Pelican Press

'You don't have to suffer': Key allergist tips this allergy season – USA Today 'You don't have to suffer': Key allergist tips this allergy season – USA Today ‘You don’t have to suffer’: Key allergist tips this allergy season USA TodayIs your hay fever getting worse? The EconomistWhy it feels like allergy season is getting longer, more severe ABC NewsPollen is everywhere. But do I have allergies or a cold? The GuardianAllergy season is longer this year. Here’s how to manage symptoms NBC Bay Area Source link #039You #don039t #suffer039 #Key #allergist #tips #allergy #season #USA #Today Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Book Review: ‘Empty Vessel,’ by Ian Kumekawa Book Review: ‘Empty Vessel,’ by Ian Kumekawa EMPTY VESSEL: The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge, by Ian Kumekawa Container ships are designed to be blandly functional. Gigantic metal platforms, they chug along from port to port and are habitually taken for granted — until, that is, they run aground on the jagged rocks of catastrophe. When the pandemic arrived five years ago, Americans who were trying in vain to procure protective gear like face masks got an unwanted lesson in the intricacies of global supply chains. Today, in the wake of Trump’s tariffs, including a whopping 145 percent on China, the exact locations of container ships have become a matter of grim fascination. Over the last couple of weeks, social media users have been posting live maps of cargo traffic as if on hurricane watch. “Normally, the physical dimension of globalization remains in the background, relatively unnoticed,” Ian Kumekawa writes in his new book, “Empty Vessel.” A historian at Harvard, he realized that one way to make the abstract workings of the global economy more concrete would be to tether them to something you could touch. The “empty vessel” of his title is a barge made of steel that weighs 9,500 deadweight tons. It has served as a “floatel” for oil rig workers, a barracks for British soldiers, a jail for New York City inmates, among other things. Like Zelig, it adapted to whatever it was expected to be: “Its emptiness has been its defining characteristic.” This elegant and enlightening book is an impressive feat, especially given that its main character is, as Kumekawa admits, stubbornly uncharismatic: “a dumb pontoon without voice, personality or drive.” Constructed in a Swedish shipyard in 1979, the vessel and its sister ship were container barges built too late to carry actual cargo. Western countries like Sweden and the United States had already entered an era of industrial decline. Shipping capacity began to outstrip demand in the early 1970s. Then the oil crisis hit. “We used to make things here” became a familiar refrain. And so Kumekawa gives us a “barge’s-eye view” of what his protagonist witnessed over the ensuing decades, tracing how the vessel became a passive yet essential participant in a rapidly changing world. “Empty Vessel” joins a growing shelf of books about the new forms that globalization is taking, including Atossa Araxia Abrahamian’s “The Hidden Globe” and Quinn Slobodian’s “Crack-Up Capitalism.” They all detail efforts by the rich to offshore their wealth and escape constraints of national sovereignty. But abstractions like “financialization” and “deregulation” still rely on underlying assets, which is to say, on material reality. Kumekawa sees his book as “a guide to how major global transformations were always embodied, grounded in tangible things and, often, dependent on physical violence.” The vessel’s connection to violence was forged early on. Shipbuilding is a dangerous job. Kumekawa describes how Sweden’s Finnboda, which had been building ships since the mid-19th century, still had its share of workplace accidents when it constructed the vessel and its sister. Workers were routinely exposed to asbestos and lead paint. Hearing loss was common. Iron chips were frequently removed from workers’ eyes. Delivered to a Norwegian company, the vessel was initially put to work in the North Sea. There, it could make money by working in the oil fields or carrying dredged-up scraps of ******* warships. But its ultimate purpose was to give its Norwegian investors, who could write off their investments in shipping, a legal way to circumvent paying taxes: “Arguably, it was worth more as a financial abstraction than as a concrete, working ship.” Kumekawa follows the vessel and its sister through their various names and incarnations. In 1982, Argentina’s military junta invaded Britain’s Falkland Islands, and the vessels — registered in the U.K. and rechristened the Safe Esperia and the Safe Dominia — were sent to the South Atlantic to house British soldiers. But it wasn’t the state that acquired the vessels; it was a private shipping company called Bibby Line. Margaret Thatcher’s conservative government had struck an “uneasy bargain” between “globalism and nationalism,” Kumekawa says, promoting privatization with one hand and delivering “patriotic flag-waving” with the other. The vessel would go on to be a silent player in West Germany’s automotive industry (as temporary housing for Volkswagen’s trainees) and the growth of mass incarceration in the United States (as a floating jail at Pier 36 in Manhattan). By that time, Bibby Line had re-registered the ship so that it flew the Bahamian flag. The company’s British owner, Derek Bibby, presented this “reflagging” as a matter of “economic necessity.” Flying a “flag of convenience” from a country like the Bahamas or Liberia gave wealthy investors the benefit of lower taxes and laxer laws. It was all “very sad,” Bibby said, “but we must not let our feelings govern our activities.” So much for rallying around the Union Jack during the Falklands War. The irony is not lost on Kumekawa, who calls flags of convenience “markers of globalization par excellence.” For moneyed interests trying to profit from a world in flux, such flexibility is useful. The vessel and its sister were similarly pliable: “They were adaptable Band-Aids, not bespoke, individualized treatments. This is why the vessel was especially valuable during crises.” But the vessel still had to be maintained and cleaned, staffed and tended to. Kumekawa has written a book about a boat, but he wants us to bear in mind the human beings it carried. By 2018, the sister ship was stranded in Walvis Bay, Namibia, one of several boats that had been abandoned by their parent company, Halani Shipping. They were registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. An Indian crew of eight was stuck without pay off the coast of Africa for more than nine months. “They had been forsaken in a world of little oversight and even less responsibility.” EMPTY VESSEL: The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge | By Ian Kumekawa | Knopf | 304 pp. | $29 Source link #Book #Review #Empty #Vessel #Ian #Kumekawa Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Premier Roger Cook warns WA’s emissions may rise before they fall in bid to help global net zero push Premier Roger Cook warns WA’s emissions may rise before they fall in bid to help global net zero push Roger Cook has warned Western Australia’s emissions may rise to allow the world to reach net zero targets as he stepped back from previously proposed legislation for a 2050 target. Source link #Premier #Roger #Cook #warns #emissions #rise #fall #bid #global #net #push Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

The Best Books of 2025 (So Far) The Best Books of 2025 (So Far) Fiction | Nonfiction We’re more than a third of the way through 2025 and we at The Book Review have already written about hundreds of books. Some of those titles are good. Some are very good. And then there are the following. We suspect that some (though certainly not all) of these will be top of mind when we publish our end-of-year, best-of lists. For more suggestions for what to read next, head to our book recommendation page. Fiction I want a haunting story by a Nobel Prize winner by Han Kang The Nobel laureate’s new novel, translated by E. Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, revisits a violent chapter in South Korean history: Between 1947 and 1954 on Jeju, an island off the coast of South Korea, at least 30,000 people were killed in mostly government-perpetrated atrocities. This disturbing, dreamlike book centers on a writer who travels to Jeju during a blizzard to rescue a friend’s **** bird, only to uncover the depths of her friend’s obsession with the massacre. Read our review. How about a survival drama based on true events? by Allegra Goodman Goodman’s gripping novel traces the fate of a real-life 16th-century French noblewoman, Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval. Marooned on a desolate island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence by her unscrupulous guardian after falling in love with his aide, Marguerite, along with her lover and her devoted nurse, must fight to survive as the harsh ********* winter approaches. Marguerite’s narration is elegantly restrained, as if telling her story were an opportunity to impose order on a life she did not design. Read our review. Give me a quietly apocalyptic book with mice and nuns by Charlotte Wood Wood’s somber, exquisite novel centers on a 60-something atheist wildlife conservationist who leaves behind her husband and career to live in a convent near her rural *********** hometown. Despite a series of disrupting incidents — a plague of mice, the arrival of the remains of a nun who disappeared 20 years earlier, the reappearance of her childhood classmate — the narrator finds in this retreat the time and space to ruminate on forgiveness, regret and how to live and die, if not virtuously, then as harmlessly as possible. Read our review. How about a blockbuster novel teeming with human details? by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Adichie’s first novel since 2013 — when she won a National Book Critics Circle Award for “Americanah” — draws on a notorious real-life ******* assault case as she follows the lives of three ********* women and one of their former housekeepers. The circuitous, engrossing narrative revolves around Chiamaka, an anxious travel writer; her best friend Zikora, a successful lawyer; and her cousin Omelogor, a blunt banker-turned-grad-student. In elegant prose full of the minutia of daily life, Adichie grapples with the hierarchies of language and the reality of women’s bodies. Read our review. I’d like a book that mashes up horror and history by Stephen Graham Jones Jones’s past fiction has confidently used various horror genres to explore