5. Strengthening Regulation and Oversight: In order to ensure the effective implementation of these measures and uphold market integrity, the government will enhance regulatory oversight of the property market. This includes monitoring compliance with existing regulations, cracking down on illegal practices, and promoting transparency within the sector.Nittany Lions share the holiday with parents, teammates and coaches Subscribe to continue reading this article. Already subscribed? To login in, click here.
As Messi prepares to make his comeback, all eyes will be on him to deliver a stellar performance and inspire his teammates to victory. His unmatched ability to create scoring opportunities and change the course of a match in an instant has made him a formidable force on the field, and his return is expected to provide a much-needed boost to Barcelona's campaign.
Top-ranked chess player Magnus Carlsen is headed back to the World Blitz Championship on Monday after its governing body agreed to loosen a dress code that got him fined and denied a late-round game in another tournament for refusing to change out of jeans . Lamenting the contretemps, International Chess Federation President Arkady Dvorkovich said in a statement Sunday that he'd let World Blitz Championship tournament officials consider allowing "appropriate jeans" with a jacket, and other "elegant minor deviations" from the dress code. He said Carlsen's stand — which culminated in his quitting the tournament Friday — highlighted a need for more discussion "to ensure that our rules and their application reflect the evolving nature of chess as a global and accessible sport." Carlsen, meanwhile, said in a video posted Sunday on social media that he would play — and wear jeans — in the World Blitz Championship when it begins Monday. "I think the situation was badly mishandled on their side," the 34-year-old Norwegian grandmaster said. But he added that he loves playing blitz — a fast-paced form of chess — and wanted fans to be able to watch, and that he was encouraged by his discussions with the federation after Friday's showdown. "I think we sort of all want the same thing," he suggested in the video on his Take Take Take chess app's YouTube channel. "We want the players to be comfortable, sure, but also relatively presentable." The events began when Carlsen wore jeans and a sportcoat Friday to the Rapid World Championship, which is separate from but held in conjunction with the blitz event. The chess federation said Friday that longstanding rules prohibit jeans at those tournaments, and players are lodged nearby to make sartorial switch-ups easy if needed. An official fined Carlsen $200 and asked him to change pants, but he refused and wasn't paired for a ninth-round game, the federation said at the time. The organization noted that another grandmaster, Ian Nepomniachtchi, was fined earlier in the day for wearing sports shoes, changed and continued to play. Carlsen has said that he offered to wear something else the next day, but officials were unyielding. He said "it became a bit of a matter of principle," so he quit the rapid and blitz championships. In the video posted Sunday, he questioned whether he had indeed broken a rule and said changing clothes would have needlessly interrupted his concentration between games. He called the punishment "unbelievably harsh." "Of course, I could have changed. Obviously, I didn't want to," he said, and "I stand by that." ChessA Russian man arrested for allegedly running a travel agency for gay customers was found dead in custody in Moscow, rights group OVD-Info reported Sunday, amid a crackdown on LGBTQ rights in Russia. According to OVD-Info, which tracks political arrests, Andrei Kotov — director of the “Men Travel” agency — faced charges of “organizing extremist activity and participating in it.” OVD-Info said an investigator told Kotov’s lawyer that her client had died by suicide early Sunday while in pretrial detention and was found dead in his cell. Prior to Kotov’s death, independent media outlet Mediazona reported earlier this month that Kotov had rejected the charges and said in court that law enforcement officers beat him and administered electric shocks during the arrest, even though he didn’t resist. Just over a year ago, Russia’s Supreme Court effectively outlawed any LGBTQ activism in a ruling that designated “the international LGBT movement” as extremist. The move exposed anyone in the community or connected to it to criminal prosecution and prison, ushering in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. The LGBTQ community in Russia has been under legal and public pressure for over a decade but especially since the Kremlin sent troops to Ukraine in 2022. Russian leader Vladimir Putin has argued that the war is a proxy battle with the West, which he says aims to destroy Russia and its “traditional family values” by pushing for LGBTQ rights.
