Actor Resume Reveals ‘Back 4 Blood 2’ is in Development
Actor Resume Reveals ‘Back 4 Blood 2’ is in Development
An actor’s resume has revealed that Back 4 Blood 2 by Turtle Rock Studios could be in active development.
First spotted by mp1st, the information was spotted on the resume of actor Jesse Hutch, who lists ‘Gobi 2’ as a part of his motion capture performances. Gobi was the codename for the original Back 4 Blood, so it doesn’t take a genius to assume that a sequel under the name ‘Gobi 2’ could also be in development.
As spotted by mp1st, back4blood2.com was also registered by the developers in May 2023, suggesting that the company could be lining up for an announcement at some point.
In February 2023, the developers announced that Back 4 Blood would cease further development and post-launch content.
In the statement that was released on the studio’s website, the future of the firm was explained:
Turtle Rock Studios is actually pretty small for a studio making AAA games. We don’t have quite enough folks to continue working on Back 4 Blood content while we spin up another game – yes, another game! Given this, it’s time for us to put our heads down, get back in the lab, and get to work on the next big thing.
Turtle Rock Studios is the developer behind the game. Seven developers worked on the demo that would become Left 4 *****. Back 4 Blood was announced in March 2019 and later revealed during The Game Awards in 2020.
Back 4 Blood was first released in October 2021 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. The game received mixed reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic, but in February 2022, Warner Bros. announced that the game had over 10 million players and was one of the fastest-selling original IPs in 2021.
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Bluesky Confirms It Will Not Train Its Generative AI Models on User Posts
Bluesky Confirms It Will Not Train Its Generative AI Models on User Posts
Bluesky recently announced that it does not train its generative artificial intelligence (AI) models on user data. The social media platform also highlighted the areas where it uses AI tools and claimed that none of the models have been trained on the public and private posts made by users. The statement was released after several creators and users raised concerns about the platform’s privacy policy around AI. Notably, Bluesky recently crossed the 17 million registered users mark after one million users joined the platform in a single day last week.
Bluesky Says It Does Not Train AI on User Posts
In a post on the platform, Bluesky announced its stance on AI and user data. “We do not use any of your content to train generative AI, and have no intention of doing so,” the post said, adding that it was issued after several artists and creators on the platform raised concerns over the platform’s AI policy.
In a separate post, Bluesky also listed the areas where it uses generative AI tools. The company uses AI internally to assist in content moderation system, which is a common practice for social media platforms. Additionally, it also uses AI in its Discover algorithmic feed, through which the platform suggests posts to users based on their activity on the platform.
The Verge reported that while the company might not be using user data to train AI models, third-party firms can still crawl the platform and scrape the data to train their models. Company spokesperson Emily Liu told the publication that Bluesky’s robots.txt files do not stop outside companies from crawling its website for data.
However, the spokesperson highlighted that the issue is currently a topic of discussion within the team and Bluesky is trying to figure out how to ensure that outside organisations respect user consent on the platform.
Notably, on Sunday, Bluesky revealed that one million new users joined the social media platform in a single day. It also highlighted that the platform crossed the milestone of 17 million registered users.
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Organic carrots recalled in US after deadly E. coli outbreak
Organic carrots recalled in US after deadly E. coli outbreak
Organic and baby carrots sold at grocery stores across the US have been recalled after an E. coli outbreak that has ******* one person.
So far, 15 people are in hospital and 39 cases have been reported across 18 states, the US’s Centers for ******** Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
The recall covers bagged carrots sold by Grimmway Farms to big supermarket names including Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods’s 365, Target’s Good & Gather, Walmart’s Marketside, Wegmans and others.
Officials say that impacted products are likely no longer in store but may still be in homes, and should be thrown away or returned to stores for a refund if so.
Most of the infected people live in New York, Minnesota and Washington, followed by California and Oregon, according to the AP news agency.
The CDC said the recalled organic whole carrots do not have a best-if-used-by date printed on the bag but were available to buy from 14 August to 23 October. Organic baby carrots with best-if-used-by dates from 11 September to 12 November are also recalled.
As well as getting rid of any recalled products, the CDC added that people should clean and sanitise any surface they may have touched.
Symptoms of O121 E. coli include severe stomach cramps, diarrhoea and vomiting, and usually start three to four days after swallowing the bacteria.
Most people recover without treatment, but some may develop serious kidney problems and need to be admitted to hospital, the CDC added.
The E. coli cases linked to carrots comes after another high-profile outbreak in the US, related to slivered onions on some McDonald’s Quarter Pounder burgers. It caused 104 people to become ill.
The US Food and ***** Administration (FDA) previously said that one person ***** in October and 34 people had been admitted to hospital related to that outbreak.
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Dump This ‘Sacred Cow’ Investment Rule and Break Free With 5.5%+ Yields
Dump This ‘Sacred Cow’ Investment Rule and Break Free With 5.5%+ Yields
If you have a wealth manager working for you, I have one simple piece of advice: Seriously consider moving on from them (or managing your investments yourself) if they recommend following the “60/40” rule.
It simply says that most people should invest 60% of their assets in stocks and 40% in government bonds for retirement.
In a moment, we’ll talk about one fund we’d have completely missed out on by following 60/40 ourselves—or by signing on with a wealth manager who does so. (And not to worry, this one is still available for us to tap into for a solid 5.5% dividend, with upside.)
60/40’s Oddball Origin Story
We don’t need to ***** too deep into the economic weeds here, but the origin of the 60/40 rule is an interesting tale, so let’s take a side trip into it for a moment.
The rule emerged in the 1950s, as a group of advisors tried to integrate the Nobel Prize–winning research of Harry Markowitz, who founded Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), an important concept in diversification.
Advocates of 60/40 like to say it’s part of MPT, but it isn’t. Markowitz himself began with a 50/50 allocation for his own assets, which, he said, he did “to minimize my future regret.”
He also did it without doing an actual analysis of the data: “I should have computed the historical co-variances of the asset classes and drawn an efficient frontier. Instead, I visualized my grief if the stock market went way up and I wasn’t in it—or if it went way down and I was completely in it.”
So the 60/40 rule comes from a misunderstanding of a bias that inspired a Nobel Prize–winning economist to build a theory. It isn’t the conclusion of the theory he developed!
A Flawed “Rule”
To delve into the flaws of this approach, let me first state that we’re not abandoning diversification here—far from it! The flaw of this rule, though, is that it doesn’t allow us to weight more of our portfolio toward the market’s fastest-growing assets when there’s an opportunity to do so. It also, of course, doesn’t consider an investor’s individual goals and age.
To see its flaws in action, imagine an investor in 2006 steps into a wealth manager’s office looking to weight more of their portfolio toward tech, since the internet is growing more popular, smartphones are catching on, and tech still hasn’t recovered from the dot-com ******.
The wealth manager discourages her, stating that for true diversification and safety, she should use the tried-and-true 60/40 portfolio. Fast forward nearly 20 years later, and you can see how 60/40 did versus the and the .
Source: CEF Insider
It would have been bad advice. As you can see, an investor who put in $10,000 per year has missed out on about $700,000 following the 60/40 plan versus the NASDAQ 100 over this time *******, and about $300k over the S&P 500.
Now again, we’re not saying ignoring asset classes beyond stocks is the way to go here—just that a flexible approach would’ve resulted in far greater returns than simply following a “rule” like 60/40.
Some wealth managers might respond to this by saying that the 60/40 portfolio cuts our volatility. That’s partly true. For instance, in 2022 the NASDAQ 100 saw big declines, and the 60/40 portfolio did much better. It still lost money, but it lost a lot less.
Less Volatility for 60/40
Above we have a fund representing the 60/40 portfolio (in orange), compared to benchmark index funds for the S&P 500 (in purple) and NASDAQ (in blue).
Note that the 60/40 portfolio’s 16.1% decline isn’t much smaller than the S&P 500’s 18.2% slide in the same year, so the portfolio didn’t really help ****** volatility in stocks. The 60/40 portfolio just wasn’t exposed to the much more volatile tech-focused NASDAQ 100 index.
What about worse declines in the past, like the 2008/2009 crisis? Well, that was awful for stocks, so the 60/40 portfolio (again in orange below) did better than the S&P 500 (in purple). But it actually did much worse than the NASDAQ 100 (in blue).
More Volatility for 60/40
This makes sense if you stop and think about it. When the subprime-mortgage crisis hit, the NASDAQ 100 was still significantly down due to the popped dot-com bubble, so it had less room to fall than the S&P 500 and the 60/40 portfolio.
What about the COVID-19 pandemic? This is another time when you’d expect the volatility protection of the 60/40 portfolio to outperform. Except it didn’t.
60/40 Fails Again
This time the NASDAQ 100 won, recovering from its slump to show a strong return pretty quickly—and for obvious reasons, as the pandemic was a boon for tech providers like Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ:), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:) and Uber Technologies (NYSE:).
The key takeaway from all of this is that following a strict rule (“always have a 60/40 allocation”) is a losing approach. Being nimble and shifting with market conditions generates a lot more wealth for us.
Granted, that’s hard to do, especially in the moment, when emotions are running hot.
One solution is to buy a diversified and well-managed tech closed-end fund (CEF) that pays out a large portion of its profits in dividends, like the 5.5%-yielding Columbia Seligman Premium Technology Growth Fund (NYSE:).
