Trump's 25% tariff would be devastating for Canada — but it would be devastating for the U.S. too, economists say
For Makenzie Gilkison, spelling is such a struggle that a word like rhinoceros might come out as “rineanswsaurs” or sarcastic as “srkastik.” The 14-year-old from suburban Indianapolis can sound out words, but her dyslexia makes the process so draining that she often struggles with comprehension. “I just assumed I was stupid,” she recalled of her early grade school years. But assistive technology powered by artificial intelligence has helped her keep up with classmates. Last year, Makenzie was named to the National Junior Honor Society. She credits a customized AI-powered chatbot, a word prediction program and other tools that can read for her. “I would have just probably given up if I didn’t have them,” she said. Artificial intelligence holds the promise of helping countless other students with a range of visual, speech, language and hearing impairments to execute tasks that come easily to others. Schools everywhere have been wrestling with how and where to incorporate AI , but many are fast-tracking applications for students with disabilities. Getting the latest technology into the hands of students with disabilities is a priority for the U.S. Education Department, which has told schools they must consider whether students need tools like text-to-speech and alternative communication devices. New rules from the Department of Justice also will require schools and other government entities to make apps and online content accessible to those with disabilities. There is concern about how to ensure students using it — including those with disabilities — are still learning. Students can use artificial intelligence to summarize jumbled thoughts into an outline, summarize complicated passages, or even translate Shakespeare into common English. And computer-generated voices that can read passages for visually impaired and dyslexic students are becoming less robotic and more natural. “I’m seeing that a lot of students are kind of exploring on their own, almost feeling like they’ve found a cheat code in a video game,” said Alexis Reid, an educational therapist in the Boston area who works with students with learning disabilities. But in her view, it is far from cheating : “We’re meeting students where they are.” Ben Snyder, a 14-year-old freshman from Larchmont, New York, who was recently diagnosed with a learning disability, has been increasingly using AI to help with homework. “Sometimes in math, my teachers will explain a problem to me, but it just makes absolutely no sense,” he said. “So if I plug that problem into AI, it’ll give me multiple different ways of explaining how to do that.” He likes a program called Question AI. Earlier in the day, he asked the program to help him write an outline for a book report — a task he completed in 15 minutes that otherwise would have taken him an hour and a half because of his struggles with writing and organization. But he does think using AI to write the whole report crosses a line. “That’s just cheating,” Ben said. Schools have been trying to balance the technology’s benefits against the risk that it will do too much. If a special education plan sets reading growth as a goal, the student needs to improve that skill. AI can’t do it for them, said Mary Lawson, general counsel at the Council of the Great City Schools. But the technology can help level the playing field for students with disabilities, said Paul Sanft, director of a Minnesota-based center where families can try out different assistive technology tools and borrow devices. “There are definitely going to be people who use some of these tools in nefarious ways. That’s always going to happen,” Sanft said. “But I don’t think that’s the biggest concern with people with disabilities, who are just trying to do something that they couldn’t do before.” Another risk is that AI will track students into less rigorous courses of study. And, because it is so good at identifying patterns , AI might be able to figure out a student has a disability. Having that disclosed by AI and not the student or their family could create ethical dilemmas, said Luis Pérez, the disability and digital inclusion lead at CAST, formerly the Center for Applied Specialized Technology. Schools are using the technology to help students who struggle academically, even if they do not qualify for special education services. In Iowa, a new law requires students deemed not proficient — about a quarter of them — to get an individualized reading plan. As part of that effort, the state’s education department spent $3 million on an AI-driven personalized tutoring program. When students struggle, a digital avatar intervenes. More AI tools are coming soon. The U.S. National Science Foundation is funding AI research and development. One firm is developing tools to help children with speech and language difficulties. Called the National AI Institute for Exceptional Education, it is headquartered at the University of Buffalo, which did pioneering work on handwriting recognition that helped the U.S. Postal Service save hundreds of millions of dollars by automating processing. “We are able to solve the postal application with very high accuracy. When it comes to children’s handwriting, we fail very badly,” said Venu Govindaraju, the director of the institute. He sees it as an area that needs more work, along with speech-to-text technology, which isn’t as good at understanding children’s voices, particularly if there is a speech impediment. Sorting through the sheer number of programs developed by education technology companies can be a time-consuming challenge for schools. Richard Culatta, CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education, said the nonprofit launched an effort this fall to make it easier for districts to vet what they are buying and ensure it is accessible. Makenzie wishes some of the tools were easier to use. Sometimes a feature will inexplicably be turned off, and she will be without it for a week while the tech team investigates. The challenges can be so cumbersome that some students resist the technology entirely. But Makenzie’s mother, Nadine