the Native American experience, and his gruesome new joyride of a novel follows suit — via a Blackfeet man who becomes a vampire in the 1870s and seeks vengeance for the country’s sins. The book is an entertaining nesting doll of stories, toggling between the bloodsucker, a 1912 pastor and a 21st-century researcher as Jones invites us to reflect on how the stories we tell about ourselves can be at once confessions and concealments. Read our review. A propulsive addition to a beloved series? Sign me up! by Suzanne Collins Collins returns to the world of “The Hunger Games,” 17 years after the first book, with this brutal and heart-wrenching prequel about Haymitch Abernathy — the jaded but fiercely devoted mentor who coached the teenage revolutionary Katniss Everdeen in the original series — and his experience at the 50th Games. In expanding Haymitch’s story, complete with plenty of grisly details and a vibrant cast of new and familiar characters, Collins paints a shrewd portrait of the machinery of propaganda and how authoritarianism takes root. Read our review. I want a slow-burn Appalachian thriller by Amity Gaige In this slow-burn thriller, an experienced hiker named Valerie goes missing on the Appalachian Trail and two other women — a veteran game warden and a lonely but lively 76-year-old former scientist stuck in a retirement community — must crack the case. “Heartwood” absorbs the reader in the subculture and shorthand of the trail, exploring the thorny tangles of motherhood (and daughterhood) and building satisfying suspense about whether, and how, all three women will emerge from their metaphorical woods. Read our review. I love rags-to-riches stories that make me think by David Szalay Szalay’s cool, remote novel follows a lonely young man, Istvan, who grows up with his mother in a housing estate in Hungary and gets swept along on a journey, peppered with sex and violence, to the upper echelons of British society. Even as Istvan advances into privileged enclaves, he remains coarse, boorish and surprisingly sensitive; one of the book’s primary subjects is male alienation. Szalay lets us feel Istvan’s longing for meaning, for experience, for belonging, as he moves from humble beginnings to heady heights and back again with the detachment of a survivor. Read our review. Nonfiction I want a timely exploration of an overlooked chapter of history by Michelle Adams Michigan prohibited segregation in public education decades before the Supreme Court did the same for the nation in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Yet nearly 20 years after Brown, the public schools in Detroit remained almost totally segregated. In her powerful new book, Adams explores how this happened, the failed efforts to integrate and the implications for public education and civil rights today. Read our review. How about a warm and fuzzy memoir? by Chloe Dalton During the Covid pandemic, Dalton — a British writer and political adviser — stumbled across an abandoned newborn brown leveret, or hare, in the English countryside near her home and decided to raise it herself despite knowing nothing about hares (or their smaller cousin, the rabbit). Her sweetly meditative memoir, which includes illustrations, describes how her furry new housemate changed her outlook on life during the pandemic and beyond. Read our review. Give me a darkly funny tech exposé by Sarah Wynn-Williams For seven years, beginning in 2011, Wynn-Williams worked at Facebook (now called Meta), eventually as a director of global public policy. Now she has written an insider account of a company that she says was run by status-hungry and self-absorbed leaders who chafed at the burdens of responsibility and grew increasingly feckless, even as Facebook became a vector for disinformation campaigns and cozied up to authoritarian regimes. “Careless People” is darkly funny and genuinely shocking: an ugly, detailed portrait of one of the most powerful companies in the world. Read our review. How about a nuanced and entertaining biography? by David Sheff Sheff’s new biography of Yoko Ono, the 92-year-old artist and widow of John Lennon, convincingly argues for her relevance as a feminist, activist, avant-garde innovator and world-class sass. Sheff — a prolific journalist and author who conducted one of the last significant interviews with John and Yoko, for Playboy, and later became good friends with her — has written the closest thing to an authorized biography the world will get. The book is meaty and predictably sympathetic, but not fawning, mostly written in a straightforward prose that suggests sympathy is wholly justified for a figure who was not just dismissed but demonized. Read our review. I want a deep, personal dive into the housing crisis by Brian Goldstone Written by a journalist who also has a Ph.D. in anthropology, this powerful book — an exceptional feat of reporting — details the plight of “the working homeless” in the rapidly gentrifying city of Atlanta, where someone with a full-time job can still get priced out of a place to live. Explaining that between 2010 and 2023 the median rent shot up by a staggering 76 percent, Goldstone offers an immersive narrative of how five Atlanta families found themselves in the direst of straits: Working a lot and earning very little, they ended up sleeping in cars, crashing with relatives or paying for a squalid room in an extended-stay hotel, statistically invisible even as they suffered some of the most difficult years of their lives. Read our review. Give me a family memoir that uncovers forgotten history by Julian Borger Borger was a child when his father — an Austrian Jew who had fled to Wales in 1938, when he was 11 — died by suicide. Decades later, working as a writer and editor at The Guardian, Borger made a startling discovery: His father’s flight to freedom had been facilitated by a heartbreaking personal ad in his very newspaper, one of dozens that desperate Jewish parents in Nazi Europe had placed to find foster homes for their children as the specter of war grew. In this haunting and revelatory book, part memoir and part history, Borger tracks down the subjects of several of those ads, whose stories — alongside his own — illuminate the tension between forgetting and remembering. Read our review. A propulsive and nuanced history? Sign me up! by Rick Atkinson The second installment of the Pulitzer Prize winner’s trilogy about the Revolutionary War contains a vast, brilliantly illuminated world. Atkinson’s sweeping account of the middle years of the multifront war is so compulsively readable that despite its length — around 800 pages — it’s difficult to put down. Weaving together major and less-known figures, dramatic battles and everyday minutia, the book teems with visceral details while thoughtfully exploring the many complexities of this pivotal conflict. Read our review. Source link #Books Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

European markets edge lower as corporate earnings remain in focus; Novo Nordisk jumps 5.6% European markets edge lower as corporate earnings remain in focus; Novo Nordisk jumps 5.6% European markets were lower on Wednesday, with traders monitoring corporate earnings and awaiting the Federal Reserve’s latest monetary policy announcement. Source link #European #markets #edge #corporate #earnings #remain #focus #Novo #Nordisk #jumps Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Revenge of the Savage Planet Review — To Colonialism And Beyond | Console Creatures Revenge of the Savage Planet Review — To Colonialism And Beyond | Console Creatures Console Creatures says, “Revenge of the Savage is a good follow-up that doubles down on what makes the series fun. An upgrade over its predecessor in every way, there’s so much to discover in the corners of this universe. The developers made some wise decisions to make this sequel work, and it pays off by honing in on the elements that make the series stand out—a lack of seriousness, satire, and fun upgrades. Many games are launching this year, but this one is just pure fun without taking itself seriously.” Source link #Revenge #Savage #Planet #Review #Colonialism #Console #Creatures Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

How to Use A.I.-Powered Writing Tools on Your iPhone and Android How to Use A.I.-Powered Writing Tools on Your iPhone and Android Artificial intelligence software has given editing tools a huge boost in power, far beyond the spell-checkers and grammar aids of yore. A.I. can proofread, rewrite, summarize and compose text, making it simple to craft clean, complex documents in a flash — even on a smartphone. If you haven’t dabbled yet, free offerings from Apple and Google are an easy place to begin experimenting. Tinkering with the software lets you see its capabilities and gives you insight on when — and when not — to let A.I. do the writing. Here’s a guide to getting started. Using Apple Intelligence Apple’s integrated suite of A.I. tools, called Apple Intelligence, includes a selection of Writing Tools. (It requires iOS 18.1 and a more recent iPhone or iPad.) The Writing Tools work in most apps where you type or dictate words. Once you have written something (like in Pages), highlight the section you want to edit. Select Writing Tools in the pop-up menu, or tap the circular Apple Intelligence icon in the toolbar. In the Writing Tools menu, select the option you want to use, like Proofread, Rewrite or Summarize — or describe how you want to change the text. You can display it as key points, a list or a table, or even recast the tone of the writing with a tap to make it sound friendlier, more professional or streamlined. If you don’t like the changes, revert to the original. With the help of the popular ChatGPT chatbot, Apple Intelligence can compose a draft from scratch, although you need to enable ChatGPT first. To do so, tap the Compose button and follow the onscreen directions. (The New York Times has sued ChatGPT maker OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied the suit’s claims.) Like other A.I. chatbots, Gemini responds to questions and prompts. For example, you could paste in a memo draft and ask Gemini to proofread and fact-check it for you. Gemini can also generate text upon request, like a project proposal. For example, in the prompt box, enter “Help me draft a proposal to the City Council to get a permit for a Dog Days of Summer festival on Aug. 2 and 3 that features a puppy parade, a Wiener Dog Derby, a fetch competition and vendor booths for local **** stores.” Once Gemini cranks out the proposal draft, you can save it as a Google Doc for your own editing and refinement. Using Other Options If your device is too old for Apple Intelligence or you don’t use Google products, you still have plenty of A.I. helpers to consider, although many charge a subscription fee. Grammerly has been around since 2009 and now has a mobile app that works with your device’s keyboard software for proofreading, tone adjustments and other A.I. assistance. Microsoft has its Copilot A.I. tool that works with the Microsoft 365 suite. The app stores have many A.I. bots, including writing-specific assistants like ParagraphAI for a variety of communications styles (including help for dyslexic writers) and Sudowrite for narrative projects. General chatbots like ChatGPT (which has a writing assistant) or Anthropic’s Claude can rewrite or generate text. Keep in Mind Remember that A.I. is not perfect. Check the bot’s work because it can make mistakes. And while A.I. assistance has numerous advantages for more impersonal documents like memos and proposals, relying on it too much can dilute your voice and style — especially as more people use A.I. to write. Take the first sentences of Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1891 short story “A Scandal in Bohemia,” as rewritten by software to make Dr. Watson sound more casual: Original: To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. Apple Intelligence: Sherlock Holmes always referred to her as the woman. He rarely used any other name for her. In his mind, she was the most prominent woman among all women. It wasn’t because he felt any romantic feelings for Irene Adler. Gemini: For Sherlock, she’s always just ‘the woman.’ I’ve hardly ever heard him call her anything else. The way he sees it, she totally outshines all other women. It’s not like he was in love with Irene Adler or anything. You should always be in command of your own words — which might help prevent people from thinking, “Hey, did A.I. write this?” Source link #A.I.Powered #Writing #Tools #iPhone #Android Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Can President Trump Turn Back the Economic Clock? Can President Trump Turn Back the Economic Clock? Amsterdam prospered as a banking center even as it declined as a center of manufacturing and commerce. By the late 18th century, Europe no longer wanted Dutch fabrics or Dutch fish, and it no longer needed Dutch ships. In 1783, a group of Dutch merchants sent a gift of salted herring to George Washington, requesting his endorsement and, presumably, seeking a new market. Washington responded that the herring was “undoubtedly of a higher flavour than our own,” but that America had plenty of fish. What remained in demand was all the money the Dutch had made from trade. The merchants and princes of Europe flocked to Amsterdam to negotiate loans. The following year, 1784, the fledgling American government joined them, arranging to borrow 2 million florins. But prosperity increasingly was concentrated in the hands of an elite. Amsterdam, and its satellites, no longer needed as many workers. The population of Holland actually shrank in the 18th century, even as much of Europe experienced a population *****. Moreover, Amsterdam’s pre-eminence as a financial center did not long survive the end of its hegemony as the center of European commerce. In the city’s heyday as a trading port, it shook off financial upheavals. Commerce was the main event; even the indelible spectacle of the tulip bubble in the 1630s was just a sideshow. But as the city’s economy became more dependent on finance, it become more vulnerable. One historian has calculated that by 1782, half of Amsterdam’s capital had been lent to foreigners. Instead of financing its own development, Amsterdam was betting on other countries, and it started losing too many of those bets. A culminating blow came in August 1788, when the French government of King Louis XVI, on the verge of collapse, defaulted on its debts. As Amsterdam’s economic power declined, so did its political autonomy. During the final two decades of the 18th century, the Dutch state descended into civil strife and endured humiliating defeats at the hands of the British and the French. In 1810, Napoleon annexed Holland to his empire. Braudel focused on the long run of history precisely because he didn’t want to make too much of short-term pain or setbacks. It was an approach that he said he developed to maintain his equanimity during the five years that he spent in ******* prisoner-of-war camps during World War II, refusing to make too much of “daily misery” or the latest scraps of news. And in his view, what was most significant about Amsterdam’s life after hegemony was not the turbulence in the immediate aftermath, but the long-term resilience of the Dutch economy. Amsterdam never fell that far, and what Braudel wrote in 1979 remains true: “It is still today one of the high altars of world capitalism.” The arc of London’s story is much the same. It is not a city anyone would think to pity. The United Kingdom and the Netherlands have plenty of problems, of course, but each remains among the most prosperous nations on Earth. It’s important to note, however, that Amsterdam had the good fortune to cede its supremacy to a city, and a nation, that shared many of its basic values. Indeed, Braudel observes that Amsterdam lost its supremacy in part because some of the richest Dutch merchants preferred to live in London, a Protestant, capitalist city they regarded as more fun. London, in turn, yielded to a city and society that even shared its language. Source link #President #Trump #Turn #Economic #Clock Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

What to Know About Kosmos-482, a Soviet Spacecraft Returning to Earth After 53 Years What to Know About Kosmos-482, a Soviet Spacecraft Returning to Earth After 53 Years A robotic Soviet spacecraft has been adrift in space for 53 years. It will return to Earth later this week. Kosmos-482 launched in March 1972. If all had gone well, it would have landed on the sweltering surface of Venus and become the ninth of the uncrewed Soviet Venera missions to the planet. Instead, a rocket malfunction left it stranded in Earth orbit. Kosmos-482 has been slowly spiraling back toward our world ever since. “It’s this artifact that was meant to go to Venus 50 years ago and was lost and forgotten for half a century,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who maintains a public catalog of objects in space. “And now it’s going to get its moment in atmospheric entry — albeit on the wrong planet.” Cloaked in a protective heat shield, the spacecraft, weighing roughly 1,050 pounds, was designed to survive its plunge through the toxic Venusian atmosphere. That means there’s a good chance it will survive its dive through this one, and could make it to the surface at least partly intact. Still, the risk of any injuries on the ground is low. “I’m not worried — I’m not telling all my friends to go to the basement for this,” said Darren McKnight, senior technical fellow at LeoLabs, a company that tracks objects in orbit and monitors Kosmos-482 six times a day. “Usually about once a week we have a large object re-enter Earth’s atmosphere where some remnants of it will survive to the ground.” When will Kosmos-482 come back to Earth? Estimates change daily, but the predicted days of re-entry are currently Friday or Saturday. The New York Times will provide updated estimates as they are revised. One calculation of the window by the Aerospace Corporation, a federally supported nonprofit that tracks space debris, suggests 12:42 a.m. Eastern time on May 10, plus or minus 19 hours. Marco Langbroek, a scientist and satellite tracker at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands who has tracked Kosmos-482 for years, puts the estimate closer to 4:37 a.m. Eastern on May 10, plus or minus a day. Where will it land? No one knows. “And we won’t know until after the fact,” Dr. McDowell said. That’s because Kosmos-482 is hurtling through space at more than 17,000 miles an hour, and it will be going that fast until atmospheric friction pumps the brakes. So getting the timing wrong by even a half-hour means the spacecraft re-enters more than half a world away, in a different spot. What’s known is that Kosmos-482’s orbit places it between 52 degrees north latitude and 52 degrees south latitude, which covers Africa, Australia, most of the Americas and much of south- and mid-latitude Europe and Asia. “There are three things that can happen when something re-enters: a splash, a thud or an ouch,” Dr. McKnight said. “A splash is really good,” he said, and may be most likely because so much of Earth is covered in oceans. He said the hope was to avoid the “thud” or the “ouch.” Will the spacecraft survive impact? Assuming Kosmos-482 survives re-entry — and it should, as long as its heat shield is intact — the spacecraft will be going around 150 miles an hour, when it smashes into whatever it smashes into, Dr. Langbroek calculated. “I don’t think there’s going to be a lot left afterward,” Dr. McDowell said. “Imagine putting your car into a wall at 150 miles an hour and seeing how much of it is left.” The heat of re-entry should make Kosmos-482 visible as a bright streak through the sky if its return occurs over a populated area at night. If pieces of the spacecraft survive and are recovered, they legally belong to Russia. “Under the law, if you find something, you have an obligation to return it,” said Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi. “Russia is considered to be the registered owner and therefore continues to have jurisdiction and control over the object.” How do we know the identity of this object? Some 25 years ago, Dr. McDowell was going through NORAD’s catalog of roughly 25,000 orbital objects and trying to pin an identity on each. “Most of them, the answer is, ‘Well, this is a piece of exploded rocket from something fairly boring,’” he recalls. But one of them, object 6073, was a bit odd. Launched in 1972 from Kazakhstan, it ended up in a highly elliptical orbit, traveling between 124 and 6,000 miles from Earth. As he studied its orbit and size, Dr. McDowell surmised that it must be the wayward Kosmos-482 lander — not just a piece of debris from the failed launch. The conclusion was supported by multiple observations from the ground, as well as a recently declassified Soviet document. Source link #Kosmos482 #Soviet #Spacecraft #Returning #Earth #Years Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

