Pelican Press

Chrystia Freeland Eyes Justin Trudeau’s Job as Canada’s Liberal Party Leader Chrystia Freeland Eyes Justin Trudeau’s Job as Canada’s Liberal Party Leader The protester leaped on to the stage, lunged at Chrystia Freeland and screamed within inches of her face. She didn’t flinch. Her January campaign launch for leadership of the Liberal Party, and by extension Canada, was disrupted, but the encounter made a point no stump speech could have landed as effectively: She’s unflappable. Ms. Freeland, a career journalist from Alberta who rose through elite institutions to become a top politician, is now running to replace the man who brought her into politics, Justin Trudeau. On Sunday, Canada’s Liberal Party will announce the results of its election for a new leader, chosen by 400,000 members. The winner will also become Canada’s prime minister, though not for long: The party does not command a majority in Parliament, so has a weak grip on power. Federal elections must take place before October. Ms. Freeland’s dramatic December resignation as finance minister, deputy prime minister, and all-around right-hand woman to Mr. Trudeau triggered his own decision to step down, plunging Canada into political turmoil. This has come as Canada is thrust in crisis. This week President Trump made good on his threat to impose sweeping tariffs on ********* goods and, while he eased some of those measures Thursday, he made plain he would continue to hit Canada’s economy with surcharges. Canada retaliated, entering an uneven trade war with its closest economic partner. Mr. Trump has also menaced Canada in a more existential way, insisting he wants to make it the 51st state. Grist in the Mill Canadians are evaluating their political leaders on the basis of who is best to fight for Canada against Mr. Trump, polling shows. Ms. Freeland, 56, is the underdog. She is running against a friend, the former central banker Mark Carney, who is the front-runner. Mr. Trump has repeatedly expressed his dislike of Ms. Freeland. During his first presidency, she led the ********* side on the renegotiation of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement. By all accounts, she drove a tough bargain and won concessions for Canada. When she announced she was stepping down in December, Mr. Trump posted, “Her behavior was totally toxic.” And last week, in an interview with the British outlet The Spectator, he doubled down: “She’s a whack,” he said. “She’s absolutely terrible for the country.” But Ms. Freeland seems to be relishing the fight. “Donald Trump doesn’t like me very much,” she says with a smile on one of her ads. On her Instagram, she posted a New York Times article about Mr. Trump disparaging her, adding a dismissive caption: a manicure emoji. “I have a strategy when it comes to the single biggest challenge Canada is facing: fighting for Canada, standing up to Trump,” she said in an interview with The Times at her Toronto home last month. And despite the antipathy, she had praise for him. “I have a lot of respect for President Trump,” she said. “He is not afraid of being a disrupter, he glories in it, and he knows how to use that to his own benefit, and in many situations, it works,” she added. Less ardent critics see Ms. Freeland’s effort to differentiate herself from Mr. Trudeau as too little too late, and hold her accountable for her central role in his now unpopular government. Liberal Rise Ms. Freeland’s had a modest childhood, raised by divorced parents and spending long stretches working on the family farm in Peace River, Alberta, and in Edmonton, where her mother, a Ukrainian immigrant, worked as a lawyer. Ms. Freeland left Alberta on a scholarship at 16 to finish high school at a selective international school in Italy. She later studied at Harvard and was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. While at Harvard she spent time in Ukraine as an exchange student, and became involved in Ukraine’s then nascent independence movement. Her activism reportedly caught the eye of the K.G.B., which code-named her “Frida.” Declassified K.G.B. documents showed the Soviet intelligence service loathed and admired her, calling her “a remarkable individual,” according to a report in the Globe and Mail. She rose within the ranks of some of international journalism’s most venerable institutions, serving as a senior editor at The Financial Times and Reuters, with a brief stint at Canada’s Globe and Mail. Ms. Freeland is married to Graham Bowley, a reporter on the Culture desk of The New York Times; they have three children. Former co-workers and friends describe her as preternaturally active and decidedly no-frills: much of the furniture in her home is second hand. Most surfaces in her living room are covered in books and Ukrainian art hangs on the walls. She is known to bicycle everywhere, no matter the weather. She forgoes security. Minister of Everything In 2013, she moved her family from New York to Toronto, after Mr. Trudeau convinced her to run as a Liberal Party candidate. He had just been elected as leader, and the party was in tatters, stuck in third place. Ms. Freeland takes pride in making what she calls “iconoclastic, high-risk decisions” and leaving journalism to join a party in bad shape was one of them. “I called up lots of people, my friends, lifetime mentors, and everyone’s advice was: ‘Do not do it,’” she said. Ms. Freeland won her seat and, within two years, Mr. Trudeau had brought the party back from the dead. At his swearing in as prime minister in 2015, she was by his side. She served in key jobs, including foreign and finance minister. The joke in Ottawa was that she was his “minister of everything.” Her relentless energy and grasp of technical issues distinguished her, but her detractors said she came across as condescending or stiff in public. She was heavily criticized for suggesting people cancel their Disney+ subscriptions as a response to an affordability crisis. Despite her own professed dedication to fiscal discipline, Ms. Freeland oversaw significant spending. She remained loyal to Mr. Trudeau, even as Canadians started turning on him, and her leading role in his government has become a burden as she’s tried to separate herself from his legacy. “People know there’s a difference between playing on a team and leading a team,” she said, adding that she was proud of the work she had done in government. Family Drama The end of her collaboration with Mr. Trudeau remains something of a mystery. Mr. Trudeau, on a December Zoom call, told Ms. Freeland he would demote her to U.S.-Canada envoy and give her finance minister job to Mr. Carney, who is unelected. Ms. Freeland and Mr. Trudeau had been in conflict over spending, believing some of his moves to ease financial burdens on Canadians were frivolous and politically motivated. She wanted to save money to deal with Mr. Trump’s tariffs, which she saw as inevitable. She resigned soon after the Zoom call. It was the final blow to Mr. Trudeau who, despite his unpopularity, had intended to remain Liberal leader and take the party to the next federal election. Ms. Freeland said she did not anticipate her resignation would lead to Mr. Trudeau’s. Mr. Trudeau has not commented on the events, nor has Mr. Carney, who did not agree to an interview. Ms. Freeland’s campaign has been focused on reshaping a new image outside Mr. Trudeau’s shadow. She has been churning out detailed policy plans and broke with Mr. Trudeau on a controversial carbon tax that he had championed. And she has tried to present herself as the grass roots, not the elite candidate — most of Mr. Trudeau’s cabinet has endorsed Mr. Carney — and in the process de-emphasize her own liberal establishment background. “A failing of the center left is that it can be to be a little too technocratic, and to act like the technocrats have all the answers,” she said. One of the first decisions she’ll make if she wins, is decide when to hold a federal election. She’s not in a hurry. “It may well be that when we look at the situation in March and further challenges ahead in April, I may decide as prime minister, we may decide as Liberals, and frankly it may be the view of Canadians, that Canada would be better off having a stable government for a few months,” she said. As for Mr. Carney who is, among other things, her youngest child’s godfather, she has been careful not to attack him. “I have a lot of respect for Mark,” she said. “I would be really happy if he were to serve as finance minister in my government.” Source link #Chrystia #Freeland #Eyes #Justin #Trudeaus #Job #Canadas #Liberal #Party #Leader Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

How the FDA lets chemicals pour into America’s food supply How the FDA lets chemicals pour into America’s food supply Joseph Shea, who sells athletic wear in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, wonders and worries about the food he eats. The chemical ingredients with mystifying names. The references on product labels to unspecified natural or artificial flavors. The junk food that fits his budget but feels addictive and makes him feel unwell. Shea, one of 1,310 people who responded to a poll the health policy research group KFF conducted on health care priorities, said he assumes the FDA is making sure the ingredients are safe. In many cases, it is not. The FDA’s restraints on food ingredients are limited and relatively feeble, especially compared with those in Europe, a KFF Health News examination found. There are at least 950 substances in our food that are not permitted in Europe, according to one expert’s estimate, and chemicals linked to health concerns show up in hundreds of products that line the shelves of American supermarkets. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new head of the Department of Health and Human Services, has railed about the risks of food additives for years and has said he wants to end “the mass poisoning of American children.” At a March 6 confirmation hearing, Martin Makary, President Trump’s nominee to head the FDA, expressed concern about foods “with a lot of molecules that do not appear in nature.” “These are chemicals that the industry insists are safe, a subset of which are concerning,” he said. But the Trump administration’s initial moves to reduce staff at the FDA led the director of its food safety unit, Jim Jones, to resign last month and raised fears among food safety specialists that the administration could weaken oversight. To a great extent, the FDA leaves it to food companies to determine whether their ingredients and additives are safe. Companies don’t have to tell the FDA about those decisions, and they don’t have to list all ingredients on their product labels. Though pharmaceutical companies are required to share research on humans with the FDA, the agency is largely blind to what food-makers know about their products. “The food industry does massive amounts of research that we have no access to,” Robert Califf told a Senate committee in December on his way out as FDA commissioner. As a result: The FDA’s oversight of food additives is much weaker than its oversight of prescription drugs. “There is good reason to be concerned about the chemicals that are routinely included in much of our food,” Califf testified. Food is a big business. American consumers spend almost $1.7 trillion annually on food and beverages, according to Circana, a research and advisory firm. Yet American food companies keep secret much of what they put in their products. KFF Health News asked nine of the largest food manufacturers — The Coca-Cola Co., Conagra Brands, General Mills, Kellanova (successor to Kellogg), The Kraft Heinz Co., Mondelēz International, Nestlé, PepsiCo, and Unilever — for the number of ingredients, if any, that go unnamed on their product labels and the names of those ingredients deemed safe without involvement by the FDA, and substances used in their products in the United States but not in Europe, and vice versa. None provided answers to those questions. “We focus on the quality of the ingredients that we use, and all comply with applicable regulatory requirements,” Nestlé spokesperson Dana Stambaugh said. Chemicals such as titanium dioxide and potassium bromate, whose safety has been debated, are allowed in foods in the United States but not in Europe. Corporations may turn a blind eye to potential dangers, a July 2024 FDA-funded report warned. Potentially harmful ingredients “are not necessarily required to be named on a product label,” the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA, an adjunct to the agency, said in the report, which was based largely on interviews with representatives of companies across the food supply chain. “Companies may choose not to track the presence of these ingredients/compounds due to concern about future litigation,” the report said. Some additives can remain hidden from the public behind such catchall terms as “spices” and “artificial flavors,” as the Center for Science in the Public Interest has reported, or shrouded by other exemptions from disclosure requirements. And some ingredients that should have been listed on product labels — potential allergens such as milk, wheat, eggs, and dyes — have at times gone undisclosed, according to a series of food recalls. Gaps in oversight have alarmed political leaders on both sides of the aisle, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, watchdog groups such as the CSPI, and academic researchers. Adding to the concern: the profusion of ultra-processed foods, which use a wide array of chemicals to add flavor and color, extend shelf life, reduce cost, control texture or consistency, and generally tempt people to eat more. Ultra-processed foods now make up 73% of the U.S. food supply, researchers have estimated. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has said there’s growing evidence they are “deliberately designed to be addictive,” contributing to an epidemic of obesity — a rare point of agreement between him and Kennedy. At his confirmation hearing, Makary said some ingredients cause a chronic, low-grade inflammatory reaction in the gastrointestinal tract. “And what are we doing? We are drugging our nation’s children at scale,” he said. The KFF poll found that 58% of respondents want the Trump administration to prioritize setting stricter limits on chemicals in the U.S. food supply. The Consumer Brands Association, which represents many of the largest food-makers, defends the regulatory system as “rigorous,” “evidence-based,” and “proven.” The system enables companies “to innovate to meet consumer demand,” Sarah Gallo, the association’s senior vice president of product policy, said in a statement to KFF Health News. “Food manufacturers attest to the safety of an ingredient through the development of extensive scientific evidence and third-party expert review,” Gallo added. More than a decade ago, Pew Charitable Trusts estimated that there were about 10,000 additives allowed in food in the United States — and that the FDA had not reviewed the safety of about 3,000 of them. “The system is fundamentally broken,” said Thomas Neltner, one of the authors of the Pew study. “It’s so bad, nobody knows — not even FDA knows — what’s in our food.” Banned abroad The FDA allows titanium dioxide to be used to enhance the appearance of foods, among other purposes. According to an Environmental Working Group database, it’s listed as an ingredient in more than 1,900 products, including many candies. The European Union takes a more cautious approach. In 2021, an EU regulatory panel concluded that titanium dioxide “can no longer be considered as safe when used as a food additive.” The panel said it couldn’t rule out the possibility that titanium dioxide could damage chromosomes. The FDA allows potassium bromate to be used in baking, and, according to the EWG database, it’s listed as an ingredient in more than 200 products, including bread, buns, and bagels. Potassium bromate has been banned from food in many countries, including those of the European Union, Canada, India, and Peru. In 2023, California banned it from food effective in 2027. The United Kingdom prohibited it in 1990. The International Agency for Research on ******* identified it as possibly carcinogenic more than 25 years ago. A joint committee of the United Nations and the World Health Organization identified it as a “genotoxic carcinogen” in 1992. On its website, the FDA says it has worked with industry to minimize potassium bromate levels and is reviewing the chemical, among others. The EWG says that it created the database to help consumers make healthier choices and that the raw data on product labels is supplied by Label Insight — which is owned by NielsenIQ, a major provider of data to industry. The EWG has called for tighter regulation of foods. Based on a review of FDA and European Commission databases, it appears that at least 950 more additives are used in foods in the United States than are allowed in the European Union, said Erik Millstone, an emeritus professor at the University of Sussex in England who has been studying food safety policy since the 1970s. Direct comparisons are difficult because the two regulatory systems and the way they keep their records differ greatly. A definitive count is elusive because the FDA doesn’t require industry to inform it of everything used in foods in the United States. “That kind of casual neglect totally would be unacceptable in Europe,” Millstone said. “Several decades behind Europeans” When the FDA formally approves substances for use in food, it can let decades pass without reassessing them — even when subsequent research raises doubts about their safety. In January, when the FDA banned Red Dye No. 3 from foods, it cited research published in 1987. (The FDA said it had no evidence the dye puts people at risk; invoking one of the stricter consumer protections, it said a law from 1960 prohibits the use of additives found to induce ******* in animals.) In the European Union, substances used in foods must pass regulatory approval before being introduced. The EU has also required that its regulators reassess all additives that were on the market before Jan. 20, 2009, a process that is ongoing. “In the FDA, although we have authorization to do post-market reviews, there’s no statutory mandate to do them,” Jones, the former deputy commissioner of the FDA’s Human Foods Program, told a Senate committee in December. “We are several decades behind Europeans and our ********* counterparts because they have legal mandates to reevaluate chemicals that have been authorized at some point in the past.” The FDA website lists 19 post-market determinations since 2010 that substances were not “generally recognized as safe.” Four involve chemical constituents of one mushroom and the mushroom itself. Others include an anabolic steroid, caffeinated alcoholic beverages, cannabidiol (CBD), Ginkgo biloba, melatonin, and partially hydrogenated oils. Meanwhile, trichloroethylene, banned by the Environmental Protection Agency in December as “an extremely toxic chemical known to cause liver *******, kidney *******, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,” is still allowed under FDA rules for use as a solvent in the production of foods. FDA spokesperson Enrico Dinges said the agency will work with new leadership at HHS “to safeguard the food supply through pre-market and post-market safety evaluations of chemicals in the food supply.” “The loophole swallowed the law” The biggest gap in the FDA’s oversight of foods goes back generations. In 1958, Congress mandated that, before additives could be used in foods, manufacturers had to prove they were safe and get FDA approval. However, Congress carved out an exception for substances “generally recognized as safe,” which came to be known simply as GRAS. As conceived, GRAS promised regulatory relief for standard ingredients like salt, sugar, vinegar, and baking powder — along with many chemicals. Over time, “the loophole swallowed the law,” said a 2014 report by Neltner and Maricel Maffini for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Companies can unilaterally decide their ingredients are already recognized as safe and use them without asking the FDA for permission or even informing the agency. A better translation of GRAS would be “Generally Recognized as SECRET,” the Natural Resources Defense Council report said. A federal watchdog reached a similar conclusion. “GRAS substances can be marketed without FDA’s approval or even its knowledge,” the Government Accountability Office warned in 2010. That spared the FDA from spending time reviewing countless substances. For advice on whether ingredients are GRAS, companies may convene panels of specialists. The FDA has noted that panel members could be paid by the companies commissioning the review, but, in guidance to industry, it says “such compensation is not itself an unacceptable conflict.” About 3,000 flavoring ingredients have been deemed GRAS by a panel of scientists working for an industry group, the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association of the United States, known as FEMA, said George Southworth, the organization’s executive director. The scientists on the FEMA panel “adhere to stringent conflict-of-interest policies,” and their GRAS determinations are submitted to the FDA, which includes them in an online database, Southworth said. Southworth described the panel as independent, and the FEMA website says panel members have never been employees of companies in the food industry. Asked how many times FEMA’s panel found that a flavoring didn’t meet the test, Southworth wouldn’t say. He indicated that some reviews are called off before a conclusion is reached. “Publicly reporting these numbers without full context could lead to misinterpretations about the safety of substances,” he added. Another way Food companies have another option: They can voluntarily notify the FDA that they believe their product is GRAS for its intended use and lay out their reasons — giving the FDA a heads up and essentially seeking its blessing. If they take that route, they don’t have to wait for an answer from the FDA to begin marketing the product, the agency has said. And they don’t risk much. If the FDA spots weaknesses in a company’s argument or reasons to worry about a chemical’s safety, it routinely calls off its review instead of declaring the substance unsafe. FDA records posted on the agency’s website show that the FDA often coaches companies to ask the agency to cease its evaluation. That, too, leaves the company free to sell the product, food watchdogs said. For companies that voluntarily run their products past the FDA, victory is a letter saying the agency has no questions. But if companies market products as “generally recognized as safe” without firm grounds, they run the risk that the FDA could one day take enforcement action, such as issuing a warning or stopping sales. That’s if the FDA notices. Psyched out On March 8, 2022, a ********* company, Psyched Wellness, issued a news release saying it had a green light to market products in the United States. An “independent review panel of scientific experts” concluded that an extract the company developed, AME-1, was “Generally Recognized As Safe,” paving the way for it to be sold in bulk and used as an ingredient, the company said. The company described the panel’s judgment as a successful “certification” and “a key milestone.” The extract was derived from a hallucinogenic mushroom, Amanita muscaria, which the company said “has incredible healing and medicinal powers.” As the company later put it in a news release, it had obtained “self-Gras status.” In June 2024, the company announced that it would soon release Amanita muscaria watermelon gummies. However, the FDA later took issue with the company and its product. In a memo dated Sept. 9, 2024, an FDA toxicologist said Psyched Wellness’ claim of GRAS certification was false. The firm failed to show that its extract was generally recognized as safe, the FDA memo said. Speaking of the mushroom, its extracts, and its known “pharmacologically active constituents,” the FDA memo posted on the agency’s website said they have “potential for serious harm and