Plane burst into flames after skidding off runway at an airport in South Korea, killing at least 28
SpaceX knocked out a midnight launch from Cape Canaveral on Sunday, but has a midnight Monday launch on tap from Kennedy Space Center to cap off a record year for the Space Coast. The Sunday launch saw a Falcon 9 lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 carrying communication satellites for Astranis Space Technologies Corp. The mission was delayed from a Dec. 20 attempt that saw the booster shut down as the countdown clock reached 0. SpaceX ended up switching boosters for the mission. This one, flying for the seventh time, including this year’s Crew-8 and Polaris Dawn missions, made a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. It marked the 92nd launch from the Space Coast for 2024, already 20 more than the 72 seen from all providers in 2023, and one more to go. SpaceX’s final launch of the year could come at midnight with another Falcon 9 carrying 21 Starlink satellites set to lift off from KSC’s Pad 39-A during launch window that runs until 3:28 a.m. and backup opportunities on Dec. 31 during the same window. Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts a 60% chance for good launch conditions as a front moves though the Florida peninsula on Sunday. The first-stage booster for that mission is flying for the 16th time having previously flown the Crew-6 mission among 15 other flights. It will aim for a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic. It will mark the end of a busy weekend for SpaceX, which also flew a Starlink mission from California late Saturday. Elon Musk’s company will have flown 134 missions of its Falcon family of rockets with 62 from Cape Canaveral, 26 from KSC, including the two Falcon Heavy launches of the year, and 46 from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base. It also flew its in-development Starship and Super Heavy on four suborbital test flights from its Texas launch site Starbase. For the Space Coast, the KSC launch will mark 93 launches for the year, with all but five from SpaceX. The other five were all from United Launch Alliance, which flew three different rockets from two launch pads. 2024 saw the debut of its Vulcan rocket in January, which flew a second time in the fall while also flying two Atlas V missions, including the Boeing Starliner Crew Flight Test, all from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 41. The year also saw the final launch of ULA’s Delta IV Heavy rocket from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 37. Among the Space Coast launches were five human spaceflights carrying 16 people to space. Those include the Starliner flight from ULA to the International Space Station, and four launches of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. SpaceX’s launches of the Crew-8 and Crew-9 missions as well as its flight for Axiom Space on the Ax-3 mission also went to the ISS. The Polaris Dawn mission took billionaire and the next nominee to head NASA, Jared Isaacman, and three others on an orbital mission that featured the first commercial space walk. One rocket that didn’t launch in 2024, but could still, is Blue Origin’s New Glenn, which had been trying to get its debut mission off the ground before the end of the year. The Federal Aviation Administration only gave Jeff Bezos’ company a launch license for the heavy-lift rocket on Friday, which was also when Blue Origin was able to finally perform a test hot fire of the rocket on the pad at Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 36. The FAA has cleared the NG-1 Blue Ring Pathfinder mission for a launch window late Monday during a window from 11:30 p.m. into early Tuesday until 2:45 a.m. and a backup late New Year’s Eve into New Year’s Day during the same window. ©2024 Orlando Sentinel. Visit orlandosentinel.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — The New York Giants snapped a franchise-record 10-game losing streak and ended the Indianapolis Colts’ slim playoff hopes Sunday as Drew Lock threw four touchdown passes and ran for another in a 45-33 victory. New York earned its first home win of the season and it no longer has control of the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. Lock sandwiched touchdown passes of 31 and 59 yards to Malik Nabers around TD passes of 32 yards to Darius Slayton and 5 yards to Wan’Dale Robinson in leading the Giants (3-13) to their first win since beating Seattle on Oct. 6. Ihmir Smith-Marsette had a 100-yard return on the second-half kickoff on a day the league’s worst offense set a season high for points. Jonathan Taylor scored on runs of 3 and 26 yards for Indianapolis (7-9), while Joe Flacco, subbing for the injured Anthony Richardson, threw touchdown passes of 13 yards to Alec Pierce and 7 yards to Michael Pittman, the last bringing the Colts within 35-33 with 6:38 left in the fourth quarter. Lock, who finished 17 of 23 for 309 yards, iced the game by leading a nine-play, 70-yard drive that he capped with a 5-yard run. The 45 points were the most for New York since putting up 49 in a 52-49 loss to the Saints in 