler, who has been described as "every Sunday school teacher's nightmare — witty, probing, opinionated, unpredictable, skeptical, questioning and, above all, challenging," by Jonathan Addleton, a former U.S. ambassador — was unrelenting. But Carter was yielding no ground. "I enjoyed your entertaining letter," he wrote back. He would go on to say: I've been concerned as an individual who wanted to heal differences between SBC factions and have given up on this effort. ... I don't recall picking on Paige Patterson, although he and I disagree on some things ... something not possible for you and others at Southeastern. — Best wishes, Jimmy C While always friendly exchanges, they were also frank. Lutzweiler's next letter to Carter, by then the longest-living former president, came about the time the statesman had written a book of poetry. Upon reading a poem from Lutzweiler called "A Toast to God," Carter told his pen pal it was “remarkable.” "A review I dearly savored," Lutzweiler said. "I asked if I could use his review on the dust jacket of a book of my poems. He replied, 'Yes — with guilt and trepidation!'” Their wide-ranging conversations continued about theology, current events and those critical of Carter's beliefs. When Carter was diagnosed with cancer in 2015, Lutzweiler thought the handwritten letters and messages would stop. But they didn't. Lutzweiler sent Carter a CD of Southern gospel songs he recorded on his back porch while wishing him the best with his fight and recovery. Carter invited Lutzweiler to sing at his church, Maranatha Baptist, in Plains, Georgia. Afterward, Lutzweiler and his wife, Shelly, were invited over for lunch, with Rosalynn Carter later serving them coffee and chocolates with the Secret Service outside. Lutzweiler would return to hear Carter teach Sunday school. And he continued writing to him. In 2019, Carter had tripped and fallen several times in the same year and his handwriting wasn't as clear. The last letter, written July 13 of that year, mentioned a story he had read about Bill Clinton's relationship with his pastor. He did not hear from Carter right away and wrote him again. "He said, 'I have been partially incapacitated by a broken hip,'" Lutzweiler said of the late response. Lutzweiler would later receive a letter from the former president's assistant at The Carter Center, a nonprofit think tank for national and international public policy issues, saying that he would no longer be able to correspond. "He was getting older and I understood that there were many people who wanted to talk to him and visit with him," Lutzweiler said. Lutzweiler has continued to send articles and thoughts that would interest him without the expectation that Carter would reply. Over 20 years, "we had a pretty good run," Lutzweiler said. In early 2023, Lutzweiler was calling Jimmy Carter his friend, and he believed Carter felt the same way. Lutzweiler recalls asking Carter for three signed copies of that poetry book in December 2000, which was one of more than 30 books on faith, politics and insights of the 39th president. He would pay for them, of course. It was Christmas and he wanted to send one of them to Patterson, a Texas judge and Randall Lolley, Patterson's predecesor at the Southern Baptist Convention and the former pastor of First Baptist Church in Greensboro. All had strong ties to the convention. "If you can't," Lutzweiler said he wrote, "I'm going to buy three copies of the book and forge your autograph and you won't believe how much you love these people." Instead, Lutzweiler received four autographed books with a note from Carter, who he suspects got a smile out of the retired archivist's merriment. He included one for Lutzweiler. "A note that said, 'Compliments of the poet, no charge," Lutzweiler recalled. Carter would go on to write: In fact, I've spent several hours with Paige and found him to be an interesting and delightful companion. In addition to the poems, I hope you will give him my best personal regards. I feel that he and I would get along fine as fellow deacons in a small church. Lutzweiler wrote to Carter in December asking for permission to produce the book of letters. He hadn't sent it when it became known that Carter, 98, was in hospice care. Lutzweizer sent what he thought might be their last correspondence on Feb. 22, 2023: Dear Brother/President and Rosalynn, While you live and breathe and can still hear, Shelly and I wish to add our voices to the millions now honoring your life well spent. Nancy.McLaughlin@greensboro.com 336-373-7049 @nmclaughlinNR Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.

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( MENAFN - GetNews) December 23, 2024 - Within the dynamic solar sector, the focus remains on cost-efficiency and performance optimization. Yet, realizing mass production alongside high power levels poses a formidable challenge. Risen Energy, a leader in heterojunction (HJT) technology, has recently announced the upcoming mass production of their HJT Hyper-ion Pro 730+ Module in Q1 2025. This product is set to potentially become the market leader in terms of commercially available power output. For ground-mounted solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants, the economic viability benchmark revolves around achieving higher power output and conversion efficiency, increased bifaciality, enhanced electricity generation, and reduced costs. These criteria shape the economic considerations governing module choices. Risen Energy currently holds a 5GW capacity in HJT technology. The company foresees a pivotal moment in the upcoming first quarter, with one-third of this capacity set to achieve a power output of 730W, a module efficiency of 23.5%, and a bifaciality of 85%. At that juncture, Risen Energy will mark its first significant shipment of high-power modules, which stands as a testament to Risen Energy's pioneering position in HJT technology, highlighting its strategic response to differentiate itself in the fiercely competitive solar market. Following the universal adoption of 210mm wafers, these modules are sized at 2384*1303mm. "The high bifaciality and remarkably low temperature coefficient of around -0.24%/°C in our new HJT Hyper-ion Pro 730+ Module mean significant gains in electricity generation, particularly in high-temperature regions. Recent empirical data from a power plant in Saudi Arabia shows that the wattage output of our HJT Hyper-ion modules surpasses that of TOPCon products by about 4%, demonstrating that our relentless dedication to HJT technology has been worthwhile!" Said Song Yifeng, Global Product Center Director of Risen Energy. The new HJT Hyper-ion Pro 730+ Module , now offering 730W, represents a significant advancement over the previous model, achieved through breakthroughs in three key technologies: Light Conversion Film (LCF) technology, knotless steel mesh printing, and high-transfer target materials . Light Conversion Film At its core, through the application of LCF, ultraviolet (UV) light, usually absorbed by the embedding material, converts into visible blue light, imparting a blue hue to the solar module. This transformation boosts photon reactivity, increasing the light available for utilization. Risen Energy, in collaboration with film suppliers, has conducted secondary development on LCF technology. By precisely controlling the composition of light conversion materials and optimizing package processes, this technology fully minimizes the negative impact of UV radiation on cells. This not only significantly boosts module output power but also ensures long-term stability, enhancing module performance outdoor by demonstrating higher stability and lower power degradation rates. Steel Mesh Printing Technology with 100% Open-Area Design While the industry commonly employs screen printing, the knotless steel mesh printing ensures exceptional ink permeability, enabling high-precision printing with ultra-narrow linewidths. The low linearity fluctuation and excellent flatness of the steel mesh not only help save paste consumption but also reduce grid line resistance, thereby enhancing overall cell efficiency. Additionally, compared to conventional screen printing, the abrasion and puncture resistance of fully open-area steel mesh is superior, extending its lifespan by 2 to 3 times and reducing costs. High-Transfer Target Materials By enhancing the migration rate of TCO film layers and reducing light absorption, this technology increases the utilization of light to electricity conversion in the PN junction, ultimately boosting module power output. The external quantum efficiency (EQE) of high-transfer target materials is higher in the visible to near-infrared spectrum compared to traditional materials. Since the improvement of EQE in this spectrum has less impact on module packaging losses, it further contributes to enhancing the module's Conversion Temperature Management (CTM) value. In addition to technological breakthroughs, Risen Energy consistently upholds the quality of its products. Besides conducting routine application scenario tests on photovoltaic modules, Risen Energy continues to subject them to rigorous testing under extreme conditions, ensuring that the modules can maintain a stable operational state throughout their typical life cycle, which spans around 25-30 years. Recently, Risen Energy's HJT Hyper-ion Module has successfully passed several rigorous tests, including the IEC stringent thermal cycling test, the IEC 62788 sand and dust abrasion test, the cyclic wind load test based on AS/NZS 1170, and the IEC extremely low-temperature load test. "In terms of efficiency improvement and cost reduction, our cash costs for HJT technology have now aligned with those of TOPCon," added Song. "While the initial equipment investment for HJT is higher, the superior performance and potential cost savings in operation make it a compelling choice for the future,” said Song. The market will ultimately determine whether HJT technology can lead the next wave in the solar industry. For more information, please contact: Risen Energy Co., Ltd. ... MENAFN23122024003238003268ID1109025444 Legal Disclaimer: MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.

What would happen minute-by-minute if a SUPERFLARE with the force of billions of atomic bombs hit EarthThe court that upheld a law that could ban TikTok said the US showed no evidence China manipulates content. However, the court said TikTok has manipulated content at China's request elsewhere. TikTok denies content manipulation and says it expects the US Supreme Court to reverse the ban. Advertisement The appeals court that upheld a law that could ban TikTok in the United States said the government offered no evidence that China is manipulating content on the platform in the United States. However, the panel of judges wrote in their opinion that evidence that China has compelled TikTok to manipulate content elsewhere was enough for it to uphold a federal law signed by President Joe Biden that would force TikTok's sale in the United States to an American company or ban it from app stores. Related Video TikTok could be banned in US after House vote The US District Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia found on Friday in a majority opinion that the federal law is constitutional. The law, which was passed in April, requires TikTok's Chinese parent company, Bytedance, to divest from the company by January 19 or face a ban in the United States. US officials across political lines have worried that TikTok poses a national security risk because of its Chinese ownership. Some members of Congress have said they fear that TikTok could be used as a propaganda tool to push narratives favorable to China's Communist Party. In statements supporting the bill, Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Jake Auchincloss called TikTok "a tool of censorship and propaganda" for the Chinese Communist Party, and Republican Nebraska Rep. Mike Flood said the app has "been used as a tool of propaganda in our country." Advertisement Still, the federal appeals court wrote in its majority opinion that the government did not present any evidence that China has tried to manipulate content on TikTok in the United States. "The Government acknowledges that it lacks specific intelligence that shows the PRC has in the past or is now coercing TikTok into manipulating content in the United States," the opinion says, referring to the People's Republic of China. However, the government argued in court that ByteDance and TikTok have censored content at China's request in other countries. The appeals court wrote that TikTok "never squarely denies" that it has ever manipulated content on its platform at China's request, which it says is "striking" given the intelligence community's concerns. The court concluded that Bytedance and TikTok have "a demonstrated history" of manipulating content in other countries, sometimes at the request of China. Advertisement "That conclusion rests on more than mere speculation," the judges wrote in the court opinion. "It is the Government's 'informed judgment' to which we give great weight in this context, even in the absence of 'concrete evidence' on the likelihood of PRC-directed censorship of TikTok in the United States." TikTok argued in court that its "recommendation engine," or algorithm, is not based in China because it is stored in the Oracle cloud . The court said that while this is correct, ByteDance still controls the source code for TikTok, including the recommendation engine. "TikTok is therefore correct to say the recommendation engine 'is stored in the Oracle cloud,' but gains nothing by flyspecking the Government's characterization of the recommendation engine still being in China," the document says. Advertisement A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement to Business Insider that the TikTok ban "was conceived and pushed through based on inaccurate, flawed, and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people." "The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans' right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue," TikTok said in the statement. Like many social media networks, TikTok has faced intense scrutiny for how the app is used to influence elections. The company this week announced that it removed three "influence networks" on the app that attempted to impact an election in Romania after a probe by the country's defense council. The company said it removed at least 40 similar influence campaigns this year.