adverse effects on the central nervous system.” The FDA was focusing on the mushroom against the backdrop of a spate of medical problems linked to another company’s “Diamond Shruumz” brand chocolate bars, gummies, and infused cones. When it recalled those products in June 2024, that other company announced that a chemical found in Amanita mushrooms was a possible cause of symptoms, including seizures and loss of consciousness. The FDA memo discussed that recall and said one death and 30 hospitalizations might have been related. The memo did not connect Psyched Wellness to the outbreak or the Diamond Shruumz products. The chief executive of Psyched Wellness, Jeffrey Stevens, did not respond to an interview request or written questions. As recently as Feb. 1, Psyched Wellness said in a securities filing that it will “continue to market its products in the U.S. using the Self-GRAS designation.” “Probably poisoning us” If food ingredients cause acute reactions — sending people to emergency rooms, for example — the potential dangers may be relatively easy to identify, and regulatory action might naturally follow. Some critics of the system say they worry more about health effects that could take years or decades to develop. Then, when it’s too late, it could be hard to trace the harm to any particular ingredient. All that leaves Joseph Shea of Myrtle Beach in a tough spot. For a while, Shea tried shopping at a market that has a lot of organic offerings, he said in an interview. That proved too expensive. Shea said the entire picture is “incredibly frustrating.” “They’re probably poisoning us, and we don’t know,” he said. “We’ll figure it out 30 years down the road when we get sick.” KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism. Source link #FDA #lets #chemicals #pour #Americas #food #supply Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Discovery of World War 2 bomb near major Paris train station disrupts services – Reuters Discovery of World War 2 bomb near major Paris train station disrupts services – Reuters Discovery of World War 2 bomb near major Paris train station disrupts services ReutersAll Paris Eurostar services cancelled for rest of the day after WW2 bomb found BBC.comAll Eurostar Paris trains cancelled on Friday amid French rail disruption over suspected WW2 bomb – Europe live The GuardianUnexploded WWII bomb in Paris halts Eurostar travel to London and trains to northern France ABC News Source link #Discovery #World #War #bomb #major #Paris #train #station #disrupts #services #Reuters Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Republican Voters Support Medicaid but Want Work Requirements, Poll Finds Republican Voters Support Medicaid but Want Work Requirements, Poll Finds As Congressional Republicans weigh major cuts to Medicaid, most voters do not want to see the public health plan’s funding dialed back, according to a poll released Friday by KFF, a nonpartisan health research firm. Just 17 percent of respondents said they supported cuts to Medicaid, the government health insurance program that covers more than 70 million people. Forty percent said they wanted to keep spending unchanged, and 42 percent said they would like it increased. But at the same time, the poll found significant support for certain policies that would limit the program, such as requiring enrollees to work. More than 60 percent of voters — and 47 percent of Democrats — supported a work requirement, the poll found. That change, which has been championed by some congressional Republicans, is estimated to cut about $100 billion from Medicaid, as those who were unemployed — or could not file the paperwork showing they had a job — would no longer be covered. The program’s cost was $584 billion in 2024, or about 8 percent of total federal spending. The poll also illustrated Medicaid’s wide reach, with just over half of respondents saying that either they or a family member had at one point had Medicaid coverage. There was nearly universal agreement that Medicaid mattered to voters’ local communities, with 98 percent of Democrats and 94 percent of Republicans saying they thought it was somewhat or very important. Republicans in Congress are considering several changes to Medicaid as they look for ways to pay for President Trump’s tax cuts. Last month, the House passed a budget that, if approved by the Senate and signed by the president, could trim as much as $880 billion from the program over the next decade. That could happen with work requirements, caps on federal spending for the program, or reducing the share of costs the federal government pays. Although poll respondents were generally in favor of work requirements, they held misconceptions about the policy: Sixty-two percent of voters thought that most Medicaid enrollees are unemployed, when in fact a vast majority have jobs. Republican voters also expressed an openness to cutting funding for the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion. Right now, the federal government pays 90 percent of the costs for participants in the expansion, who tend to be healthy adults. That is a higher share than what it covers for other enrollees, such as children or disabled people. Sixty-four percent of Republican voters — and 40 percent of voters overall — said they would support reducing the federal government’s contribution to Medicaid expansion. House Republicans continue to weigh this option, even though Speaker Mike Johnson said last week it was not on the table. Voters’ opinions on reducing Medicaid expansion funding seemed malleable, however, in the face of additional information. When respondents were given more information about the policy, including the fact that millions could lose coverage, Republican support fell to 43 percent. But being told that the change would cut federal spending by about $600 billion increased support to 73 percent. The polling looks similar to what Americans felt during the Affordable Care Act repeal debate in 2017, when Republicans failed to roll back the law in large part because of political opposition to Medicaid cuts. Back then, 70 percent of voters supported work requirements and 36 percent favored cutting Medicaid expansion funding. “Medicaid is a very popular program among a wide swath of the public including Republicans,” said Mollyann Brodie, KFF’s executive director of survey research. But, she added, “opinions could be quickly moved in the context of debate where people learn more information and feel their coverage is threatened.” Source link #Republican #Voters #Support #Medicaid #Work #Requirements #Poll #Finds Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Fired Federal Workers Face a Sluggish Job Market Fired Federal Workers Face a Sluggish Job Market For about a year now, the labor market has existed in a state of eerie calm: Not many people were losing their jobs or quitting, but not many of those seeking work were getting job offers. The mass layoffs now underway across the federal government, along with its employees who are voluntarily heading for the exits, could disrupt that uneasy equilibrium. While unemployment is relatively low at 4 percent, those losing their positions could face a difficult time finding work, depending on how well their skills translate to a private sector that does not seem eager to hire. “Federal workers all across the country are starting to look, and it’s impacting people everywhere,” said Cory Stahle, an economist at the job search platform Indeed. “It’s hard to think this isn’t going to stress test the labor market in the coming months.” On the eve of the Trump administration, the federal government’s executive branch employed about 2.3 million civilians. It’s not clear how many of those will end up being cut, and how many will get their jobs back after lawsuits over those terminations work through the courts. But impact of the pace at which government spending is being slashed, along with instructions from the White House budget office for agencies to slice even deeper, could be meaningful. “The firing on the government side is real,” said Thomas Barkin, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, at an event late last month. “It’s happening.” Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at the accounting firm EY-Parthenon, estimates that in the most extreme case, one million jobs could be trimmed overall. That estimate assumes 500,000 government contractors are laid off alongside 250,000 federal workers and another 250,000 in job losses at the state and local government levels. Such a winnowing would exert a cumulative drag on gross domestic product of as much as 1 percent over time, Mr. Daco said. Other estimates suggest the hit could be more contained. Michael Pugliese, a senior economist at Wells Fargo, said federal layoffs would present “only a small headwind to broader economic growth” in the months ahead. The impact will depend on how many of those workers are absorbed into other jobs, and how quickly. Their prospects vary widely with their skill sets, industries and willingness to relocate. Chmura Economics & Analytics, a labor market research firm, analyzed the likely distribution of laid-off probationary workers, who have been targeted first. Their chances tend to be better in larger cities than in rural areas. In the first round of announced terminations, there were 718 open jobs for every recently hired worker laid off in the Baltimore metropolitan area, for example, and only three in Oglala Lakota County, S.D. Finding an open job with the right skill requirements could make things more challenging. In the Washington metropolitan area in mid-February, there were 11,600 postings for business operations specialists, but for just 106 tax examiners and one agricultural inspector. Not everybody will have trouble finding a new job. In any market, those pushed out of health care roles — about 16 percent of the federal work force, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center — are likely to find plenty of options. The same is true of people with advanced technology experience, whom the federal government had been focused on hiring in recent years. One of those now-unemployed workers is Fardous Sabnur, a data scientist just a few years out of college who joined the Internal Revenue Service last summer. She thought it would be a stable job with benefits that would look good on her résumé. And she felt she could do some good in the world, applying machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques to make filing tax returns easier. Since being fired a few weeks ago, Ms. Sabnur said, she has been interviewing every day and expects to land at a big company, like an investment bank. Still, the transition out of federal service is bittersweet. “I have very strong prospects, and it won’t be difficult for me to find something new,” said Ms. Sabnur, who lives in the New York City borough of Queens. “But when I go into these companies, I know that my work won’t have as much value in the society as it did at the I.R.S.” The future looks cloudier for those whose roles were highly government-specific, and whose fields have been decimated by the Trump administration’s crackdown on federal agencies. That includes the U.S. Agency for International Development. The United States was the single largest global source of foreign aid, and the cancellation of thousands of contracts has forced mass layoffs among the companies that depended on them, leaving their workers with nowhere to go for work with a similar mission. Wayan Vota, who was laid off from his U.S.A.I.D.