With an above-average payout, we’re getting more of our return in safe dividend cash, which we can use to reinvest in the fund or keep in our accounts, letting it accumulate and naturally tone down our risk.
Further cutting our risk is the fact that STK focuses on large cap techs, with Microsoft (NASDAQ:), Apple (NASDAQ:) and Oracle (NYSE:) among its top holdings. The fund also trades at a 2% discount to net asset value (NAV, or the value of its underlying holdings), well below its five-year average of 3.6%, so we’re getting some downside insulation (and upside!) through the markdown on this one.
Then there’s the performance: With a 17.6% annualized return over the last decade, STK has been a massive wealth provider for investors. If you’d invested $1 million a decade ago and reinvested your dividends, your initial buy would be worth $4.9 million as of this writing.
STK Is a Serious Wealth Generator
That just proves the point that it’s more profitable to move into, and out of, high-quality CEFs (which are themselves actively managed) from various asset classes as market conditions change. By doing so, you’ll get the opportunity to get in at a discount (something you can’t do with ETFs) and pocket a high yield.
By the way, most CEFs yield more than STK—an average of 8% today—and they come from across the economy, holding real estate investment trusts (REITs), blue chip stocks, corporate bonds and more.
Plus they actually grow your wealth more than parking 40% of your portfolio in low-returning government bonds would, so they easily outperform the 60/40 portfolio.
These 5 “Secret” (for Now!) CEFs Yield 10.5%—and They’re Still Cheap
CEFs are a terrific option now because there are plenty of bargains still available in the space, even after the big post-election run-up we’ve seen in stocks.
Yet most folks have no idea these deals (with their huge—and often monthly paid—dividends) are still available.
That’s fine—more buys in the bargain aisle for us!
We’ll start with the 5 CEFs I’m pounding the table on now. They come from across the economy, and they crush 60/40 because they trade at deep discounts (so much so that I’m calling for 20%+ potential price upside from these 5 funds in the next year) and kick out a huge 10.5% average dividend, too!
Now is the time to buy them, before the income-focused crowd catches on.
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Living standards will fall unless productivity is boosted, says Business Council of Australia
Living standards will fall unless productivity is boosted, says Business Council of Australia
A leading business group has said declining *********** living standards and flatlining wages could be a reality with productivity at worryingly low levels.
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South Korean Researchers Develop Morphing Wheel to Overcome Obstacles
South Korean Researchers Develop Morphing Wheel to Overcome Obstacles
A team of researchers at the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) has developed an innovative ‘morphing’ wheel that adapts to various terrains, offering potential solutions for mobility challenges. This technology allows the wheel to overcome obstacles up to 1.3 times the height of its radius, enabling smooth navigation across kerbs, humps, and even staircases.
The wheel, designed with flexibility inspired by the surface tension of water droplets, transitions between solid and fluid states when encountering obstructions. Applications for the technology range from wheelchairs navigating uneven terrain to unmanned delivery vehicles capable of climbing stairs, making it a groundbreaking tool for accessibility and automation. The team also foresees its integration into robotics, particularly for machines requiring stable movement in industrial settings.
Technology Overview and Testing
The morphing wheel’s design includes a chain-like outer hoop and spoke wires connected to a hub. A sensor system adjusts the stiffness of the spokes, enabling the wheel to adapt in real time based on terrain conditions. Current testing has demonstrated its ability to tackle 18-cm stairs while carrying a life-size ****** in a wheelchair prototype. Devices equipped with these wheels have also achieved speeds of up to 30 km/h.
Dr Song Sung-hyuk, principal researcher at KIMM, stated that efforts are underway to enhance the wheel’s capabilities for speeds of up to 100 km/h, comparable to average cars. He highlighted that while similar technologies like non-pneumatic tyres offer flexibility, they lack the obstacle-negotiating ability of the morphing wheel.
Potential Impact and Applications
The research team envisions broad applications for the morphing wheel. Two- and four-legged robots, often hampered by limited efficiency and vibration sensitivity, could benefit from this advancement. Industrial robots transporting payloads across uneven surfaces might also see significant improvements in stability and performance.
The morphing wheel gained recognition when featured as the cover article of Science Robotics in August 2024. Its potential to reshape mobility technologies underscores ongoing efforts in innovation at KIMM. style>.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }
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Oppo Find X8 Series Set to Be First Smartphones in India to Arrive With MediaTek Dimensity 9400 Chipset
Samsung’s XR Glasses Will Share Some Features With Meta’s Ray-Ban Glasses, to Launch in Q3 2025: Report
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ESPN testing an AI avatar to add analysis and opinion to SEC Nation college football show
ESPN testing an AI avatar to add analysis and opinion to SEC Nation college football show
ESPN is testing an AI-generated avatar for SEC Nation
FACTS will provide analysis during the popular college football show
ESPN says “It complements our journalists and on-air talent, providing additional insights”
ESPN is trialling a new AI-generated avatar which the TV network hopes to add to its popular college football show, SEC Nation.
The AI avatar called FACTS is being trialed for “pre-game discussions, promoting education and fun around sports analytics.” The project has been developed at the ESPN Edge Innovation Center to foster engagement and educate fans on sports analytics related to college football.
Baron Miller, coordinating producer for SEC Network/ESPN told Front Row, “FACTS is designed to test innovations out in the market and create an outlet for ESPN Analytics’ data to be accessible to fans in an engaging and enjoyable segment. It complements our journalists and on-air talent, providing additional insights.”
He added, “FACTS is built on NVIDIA Omniverse, using its ACE microservices, and integrates with Azure OpenAI for language processing and ElevenLabs for text-to-speech.” Combined with ESPN Analytics data and team statistics, FACTS is seen as a way to engage a new audience wanting to get invested in college football.
AI sports analysis on ESPN
ESPN hasn’t showcased FACTS in action and the company has already used generative AI to create recaps of sports matches. However, the AI recaps have come under scrutiny for errors such as completely forgetting to reference USWNT legend Alex Morgan in the final game of her professional career, instead focusing on the scoreline and the goalscorers.
ESPN doesn’t see AI as a way to replace its journalists, however, instead, the company thinks AI-generated recaps frees up its human writers to focus on more interesting topics. An ESPN spokesperson defended the use of AI by saying, “These automated recaps will allow ESPN staff to focus on feature, analysis and breaking news coverage. ESPN has always worked to combine human capability with emerging technologies as part of its mission to serve sports fans.”
SEC Nation is an incredibly popular show every Saturday during the college football season. With a start time of 10 AM ET, it’s the perfect opportunity to introduce a friendly AI-generated analyst to help educate children and adults alike on the sport. ESPN has yet to announce when we’re likely to see FACTS on our TVs, but considering the quick rate of AI adoption across the world of media, we don’t expect we’ll have to wait long.
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FEMA program repurposing Helene-downed WNC trees into firewood, furniture, mulch and more
FEMA program repurposing Helene-downed WNC trees into firewood, furniture, mulch and more
ASHEVILLE — A collaboration between governmental agencies and nonprofit and ******-based organizations is repurposing some of the remnants of Tropical Storm Helene’s destruction into use for local residents.
As part of a project developed by FEMA’s Interagency Recovery Coordination, thousands of trees damaged by Helene will be repurposed under a state project, FEMA announced in a press release Nov. 13.
The coordination was established by the federal disaster recovery coordinator to meet challenges presented by Helene and ensure interagency coordination for disaster recovery in North Carolina.
According to the release, more than 320,000 pounds had already been removed as part of the project.
“This marks the transition from response to long-term recovery,” said Thomas J. McCool, federal coordinating officer for North Carolina’s disaster operation. “The IRC’s innovative collaboration is tailored specifically to Western North Carolina and leverages the unique skills, expertise and tools of every organization involved.”
One of the stages of the project includes clearing debris and fallen trees at the North Carolina Arboretum in South Asheville.
According to previous USA Today Network reporting for The Citizen Times, the wind and rain wrought by Helene felled more than 5,000 trees on the 434-acre site in the Pisgah National Forest, forcing the Arboretum to temporarily close.
On Oct. 28, following the hard work of Arboretum staff and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, N.C., the Arboretum was able to reopen the primary entrance, parking area and formal gardens to visitors, with the Arboretum waiving the $20 per vehicle parking fee.
All Arboretum trails and outdoor areas beyond the Formal Gardens remain closed to guests, as of Nov. 14.
The Arboretum is a state entity under the jurisdiction of the University of North Carolina System, and attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Arboretum, which offers walking trails, gardens and an educational center, boasts a membership roster of more than 21,000 households.
According to FEMA, the repurposing downed trees project is already sending logs to a staging area to be sorted based on potential use. The wood will then be distributed to residents and communities for firewood, furniture material, mulch and more.
In an Oct. 22 USA Today Network article, Drake Fowler, the North Carolina Arboretum executive director, said the cleanup efforts would make use of the damaged and destroyed trees to help stock North Carolina’s firewood initiative, or to potentially help lay wood chips along the park’s 10 miles of hiking trails.
“Most of the trees that fell were red oaks, and the best chips for trails are that kind of hardwood,” Fowler explained. “Those are the chips we’re usually looking for, and so a lot of times we might have to buy those.”