NEW DELHI, Dec 28 : Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Earth Sciences, MoS, PMO, Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Space, Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Dr Jitendra Singh informed here today that (Indian Space Research Organisation) ISRO’s year-end mission scheduled for 30th December is going to be a historic one as it will seek the rare feat of docking or merging or joining together two satellites in Space. The project has been named “Space Docking Experiment” (SpaDeX), he said. The whole nation looks forward with bated breath as ISRO is set to achieve a significant milestone in Space technology, said the Minister in the Department of Space. In an exclusive media interview, Dr Jitendra Singh elaborated that the upcoming SpaDeX mission aims to dock two satellites in Space, a challenge only mastered by a few countries. This ambitious project will take place on December 30, 2024, under the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) and the indigenous technology used for this mission is called the “Bharatiya Docking System”. “SpaDEX” will mark a milestone, showcasing India’s expertise in spacecraft docking technology. This mission, said Dr Jitendra Singh, will mark India’s entry into the exclusive league of nations capable of mastering space docking. A unique approach, the PSLV rocket, will launch two satellites equipped with the ‘Bhartiya Docking System’ to demonstrate this complex feat, he added. The success of this mission is vital for India’s future space ambitions, said the Minister. Docking technology is key for long-term missions like “Chandrayaan-4” and the planned Indian space station. It is also crucial for the eventual manned “Gaganyaan” mission. In the near vacuum of Space, the handout said, ISRO will attempt to dock two satellites orbiting at speeds of 28,800 km/h. This is a challenging task, as both satellites must be carefully manoeuvred to reduce their relative velocities to a mere 0.036 km/h. The two satellites, designated ‘Chaser’ and ‘Target’, will merge to form a single unit in Space. ISRO’s achievement will place India among the world’s space leaders, marking a step towards greater space exploration and innovation. SpaDeX is a significant milestone that paves the way for more complex space missions in the coming years. ISRO’s SpaDEX mission is set to launch on Dec 30, 2024, will demonstrate India’s Spacecraft Docking technology, marking a crucial step in space exploration and satellite servicing capabilities. India is preparing for a key step in space exploration. ISRO will launch the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDEX) on December 30, 2024. The mission will use PSLV-C60, lifting off at 21:58 IST from Sriharikota. SpaDEX marks a milestone, showcasing India’s expertise in spacecraft docking technology. SpaDEX will deploy two identical satellites, SDX01 and SDX02. Each satellite weighs around 220 kilograms and will orbit 470 km above Earth. Key objectives include Performing precision rendezvous and docking manoeuvres, Validating power transfer between docked spacecraft and Operating payloads post-undocking, with a two-year lifespan. This mission is essential for future endeavours, including satellite servicing and building India’s space station, Bharatiya Antriksh Station. SpaDEX will also use PSLV’s fourth stage, POEM-4, for experiments. The stage will carry 24 payloads from academic institutions and startups. These experiments will utilise the microgravity environment in orbit. SpaDEX will demonstrate docking and undocking capabilities between satellites. This includes transferring power and operating scientific payloads. The mission will simulate a sequence of manoeuvres, starting with a far rendezvous phase at 20 km and ending with docking at 3 metres. This capability is vital for India’s lunar and interplanetary missions. Docking technology enables multi-launch missions and supports future human spaceflight. Only the US, Russia, and China have mastered such advancements so far.TORONTO — Jakob Poeltl, Kelly Olynyk and Davion Mitchell will all return to the Toronto Raptors lineup tonight against the Dallas Mavericks. Poeltl missed Toronto’s 129-92 loss to the visiting Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday due to illness. Mitchell was listed as questionable with right hip stiffness after that loss, but Raptors head coach Dakro Rajakovic says he’s available against Dallas. It will be Olynyk’s first time playing in the 2024-25 season after missing the entire pre-season and first 23 games of the campaign with back spasms. Olynyk, who was born in Toronto but grew up in Kamloops, B.C., will add significant depth to the Raptors’ rotation. He averaged 12.7 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 4.6 assists in 28 games for Toronto last season after he was traded to the Raptors by the Utah Jazz on Feb. 8. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 7, 2024. Follow @jchidleyhill.bsky.social on Bluesky John Chidley-Hill, The Canadian Press

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From wealth and success to murder suspect, the life of Luigi Mangione took a hard turnPoll: Javier Milei Ranked Most Popular President in South AmericaAP News in Brief at 6:09 p.m. ESTg star 28 34 。

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BEIRUT — Israel's military launched airstrikes across Lebanon on Monday, unleashing explosions throughout the country and killing at least 31 while Israeli leaders appeared to be closing in on a negotiated ceasefire with the Hezbollah militant group. Israeli strikes hit commercial and residential buildings in Beirut as well as in the port city of Tyre. Military officials claimed they targeted areas known as Hezbollah strongholds. They issued evacuation orders for Beirut's southern suburbs, and strikes landed across the city, including meters from a Lebanese police base and the city's largest public park. The barrage came as officials indicated they were nearing agreement on a ceasefire, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Security Cabinet prepared to discuss an offer on the table. Bulldozers remove the rubble of a destroyed building Monday that was hit in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. Foreign ministers from the world’s leading industrialized nations also expressed cautious optimism Monday about possible progress on a ceasefire. People are also reading... “Knock on wood,” Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said as he opened the Group of Seven meeting outside Rome. “We are perhaps close to a ceasefire in Lebanon," he said. "Let's hope it's true and that there's no backing down at the last-minute.” A ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon was foremost on the agenda of the G7 meeting in Fiuggi, outside Rome, that gathered ministers from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, in the last G7 encounter of the Biden administration. For the first time, the G7 ministers were joined by their counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as well as the Secretary General of the Arab League. Thick smoke, flames and debris erupt Monday from an Israeli airstrike that targeted a building in Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon. Meanwhile, massive explosions lit up Lebanon's skies with flashes of orange, sending towering plumes of smoke into the air as Israeli airstrikes pounded Beirut's southern suburbs Monday. The blasts damaged buildings and left shattered glass and debris scattered across nearby streets. Some of the strikes landed close to central Beirut and near Christian neighborhoods and other targets where Israel issued evacuation warnings, including in Tyre and Nabatiyeh province. Israeli airstrikes also hit the northeast Baalbek-Hermel region without warning. Lebanon's Health Ministry said Monday that 26 people were killed in southern Lebanon, four in the eastern Baalbek-Hermel province and one in Choueifat, a neighborhood in Beirut's southern suburbs that was not subjected to evacuation warnings on Monday. The deaths brought the total toll to 3,768 killed in Lebanon throughout 13 months of war between Israel and Hezbollah and nearly two months since Israel launched its ground invasion. Many of those killed since the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah have been civilians, and health officials said some of the recovered bodies were so severely damaged that DNA testing would be required to confirm their identities. Israel claims to have killed more than 2,000 Hezbollah members. Lebanon's Health Ministry says the war has displaced 1.2 million people. Destroyed buildings stand Monday in the area of a village in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel. Israeli ground forces invaded southern Lebanon in early October, meeting heavy resistance in a narrow strip of land along the border. The military previously exchanged attacks across the border with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group that began firing rockets into Israel the day after the war in Gaza began last year. Lebanese politicians have decried the ongoing airstrikes and said they are impeding ceasefire negotiations. The country's deputy parliament speaker accused Israel of ramping up its bombardment to pressure Lebanon to make concessions in indirect ceasefire negotiations with Hezbollah. Elias Bousaab, an ally of the militant group, said Monday that the pressure has increased because "we are close to the hour that is decisive regarding reaching a ceasefire." Israeli officials voiced similar optimism Monday about prospects for a ceasefire. Mike Herzog, the country's ambassador to Washington, earlier in the day told Israeli Army Radio that several points had yet to be finalized. Though any deal would require agreement from the government, Herzog said Israel and Hezbollah were "close to a deal." "It can happen within days," he said. Israeli officials have said the sides are close to an agreement that would include withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and a pullback of Hezbollah fighters from the Israeli border. But several sticking points remain. A member of the Israeli security forces inspects an impact site Sunday after a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel. After previous hopes for a ceasefire were dashed, U.S. officials cautioned that negotiations were not yet complete and noted that there could be last-minute hitches that either delay or destroy an agreement. "Nothing is done until everything is done," White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Monday. The proposal under discussion to end the fighting calls for an initial two-month ceasefire during which Israeli forces would withdraw from Lebanon and Hezbollah would end its armed presence along the southern border south of the Litani River. The withdrawals would be accompanied by an influx of thousands more Lebanese army troops, who have been largely sidelined in the war, to patrol the border area along with an existing U.N. peacekeeping force. Western diplomats and Israeli officials said Israel demands the right to strike in Lebanon if it believes Hezbollah is violating the terms. The Lebanese government says such an arrangement would authorize violations of the country's sovereignty. Shoppers say they want eco-friendly products, so why aren't they buying them? Shoppers say they want eco-friendly products, so why aren't they buying them? On paper, being more sustainable and eco-friendly while shopping sounds great—so why don't more people do it? There is growing consumer consciousness about the environmental impact of where people choose to shop and the sustainability of the products they buy. According to McKinsey, over 60% of individuals surveyed in 2020 said they would be willing to pay more for a product that is packaged in an eco-friendly way. Since 2019, products marketed as being environmentally sustainable have seen a 28% growth in revenue compared to 20% for products with no such marketing, a 2023 McKinsey and NielsenIQ report found. Much of this is thanks to the preferences and attitudes of Gen Z, who, on average, care more than their older counterparts about being informed shoppers. The younger generation also has more social justice and environmental awareness altogether. Shoppers are willing to spend around 9.7% more on a product they know is sourced or manufactured sustainably, with 46% saying they would do so explicitly because they want to reduce their environmental footprint, according to a 2024 PwC report. Sustainable practices consumers look for from companies include production methods, packaging, and water conservation. But despite the growing consciousness around being more environmentally responsible, consumer actions don't always align with their values. In psychology, this is defined as the "say-do gap": the phenomenon wherein people openly express concern and intention around an issue, but fail to take tangible action to make a change. According to the Harvard Business Review in 2019, most consumers (65%) say they want to buy from brands that promote sustainability, but only 1 in 4 follow through. So why don't people actually shop sustainably, despite how much they express a preference for eco-friendly products—and how can we close the gap? The RealReal examined reports from the Harvard Business Review and other sources to explore why some shoppers want to buy sustainably but struggle to follow through. This lack of action isn't due to a lack of caring—in many cases, it's hard to know how to be a sustainable consumer and other factors are often outside of shoppers' control. But the more people shop sustainably, the easier and more accessible that market will be for everyone—making it much easier for folks to buy aligned with their values. Barriers to sustainable shopping There are many obstacles preventing shoppers from upholding eco-friendly habits as much as they may want to—but not all of these barriers are necessarily real, or accurately understood. Shopping sustainably simply isn't convenient or accessible for many. Those who live in apartment buildings are 50% less likely to recycle , according to Ipsos. Reasons for this can vary from lack of space to buildings being excluded altogether because of recycling contamination issues. Many believe that sustainable products are too expensive or of a lower quality. The former is often true, which does create a hurdle for many: The manufacturing processes and materials for sustainable products are pricey. For instance, organic cotton requires an intensive production process free of certain chemicals or pesticides; by definition, true eco-friendly products can't be mass-produced, further upping their price tag. Using recycled materials for packaging, or obtaining an eco certification, can also be expensive. However, although the narrative of eco-friendly products being more expensive is true, there is often more of an effort to use better quality materials that last longer than their noneco-friendly counterparts. This could end up saving consumers money in the long run: By paying more upfront, they can get more wear out of sustainable fashion, for instance. There is also undeniable political rhetoric surrounding eco-friendly products—however, despite many Conservative politicians decrying sustainable products, members of all generations are increasingly choosing to prioritize shopping sustainably regardless of their political affiliation, according to research from NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business . This finding shows a trend toward seeing sustainability as a nonpartisan subject everyone can benefit from, no matter where they lie on the political spectrum. Some might think eco-friendly clothing, in particular, is not fashion-forward; after all, many of the top clothing retailers in the world partake in fast fashion. However, brands are increasingly being recognized as 'cool' and 'trendy' for supporting environmentally ethical practices, particularly as younger generations prioritize sustainability, as noted before. Many increasingly popular online stores are taking advantage of this paradigm shift by offering secondhand shopping options that are not only fashionable, but also more affordable, like ThredUp or Poshmark. Additionally, many legacy large-name brands are hopping on the sustainability movement and are gaining appreciation from loyal customers. Amazon's Climate Pledge Friendly program partners with third-party certification bodies to make it easier for shoppers to identify eco-friendly products as they browse the website. H&M's newly launched H&M Rewear program debuts a resale platform that allows the resale of all clothing brands—not just their own. Similarly, Patagonia's Worn Wear program allows shoppers to trade in and buy used gear and clothing. The federal government is also working to close this gap. The Environmental Protection Agency's Safer Choice program is attempting to make sustainable shopping easier for consumers and companies alike. It includes a directory of certified products, a list of safer chemicals to look out for on labels, a "Safer Choice" label that products can earn to denote they are eco-friendly, and resources for manufacturers looking to adopt more sustainable practices. Most of all, though, the biggest way shoppers can shift toward sustainable shopping is through their behaviors and attitudes amongst their peers and communities. Studies show that humans largely care what others think of their actions; the more shoppers make environmentally conscious shopping the norm, the more others will follow suit. From an economic perspective, the more consumers shop eco-friendly, the more affordable and accessible these products will become, too: Sustainable products are currently more expensive because they are not in high demand. Once demand rises, production rates and prices can lower, making these products more accessible for all. Story editing by Carren Jao. Additional editing by Kelly Glass. Copy editing by Kristen Wegrzyn. This story originally appeared on The RealReal and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio. Get local news delivered to your inbox!Associated Press RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A female pygmy hippopotamus delivered a healthy calf at the Metro Richmond Zoo earlier this month, officials said — the third baby hippo born at the zoo within the past five years. The mother Iris gave birth to the female calf on Dec. 9 following a seven-month gestation, zoo officials said. The newborn, who has yet to be named, is the third calf for Iris and the father, Corwin. She was also the second calf to be born in December, according to the zoo. “Most people don’t get a hippopotamus for Christmas at all, so we feel lucky to have received two over the years,” zoo officials said in a news release Tuesday. Five days after her birth, the baby had a neonatal exam and weighed 15 pounds (6.8 kilograms). Officials said that fully grown pygmy hippos can weigh up to 600 pounds (270 kilograms). Related Articles National News | New York to charge fossil fuel companies for damage from climate change National News | Holiday shoppers increased spending by 3.8% despite higher prices National News | Christmas shooting at Phoenix airport leaves 3 people wounded, 1 stabbed National News | US applications for unemployment benefits hold steady, but continuing claims rise to 3-year high National News | AI is a game changer for students with disabilities. Schools are still learning to harness it According to the Richmond-area zoo, pygmy hippos are an endangered West African species, and only 2,500 mature hippos remain in the wild. Officials said pygmy hippos are distinctive from regular hippos because they do not live in groups and are usually solitary or in pairs. “For this reason, once Iris’ two previous calves grew up, they were moved to other zoological facilities to live with future mates and continue contributing to the conservation of their species,” the news release said.

