winph 99

Trump's picks for key positions in his second administration

The Future of Gaming: ETR Brings New DynamicsSupreme Court allows multibillion-dollar class action to proceed against MetaTORONTO (AP) — Canada is already examining possible retaliatory tariffs on certain items from the United States should President-elect Donald Trump follow through on his threat to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products, a senior official said Wednesday. has threatened to impose tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico if the countries don’t stop what he called the flow of drugs and migrants across southern and northern borders. He said he would impose a 25% tax on all products from Canada and as one of his first executive orders. A Canadian government official said Canada is preparing for every eventuality and has started thinking about what items to target with tariffs in retaliation. The official stressed no decision has been made. The person spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly. When Trump imposed higher tariffs during his first term in office, other countries responded with retaliatory tariffs of their own. Canada, for instance, announced against the U.S. in a tit-for-tat response to new taxes on Canadian steel and aluminum. Many of the U.S. products were chosen for their political rather than economic impact. For example, Canada imports $3 million worth of yogurt from the U.S. annually and most comes from one plant in Wisconsin, home state of then-House Speaker Paul Ryan. That product was hit with a 10% duty. Another product on the list was whiskey, which comes from Tennessee and Kentucky, the latter of which is the home state of then-Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. Trump made the threat Monday while railing against an influx of illegal migrants, even though the numbers at Canadian border pale in comparison to the southern border. The U.S. Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests at the Mexican border in October alone — and 23,721 arrests at the Canadian one between October 2023 and September 2024. Canadian officials say lumping Canada in with Mexico is unfair but say they are happy to work with the Trump administration to lower the numbers from Canada. The Canadians are also worried about a influx north of migrants if Trump follows through with his plan for mass deportations. Trump also railed about fentanyl from Mexico and Canada, even though seizures from the Canadian border pale in comparison to the Mexican border. U.S. customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border. Canadian officials argue their country is not the problem and that tariffs will have severe implications for both countries. Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states. Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian (US$2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day. About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports are from Canada. Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security. “Canada is essential to the United States’ domestic energy supply,” Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said. Trump has pledged to cut American energy bills in half within 18 months, something that could be made harder if a 25% premium is added to Canadian oil imports. In 2023, Canadian oil accounted for almost two-thirds of total U.S. oil imports and about one-fifth of the U.S. oil supply. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is holding a emergency virtual meeting on Wednesday with the leaders of Canada’s provinces, who want Trudeau to negotiate a bilateral trade deal with the United States that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday that her administration is already working up a list of possible retaliatory tariffs “if the situation comes to that.”

NCW Calls For Action Against Tamil Nadu Police For Violating Victim's Privacy

Mthuli Ncube’s budget under-fire for prioritising defence over people

Scorpio – (23rd October to 21st November) Daily Horoscope Prediction says, You may make crucial decisions today Do not let personal egos impact the love affair. Take up professional challenges to give the best results at work. Both money & health are positive today. Fall in love today and ensure you are a patient listener. Utilize the options at the office to prove the diligence. No major monetary issue will impact the routine life while health is also at your side. Scorpio Love Horoscope Today Do not emotions go unchecked but this should be the criteria to take a call in the relationship. Some love affairs will see trouble in the form of an ex-lover. It can cause a ruckus that will be irreparable. Those who want to come out of a toxic love affair can pick the first part of the day. Single Scorpios will meet a special person to propose and express their feelings. Those who want to take the relationship to the next level can also consider marriage today. Scorpio Career Horoscope Today Be careful while you make decisions at work. Some seniors may raise a finger at you but it is also crucial to be sensible while you express emotions at team meetings. You need to be innovative in terms of concepts and this will have takers. Those who have an interview scheduled for today will