StarVaders Review – Explosive Strategy, Adorable Enemies, and Mech Mayhem – MonsterVine StarVaders Review – Explosive Strategy, Adorable Enemies, and Mech Mayhem – MonsterVine “The Sherman Oaks-based (CA, the US) indie games publisher Joystick Ventures and Montreal-based (Quebec, Canada) indie games developer Pengonauts, are today very proud and happy to announce that theirmech-themed tactical roguelike deckbuilder “StarVaders”, is now available for PC via Steam after being in development for more than three years.” – Jonas Ek, TGG. Source link #StarVaders #Review #Explosive #Strategy #Adorable #Enemies #Mech #Mayhem #MonsterVine Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

‘Sinners’ and Beyoncé Battle the Vampires. And the Gatekeepers, Too. ‘Sinners’ and Beyoncé Battle the Vampires. And the Gatekeepers, Too. The blues, especially, “affirm not only U.S. ****** life in all of its arbitrary complexities and not only life in America in all of its infinite confusions, they affirm life and humanity itself in the very process of confronting failures and existentialistic absurdities. The spirit of the blues moves in the opposite direction from ashes and sackcloth, self-pity, self-hatred, and suicide. As a matter of fact the dirtiest, meanest, and most lowdown blues are not only not depressing, they function like an instantaneous aphrodisiac!” That’s all over the first hour of “Sinners.” All that really happens is that two Michael B. Jordans, playing twin brothers, open the juke joint. They purchase the land, recruit the talent, procure the provisions, cut deals, mend emotional fences. It’s a warm, humorous, ******, sexy stretch of moviemaking that earns our trust and lures our dread: I mean, when’s all this good feeling (one twin shoots two dudes, then we laugh) and catfish and lowdown living getting doomed? Coogler’s given himself a mess of rules to bend and adhere to: those of vampires, arguably zombie movies too, Jim Crow, the musical, the music video, the western, what Quentin Tarantino would call the revenge-o-matic, griot culture, church dogma, passing for white, passing for alive. But it’s Murray who’s coming through loud and clear, even after the vampires show up armed with banjo, fiddle and guitar, claiming to have come all this way to hear such beautiful, powerful, undeniable music. The blues is some intangible quality that inheres within this depiction of Blackness, the way camp does in certain ****** art. That snarling “Ya Ya” song on “Cowboy Carter” is a kind of prime-time blues number that Beyoncé rides with no saddle. But these are both works worried about the legacy of a people and a way of life, of the blues as an art form and an exuberant state of mind, all on the brink on extinction. This work is fighting — occasionally with itself. But Beyoncé and Coogler have sensed that something vital is at stake right now, and it might be the fabric of history; their work knows those histories have always been in jeopardy. If the minstrels in “Sinners” are also vampires, and the vampires want to steal ****** art, they’re not going very far with it. They mosh and jig around in the dirt, 200 feet from the juke joint, encircling the head vampire, a white Irishman who goes by Remmick (Jack O’Connell) and has real lead-singer-if-the-band-was-a-cult energy. They look like they’re having a sexy time and probably smell like teen spirit. The movie’s set at the dawn of the recording industry, and yet the allegory doesn’t feel like a stand-in for copyright infringement but a crisis of faith. Source link #Sinners #Beyoncé #Battle #Vampires #Gatekeepers Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Seeking spending cuts, GOP lawmakers target a tax hospitals love to pay Seeking spending cuts, GOP lawmakers target a tax hospitals love to pay On the eastern plains of Colorado, in a county of less than 6,000 people, Lincoln Health runs the only hospital within a 75-minute drive. The facility struggles financially, given its small size and the area’s tiny population. But for over a decade, the Hugo, Colorado-based health system has remained afloat partially thanks to a surprising source: special taxes on the state’s hospitals. The taxes Lincoln pays help cover the state’s Medicaid costs and — because the federal government matches a portion of what states spend on Medicaid — enable Colorado to claim more federal money. That generally leads to more dollars for the hospital. The tax proceeds also have helped Colorado expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to cover 400,000 more low-income adults, significantly reducing the number of people showing up at hospital doors without insurance. Last year, Lincoln paid $500,000 in provider taxes but netted more than $3.6 million extra from Medicaid, accounting for about 15% of its budget, said Lincoln CEO Kevin Stansbury. “These dollars allow me to care for patients who are enrolled in Medicaid and to break even rather than lose money,” he said. “Without them, it would significantly impact our ability to survive.” Every state except Alaska uses at least one provider tax to boost its federal Medicaid dollars. But Republicans who control Congress are looking for potential cuts in the nearly $900 billion Medicaid program to help fund an extension of President Trump’s tax cuts — and have sought to portray provider taxes as malicious, sometimes even deriding them as “money laundering.” Lawmakers say they may curtail or eliminate provider taxes as part of legislation to enact Mr. Trump’s domestic agenda. “It’s infuriating,” Stansbury said. Medicaid and the closely related Children’s Health Insurance Program together cover roughly 79 million low-income and disabled people and are jointly financed by states and the federal government. Federal dollars match state payments with no limit. While the split varies based on a state’s per capita income, the federal match ranges from 50% to 77% for children, pregnant women, and people with disabilities, who make up most of the enrollment. States started using provider taxes in the 1980s to help pay their share and gain additional Medicaid funds from the federal government. Brian Blase, a former Trump health policy adviser who leads the conservative Paragon Health Institute, sees provider taxes as one of the highest forms of waste in Medicaid. States and their hospitals, nursing homes, and other providers aren’t held accountable for how the tax money is used, reducing incentives for states to control Medicaid spending, he said. “This has been a feature of the program for four decades, and it is a feature that is getting worse,” Blase said. The Congressional Budget Office estimates eliminating provider taxes would save the federal government more than $600 billion over a decade. Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), who chairs the House committee that oversees Medicaid, has said provider taxes are on the menu for potential cuts. Other changes Republicans are considering to cut federal Medicaid spending include requiring adult enrollees to prove they’re working as a condition of eligibility, as well as ending higher payments for adults enrolled as part of the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of the program. Since 2014, more than 20 million nondisabled adults in 40 states and Washington, D.C., have gained coverage under the expansion. House Republicans have set a Memorial Day deadline to come to an agreement on spending cuts, which would help pay for extending about $4 trillion in tax cuts passed during Mr. Trump’s first administration and set to expire at the end of this year. The Government Accountability Office and the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, a congressional advisory board, have raised concerns about the provider taxes, which effectively saddle federal taxpayers with state expenses. Republican and Democrat presidents have criticized or proposed curtailing the use of Medicaid provider taxes — including Mr. Trump in his first term, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden while serving as vice president. But opposition from hospitals, nursing homes, and states snuffed out any move to limit or end the arrangements. Colorado and other states often use the money to maintain or increase payments to providers, which are often paid less by Medicaid than by Medicare, the federal program primarily for people 65 or older, or private insurers. States have added provider taxes to help generate federal money to cope with economic downturns and budget constraints. Hospitals in Idaho last year began paying an additional provider tax to increase pay to hospitals and home- and community-based providers. The tax came as Idaho’s Republican-controlled legislature sought to add many conditions that threatened to end the state’s Medicaid expansion — which would also eliminate a key source of increased federal funding. Brian Whitlock, president and CEO of the Idaho Hospital Association, said funding from the hospital tax helps boost Medicaid payments to about 80% of Medicare’s rates instead of 60%. “We still lose money on every Medicare and Medicaid patient,” he said. “The state recognizes that this money helps offset the losses we take under Medicaid reimbursement.” While hospitals and nursing homes have been the main beneficiaries of provider tax proceeds, ambulance services have also paid and benefited from Medicaid taxes. States increasingly have also approved Medicaid taxes on private insurers that operate their Medicaid programs to gain more federal funds. California’s Medicaid managed care tax began in 2009 and is expected to generate nearly $9 billion in net revenue for the 2024-25 fiscal ******* — or about 5% of the state’s Medicaid budget, according to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office. In recent years, California has extended full Medicaid coverage to immigrants lacking permanent legal status. Federal law prohibits federal Medicaid dollars from being used to cover people in the country without authorization, but states can use their own money. At a presentation to congressional staffers in April, Blase cited California’s strategy as an example of provider tax abuse and claimed the state is effectively laundering federal funds to cover people living in the country illegally. In practice, the tax has been a kind of fiscal pressure valve generally offsetting state spending. A ballot measure that passed in November now requires that much of the money from California’s tax specifically be used to increase Medicaid reimbursement to doctors, hospitals, and other providers. Hospital officials and state Medicaid leaders argue the term “money laundering” is an inaccurate way to describe provider taxes, since they are allowed by federal law. But Blase said calling the levies a “tax” is misleading, pointing out that most businesses don’t typically