Published 4:48 pm Tuesday, December 10, 2024 By Data Skrive There are six games on the college basketball schedule on Wednesday that feature a ranked team. That includes the Iowa State Cyclones versus the Iowa Hawkeyes. Watch women’s college basketball, other live sports and more on Fubo. What is Fubo? Fubo is a streaming service that gives you access to your favorite live sports and shows on demand. Use our link to sign up. Catch tons of live women’s college basketball , plus original programming, with ESPN+ or the Disney Bundle.Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday praised the progress of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Cheetah Project' following the birth of cheetah cubs in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park. Scindia took to social media platform X, expressing delight over the development with, 'Good news! There are cries of joy in Kuno National Park once again.' The ambitious Project Cheetah aims to revive the nearly extinct cheetah population in India. In a milestone event in 2022, eight cheetahs from Namibia were introduced to India. The initiative continued in 2023 with an additional twelve cheetahs from South Africa, released into Kuno National Park the following February. Despite challenges, including the loss of eight adult cheetahs, the project has seen the birth of 17 cubs, with 12 surviving, elevating the cheetah count in Kuno to 24. Plans are underway to extend the population across other suitable habitats, including the potential introduction of cheetahs to the Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh. The Environment Ministry is engaged in discussions with South Africa and Kenya to secure additional cheetahs. 'We are in negotiations with South Africa and Kenya in this regard and are looking to augment prey species while managing risks,' a senior official confirmed to ANI. (With inputs from agencies.)

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Violence erupted in Mozambique’s major cities after the Constitutional Council confirmed Daniel Chapo’s victory in the disputed 9 October presidential elections, killing at least 21 people, including two police officers. Mozambique’s Interior Minister Pascoal Ronda told a news conference in Maputo on Tuesday that the unrest was triggered by the court’s announcement the day before. The wave of violence and looting was mainly led by young supporters of defeated candidate Venâncio Mondlane, who secured 24% of the vote, while Chapo won 65%. “In the last 24 hours, 236 acts of violence were recorded throughout the national territory that resulted in 21 deaths, of which two members of the police force also died,” Ronda said, adding that 13 civilians and 12 police were injured. According to the minister, 25 vehicles were set on fire, including two police vehicles, while 11 police subunits and a penitentiary were attacked and vandalised, and 86 prisoners were released. Footage circulating on various social media platforms showed protesters burning and looting shops in the capital Maputo and the city of Beira, where some city officials were reported to have fled the city. The Decide Electoral Platform, a Mozambican civil society group monitoring the elections, reported that over 150 people have been killed in protests since 21 October. Of these, 34 were killed between 4 and 10 December, with the protests showing no signs of easing. Human rights groups have criticised the Mozambican authorities for what they describe as a brutal crackdown on protests that began peacefully against the elections, which opposition parties claim were rigged. International observers have also reported irregularities in the vote. In response, the EU expressed deep concern over the post-election violence in the country. In an official statement, Brussels urged all parties to show “restraint” and avoid actions that could further heighten tensions. “We also call for accountability and justice to tackle instances of human rights violations,” said the EU, which sent a 180-member Electoral Observation Mission (EU EOM) to monitor the Mozambican elections, identifying several “irregularities”. “EU EOM noted irregularities during the counting of votes and unjustified alteration of election results. It called on the electoral bodies for the maximum transparency of the counting and tabulation process,” the statement added. Euronews