Downed trees block the main entry road of The North Carolina Arboretum on Oct. 17, 2024 in Asheville. Workers have been clearing trees daily since Tropical Storm Helene in order to reopen the grounds.
Other uses for wood include furniture, heating and landscaping
In addition to FEMA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the University of North Carolina System, the Interagency Recovery Coordination partnerships for the project include collaboration between the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management, Buncombe County, Team Rubicon, a nongovernmental organization specializing in disaster response, ********* Red Cross, Mennonite Disaster Services, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development and the U.S. Forest Service.
In the release, FEMA said the multiple agencies are determining the most effective uses for the material.
U.S. Department of Agriculture teams of forest experts are sorting the wood based on intended purpose, including furniture building, home heating and landscaping. ********* Red Cross and Mennonite Disaster Services provided equipment for firewood cutting, which is being handled by Team Rubicon volunteers trained to use chainsaws, log-splitters and other equipment.
Additionally, local churches will take the divided wood, kiln dry it as needed and provide *****-ready wood to residents, the release said.
According to the FEMA release, Interagency Recovery Coordination partners have removed 65 truckloads of timber as of Nov. 13. with firewood splitting starting the week of Nov. 11.
More: NC Arboretum in Asheville sustained massive tree damage in Helene; plans to reopen
More: NC Arboretum in Asheville reopens but trails still closed
More: NC Arboretum in Asheville reopens but trails still closed
More: MountainTrue releases more post-Helene soil, water samples: How polluted is the French Broad?
Winter Lights event scheduled to run through Dec. 31
Though all Arboretum trails and outdoor areas beyond the Formal Gardens remain closed to guests, the Arboretum’s largest fundraising effort, its annual Winter Lights, will move forward in its 11th year and is scheduled to run from Nov. 15 through Dec. 31.
“This year, we are striving to make Winter Lights an event that will offer a sense of wonder, place, and perhaps even a temporary return to normalcy — a chance to wander and wonder and escape into an evening of delight and joy,” reads a public note on the Arboretum website, adding that ticket sales for the event directly provide for employee salaries and continued improvements to the grounds.”
Fowler said the Arboretum is working to craft displays around some of the park’s damaged trees by affixing lights to the battered wood in an “artful way,” recognizing the immense loss of old-growth trees within the preserve. Event organizers are also discussing potential photo opportunities for visitors that could include rallying cries such as “WNC Strong,” according to Fowler.
Tickets for the Winter Lights Festival are priced per vehicle rather than per person and start at a price of $40, according to the event’s website.
“So please know that, by attending Winter Lights, you are directly supporting this important resource and those employees who make it beautiful,” the Arboretum said on its website. “We know that for many, the idea of purchasing a ticket may seem like a big ask, but for those of you who are able, we want you to know that this event is as important to us as it is to the thousands who have attended Winter Lights over the past 10 years.”
Johnny Casey has covered Madison County for The Citizen Times and The News-Record & Sentinel for three years. He earned a first-place award in beat news reporting in the 2023 North Carolina Press Association awards. He can be reached at 828-210-6074 or *****@*****.tld.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: FEMA program repurposing Helene-downed trees for WNC residents
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Hubble Telescope Reveals Milky Way Blowing Gas off LMC Galaxy in Close Encounter
Hubble Telescope Reveals Milky Way Blowing Gas off LMC Galaxy in Close Encounter
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled a dramatic cosmic interaction occurring in the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy. The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a dwarf galaxy approximately 10 per cent the mass of the Milky Way, has been observed losing much of its gaseous halo. The phenomenon is attributed to the gravitational and environmental forces exerted by the Milky Way during the LMC’s close approach, as detailed by researchers led by Dr Andrew Fox of the ********* Space Agency in Baltimore.
LMC’s Halo Dispersal Observed
The study highlights the effect of ram pressure, a force generated as the LMC moves through the Milky Way’s dense halo of gas. This pressure has stripped away most of the LMC’s original gaseous halo, leaving behind only a compact remnant. Dr Fox, the principal investigator, noted that while significant mass has been lost, the remaining halo is still visible, trailing behind the dwarf galaxy like the tail of a comet.
Survival and Star Formation Potential
Despite this significant loss, the LMC retains enough material to sustain star formation. According to researchers, its relatively larger mass has enabled it to withstand the stripping forces. Dr Fox said that the LMC is a survivour. Smaller galaxies would not have retained their gas, resulting in a collection of ageing stars without the potential for new ones. The retained gas, while diminished, allows for the creation of new star-forming regions, keeping the galaxy active. Scientific Insights
The findings provide valuable insights into galactic interactions and the role of ram pressure in shaping galaxy evolution. While the LMC’s closest encounter with the Milky Way has passed, scientists predict that the remnants of its gas halo will eventually merge with the Milky Way’s own gas, enriching its galactic ecosystem.
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Matt Gaetz feels the heat
Matt Gaetz feels the heat
President-elect Donald Trump is ***** serious about making him attorney general. Speaker Mike Johnson is pledging to bury a critical House Ethics Committee report into his alleged personal misconduct. But expect this to be a very uncomfortable week for former Rep. Matt Gaetz all the same.
There is new pressure to publicize details from investigations centering on allegations of underage **** and ***** use by the Florida *********** as a potentially tawdry and dramatic confirmation battle takes shape.
First off: An attorney representing two women who testified to both federal and House Ethics investigators about Gaetz’s alleged misdeeds is coming forward with new details about what his clients told investigators. Lawyer Joel Leppard is set to do multiple network TV interviews Monday as he pushes for the release of the House Ethics report, and he gave Playbook a sneak preview last night:
— His clients, he said, told investigators they attended more than five and as many as 10 “**** parties” with Gaetz between the summer of 2017 and the end of 2018, during his first term in the House. At those parties, they testified, there were “group **** situations” and ******** drugs were present.
— One of Leppard’s clients told investigators she witnessed Gaetz “having **** with her friend,” who was underage at the time, against what she recalled as some sort of game table, according to Leppard.
Gaetz has strenuously and repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. The federal investigation that Leppard’s clients participated in ended without charges against Gaetz, according to his lawyers and Justice Department officials.
But Leppard — and many on Capitol Hill — believe that a lack of ********* indictment is a much lower bar than a prospective attorney general should be meeting, and they are looking to the as-yet unpublished House Ethics report to provide further details. Leppard said his media blitz is aimed at protecting his unnamed clients, who have not ruled out coming forward in the future
“Ultimately, I hope it puts a lot of pressure on the panel to release the report,” he said. “My clients have already been through this several times and they really, really do not want to testify again, especially not on the floor of the Senate.”
Asked about the allegations, a spokesperson for the AG-designate made reference to the current AG: “Merrick Garland’s DOJ cleared Matt Gaetz and didn’t charge him. Are you alleging Garland is part of a cover up?”
Meanwhile, the Democrats charged with vetting Trump’s nominees are privately exploring how to gather more information on the ******* misconduct allegations that are bearing down on both Gaetz and Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for Defense secretary who is alleged to have paid a settlement to a woman who accused him of ******* ********. (Like Gaetz, Hegseth has strongly denied wrongdoing.)
Importantly, Democrats are discussing what they can do now, while they hold the committee gavels and subpoena power that they will give up when the new Congress gets underway in January.
On the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democratic members have discussed requesting the FBI file on Gaetz, which could include records of any interviews conducted as part of the now-closed investigation. They’re likely to do so before the end of the year, knowing Trump could order those materials to be withheld once he assumes office.
They’re also considering making contact with the attorney of the woman who told the House Ethics Committee that Gaetz had **** with her when she was a minor. That lawyer, John Clune, called for the report to be released “immediately” last week.
Public hearings aren’t under consideration at the moment, but Democrats say that behind-the-scenes conversations with the women’s representatives — or possibly interviews with women themselves — could serve as preparation for confirmation season should the GOP circle the wagons around Trump’s nominees.
Even in the *********, Democrats will get the right to call witnesses during confirmation hearings, and they are discussing the possibility of calling the women to testify if they are willing.
“We ought to be marshaling all of the objective and relevant evidence necessary to assess the confidence, character and moral compass of each nominee,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn), who sits on the Judiciary and Armed Services panels. “And if those materials are denied, or concealed, and if witnesses with relevant information are willing to come forward, they should be given an opportunity to do so.”
That, Blumenthal added, includes the woman who accused Hegseth of ******* ******** and subsequently signed a nondisclosure agreement.
“A private agreement on nondisclosure should be preempted by an Armed Services hearing on the confirmation of a nominee,” he said. “And we would expect any nominee to waive any rights under nondisclosure.”
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China to front-load 2025 local government special bonds quota, report says
China to front-load 2025 local government special bonds quota, report says
BEIJING, CHINA – SEPTEMBER 04: Buildings and vehicles are seen in the central business district during the rush hour on September 4, 2020 in Beijing, China.
Zhang Qiao | Visual China Group | Getty Images
China’s finance ministry is planning to front-load part of the 2025 local government special bonds quota to meet funding needs for major infrastructure projects, state-backed The Securities Times reported on Monday.
The State Council, China’s cabinet, typically determines and issues an advance allocation of new local government debt quotas for the following year in the fourth quarter, depending on economic conditions, the report said.