advocate to pay one. Jamie Whitney, chief legal officer for Texas-based Adelanto HealthCare Ventures, a consulting firm, said that provider taxes are a politically neutral way to help states pay for Medicaid and that curtailing their use would harm them all. “This is not a red-state, blue-state issue,” she said. Colorado is one of more than a dozen states that have funded an ACA Medicaid expansion using provider tax money. Others include Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia. Colorado implemented its Medicaid provider tax effort in 2009. In the 2024 fiscal year, about $5 billion of the state’s $15 billion Medicaid program was funded by provider taxes, according to the state. The money helps the state pay higher Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals, which reduces their need to charge higher rates to private insurers, said Kim Bimestefer, executive director of the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, which oversees Medicaid. Some of the extra payments are dependent on hospitals meeting certain quality and patient-safety metrics, such as reducing readmission rates after patients are discharged — a requirement state officials say improves care for everyone. The provider taxes also fund a program allowing working residents with disabilities to buy into Medicaid coverage even if their income is as high as 300% of the federal poverty level, or $46,950 for an individual. About 20,000 people are enrolled in the program. Among them is Alison Sbrana, 31, of Fort Collins, Colorado, who has a type of chronic fatigue syndrome and relies on Medicaid to cover long-term home care. “It would be devastating if the benefit went away,” said Sbrana, who works as a researcher and activist for those with the same disorder. “I would be forced to stop working to keep my income low enough to qualify.” The state’s provider taxes also pay for a $60 million fund to support rural hospitals, helping them add telehealth services, recruit surgeons, and hire paramedics, according to a state report. Konnie Martin, CEO of San Luis Valley Health, a two-hospital system based in Alamosa, Colorado, said her nonprofit paid $5.4 million in provider taxes last year and gained about $15 million in benefits from higher Medicaid payments and the rural grants. She said the money helps her hospital maintain obstetrical services, so residents don’t have to drive 120 miles to the nearest maternity hospital. Without the birthing center, the entire region would suffer, she said. “It also would gut the economy of the community, because young people will move away,” she said. KFF Health News correspondent Bernard Wolfson contributed to this report. KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism. Source link #Seeking #spending #cuts #GOP #lawmakers #target #tax #hospitals #love #pay Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

The first "Xbox handheld" photos are here – Windows Central The first "Xbox handheld" photos are here – Windows Central The first “Xbox handheld” photos are here Windows CentralASUS ROG Ally 2 gaming handhelds leaked: up to AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme and 64GB memory VideoCardz.comMicrosoft and Asus’ Xbox handheld appears in leaked photos The VergeASUS ROG Ally 2 and ‘Project Kennan’ Xbox Branded Handheld Pictured in US FCC Leak WccftechAsus ROG Ally 2 leak reveals storage variants, design and dedicated Xbox button Notebookcheck Source link #quotXbox #handheldquot #photos #Windows #Central Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

RuneScape: Dragonwilds Preview – Thumb Culture RuneScape: Dragonwilds Preview – Thumb Culture RuneScape: Dragonwilds is the latest MMO to grace Steam. Launched in early access, the game is set in the Runescape universe with a focus on crafting, grinding, and survival elements. It’s built on the Unreal Engine 5, leveraging much of its GPU-bound pipeline to upgrade mediocre visuals at the cost of poor performance. Source link #RuneScape #Dragonwilds #Preview #Thumb #Culture Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Motorola Edge 60 Pro Now Available for Purchase in India: Price, Specifications, Launch Offers Motorola Edge 60 Pro Now Available for Purchase in India: Price, Specifications, Launch Offers Motorola Edge 60 Pro went on ***** in India for the first time today (May 7). The new Motorola handset was launched in the country last week with a MediaTek Dimensity 8350 Extreme processor under the hood. The new Edge series phone is now available for purchase via Flipkart and the Motorola India website. The Motorola Edge 60 Pro has a triple rear camera setup, headlined by a 50-megapixel primary sensor. It boasts a 6.7-inch display with 1.5K resolution. Customers can purchase the handset in two RAM and storage configurations and three colour options. Motorola Edge 60 Pro price in India, launch offers Price of Motorola Edge 60 Pro in India has been set at Rs. 29,999 for the base 8GB RAM + 256GB storage variant. The 12GB RAM + 256GB storage variant is priced at Rs. 33,999. It can be purchased in Pantone Dazzling Blue, Pantone Sparkling Grape, and Pantone Shadow colour options. As mentioned, it is currently available for purchase via Flipkart and the Motorola India website. Motorola is offering up to six months of no-cost EMI offers on ICICI Bank credit cards. Flipkart is providing five percent cashback on purchases using the Flipkart Axis Bank Credit card. Furthermore, the phone will be available with no-cost EMIs starting at Rs. 5,667. Exchange offers are capped at Rs. 20,600. Motorola Edge 60 Pro Specifications The Motorola Edge 60 Pro runs on Android 15-based Hello UI. It is confirmed to get three years of Android updates and four years of security updates. It features a 6.7-inch 1.5K (1,220×2,712 pixels) Quad curved pOLED screen with up to 120Hz refresh rate, 446ppi pixel density, 4,500 nits peak brightness, and has Corning Gorilla Glass 7i protection. The handset is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 8350 Extreme SoC, paired with up to 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage. For optics, the Motorola Edge 60 Pro has a triple rear camera unit, comprising a 50-megapixel primary Sony LYTIA 700C sensor, a 50-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens, and a 10-megapixel telephoto camera. On the front, it carries a 50-megapixel selfie shooter. The Motorola Edge 60 Pro is claimed to meet IP68 + IP69 ratings for dust and water resistance and gets a military-grade (MIL-STD-810H) durability certification. It features dual stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos support. It has an in-display fingerprint sensor for authentication and also supports face unlock. Motorola has packed a 6,000mAh battery on the Edge 60 Pro with 90W TurboPower fast charging and 15W wireless charging support. The handset also supports 5W reverse charging. Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details. Source link #Motorola #Edge #Pro #Purchase #India #Price #Specifications #Launch #Offers Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

This Chicago woman was scammed out of $5K after boys asked her for $20 to help pay for their brother’s ******** This Chicago woman was scammed out of $5K after boys asked her for $20 to help pay for their brother’s ******** It feels good to spare a little money for a good cause or for someone in need, which is exactly what a Chicago woman thought she had done until she realized she’d been scammed. Heather Radin was standing in the Chicago neighborhood of Wicker Park when she was approached by two young boys, claiming their brother had been killed and their family needed money to be able to lay him to rest. @plaement() “I’m a sucker for any bleeding-heart thing,” she told CBS News Chicago. So, Radin tried to give the boys $10 cash, but they insisted she use Apple Pay. After she tapped her card and the boys took off, she realized $5,000 had been transferred out of her account. Unfortunately, she’s not the only victim of a tap-to-pay or card skimming scam. A scam on the rise Another Chicago woman told CBS News that she was approached outside of a grocery store when she was asked by two young men for money to help pay for their brother’s ********. Like Radin, Monica Wieske said they wouldn’t take the cash that she offered. Tap to pay, they claimed, was the only way. And right after she tapped, Wieske also got a notification that nearly $5,000 was taken out of her account. In January, Chicago couple Drew and Leilani were approached in a Target with the same tale: Our brother died, we can’t afford the ********, are you willing to spare some money? Once they gave $20 via Apple Pay after the scammers refused to accept cash, Drew learned that nearly $5,000 had been taken. But this time, the notification came right after he tapped, and he decided to take matters into his own hands. “I looked down at my phone and realized that they took close to $5,000 instead of $20. I said to myself, ‘Oh, hell no,’ and turned and started chasing them,” said Drew, who didn’t want CBS News to use his last name. Drew told CBS reporters that he chased the men down and actually jumped into their car as they tried to get away. He says he suffered a broken rib and punctured lung after being thrown from the car as the boys accelerated the vehicle to get away. While the couple eventually got their money back, Radin hasn’t been so lucky. She filed a police report and contacted her bank, Goldman Sachs, but she says as of late April she hadn’t gotten a dollar back. In a statement to CBS, a representative from Goldman Sachs said, “While we do not comment on specific customers, our customers’ safety and security are a top priority. We work quickly to review any fraud claims and regularly provide provisional credits during the review process. There is an allotted timeline for fraud investigations, and we aim to resolve any disputes as quickly as possible.” Meanwhile, Wieske fought with her bank, Fifth Third, for months. CBS News reached out to them for an explanation and just before their scheduled interview with Wieske, the bank gave her the money back. @plaement() How to be protected against tap-to-pay scams Scammers can be well trained in emotional manipulation, and it’s easy for a story such as a sibling’s ******** to tug at the heartstrings. While there are many people out there who truly need help, there are steps you can take to stay vigilant and ensure you aren’t giving your money to a scam. On the spot tap-to-pay requests are a red flag Refusing cash after asking for a donation is already a red flag, and immediately having a tap-to-pay request ready to go should raise more alarm bells. If the requester truly has an online donation fund set up, ask for a legit website or fundraising page started by family or official organizers that you can donate to later. Verify the organization and ******** home In Radin and Wieske’s cases, they were both approached by young boys. Ask to speak with an older family member to confirm the boys are out fundraising before making any donations. It may feel awkward, but also consider asking which ******** home or director they are using for the service in an extra bid for more confirming information. Consider reserving donations for official platforms Informal requests for donations through Apple Pay, Google Pay, Venmo or other quick tap-to-pay platforms are red flags. Instead, ask if there is an official fundraising page through GoFundMe or, say, through a ******** home’s website. Set tap-to-pay limits Setting a limit for online transactions ensures that scammers can’t change the amount to thousands of dollars right before the transaction goes through. Additionally, set up a PIN or another authentication for any payment to be authorized. Set payment alerts Make sure to set up notifications for any payment activity so, like Drew, you can catch the scam quickly. But, confronting the crooks like he did is not worth the risk. Rather, immediately notify your bank and the authorities. @plaement() This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind. Source link #Chicago #woman #scammed #boys #asked #pay #brothers #******** Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