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Probing every aspect: AAP on cow deathsBEIRUT — Israel's military launched airstrikes across Lebanon on Monday, unleashing explosions throughout the country and killing at least 31 while Israeli leaders appeared to be closing in on a negotiated ceasefire with the Hezbollah militant group. Israeli strikes hit commercial and residential buildings in Beirut as well as in the port city of Tyre. Military officials said they targeted areas known as Hezbollah strongholds. They issued evacuation orders for Beirut's southern suburbs, and strikes landed across the city, including meters from a Lebanese police base and the city's largest public park. The barrage came as officials indicated they were nearing agreement on a ceasefire, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's Security Cabinet prepared to discuss an offer on the table. Bulldozers remove the rubble of a destroyed building Monday that was hit in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. Foreign ministers from the world’s leading industrialized nations also expressed cautious optimism Monday about possible progress on a ceasefire. “Knock on wood,” Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said as he opened the Group of Seven meeting outside Rome. “We are perhaps close to a ceasefire in Lebanon," he said. "Let's hope it's true and that there's no backing down at the last-minute.” A ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon was foremost on the agenda of the G7 meeting in Fiuggi, outside Rome, that gathered ministers from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, in the last G7 encounter of the Biden administration. For the first time, the G7 ministers were joined by their counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as well as the Secretary General of the Arab League. Thick smoke, flames and debris erupt Monday from an Israeli airstrike that targeted a building in Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon. Meanwhile, massive explosions lit up Lebanon's skies with flashes of orange, sending towering plumes of smoke into the air as Israeli airstrikes pounded Beirut's southern suburbs Monday. The blasts damaged buildings and left shattered glass and debris scattered across nearby streets. Some of the strikes landed close to central Beirut and near Christian neighborhoods and other targets where Israel issued evacuation warnings, including in Tyre and Nabatiyeh province. Israeli airstrikes also hit the northeast Baalbek-Hermel region without warning. Lebanon's Health Ministry said Monday that 26 people were killed in southern Lebanon, four in the eastern Baalbek-Hermel province and one in Choueifat, a neighborhood in Beirut's southern suburbs that was not subjected to evacuation warnings on Monday. The deaths brought the total toll to 3,768 killed in Lebanon throughout 13 months of war between Israel and Hezbollah and nearly two months since Israel launched its ground invasion. Many of those killed since the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah have been civilians, and health officials said some of the recovered bodies were so severely damaged that DNA testing would be required to confirm their identities. Israel claims to have killed more than 2,000 Hezbollah members. Lebanon's Health Ministry says the war has displaced 1.2 million people. Destroyed buildings stand Monday in the area of a village in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel. Israeli ground forces invaded southern Lebanon in early October, meeting heavy resistance in a narrow strip of land along the border. The military previously exchanged attacks across the border with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group that began firing rockets into Israel the day after the war in Gaza began last year. Lebanese politicians have decried the ongoing airstrikes and said they are impeding ceasefire negotiations. The country's deputy parliament speaker accused Israel of ramping up its bombardment to pressure Lebanon to make concessions in indirect ceasefire negotiations with Hezbollah. Elias Bousaab, an ally of the militant group, said Monday that the pressure has increased because "we are close to the hour that is decisive regarding reaching a ceasefire." Israeli officials voiced similar optimism Monday about prospects for a ceasefire. Mike Herzog, the country's ambassador to Washington, earlier in the day told Israeli Army Radio that several points had yet to be finalized. Though any deal would require agreement from the government, Herzog said Israel and Hezbollah were "close to a deal." "It can happen within days," he said. Israeli officials have said the sides are close to an agreement that would include withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and a pullback of Hezbollah fighters from the Israeli border. But several sticking points remain. A member of the Israeli security forces inspects an impact site Sunday after a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel. After previous hopes for a ceasefire were dashed, U.S. officials cautioned that negotiations were not yet complete and noted that there could be last-minute hitches that either delay or destroy an agreement. "Nothing is done until everything is done," White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Monday. The proposal under discussion to end the fighting calls for an initial two-month ceasefire during which Israeli forces would withdraw from Lebanon and Hezbollah would end its armed presence along the southern border south of the Litani River. The withdrawals would be accompanied by an influx of thousands more Lebanese army troops, who have been largely sidelined in the war, to patrol the border area along with an existing U.N. peacekeeping force. Western diplomats and Israeli officials said Israel demands the right to strike in Lebanon if it believes Hezbollah is violating the terms. The Lebanese government says such an arrangement would authorize violations of the country's sovereignty. On paper, being more sustainable and eco-friendly while shopping sounds great—so why don't more people do it? There is growing consumer consciousness about the environmental impact of where people choose to shop and the sustainability of the products they buy. According to McKinsey, over 60% of individuals surveyed in 2020 said they would be willing to pay more for a product that is packaged in an eco-friendly way. Since 2019, products marketed as being environmentally sustainable have seen a 28% growth in revenue compared to 20% for products with no such marketing, a 2023 McKinsey and NielsenIQ report found. Much of this is thanks to the preferences and attitudes of Gen Z, who, on average, care more than their older counterparts about being informed shoppers. The younger generation also has more social justice and environmental awareness altogether. Shoppers are willing to spend around 9.7% more on a product they know is sourced or manufactured sustainably, with 46% saying they would do so explicitly because they want to reduce their environmental footprint, according to a 2024 PwC report. Sustainable practices consumers look for from companies include production methods, packaging, and water conservation. But despite the growing consciousness around being more environmentally responsible, consumer actions don't always align with their values. In psychology, this is defined as the "say-do gap": the phenomenon wherein people openly express concern and intention around an issue, but fail to take tangible action to make a change. According to the Harvard Business Review in 2019, most consumers (65%) say they want to buy from brands that promote sustainability, but only 1 in 4 follow through. So why don't people actually shop sustainably, despite how much they express a preference for eco-friendly products—and how can we close the gap? The RealReal examined reports from the Harvard Business Review and other sources to explore why some shoppers want to buy sustainably but struggle to follow through. This lack of action isn't due to a lack of caring—in many cases, it's hard to know how to be a sustainable consumer and other factors are often outside of shoppers' control. But the more people shop sustainably, the easier and more accessible that market will be for everyone—making it much easier for folks to buy aligned with their values. There are many obstacles preventing shoppers from upholding eco-friendly habits as much as they may want to—but not all of these barriers are necessarily real, or accurately understood. Shopping sustainably simply isn't convenient or accessible for many. Those who live in apartment buildings are 50% less likely to recycle , according to Ipsos. Reasons for this can vary from lack of space to buildings being excluded altogether because of recycling contamination issues. Many believe that sustainable products are too expensive or of a lower quality. The former is often true, which does create a hurdle for many: The manufacturing processes and materials for sustainable products are pricey. For instance, organic cotton requires an intensive production process free of certain chemicals or pesticides; by definition, true eco-friendly products can't be mass-produced, further upping their price tag. Using recycled materials for packaging, or obtaining an eco certification, can also be expensive. However, although the narrative of eco-friendly products being more expensive is true, there is often more of an effort to use better quality materials that last longer than their noneco-friendly counterparts. This could end up saving consumers money in the long run: By paying more upfront, they can get more wear out of sustainable fashion, for instance. There is also undeniable political rhetoric surrounding eco-friendly products—however, despite many Conservative politicians decrying sustainable products, members of all generations are increasingly choosing to prioritize shopping sustainably regardless of their political affiliation, according to research from NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business . This finding shows a trend toward seeing sustainability as a nonpartisan subject everyone can benefit from, no matter where they lie on the political spectrum. Some might think eco-friendly clothing, in particular, is not fashion-forward; after all, many of the top clothing retailers in the world partake in fast fashion. However, brands are increasingly being recognized as 'cool' and 'trendy' for supporting environmentally ethical practices, particularly as younger generations prioritize sustainability, as noted before. Many increasingly popular online stores are taking advantage of this paradigm shift by offering secondhand shopping options that are not only fashionable, but also more affordable, like ThredUp or Poshmark. Additionally, many legacy large-name brands are hopping on the sustainability movement and are gaining appreciation from loyal customers. Amazon's Climate Pledge Friendly program partners with third-party certification bodies to make it easier for shoppers to identify eco-friendly products as they browse the website. H&M's newly launched H&M Rewear program debuts a resale platform that allows the resale of all clothing brands—not just their own. Similarly, Patagonia's Worn Wear program allows shoppers to trade in and buy used gear and clothing. The federal government is also working to close this gap. The Environmental Protection Agency's Safer Choice program is attempting to make sustainable shopping easier for consumers and companies alike. It includes a directory of certified products, a list of safer chemicals to look out for on labels, a "Safer Choice" label that products can earn to denote they are eco-friendly, and resources for manufacturers looking to adopt more sustainable practices. Most of all, though, the biggest way shoppers can shift toward sustainable shopping is through their behaviors and attitudes amongst their peers and communities. Studies show that humans largely care what others think of their actions; the more shoppers make environmentally conscious shopping the norm, the more others will follow suit. From an economic perspective, the more consumers shop eco-friendly, the more affordable and accessible these products will become, too: Sustainable products are currently more expensive because they are not in high demand. Once demand rises, production rates and prices can lower, making these products more accessible for all. Story editing by Carren Jao. Additional editing by Kelly Glass. Copy editing by Kristen Wegrzyn. This story originally appeared on The RealReal and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio. Get local news delivered to your inbox!

Remember National Victory Day to initiate future StateNEW YORK, NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 17: Commuters arrive into the Oculus station and mall in Manhattan on ... [+] November 17, 2022 in New York City. According to a report by the United Nations population division, the world's population reached 8 billion people as of last Tuesday. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) AI goes to work. It’s a central message that we’ll all hear repeatedly next year throughout 2025. There’s an undercurrent running through the technology industry that suggests we may need to start thinking about the practical application of artificial intelligence and machine learning. It will no longer be acceptable (we hope) for vendors to simply say “look! we’ve just added AI to our platform” and although we’re a very long way indeed from AI simply being a functionality rather than a fanfare in its own right (that won’t happen inside this decade), we may be at a turning point where the tech glitterati start to realize the need to talk about solid software solutions. Kyle Campos agrees with this sentiment. As chief technology & product officer (CTPO) at FinOps and cloud ROI platform company CloudBolt, Campos is used to conversations that get to the bottom line (financially, literally) quicker than some. He thinks that now is the time for AI in the cloud to moves from simply spotting and identfyig things to actually doing things. The New AI Tablestakes "Beyond data crunching and spitting out so-called ‘insights’, AI-driven automation that turns insights into actions, automatically optimizes cloud performance and spend... and reduces the insight-to-action gap will become the new tablestakes by the end of 2025,” asserts Kampos. “Agentic AI will now gain rapid adoption and be integrated into workflows to accelerate AI impact such that the industry begins seeing ‘near-realtime FinOps’ for the first time. This is the point at which AI begins playing a bigger role in spotting anomalies and making decisions at moments of truth at the edge as organizations continue finding ways to shift left.” This sentiment is echoed by AI analytics company ThoughtSpot. The organization has now extended its platform with Spotter, an agentic AI analyst tool designed to bring the analytical and reasoning skills of a human data analyst to all users. Spotter enables users, irrespective of their technical capabilities, to converse with Spotter as they would a human analyst to get a kind of self-service business decision support service in natural, conversational language. The tool integrates with users' preferred softwaer platforms so that is embedded withing existing business applications, digital productivity tools and custom agents. This Viral Smart Bassinet Is 30% Off With The Snoo Black Friday Sale The 50 Best Black Friday Deals So Far, According To Our Deals Editors Business Augmented Reasoning Spotter’s architecture begins with ThoughtSpot’s agentic reasoning layer, known as the BARQ (Business Augmented Reasoning for Questions) layer. Here, questions are classified and matched with the appropriate agent based on the required skill. From frontline workers in retail to C-Suite executives in financial services, Spotter adapts to the industry and persona of its users, allowing everyone to get reliable, replicable and contextually rich insights. Dovetailing with human intelligence, users can modify and interact with their answers directly based on their train-of-thought and business expertise. Enterprise software company Pegasystems Inc. is also suitably (admirably, even) impatient with the state of the AI hypecycle and wants to help bring practical tools to market. The company’s AI-driven legacy discovery capabilities in Pega GenAI Blueprint are designed to accelerate the task of modernizing legacy systems. No More Band-Aids “There are only so many Band-Aids that IT can keep applying before their systems reach a breaking point,” said Kerim Akgonul , chief product officer, Pega. “But digital transformation is a herculean undertaking that’s typically fraught with failure. These new features in Pega GenAI Blueprint turbocharge modernization projects so organizations can finally shed their outdated tech and curb technical debt while paving the way for a future-ready business.” This is an AI-infused workflow design platform technology (initially launched earlier this year) that enables firms to digitize mission-critical workflows, fast. With newly added legacy discovery features, it jumpstarts digital transformation projects to rethink and replace inefficient systems and apps. Users can now get hold of generative AI to analyze existing IT assets and create new modern cloud-native application ‘blueprints’ that are ready to build. This sidesteps lengthy discovery processes that slow these projects from the start. “With more than 60,000 blueprints created since its launch, Pega GenAI Blueprint is the fastest adopted solution in Pega’s history. With nothing more than a natural language description of an app idea, it designs components in seconds using generative AI and drawing on Pega’s expertise, industry best practices, and internet knowledge. This makes innovation easy so anyone can go from app idea to functional app design exponentially faster and more completely than any other workflow design tool,” said Akgonul and team. “Pega GenAI Blueprint releases new features every week to make app design easier and faster. The latest updates include the ability to add new automation types, like AI and robotic processes, to the apps. Plus, with enhanced Live Preview, users can see how their app will look for different personas before going live, complete with their organization’s brand style and simulated data.” Beyond The Brouhaha If this trend manifests itself in more concrete terms in the next 12 months, then we’ll likely hear vendors talk about the real world application of “real AI tools” in this way and tell us that now is the time to get working at a variety of different levels. In truth, many organizations have been using working systems that employ Robotic Process Automation and intelligent data and process mining technologies for most of the current decade if not the one before that too. What has perhaps “muddied” the perception and understanding of AI throughout 2024 has been the hullabaloo and brouhaha that has accompanied generative AI, the additional layering of retrieval augmented generation and the popularization of agentic AI tools capable of getting on with work with limited (or no) human intervention. As the tech trade now starts to come out of its AI honeymoon period, we can relax and start to enjoy an enriched assemblage of real world intelligence tools that actually perform tasks for humans and help us progress towards better societies, improved human wellbeing and interplanetary sustainability with a core consideration for environmental and social governance. Will all that happen so that the AI hype finally subsides? Don’t be ridiculous, strap yourself in for more of the same.NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Darren Rizzi would be an unconventional choice to take over the New Orleans Saints' head coaching job on a permanent basis. That doesn't mean it can't happen. The Saints (4-7) had been on a seven-game skid when Rizzi, the club's special teams coordinator, was promoted. They've since won two straight, and as the club entered its Week 12 bye, prominent players were already discussing their desire to continue improving Rizzi's resume. “He’s definitely had an impact on our football team,” quarterback Derek Carr said after New Orleans' 35-14 victory over Cleveland last weekend. “We want to keep winning so that maybe he gets a chance to be the coach here for a long time. “That’s what we want as players,” Carr continued. "Hopefully, we can continue to have success, keep winning and give him that opportunity.” Before the Saints' demoralizing defeat at Carolina precipitated the firing of third-year coach Dennis Allen , Rizzi had never been a head coach at the NFL or major college level. The north New Jersey native and former Rhode Island tight end got his first head coaching job at Division II New Haven in 1999. He also coached his alma mater in 2008 before moving to the NFL with Miami in 2009 as a special teams assistant. By 2010, he was the Dolphins' special teams coordinator and added the title of associate head coach in 2017 before ex-Saints coach Sean Payton lured him to New Orleans in 2019. A common thread shared by Payton and Rizzi is that both worked under Bill Parcells. Parcells — known best for winning two Super Bowls as coach of the New York Giants — was coaching the Dallas Cowboys when Payton was his offensive coordinator. Rizzi, who grew up a Giants fan during the Parcells era, got to know his childhood idol during his first couple years in Miami, where Parcells executive vice president of football operations. Since his promotion, Rizzi has spoken to both Payton and Parcells. And he has begun to employ motivational techniques reminiscent of Payton, who left New Orleans in 2022 as the franchise leader in wins (152 in the regular season and nine in the postseason — including New Orleans' lone Super Bowl triumph). Payton as a big believer of symbolic imagery and motivational props, from baseball bats distributed before contests that were expected to be especially physical to gas cans left in the lockers of aging veterans whose performance was key to the club's success. Rizzi, who describes himself as a “blue collar” guy, has his own spin on such things. He began his tenure by asking players to accept individual responsibility for the metaphorical hole the team had dug itself and asked them all to embrace the idea of filling it up — one shovelful at a time. He even has brought a shovel — as well as a hammer, tape measure, level and other construction tools — to team meetings to help make his points. Saints tight end Taysom Hill, who also plays on special teams, has gotten to know Rizzi well during a half-decade of working together. Hill doesn't sound surprised to see Rizzi's combination of work ethic, enthusiasm and personal touch resonating across the entire team now. He also made a lot of changes , from weekly schedule adjustments to reconfiguring players' lockers by position. “He has a really good pulse on what we need collectively as a team to get ready for a football game," said Hill, who scored three touchdowns and accounted for 248 yards as a runner, receiver, passer and returner against Cleveland. “Guys have responded to that.” Because Rizzi's first victory came over the first-place Atlanta Falcons , and because the Falcons lost again last week, the Saints now trail Atlanta by just two games with six to play. Suddenly, the idea of the Saints playing meaningful football down the stretch is not so far-fetched. “We’re starting to get our swag back, and that makes me happy,” Rizzi said. ”We’re going to have some downtime now to kind of press the reset button again and see if we can make a push here." When the Saints return to action at home against the Los Angeles Rams on Dec 1, they'll do so with a level of momentum and positivity that seemed to steadily drain out of the club between their first loss of the season in Week 3 through the six straight setbacks that followed. While Saints players have tended to blame themselves for Allen's demise, they've been quick to credit Rizzi for the turnaround. “He’s pointed us and steered the ship in the right direction,” Carr said. “Hopefully, we can just keep executing at a high level for him, because we love him.” AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