“At present, the Ministry of Finance is formulating an advance work plan to better ensure the funding needs of major projects in key areas and to leverage the important role of government bond funds in the economic recovery,” it said, without giving specifics.
By the end of October, local governments had issued 3.9 trillion yuan ($539 billion) in new special bonds, almost completing debt issuance under the 2024 quota, the report added.
Data released last week showed factory output growth slowed in October and it was still too early to call a turn in the crisis-hit property sector even though consumers perked up, keeping alive calls for Beijing to top up its recent blitz of stimulus to revitalise the economy.
Earlier this month, China unveiled a 10 trillion yuan debt package to ease local government financing strains and stabilise flagging economic growth, as it faces fresh pressure following the re-election of Donald Trump as U.S. president.
The central bank has also ramped up policy support since late September, cutting interest rates and injecting more cash into the economy to help meet the government’s 2024 growth target of around 5%.
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This top-rated Eufy video doorbell is going cheap for ****** Friday – and it’s even better than Ring
This top-rated Eufy video doorbell is going cheap for ****** Friday – and it’s even better than Ring
Thinking about picking up a Ring video doorbell this ****** Friday? Not so fast – the Eufy Video Doorbell Dual is now on ***** at Very for just £114 (was £179.99), and it’s even better.
The Eufy Video Doorbell Dual has long held a place in our roundup of the best video doorbells, and it beats Ring doorbells in one key way: you don’t need to pay a monthly subscription to unlock all its features. Video is stored locally, so there’s no fee to access your footage, and tools like AI-enabled package detection are all included. Add a £64.99 price cut, and it’s one of the best ****** Friday deals on home tech I’ve seen so far.
Today’s best Eufy Video Doorbell Dual deal
We’re expecting to see some great ****** Friday Ring doorbell deals this year, but if you pick up one of them, you won’t be able to access its full features without also committing to a monthly fee of at least £8 a month or £80 a year (for more details, see our “do I need a Ring subscription?” guide). There are no such concerns with the Eufy Video Doorbell Dual, which gives you everything subscription-free.
Our reviewer, Carrie-Ann Skinner, also appreciated the Eufy Video Doorbell Dual’s crisp picture quality, and how easy it was to install whether you take the wireless route and run it from its internal battery, or connect it to your existing doorbell wiring. Take a look at our full Eufy Video Doorbell Dual review for more details.
More of today’s ****** Friday sales in the ***
Amazon: up to 68% off toothbrushes and TVs
AO: savings on games consoles and appliances
Argos: up to 50% off toys, Lego, TVs and gifts
Boots: up to 50% off Dyson, *****-B and Philips
Currys: early deals on TVs, appliances, laptops
Dell: laptops, desktops, monitors from £299
Dyson: up to £150 off
Ebay: up to 50% off refurbished tech
EE: up to £600 off Samsung and Apple
John Lewis: up to £300 off appliances and TVs
LG: £1,000 or more off TVs and appliances
Samsung: up to £600 off TVs, phones and tablets
Very: up to 30% off phones, appliances & clothing
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Mali wins $160m in mining dispute after detaining boss of Australia’s Resolute
Mali wins $160m in mining dispute after detaining boss of Australia’s Resolute
An *********** mining company, Resolute Mining, says it will pay Mali’s military government $160m (£126m) to settle a tax dispute, after the company’s British boss and two other staff were unexpectedly detained 10 days ago.
Reports say Terry Holohan and his colleagues were arrested while travelling to the capital city, Bamako, for what they were expecting to be routine negotiations.
Resolute, which owns a gold mine in Mali, said on Sunday it would pay $80m immediately from existing cash reserves, and the rest in the coming months.
Mali is one of *******’s top gold producers.
It is is seeking to extract a greater share of income from foreign operators in the sector.
It is not yet clear when the three Resolute employees will be released.
Part of the conditions for their release were that they must sign the memorandum of understanding and complete the initial payment, according to a report by the French broadcaster RFI.
Mali’s military rulers detained the three Resolute executives on charges of forgery and damaging public property, seen as an attempt to blackmail the *********** company amid an ongoing state crackdown on foreign – mostly Western – mining companies in the West ******** country.
Since taking power in a coup in 2021, Mali’s junta has sought to reconfigure its political and trade relationships with international partners.
Last year, President Col Assimi Goïta signed into law a new mining code increasing the maximum stake for state and local investors from 20% to 35%.
Additional reporting by Natasha ******
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Delhi air pollution levels at ‘severe plus’, authorities say
Delhi air pollution levels at ‘severe plus’, authorities say
Air pollution in India’s capital Delhi has soared to extremely severe levels, choking residents and engulfing the city in thick smog.
Monitors recorded pollution levels of 1,500 at 15:00 IST (10:30 BST), according to tech company IQAir – 15 times the level the Word Health Organization (WHO) considers satisfactory for breathing.
The toxic air has disrupted flight services, and had already prompted authorities to shut schools and ban construction work in the city.
It comes just weeks after Lahore, in neighbouring Pakistan, also recorded pollution levels above 1,000.
And experts warn that the situation could get worse in Delhi in the coming days, saying more severe measures may be needed to combat the city’s pollution problem.
According to the WHO, air with Air Quality Index (AQI) values above 300 are considered to be hazardous for health.
India’s pollution control authority has classified the air in Delhi as “severe plus”, after the city passed 450 according to its measurements on Monday morning.
As well as shutting schools and banning construction work, the city has also banned the entry of non-essential trucks into Delhi and has asked all offices to ask 50% of their staff to work from home.
Last week, the government banned all activities that involve the use of coal and firewood, as well as diesel generator use for non-emergency services.
Every year, Delhi, India’s northern states and parts of Pakistan battle hazardous air during the winter months of October to January due to plummeting temperatures, smoke, dust, low wind speed, vehicular emissions and crop stubble burning.
And every year, the government imposes pollution control measures during these months.
Yet, Delhi’s pollution problem hasn’t gone away.
On Monday, Delhi’s Chief Minister Atishi said that all of northern India was experiencing a “medical emergency” due to stubble burning continuing unchecked across the country, particularly in the neighbouring states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
She accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of not taking steps to curb the practice despite the problem intensifying over the past five years.
The BJP, in turn, has blamed Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for not being able to put a check to pollution in the city.
Meanwhile, Delhi’s residents continue to gasp for air.
“Woke up with a itchy, painful throat.. even two air purifiers are not making the AQI breathable indoors. Children are breathing in gas chamber,” one user wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Another user called for a “peaceful mass protest on the streets”. “The air we breathe is lethally toxic,” he wrote.
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Scientists convert plastics into soaps and detergents
Scientists convert plastics into soaps and detergents
Greg Liu (at left) has spent the past five or six years working on ways to recycle plastics, and he and his team now believe they have found a solution to a growing global problem. Credit: Spencer Coppage for Virginia Tech.
As an undergraduate student at Zhejiang University in eastern China, Greg Liu went with some of his classmates on a university-sponsored trip to tour a host of chemical industries within the area.
The tour gave students pursuing degrees in chemical engineering an opportunity to learn more about the manufacturing and production processes of chemicals within China at the time. Liu realized that day exactly what he wanted to do for a career—find ways to alleviate or stop the industry from polluting the environment.
“I realized that this was not going to be the sustainable way of our future. Pollution was everywhere; water, soil, road, you name it. Workers were in unbearable working conditions. I didn’t want to be in an environment like that, nor our future generations,” Liu said. “That basically drove me to think, ‘OK, I must pursue an advanced degree to change the way we work in the chemical industry.'”
Liu later came to the ******* States and earned his doctoral degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Now, his zeal to use his knowledge of chemical engineering to create a more sustainable world has led to him developing a revolutionary way to deal with arguably one of the world’s most pressing issues—plastic pollution.
A long research project encompassing five or six years finally led to a breakthrough, with Liu, a professor within Virginia Tech’s Department of Chemistry housed in the College of Science, and his team of undergraduate and graduate students finding a way to convert certain plastics into soaps, detergents, lubricants, and other products.
Liu has written an article about the process and the feasibility and commercialization of it that was published in Nature Sustainability.
In simple terms, Liu’s system was two steps. It first involved using thermolysis, or breaking down a substance—in this case, plastic—by using heat. Plastic placed in a reactor built by Liu’s team and heated to between 650 and 750 degrees Fahrenheit broke down into chemical compounds, leaving a mixture of oil, gas, and residual solids.
The key to this first step was breaking down the polypropylene and polyethylene molecules that make up plastic within a certain carbon range, and Liu and his team were able to accomplish this.
The residual solids left behind were minimal, and the gas could be captured and used as fuel. The oil, though, was the product of the most interest here.
During his research, Liu was able to functionalize, or change the chemistry, of the oil into molecules to be converted into soaps, detergents, lubricants, and other products.
“These materials are stable,” Liu said, holding up a vial of soap. “This vial of soap has been in my office for, I would say, a year already. … You could use it to wash your hands and dishes. We have used it to wash our lab glassware in the laboratory.”
The process, which took less than a day, led to almost zero air pollution output, thus offering clues to a desperately needed solution to a global problem. According to the ******* Nation’s website, the world produces 430 million tons of plastic each year, with the equivalent of 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastic dumped into oceans, rivers, and lakes each day.
