Amazon has slashed the price of a Fire TV Stick rival that’s now half the price of the popular streaming device. The Roku Express 4K Streaming Media Player is currently reduced to £30, down from £39. That’s half the usual price of the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K , which would set you back £59.99. However, Amazon has just reduced this model down to £34.99 to tempt customers in the Black Friday sale. The Roku device still works out £4.99 cheaper than the Fire TV Stick and lets you stream live TV, news, sports, films and TV shows on more than 250 free and paid channels and apps including Prime Video, Disney+, Netflix, BBC iPlayer and many more. Buyers can also claim three months of free Apple TV+ worth £26.97 by redeeming on the platform after setup. READ MORE: The Dunelm halogen heater that is 'great for giving instant heat' READ MORE: Amazon's giant Lindt Chocolate Hamper now cheaper than Tesco ahead of Black Friday The Roku Express 4K provides streaming in HD, 4K Ultra HD, and HDR for crystal clear picture quality and can turn any non-smart TV into a smart TV packed with streaming apps by plugging it straight into an HDMI port. It’s also designed to deliver a smooth streaming experience and fast WiFi connection even with several devices running simultaneously. The ‘easy to use’ remote also features shortcuts to the most popular streamers and has voice control so you can search for your favourite shows hands free. The Roku Express 4K Streaming Media Player has earned more than 1,800 positive reviews from Amazon customers, with users hailing it as ‘great value for money’ and an ‘improvement’ on a Fire TV Stick. One satisfied customer said: “Brilliant and great value for money. Switched to this from a Fire Stick which we were having many problems with and it’s a huge improvement. Absolutely recommend this to anyone. So handy I can control it from my phone as the remote can be a bit slow. Seriously amazing.” Another said: “Fantastic value, versatile streamer. Added to an older Samsung non-smart TV. Does everything I want and more. Large range of streaming channels including all the popular ones. Simple to use remote, plus the option to use an app on your mobile as a remote, so you can type and issue voice commands to Roku . It is probably better than the options provided on many smart TVs and for a small fraction of the price.” A third shopper said: “Ditch the Fire Stick and get one of these. My Fire Stick was getting slower and slower which got to be a bit of a drag. While looking for alternatives I saw lots of good reviews for the Roku and decided to give it a try. I’m glad I did as it’s completely changed our viewing experience. No more lagging and waiting, no more drop-outs from WiFi. The apps all seem to work a lot better too.” However, the same buyer pointed out a downside, writing: “The only thing this lacked were the power and volume buttons on the remote. I bought a replacement remote with these and voice control while it was on special and that solved the problem.” Elsewhere, Sky is also offering big discounts on TV packages in its Black Friday sale , with plans offering hundreds of TV channels and a free Netflix subscription. Shoppers can currently save £168 on the provider’s Sky Stream, Sky TV and Netflix bundle that’s at its lowest-ever price of £19 a month, down from £26.A sunny day, 29 degrees, a gentle north-westerly breeze: flying conditions were near perfect as Qantas flight 520 began rolling down the runway at Sydney Airport en route to Brisbane. This particular plane, a Boeing 737-800, had been delivered new to the national carrier in November 2005 and given the tail number VH-VYH. A dependable workhorse, it had scooted up and down Australia’s east coast, mostly, for 19 years without notable incident. On this day, November 8, 2024, the Boeing had already made three trips, the first a breakfast run out of Sydney just before 7am. It was now setting off for the return leg to Brisbane. QF520 left the gate around 12.15pm and taxied to its slot in the take-off line-up, from where it was given the go-ahead. Its pilots hit the gas and the engines bellowed. It soon reached 200km/h and passed what aviators call “V1”: the point at which a plane is travelling too quickly to safely abort take-off. Exactly what happened next is now in the hands of safety investigators. What we do know is that, as the 737 was still gathering speed down the runway, . It failed, spitting fragments of superheated metal out of its exhaust chute, which shot to the ground, sparking a grassfire that soon made TV news. Some 40 per cent of air travellers report some fear of flying. Yet air travel is by far the safest form of transport, we’re often told. It’s heavily regulated, constantly scrutinised and, in Australia, operated and overseen by thousands of highly trained and dedicated professionals. The statistics confirm it. Australia’s safety record for commercial travel is exemplary: no large jet has ever been lost here. Our oldest airline, Qantas, . Yet incidents still happen. Planes bump into each other on the ground. Tyres burst. Turbulence flings people around. Why do things still go wrong, albeit occasionally? Who is responsible for keeping us safe in the air? And what happens when that rarest of event occurs: one of your two engines goes “pop”? Flores, a tropical island about an hour’s flight east of Bali, is best known for three things: clear-water scuba diving, komodo dragons that can weigh more than 100 kilograms, and volcanoes, some picturesque and dormant, others not so much. In early November, in earnest, endangering nearby villages and sending a plume of ash 10 kilometres into the air. Some 4000 kilometres south, at the Qantas Integrated Operations Centre near Sydney Airport, concern began to build. Famously, all four engines on a British Airways 747 failed after passing through a sulphurous volcanic cloud high above Java in 1982; only after the crew had prepared to ditch in the ocean did the turbofans clear of debris and miraculously restart. Partly as a consequence, when the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted in 2010, , which led to some 95,000 flights cancelled and millions of passengers stranded. As the Flores ash cloud drifted west towards Bali, the Qantas team declared the situation critical and began cancelling flights into Denpasar for both Qantas and its subsidiary Jetstar. On the day we visit the operations centre, the crisis management team is about to meet in its purpose-built war room to gauge when flights might be allowed to resume. “It’s about determining when it’s going to be safe for us to operate,” says Qantas’s head of safety, Mark Cameron, a former British Airways pilot who knew the 747 crew who survived the volcano in 1982. “Engines do not like breathing in volcanic ash.” Hundreds of