be successful in clearing it. The second part of the day is good for a client session. Impress the client with your communication. Some entrepreneurs may consider new ventures today but analyze every possibility before you launch it. Scorpio Money Horoscope Today You are lucky in terms of money. Wealth will flow in, letting you make good purchases. Scorpios who are keen to try their fortune in the stock market can invest in stock, trade, and speculative business. Be careful while lending money to someone as you may have trouble getting it back. Businessmen will also succeed in raising funds that will help in trade expansions. Scorpio Health Horoscope Today Have a healthy day where you will maintain a balanced office and personal life. Practice yoga or meditation and start walking in the morning or evening at a park. Some Scorpios will have digestion-related issues which will be solved in a day. Look for major options to control the diet. Keep the plate filled with fruits and veggies. Scorpio Sign Attributes Strength Mystic, Practical, Intelligent, Independent, Dedicated, Charming, Sensible Weakness: Suspicious, Complicated, Possessive, Arrogant, Extreme Symbol: Scorpion Element: Water Body Part: Sexual Organs Sign Ruler: Pluto, Mars Lucky Day: Tuesday Lucky Color: Purple, Black Lucky Number: 4 Lucky Stone: Red Coral Scorpio Sign Compatibility Chart Natural affinity: Cancer, Virgo, Capricorn, Pisces Good compatibility: Taurus, Scorpio Fair compatibility: Aries, Gemini, Libra, Sagittarius Less compatibility: Leo, Aquarius By: Dr. J. N. Pandey Vedic Astrology & Vastu Expert Website: www.astrologerjnpandey.com E-mail: djnpandey@gmail.com Phone: 91-9811107060 (WhatsApp Only)Michael Croley | (TNS) Bloomberg News In the old days of 2016, when golfers visited the Dormie Club in West End, North Carolina — 15 minutes from the hotbed of American golf, Pinehurst — they were greeted by a small, single-wide trailer and a rugged pine straw parking lot. Related Articles Travel | A preview of some stunning hotels and resorts opening in 2025 Travel | Travel scams that can hurt your credit or finances Travel | Travel Troubleshooter: KLM owes money for a refundable flight. So, where’s the refund? Travel | 7 family-friendly ski resorts in the US that won’t break the bank Travel | It’s beginning to look like another record for holiday travel That trailer is now long gone. A gate has been installed at the club’s entrance and a long driveway leads to a grand turnaround that sweeps you past a new modern clubhouse that’s all right angles, with floor-to-ceiling glass. Seconds after you exit your car, valets are zipping up in golf carts, taking your name, then your bags, handing you keys to your own golf cart, and then zipping off to drop your luggage in the four-bedroom cottage where you’ll stay. A short walk past an expansive putting green you’ll find the pro shop — and then you’ll see the club’s most elegant feature: its golf course. The changes have all come about because Dormie Club was acquired in 2017 by the Dormie Network, a national group that owns seven private golf facilities from Nebraska to New Jersey. (“Dormie” is a word for being ahead in golf — the names were coincidences.) A key to the network’s success has been its ability to find clubs ripe for acquisition, with outstanding golf courses and existing on-site lodging or the room to build it, says Zach Peed, president of the company and its driving force. After investing in Arbor Links Golf Club in Nebraska City, Nebraska, in late 2015, Peed believed he saw an opening in the golf market: a new model of hospitality for traveling professionals who wanted a pure golf experience that eschewed the pools and pickleball courts of their home clubs. His clubs would become dream golf-only getaways for avid players and their pals. “Dormie Network’s concept was sparked by having played competitive golf in college, combined with an element of experiencing and understanding hospitality,” says Peed. “It made sense to blend the two to create golf trips that had more value than just playing golf. We want genuine hospitality to help create unforgettable memories and new friendships.” Part of that formula has been in the lodging strategy; in North Carolina, 15 four-bedroom cottages now are a short golf cart ride from the main clubhouse. In each, golfers all have their own king-size bed and en suite bathroom. A large common room is dominated by a flatscreen television along with a well-stocked bar and snacks. That ability to be both social, or tucked away in your room, extends to the expansive new clubhouse, where a high-ceilinged bar area with blond wood creates an inviting space for dining and drinking, and several hideaway rooms allow for more private diners with just your group. So far, their commitment to hospitality has been helping them expand in both membership and club usage in the increasingly competitive market for traveling golfers. Major players such as Bandon Dunes, Pinehurst Resort, and the Cabot Collection have created — or renovated — a new paradigm where golfers get dining and lodging that’s as showcase-worthy as the courses they play. Comfortable sheets and options beyond pub food aren’t luxuries anymore, but staples for many group trips. Dormie has answered that call by focusing on both