AMD Slides on China Risk and Weak PC Demand, but Long-Term Story Holds AMD Slides on China Risk and Weak PC Demand, but Long-Term Story Holds Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: NASDAQ:) is experiencing a measured pullback in its stock price, down 1.5% today to $130 from a recent high of $132.50. The move comes amid heightened investor caution, driven by macro-level geopolitical tensions and a more tempered financial outlook. While AMD has recently enjoyed strong momentum, particularly in the data center and AI segments, lingering risks around its exposure to China and softer consumer demand have prompted renewed scrutiny. Geopolitical Tensions Cast a Shadow Over China-Linked Growth At the heart of AMD’s current volatility is rising concern over the company’s exposure to China, a strategically vital market. As the U.S.-China trade relationship remains strained, technology firms with operations and sales in China are increasingly vulnerable to regulatory shifts and supply chain disruptions. For AMD, which derives a meaningful portion of its revenue from ******** consumers—particularly in the PC and gaming verticals—any policy changes or import restrictions could materially affect sales. Analysts caution that escalating geopolitical friction could hamper AMD’s momentum in the region. Although the company has diversified its client base and strengthened its presence in data centers and AI, China remains one of its top international markets, contributing significantly to both revenue and growth opportunities in key sectors like gaming and consumer electronics. If trade regulations tighten or export bans broaden, AMD, like key rival Nvidia (NASDAQ:), could face sales pressure that weighs on quarterly performance. Cautious Guidance Reflects Softness in Consumer Tech Demand Adding to the bearish sentiment is AMD’s more reserved financial guidance, reflecting weakness in its consumer-facing businesses. Although the company continues to post solid growth in its data center division, it has acknowledged headwinds in the PC and gaming segments, citing lower demand for discrete GPUs and consumer CPUs. The pandemic-fueled tech ***** has cooled considerably, and with global inflation and tighter household budgets, consumers appear more hesitant to upgrade high-end electronics. AMD’s popular Ryzen processors and Radeon graphics cards remain competitive in the performance space, but overall sales in these categories have softened. The company is also navigating a broader semiconductor sector that is slowly moving out of a ******* of tight supply. As the supply-demand imbalance normalizes, pricing power across the industry is also expected to stabilize. While AMD’s EPYC Genoa server chips are helping offset some of the slack from the consumer side, investors are closely monitoring how long this cyclical weakness in the PC market may persist. Long-Term Fundamentals Remain Intact Despite short-term headwinds, the long-term narrative around AMD remains broadly constructive. The company continues to receive strong support from institutional investors, largely due to its innovation track record and growing presence in high-performance computing (HPC) and AI-driven workloads. AMD’s expansion in the data center space, where its EPYC chips are challenging Intel’s (NASDAQ:) dominance, has been particularly noteworthy. This segment not only offers higher margins but is less vulnerable to the cyclical fluctuations that impact consumer tech sales. Continued traction here could further insulate AMD from macroeconomic drag. Moreover, AMD’s investments in AI and machine learning capabilities position it well to tap into one of the most transformative tech growth stories of the decade. As demand for chips tailored to AI accelerates across industries—from cloud computing to autonomous vehicles—AMD is expected to play an increasingly central role alongside Nvidia and other silicon leaders. Margin Pressures and Competitive Landscape Still, some analysts remain cautious on near-term profitability, especially as AMD adopts pricing strategies aimed at sustaining volume in a weaker consumer environment. The margin profile in gaming and PC chips may compress further if AMD continues to offer discounts to spur demand. The competitive landscape also remains intense. Both Intel and Nvidia are making aggressive moves across server, desktop, and AI chips. AMD’s ability to protect market share while maintaining its cost structure will be essential in delivering consistent earnings. Technical Perspective: Key Levels in Focus From a technical standpoint, AMD is currently testing support around $130, with a stronger floor seen near $125. A decisive break below these levels could trigger additional downside momentum, potentially bringing $120 into view. However, if the stock consolidates and holds above its current level, investor optimism may return, especially with upcoming earnings or product announcements. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) sits around 60, suggesting neutral sentiment—neither overbought nor oversold. Traders are watching closely for signs of reversal or further downside, depending on macro developments and guidance clarity in the next quarterly report. Conclusion AMD is currently navigating a delicate ******* marked by external geopolitical risks and internal market realignments. While near-term uncertainties are weighing on sentiment—especially in light of weaker consumer trends and China-related risks—the company’s fundamentals remain sound. Its strength in high-performance computing, data centers, and AI development continues to offer promising upside potential. For long-term investors, the question is whether AMD can successfully ride out this temporary volatility and resume its growth trajectory in 2025. Much will depend on macro developments and the company’s ability to execute strategically while preserving its innovation edge. **** Disclaimer: Derivative investments involve significant risks that may result in the loss of your invested capital. You are advised to carefully read and study the legality of the company, products, and trading rules before deciding to invest your money. Be responsible and accountable in your trading. RISK WARNING IN TRADING: Transactions via margin involve leverage mechanisms, have high risks, and may not be suitable for all investors. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF PROFIT on your investment, so be cautious of those who promise profits in trading. It’s recommended not to use funds if you’re not ready to incur losses. Before deciding to trade, make sure you understand the risks involved and also consider your experience. Source link #AMD #Slides #China #Risk #Weak #Demand #LongTerm #Story #Holds Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Indian markets are undeterred by strikes against Pakistan Indian markets are undeterred by strikes against Pakistan Pakistani soldiers take security measures around the city as the people panic during blackout after India launches strikes on Pakistan, in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan on May 7, 2025. Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images Investors are sticking with the India story, with optimism on its growth prospects dwarfing geopolitical fears. Indian markets shrugged off the latest tensions with Islamabad after New Delhi struck several targets within territory controlled by Pakistan in a military operation early Wednesday. “Structural reforms, resilient domestic demand, and strong macro fundamentals continue to offer a compelling case,” said Mohit Mirpuri, an equity fund manager at SGMC Capital. “Investors may take a momentary pause, but this doesn’t derail India’s trajectory as a key allocation in emerging markets,” added Mirpuri. Markets also appeared to be drawing support from the progress on India’s trade talks with major trading partners, including a free trade agreement with the U.K. sealed Tuesday. The country is expected to be among the first in the region to strike a bilateral trade deal with the U.S., potentially before the third quarter of 2025, said Radhika Rao, a Singapore-based senior economist at DBS Bank. “We believe Indian assets will remain fairly contained despite the increase in geopolitical tensions with Pakistan,” said Johanna Chua, global head of emerging market economics at Citi, in a note to clients shortly after India carried out the strikes. Chua said there were historical precedents for her team’s views and pointed to investors’ reaction in 2019, in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack where 40 Indian security personnel were killed in an ambush. Currency markets were “fairly contained” and 10-year Indian government bond yields traded within a range of 15 basis points despite an election year and interest rate cutting environment. While anticipating some knee-jerk market reaction, investors are hopeful for a swift de-escalation that could limit the fallout. Indian shares traded nearly flat in the wake of the military operation, having declined in the previous session. The benchmark