Qantas staff, meanwhile, seated in pods in a vast room at head office, are still scrambling to reschedule flights, alert and mollify annoyed passengers while also dealing with the normal workings of some 100 international and 300 domestic flights on a typical day. For what we’re told is an extraordinarily busy day, though, the atmosphere is hushed and calm: a giant jigsaw puzzle being completed then restarted as mini-crises are discovered and mitigated. Jetstar was doing the same at its operations centre in Melbourne. The business of air travel is mind-bogglingly complex. But so, too, are the systems underpinning it. They allow it to operate extremely safely, especially compared to any other form of transport. Back in 1944, as World War II saw a flurry of new airports being built, 54 nations including Australia sent delegates to Chicago for a convention that laid the groundwork for international air safety standards. They agreed to create an overarching authority, today called the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), under the auspices of the United Nations to set world standards for airworthiness and maintenance, and airport and airline operations, among other areas. “The aviation industry has an incredibly good safety record,” says Ron Bartsch, an aviation safety expert and founder of Avlaw aviation consulting. “The main reason for that is it’s so strictly and extensively regulated.” For 2023, ICAO reported the accident rate (such as incidents involving death, injury, aircraft damaged or missing) for commercial aircraft was 1.87 accidents per million departures. To break this down: of 35,250,759 departures, there were 66 accidents, all but one of them non-fatal, the exception a twin-engine propeller aircraft operated by Yeti Airlines in the Himalayas, killing 72 people on board. The Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) regulates the ongoing airworthiness of aircraft by ensuring airlines adhere to safety standards and a strict maintenance program.Regular maintenance is based on the number of hours the aircraft has flown, or how much time has passed since the last check – different parts require different “periodicity” for being serviced. Engineers could do anything from checking fluids after every flight to replacing wheelpads after a few flights to inspecting or replacing any one of thousands of parts after a specified time. “What it allows us to do,” says Qantas’s Mark Cameron, “is to be really proactive in how we’re managing risk – because, effectively, that’s what airlines do, we manage risk. We can’t eliminate it because you can’t eliminate risk in any part of your daily life, but our role is to manage the risk to a level at which we’re comfortable that everybody’s going to be safe.” At Qantas HQ, various teams plan virtually every aspect of each flight: checking the weather; working out the best route (from several options if flying overseas, including avoiding volcanic eruptions or such as closed airspace in the Middle East, which Qantas has been navigating since early August); making sure cargo is loaded correctly so the plane is balanced; identifying dangerous goods on board; and screening for troublesome passengers on the banned “no fly” list ... and on it goes. With all that in place, the pilots run pre-flight checks, going over the weather briefing, for example, and any notes on potential dangers. The airline tells pilots how much fuel they need, but the pilot can choose to take more, depending on the possibility of a weather diversion or other delays. The pilot physically walks around the aircraft on the ground to triple-check there are no obvious faults. An engineer will have already signed a certificate of release to service – a legal declaration that the aircraft is fit to fly – before every international flight and at least daily for domestic flights, which the pilot clocks, along with a log of maintenance, before they accept the aircraft for flight. The pilot’s next contact is with air-traffic controllers, who clear planes for departure according to strict rules that determine “how many aircraft we can have taking off and landing at any one time,” says Airservices Australia’s Michelle Petersen, who is responsible for the towers at all of Australia’s major airports. Controllers also factor in “wake turbulence”, the disruption to the air that a plane leaves in its wake; there needs to be a gap of three minutes between an A380 taking off and a Boeing 737 following it, for example. All over the world, controllers and pilots speak English and use regulated unambiguous terms: “Qantas one, runway 19 left, cleared for take-off.” Pilots always repeat back the message. “There cannot be any assumptions in the air and we embed safety in everything we do,” says Petersen. The most deadly air disaster in history, which killed 583 people in Tenerife in the Canary Islands in 1977, was blamed, at least in part, on a communication breakdown: two 747s collided on the runway in heavy fog after one tried to take off following a command from air-traffic control that pilots mistook to be an all-clear to depart. In the Ancient Greek fable, Icarus was warned by a fledgling aviation regulator (his dad) not to swoop too close to the sea lest his wings, fashioned from feathers and wax, become waterlogged; nor should he fly too close to the sun in case the wax melted. In other words, the operational envelope of his equipment was well understood and his fate (a fatal wax-feather-decoupling incident) was quite rightly chalked up to pilot error. Today, aviators talk of jet planes in generations. “Generation one” had panels of dials and gauges and rudimentary autopilots, if any. Think: cars with no airbags or anti-lock braking and possibly alarming handling characteristics, such as the world’s first commercial jet airliner, BOAC’s de Havilland Comet. One, flying from Singapore to London via Bangkok, Rangoon, Calcutta, Karachi, Bahrain, Beirut and Rome in 1954 disintegrated midair, as did two of its sister planes, thanks to structural issues; 23 other Comets, out of 114 in total including prototypes, were lost due to pilot error, design faults and other mishaps. Next came the beginnings of truly modern jets, including the pretty reliable 747 “jumbos” – to an upstairs lounge bar – and the first of the Boeing 737s, launched in 1968 and still one of the most-operated airliners today. These had better automatic systems but could still make you think twice about getting on board: the McDonnell Douglas DC-10, in particular, gained a terrible reputation in the 1970s thanks to engine failures and a series of hijackings. “Generation three” planes saw the introduction of technology such as “terrain avoidance systems”, leading to a rapid reduction in losses that continues today in “generation four” planes, which can “see” all around