2015. It’s the Giants most in a win since a 45-14 rout against Washington in 2014 and most at home since a 52-27 win against the Saints in 2012. Nabers finished with seven catches for a career-high 171 yards. Flacco was 26 of 38 for 330 yards with two interceptions, the second by rookie Dru Phillips shortly after Lock’s TD run. Taylor, who rushed for 218 yards in a win over Tennessee last weekend, finished with 125 yards on 32 carries. Pierce had six catches for 122 yards. Rookies Nabers and running back Tyrone Tracy become the third pair of rookies to have more than 1,000 yards from scrimmage in the same season. The previous duo was running back Reggie Bush and receiver Marques Colston of the Saints in 2006. Injuries Colts: Richardson was inactive with foot and back injuries sustained against Tennessee. Giants: DL Armon Watts (knee) was ruled out in the first half. Up next Colts: Finish the regular season by hosting Jacksonville. Giants: At Philadelphia to face Saquon Barkley and the Eagles. ___ AP NFL coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
Major retailers in UK and Ireland pull products associated with Conor McGregor(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) A uthors: Nicole Hassoun , Binghamton University, State University of New York The killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has set off soul-searching among many Americans. Part of that reflection is about the public reaction to Thompson’s death and the sympathy the suspect received online, with some people critical of the insurance industry celebrating the assailant as a sort of folk hero . As many observers have pointed out , frustrations are no excuse for murder. But it has become a moment of wider reflection on health care in America, and why so many patients feel the system is broken . Philosopher Nicole Hassoun researches health care and human rights. The Conversation U.S. spoke with her about the deeper questions Americans should be asking when they discuss health care reform. We’re seeing an outpouring of anger about health care in the United States. Your work deals with global health inequality and access – can you help put the U.S. system in perspective? If we compare ourselves to other rich countries, we don’t do very well. We spend much more money – about double per patient, on average, compared with other OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries – and get much less in return. In a study of 10 wealthy nations, including New Zealand, Sweden and Canada, The Commonwealth Fund – a private foundation for health care research – ranks the U.S. last overall. About 90% of Americans have some kind of health insurance . Still, 10% lack insurance entirely, and even some of those who are insured can’t afford the co-pays or medication costs . And there is a great deal of inequality in the U.S.: both disparities in access to health care and disparities in outcomes. Black infants die at a rate nearly 2.5 times higher than white babies do, for example, and diabetes rates are 30% higher among Native Americans and Latinos than white Americans. People of color tend to have lower rates of coverage as well. Before the Affordable Care Act, the situation was really dire. It’s likely many of us will get some terrible health condition like cancer during our lifetime, even when we’re relatively young. And what that meant before the ACA was that, if you got sick enough to lose your job – and so, your health insurance – new insurers could charge high rates because of your “preexisting condition.” You’ve argued there’s a universal right to health. What does that mean, and what would it look like? I think that people everywhere should have a legally enforced right to health – and in many countries, such as Germany and Norway , they do. In about half the world’s countries, that right is spelled out in the constitution . But the United States has not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights , which includes a right to health. Morally, I think that the U.S. ought to have signed on to that. People should be able to live minimally good lives , and health is really important to do that. Countries should protect their citizens’ human rights, and health is fundamental to other human rights, like the right to life. When I say people have a right to health , I mean they have a right to the socially controllable determinants of health. This includes a clean and safe environment, health care and adequate food, water and social support. I am not saying that they have a right to be healthy, because you can’t guarantee that for anybody. What I mean is that society should do what it can so that everybody has health care at a reasonable cost. Good governments and their social support systems help everyone secure the health they need to contribute to society. The alternative is costly for everybody, not just people who are sick. Nearly half of the health problems in the U.S. stem from preventable diseases . As a wealthy country, we should have the resources to address those problems – including steps as simple as making sure people have high blood-pressure medicine, or regular