SEOUL, South Korea , Dec. 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Spaid, an emerging leader in the Geospatial AI sector, will attend CES early next year, 2025, to unveil the foundational solutions behind its CES 2025 Innovation Award-winning "AI2RE: Image to 3D Geospatial AI Metaverse" and showcase a demo of the "OpenAI-Integrated Geospatial Information Platform," which is scheduled for release in 2025. AI Technology to Overcome Initial Accessibility Challenges in 3D Cadastral Mapping Using Only Aerial Imagery The award-winning "AI2RE" leverages a proprietary AI engine to extract 2D (vector) lines exclusively from aerial imagery, including satellite and drone capture. Based on these extracted vectors, this technology supports 3D models such as terrains, buildings, and roads. This technology addresses initial accessibility challenges in 3D cadastral mapping—such as data loss and compatibility issues—using only aerial imagery. Doing so contributes to providing reliable and stable 3D geospatial information to government agencies and enterprises. The technology is currently being utilized in projects related to the European Union (EU)'s Data Governance and Utilization Strategy, showcasing a remarkable improvement in cadastral mapping efficiency—from 6 months per person to just 5 days per person. Furthermore, business discussions are ongoing with South American and African countries, expanding its global reach. OpenAI-Integrated Geospatial Data Platform At CES, Spaid will unveil its first-ever OpenAI-Integrated Geospatial Data Platform. This innovative platform allows users to receive personalized geospatial data card recommendations through the OpenAI agent. By simply dragging and dropping these cards, users can intuitively visualize and analyze data in a 3D map viewer without the need for additional tools or software. Spaid is progressively advancing the digital twin transformation of the world within its geospatial data platform using a data-driven approach. This roadmap aims to create a metaverse that can be effectively utilized in real-world industries. Spaid at CES 2025 Spaid's booth will be located at LVCC South Hall 2 (35726), where visitors can experience the cutting-edge "AI2RE: Image to 3D Geospatial AI Metaverse" solutions and the innovative "OpenAI-Integrated Geospatial Data Platform (Geo Data Platform)." For the award-winning AI2RE, attendees can dive into ongoing projects that demonstrate the full workflow—object detection, 2D line extraction, and 3D model generation—with a single click. In addition, the "OpenAI-Integrated Geospatial Data Platform" will feature an interactive demo designed specifically for CES. Visitors can engage with geospatial data cards for San Francisco by simply dragging and dropping them to visualize the data in 3D, showcasing the platform's intuitive and user-friendly capabilities. Chongkul Yi, CEO of Spaid, said, "We are incredibly proud to have our 'One of a Kind' innovative AI Engine recognized by the CES Innovation Award." He added, "At CES 2025, we aim to showcase the excellence of our cutting-edge Geospatial AI solutions and the data-driven metaverse platform, accelerating our efforts to expand into the global market." About Spaid SPAID pursues being "one of a Kind." It aims to bridge the gap between the physical and digital environments by leveraging all live streaming information and data to maximize usability. We specialize in providing geospatial AI-based solutions that enable synergetic decision-making by deriving new insights through a fusion network of diverse data sources provided by public agencies and enterprises. Our solutions empower clients across industries by facilitating smart decision-making in smart city and smart factory digital twin operations, defense simulations, real estate location value analysis, building energy management, financial investment and risk management, and telecom network resource management. SPAID aims to drive transformative progress across various industries through these innovative solutions, contributing to sustainable development and fostering long-term growth. View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/spaid-winner-of-ces-innovation-awards-for-redefining-the-future-of-geospatial-with-ai-to-unveil-ai-solution-and-openai-platform-at-ces-2025-302339321.html SOURCE Spaid

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g star 28 casino Rico Carty, who won the 1970 NL batting title when he hit a major league-best .366 for the Atlanta Braves, has died. He was 85. Major League Baseball , the players’ association and the Braves paid tribute to Carty on social media on Sunday. A family friend told Listín Diario — a newspaper in Carty’s native Dominican Republic — that he died Saturday night in an Atlanta hospital. “Carty was one of the first groundbreaking Latino stars in the major leagues, and he established himself as a hero to millions in his native Dominican Republic, his hometown of San Pedro de Macoris, and the city of Atlanta, where he was a beloved fan favorite,” the players' association said in its statement . The Braves said Carty left an indelible mark on the organization. “While his on-field accomplishments will never be forgotten, his unforgettable smile and generous nature will be sorely missed,” the team said in its statement. Carty made his big league debut with the Braves in September 1963. He batted .330 with 22 homers and 88 RBIs in his first full season in 1964, finishing second to Dick Allen in voting for NL Rookie of the Year. The Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta after the 1965 season, and Carty got the franchise's first hit in its new home on April 12, 1966, against Pittsburgh. Carty had his best year in 1970, batting .366 with 25 homers and a career-best 101 RBIs. He started the All-Star Game after he was elected as a write-in candidate, joining Willie Mays and Hank Aaron in the NL outfield. Carty batted .299 with 204 homers and 890 RBIs over 15 years in the majors, also playing for Cleveland, Toronto, Oakland, Texas and the Chicago Cubs. He retired after the 1979 season. AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLBVancouver Canucks Will Miss Top Players to Start 2025

What should online shoppers know to keep their wallets safe this holiday season? No matter the time of year, consumers need to take precautions to protect their hard-earned money from scams, particularly when shopping online during the holiday season. Last year, the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) tallied more than $73 million in losses from cybersecurity scams during the holiday season. A tried and true tip is worth repeating and sharing with friends and loved ones: if a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Specifically, be on alert for unsolicited emails, online coupons and promo codes. While shoppers like a good bargain, don’t fall prey to clickbait. Think before you click. Don’t download attachments. Check if an emailed link is legitimate by typing the URL of the retailer or vendor into your browser to check its legitimacy. Stick with trusted retailers. Don’t put your wallet at risk by making a purchase with an unknown vendor. Also, be mindful to only use secure Wi-Fi. When scrolling or browsing online away from home, take care to double-check network names. Wi-Fi with typos and those not requiring a password are red flags for criminal scams. Take a moment to review security settings on your social media platforms and internet-connected devices. Tighten up privacy settings to prevent bad actors from mining your information, stealing your identity and targeting you for their next scam. Enable automatic software updates and use complex passwords. Throughout the year, it’s good practice to keep close tabs on your banking and credit card accounts. During the holiday shopping season, it’s even more important to closely track charges and withdrawals to verify you made those purchases. Before typing in your payment information online, make sure your information is encrypted. Look for the URL to begin with https: and show the padlock icon. As you go about your holiday to-do list, don’t let cybercriminals take the joy out of the season. Be sure to add cybersecurity to your checklist. As a former and incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I’ve long worked to combat counterfeiting, protect consumer safety and strengthen intellectual property and trademarks. Counterfeit products not only rip off consumers, they harm innovation, impede entrepreneurism and damage the American economy. In our consumer-driven economy, it’s imperative to keep the integrity of the marketplace intact, protect creators from intellectual property theft and ensure consumers are buying authentic products, not getting duped by fake knock-offs. From luxury brands to cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, the distribution of counterfeit products undermines the rule of law and is bad for consumer safety, economic growth, competitiveness and innovation. As co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Trademark Caucus, I’ve worked to raise public awareness about dangerous counterfeit goods and strengthen intellectual property rights. In 2021, I helped enact legislation to beef up protections against fraudsters who sell stolen, counterfeit or dangerous products to unsuspecting consumers using the online marketplace. In the 118th Congress, I re-introduced legislation to crack down on money laundering schemes by criminals trafficking illicit products to American consumers. Is consumer fraud a problem in Iowa? According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), consumer fraud in Iowa reached $42.6 million in losses in 2023. Last year, Iowans filed nearly 20,000 fraud reports to the FTC, and more than 3,700 cases to the Iowa Attorney General. Those numbers underscore why Iowans need to stay vigilant and take steps to prevent fraud, particularly online. The FTC says the three most reported scams in Iowa in 2023 were imposter scams, identity theft and fraudulent online shopping experiences. I hear from Iowa financial institutions that invest in anti-fraud software and employee training to thwart fraud and protect customers from financial losses and theft. The Iowa Attorney General advises Iowans to only do business with established sellers, avoid unsolicited messages and be wary when sending money electronically – such as Cash App, cryptocurrency, or Pay Pal – and avoid such payments to people you haven’t met. Know that law enforcement and government agencies will never threaten arrest for refusing to pay over the phone, or demand that Iowans keep their conversations secret. In this season of gift-giving, don’t let fraudsters be the Grinch who steals your hard-earned money. Iowans also need to beware of a scam that’s called “check washing.” Criminals get checks—often by stealing them in the mail—use chemicals to remove ink, write in their own names and payment amounts and then cash them in. If online payment isn’t an option, or you prefer writing a check to pay bills, take precautions to protect your money. According to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), inspectors recover $1 billion in counterfeit checks and money orders every year. The USPS advises people not to leave checks in the mailbox overnight. The best protection is to drop check payments inside the post office or hand directly to a postal carrier. Unfortunately, flipping the flag at your home mail box is a red flag that scammers use to steal your mail and your money. To report a potential scam to the Iowa Attorney General, contact (515) 281-5926 or file a complaint here: https://www.iowaattorneygeneral.gov/for-consumers/file-a-consumer-complaint To file a report with the FTC, visit: https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ #/ To report suspected mail theft, visit: https://www.uspis.gov/report , or call (877) 876-2455.