themselves to take evasive action if something nearby is judged to be on a collision course. Airbus tells us its latest safety systems use real-time data to avoid runway excursions and reduce the risk of landing incidents (“in case the aircraft is too fast, too high or lands too long, an alert will be triggered to advise the crew to perform a go-around or use the maximum reverse and brakes”). Says Qantas’s Mark Cameron: “If you look at the accident rates throughout that period of time, you just see them plummet across the generations.” Last year was the first to record zero fatalities from commercial jet crashes, despite there being more than 29,000 in service worldwide, according to Boeing’s statistical summary that dates back to 1959. (This excludes turboprop, or propeller, passenger planes such as those operated by Yeti Airlines in Nepal and the ATR-72-500 that after stalling and entering a flat spin.) The age of a plane, meanwhile, says little about how well-maintained it is. “Don’t get confused with cosmetic looks,” says David Evans, a former Qantas pilot of 35 years. “If you walk into an aircraft that looks a bit shabby, the carpet might be a bit threadbare, that has no relationship to its airworthiness.” “Generation four” planes have a huge number of backups, or redundancies. Those with two engines, such as Boeing 737s, can fly on one. They have multiple alternative power sources. “The A380 had about six different backup systems for wheel brakes. If you’re running out of brakes, you’re having a really bad day,” says Evans. “All of these things have been based around previous incidents ... over the 100-odd years of aviation. There are risks every time you go flying, but we mitigate them by ... checklists, briefings, plan A, B and C. You’re trying to eliminate surprise.” There are also at least two pilots on a flight deck at all times, one free to monitor the autopilot while the other scrutinises variables such as fuel consumption and weather. Having said this, airlines and regulators from more than 40 countries have pushed ICAO to help make single-pilot flights safe; the European Union Aviation Safety Agency says such services could start in 2027. Ron Bartsch doesn’t back such a change. “You need someone who can take the place of the pilot if they have a heart attack or something.” Evans that it is an alarming idea, noting that pilots are “the last line of defence”. Once in a while, a defect can slip through what the industry calls the “Swiss cheese” safety model. Visualise a packet of Swiss cheese slices, each with holes in different places. For an error to creep through, a hole would have to line up in every slice of cheese. Boeing’s new-ish 737 Max aircraft was delivered to airlines with a fatal flaw: a problem that had managed to pass through every slice of cheese. First, a system that prevented the planes from stalling malfunctioned: perceiving that the planes were climbing too steeply when they were not, it automatically, and repeatedly, forced down the nose. This could, potentially, have been overridden by pilots, had they been trained to recognise the problem – but they had not. As a result, two Max 8 737s crashed – one in Indonesia in October 2018, another in Ethiopia in March 2019 – with the loss of a total of 346 lives. It later emerged that Boe­ing had cut corners by updat­ing its now decades-old 737s to the longer, more powerful Max rather than build­ing an entirely new air­craft from scratch, in order to match its chief competitor, the Air­bus A320neo. Max variants were grounded worldwide between March 2019 and December 2020 while investigators determined the cause of the fatal disasters. The groundings, lawsuits and compensation, U and cancelled orders kept Boeing’s safety record in the spotlight and have cost the company about $100 billion. Boeing supplied historical safety data for this Explainer but declined an invitation to speak on the record. Bartsch says the 737 Max troubles have been “a classic example of companies trying to cut costs” ahead of safety. “Boeing is still paying the price for the damage to their brand. It’s got a fair way before it regains industry trust.” Boeing was again in the spotlight earlier this year for its 737 Max aircraft when a Max 9 explosively decompressed above Portland, Oregon after it lost a fuselage panel called a “door plug” that, it turned out, had bolts missing in its installation. Although extremely alarming, there were no serious injuries. In Australia, CASA has now certified the Max 8 as safe to operate. Virgin, which currently operates eight 737 Max 8 aircraft, requires its pilots to undergo additional training to understand the differences between the new aircraft and previous iterations of the 737. In addition, Boeing has modified the problematic system, called MCAS, so it cannot override a pilot’s ability to control the airplane. “Virgin Australia is one of over 80 airlines operating Boeing 737 Max family aircraft globally,” says Virgin Australia chief operations officer, Stuart Aggs. “More than 1400 of these aircraft are in service around the world, carrying about 700,000 passengers on 5500 flights every day. Over the past 50 years, a journey of continuous improvement has made commercial aviation the world’s safest form of transportation. Virgin Australia retains full confidence in Boeing’s commitment to this journey.” For all the focus on beleaguered Boeing, Airbus has not been without incident: in September, a Rolls-Royce engine on a Cathay Pacific A350 caught fire and failed, forcing the plane to dump fuel then return to Hong Kong. After inspecting its entire fleet of A350 aircraft, Cathay found that 15 had faulty engine parts that needed to be replaced. A preliminary report into the September incident by Hong Kong’s safety body found a fuel hose had torn, according to Aviation Direct. “This led to a fuel leak, which in combination with oxygen and an ignition source (heat) triggered the fire.” When the right-side engine failed on Qantas flight 520 out of Sydney just seconds after the “V1′′ point of no return during take-off, the pilots knew they had no choice but to keep going and take off with just one power plant. Says David Evans: “V1 is carefully calculated for every takeoff. The only decision pilots have to make prior to V1 is to either stop or go. After V1 there is no decision, you are committed to go flying. Any attempt to stop after V1 will result in a runway overrun.” The Boeing had been designed for such an eventuality; to take off with just one engine. That did not mean, however, it was routine. Historically, many fatal crashes have occurred at or shortly after take-off, including the disaster in Paris in 2000 that eventually consigned the only supersonic airliner, Concorde, to the history books. ”We spend a fair amount of our career lifetime in simulators, preparing