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Plastic pollution leads to an increased choking of marine wildlife, the damaging of soils, the poisoning of groundwater, and is the cause of negative human health impacts. In addition, there are greenhouse gas emissions released into the air during production.
The ******* Nations expects plastic pollution to triple by 2060 if no action is taken. Unfortunately, according to the ******* Nation’s website, less than 9% of plastic actually gets recycled—though there is a reason for that, according to Amanda Morris, the head of Virginia Tech’s Department of Chemistry.
“We make plastics to last from the perspective that many of them have to hold a liquid inside them that you don’t want coming out of a bottle. So they have to be relatively strong materials,” Morris said.
“The bonds that hold the polymer together and give us that strength and give us the properties of the bottles that we use are also really hard to break, and so it’s just trying to come up with ways to do it in an energy efficient manner where you get clean product.
“The other thing is that those polymers can degrade into many different things. Are there ways that we can get it to one specific product that then could actually be used downstream again? I think those are some of the things that we’ve struggled with.”
Liu and his team have come up with a way to break those bonds, but now potentially comes the hard part—scaling up the system and making it a continuous one, while, more importantly, making it cost effective.
His is the plight of many researchers. They often find solutions to issues, but those solutions can come with hefty price tags, often resulting in the solutions remaining on the sidelines. Liu said industries have expressed interest in upscaling this process, but any effort, energy, and investment needs to result in profitability.
Liu said he is seeking help from the community to test a business model. This involves securing capital needed to build a reactor to run continuously in his lab, or perhaps creating a private offsite start-up company to test the ramping up of his process. Yes, soap can be created from a few pieces of plastic, but can tons of plastic generate soaps and detergents profitably?
“There will be a lot of demand on our end to further derisk the process,” Liu said. “We have to derisk it so they [businesses] can see real value out of it, and they can potentially adopt it.
“My estimate is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range to test this. The good thing is that we’re training talented students and postdocs in this lab right now. They will be the ones who can potentially carry on this process in the future. But we definitely need more resources, especially funds, to build reactors and test the reactors.”
Back-end challenges aside, Morris ******** optimistic about Liu’s findings and their future impacts. She welcomes opportunities to publicize his efforts tackling the plastics problem and discussing the chemistry department’s efforts in meeting this challenge as part of Virginia Tech’s Global Distinction ambitions.
“I think that any time that we can make our science accessible to the broader public, including our alumni and friends, it’s incredibly beneficial,” Morris said. “It’s beneficial for them to see the impact that we’re having not just as Hokies, but also that they can have by investing further in the Virginia Tech mission.
“The goal is really to take Greg’s technology, make modifications based on what we understand fundamentally about the process, and then make it even more energy efficient and more beneficial to industry. The other thing is that Greg’s technology is for a few polymer classes [with a recycle code of 2, 4, and 5], so can we apply that to other polymer classes? Are there ways where we can increase the reach of the technology? That has me excited as well.”
Liu doesn’t view himself as a pioneer, although, in this case, he truly is a pioneer of converting plastic waste to soap. Instead, he views himself as someone contributing a small piece to the solution of a global problem that requires everyone’s diligence. He said he welcomes more involvement from the scientific and industrial community.
In other words, science needs more collaboration on this problem. The stakes are too high without it.
“It’s no longer enough to be like, ‘Oh, I can play with my cool chemistry in the laboratory, and I can magically generate something out of it, and then I’m good enough,'” Liu said. “That is surely cool, but that isn’t the real solution to the pressing problem of the plastic crisis.
“I hope, down the road, we find a solution, and I hope plastic is no longer a problem to worry about. I hope, in time, society will take care of all these waste materials. We can generate useful chemicals and materials from waste, and hopefully we can close the loop of carbon and plastics. That is my dream. I believe we can achieve it, but it’s going to take a while. With everyone’s will, we will solve it.”
More information:
Nuwayo Eric Munyaneza et al, Chain-length-controllable upcycling of polyolefins to sulfate detergents, Nature Sustainability (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01464-x
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Virginia Tech
Citation:
A clean break: Scientists convert plastics into soaps and detergents (2024, November 18)
retrieved 18 November 2024
from
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part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
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Beyoncé to star in NFL half-time show on Christmas Day
Beyoncé to star in NFL half-time show on Christmas Day
Getty Images
The Christmas Day show will be the first time Beyoncé has performed Cowboy Carter live
Beyoncé has announced she will perform during the NFL’s half-time show on Christmas Day.
The singer will perform as the Houston Texans take on the Baltimore Ravens – one of two fixtures scheduled for that day.
The second match will see Kansas City Chiefs play the Pittsburgh Steelers and both matches will be streamed on Netflix.
It will be the first time Beyoncé has performed tracks from her latest album, Cowboy Carter, which she first revealed during February’s Super Bowl.
She released singles Texas Hold ‘Em and 16 Carriages immediately after appearing in an advert during the game, and dropped Cowboy Carter in March.
The album, which includes duets with Miley Cyrus and Post Malone, leans into the country genre and is the second of a planned trilogy that started with Renaissance.
It is nominated for Album of the Year at 2025’s Grammy Awards, where Beyoncé’s up for a further 10 trophies including best country album and song of the year for Texas Hold ‘Em.
The singer announced the half-time show with posts on her socials where she’s seen catching a football while standing on a classic ********* car covered in roses, all while wearing her signature cowboy hat.
Netflix has also teased that the singer’s expected to “bring along some special guests” who featured on her latest release.
It won’t be the first time Beyoncé’s starred in a half-time show, having headlined the Super Bowl in 2013 and performed alongside Coldplay and Bruno Mars in 2016 – the most watched half-time show ever.
Getty Images
Beyoncé performed with Chris Martin and Bruno Mars in 2016 and is expected to bring out special guests in December
Christmas Day games have become a staple of the NFL calendar since first launching in the 1980s.
In May, Netflix announced it had signed a deal to broadcast NFL games up to 2026 as part of a drive to expand into sports.
“Last year, we decided to take a big bet on live,” the streaming platform’s chief content officer, Bela Bajaria, said.
“There are no live annual events, sports or otherwise, that compare with the audiences NFL football attracts.”
On Friday, Netflix streamed boxing for the first time with a live ****** between heavyweight legend Mike Tyson and YouTuber Jake Paul.
It said 60 million households streamed the ****** around the world, but some complained about it crashing.
NFL fans in competing team cities will still be able to watch the match on broadcast TV and they’ll also be available to stream on the NFL+ app in the US.
NFL bosses say the deal with Netflix is a good opportunity to open the game up to fans outside of the US too.
“We couldn’t be more excited to be the first professional sports league to partner with Netflix to bring live games to fans around the world,” Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s executive vice president of media distribution, said.
“The NFL on Christmas has become a tradition and to partner with Netflix, a service whose biggest day of the year is typically this holiday, is the perfect combination to grow this event globally for NFL fans.”
Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.
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Teens armed with swords allegedly ******* convenience store worker in Melbourne’s CBD
Teens armed with swords allegedly ******* convenience store worker in Melbourne’s CBD
Teens allegedly armed with swords have attacked a convenience store worker in Melbourne’s CBD, leaving him with serious injuries.
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Post Office IT boss calls for subpostmasters to judge him on his actions
Post Office IT boss calls for subpostmasters to judge him on his actions
The Post Office’s IT boss said he doesn’t expect subpostmasters to simply start trusting him and his team because they are new, but to judge them on their actions.
In an interview with Computer Weekly, Andy Nice, the Post Office’s recently installed chief transformation officer, also said he and his team entered their roles with his “eyes wide open” about the challenges ahead. “We all we knew what we were letting ourselves in for,” he told Computer Weekly. “We don’t expect subpostmasters to just start trusting us because we are new people, it will take time and we want to be judged by our actions. How we show up.”
He said the team are determined to make the Horizon system replacement work for subpostmasters. “We don’t want to just come out and say, ‘We are a new team and it will all be fine’ – we want to prove it.”
Nice told Computer Weekly he knew little about the goings on at the organisation until the ITV dramatisation of the Post Office scandal, put it top of the news headlines. “I am like most people on the street,” he said. “I was probably vaguely aware of the Horizon scandal before the ITV drama.”
But after that, his eyes were wide open. Nice said he and his staff have been moved by what they have learnt about the scandal in the past 12 months and want to fix things.
Although the new IT leadership team wasn’t involved in what came before, it must confront it head-on. “I am not linked to the past, but it weights heavy on the business today,” he said. “You can’t get away from it and the damage that was done. The team that have come in are new, and we are keen to talk about it.”
Nice said what has happened to subpostmasters is a motivating force for him and his colleagues in IT. “I don’t think it is possible to watch the drama and documentary and not feel incredibly upset and stressed about what happened to these subpostmasters,” he said. “You can’t help being taken in and moved by it. For me and others that came into the businesses, this is a real driver to getting it fixed.”
Opening up the IT plans
Since Computer Weekly revealed the problems with Horizon and began investigating the scandal back in 2009, no Post Office IT boss has spoken directly to Computer Weekly. Comments have been via press office statements, apart from a cold call to former chief operating officer Mike Young in 2011, where he denied any problems with Horizon.
Nice said he wants this to change and plans transparency. “As a board and executive team, we have agreed we want things to be different; we have agreed we want to be open and transparent internally, with the government, the press, the public and ultimately the subpostmasters,” he said.