Nifty 50 and the BSE Sensex were little changed, signaling investors so far were not perturbed by tensions between the two nuclear-armed countries. Though experts did not rule out a sharper market impact if the conflict escalated. Indian equities could still see some volatility over the near term with downside risks, followed by a gradual recovery, said Kranthi Bathini, director of equity strategy at WealthMills Securities. “The key question is whether this turns into a full-fledged conflict or remains a limited defense strike,” Bathini said. “A wider escalation could dent investor sentiment, while a contained response may barely leave a mark on the markets, he said. The rupee weakened 0.33% to 84.562 against the greenback amid a broader depreciation across Asian currencies, though it was still hovering near three-month highs. Yield on Indian 10-year benchmark government bonds was marginally lower at 6.339%. Get a weekly roundup of news from India in your inbox every Thursday. Subscribe now “While the latest exchange of fire has been much more aggressive than the previous episode in 2019, we still think it will end in de-escalation over the coming months.” Darren Tay, head of APAC Country Risk at BMP said, adding that investors should remain generally bullish on India. However, others cautioned that the current environment is significantly more intense than the 2019 attacks. “The situation on the border remains quite fluid. The scope and scale of India’s military action this time around is far greater than in 2016 or 2019. That, in turn, suggests Pakistan will feel more compelled than before to mount a “proportionate” response,” Tom Miller and Udith Sikand, senior analysts at Gavekal told CNBC. “Having said that, the muted reaction of Indian asset prices to events overnight suggest investors don’t expect an endless cycle of military retaliation,” they added. India’s operation follows a militant attack last month in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, in which 26 people were killed. Source link #Indian #markets #undeterred #strikes #Pakistan Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

ServiceNow K25: McDermott vaunts agentic AI platform as revolutionary ServiceNow K25: McDermott vaunts agentic AI platform as revolutionary ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott hailed AI as an “absolute requirement” for the survival of humanity at the supplier’s Knowledge 2025 customer and partner conference in Las Vegas. “AI is civilization’s opportunity of this century. It is a gateway to prosperity. It is the only $22tn global market opportunity between now and 2030. It’s the only opportunity to take out $4tn in operating expenses. This is not an incremental change. This intelligence super-cycle is an exponential transformation, and it is ******* than the internet.” ServiceNow is putting the same emphasis on agentic AI as other big enterprise software firms, such as Oracle and Salesforce. It announced an increase in the embedding of agentic AI in its service platform, that was originally developed for IT service management, with its Now platform. The supplier said it was launching new AI agents across ITSM, IT Operations Management (ITOM), IT Asset Management (ITAM), Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM), Operational Technology (OT) and its Data Foundation. It said it is projecting a future of “zero outages, zero downtime and zero service desk incidents”. In a statement, Pablo Stern, executive vice-president and general manager of technology workflows at ServiceNow, said: “By combining powerful AI agents with our proven enterprise workflow capabilities – all on our trusted AI platform – we’re redefining what’s possible. IT becomes truly autonomous: able to reason, take action and drive outcomes. This is the new standard for autonomous IT, tailored to your organisation, on your terms.” The supplier also announced an AI Control Tower, which is “a centralised command centre to govern, manage, secure and realise value from any ServiceNow and third-party AI agent, model and workflow on a single unified platform”. Speaking to Computer Weekly at the event, Nirankush Panchbai, senior vice-president of product for Now platform, said: “The AI Control Tower will manage workflows with agents from ServiceNow but from others as well. It is essentially a command centre to govern and manage your entire AI from strategy and value, doing risk and compliance, securing your AI agents and managing your AI workforce. “It’s a piece of software, embedding dashboards, workflows and insights embedded in a workspace. It is built on our CMDB [configuration management database], elevated to manage AI assets, as with previous IT systems. And it is not a system of insight – it is a system of action, for example, on the security operations of an agent.” Amit Zavery, president, chief product officer and chief operating officer at ServiceNow, said in a press statement: “As AI agents proliferate across enterprises, coordinating their work becomes as critical and complex as leading human employees, and companies need new tools to direct this new digital workforce. “With AI Control Tower, businesses can oversee AI workforces in the same way the human workforce is managed, ensuring each agent is aligned, coordinated, optimised and delivering impact at scale. Only ServiceNow unites powerful workflows, industry-leading governance and seamless orchestration with agentic AI excellence, enabling customers to scale AI and drive real, measurable outcomes.” The supplier cited a group of customers in support of the control tower concept. Yashodha Bhavnani, vice-president of product management, AI products at Box, said: “As AI reshapes every corner of the enterprise, the future will belong to platforms that turn intelligence into real action. “Together with ServiceNow, we’re reimagining the future of knowledge management as a catalyst for intelligent, agile enterprises. By embedding Box AI into ServiceNow’s advanced agentic workflows, we can transform how work gets done.” Rao Surapaneni, vice-president of general management, business applications platform at Google Cloud said: “Our collaboration with ServiceNow empowers customers to unify AI agents across their entire IT estates, speeding up business decisions with tools like ServiceNow’s new AI Control Tower.” Ulrich Homann, corporate vice-president at Microsoft, added: “As we enter a new era of agentic AI, we look forward to harnessing ServiceNow’s AI Control Tower and AI Agent Fabric to deliver a new level of governance and orchestration for our AI agents so we can better push the boundaries and scale across several platforms for our customers.” Agent Fabric is described by ServiceNow as an “AI agent-to-AI agent, AI agent-to-tool, or even agentic system-to-agentic system, using common protocols like Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Agent2Agent protocol (A2A). This allows both ServiceNow and third-party AI agents, tools and systems to dynamically exchange information, coordinate tasks, and take action in real time.” ServiceNow parks CRM tanks on Benioff’s lawn ServiceNow also parked its tanks on Salesforce’s CRM lawn at the event, billing this initiative as the “next milestone in a groundbreaking CRM designed to disrupt an industry long dominated by outdated, overbuilt systems. ServiceNow is reimagining CRM for the AI era to sell, fulfill and service on one unified platform to drive exceptional end-to-end experiences”. The supplier announced “new AI agents for CRM that can complete tasks autonomously, scale call centers and sales teams, and make true self-service a reality. Traditional CRM serves as a system of record ending at the front office, putting customer acquisition and retention at risk. ServiceNow CRM is built for an AI-first world, providing personalised and proactive experiences across the entire customer lifecycle.” John Ball, executive vice-president and general manager of CRM and Industry Workflow Products, said: “Far beyond rebranded chatbots, we’re enabling our customers to orchestrate end‑to‑end sales and service on a single AI-powered platform.” As customer testimony, ServiceNow cited Paolo Juvara, chief digital transformation officer at Pure Storage: “Traditional CRMs can’t keep up with the ever-increasing customer demands for highest-quality service. With ServiceNow CRM, we’re putting AI to work to drive customer loyalty through faster resolutions, lower case volumes, accurate configurations, while also reducing costs”. Tiffany Smith, chief security officer and head of IT operations at Farm Credit Mid-America, added: “We have a strong vision for how technology can better serve rural communities and agriculture – and ServiceNow is helping us bring it to life. “With ServiceNow’s AI-powered platform, we can ensure our team members have the tools and the insights they need to resolve issues faster and deliver the consistent, quality service our customers count on. It’s about more than just managing costs and finding efficiencies – it’s about driving innovation and fulfilling our commitment to put customers at the heart of everything we do.” Source link #ServiceNow #K25 #McDermott #vaunts #agentic #platform #revolutionary Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Mattel: Undervalued Toy Stock With a Clear Plan to Cut China Risk Mattel: Undervalued Toy Stock With a Clear Plan to Cut China Risk China is a big importer of U.S. toys, but Mattel (NASDAQ:) has a plan to deal with it. Toys have been a key focus of the tariff debate as the industry, which imports a lot of toys from China, is subject to higher tariffs. The prospect of higher tariffs on toys prompted the viral quote from President Donald Trump over the weekend when he said on Meet the Press, “I’m just saying [Americans] don’t need to have 30 dolls, they can have three,” Trump told Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker. On Monday, one of the nation’s largest toy companies, Mattel, reported surprisingly good earnings, led, in part, by higher sales of dolls. Mattel saw net sales rise 2% in the quarter to $827 million, which sailed past estimates of $786 million. Meanwhile, gross profit was up 5% to $408 million on lower cost of sales. Doll sales were up 1% to $297 million, led by Disney Princess and Wicked dolls, while toy car sales, including Hot Wheels, were up 4% to $308 million. Also, action figures, games, building sets and other revenue jumped 12% to $193 million. Baby and toddler sales were down 6%. However, 11% higher selling, general and administrative expenses caused the company to post a net loss of $40 million, or -12 cents per share in the