for worst-case scenarios,” says Doug Drury, a former commercial pilot who heads aviation at Central Queensland University. “It’s all about developing these critical skills, thinking, decision-making processes and having good situational awareness.” The Sydney incident was a scenario that pilots regularly simulate in training and their response was by the book, says Mark Cameron, who spoke with them afterwards. “They were saying they really appreciate the training they’d had.” Their take-off, after the engine had failed, was “low and slow” as the plane crept skywards, circled Sydney airport then landed safely. “Within 15 minutes of the landing, we had the data already available where we could actually see exactly how the crew had flown,” says Cameron. “It was really good in terms of how they controlled the aircraft, recognised the issues, the approach back into Sydney. It’s actually a really good news story for our pilots and systems.” Passengers who heard the engine go “bang” were alarmed but nobody was injured. Says David Evans: “An engine failure is horrendous from a passenger’s point of view, and even for the cabin crew, but for the pilots it’s a serious inconvenience more than anything. I don’t want to say it’s not a big deal, but it’s not something they haven’t seen many, many times and practised over and over.” So why did this engine give up the ghost? This model is generally very reliable, manufactured since 1997 by CFM International and used in thousands of Boeing and Airbus planes. CFM describes it as “simple and rugged” with a “dispatch reliability” (the rate at which a specific component is held responsible for aircraft delays, turn-backs, diversions, etc) of 99.96 per cent. Yet nothing is entirely foolproof. CFM engines have failed before, most notably on planes operated by Southwest Airlines in the United States where they shot debris into the fuselage. In 2018, a passenger died after reportedly being sucked out of a window punctured by debris. The US National Transportation Safety Board determined that one of the failed engine’s fan blades had broken off due to fatigue and fractured into fragments. It had likely harboured a tiny crack that had pre-dated a safety inspection, the authority said, “However, the crack was not detected for unknown reasons.” “We don’t want the engines to fail,” says Cameron. “But the reality is, there’s always going to be a failure rate. It’s pretty small across the industry.” He adds: “An engine failure in itself doesn’t mean you’re going to have an accident because you’ve got trained crew, an aircraft that is certified to fly on one engine and numerous other controls in place.” Doug Drury notes: “Airlines don’t survive if they cut corners. Historically, yes, it’s happened, but in this day and age, post-pandemic, that’s the last thing any airline wants, is to get hit with this.” In 2010, David Evans was the supervising check captain on QF32, an Airbus A380, when it suffered an uncontained engine failure moments after take-off from Singapore’s Changi Airport en route to Sydney. “Sometimes a failure will have a cascading effect on other systems and QF32 is a good example of that: where an engine exposure created havoc with everything else,” Evans says. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau later found that an oil pipe in the failed Rolls-Royce engine had been manufactured to improper tolerances and had developed a crack due to fatigue, then it leaked oil that caused a fire, which caused a turbine disc to separate from the drive shaft and destroy the engine. The pilots famously landed the plane safely. “You’ll never get rid of risk,” says Evans. “The only thing you can do is mitigate against risk.” There were 58 uncon­tained (that is, explosive) engine fail­ures on West­ern-built air­craft between 1982 and 2008, according to the US authority the Fed­eral Avi­ation Admin­is­tra­tion – a scary-sounding number until you do the maths: roughly, around one occurrence per 10 million flights per year, or far less likely than being hit by lightning (one in a million). Some incidents are harder to mitigate than others. Orville Wright was probably the first aviator to hit a bird, in 1905. The most famous bird strike of all was caused by a flock of Canadian geese in 2009, which clogged the engines on an Airbus 320 departing New York and required its captain, Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger III (later played by Tom Hanks in the ) to ditch on the Hudson River. Turbulence, particularly where an aircraft drops suddenly in the absence of any obvious “weather” such as storm clouds – dubbed “clear-air turbulence” – regularly sees flight staff, in particular, injured. A Southwest attendant was scalded by hot coffee in March; a United staffer flung into the air with the drinks cart, then back to the floor, described it as “slamming down from a fifth-floor building”. In May, a passenger died of a suspected heart attack, and more than a hundred were injured, when a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777 suddenly fell nearly two kilometres over three minutes over Myanmar during the breakfast service, one passenger it was “just like going down a vertical rollercoaster”. The incident, while extreme, prompted a round of reminders of the benefits of fastening seatbelts, one of the few aspects of flying that passengers can control. For most “aviophobics”, says Corrie Ackland, clinical director of the Sydney Phobia Clinic, the fear “comes down to this idea that they don’t know what’s happening and they don’t know how to fix it – and those things play up for them”. News reporting and TV shows put all manner of aviation incidents in the spotlight. “I’ve seen people and their fear is based around what they see on the telly – nothing to do with flying,” says Evans. He helped set up a “fear of flying” program that now partners with Ackland’s clinic where people sit with a pilot in a flight simulator. “In an aeroplane, you’re getting all sorts of sensations which you can’t rationalise,” Evans says. “And there might have been an incident that you were involved in, turbulence perhaps, and noises like the undercarriage retracting or the flaps extending or retracting, and the amygdala [the fight-or-flight centre of the brain] sets off that charge because you think there’s something afoot or something that’s dangerous. But it’s the normal operation of the aircraft.” A week after landing in Sydney, meanwhile, the Qantas Boeing 737 that suffered engine failure was back in the air. With a new powerplant, VH-VYH shuttled once again from Sydney to Brisbane to Sydney to Melbourne to Brisbane. The damaged engine would be scrutinised to determine what, exactly, had happened, and what remedies might be put in place to minimise the chances of it happening again.casino games 21 。