Off the shelf vs in-house
Nice and his team were quick to act on arrival at the Post Office, putting a pause on work being done on its planned Horizon replacement, the New Branch IT (NBIT) project.
The NBIT, a project to build an in-house software platform to replace Horizon, was running late and hugely over budget. Costs had increased by £1bn and, as revealed by Computer Weekly in May, a government report described the project as “unachievable”.
On the pause to work being carried out, Nice said: “We felt it was the right thing to do, to pause that piece of work and do a review of the approach and the solutions to see if it was still the way to go.”
Whether to continue with the in-house build or buy a platform off-the-shelf is an major debate within the Post Office, after interim chairman Nigel Railton admitted that one of the mistakes made in the NBIT project was the decision to build in-house.
Computer Weekly has since been told by a source in Post Office IT that the “writing is on the wall” for the in-house project, with an off-the-shelf alternative being sought.
But Nice said a decision has not yet been made. “This is a decision we are not taking lightly and we are working with the government on that as well. As the single shareholder funding this, they need to be comfortable,” he said.
Nice told Computer Weekly a decision will be made before the new financial year begins in April 2025. “We got permission from the government and the board to pause NBIT at the beginning of October, so have only been looking at this in anger for a few weeks,” he said, agreeing that a decision “can’t drag on”.
Nice said the Post Office IT team is currently working on a five-year strategy, and that he hopes they will have a clear picture by the start of the next financial year. “That will sweep up what we are going to do with Horizon, but also branch technology in the broader sense,” he said.
Nice, a former Mothercare and Camelot IT executive who also worked at Accenture, said: “We are a retail organisation, and retail is brutal, and we are trying to keep up with everyone else.
“We are working against Treasury spending reviews, processes and timelines as well,” he added. “So, as we decide what we want to do, we have to feed into that process to make sure we have adequate funding.”
But he said the Post Office is now working collaboratively with the government, which “hasn’t always been the way and hasn’t helped the Post Office as an organisation”.
Work won’t go to waste
Nice said in-house developments that have been running as part of the NBIT project will not be wasted whichever way the organisation decides to go.
He said the programme has been in pilot and delivering functionality for the business. “There is capability delivered out of that, that is in the subpostmasters’ world today, around things like drop and collect,” said Nice.
“But at the heart of that programme is a long-term replacement for Horizon and that is the piece is being looked at in terms of whether we are on the right track. So it doesn’t all stop, a lot of stuff has been done and other stuff continues on the sidelines, but the big central question around what’s the future for Horizon is the one we are revisiting and reviewing right now.”
The messy divorce
Another complication is the Post Office’s reliance on Fujitsu. The ********* IT giant has provided support for the Horizon system since its introduction a quarter of a century ago.
Nice said the Post Office cannot currently end the contract: “In an NBIT world, or any other world, we are not going to be ready to retire and move away from Fujitsu just yet. That’s the reality of our situation.”
The Post Office has requested a four-year extension. “We have been in conversation with Fujitsu about the details of an extension for some time,” said Nice.
“The reason different timeframes have been quoted is because that conversation has bounced around over the past six months, with different options requiring different extensions,” added Nice.
Computer Weekly first exposed the scandal in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to Horizon accounting software, which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history (see below timeline of Computer Weekly articles about the scandal since 2009).
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Parliament holds special session with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy | News
Parliament holds special session with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy | News
EP President Roberta Metsola will make a statement at the beginning of the extraordinary session, after which President Zelenskyy will address MEPs via live video link from Ukraine. Political group leaders will then follow.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the EU and the Parliament have strongly supported the country by condemning Russia’s aggression, imposing sanctions and stepping up its political, humanitarian, military and financial aid to Kyiv.
Parliament has also been a fervent supporter of Ukraine’s efforts to join the EU and has repeatedly called on EU member states to launch accession talks. In addition, MEPs have firmly stated that Russia must compensate financially for the destruction it has caused in Ukraine, arguing that the EU should make use of Moscow’s confiscated state-owned assets to facilitate this.
Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of Ukraine resolutions adopted by MEPs since 2021.
You can follow the extraordinary plenary session live on Parliament’s webstreaming or on EbS+.
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What happens to ESE students when they leave Volusia schools? Families advocate for inclusion
What happens to ESE students when they leave Volusia schools? Families advocate for inclusion
Whether enrolling in college, entering the workforce or enlisting in the military, most high school seniors have an idea of what’s next as they prepare to graduate from Volusia County Schools.
But a streamlined path isn’t always guaranteed.
Parents, siblings and teachers of Exceptional Student Education students said there is often no clear plan for individuals with disabilities and that, historically, the district hasn’t actively assisted them in making the transition.
With a new executive ESE director at the helm this year, the district hopes to build upon what it already offers its students. But that’s one part of the transition plan.
Since resources in Volusia County — like ****** day programs, rehabilitation centers and on-the-job training, among others — are somewhat limited when compared to offerings in other parts of the state, parents said they struggle to find what does exist here.
Until recently, the district didn’t host career, resource or job fairs for ESE students, which made it difficult for families to learn about options early and determine what would be the best fit for them.
Plus, some resources have years-long waitlists, parents said. And if they’re privately owned, they can deny individuals service for being either “too disabled” or “not disabled enough,” parents continued.
So, families became creative in writing their next chapter.
This summer, Shirley Lund and her husband, Frank, opened Pure Joy Cat Cafe, a nonprofit coffee shop with a cat lounge, kitten room and adoption center.
Their son, Isaac Morden, works there. He has Down syndrome and aged out of Volusia County Schools’ transitional program at Seabreeze High School in May.
“Because Volusia County didn’t help us with any sort of transition,” Lund started, “we made the transition ourselves by pretty much creating a new business for Isaac to run.”
Isaac Morden works with some of the clients at the Pure Joy Cat Cafe in Daytona Beach, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024.
Lund said she was generally unsatisfied with her son’s experience in the district and felt Morden was more isolated than included.
“We unfortunately had to advocate strongly for Isaac during his IEPs (individualized education plan meetings) to the point that we reached out to Disability Rights of Florida and had an advocate with us at meetings for the last couple years,” she said.
“We had tried to get Isaac included with the general ed population by having him experience electives, and his favorites were chorus and keyboard and culinary,” she added. “But the school continued to ****** us about that and wanted him isolated in the ESE building. … He should have had the same opportunity that every other high schooler had.”
Morden will help with day-to-day cleaning at the cafe. But his biggest responsibility will be interacting with guests.
“That’s what he lacked while he was at Seabreeze High School — was the socialization with gen ed people,” Lund said. “So we’re trying to make up for lost time.”
Isaac Morden and his dad, Frank Lund, work at the Pure Joy Cat Cafe in Daytona Beach, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024.
Lund will assist with the shop on weekends, and since Morden’s father is retired, he will work there full-time with his son. He is also forming a partnership with Easterseals so other individuals with disabilities can work for pay at the shop, too.
Pure Joy Cat Cafe is located on Beville Road in Daytona Beach and took about a year to get up and running.
“We funded this ourselves, which other families might not have that ability to fund and build a business for their child,” Lund said, noting that costs equaled approximately $100,000 and came from their retirement savings.
“We were really thinking about going to court for due process … and we thought, why spend thousands of dollars to ****** a system, ****** the government and lose? Why not put those thousands of dollars into something positive and grow a business for Isaac? And that’s what we did instead,” she continued. “But even though we didn’t ****** the system … we want our voices heard.”
One parent did take Volusia County Schools to court
Just like Lund, Anni Suadi felt her son’s experience in Volusia County Schools was more isolating than inclusive.
She filed state and federal complaints in 2022 alleging the district discriminated against her son, Lance Avery, who has Down syndrome, and other students with disabilities at Seabreeze High by denying them electives.
A judge sided with the district and determined there was no violation to Avery’s IEP.
In a January 2023 interview, once the final order was determined, Suadi told The News-Journal she wasn’t done fighting. Advocating for inclusion is still her “mission.” And she’s taken tangible strides thus far.
Starting with her son, Suadi found Avery work through the PASS (Plan to Achieve Self-Support) agency, a social security income service helping individuals with disabilities return to work.
Avery aged out of Volusia’s transitional program in December 2022; however, Suadi said he hasn’t attended school since August 2022.
Avery’s first job was at Planet Fitness. Now, he works at the Nova Community Center in Ormond Beach where he greets guests, sweeps floors, cleans windows and puts away gym equipment.
“He’s just awesome,” Suadi said.
Avery also participates in “Active Wednesdays” at the Nova Community Center, a one-hour exercise class for adults with disabilities led by Suadi.
“I see them (and) they glow,” she said. “Fitness and exercise, it gives them more self-esteem and confidence.”
Suadi spoke at Volusia County Schools’ Sept. 24 board meeting, sharing Avery’s story and urging the board to implement the following changes so ESE students can feel more comfortable participating in society:
Allow ESE students to take the same amount of elective courses as general-education students and allow them to eat lunch together.
Recreate a buddy system where general-education students earn volunteer hours for walking ESE students to class.
Reinstate on-campus internships for ESE transitional students so they can spend more time with general-education students and less time traveling off-site.