Photo: RNZ A large high-country scrub fire in Canterbury is still not contained, and strong winds and higher temperatures are expected in the area on Saturday afternoon. The fire has burned through nearly 1000 hectares at Bridge Hill, northwest of Springfield. Firefighters were battling to get the blaze under control in Saturday morning's more favourable weather conditions. Incident Commander Colin Russell said while it was still not yet contained, it was remaining within its 17km boundary. He said despite the more volatile conditions in the afternoon, he was not expecting the fire to grow in size. Residents around Castle Hill were on standby to evacuate should the blaze spread. The fire started early on Thursday morning, closing State Highway 73 and burning through more than 1000 hectares at Bridge Hill, northwest of Springfield. The Holloway Lodge, near the peak of Bridge Hill, was destroyed. Russell said 110 FENZ staff were still working to contain the blaze as the weather turned. "This afternoon the wind is forecast to strengthen, and temperatures will be in the mid- to high-20s. This will be less favourable conditions for getting this fire contained and the risk of breakouts will be higher so we will be closely monitoring the fire." All recreational areas between Castle Hill and Lake Pearson were closed to the public, FENZ said on social media. "This is still an active fire zone and with the winds increasing the risk of a breakout fire is higher. Please do not move cones and signs that are blocking off these areas. When you do this it ties up valuable resources trying to sort evacuations, when we should be working on the fire ground." Seven FENZ crews had monitored the site overnight. Fire retardant lines had been placed around at-risk properties and crews would be focusing on the ground. There had been five helicopters helping to battle the blaze, and FENZ was expected to do an aerial reconnaissance flight on Saturday morning to assess any damage and the extent of the fire's spread. SH73 had reopened, but stop/go signs were in place and traffic was being taken through the affected area in piloted convoys. "We'd like to thank all the road users for their patience and adhering to the traffic restrictions in place," Russell said. "It has meant we can keep the road open in a safe manner so people can continue to pass through." Strong wind warnings were in place for much of the South Island from early on Sunday, with northwesterly gusts picking up on the east coast through Saturday.

Castle Hill fire remains too difficult to containNone

When Jimmy and entered the White House in 1977, they became the first couple since to raise their children in the executive mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue. Over the years, their family continued to grow in size, with nearly two dozen grandchildren and great-grandchildren added to the Carter clan. “We have a big family now. We have 22 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, 38 of us in all,” Carter told CNN in 2015. “So, we try to hold our family together and just enjoy the family life.” Rosalynn passed away in November 2023. Carter became the longest-living president when he turned 98 in October 2022. He died at the age of 100 on Sunday, December 29, his son announced. An immediate cause was not given. “It’s been awe-inspiring to watch my grandfather live out his values for all these decades,” his grandson Jason Carter told in a previous interview. “My earliest memories are from his years in the White House, and I’ve grown up witnessing and learning from his faith and his belief in equal treatment and respect for all people." In February 2023, Carter entered hospice care following multiple hospital stays. He celebrated his 100th birthday on October 1, 2024, joining his loved ones in the backyard of his home to watch a military flyover in his honor. His grandson Jason said he is also looking forward to voting for Kamala Harris in the November election. John William “Jack” Carter, 77, is the eldest son of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. He spent his young adult years at the Georgia Institute of Technology, but later left to join the US Navy and served during the Vietnam War. He would eventually be discharged after he was caught smoking marijuana while stationed in Idaho, but he would later rejoin Georgia Tech and earn a degree in nuclear physics. Like his father, Mr Carter also had a stint in US politics, winning the Democratic primary for the US Senate in Nevada in 2006, but he lost the general election to Republican John Ensign. His top issues during the campaign were opposing the Iraq War and improving healthcare, particularly for veterans. “We took our eye off Afghanistan, which should have been the focus,” he said during a campaign stop with his father, according to the James Earl “Chip” Carter III, 74, the second eldest son, was handed down his father’s and grandfather’s name. He had a son with his first wife Caron Griffin, whom he also bestowed the name upon. He worked in the family peanut warehouse for a while before he was elected to the Plains City Council and worked on the Democratic National Committee. Jimmy Carter revealed in the documentary that Chip and singer Willie Nelson smoked marijuana on the White House roof. “When Willie Nelson wrote his autobiography, he confessed that he smoked pot in the White House one night when he was spending the night with me,” Mr Carter said in the documentary. “And he says that his companion that shared the pot with him was one of the servants in the White House. That is not exactly true — it actually was one of my sons, which he didn’t want to categorize as a pot-smoker like him.” Donnel “Jeff” Carter, 72, is the youngest of the Carter brothers. He studied geography and computer cartography and later co-founded the company Computer Mapping Consultants with his former professor the same year he graduated, he told He had three children, Joshua, Jeremy, and James, but Jeremy passed away in 2015 at the age of 28 from an . Donnel lost his wife Annette, 68, in 2021. He met her on their first day of school at Georgia Southwestern State University. Joshua Carter for his mother that “Jeff saw her across the student center while he was playing spades, and he told his friends to turn around and look at that pretty girl that just walked in. He told them he was going to marry her, and four years later he did.” They were married for 46 years. Amy Carter, 57, is the only daughter and youngest child by 15 years of the former president and first lady. Ms Carter spent her childhood years in the White House while her father was serving as president, putting her in the political and media spotlight at a young age. Born in October 1967, she was nine years old when her father became president. She later went on to become known for her political activism, such as participating in protests and sit-ins against US foreign policy in Central America and apartheid in South Africa. On one occasion in 1986, Ms Carter and several others were arrested during a protest against CIA recruitment. She was acquitted of charges of disorderly conduct and trespassing, She illustrated her father’s children’s book, , which was published in 1995. Ms Carter has two sons from two marriages. In more recent years, she has kept a low profile. She became a member of the Carter Center Board of Councilors in 2020.WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Wednesday passed a $895 billion measure that authorizes a 1% increase in defense spending this fiscal year and would give a double-digit pay raise to about half of the enlisted service members in the military. The bill is traditionally strongly bipartisan, but some Democratic lawmakers opposed the inclusion of a ban on transgender medical treatments for children of military members if such treatment could result in sterilization. The bill passed the House by a vote of 281-140 and will next move to the Senate, where lawmakers had sought a bigger boost in defense spending than the current measure allows. Lawmakers are touting the bill's 14.5% pay raise for junior enlisted service members and a 4.5% increase for others as key to improving the quality of life for those serving in the U.S. military. Those serving as junior enlisted personnel are in pay grades that generally track with their first enlistment term. Lawmakers said service member pay has failed to remain competitive with the private sector, forcing many military families to rely on food banks and government assistance programs to put food on the table. The bill also provides significant new resources for child care and housing. “No service member should have to live in squalid conditions and no military family should have to rely on food stamps to feed their children, but that's exactly what many of our service members are experiencing, especially the junior enlisted,” said Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “This bill goes a long way to fixing that.” The bill sets key Pentagon policy that lawmakers will attempt to fund through a follow-up appropriations bill. The overall spending tracks the numbers established in a 2023 agreement that then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached with President Joe Biden to increase the nation’s borrowing authority and avoid a federal default in exchange for spending restraints. Many senators had wanted to increase defense spending some $25 billion above what was called for in that agreement, but those efforts failed. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., who is expected to serve as the next chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the overall spending level was a “tremendous loss for our national defense," though he agreed with many provisions within the bill. “We need to make a generational investment to deter the Axis of Aggressors. I will not cease work with my congressional colleagues, the Trump administration, and others until we achieve it,” Wicker said. House Republicans don't want to go above the McCarthy-Biden agreement for defense spending and are looking to go way below it for many non-defense programs. They are also focused on cultural issues. The bill prohibits funding for teaching critical race theory in the military and prohibits TRICARE health plans from covering gender dysphoria treatment for children under 18 if that treatment could result in sterilization. Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, the ranking Democratic member of the House Armed Services Committee, said minors dealing with gender dysphoria is a "very real problem." He said the treatments available, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, have proven effective at helping young people dealing with suicidal thoughts, anxiety and depression. “These treatments changed their lives and in many cases saved their lives,” Smith said. “And in this bill, we decided we're going to bar servicemembers' children from having access to that.” Smith said the number of minors in service member families receiving transgender medical care extends into the thousands. He could have supported a study asking medical experts to determine whether such treatments are too often used, but a ban on health insurance coverage went too far. He said Speaker Mike Johnson's office insisted upon the ban and said the provision “taints an otherwise excellent piece of legislation.” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, called the ban a step in the right direction, saying, “I think these questions need to be pulled out of the debate of defense, so we can get back to the business of defending the United States of America without having to deal with social engineering debates.” Smith said he agrees with Roy that lawmakers should be focused on the military and not on cultural conflicts, “and yet, here it is in this bill.” Branden Marty, a Navy veteran who served for 13 years, said the loss of health coverage for transgender medical treatments could prompt some with valuable experience to leave the military, affecting national security because “we already struggle from a recruiting and retention standpoint.” He also said the bill could regularly force service members into difficult choices financially. “It will be tough for a lot of them because of out-of-pocket expenses, especially enlisted members who we know already struggle with food insecurity,” said Marty, the father of a transgender teenager. “They don’t get paid very much, so they’re going to be making a lot of choices on a day-to-day, tactical level.” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, said his team was not telling Democrats how to vote on the bill. “There's a lot of positive things in the National Defense Authorization Act that were negotiated in a bipartisan way, and there are some troubling provisions in a few areas as well,” Jeffries said. Overall, 81 Democrats ended up voting for the bill and 124 against it. On the Republican side, 200 voted for the bill and 16 against. “It’s disappointing to see 124 of my Democrat colleagues vote against our brave men and women in uniform over policies that have nothing to do with their intended mission,” Johnson said. The defense policy bill also looks to strengthen deterrence against China. It calls for investing $15.6 billion to build military capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region. The Biden administration had requested about $10 billion. On Israel, the bill, among other things, includes an expansion of U.S. joint military exercises with Israel and a prohibition on the Pentagon citing casualty data from Hamas. The defense policy bill is one of the final measures that lawmakers view as a must-pass before making way for a new Congress in January.Sri Lanka’s green bonds must demonstrate climate impact measurement: MTI