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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared emergency martial law late Tuesday before backing down, placing the military in control of all government and judicial functions in a power grab that came after months of political stalemate. The hours of crisis and chaos have thrown the future of his presidency into doubt. As the military and police sought to contain protesters who had poured into the streets around the National Assembly, the president announced he would lift the order as soon as he could convene his Cabinet, heeding a defiant vote from the opposition-led legislature. The Cabinet met before dawn Wednesday local time, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, as protesters chanted for Yoon’s impeachment. It remained unclear what immediately precipitated Yoon’s decree — the first time martial law has been declared in South Korea since 1980, when a military junta ruled the country. In a televised address to the nation announcing his declaration of martial law, Yoon called the legislature a “den of criminals” engaged in “legislative tyranny” and “anti-state activities.” “Honorable citizens, as president, I appeal to you with a feeling of spitting blood,” he said. Accusing his opponents of being “shameless pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people,” Yoon lambasted lawmakers for rejecting his government budget proposal and moving to impeach several public officials. His presidency has been plagued by scandal since soon after he took office in 2022, with relentless accusations that he and his wife had abused their positions for personal and political gain. Yoon’s approval ratings have plummeted in recent months amid growing calls for his impeachment. South Korean television broadcasted Yoon’s address over and over again. One news anchor noted in grave disbelief that “we are now reporting a situation to you that we had only seen in movies.” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Park An-su, whom Yoon had named martial law commander, banned all political activity and proclaimed that the media was under military control. Outside the National Assembly, around a thousand protesters tussled with police guarding the gates as military helicopters hovered overhead. Bundled in thick winter jackets, they waved banners and umbrellas, chanting “lift the martial law!” Reporters, legislative staff and lawmakers had barricaded themselves inside the building as soldiers stormed the entrance, shattering a window and setting off what appeared to be either a smoke grenade or tear gas canister in an attempt to force their way in. Early Wednesday — less than three hours after Yoon declared martial law — the legislature voted to overturn his decree. By law, the president is required to lift his order immediately. Yoon soon announced he would comply. Upon learning of the vote, the protesters broke out in cheers, which quickly turned into another increasingly familiar refrain: “Impeach Yoon Suk Yeol!” In the minds of most South Koreans, martial law is strongly associated with the country’s pre-democratic military dictatorships, which used it as a tool to crush political dissent, oftentimes with violence. Under a state of martial law, the military can restrict citizens’ basic rights, including detaining or searching them without a warrant. Crimes can be prosecuted in military courts. The last leader to declare emergency martial law was military general Chun Doo-hwan, who rose to power in a coup in 1979. Chun later declared martial law over the entire country in 1980, during which his military opened fire on pro-democracy protestors in the city of Gwangju, killing at least 165. This is not the first time that democratically elected presidents have toyed with martial law. Under former president Park Geun-hye, a conservative whose corruption scandal led to her impeachment in 2017, military officials had secretly prepared their own plans of declaring martial law in the event that the courts upheld her impeachment. But Park would ultimately be ousted and jailed without those plans ever being set into motion. In September, opposition politicians raised the alarm that Yoon himself was preparing to declare martial law, citing the fact that Kim Yong-hyun, the defense minister, had held an uncustomary meeting with the three military commanders who would likely play key roles in a martial law regime. At the time, the presidential office denied the allegations, which it dismissed as political incitement akin to that of Stalin or Nazi Germany. Yoon , a former prosecutor, rose to political prominence as a straight-shooting investigator who handled high-profile corruption cases. But since being elected president May 2022, he has been a divisive leader, inviting controversy by engaging in misogynistic rhetoric and cracking down on critical media outlets . Yoon has been accused of interfering in a military investigation into the death of a young marine who drowned during a search and rescue operation last year, while his wife has been under fire for accepting a luxury handbag from a Korean American pastor in what critics have characterized as a clear case of graft. The opposition party has also moved to impeach Yoon’s interior minister, who it holds responsible for a crowd crush that killed over 150 people on Halloween in 2022. In addition, liberal party legislators have tried to remove several prosecutors who investigated Lee Jae-myung, their leader and presidential hopeful. In April, Yoon’s conservative party suffered a crushing defeat in the parliamentary general elections, which many saw as a referendum on his presidency. Legislators of all stripes quickly denounced Yoon’s decree of martial law. “There is no reason to declare martial law. We cannot let the military rule this country,” opposition leader Lee Jae-myung said in a video he recorded in a car on his way to the National Assembly. “President Yoon Suk Yeol has betrayed the people. President Yoon’s illegal declaration of emergency martial law is null and void. From this moment on, Mr. Yoon is no longer the president of South Korea.” Even Han Dong-hoon, the leader of Yoon’s own conservative party, had condemned Yoon’s actions as unconstitutional. “With the National Assembly’s vote to lift it, the state of emergency martial law has now been rendered invalid,” he said. ©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — RJ Felton had 21 points in East Carolina's 71-64 victory over Stetson on Friday. Felton also added eight rebounds for the Pirates (5-1). Joran Riley scored 14 points while going 4 of 11 and 5 of 6 from the free-throw line and added five rebounds. Cam Hayes shot 3 for 7 (2 for 4 from 3-point range) and 5 of 6 from the free-throw line to finish with 13 points. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.