Anni Suadi, right, and son Lance Avery work together as she leads an exercise class of adults with disabilities, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2024, at the Nova Community Center in Ormond Beach.
In the last few months, Suadi also assisted Ormond Beach Mayor Bill Partington in launching a pilot program to help adults with disabilities find employment.
“They would just come in for a couple hours … and they’d be paid for it … and somebody would supervise them or work with them to help them create job skills that they could actually utilize in real life,” Partington said. “And the goal is being to provide them with a better opportunity to be employed and also to kind of normalize their existence in society.”
While it is still in its “infancy,” the program will launch in upcoming weeks and last about four to six months, Partington said. If successful, it will continue and expand.
“I want to see them out in the community,” Suadi said, “… because when they leave there, they go home. They don’t have really too much going on in their life.”
No other option than to stay home
Monica Gray is a single mom to her son, Grayson Graves, who has severe autism and optic nerve hypoplasia with legal blindness.
Graves aged out of Deltona High’s transitional program in December 2022.
Monica Gray with her son, Grayson Graves, at their Deltona home, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024.
He wakes up every morning around 2 a.m., talking or singing “at the top of his lungs.” Eventually, he falls back to sleep until he officially starts the day between 5 and 7 a.m.
Graves needs help bathing, using the bathroom and taking medications.
He needs assistance and supervision while eating because he doesn’t maneuver utensils well on his own and sometimes, he tries to ******** “giant bites” of food whole.
Additionally, he trips and falls frequently, “partly because he has low muscle tone, partly because of his low vision,” Gray said.
And when he gets frustrated, he hits himself in the face.
“He bites his hands, his knuckles … out of frustration, and so sometimes, of course, the calluses are thicker, and then they’ll split open and then he’s bleeding,” Gray said. “So there’s a lot of dealing with his psychiatric provider to try to get the medications for his autism and his anxieties.”
Monica Gray with her son, Grayson Graves, at their Deltona home, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024.
Graves has been denied from everything he has tried to join.
“Grayson (first) ******* out of three different programs because of the noise he makes, and he’s disruptive. I do not dispute that at all,” Gray said. “But because they are private entities, rather than publicly funded, there’s no impetus for them to continue to try to work with him because they could get him out and have somebody else come in.”
After that, Graves tried vocational rehabilitation but was told the program relied heavily on computer-based modules.
“Because Grayson doesn’t have the fine motor skills, the ability to pay attention for that long, and the vision issues … he’s not going to sit and maneuver a module on the computer with the mouse and the keyboard without having somebody there one-on-one, so they said we’re not a good fit,” Gray said.
Graves then moved on to the ****** day program at Duvall Homes in DeLand, but Gray said he was denied because he was higher functioning than everyone else.
Lastly, he tried participating in ****** day training at Arc of Volusia, first in DeLand, then in Daytona Beach, but Graves didn’t acclimate well there either.
Monica Gray hugs her son, Grayson Graves, at their Deltona home, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024.
“I’ve got him and my job that I have to give my attention to,” Gray said. “And we’re basically just flying by the seat of our pants because there’s no county-based, state-based, whatever program that can take him.”
When she can’t manage it all herself, Gray leans on her village: her 74-year-old mom, her brother who was recently in the hospital with an inoperable brain tumor, and a friend. Since Graves needs around-the-clock assistance, Gray also uses a small CNA service, which costs $23 an hour when she has to.
“We just take it as it comes,” she said.
Gray isn’t the only one ‘flying by the seat of our pants’
Ashley McCaffrey was a paraprofessional, substitute and ESE teacher at Deltona High before switching to remote work in 2021.
Her primary focus is caregiving to her twin sisters, Brittany and Caitlin Boger, who both have epilepsy, autism, and fragile X.
When the Bogers aged out of Deltona High in 2006, they were “grandfathered” into ******* Cerebral Palsy, a nonprofit that tries to ensure people with disabilities are included in the workplace and community.
“There was a great grant where they could go a couple of days a week, and we just put in the bill for the Votran, which was $20 a day round trip to go to and from Deltona, Daytona,” McCaffrey said. “Then, funding got cut.”
Prices increased to $150 per day, plus transportation, so they explored other options.
“Nothing ever worked,” she said. “Somebody didn’t like the way that they worked, or they didn’t move fast enough or they talked to too many people or whatever, so we just adjusted our life to be able to provide them the support that they needed.”
With help from her brother and parents, Ashley McCaffrey cares for her twin sisters, Brittany and Caitlin Boger, who both have epilepsy, autism and fragile X.
McCaffrey and her husband, her brother and their parents shifted their work schedules so their lifestyles could accommodate caring for the twins, who will never be able to live independently.
“We have one during the week, Sunday through Friday, and then they’ll both go home on the weekends and then we switch off,” she said. “We do that so we have a structured schedule of workouts, chores, daily activities, daily socialization to keep them active in the community.”
McCaffrey’s family started talking about the twins’ future when they were in middle school.
“We decided that we’re going to be their primary caretakers,” she said. “We’re not going to put them in a group home unless one of us absolutely cannot take care of them any longer.”
She believes having conversations about the future early and often is vital for success.
“We did everything in our power as a family to ensure that the ****** can have the best life that they possibly could,” she said. “I think if the families are given the right amount of resources, or they know where to go, they can (be successful), but the county as a whole doesn’t provide a lot of resources.”
Some parts of Florida have it figured out
McCaffrey praised resources in Palm Beach and Broward counties.
“They actually have therapeutical day programs. They have occupational therapists. They have more hands-on … vocational programs for special needs individuals where they can go and learn a job trade or work a couple hours a week,” she said.
Gray also admires other counties and said if she could implement her dream, she would open a program mirroring Special Hearts Farm in Winter Garden, which provides individuals with disabilities and unique abilities ****** day training, supported employment and entrepreneurial business opportunities, according to its website.
“There’s a connection there that can be made between the animals and … people who are not well adept at the social interaction,” she said. “There’s a lot of pressure involved in human interaction and human social situations, and it’s not there (with animals.) It’s just pureness.”
Orange County Public Schools collaborates with Special Hearts Farm to create a “true transition opportunity.” Participants can host events like goat yoga classes as well as produce and sell products like soap and rustic signs, its website said.
Mary Tilford, an ESE teacher at Deltona High who currently serves multi-handicapped, varying exceptionalities students, has been with the district for 30 years and is a Volusia ******* Educator’s union member. She agreed something like Special Hearts Farm would thrive in Volusia County.
“I would love for this district to please put some money into programs that would benefit these children after they graduate because what happens … is many of them just walk off a pier and drop, and that’s it,” she said. “There’s nothing in place for them, and that is a very sad thing. They need more attention. They need more money. They need so much, and we have to ask for it for them because they can’t ask for it themselves, and their parents are overwhelmed.”
Tilford loves her students and worries often about their well-being once they leave the district. She told The News-Journal she wants better for them, and she won’t retire until she sees change.
“The last thing I want them to do is have to sit at home with nothing,” she said.
“As long as I have (a) breath in my body,” she continued, “I’m going to keep speaking out for them.”
Jacquese Copeland, who has been the district’s executive ESE director since July, also sees benefits with this program and said she reached out to Orange County stakeholders to learn more about it.
“I really don’t want to put any limitations on our work,” Copeland said. “I think it’s an amazing opportunity for kids and (I’m) just seeing what we can do here in Volusia.”
New district leadership brings new goals
Copeland told The News-Journal that Volusia County Schools begins its transition process when students are in middle school. Every nine weeks, they update a teacher on their interests, she added, and parents are included in the conversation annually at an IEP meeting.
“This is the law,” Superintendent Carmen Balgobin said at the Sept. 24 board meeting. “And there is a log that’s kept in the reporting that’s provided to the state because we have to show proof that this transition is taking place.”
Once students reach high school, Copeland said they begin discussing different options, deciding what type of diploma they want and determining if they will participate in the Project SEARCH transitional program where they could work, collaborate with job coaches and employment advisors and participate in on-the-job training.
“Thankfully, seemingly, the courts have ruled in our favor twice that Project SEARCH is a great program and we should encourage our students to continue to participate in that program,” board member Ruben Colón said at the Sept. 24 meeting.
McCaffrey noted that when she taught in the district, general-education students had career, resource and job fairs, but ESE students didn’t.
Copeland confirmed the district implemented ESE Family Nights two years ago, and it will host the third this spring.
“That is an evening of transition resources, curricular resources, community resources, everything under our umbrella of ESE in terms of speech, occupational therapy, physical therapy, our assistive technology, anything parents would have access to on this evening, and they have access to the person who can get them what they need to be successful for that student,” she said. “That is a practice that we will continue as long as I’m in the position.”
Copeland said parents should reach out to her directly or join the ESE advisory group if they believe their child’s experience in the district has been isolating.
“We don’t ever want a child or a family to feel like their child is not being included in anything to do in Volusia County,” she said. “So … we can work together to ensure that no family has that perception of Volusia County Schools at all.”
As she continues her first year overseeing the district’s ESE department, Copeland ******** hopeful, confident and committed to listening and collaborating with the community so that the program can continue improving.
“With me, it’s all about … having that listening ear for my end user,” she said. “Also, I have an amazing support of our superintendent and the school board in this work … and they’re in full support of making sure that this department gets back on the right track and making sure that we have the right people to help us do that work.”