quarter. But the adjusted earnings of -3 cents per share, up year-over-year from -5 cents per share, and it topped analysts’ estimates of 9 cents per share. The earnings beat and revenue increase sent Mattel stock rising about 3% on Tuesday to around $16.60 per share. Investors were buying low, as the stock is trading at just 10 times earnings, but the outlook is a bit murky due to tariffs. No Guidance Due to Tariff Uncertainty Mattel officials did not offer guidance for the rest of the year. “Given the volatile macro-economic environment and evolving U.S. tariff landscape, it is difficult to predict consumer spending and Mattel’s U.S. sales in the remainder of the year and holiday season,” officials said in the earnings report. While tariffs did not impact first quarter sales, they are poised to have an impact this quarter and beyond, as 40% of its toys come from China. While that sounds like a lot, it is about half the average of the toy industry, as most companies get 80% of global toy production from China. Also, noted Mattel chairman and CEO Ynon Kreiz, its imports from China into the U.S. are only about 20%. “While China continues to be an important sourcing country for us on a global basis, we have been accelerating plans to further reduce reliance on China sourced product as part of our diversification strategy,” Kreiz said. Steps to Offset Tariff Impact Kreiz said the company is taking mitigating actions designed to “fully offset” the potential incremental cost impact of tariffs. Among them, Mattel is accelerating diversification of its supply chain and further reducing reliance on China-sourced products. On the earnings call, Kreiz said the company is relocating the production of 500 toys from China to other countries this year. By 2026, it expects to import 15% into the U.S. from China, and 10% by 2027. In addition, where necessary, the company is taking pricing action in its U.S. business. That basically means that there will probably be some price increases, and according to a CNN report, there already are. “Under the current scenarios we are considering, we expect that 40% to 50% of our product will be priced at $20 or less,” Kreiz said. “The breadth of our portfolio, innovative products, diversified and flexible supply chain and global commercial organization are clear advantages for Mattel in this ******* of uncertainty.” It is also optimizing its product sourcing and product mix. Further, Mattel intends to rebalance promotional activity to drive cost efficiencies and accelerate cost savings actions. Toward that end, it is increasing the 2025 savings target to $80 million from $60 million. The company also echoed the call of the U.S. Toy Association for zero tariffs on toys. “While we do call for the for zero tariffs on toys, we support the toy association call for zero tariffs on toys because we believe it should be affordable and reachable for as many people as possible given the toys are such an important part of children’s lives,” Kreiz said. The clear plan for dealing with the tariffs, the low valuation, and the relatively limited exposure to China make Mattel a stock to watch. Original Post Source link #Mattel #Undervalued #Toy #Stock #Clear #Plan #Cut #China #Risk Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Teddi Mellencamp offers heartbreaking update on stage four ******* battle – Daily Mail Teddi Mellencamp offers heartbreaking update on stage four ******* battle – Daily Mail Teddi Mellencamp offers heartbreaking update on stage four ******* battle Daily MailTeddi Mellencamp on ‘Day-to-Day Decision’ of Wearing a Wig amid ******* Treatment People.comTeddi Mellencamp Details ‘Day to Day Decision’ to Wear a Wig Amid Stage 4 ******* Battle Us WeeklyRock legend’s daughter battling stage 4 ******* reveals brain surgery scars, delivers message PennLive.comTeddi Mellencamp wears wig on ‘crying days’ Yahoo News New Zealand Source link #Teddi #Mellencamp #offers #heartbreaking #update #stage #******* #battle #Daily #Mail Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Tech Life Tech Life One man describes his job as a moderator in Ghana. And we say goodbye to Skype. Source link #Tech #Life Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Minimum age to be a train driver lowered to 18 Minimum age to be a train driver lowered to 18 Eighteen-year-olds will be allowed to drive trains after the minimum age was lowered from 20 in a bid to tackle driver shortages. *** rail services are frequently disrupted due to a lack of drivers being available, and the problem is set to get worse with companies struggling to replace a growing number of people retiring with new recruits, the government said. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander announced the change as “bold action to improve train services and unlock thousands of jobs”. Union Aslef said it would open up opportunities for school or college leavers, while the Rail Safety and Standards Board said its research found “18-year-olds are capable of safely becoming train drivers”. In the *** several train companies rely on “rest day working” – when drivers voluntarily work extra shifts to run timetabled services. But disruption can be caused to passenger journeys when there are not enough volunteers or drivers are off sick. Some 87% of cancellations made the night before a service is scheduled to run are due to driver shortages, according to the Department for Transport (DfT). The average age of a *** train driver is 48, with 30% set to reach retirement age by 2029, it said. Fewer than 9% of train drivers are female, while under 12% are from an ethnic *********. A consultation on lowering the minimum age for drivers carried out last year by the then Conservative government received “overwhelming support from across the industry”, the DfT said. Training to become a driver of mainline trains generally takes between one and two years. The DfT believes new job and apprenticeships for 18-year-olds could become available as early as December. Alexander said the Labour government was “committed to getting the economy moving and a big part of that is getting young people into the workforce, putting them on track for a skilled and fulfilling career which will boost growth across the country”. Mick Whelan, general secretary of train drivers’ union Aslef, said the industry currently missed out on young people wanting to become train drivers “as they don’t wait around until they turn 20 to find a career”. He added the new policy would “increase diversity in the driver’s cab” and also encourage more young people to take on the role. The minimum age for train drivers has already been lowered in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, the government said Transport for London opened up its train driver apprenticeships on the underground to 18-year-olds in 2007. Source link #Minimum #age #train #driver #lowered Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Google App for iOS Gets AI-Powered ‘Simplify’ Feature to Break Down Complex Text Google App for iOS Gets AI-Powered ‘Simplify’ Feature to Break Down Complex Text Google app for iOS is getting a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature that will allow users to help understand complex text in articles and web pages. The Mountain View-based tech giant began shipping the feature, dubbed Simplify, starting Tuesday. Powered by Gemini AI models, the feature lets users highlight the desired text to get an AI-generated rewrite that breaks down complex language, jargon, and subject area-specific technical terms. Simplify was developed by Google Research, and a technical paper detailing the process has been published by the company. Google App Can Now Simplify Text on iPhone Devices In a blog post, the tech giant detailed the new feature rolling out to iOS users. This is a phased rollout, so it might take up to a few days before all Google app for iOS users get access to the AI feature. Google says the AI tool can be useful when a user is trying to learn about a new topic and is struggling to understand the text due to niche terms and jargon used. Once they have access to the feature, they can just highlight the particular block of text, and the AI will automatically rewrite it in a simple-to-understand language. After highlighting desired text, Simplify will appear at the bottom of the screen within the “More actions” panel. It will be available as the first option on the right side. The feature’s icon is the letter ‘A’ and two curved arrows surrounding it. Tapping on this icon will activate the feature. Notably, Simplify generates the rewritten text on the same page, so users do not have to leave the article or research paper to understand the meaning of the complex text. Developed by Google Research, the tool is powered by the Gemini 1.5 Pro AI model. In a technical paper, Google researchers highlighted that the AI tool was developed with a special focus on fidelity assessment. They ensured that the meaning of the original text is retained and errors such as loss of information, adding unrelated words, and distortion of the meaning behind the sentences are identified and corrected before the final output is generated. Source link #Google #App #iOS #AIPowered #Simplify #Feature #Break #Complex #Text Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Ukraine war: Donald Trump says 2026 World Cup could be ‘incentive’ for Russia to end conflict Ukraine war: Donald Trump says 2026 World Cup could be ‘incentive’ for Russia to end conflict US vice-president JD Vance said the US is looking forward to welcoming fans from across the globe for the tournament but says supporters must “go home” afterwards. The US will host 78 of the 104 matches, including the final. The World Tourism Forum Institute has warned that strict immigration policies in the US and global political tensions could “significantly” disrupt international arrivals. “I know we’ll have visitors, probably from close to 100 countries,” said Vance. “We want them to come. We want them to celebrate. We want them to watch the game. “But when the time is up, they’ll have to go home.” The Fifa Club World Cup, which starts next month, is being held across 12 stadiums in the US. About two million overseas visitors are expected for the tournament. “We’re processing those travel documents and visa applications already,” said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. “That is obviously going to be a precursor to what we can do next year for the World Cup as well. It is all being facilitated.” Source link #Ukraine #war #Donald #Trump #World #Cup #incentive #Russia #conflict Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]