Image Sensors Market worth $29.62 Billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 7.5%With that 'world champ mindset,' Helena bareback bronc rider Sam Petersen wins Chase HawksDemystifying the Local AI Ecosystem to Inform Future Growth SEATTLE , Nov. 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA), a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering a robust, equity-centered technology sector that empowers thriving communities, today released a comprehensiv e report detailing Washington state's artificial intelligence (AI) landscape . The Washington State Artificial Intelligence Landscape report provides a deep dive into the state's AI ecosystem, highlighting key trends, challenges, and opportunities for growth. The report was developed in partnership with Moonbeam Exchange and by the WTIA Advanced Technology Cluster , which is funded through the Washington State Department of Commerce Innovation Cluster Accelerator Program. The report highlights Washington's leadership, strengths, opportunities, and areas for improvement. The report finds that Washington state ranks 6th across the US according to 5 key innovation dimensions (Startups, Government-Industry R&D, Government-Academia R&D, Investors, Jobs). Individually, Washington ranks: " Washington state is at the forefront as it extends its global expertise in cloud computing to power the next wave of AI ," said Nirav Desai, CEO at Moonbeam Exchange. "This report underscores the state's potential to become a global leader in AI. We are excited to collaborate with the WTIA to share these insights with the broader community." "AI is transforming industries and creating new economic opportunities," said Kelly Fukai , COO at WTIA. "This report provides valuable data and analysis that will help policymakers, businesses, and investors understand the AI landscape in Washington state and capitalize on its growth potential." The report offers actionable insights that will be used to inform economic development, workforce development, and policy activities across the state to foster AI innovation and development in Washington . These recommendations include: The full report is available for download here : https://share.hsforms.com/1RAtJGiVkSwaXLwuNoZXzQgr4oir . About WTIA The Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) is a consortium that includes a not-for-profit member trade association, a federally and state regulated association health plan, and a for profit corporation providing business services. The organization's mission is to foster a robust, equity-centered technology sector that empowers thriving communities. We recruit technology companies and allies that view diversity as a competitive advantage, value collaboration as essential to sustainable growth, and fully embrace the opportunity to partner with and empower the communities in which we operate. Contact: Nick Ellingson , Advanced Technology Cluster Manager, Nick@watech.org View original content: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/washington-technology-industry-association-releases-washington-state-artificial-intelligence-landscape-report-302315909.html SOURCE Washington Technology Industry Association

Two Thornton Township trustees say they won't attend special board meeting, continuing stalemate

The Green Bay Packers pitched a shutout. Green Bay concluded Week 16 with a 34-0 home rout over the New Orleans Saints on Monday Night Football . Jordan Love didn't have the best performance in the victory, but a solid rushing attack got the Packers over the line. The Saints tried to compete with injury issues, but Spencer Rattler couldn't help put any points on the board. New Orleans dropped to 5-10 with the loss having already been eliminated from postseason contention. Green Bay improved to 11-4 and clinched its spot for the second straight season with Love. Let's analyze the game further with winners and losers: WINNER: Green Bay's rushing attack The Packers were propelled by Josh Jacobs, Emanuel Wilson and Chris Brooks on the ground. Jacobs, as usual, led the way with 69 yards on 13 carries, while Wilson added 52 yards on 11 carries. Brooks tacked on 23 yards on six tries, with all three rushers scoring a touchdown apiece. With a total of 188 ground yards between nine different rushers (including Malik Willis' three QB kneels), Green Bay easily outpaced New Orleans. LOSER: New Orleans' rushing attack It was the opposite story on the ground for the Saints. Without leading rusher Alvin Kamara, no option could generate any momentum against the Packers' front. Rattler led the way with 28 yards on five attempts. Three other rushers tallied 15 carries for just 39 yards, with Jordan Mims' 16 yards on four attempts leading the way. Kendre Miller had 15 yards on eight runs. WINNER: Playoff berths The win moved Green Bay to 11-4 and officially clinched the team a playoff spot. The Packers are currently the No. 6 seed after being No. 7 last season and showcasing the potential for a deep run. Right above Green Bay is the Minnesota Vikings, which is 13-2 and duking it out with the also 13-2 Detroit Lions for the NFC North title and No. 1 seed in the NFC. Green Bay will need help if it hopes to climb the ladder. LOSER: QB play While the Packers put up 34 points, Love wasn't as influential as he could've been on the night. He completed just 16 of 28 passes for 182 yards, one touchdown and no picks. Love had a strong run in the playoffs last season, but he's struggled with inconsistency this year. Though he avoided throwing a pick, he'll need to be much better to give the Packers a chance against the real contenders. Rattler was also predictably poor, completing 50% of his passes for 153 yards, no touchdowns and a pick. WINNER: Shutouts Green Bay's win became the first shutout of the 2024 regular season. As the league continues to focus on offensive play and scoring, New Orleans had nothing to show. With Derek Carr and a healthier offense things could've been different, but for now the Saints entered the wrong side of history despite their ability to light up the scoreboard in the first few weeks.Steep price hikes could be on the way if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his pledge to impose sweeping new tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada and China. He threatened to implement the tariffs on the country’s top three trading partners on his first day back in office, including a 10% tariff on products from China. In a pair of social media posts, he explained the decision as a way to crack down on illegal immigration and drugs. “On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States,” he said. “It is time for them to pay a very big price!” Ultimately, consumers could end up absorbing the brunt of those costs. When tariffs