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Volusia parents advocate for inclusion of children with disabilities
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Half-Life 2 has broken its concurrent Steam players record 20 years after release
Half-Life 2 has broken its concurrent Steam players record 20 years after release
The number of people playing Half-Life 2 at the same time reached potentially its highest point ever on Sunday.
SteamDB reports that the game reached a peak of 52,029 players on Saturday, which then rose to 64,085 concurrent players on Sunday.
This is significantly higher than the game has ever reached before, with the highest peak on record being around 16,000 during a community event in August 2021. Other than that, it has only risen over 5,000 concurrents on a rare handful of occasions.
SteamDB notes that its tracking service started on September 2008, and that it therefore can’t account for any stats accrued by Half-Life 2 in its first four years of release.
It’s certainly a significantly higher count since records began 16 years ago, however.
The huge surge in players comes as the result of a 20th anniversary celebration held by Valve over the weekend, during which time Half-Life 2 was temporarily given away for free (at the time of writing, it ******** free to claim for another few hours).
Half-Life 2 reaches 50,000 concurrent players on Steam on its 20th anniversary.
We only have data going back to 2008, so we don’t really know how many played on its original release. pic.twitter.com/r3kkWjd6fG
— SteamDB (@SteamDB) November 16, 2024
The surprise 20th Anniversary Update also added the Episode One and Episode Two expansions to the base game, enabling players to play through the game and both expansions as one playthrough.
A new developer’s commentary was also added to the base Half-Life 2 game, along with integrated Steam Workshop support and numerous bug fixes and new graphical options.
A documentary celebrating the game’s 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2 was also released, showing off development footage of the cancelled Half-Life 2: Episode 3.
The documentary follows the development of the 2004 PC game and features interviews with the majority of the game’s most prominent developers, including Valve boss Gabe Newell.
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AI could cause ‘social ruptures’ between people who disagree on its sentience | Artificial intelligence (AI)
AI could cause ‘social ruptures’ between people who disagree on its sentience | Artificial intelligence (AI)
Significant “social ruptures” between people who think artificial intelligence systems are conscious and those who insist the technology feels nothing are looming, a leading philosopher has said.
The comments, from Jonathan Birch, a professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics, come as governments prepare to gather this week in San Francisco to accelerate the creation of guardrails to tackle the most severe risks of AI.
Last week, a transatlantic group of academics predicted that the dawn of consciousness in AI systems is likely by 2035 and one has now said this could result in “subcultures that view each other as making huge mistakes” about whether computer programmes are owed similar ******** rights as humans or animals.
Birch said he was “worried about major societal splits”, as people differ over whether AI systems are actually capable of feelings such as pain and joy.
The debate about the consequence of sentience in AI has echoes of science fiction films, such as Steven Spielberg’s AI (2001) and Spike Jonze’s Her (2013), in which humans grapple with the feeling of AIs. AI safety bodies from the US, *** and other nations will meet tech companies this week to develop stronger safety frameworks as the technology rapidly advances.
There are already significant differences between how different countries and religions view animal sentience, such as between India, where hundreds of millions of people are vegetarian, and America which is one of the largest consumers of meat in the world. Views on the sentience of AI could break along similar lines, while the view of theocracies, like Saudi Arabia, which is positioning itself as an AI hub, could also differ from secular states. The issue could also cause tensions within families with people who develop close relationships with chatbots, or even AI avatars of deceased loved ones, clashing with relatives who believe that only flesh and blood creatures have consciousness.
Birch, an expert in animal sentience who has pioneered work leading to a growing number of bans on octopus farming, was a co-author of a study involving academics and AI experts from New York University, Oxford University, Stanford University and the Eleos and Anthropic AI companies that says the prospect of AI systems with their own interests and moral significance “is no longer an issue only for sci-fi or the distant future”.
They want the big tech firms developing AI to start taking it seriously by determining the sentience of their systems to assess if their models are capable of happiness and suffering, and whether they can be benefited or harmed.
“I’m quite worried about major societal splits over this,” Birch said. “We’re going to have subcultures that view each other as making huge mistakes … [there could be] huge social ruptures where one side sees the other as very cruelly exploiting AI while the other side sees the first as deluding itself into thinking there’s sentience there.”
But he said AI firms “want a really tight focus on the reliability and profitability … and they don’t want to get sidetracked by this debate about whether they might be creating more than a product but actually creating a new form of conscious being. That question, of supreme interest to philosophers, they have commercial reasons to downplay.”
One method of determining how conscious an AI is could be to follow the system of markers used to guide policy about animals. For example, an octopus is considered to have greater sentience than a snail or an oyster.
Any assessment would effectively ask if a chatbot on your phone could actually be happy or sad or if the robots programmed to do your domestic chores suffer if you do not treat them well. Consideration would even need to be given to whether an automated warehouse system had the capacity to feel thwarted.
Another author, Patrick Butlin, research fellow at Oxford University’s Global Priorities Institute, said: “We might identify a risk that an AI system would try to resist us in a way that would be dangerous for humans” and there might be an argument to “slow down AI development” until more work is done on consciousness.
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“These kinds of assessments of potential consciousness aren’t happening at the moment,” he said.
Microsoft and Perplexity, two leading US companies involved in building AI systems, declined to comment on the academics’ call to assess their models for sentience. Meta, Open AI and Google also did not respond.
Not all experts agree on the looming consciousness of AI systems. Anil Seth, a leading neuroscientist and consciousness researcher, has said it “******** far away and might not be possible at all. But even if unlikely, it is unwise to dismiss the possibility altogether”.
He distinguishes between intelligence and consciousness. The former is the ability to do the right thing at the right time, the latter is a state in which we are not just processing information but “our minds are filled with light, colour, shade and shapes. Emotions, thoughts, beliefs, intentions – all feel a particular way to us.”
But AI large-language models, trained on billions of words of human writing, have already started to show they can be motivated at least by concepts of pleasure and pain. When AIs including Chat GPT-4o were tasked with maximising points in a game, researchers found that if there was a trade-off included between getting more points and “feeling” more pain, the AIs would make it, another study published last week showed.
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Baird upgrades Roku, says the stock is a buy after its big 2024 drop
Baird upgrades Roku, says the stock is a buy after its big 2024 drop
Roku’s huge underperformance this year has created an attractive buying opportunity for investors, according to Baird. Analyst Vikram Kesavabhotla upgraded the stock to outperform from neutral and hiked his price target by $20 to $90, implying more than 30% upside from Friday’s close. Year to date, shares are down nearly 25%. In contrast, the S & P 500 has risen around 23% this year. “ROKU is well positioned to capture the benefits of an ongoing transition toward streaming activity, having already achieved meaningful scale with ~86M active accounts,” he told clients in a Monday note. “We also believe the continued fragmentation of content and heightened industry focus on monetization/engagement should help magnify the value of ROKU’s platform.” ROKU YTD mountain ROKU, year-to-date In addition to industry trends that Kesavabhotla thinks are “increasingly favorable,” positive changes to the company’s strategy – such as the introduction of video ads on its home screen and the incorporation of new landing pages – could drive share growth in the long term, the analyst said. “Management is also expressing a disciplined approach toward operating expense growth going forward, which should allow ROKU to consistently deliver operating leverage over the coming years,” Kesavabhotla added. With that in mind, he sees the company delivering “sustained” double-digit revenue growth in its platform segment as well as more margin expansion. Wall Street is pretty neutral on the name, however. Among the 32 analysts covering Roku, 17 have a holding rating, LSEG data shows. Meanwhile, 13 of them have a strong buy or buy rating. The average target still implies sizable gains ahead, reflecting about 15% upside, as of Friday’s close. Shares jumped more than 3% in the premarket on the heels of the analyst’s call.
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Rodrigo Bentancur: Tottenham midfielder banned for seven matches over ******* slur about Son Heung-min
Rodrigo Bentancur: Tottenham midfielder banned for seven matches over ******* slur about Son Heung-min
Tottenham midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur has been banned for seven matches by the Football Association for using a ******* slur about team-mate Son Heung-min.
Bentancur, who has also been fined £100,000, was charged by the FA in September after comments made while appearing on TV in his home country of Uruguay in June.
“Rodrigo Bentancur denied this charge, but the independent regulatory commission found it to be proven and imposed his sanctions following a hearing,” said an FA statement.
The 27-year-old will not return to domestic action until 26 December, missing Premier League matches against Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea, plus Spurs’ League Cup quarter-final against Manchester *******.
He will still be available for Tottenham’s Europa League matches.
When charging the Uruguay international the FA said it was “an alleged breach of FA rule E3 for misconduct in relation to a media interview”.
The FA said this constituted an “aggravated breach… as it included a reference, whether express or implied, to nationality and/or race and/or ******* origin”.
Bentancur apologised to Son, who said he would “not mean to ever intentionally say something offensive”.
In the media interview in question, asked by a presenter for a Tottenham shirt, Bentancur replied: “Sonny’s? It could be Sonny’s cousin too as they all look the same.”
He later apologised on social media and said his comments were a “very bad joke”.
Bentancur has played 15 times for Tottenham this season and scored his first goal of the campaign in a defeat by Ipswich on 11 November.
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