-funded company at the end of January, calls it an “extinction event” for the sector. To help aid workers move forward, he started a Substack newsletter geared toward helping international development professionals retool their résumés and translate their skills for private companies. Many have skills managing complex supply chains in unstable countries, which could be useful for large retailers. “I think someone who has been getting H.I.V. medicines to rural clinics in Mozambique has all the skills, and then some, to get cereal boxes onto the shelves of Walmart,” said Mr. Vota, 52, who is based in Chapel Hill, N.C. Even for those who work in less niche fields, like financial or environmental enforcement, the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda could deflate new job opportunities. Requiring fewer studies under the National Environmental Policy Act or the Toxic Substances Control Act, for example, means less work for the technical consulting firms that conducted them. Scientists who have lost their jobs also face a double whammy: Academic research institutions also depend heavily on federal grants, which the Trump administration has sought to curtail through cuts to the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Universities are already pulling back on admitting new doctoral students. And while the government employs a lot of lawyers, the legal market is being flooded. Law firms often prize attorneys with government experience, who advise clients on compliance and dealing with federal investigations. But if the new administration dials down on oversight as it has promised, those firms may struggle to keep their existing lawyers busy. Karen Vladeck, an independent legal recruiter, has recently donated some time to maintain a list of jobs available to lawyers leaving federal service — some involuntarily, and others because they see the writing on the wall. “We really have had a bubble burst on the federal legal work force,” Ms. Vladeck said. “What people are underestimating is that it’s not just people who have already been let go. There are people looking to leave regardless.” Job cuts may be particularly difficult for the nearly 30 percent of federal workers who are veterans. They often enjoy preferences in the federal hiring process that may not be available in the private sector. Ross ********, the chief executive of Hire Heroes, an employment nonprofit for veterans, said his staff had seen more unemployed veterans come in looking for help this month than a year ago. The time that veterans spend without jobs has also increased. Some of them had found work in field positions that could be difficult to replace. “I’m mostly worried about veterans or military spouses who came from career fields in the military that already had transferability challenges,” Mr. ******** said. “If you were Marine infantry and then worked in the forestry service, there’s not always a ton of open market roles along that career trajectory.” There is one bright spot for federal employees: State and local governments often need people with similar types of experience. States like Hawaii, Maryland, Virginia and New York have been advertising their available positions. A new platform, Civic Match, has worked with more than 4,000 former federal workers, seeking to hook them up with open roles across 124 cities and 41 states. But Civic Match’s founder, Caitlin Lewis, said some of those public-sector employers were facing uncertainty about their own budgets, given the unpredictable cost-cutting in Washington. Eventually, drastic cuts in the federal work force may drag down private-sector employment more broadly. Defunding basic research and development, for example, could slow scientific advances that fuel growth. Cuts to emergency management and disaster response could make it harder for communities to recover from fires and storms. Tara Sinclair, a professor at George Washington University who previously worked at the Treasury Department, said reducing public services — and jettisoning the highly trained professionals who understand how government works — could lead to a “slow degradation of our productive capacity.” “It might just be this malaise that builds up over time,” Dr. Sinclair added. Source link #Fired #Federal #Workers #Face #Sluggish #Job #Market Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

11 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This Week 11 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This Week ‘Mickey 17’ The latest from ***** Joon Ho follows Mickey (Robert Pattinson) on a dangerous space expedition as he repeatedly dies and is resurrected via cloning and develops a relationship with a fellow crew member, Nasha (Naomi Ackie). From our review: Like the working-class crew of the extraterrestrial tugboat in Ridley Scott’s “Alien,” Mickey, Nasha and the rest of the workers are headed into uncharted, dangerous territory. There will be monsters and, yes, blood. There will, as well, be love, kindness, camaraderie, heroism and sacrifice in a movie that teeters close to apocalyptic despair but also, because ***** is finally an idealist and not only one of the great filmmakers working today, lifts you to the skies. In theaters. Read the full review. Critic’s Pick The bases are loaded — with heart. ‘Eephus’ Before a small town’s baseball field closes permanently, two local recreational teams gather for one final game in this dramedy directed by Carson Lund. From our review: It dwells in some languid liminal space between hangout movie and elegy, a tribute to the community institutions that hold us together, that introduce us to one another and that, in an age of optimized life choices and disappearing public spaces, are slowly fading away. That makes it sound very serious, which “Eephus” is not. In theaters. Read the full review. Critic’s Pick A bruising cultural reckoning. ‘On Becoming a Guinea Fowl’ After Shula (Susan Chardy) discovers the dead body of her uncle on the side of the road, family secrets begin to surface in this dark dramedy directed by Rungano Nyoni. From our review: Rungano Nyoni, who was born in Zambia and grew up in Wales, knows how to make an entrance, and so does Shula. She’s a great character, and while her arresting introduction grabs you from the start, Shula keeps you tethered throughout. Hers is a story of discoveries both minor and monumental, one that’s flecked with troubling visions and an escalating sense of urgency. In theaters. Read the full review. Critic’s Pick ****** and white with lots of nuance. ‘There’s Still Tomorrow’ This drama directed by and starring Paola Cortellesi centers on Delia, a mother of three living in Rome after World War II, who is mistreated by her husband Ivano (Valerio Mastandrea). From our review: Cortellesi, as both director and performer, doesn’t sink into miserabilism. The beautifully built-out sense of place, populated by memorable personalities (Ivano’s bedridden father; Delia’s best friend, who runs a vegetable stand; the mechanic with whom Delia is in love), demonstrates the richness of Delia’s life in an effortless balance of humor and tragedy. In theaters. Read the full review. A photographer rom-com that doesn’t take long to develop. ‘Picture This’ When a medium predicts that the highly independent Pia (Simone Ashley) will meet the love of her life within her next five dates, her family rushes to set her up in this rom-com directed by Prarthana Mohan. From our review: The palette here is vivid. Screens split — sometimes vertically, other times horizontally — all in the spirit of playfulness, while the music is a mix of international pop grooves. For all the potentially crushing challenges Pia faces — losing her business, not living out her dream of being a photographer, alienating her beloved younger sister — “Picture This,” keeps it light, never letting the sharp edges of potential failure come into focus. Watch on Prime Video. Read the full review. The humor is far, far away. ‘The Empire’ Two alien races, One and Zero, descend on a small fishing village in Northern France where they fight for control and get involved in an interspecies love triangle. From our review: Reveling in galactic absurdity, “The Empire,” the latest from the fiercely unconventional French filmmaker Bruno Dumont, plunks us down in a fishing village in Northern France to witness an extraterrestrial war for control of humankind. What that looks like, however, is less a space opera than a banal, metaphysical farce — a “Star Wars” parody of increasing daftness and diminishing fun. In theaters. Read the full review. Apocalyptically bad. ‘In the Lost Lands’ Dave Bautista and Milla Jovovich star as a body hunter and a sorceress in pursuit of a shape-shifter in this dystopian action romance directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. From our review: Though Anderson and his trusted cinematographer Glen MacPherson remain capable of framing and lighting engrossing shots, the cheap effects used for the film’s many firefights and explosions look like a flurry of pixels. The editing attempts to hide these shortcomings, cutting around the action to the point of being incomprehensible. And maybe that’s for the best. In theaters. Read the full review. A wrestling film that’s stuck in one corner. ‘Queen of the Ring’ This sports drama directed by Ash Avildsen follows Mildred Burke (Emily Bett Rickards), a waitress who becomes a wrestler in the 1930s. From our review: In its plot-heavy second half, “The Queen of the Ring” loses coherence when it speeds through a storyline about rival women’s leagues and sidelines characters it had only recently introduced. The muddle causes any sincere emotion to turn into schlock. One senses that Avildsen was desperate to pack an emotional punch, but he could have pulled a few instead. In theaters. Read the full review. This robotics team presses all the right buttons. ‘Rule Breakers’ Four young girls become Afghanistan’s first robotics team, traveling to a worldwide competition in Washington and facing trials and triumphs along the way. From our review: This is a story of heartening firsts: Roya Mahboob, who spearheaded the initiative for schoolgirls, is the first woman to own a tech company in Afghanistan. The director Bill Guttentag and his cast get the can-do spirit at its core, as well as the societal constrictions that make such perseverance especially impressive, but it’s also a story that could have been told with more concision and subtlety. In theaters. Read the full review. All dolled up and nowhere to run. ‘The Rule of Jenny Pen’ John Lithgow stars as Dave Crealy, a patient at an assisted living facility who antagonizes the other residents with a creepy baby doll puppet in this horror movie directed by James Ashcroft. From our review: The director remains near-merciless in his approach, never shying away from showing his vulnerable characters (and the tormentor played with twisted relish by Lithgow is, ultimately, as unprotected as any of the others) in states of utter abjection. In theaters. Read the full review. A dramatist’s trauma. ‘Seven Veils’ In this drama directed by Atom Egoyan, Jeanine (Amanda Seyfried) directs a production of an opera that resurfaces traumatic memories. From our review: “Seven Veils” offers plenty to think about. But fans who mourn that Egoyan’s dramatic instincts have slipped in recent years won’t quite be getting a return to form. Seyfried in particular seems out of place, and although the apparent miscasting might be intentional (Jeanine, giving an interview to a podcaster, pointedly explains that she is older than she looks), certain plot points and motifs, such as home movies featuring a blindfold and tangerines, approach self-parody. In theaters. Read the full review. Compiled by Kellina Moore. Source link #Movies #Critics #Talking #Week Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