are levied on imports, American companies have to pay taxes to the U.S. government on their purchases from other countries; the companies often pass on those extra costs to customers. “This is a bully effort to put everybody on notice,” said economist Chris Thornberg, founding partner of Beacon Economics in Los Angeles. “One of the reasons he uses tariffs is because it’s one of the few places that he actually has some leverage.” Though Thornberg noted it’s still a “giant remains-to-be seen” whether and how Trump’s proposed tariffs are implemented, consumer goods across the board could be dramatically affected. Here are a few top categories: Mexico was the U.S.’s top goods trading partner last year, surpassing China. Mexico is a major manufacturer of passenger vehicles, light vehicles, trucks, auto parts, supplies and electric-vehicle technologies. Eighty-eight percent of vehicles produced there are exported, with 76% headed for the U.S., the International Trade Administration says. Automakers with manufacturing operations in Mexico include General Motors, Ford, Tesla, Audi, BMW, Honda, Kia, Mercedes Benz, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen. “If we get tariffs, we will pass those tariff costs back to the consumer,” Phil Daniele, chief executive of AutoZone, said in the company’s most recent earnings call. “We’ll generally raise prices ahead of ... what the tariffs will be.” Last year, China accounted for 77% of toy imports — about 25 times greater than the total value of toy imports from Mexico, the next largest foreign source of supply, according to the National Retail Federation. U.S. producers account for less than 1% of the toy market. The federation recently released a study that found the tariffs Trump proposed during his campaign — a universal 10% to 20% tariff on imports from all foreign countries and an additional 60% to 100% tariff on imports specifically from China — would apply to a wide range of toys imported into the U.S., including dolls, games and tricycles. “Prices of toys would increase by 36% to 56%,” the study concluded. The National Retail Federation study also analyzed more than 500 items of clothing and found prices “would rise significantly” — as much as 20.6%. That would force consumers to pare spending on apparel. Low-income households would be hit especially hard, the group said, because they spend three times as much of their after-tax income on apparel compared with high-income households. “U.S. apparel manufacturers would benefit from the tariffs, but at a high cost to families,” the study said. “Even after accounting for domestic manufacturing gains and new tariff revenue, the result is a net $16 billion to $18 billion loss for the U.S. economy, with the burden carried by U.S. consumers.” Imported footwear products already face high U.S. duties, particularly those made in China. The Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America expressed concern that new tariffs would make it more difficult for consumers to afford shoes and other everyday essentials. Trump’s proposed tariffs would increase the costs of several imported fruits and vegetables, said Jerry Nickelsburg, faculty director of UCLA Anderson Forecast, an economic forecasting organization. The vast majority of U.S. produce imports come from Mexico and Canada, including avocados, cucumbers, potatoes and mushrooms. The U.S. spent $88 billion on agricultural imports from the two countries in fiscal year 2024. Big-ticket electronic products such as televisions, laptops, smartphones, dishwashers and washing machines — many of which are manufactured in Mexico and China, or made with parts imported from those countries — likely would become more expensive. The U.S. imported $76 billion worth of computers and other electronics from Mexico in 2023, and more than a quarter of U.S. imports from China consist of electronic equipment. Get local news delivered to your inbox!

The Philadelphia 76ers will continue a Western Conference swing with a meeting with the host Portland Trail Blazers on Monday night as they attempt to keep finding their form. After a slow start to the campaign, the Sixers are on a season-best three-game winning streak that includes a 114-111 victory over the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City on Saturday. Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey each scored 32 points to pace Philadelphia's offensive attack. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. As property values continue to outpace inflation, property taxes are taking a bigger bite out of homeowners’ wallets. A new analysis from Construction Coverage breaks down property tax rates by state, county, and city to reveal where homeowners have the greatest burden. Click for more. Where Are U.S. Property Taxes Highest and Lowest? A State, County, and City Analysis

Getting benched may have been the best thing that happened to Bryce Young and Anthony Richardson. Both second-year quarterbacks are playing well since returning to the starting lineup. Young has steadily improved after coming back in Week 8. He’s displayed the skills that earned him a Heisman Trophy at Alabama and convinced the Carolina Panthers to draft him ahead of C.J. Stroud with the No. 1 overall pick in 2023. Young had his best game on Sunday, nearly leading Carolina to an overtime win over Tampa Bay if it weren’t for Chuba Hubbard’s fumble in field-goal range. He threw for 298 yards and a go-ahead touchdown pass in the final minute of a 26-23 loss. Young almost led the Panthers to a win over the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs a week earlier only to see Patrick Mahomes drive Kansas City into position for a winning field goal as time expired. People are also reading... Rookie coach Dave Canales benched Young for veteran Andy Dalton after just two games in which he had a 44.1 passer rating. The 23-year-old has completed 60.4% of his passes for 1,062 yards, six TDs and three interceptions — none in the past three games — while going 2-3 in the five starts since Young got another opportunity to lead the Panthers (3-9). Richardson has led Indianapolis to a pair of comeback wins late in the fourth quarter in three starts after he regained his starting job. The Colts (6-7) selected Richardson No. 4 last year and he started just 10 games before coach Shane Steichen benched him for Joe Flacco in Week 9. Richardson completed only 44.4% of his passes with four TDs and seven picks in his first six starts. He’s improved to 52.4% with three TDs and two picks since coming back. The 22-year-old tossed a 3-yard TD pass to Alec Pierce on fourth-and-goal with 12 seconds remaining and then ran in for a 2-point conversion to lift the Colts to a 25-24 win over New England on Sunday. Young and Richardson both have a