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(Bloomberg) — Libya’s oil production has risen to the highest daily level in more than a decade, just months after a political crisis slashed the country’s output. Crude and condensate production hit 1.422 million barrels on Thursday, the National Oil Corp. said in a post on X. That exceeds the state oil-firm’s target by 22,000 barrels. It’s also the highest daily volume since 2013, according to the NOC. The surge marks a stunning turnaround for Libya’s oil industry this year. In August, a feud between the country’s rival eastern and western governments halved output, stoking fears of a renewed war. The two sides resolved their dispute a month later. The North African country is now planning its first tender for energy exploration since the 2011 civil war that ousted leader Moammar Al Qaddafi. Italy’s Eni Spa and BP Plc resumed drilling last month, ending a pause in place since 2014. Libya, home to the Africa’s largest oil reserves, in November boosted crude output to 1.14 million barrels a day, providing a sense of the nation’s oil rebound. The ramp-up would help bring foreign currency into the country, after seesawing production in recent years — largely the result of unrest — limited revenues. Power struggles have compounded years of neglect in developing or revamping the oil infrastructure. Still, the increase comes at a tricky time for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, of which Libya is a member. The producer group and its allies on Thursday delayed a revival of its production for three months, amid faltering demand in China and booming supplies from the Americas. While Libya is exempt from the OPEC+ system of production caps, its production feeds into the group’s performance, adding to global supplies.Playoff hopes in the balance when the Broncos face the Bengals in Cincy

Discovery Canyon football had not won a first-round playoff game since 2019. In 2021, 2022, and 2023, the Thunder came into the playoffs with high hopes, but came out empty-handed each time. That is, until last Saturday, when Discovery Canyon (9-2) defeated No. 8 Pueblo East 28-20. It was not only the Thunder’s first playoff win, but its first ever win over the Eagles in the playoffs after five previous meetings. “A lot of credit goes to the senior class and what they have been able to do together,” coach Shawn Mitchell said of the win and season overall. “They held each other accountable in the off-season and, even now, continue to hold each other to a high standard. This group has something special, something the senior class hasn’t had in a while.” This season looks very similar to last year, with two early losses followed by a streak of wins until the postseason. The Thunder are currently on an eight-game win streak. On Saturday, they face a familiar foe at undefeated No. 1 Thompson Valley (11-0), which Discovery Canyon lost to 21-17 on the road in the first round last year. This year's team vows for a different outcome. “I think this is the best matchup we could have hoped for,” coach Mitchell said. “They are still a good football team. They are tough, the number one team. We know they bring a formidable defense but we bring a great offense. We’ve learned some good things about our team and what we need to do to win against good football teams.” After the Thunder’s loss to the then No. 3 Eagles, the team learned that it doesn’t matter what Thompson Valley is ranked. Discovery Canyon kept Thompson Valley close in a hard fought game and is ready to do it again. “Our team's composure is one of the best in the state,” starting quarterback Hayden Jones said, “We've been in all situations. We've been up, we've been down. This team cares about winning. From an offensive perspective we have to take care of the ball but also find a way to stay on the field.” The seniors, 25 in total, make up most of the starters, including Jones who in his second season at Discovery Canyon has thrown for 1,131 yards and 19 touchdowns and has rushed for 980 yards. “When he took over the starting position in week four of 2023, there was a significant change in energy,” Mitchell said. “He elevated everyone's play. Brought something special to that position. He has been a catalyst for our offenses’ production. He's a leader that leads by example.” Another senior, Jude Suhajda, has been with the team since freshman year and has anchored both the defensive and offensive lines. He has 69 total tackles, five sacks, and 17 tackles for loss so far this season. Since Suhajda became a starter as a sophomore, he has watched the team grow and evolve and says this year's team is special. “The culture on the team has been different than before,” Suhajda, who is also a Thunder three-sport athlete, said. “We are connected as a group unit of seniors. The team is in a much different place. We just need to take care of business.”

Stock indexes drifted to a mixed finish on Wall Street as some heavyweight technology and communications sector stocks offset gains elsewhere in the market. The S&P 500 slipped less than 0.1% Thursday, its first loss after three straight gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.1%. Gains by retailers and health care stocks helped temper the losses. Trading volume was lighter than usual as U.S. markets reopened following the Christmas holiday. The Labor Department reported that U.S. applications for unemployment benefits held steady last week, though continuing claims rose to the highest level in three years. Treasury yields fell in the bond market. On Thursday: The S&P 500 fell 2.45 points, or 0.04%, to 6,037.59. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 28.77 points, or 0.1%, to 43,325.80. The Nasdaq composite fell 10.77 points, or 1%, to 19,764.89. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 20.34 points, or 0.9%, to 2,280.19. For the week: The S&P 500 is up 106.74 points, or 1.80%. The Dow is up 485.54 points, or 1.1%. The Nasdaq is up 447.76 points, or 2.3%. The Russell 2000 is up 37.82 points, or 1.7%. For the year: The S&P 500 is up 1,267.76 points, or 26.6%. The Dow is up 5,636.26, or 15%. The Nasdaq is up 5,009.01 points, or 33.4%. The Russell 2000 is up 253.12 points, or 12.5%.Well, this may be just for you: USA Football is holding talent identification camps all over the country to find that next flag football star. It's “America’s Got Talent” meets “American Idol,” with the stage being the field and the grand prize a chance to compete for a spot on a national team. Because it’s never too early to start planning for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, where flag football will make its Summer Games debut. Know this, though — it's not an easy team to make. The men's and women's national team rosters are at “Dream Team” status given the men’s side has captured six of the last seven world championships and the women three in a row. To remain on top, the sport's national governing body is scouring every football field, park, track, basketball court and gym to find hidden talent to cultivate. USA Football has organized camps and tryouts from coast to coast for anyone ages 11 to 23. There are more than a dozen sites set up so far, ranging from Dallas (Sunday) to Chicago (Dec. 14) to Tampa (March 29) to Los Angeles (TBD) and the Boston area (April 27), where it will be held at Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots. The organization has already partnered with the NFL on flag football initiatives and programs. The numbers have been through the roof, with engagement on social media platforms increasing by 86% since flag football was announced as an Olympic invitational sport in October 2023 . The participation of boys and girls ages 6 to 17 in flag football last year peaked at more than 1.6 million, according to USA Football research. “We pride ourselves on elevating the gold standard across the sport,” said Eric Mayes, the managing director of the high performance and national teams for USA Football. “We want to be the best in the world — and stay the best in the world.” Flag football was one of five new sports added to the LA28 program. The already soaring profile of American football only figures to be enhanced by an Olympic appearance. Imagine, say, a few familiar faces take the field, too. Perhaps even NFL stars such as Tyreek Hill or Patrick Mahomes, maybe even past pro football greats donning a flag belt for a country to which they may have ties. Soon after flag football's inclusion, there was chatter of NFL players possibly joining in on the fun. Of course, there are logistical issues to tackle before their inclusion at the LA Olympics, which open July 14, 2028. Among them, training camp, because the Olympics will be right in the middle of it. The big question is this: Will owners permit high-priced players to duck out for a gold-medal pursuit? No decisions have yet been made on the status of NFL players for the Olympics. For now, it's simply about growing the game. There are currently 13 states that sanction girls flag football as a high school varsity sport. Just recently, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles helped pave the way to get it adopted in Pennsylvania. Around the world, it's catching on, too. The women's team from Japan took third at the recent word championships, while one of the best players on the planet is Mexico quarterback Diana Flores . “Could flag football globally become the new soccer? That’s something to aspire to," said Stephanie Kwok , the NFL's vice president of flag football. This type of flag football though, isn't your Thanksgiving Day game with family and friends. There's a learning curve. And given the small roster sizes, versatility is essential. Most national team members need to be a version of Colorado’s two-way standout and Heisman hopeful Travis Hunter. Forget bump-and-run coverage, too, because there's no contact. None. That took some adjusting for Mike Daniels, a defensive back out of West Virginia who earned a rookie minicamp invitation with the Cleveland Browns in 2017. “If a receiver is running around, I’m thinking, ‘OK, I can kind of bump him here and there and nudge him,’” Daniels explained. “They’re like, ‘No, you can’t.’ I’m just like, ‘So I’m supposed to let this guy just run?!’ I really rebelled at the idea at first. But you learn.” The competition for an Olympic roster spot is going to be fierce because only 10 players are expected to make a squad. The best 10 will earn it, too, as credentials such as college All-American or NFL All-Pro take a backseat. “I would actually love" seeing NFL players try out, said Daniels, who's also a personal trainer in Miami. “I’m not going to let you just waltz in here, thinking, ‘I played NFL football for five years. I’m popular. I have a huge name.’ I’m still better than you and I'm going to prove it — until you prove otherwise.” Around the house, Bruce Mapp constantly swivels his hips when turning a hallway corner or if his daughter tries to reach for a hug. It’s his way of working on avoiding a “defender” trying to snare the flag. That approach has earned the receiver out of Coastal Carolina four gold medals with USA Football. The 31-year-old fully plans on going for more gold in Los Angeles. “You grow up watching Usain Bolt (win gold) and the ‘Redeem Team’ led by Kobe Bryant win a gold medal, you're always thinking, ‘That's insane.' Obviously, you couldn't do it in your sport, because I played football," said Mapp, who owns a food truck in the Dallas area. "With the Olympics approaching, that (gold medal) is what my mind is set on." It's a common thought, which is why everything — including talent camps — starts now. “Everybody thinks, ‘Yeah, the U.S. just wins,’” Daniels said. “But we work hard all the time. We don’t just walk in. We don’t just get off the bus thinking, ‘We’re going to beat people.’” AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL

This article was originally published on November 15, 1976. The former president died on December 29, 2024. For Jimmy Carter , the long-distance run was over—an astonishing two-year, half-million-mile journey from a Georgia boondock named Plains to the most powerful job in the world. He had spent the last anxious weeks of that marathon watching the last of his 33-point summer lead melt away to what the major polls sized up as a dead heat with Gerald Ford . But at the very end, America's Democratic majority came home to Carter in a late surge that flooded polling places in party strongholds across the nation and stopped Ford's gallant comeback just short of victory. As the returns chattered in through a long razor-edge election night, both men made their marks in history: Ford as the first Chief Executive since Herbert Hoover to be voted out of office—and Carter as the first Deep Southerner since before the Civil War to be elected President of the United States. Carter's edge, just as the polls predicted, was far too close for comfort: it took till the morning after to nail down his 51-48 majority of the popular vote and his 297-235 lead in the electoral college, with Oregon's six votes hanging on a tally of absentee ballots. His triumph was nonetheless impressive: he resolidified the Democratic South for the first time since the New Deal days, split the industrial North with the President, helped his party hold its swollen majorities in Congress and the statehouses, and in the end recovered the White House from the Republicans for the first time since Lyndon Johnson. But Ford ran him a surprisingly close race, and Eugene McCarthy's third-party insurgency aggravated the suspense by tipping several states out of the Carter column. The Georgian was a bare two electoral votes over the top (with 272) when he descended from his Atlanta hotel suite to claim the Presidency and tell his cheering campaign workers: "I pray I can live up to your confidence and never disappoint you." Ford was not so quick to concede the end of his 27-month accidental Presidency, sleeping on the returns overnight and closeting himself next morning with aides to consider the possibilities of challenging the outcome. The verdict was a unanimous no, and by midday, the President—puffy-eyed, teary and laryngitic—met the press surrounded by his family to make his concession and his farewells. To spare his throat, Betty read his telegram of surrender, addressed "Dear Jimmy," signed "Jerry Ford" and accepting with consummate style that Carter had "won our long and intense struggle for the Presidency. He tendered his congratulations, his prayers and his support. His daughter, Susan, wept. His son Steve struggled for control. Ford himself moved shiny-eyed into the press of newsmen, extending handshakes and thanks. "We lost," he said, "in the last quarter." Carter's own mandate to govern was shadowed, and not just by the skimpiness of his winning edge. The Congress is preternaturally wary of him, given his combative relations with the Georgia legislature during his gubernatorial years; Carter felt obliged in the midst of his long election-night vigil to put in a peace-keeping call to House Speaker-to-be Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill and enthuse: "I'm going to be President, you're going to be Speaker, and we're going to get along fine." Carter is likewise an incompletely acquired taste for the party and trade-union organization men who helped elect him, and their joylessness in his election was manifest. "I think," said one ranking party leader, "we have a winner—for better or for worse." Carter is further burdened by a kind of lingering public unease over who he really is and what he really stands for. Election Day polling by NBC News suggested that mistrust of Carter did not count decisively against him—that he in fact rated about as well as Ford on questions of honesty and credibility. But nearly half the electorate found him less than completely trustworthy, a considerable residue of suspicion barely three months before his coming to power. Some of the Mr. Outside glow of his candidacy rubbed off in his final days of dependency on the Mssrs. Inside of the Democratic Establishment. The midwives of his victory in the end were old-style delivery pros like the AFL-CIO's George Meany and national party chairman Robert Strauss; Carter in the end required rescue by the men he had once run against. That he needed help was in part a tribute to Gerald Ford's autumn recovery—a come-from-behind scramble matching Harry Truman's in 1948 in everything except its happy ending. The strategy came from from a 199-page staff paper known in the White House as The Book and considered so sensitive that only three copies were run off besides Ford's own. It opened with some uncommonly blunt lese majesty: the assertions that most Americans did not consider Ford "a strong, decisive leader" and that his shortcomings as a campaigner only made matters worse. Out of these premises grew the celebrated Rose Garden strategy—keeping Ford home acting Presidential till the last ten days and making an issue instead of what The Book described as Carter's accident-prone campaign; Ford achieved what the Gallup organization described as the greatest comeback in polling history. 'We Won This Election For Him' What stopped him at the last, in the common judgment of the professionals, was less Jimmy Carter than a simple arithmetical fact—that there are roughly twice as many Democrats as Republicans in America. Carter's main contribution to the demography of his victory was the South, as nearly solid for him as it has been for any Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944; he lost Virginia narrowly, but carried everything else from the Carolinas to the Rio Grande. What Carter did less sure-handedly, and in the end only with help, was sell his evangelical politics in the urban North and West. He won finally as Democrats historically have won—mobilizing traditional Democratic voters by traditional Democratic means on traditional Democratic issues. The cost was the debt he incurred. "We won this election for him," said one big-city party leader. "The question is whether he'll show us any gratitude." The face of his victory was indeed distinctly familiar. He did smashingly with black voters, solidly with union members and hyphenated Americans, decently with Catholics and Jews—all mainstays of the old Democratic coalition. He fared just well enough in the industrial North, though McCarthy's damaging incursions turned Carter's election night into an agony of waiting and may have cost him more than 40 electoral votes. He profited enormously by the large, late-blooming turnout, some of it flogged to the polls by a massive Democratic get-out-the-vote drive, some moved by the much-advertised fact that the race was close and every ballot meaningful. NBC's polling data suggested that one voter in five chose sides only in the final week of the campaign—and that a heavy majority of them, moved more by pocketbook issues than Carter's personal attractions, voted the Democratic line. The results left the Republicans reduced, bitter and more desperate than ever for a new hero. The day's returns did thrust forward some fresh faces to help console the party till next time—among them James Thompson, the racket-busting governor-elect of Illinois, and a handsome young freshman Senate class including Richard Lugar of Indiana, John C. Danforth of Missouri and H. John Heinz III of Pennsylvania. The year's labors profited Texas's ex-Democratic ex-Gov. John Connally as well, backing up his known ambitions with a pocketful of campaign chits from Republican Congressional candidates around the country. But the real message of 1976 was how narrow the party's base has become, and how little its nomination may be worth if it could not return a sitting President to office. "This party is a disaster," said a national committee leader. "Maybe you just start all over again." Carter, by contrast, wore a winner's ineluctable smile as he thanked his followers—"I love every one of you"—and then flew home next morning to begin preparing for his assumption of Presidential power less than three months hence. The first entry in his calendar for the interregnum was a week's R&R in Plains, working the telephone, pondering his briefing books and mending in flesh and spirit after 22 months on the road. But the transition team he put quietly to work last spring just in case will set up shop in Washington by midmonth, and Carter is expected to follow at least part-time rather than require job applicants and issues people to make the trek to Plains. His people have already supplied him with the names and pedigrees of perhaps 75 Cabinet prospects; their expectation is that Carter will start early by naming a Secretary of State, to indicate his own interest in foreign affairs—and, said one aide, "to signal the world there's been a changing of the guard." Down to the Last Bitter Days Plains in the meantime will become the seat of a two-month shadow government while Ford plays out the final days of what has suddenly become a lame-duck Administration. There was a tinge of bitterness in his overnight delay in wiring or phoning his concession to the winning candidate. "There are few people the President dislikes as much as he does Jimmy Carter," one senior hand confessed. Still, once Ford gets back from a week's recuperation in Palm Springs, he will sit down to a deskful of pressing business that cannot all be bucked to the new crowd—the shaky progress toward a Rhodesian settlement, the languishing SALT talks with the Soviets, the potential damage to the U.S. economy of an impending rise in imported oil prices, the final scrutiny of the last Ford budget. It is said in the White House that he might like to treat himself as well to one last Presidential spectacular—perhaps a trip to the Middle East. And then it will be Jimmy Carter's turn. He made his emotional homecoming to Plains in the daybreak after his longest night, discovering a crowd of townspeople who had been waiting up the whole while in Main Street. "I told you I didn't intend to lose," he said; then, suddenly, his eyes flooded up, and he turned away into Rosalynn's wet-eyed embrace. His discipline quickly reasserted itself, and with it his store of homilies. "I see," he said, into the spreading morning, "the sun is rising on a beautiful new day." But he enters upon it with a slender mandate, untried skills at statecraft, and eleven weeks to prepare himself for his day in the sun. —Peter Goldman with Hal Bruno and James Doyle

If you're looking for top stocks, there's no need to reinvent the wheel. The Securities and Exchange Commission makes it a breeze to follow the world's greatest investors. Every three months, the regulator has everyone with more than $100 million under management share their trading details with the public on a Form 13F filing. One billionaire investor whom investors of all sizes follow closely is Philippe Laffont of Coatue Management. Known for investing in a combination of tech and healthcare stocks, Laffont grew his fund to $26.9 billion at the end of September. Laffont and Coatue made a lot of money with Nvidia in the first half of 2024. At the end of June, Wall Street's favorite artificial intelligence ( AI ) stock was the fund's fourth-largest holding at a value of roughly $1.2 billion. His love for Nvidia found a limit. During the third quarter, Coatue sold 3.6 million shares of the high-flying AI stock, which was enough to reduce its stake by 26%. Nvidia has fallen out of favor at Coatue and been replaced by a pair of two drugmakers leading the anti-obesity niche. During the third quarter, Laffont increased his firm's stake in Novo Nordisk ( NVO -0.32% ) more than ninefold to $39 million. Coatue already had a large Eli Lilly ( LLY -1.38% ) stake that it raised by 20% to $220 million. 1. Novo Nordisk The drugs that Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly market for the treatment of obesity and diabetes are flying off pharmacy shelves and have further to climb. A report from Morgan Stanley suggests the market for anti-obesity drugs could rise from $6 billion in 2023 to $105 billion in 2030. Novo's lead drug is semaglutide, a glucagon-line peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved as Ozempic and Rybelsus to treat diabetes and later as Wegovy to treat obesity. In the first nine months of 2024, total semaglutide sales grew about 41% year over year to $19.8 billion. In a clinical trial leading to its approval as a weight management drug, Wegovy reduced patients' weight by 12.4% compared to a placebo. Novo Nordisk isn't stopping at Wegovy. It's developing a next-generation weight management treatment made from semaglutide and an amylin analog called CagriSema (cagrilintide). Treatment with CagriSema lowered patients' weight by a placebo-adjusted 20.4% on average after 68 weeks of treatment. 2. Eli Lilly Eli Lilly is another large pharmaceutical company with a blockbuster GLP-1 drug. Tirzepatide first earned FDA approval to treat diabetes in 2022 under the brand name Mounjaro. The FDA approved the same drug to treat obesity in 2023 under the brand name Zepbound. While semaglutide acts on GLP-1 alone, tirzepatide is a dual GLP-1 and GIP agonist. The dual action has improved its efficacy and sales trajectory. In trials leading to Zepbound's approval, it reduced patients' weight by a placebo-adjusted 17.8% on average after 72 weeks. Novo Nordisk still has a leading share of the market for GLP-1 drugs, but tirzepatide is gaining fast. Despite just two short years on the market, total tirzepatide sales during the first nine months of 2024 rose above $11 billion. CagriSema could disrupt tirzepatide's upward trajectory, but there's a good chance Eli Lilly will overtake Novo Nordisk as the leading seller of GLP-1 drugs. Although CagriSema's pivotal trial results were impressive, they pale in comparison to retatrutide, a triplet therapy Eli Lilly is testing. Retatrutide is a GLP-1/GIP agonist that also acts on glucagon receptors. In 2023, a phase 2 trial showed it lowered patients' weight by a placebo-adjusted 22.1% after 48 weeks. Time to buy? The GLP-1 drug market will be stuck in a game of tug-of-war between Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk for the next several years. Tirzepatide will likely overtake semaglutide in another year or two, but it could fall to CagriSema. Novo Nordisk's next-generation anti-obesity candidate already finished a phase 3 trial and could earn FDA approval in 2025. Retatrutide began a phase 3 study in May of 2023 that should wrap up in January of 2026. If all goes as expected, CagriSema could be the top obesity treatment for about a year before the FDA looks at an application from Lilly for retatrutide. While we can reasonably look forward to rapid sales growth from their still-experimental GLP-1 candidates, the stock market is already pricing in a lot of success. Expectations are so high for Eli Lilly that it's probably best to avoid the stock for now. It's been trading for about 60 times forward-looking earnings estimates. At this steep valuation, any sign of trouble for tirzepatide or retatrutide could lead to heavy losses. Shares of Novo Nordisk recently tanked because CagriSema results don't appear competitive against retatrutide. At its recently beaten-down price, the pharmaceutical giant is trading for 27.9 times forward-looking earnings expectations. That's a steep price to pay for a drugmaker, but soaring demand for its GLP-1 drugs could allow it to grow into its valuation and provide market-beating gains to patient investors.

VIDEO: Verydarkman recovers ₦78M from ₦180M allegedly stolen from NGO accountHome for the holidays? Show relatives you care with some tech supportJimmy Carter, the 39th U.S. president, has died at 100