primary-care visits . Everybody should be getting that kind of care, because otherwise, people certainly end up in the emergency room. Even ER visits that do not result in hospitalization cost an immense amount of money , ratcheting up the costs for everyone in the system, and often patients still don’t get the care that they need . According to a 2020 study published in The Lancet , a single-payer system could save the U.S. 13% savings in health care spending or US$450 billion each year. It’s a matter of how we want to be as a country. We can make health a right, but that is a decision that the American population has to make. We’re all in this together. We’re all trying to make this country work. And it’s a lot harder to do that when you’re sick. You mentioned an interesting phrase: the idea of the “minimally good life.” I just wrote a book on the minimally good life, and the main question it grapples with is this: What do we owe each other as a basic minimum? What kind of social safety net will suffice for everyone? I argue that respect for humanity requires people to help others live “minimally good lives” when that help does not sacrifice our own reasonably good quality of life. But how should we define that minimum? How should the country decide what kind of social welfare system to have? The basic idea is this: Put yourself in other people’s shoes and think, “There but for the grace of God go I.” What would I need to live a good-enough life as that person? What would I need if I were them? Maybe you don’t have cancer right now, or heart disease, or anything else. But someday you might. Empathy lets us think about how we can create the kind of security that will help us all flourish and live good lives. It’s also part of being a good-enough person. I think we live better lives when we help each other. When we think about what we want, what policies and laws we want to vote for, we have to put ourselves in others’ shoes and consider what would be good enough for all of us. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/the-moral-dimension-to-americas-flawed-health-care-system-245971 . More from PennLive Opinion Liz Cheney is obsessed with Donald Trump, not vice versa | PennLive letters The story of a con man, scapegoats, and a resistance have to say about our future | Column Nixon’s official acts against his enemies list led to a bipartisan impeachment effort | Opinion Retailers that make it harder to return stuff face backlash from their customers | Opinion
Labour would lose its majority and nearly 200 seats if a general election was held today, a new mega poll suggests. While Sir Keir Starmer would still come out on top, it would be in a "highly fragmented and unstable" parliament with five parties holding over 30 seats. More in Common, which used the data of more than 11,000 people to produce the analysis, said the results show the UK's First Past the Post (FPTP) system is "struggling to function" in the new world of multi-party politics, and if the results come true it would make government formation "difficult". The model estimates Labour would win, but with barely a third of the total number of seats and a lead of just six seats over the Conservatives. According to the analysis, Labour would lose 87 seats to the Tories overall, 67 to Reform UK and 26 to the SNP - with "red wall" gains at the July election almost entirely reversed. Nigel Farage's Reform party would emerge as the third largest in the House of Commons, increasing its seat total 14-fold to 72. A number of cabinet ministers would lose their seats to Reform - the main beneficiary of the declining popularity of Labour and the Tories - including Angela Rayner, Yvette Cooper, Ed Miliband, Bridget Philipson, Jonathan Reynolds and John Healey. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, would lose Ilford North to an independent, the analysis suggests. Luke Tryl, director of More in Common UK, said the model is "not a prediction of what would happen at the next general election", which is not expected until 2029. X X , which may be using cookies and other technologies. To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies. You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable X cookies or to allow those cookies just once. You can change... Faye Brown‘I was just trying to be nice’: Aldi customer tries to pay her cart quarter forward. She can’t believe this customer’s response
Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah agree to a ceasefire to end nearly 14 months of fightingNATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was established in 1949 with the primary goal of collective defense among its member countries. The organization has been a cornerstone of international security and stability for decades, particularly in the face of evolving global threats and challenges. However, President Trump's latest remarks have called into question the unity and effectiveness of the alliance.12306 Response to Mother and Daughter Carrying Knives on Train: Police Are Investigating
UPDATED WELLNESSLegendary cricket icon Syed Kirmani releases autobiography on 75th birthday