long way to go to prove they can be franchise quarterbacks. But there’s far more optimism now that they’re not busts. Young is on his third head coach and second offensive coordinator in two seasons. Canales is known for getting the best out of quarterbacks, helping Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield revive their careers. He made a bold decision to bench Young after just two games but that allowed him to watch, grow and learn without the pressure of having to perform. Now it appears Young might have a future in Carolina when that seemed unlikely in September. Richardson just needs more experience. He threw only 393 passes in college and started four games as a rookie before he was injured. Steichen’s decision to bench him for Flacco didn’t work out. Flacco, who was the AP NFL Comeback Player of the Year last year after leading Cleveland to the playoffs by going 4-1 in five starts, struggled in two games. Still, that gave Richardson a chance to reset after tapping out for a play in the game before he was benched. Quarterbacks need time to develop. They can’t be judged fairly after one or two seasons, especially when they were high draft picks who joined bad teams that lacked talent. Clock management blunders Matt Eberflus lost his job as Chicago’s head coach a day after he watched the offense run out of time with a timeout in hand, missing an opportunity to push Detroit to overtime on Thanksgiving. But Antonio Pierce made an even worse decision on Black Friday that cost the Raiders a chance to beat the Chiefs. Aidan O’Donnell drove Las Vegas to the Chiefs 32 with 15 seconds left. Instead of trying for a game-winning field goal down 19-17, Pierce wanted O’Donnell to take the snap, allow more time to tick and throw the ball away. But O’Donnell wasn’t ready for the snap, the Chiefs recovered the fumble and escaped with the win. aManaging the clock shouldn’t be this difficult for NFL head coaches. Tucker’s troubles Ravens kicker Justin Tucker is having the worst season of his 13-year career. If he wasn’t one of the best kickers in NFL history, Baltimore would’ve made a switch already. But coach John Harbaugh has too much respect for Tucker, who began the season as the most accurate kicker in league history. Tucker has missed a career-high eight field-goal attempts, including two in a 24-19 loss to Philadelphia. Harbaugh, a former special teams coach, isn’t planning to replace Tucker. But the Ravens (8-5) have Super Bowl aspirations and Tucker needs to straighten things out. One solution would be to place him on injured reserve to work on his technique. In this case, Tucker has earned the right not to be released. Plus, he’s signed through 2027. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox!College Basketball Picks Against the Spread: SWAC Games Today, December 30Gambling advertising reform takes time and expertise. The social media ban? Not so much

Federal Task Force to Identify Implications of Evolving AIAG Mortgage Investment Trust, Inc. (MITT) To Go Ex-Dividend on December 31st

Don Lemon was caught in a verbal war against a TikToker over Elon Musk’s influence on President-elect Donald Trump . The ex-CNN host spoke to various people in New York City over the weekend about the claim Democrats were pushing that the X CEO was the shadow “President Musk” over Trump based on Musk leading an online conservative opposition to a bipartisan deal to avoid a partial government shutdown. “Who is the real president-elect, you think?” Lemon asked. “Donald Trump won, I believe,” TikToker and former pro-soccer player Will John replied . “Democratic lawmakers in Washington are calling Elon Musk now, and they’re saying Donald Trump is the vice president or the head of communication,” Lemon followed up. “What? Wait a second, no. No one said that,” John said. Lemon interrupted, “Really? Have you not paid attention—” “Absolutely not. I’m paying attention to what I’m doing during my day, so I can try and get a better life and get ahead,” John said. Lemon then told John to look up “President Musk” on his phone to prove his point, to which John obliged. “That’s already a loaded question you realize,” John remarked while looking. John found reports from Axios, Business Insider, ABC News, Washington Post, New York Times and The Atlantic using the term “President Musk,” which Lemon considered a win. “We don’t trust any of these. The common man doesn’t trust any of this,” John fired back. “I don’t trust any of these. I don’t trust any of them. I don’t trust any of these. We’re the common man. We don’t trust any of these. No one trusts the government. No one trusts the common news. We don’t trust any of that anymore. Independent news, we are the ones that own the news now. People trust me. They don’t trust MSNBC because I care, and I’m actually one of them.” “I can’t disagree with you,” Lemon admitted. Lemon asked other pedestrians the same question to mixed results on his TikTok account. “I haven’t seen that personally. I think that’s odd that he’s in that position of power for people to call him that. I don’t know if he is the best person to be representing us in our government,” one woman responded. “I mean that’s just internet chatter,” another woman said. “I think Elon Musk wasn’t in the last election, so how could he be president-elect?” A third woman said, “Well, not in an election-style, but obviously he’s influencing the government.” “How much longer do you think Donald Trump is going to put up with someone calling Elon Musk President Musk?” Lemon followed up. “Forever. He’s putting money out there. He likes money,” the woman replied. A man said he had actually heard the term “President Musk,” though he argued Musk was the vice president-elect while Trump was still president-elect. However, he said that will change. “He’s lost. He’s gone. Musk is even worse, cheerleading this guy on like, politically, man. It’s over. Life in America is over. Just watch what they do,” he said. Several liberal media pundits like Lemon also insisted Musk was either co-president or president himself over Trump. “Elon Musk, the guy who really runs things. He’s not just Trump’s co-president. I think that’s way too low a title,” MSNBC’s Chris Hayes said during his monologue on Wednesday. “He’s the head dude in charge and House Republicans certainly know who they are taking their marching orders from.” In a statement to Fox News Digital, Trump-Vance Transition spokeswoman and incoming press secretary Karoline Leavitt threw cold water on the media talking point. “As soon as President Trump released his official stance on the CR, Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his point of view. President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop,” she said. Fox News’ Nikolas Lanum contributed to this report.