New Albany Racing Club board appointed, Alan Smith re-elected as president and ex-MP Alannah MacTiernan joins New Albany Racing Club board appointed, Alan Smith re-elected as president and ex-MP Alannah MacTiernan joins Albany Racing Club have had a major board shake-up with only Alan Smith being re-elected after a tumultuous couple of months. Source link #Albany #Racing #Club #board #appointed #Alan #Smith #reelected #president #exMP #Alannah #MacTiernan #joins Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Director of 2025 Elden Ring Competitor Was the Brains Behind Marvel’s Most Underrated Game of This Decade Director of 2025 Elden Ring Competitor Was the Brains Behind Marvel’s Most Underrated Game of This Decade Jacque Belletête has had a long career in the gaming industry, spanning almost 23 years. He has worked with a lot of top developers in the world, including Ubisoft and Square Enix. His upcoming game Hell is Us is considered a competitor of Elden Ring. Hell is Us is the upcoming game from Jacque Belletête. Image Credit: Rogue Factor Belletête is a highly skilled video game developer who has left a lasting mark on any game that he has ever worked on, including the best and most underrated Marvel game, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. He was the art director for this game. Belletête’s contribution made Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy special This game is considered to be Elden Ring’s competitor. Image Credit: Rogue Factor After working for many years at Ubisoft, Belletête had enough and wanted to start something of his own. He, along with a few others, left Ubisoft and started Eidos Montréal, a studio that would later be included in the production of a lot of successful games, including Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided. Then the studio decided to collaborate with Square Enix and attempted to do Final Fantasy XV. After that, he came on board as the art director of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, which, despite being a great game, went under the radar. It was after this when he decided that he was done and now wanted to make a game of his own, a game that would later be known as Hell is Us. This upcoming third-person horror game has been generating a lot of hype lately, and people have high expectations from it. During an interview with TrueAchievements, he said: And at that point, I was like, you know, what? I want to do my game. My friend Yves (Bordeleau), who’s the general manager at Rogue Factor, we had been talking for years about working together, but it was never really the right moment. Then I was like, ‘I think this is it: I’m a bit a bit done with the whole AAA studio thing.’ It has nothing to do with Eidos — I mean Eidos is like my family, man. I mean, we built that ***** from… we were four at the beginning when we really started doing Deus Ex. When I left, we were 500, you know? These guys are my brothers and sisters. But no, the whole AAA thing, I was just getting bored and I was just getting too comfortable. He had had enough with AAA titles and wanted to explore things uniquely and differently, and that made him come up with a third-person horror game. Hell is Us is expected to release in the latter half of 2025. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy has a special place in people’s hearts Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy deserves more love. Image Credit: Eidos Montréal Despite Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy not being a massive hit, it still managed to find a niche audience who still respect the game for what it managed to achieve in terms of gameplay and narrative. It does a lot of things better than MCU. It offers a unique perspective in the world of the guardians where you play as the Star Lord, who has a lot of special abilities, accompanied by the other guardians, including Gamora, Rocket Raccoon, and Groot. The game largely garnered a positive response but still failed to generate a lot of hype and is hence by far the most underrated Marvel game of this decade. Do you still like playing Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy? Let us know in the comments below. Source link #Director #Elden #Ring #Competitor #Brains #Marvels #Underrated #Game #Decade Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

A ****** Leader’s Release From Prison Reopens Old Wounds in Israel A ****** Leader’s Release From Prison Reopens Old Wounds in Israel The moment Ashraf Zughayer, a ****** leader in Israeli prison, heard in October 2023 that ************ militants had taken hostages, he knew his life sentence for murdering six people in Tel Aviv could soon be wiped away, he said. It took more than a year. But in late January, as part of the cease-fire and hostage release deal between Israel and ******, Mr. Zughayer, 46, rode through the streets of East Jerusalem on a truck festooned with green ****** flags, surrounded by jubilant supporters. Thirty miles away, Tova Sisso, whose mother was killed in the Tel Aviv attack, watched with horror. Her mother, Rozana, had survived the Holocaust only to be killed in a 2002 suicide bombing that Mr. Zughayer helped orchestrate. “Seeing him being celebrated like this tears open a deep wound all over again,” Ms. Sisso said. “My joy in life was stolen from me that day.” Since the truce began last month, Israelis and Palestinians have been gripped by images of emotional homecomings that have summoned a welter of pain, happiness, frustration and grief. The scenes cut to the heart of how many on both sides understand the cycle of violence that has haunted their families for decades. For Israelis, watching freed hostages reunite with relatives has been a rare moment of national catharsis since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that killed 1,200 people, saw 250 taken hostage and ignited the devastating war in Gaza. But they have also been angered and deeply dismayed by the release of ************ prisoners like Mr. Zughayer in exchange. Palestinians have greeted hundreds of prisoners released by Israel. They included some detained without charges or for minor offenses, a group that Palestinians often view as effectively hostages themselves. Under the deal, Israel committed to releasing 1,000 Gazans, most of whom had been held without anything resembling a criminal trial. But ****** also secured the release of hundreds of prisoners like Mr. Zughayer — militants convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis. More than 200 of those freed were serving life sentences for ******* and other offenses for their role in bombings, shootings and other acts of violence. Israelis see them as murderous terrorists, noting many deliberately targeted civilians. Many Palestinians call them heroes in a struggle against Israel’s decades-long occupation. “A nation that wants to break free must fight for it,” Mr. Zughayer said shortly after his release, sitting in his parents’ front yard. He refused to discuss whether the Oct. 7 attacks had successfully advanced the ************ national cause. Palestinians are split over the 2023 attacks led by his organization. At least some say they were a devastating mistake for having prompted Israel’s sweeping military response, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and destroyed much of Gaza. “It’s good that there is a prisoner deal, but it did not require all this bloodshed and destruction,” Ahmed Yousef, a veteran ****** member, said in a phone interview from southern Gaza. “Oct. 7, in my opinion, was a terrible error.” In late January, Mr. Zughayer’s family held a subdued celebration at their East Jerusalem home to welcome him back, wary of Israeli restrictions on “expressions of joy” for freed militants. Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 war in a move not recognized by most of the international community. Teenage relatives bustled around a quiet courtyard, pouring coffee and handing out sweets. Others hung on every word uttered by the skinny, ******-bearded Mr. Zughayer, who appeared slightly dazed to be seeing the outside world for the first time in years. A slim green scarf emblazoned with a ****** logo hung around his neck, until a child took it away. “My son’s imprisonment was a badge of honor,” said Mr. Zughayer’s father, Munir, a community organizer who liaises between residents and Israeli authorities. “You could enter prison for thieving or criminality. But I’m not the father of a criminal, I’m the father of a hero.” The 2002 bombing that Ashraf Zughayer helped carry out killed six civilians: five Israelis and a British Jew. The bomber, wearing an explosive vest, had mounted a bus in Tel Aviv and detonated his cargo as soon as the bus began to move, according to court filings. Yoni Jesner, a 19-year-old religious student from Scotland, was one of those killed in the explosion. His family chose to donate his organs, one of which was given to a young ************ girl, his brother Ari said in an interview. Mr. Zughayer was convicted of driving the bomber to his target. As a resident of Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, he held an Israeli ID that allowed him to easily slip in and out of the West Bank. He was involved in planning another attack when he was arrested, according to Israeli court filings. Munir Zughayer said he hoped for a normal life for his son and a peaceful resolution to the conflict — one that would allow both Israelis and Palestinians to live “in equality and with human rights.” His son said that he hoped to pursue a doctorate in political science, and was exploring options in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. As night fell, Israeli soldiers raided the home, guns drawn and loaded, and then assaulted the elder Mr. Zughayer, as well as a disabled relative and a reporter for The New York Times. The soldiers detained several of Ashraf Zughayer’s siblings, accusing them of waving ****** flags and shooting in the air. The family denies the allegations, and no one was visibly armed at the event. Nearly a month later, the Israeli police released them, but charged Mr. Zughayer and two of his relatives with riding unsecured in the back of a pickup truck on the afternoon of his release, according to a police statement. They face possible fines for the charge. Israeli prison interrogators frequently asked Mr. Zughayer whether he felt any remorse, he said. He had once believed in the peace process, he said, but lost hope after watching reports of ************ civilians, including children, shot dead by Israeli soldiers with apparent impunity. “Our goal isn’t to hurt civilians. We were forced into it,” he said, declining to extensively discuss the attack. “If the legal system here were just, I would see this whole thing differently.” Once convicted, Mr. Zughayer was assigned to a prison wing dominated by ****** detainees. One was Yahya Sinwar, the ****** leader who later masterminded the 2023 attack. Mr. Sinwar taught his fellow inmates Hebrew to better understand their shared enemy, Mr. Zughayer recounted. “I used to think that Israeli society was a monolith,” he said. Through studying the language and history of the Jewish people, he realized that Israelis were not of one mind. “Some want peace, and some do not,” he said. During his time in prison, Mr. Zughayer learned fluent Hebrew, earning a master’s degree from an Israeli university. He also became a top member of ******’s prison leadership, charged with conveying demands in negotiations with their jailers. But he said he was as shocked as his Israeli guards when ****** fighters swarmed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. That morning, ************ prisoners hunched over small televisions in their cells, watching in disbelief as Israeli news outlets showed ****** gunmen driving through the Israeli city of Sderot. Hours into the attack, the guards took away the televisions. Prisoners then huddled around a radio, where they heard that ****** had seized Israeli hostages before it too was taken away. After the ******-led attack, the guards began treating imprisoned Palestinians much more harshly, said Mr. Zughayer. At least 10 ************ prisoners died in Israeli jail last year, according to the Israeli prison service; autopsies showed at least some bore signs of physical trauma, according to postmortem reports. Israeli hostages who were freed during the cease-fire also emerged gaunt, some having lost dozens of pounds during their captivity. Since Mr. Zughayer’s release, Israel and ****** have completed several more transfers of hostages and prisoners, each of which has elicited intense, conflicting emotions among Israelis and Palestinians. When one of the hostages was freed, “it felt like a family member coming home,” said Mr. Jesner, despite his mixed feelings over Mr. Zughayer’s release. Nir Zinger, whose brother was killed in the Tel Aviv bombing, vividly remembers the moment in 2002 that he picked up the