the big details and the small ones, like having the dew wiped off each golf cart at dawn outside guest cottages before the day begins or having a tray of cocktails delivered to golfers as their final putt falls on the 18th green. These touches may seem over-the-top, but they stand out in a world where golf travel is increasingly popular — and expensive — after the pandemic lockdowns. Since 2020 there has been an explosion in participation in the sport, with new golfers picking up the game and avid golfers playing more: According to the National Golf Foundation, a record 531 million rounds were played in 2023, surpassing the high of 529 million set in 2021. Supreme Golf, a public golf booking website, reports in its latest analysis that the average cost of a tee time has increased to $49 in 2024 from $38 in 2019, a 30% increase. Those cost increases are also on par (pun intended) with the costs of private clubs and initiation fees during that same period, where membership rosters that were dwindling pre-COVID now have waitlists 50 to 60 people deep, according to Jason Becker, co-founder and chief executive officer of Golf Life Navigators, which matches homebuyers with golf course communities. “There’s been an absolute run on private golf. If we use southwest Florida as an example, where there are 158 golf communities, this time last November, only five had memberships available,” he said. That inability to find a club close to home has pushed avid golfers to look farther afield, choosing national memberships at clubs that require traveling, usually via plane, to play. Dormie has capitalized on this growing segment, offering two types of memberships: First, a national membership, where members pay an initiation fee and monthly dues just as they would at a local club, but instead of one club they have access to seven. The second option is a signature membership for companies, “which allows businesses to use our properties for entertainment needs and requires a multiyear commitment,” Peed says. The network also offers a limited number of regional memberships for those living within a certain distance of one of its clubs. Dormie Network declined to provide the cost of memberships or monthly dues and wouldn’t give membership numbers, but the clubs are structured to lodge roughly 60 golfers, max, on-site at any given property at any time. The total number of beds across the network’s portfolio of properties has increased from 84 in 2019 to 432 today. It saw a jump from 10,000 room nights in 2019 to 48,000 in 2023. This September, Dormie opened GrayBull in Maxwell, in Nebraska’s, Sandhills region. Dormie Network tabbed David McLay Kidd to build the course, who also built the original course at Oregon’s famed Bandon Dunes. Kidd says of the property GrayBull sits on, “It’s like the Goldilocks thing: not too flat, not too steep. It’s kind of in a bowl that looks inwards, and there are no bad views.” That kind of remote destination, where the long-range views are only Mother Nature or other golf holes, is what drives many traveling golfers these days. Peed says his team leaned on years of knowledge from Dormie’s acquisitions as they built GrayBull, which started construction in 2022. “We had an understanding of how our members and guests use the clubs that allowed us to take a blank canvas in the Sandhills of Nebraska and combine all of the greatest aspects of each Dormie property into one.” ©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.“I’m trying to find holiday gifts for my sisters. I open a bunch of tabs, I want my wife’s advice.” That’s Browser Company CEO, Josh Miller, in his company’s latest ad for its new AI browser, Dia . Consulting your spouse to find gifts for your siblings is a pure — and dare I say, sweet — thing to do with a browser. But the new product he’s showcasing is replacing Arc, a beloved browser that put Miller’s company on the map. Not everyone is happy about the Browser Company’s pivot from Arc to AI browsing, and this latest commercial inadvertently explains why. Instead of talking to his wife, Miller talks to his AI chatbot and asks the AI to talk to his wife for him. “Hi, Valerie, I hope you’re doing well,” said the AI chatbot, posing as Miller, in an email to his wife. “I came across a few interesting products on Amazon ...” it continued. “Best, Josh.” The email feels more like something you’d write to a distant work colleague, rather than the way you’d speak with a loved one you see every day. While it’s not an inappropriate message, it’s cold and could’ve been sent to anyone. This example from the Browser Company was the latest AI ad that told a different story about the technology than it intended — but perhaps a truer one. It strikes the same sensitive nerve that so many other AI advertisements have in the last year. In trying to promote AI, tech companies can’t help but show how it removes us from the very activities that make us human. Of course, Miller could (and probably should) have customized the prompt to be warmer and address his wife as such, but that’s missing the larger point. Miller didn’t really talk to his wife in this case. The AI browser took a genuine act of human kindness and turned the exchange into something that feels impersonal — largely because it is. AI is further abstracting