phone and heard about the attack. He said he thinks about his brother, Ofer, almost every day. Seeing Mr. Zughayer walk free was difficult, he said, but he called it worth it to save more of the living hostages. “We know the meaning of grief,” Mr. Zinger said. “We don’t want other families to have to endure that pain.” Source link #****** #Leaders #Release #Prison #Reopens #Wounds #Israel Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Two more Game Boy games, including a Mario fan favourite, have been added to Switch Online Two more Game Boy games, including a Mario fan favourite, have been added to Switch Online Nintendo has added two more Game Boy games to its Switch Online retro library. Donkey Kong and Mario’s Picross have both been added to the Game Boy app, to celebrate the upcoming Mario Day on March 10. Donkey Kong, sometimes referred to as Donkey Kong ’94, is considered by some to be one of the best games on the Game Boy. The game initially appears to be a straight remake of the 1981 arcade game, with the first four stages replicating those of the coin-op original. When players finish the fourth stage and defeat Donkey Kong, however, he gets up again, kidnaps Pauline and runs through a door. It then emerges that the game is actually a large puzzle platformer consisting of 101 levels spanning nine worlds, essentially acting as the precursor to the Mario vs Donkey Kong series. Mario’s Picross was the first game in developer Jupiter’s series of Picross games for Nintendo. Like every game in the series, it presents the player with a grid that they have to colour in. By using the numerical clues located on the rows and columns of the grids, players use logic to figure out which squares to fill in and which ones to leave blank. If they do it correctly, the filled in squares reveal a picture. The additions of Donkey Kong and Mario’s Picross bring the total number of Game Boy and Game Boy Color games on Switch Online up to 35 titles in the West. Other Game Boy titles on the service include Super Mario Land and its sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX, Tetris, all five Mega Man games, all three Donkey Kong Land games, Metroid II and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages / Seasons. NES, SNES, Game Boy and Game Boy Color games are available as part of the standard Switch Online subscription, which costs $19.99 / £17.99 / €19.99 for a 12-month individual membership. Players can also gain access to further libraries containing Game Boy Advance, Mega Drive / Genesis and Nintendo 64 games, by upgrading to the Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription, which costs $49.99 / £34.99 / €39.99. Source link #Game #Boy #games #including #Mario #fan #favourite #added #Switch #Online Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Unexploded WWII bomb in Paris halts Eurostar travel to London and trains to northern France – The Associated Press Unexploded WWII bomb in Paris halts Eurostar travel to London and trains to northern France – The Associated Press Unexploded WWII bomb in Paris halts Eurostar travel to London and trains to northern France The Associated PressAll Paris Eurostar services cancelled for rest of the day after WW2 bomb found BBC.comUnexploded World War II Bomb Found at Gare du Nord in Paris Halts Trains The New York TimesDiscovery of World War 2 bomb near major Paris train station disrupts services Reuters Source link #Unexploded #WWII #bomb #Paris #halts #Eurostar #travel #London #trains #northern #France #Press Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Prodigy who roomed with Bellingham eyes revival under Maradona's son Prodigy who roomed with Bellingham eyes revival under Maradona's son The lost wonderkid who was once Jude Bellingham’s roomate and found salvation in street football, now a Maradona is giving him hope. Source link #Prodigy #roomed #Bellingham #eyes #revival #Maradona039s #son Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

West Coast coach Andrew McQualter reveals people and premierships will define his tenure as Eagles coach West Coast coach Andrew McQualter reveals people and premierships will define his tenure as Eagles coach It’s fitting that the Perth skyline and Optus Stadium can be seen over the shoulders of Andrew McQualter as he sits for an interview in the Crystal Room at Perth Crown Towers. Source link #West #Coast #coach #Andrew #McQualter #reveals #people #premierships #define #tenure #Eagles #coach Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Senate Democrats' impending choice: Shutdown or surrender Senate Democrats' impending choice: Shutdown or surrender Senate Democrats have a fast-approaching dilemma: Vote for a spending bill unilaterally drafted by House Republicans or engage in the kind of shutdown brinkmanship they’ve long opposed. It isn’t a decision they’ll be able to put off for much longer. House GOP leaders are poised early next week to send a bill to the floor that would largely hold current spending levels in place through the end of September. Democrats don’t like this approach, arguing it would only further empower President Donald Trump and Elon Musk to continue to act beyond their authority in clawing back congressionally approved dollars. In the House, Democrats are vowing to hold back support, arguing that Republicans are responsible for finding the votes for a continuing resolution, or CR, after walking away from negotiations with the ********* party. “If Republicans decide to take that approach, as Speaker [Mike] Johnson indicated it’s his expectation, then Republicans are going it alone,” House ********* Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Thursday. It’s not so simple in the Senate, where Democratic leaders are being more careful to avoid promising blanket opposition to a relatively “clean” stopgap bill ahead of the March 14 shutdown deadline. Privately, leaders have urged their members to stay silent and force Republicans to come up with a palatable plan. Sen. ***** Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said in a brief interview Thursday he didn’t sense there were enough Democratic senators yet willing to clear a seven-month stopgap — Republicans need at least eight, assuming more GOP lawmakers don’t join Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has pledged to vote no. Still, when pressed if he would oppose that bill if it was the only option on the table just hours before the shutdown deadline, Durbin hedged, saying that it was premature until he saw what gets through the House. “Ask me after that,” he added. While a handful of Democrats indicated in interviews that they are a no, so far Republicans have at least one Democrat on their side: Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who said in a brief interview Thursday that “I’m never going to be a part of any vote that shuts the government down.” “The fact that anyone on our side would even rattle those sabers, that’s *********,” Fetterman said. “To think I’m going to burn the village down to save it, that’s bonkers.” Roughly a dozen other Senate Democrats declined in interviews this week to say explicitly they would vote against a shutdown-averting bill. Several lawmakers said they want to know for sure that this bill would be the only way to avoid a lapse in federal funding before committing to supporting it. They also said they want to see proof that Speaker Mike Johnson can actually get it through the House. “There’s enough Senate Republicans who have told us that they support the idea of a short-term CR and completing all the bills,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), adding that before he makes a decision on a House bill, “I want to make sure that play is not available.” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) described himself as “anti-shutdown” and that Musk’s ascension “makes it even more perilous to shut down” because it would only further embolden him. But Kaine — who, like Van Hollen, has a large share of federal workers in his state — also declined to say how he would vote on a September funding patch if one comes to the Senate floor. A group of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have been quietly talking about a back-up option if the House isn’t able to pass its stopgap bill — not an unthinkable scenario, given the GOP’s razor-thin majority. Several of those Democrats emphasized their preference is to pursue a government funding path that gives space to senior appropriators who still insist they’re close to an agreement on updated agency funding levels. “We’re real close to a deal,” said Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), an Appropriations Committee member. “We should get that done.” One option being floated by Democrats is a four- to five-week stopgap to give appropriators more time to land that deal. But Republicans involved in the bicameral negotiations warned that they don’t believe their House counterparts are ready to accept anything other than an extension of current funding levels through the end of the fiscal year. “My best guess right now is that the House will pass or attempt to pass a full-year CR,” Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters. Asked about the possibility of a shorter stopgap, she added, “I do not think the House is interested in that.” Mia McCarthy, Lisa Kashinsky, Nicholas Wu and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report. Source link #Senate #Democrats039 #impending #choice #Shutdown #surrender Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Trump tariffs, *** house prices Trump tariffs, *** house prices European markets were broadly lower Friday, rounding off a volatile week marked by whipsawing policy on U.S. tariffs, the latest rate cut from the European Central Bank, ******* fiscal reforms and a regional defense spending boost. The regional Stoxx 600 index was down 0.8% at 8:30 a.m. U.K. time, with retail and household goods stocks tumbling. Luxury stocks were among the worst performers, with Richemont and Burberry both down by around 4% as the Stoxx Europe Luxury index dropped 2.4%. The sector is expected to face challenges from U.S. import tariff hikes if the impact dampens U.S. consumer demand and leads to a rise in prices. The Stoxx 600 has jumped between losses and gains this week amid unfolding geopolitical developments and corporate earnings. The benchmark is currently on course for a weekly loss, which would be its first of the year. U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday granted temporary tariff exemptions for around 50% of ******** imports and 38% of ********* imports until April 2. The move came a day after Trump granted a one-month tariff exemption for automakers, expected to be one of the most affected sectors; and just two days after sweeping new duties came into effect. In Europe, market watchers are continuing to unpack the ECB’s latest quarter-point rate cut, inflation and growth projections, and messaging. The euro area’s central bank said monetary policy was becoming “meaningfully less restrictive,” suggesting it may exercise more caution across its next meetings after enacting six cuts since last June. ECB staff macroeconomic projections raised their headline inflation forecast for 2025 to 2.3% from 2.1%, while downgrading their growth forecast to 0.9% from 1.1%. “While forecasts still show clear direction, [ECB] communication doesn’t,” analysts at Bank of America Global Research said Thursday. Also continuing to sway markets this week has been expectations of higher defense spending across Europe, with the Stoxx Aerospace and Defence Index up another 9% this week, its best performance for nearly five years. The U.K. held multilateral talks last week focused on defense spending and allied Ukraine support, while European Union leaders on Thursday met in Brussels to agree to higher defense spending across the bloc, despite the opposition of Hungary. ******* stocks have meanwhile broadly rallied on hopes of stronger economic growth and more spending on both defense and infrastructure after leading politicians stuck a “historic” deal on fiscal reform. Source link #Trump #tariffs #house #prices Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

TRADE ALERT: Avs Make Deal with Islanders for Brock Nelson – Colorado Hockey Now TRADE ALERT: Avs Make Deal with Islanders for Brock Nelson – Colorado Hockey Now TRADE ALERT: Avs Make Deal with Islanders for Brock Nelson Colorado Hockey NowAvs land coveted center Nelson from Islanders ESPNNHL trade deadline 2025 live updates: Rumors, news and analysis of every deal – The Athletic The New York TimesIslanders trade Brock Nelson to Avalanche in NHL deadline blockbuster New York Post Islanders Acquire Ritchie, A First Round Selection In 2026 Or 2027, A Third Round Pick In 2028, And Kylington In Exchange For Nelson And Dufour | New York Islanders NHL.com Source link #TRADE #ALERT #Avs #Deal #Islanders #Brock #Nelson #Colorado #Hockey Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

WA Election: Many voters disengaged in State campaign that ‘could’ve been bolder’ WA Election: Many voters disengaged in State campaign that ‘could’ve been bolder’ Main Image: Many voters have struggled to engage in the State election — and politics more broadly — with some confessing they don’t know who the Premier is and others saying there’s a general sense of “apathy”. Credit: The West *********** Source link #Election #voters #disengaged #State #campaign #couldve #bolder Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Investigation advances into Gene Hackman's mysterious death, with update by New Mexico authorities – The Associated Press Investigation advances into Gene Hackman's mysterious death, with update by New Mexico authorities – The Associated Press Investigation advances into Gene Hackman’s mysterious death, with update by New Mexico authorities The Associated PressGene Hackman’s dog was misidentified as other mysteries swirl around actor’s death The Associated PressPolice to release new Hackman death details news.com.au’Mummification’ Can Complicate Timeline of Gene Hackman and Wife’s Deaths: Experts (Exclusive) PEOPLEGene Hackman and his wife’s deaths ‘could be a similar timeframe’: fire chief Fox News Source link #Investigation #advances #Gene #Hackman039s #mysterious #death #update #Mexico #authorities #Press Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Cassius Turvey ******* trial: Confronting images of teen’s injuries taken by friend after attack shown to jury Cassius Turvey ******* trial: Confronting images of teen’s injuries taken by friend after attack shown to jury The photographs, which show his bloodied head and split right ear, were taken by one of the 15-year-old’s friends, minutes after he was savagely beaten with a metal pole. Source link #Cassius #Turvey #******* #trial #Confronting #images #teens #injuries #friend #attack #shown #jury Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige review: a premium electric shaver that comes at a premium price Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige review: a premium electric shaver that comes at a premium price Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test. Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige: one-minute review Product info This model has slightly different names and product codes in different territories: *** and AU: Philip Shaver S9000 Prestige, SP9883/35 US: The SP9883/35 variant doesn’t appear to be widely available from online US retailers, but you can find the very similar Philips Norelco S9000 Prestige (product code SP9886/89) on Amazon US. If you’re in the market for a premium electric shaver, it’s well worth checking out the Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige. This premium model is packed with Philips’ SkinIQ tech for an adaptive, delicate shave, a highly ergonomic design and waterproofing – meaning it offers an all-round excellent user experience. For reference, I specifically tested the SP9883/35 variant of the Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige – and this doesn’t come cheap. It’s available now in the *** and Australia with a list price of £699 / AU$999. Thankfully, though, it’s unlikely you’ll have to pay quite this much in all regions. For instance, I’ve spotted it going for much closer to £300 from a lot of *** retailers. Still, that’s quite a bit to spend on an electric shaver – so is it worth it? Well, if like me you have pretty sensitive skin and are used to irritation after a typical shave – then I’d say the answer is yes. Whether I was having a wet or dry shave, the Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige glided across my face with ease and never felt strenuous or sharp on my skin – something we always look for in our hunt for the best beard trimmers and electric razors. You can also adjust power to low, medium or high depending on what feels and works best for you. But wait… there’s more. This easy-to-handle shaver harnesses SkinIQ technology and Ultraflex suspension, meaning the S9000 Prestige’s head can adjust its power and positioning depending on hair thickness and shaving angles. That makes for a super simple, rapid shaving experience – ideal if you need a quick trim before heading to the office. It also comes with a self cleaning station, which can get your shaver looking all shiny again after just one minute: pretty cool! Is this model perfect? Not quite. The SmartClick trimmer – which you can easily click on to the top of the shaver – isn’t perfect for cutting down those overgrown hairs, as I found myself going over the same patches a couple of times. And when using the default shaver head, I still found it easier, personally, to get rid of the odd straggler with my manual razor – but your mileage may vary. Otherwise, this is a top-class option that I’d highly recommend, especially if you want a shaver that’s going to play gentle. That’s not even mentioning the fact that this is a beautiful model with a handy display and solid battery life of one hour. And it comes with a wireless charging pad. Pretty convenient, right? (Image credit: Future) Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige: Price and specs Swipe to scroll horizontally Price £699 / AU$999 (about $880) Waterproof Yes Battery life 1 hour Charge time 3 hours Charger type Qi-charging pad Accessories SmartClick trimmer, nose hair trimmer, cleansing brush, carry case, cleaning station and fluid Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige review: design Fantastic ergonomic grip Premium metallic exterior Interchangeable attachments In terms of design, it doesn’t get a whole lot better than the Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige. It has a premium-looking metallic build with an ergonomic rubber grip, which makes handling the shaver both extremely easy and satisfying. On top of that, there’s a display on the face of the shaver that indicates the power level in use – between one and three – battery life, travel lock activation and more. Above that screen, you’ll find a few button controls: power on/off, power level down, and power level up. All of this makes for a pleasingly visual, straightforward user experience – something you’d expect from a shaver with such a high price tag. (Image credit: Future) Another great aspect of the S9000 Prestige’s design is its support for multiple attachments. It comes with a few interchangeable heads including the default foil shaver, SmartClick trimmer and nose hair trimmer. These all easily clip on and off and are quick and straightforward to wash, thanks to the shaver’s great waterproofing. You also get a brush for cleaning tighter crevices – Philips have thought of everything. There are even more goodies in the box worth mentioning, though. First of all, this model comes with a self-cleaning station and a quick clean pod. This contraption can both clean and lubricate your shaver in just one minute using the power from the S9000 Prestige itself. Philips says this is 10x more effective than a simple wash under water – I’m not sure I can speak to just how precise that is, but it did get the shaver ****** and span when I tried it out. On top of that, there’s a wireless charging pad that you can connect up to a shaver socket in your bathroom for some extra juice when you’re running low. This works fantastically well and your S9000 Prestige will make a beeping noise to let you know it’s building some battery life back. Finally, you can pack the attachments, shaver and more into an expensive-looking carry-case that is included with the S9000 Prestige. It has a hardy exterior and plenty of room inside, making for a nifty travel companion. The pristine look and feel of the case feels pretty indicative of the overall quality you’re getting, design wise. With excellent build quality, a durable exterior and plenty of tasty extras in the box, you’re getting the full package with the Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige. Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige review: performance Comfortable, rapid shave Harnesses adaptive SkinIQ tech Pretty standard one-hour battery life And the shiny exterior isn’t all for show, this shaver is a pretty neat performer too. Firstly, that firm-feeling grip I mentioned ensures seamless handling, regardless of what angle you’re trimming at. I found it to be a big step up from my usual electric-shaver, which can be a bit challenging to handle in tighter, more awkward positions. But how about the shaving itself? Well, a standout plus here is that the S9000 Prestige is a not only smooth, but rapid operator. Within mere minutes I was able to achieve a clean shave using the Dual Precision rotating blades, which can achieve up to 165,000 cutting actions per minute. The blades took care of hairs growing in multiple directions with ease for the most part. I did, admittedly, have a few stragglers, which were easier to remove with my manual razor – but this really was a minor inconvenience. (Image credit: Future) The default shaver head uses some pretty nifty tech to ensure you get a close shave, such as SkinIQ. This tech senses hair density on your face (or head) and adapts cutting power for a more gentle shave. It also has an ‘Ultraflex’ suspension system that helps the heads work along every contour of your face. All in all, this is designed to deliver a more efficient, but also a more comfortable shave. And for me personally, that was greatly appreciated. I have pretty sensitive skin and the technology packed into this shaver helped to reduce a lot of irritation. As well as the adaptive SkinIQ tech, there’s an option to manually adjust the shaver’s power – which paired with the default head’s Hydro SkinGlide Coating, ensures a more relaxed shaving experience. (Image credit: Future) If I was to be more critical, though, I have to say that the included SmartClick trimmer is a little underwhelming. After four days of growth – yeah, it wasn’t my best look – I tried to give myself a more even, neat look, using this trimmer on the lowest grade. It worked decently well, but just wasn’t as efficient as I’d hoped for, as I found myself going over the same patches on my face a fair few times. Also, this trimmer only has five lines to indicate the length it cuts down to, but I would prefer a measurement in millimetres – something my everyday shaver uses. Meanwhile, you get a decent battery life of one hour out of the S9000 Prestige. That’s very much in-line with what a lot of hi-tech electric shavers can manage. But if you’re hoping for more, fear not. After every shave, you can simply pop the S9000 Prestige onto its wireless charging pad and get it fighting fit in no time. It takes three hours to get this shaver’s battery fully restored – not bad considering the use of wireless charging. Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige review: value Very expensive list price But regularly available with a considerable reduction High cost does come with premium design and performance levels OK, I won’t beat around the bush. If we’re talking about its list price, this shaver is very, very expensive. I’d argue a bit too expensive even. £699 / AU$999 is a lot of cash to spend, especially considering you can spend much less than that and still get a very astute shaver, like the Braun Series 9 Pro, for instance. But I bring good news. You’ll rarely have to pay such an astronomical fee for this stylish shaver. In fact, I’ve seen it going for close to £300 in the *** via retailers like John Lewis – that’s more than 50% off! And that really changes the picture – in this price range, the S9000 Prestige is well-worth considering. Otherwise, it would be tough to recommend – even given its high-level performance. (Image credit: Future) Ultimately, the Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige is built to last and packs in a gentle, personalized shaving experience. You’re unlikely to need an upgrade or replacement in the near future if you pick this up, which really adds a lot of weight in the value department. And although I can’t overlook its sky-high list price, I’d still happily recommend this shaver in the knowledge that it’s regularly discounted. Should you buy the Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige? Swipe to scroll horizontally Attributes Notes Rating Design Ergonomic grip, handy display, neat accessories, beautiful finish. 5/5 Performance Quick, comfortable, adaptive shave, SmartClick trimmer could be better. 4.5/5 Value Bags of quality but list price is very high, rarely costs so much, though. 4/5 Buy it if… Don’t buy it if… Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige: also consider How I tested the Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige Tested for one week Used for a wet and dry shave Trimmed for a neat stubble look and then went for a clean shave I tested the Philips Shaver S9000 Prestige for one week, ensuring to try out all of its various features and attachments. I typically keep my facial hair trimmed to around 2mm, so I used the SmartClick trimmer at first to replicate my typical shaving routine. On top of that, I also tried having a wet and dry shave with the default head attachment. I also made use of the included wireless charging pad and self-cleaning station to ensure the shaver was up to TechRadar Recommended standard. Read more about how we test First reviewed February 2025 Source link #Philips #Shaver #S9000 #Prestige #review #premium #electric #shaver #premium #price Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Trump grants one-month tariff reprieve to some goods from Mexico, Canada – The Washington Post Trump grants one-month tariff reprieve to some goods from Mexico, Canada – The Washington Post Trump grants one-month tariff reprieve to some goods from Mexico, Canada The Washington PostTrump Suspends Mexico and Canada Tariffs on USMCA Goods for a Month The New York TimesCNBC Daily Open: Trump paused tariffs for some imports — but Nasdaq enters correction territory CNBCTrump delays tariffs for goods under Mexico, Canada trade deal ReutersWhy automakers’ short reprieve from tariffs isn’t enough to weather Trump’s escalating trade war The Associated Press Source link #Trump #grants #onemonth #tariff #reprieve #goods #Mexico #Canada #Washington #Post Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

WA’s star female athletes come together to celebrate International Women’s Day WA’s star female athletes come together to celebrate International Women’s Day Growth. Togetherness. Power and pride. That’s what six of Western Australia’s leading female athletes are celebrating this International Women’s Day. And they all believe they are just getting started. “I love being surrounded by really powerful and cool women,” Fremantle AFLW star Gabby Biedenweg-Webster said. She was one of six stars from WA’s premier sporting teams that came together to mark the day, celebrated globally on March 8. Perth Scorchers wicketkeeper Maddy Darke moved from Sydney to launch her cricket career. Beidenweg-Webster and Western Force lock Michaela Leonard were also picked up from the eastern states and Perth Glory import Gabby Hollar has travelled across the world from the United States. Darke says they are not opportunities that would be “plausible” for athletes even a decade ago. “I started — like a lot of girls — playing in a boys competition, because that’s all we really had access to,” she said. Some of these women are now stars of their sport, but didn’t start playing until they was teenagers. Now those opportunities are available for every girl. And they get to watch their heroes go about it too. West Coast gun Jaide Britton says she has already noticed a change in the crowd at AFLW matches. “A lot of the people that came to our games at the start were either family or friends, but now we’re starting to see a real increase in younger fans and parents bringing their kids to games, even boys as well,” she said. West Coast Fever and *********** Diamonds defender Sunday Aryang said the sports had each other’s backs. “I’m excited to see the growth from all the other female sports it’s not a competition, you all just want to be winning in that aspect,” she said. But, as *********** captain Leonard says, the reach of IWD goes well beyond the world of sport. “When I look at International Women’s Day, it’s an opportunity to celebrate the contribution that we make in society on a day to day basis, whether it’s as teachers, mothers, nurses, trades, women, athletes, the diversity of what we can offer is is really special,” she said. Camera IconWest Coast Fever’s Sunday Aryang and Perth Scorchers’ Maddy Darke. Credit: Kelsey Reid/The West *********** Here’s what Western Australia’s top female athletes had to say in full. Sunday Aryang (West Coast Fever) “Netball is the number one leading sport for young girls coming through the pathway but it’s also great to see how far other sports have come. “I’m excited to see the growth from all the other female sports it’s not a competition, you all just want to be winning in that aspect.” Michaela Leonard (Western Force) “When I look at International Women’s Day, it’s an opportunity to celebrate the contribution that we make in society on a day to day basis. “Whether it’s as teachers, mothers, nurses, trades, women, athletes, the diversity of what we can offer is is really special.” Jaide Britton (West Coast Eagles) “A lot of the people that came to our games at the start were either family or friends, but now we’re starting to see a real increase in younger fans and parents bringing their kids to games, even boys as well. “There’s lots of boys after our games, young boys who want signatures and photos or boots that’s kind of where our fan base needs to grow from, those younger kids that have only grown up watching men’s footy, and now there’s an opportunity to come and watch women’s footy.” Camera IconWest Coast’s Jaide Britton and Fremantle’s Gabby Biedenweg-Webster. Credit: Kelsey Reid/The West AustralianMaddy Darke (Perth Scorchers and WA) “With women’s sport, it’s obviously emerging and it we haven’t had the same opportunity as the men, but with all the teams out here today you can see the growth commercially and with the fans as well, it’s been massive. “I definitely wouldn’t have been able to move across the country for a plausible career about a decade ago, so it’s pretty lucky that the time and place has worked out for me to move to WA. “I started like a lot of girls playing in a boys competition because that’s all we really had access to. Now I think you’ve got the choice to play in an all-girls league too. Gabby Hollar (Perth Glory) “I think it’s incredible. Being a woman has given me opportunities, sport has given me opportunities that I never thought were possible. “I have been able to come all the way over to Australia from the US and I wouldn’t be able to do that if it wasn’t for sports. “It’s come so far along. Even just a few years ago, at the beginning of college, I didn’t know if I’d have opportunities to be able to play after. We only had the one league in the US and I didn’t eve really know about other leagues in other countries.” Camera IconWestern Force’s Michaela Leonard and Perth Glory’s Gabby Hollar. Credit: Kelsey Reid/The West AustralianGabby Beidenweg-Webster (Fremantle Dockers) “The development of the women’s games, all sports codes, has been pretty cool. Just to be a part of the AFLW, watch it kind of expand from when it started, thinking it wasn’t really an opportunity for girls and women, it’s just been huge. “I’m one of five girls, so I just love being surrounded by powerful and cool women. “The first time I got to play footy was 18 year’s old. Now I see young girls, from Auskick age, being able to play. Not just playing against the boys, although we were probably dominating anyway.” Source link #star #female #athletes #celebrate #International #Womens #Day Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

‘Are They So Dumb They Don’t Know How to Google?’ ‘Are They So Dumb They Don’t Know How to Google?’ Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways Jimmy Kimmel continued to roast Donald Trump’s address to Congress on his ABC late-night talk show. During Kimmel’s March 5 episode, the host lambasted Trump for egregiously lying about how Joe Biden’s administration spent “$8 million on making mice transgender.” Trump said “this is real,” to which Kimmel fired back: “No, it’s not real.” “You know, you hear the president of the United States say we’re spending $8 million to do sex change operations on mice,” Kimmel said. “You say, ‘Well, I’m sure he’s exaggerating, but there must be something there.‘ Turns out there’s not. It’s not real.” More from Variety “The government spent money on transgenic mice, which are genetically modified mice they use in lab tests to study disease,“ Kimmel explained. ”It has nothing to do with being transgender. Other than the word, the ‘trans’ part of the word. You think they know this and just ignore it, or are they so dumb they don’t know how to Google? Or maybe they think we’re so dumb we don’t know how to Google? I don’t know.” “They’re turning Mickeys into Minnies and Minnies into Mickeys!” Kimmel then joked. “No, they’re just trying to cure dementia and heart disease, which you would think Trump would be for seeing as how they are both coming for him real soon.” Trump’s claim that Biden spent $8 million on making mice transgender was widely fact-checked by outlets such as CNN, which reported that the government had the “differences in the ways an **** vaccine worked in mice that had received cross-sex hormone therapy.” The studies were “not for the purpose of making mice transgender” but for figuring out “how these treatments might affect the health of humans who take them.” As reported by Variety, Trump‘s address to Congress reached an average of 36.6 million viewers, which is about 13% above Joe Biden’s most recent State of the Union address (32.2 million viewers in 2024). But Trump’s latest address was down from his previous high of 47.7 million viewers for his 2017 State of the Union. Watch Kimmel’s full monologue on Trump’s address in the video below. Best of Variety Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Source link #Dumb #Dont #Google Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

European Stocks Echo US Drop on Tariff Confusion: Markets Wrap – Yahoo Finance European Stocks Echo US Drop on Tariff Confusion: Markets Wrap – Yahoo Finance European Stocks Echo US Drop on Tariff Confusion: Markets Wrap Yahoo FinanceTrump’s trade war draws swift retaliation with new tariffs from Mexico, Canada and China The Associated PressEuropean Stocks Drop as Tariff Jitters Trigger Broad Retreat BloombergMajority say US, not other countries, will feel brunt of Trump tariffs: Poll The HillWhat is a tariff and who pays it? CNN Source link #European #Stocks #Echo #Drop #Tariff #Confusion #Markets #Wrap #Yahoo #Finance Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Ben O’Shea: Epics FAILS on the campaign trail Ben O’Shea: Epics FAILS on the campaign trail With democracy snags hitting BBQs, Ben O’Shea takes a tong to the 2025 election campaign trail, unpacking the memorable moments, including epic fails, while voters give their verdicts with just hours to go. Source link #Ben #OShea #Epics #FAILS #campaign #trail Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]