what it means to connect. At one point, connection meant talking in person; then, around the turn of the century, it migrated to texts sent over the internet. Now humans are starting to experiment with using AI to talk with each other, and in some cases, just talking to AI — removing the need to connect with a human altogether. You could say I’m cherry-picking this ad, but it’s a story that tech companies keep accidentally telling over and over again. This part of the ad was likely intended to show how Dia could retrieve links from multiple web pages and understand their context — an impressive feat for an AI system these days. But this was yet another example of how generative AI can reduce our humanity. Consider Google’s ad earlier this year, where a father and daughter used Gemini to create an AI-generated fan letter to their favorite Olympian. The company later pulled the ad after facing backlash for taking a sweet father-daughter exchange, and automating it away. Or maybe you remember how Apple unveiled its AI features at WWDC this year: showing how you can go up to a stranger’s dog, point your iPhone at it, and have Apple Intelligence tell you what breed it is. Many people pointed out that you could have just asked the stranger what type of dog they have , and maybe you would have found a friend alongside the dog’s breed. Apple's Visual Intelligence enables you to use the camera to look things up. "It will change the way you interact with iPhone" Maybe, it's just "cynical me", but this example of the looking up the cute dog was a perfect opportunity for two humans to connect in a human way by... pic.twitter.com/CZpPb0ufCU Months earlier, Apple apologized for an ad it ran where the company quite literally crushed objects representing human creativity , in favor of an iPad. It wasn’t an ad for AI, but it had the same effect: technology that reduces our humanity. The most extreme example of these AI ads came from an AI startup called Friend. The startup released a promotional video showing how lonely young people could have a virtual companion in the startup’s AI device that they wear around their neck , instead of talking to others. Uncomfortably honest While these AI ads feel dystopian, there’s something about them that also feels honest. These ads represent the ways people are actually using AI for today, even though it’s unsettling when it’s demonstrated on your screen. Some of the most common use cases of AI today are AI-generated art and AI companions. The former is usually a pretty low-stakes, creative task such as creating a picture or a short song. The latter can be surprisingly valuable: people are using chatbots to learn about things or talk through personal problems, much like they would with an intelligent or sympathetic friend. Art and companionship both feel very central to the human experience, and the fact that AI is being used for both of those things today is a reality some find uncomfortable to acknowledge. But for every dystopian AI ad that stirs social media users into a frenzy, there are thousands of AI advertisements that fly under the radar. Why? Because most ads for AI mean nothing at all. Lots of companies have resorted to painting AI as this amorphous, magical children’s book character with no specific use case, and yet, implying that it can do almost anything. Here’s some examples of odd AI billboards seen around San Francisco: Claude ads are fascinating because they feel completely divorced from Anthropic as a company pic.twitter.com/MjYE1qjgdW “Intelligence so big, you’d swear it was from Texas,” said one. “Adapt your workforce at the speed of AI,” said another. “AI that talks to cars and talks to wildlife,” said a third. “Geminiiiiiiiiiice,” said yet another. See what I mean? I have no idea what these things do, and yet, it all feels inoffensive, vaguely describes AI in a magical way, and gets the product in front of my face. Maybe that’s the point. This banal tapestry of AI advertisements depicts the industry more accurately than any one company can. Most companies don’t really know what AI is good for, and the ways people use AI today are somewhat discomfiting, automating many of the very tasks that make us human. You might wonder why companies aren’t making the obvious AI ads: AI does your boring job so you can spend more time at the beach, with your friends and family, or pursuing your passions. That’s what Zoom’s CEO laid out as his vision for AI , and it’s probably the most optimistic outcome we’ve seen someone describe. Perhaps the reason we’re not seeing more tech companies promise that future is because AI is not ready to do your job. There’s also a conflicting vision there: if AI can do some of your job, couldn’t it also replace you altogether? While it may be a while until AI can actually do your job, it seems most companies are steering clear of that message altogether. I can’t say what the “right way” to be promoting AI is right now, but I do think the status quo for AI ads is objectively strange. Whereas previous generations of technology promised to liberate us, connect us, and make us smarter, the overarching promise of AI is still unclear. If companies are looking for another uplifting message to sell their software with, automating core aspects of the human experience ain’t it.