Gilkison, who works as a technology integration supervisor at Franklin Township Community School Corporation in Indiana, said she sees more promise than downside. In September, her district rolled out chatbots to help special education students in high school. She said teachers, who sometimes struggled to provide students the help they needed, became emotional when they heard about the program. Until now, students were reliant on someone to help them, unable to move ahead on their own. “Now we don’t need to wait anymore,” she said.Please enable JavaScript to read this content. Following a fallout with his friend turned rival, former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, President William Ruto has crafted a strategy to regain Mt Kenya region which has been drifting by the day after Gachagua’s impeachment. The strategy, which involves using celebrated secular and gospel artists, will see peace caravans being conducted in all 11 counties from the Mt Kenya region. The idea arose following the heckles and jeers from Embu County on November 16 when dissatisfied congregants booed the president when he attempted to elaborate his pet projects; affordable housing and the controversial Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF). On October 11, mourners also heckled Nakuru Governor Susan Kihika as she tried to read Ruto’s message of condolence in a burial ceremony of Bahati MP Irene Njoki’s brother Henry Gachie where Kenya Kwanza leaders were forced to cut short their speeches amid jeers from locals. On Saturday last week, mourners who attended the burial ceremony of a nominated MCA Mark Gicheru, denied Murang’a Governor Irungu Kang’ata a chance to read the president’s speech even as they shouted down Deputy President Kithure Kindiki’s speech that was being read by a government official. Sources who are privy to the peace caravan strategy said the administration seeks to use the celebrated artists in a bid to contain the situation and to 'sober up’ residents from the emotional upheaval that has followed Gachagua’s impeachment. “Pro-government leaders have been advised to keep off the music concerts, as they too have been made unpopular by Gachagua’s popularity as a result of the sympathy that he has acquired following his impeachment. The artists’ job description is simple, using the art to win them back to the President and also to the MPs who can’t attend a function or meet the people tour because of being shouted down,” a source who requested not to be named disclosed. Martin Wa Janet, a celebrated gospel musician from Mt Kenya region, who also hosts a popular show on one of the leading vernacular TV stations who organised a peace concert on Sunday at Ihura stadium in Murang’a admitted that the music concerts are aimed at explaining to the people why they need to support the government while at the same time denying that the music concert was a government project. On October 11, mourners heckled Nakuru Governor Susan Kihika as she tried to read Ruto’s message of condolence in a burial ceremony of Bahati MP Irene Njoki’s brother Henry Gachie where Kenya Kwanza leaders were forced to cut short their speeches amid jeers from locals. In a phone interview, Janet claimed that the Sunday event, which ended in disarray after Gachagua stormed, had been sponsored by the businessmen and people of good will who felt that Gachagua was leading Mt Kenya people to a stray. “We are also telling our people that we must support our government because it is the right thing to do. Even our churches pray for the government every Sunday because authority is God given,” he said. He added “Gachagua is a threat to the stability and peace of our region, we are trying to unite our people because he has incited the community with his pursuit of sympathy as a result of his woes.” According to the artist, “following Gachagua is akin to following a bull that is being escorted to a slaughter house” because he can’t seek an elective position after the courts upheld his impeachment. “He is inviting people to the Opposition due to his personal issues with the government, he can’t vie for any elective seat as he is barred by the government; he is just an ordinary Kenyan like any other and our people must be told the truth,” the artist added. While explaining on the events that saw his event ended in disarray, Janet said Gachagua was persona non grata to the event and when he arrived ‘with his goons’ he denied him a chance to address the crowd before electricity and the sound system was switched off ‘because his event was for peace and had not invited any politician.’ Stay informed. Subscribe to our newsletter “Gachagua owes me and other artists an apology for gatecrushing my function, my initiative seeks to arrange meetings in a different style as opposed to the many meetings being held to cause strife with the Kenya Kwanza administration,” Janet noted. He said his first meeting was held in Ruiru stadium on September 29, and regretted that during the said meeting, former Kiambu Governor stormed the meeting and used derogatory words against the President. Waititu was later charged with a charge of offensive conduct in which he uttered derogatory and demeaning words against the President. The Sunday music concert held in Muranga brought together celebrated artists such as Samuel Muchoki alias Samindo, Joyce Wa Mama, Tony Young, Jose Gatutura, Hezeh Ndungu, Regina Muthoga among others. Apart from demanding an apology from Gachagua, Janet urged the authorities to press charges against Gachagua for disrupting the peace, even as he hailed the government for withdrawing his security detail. Following the disruption of his concert, mixed reaction ensued in social media pages as Gachagua’s supporters accused the artist of disrespecting Gachagua , who had graced the peace event ‘peacefully”. “It was wrong and uncalled for, for an artist to embarrass the former Deputy President who had no malice when attending the function,” Benson Mugure wrote in his Facebook page. Political analysts have argued that the government’s strategy to use artists may not work at this time as the emotions of the Mt Kenya people were high. “The government is only aggravating the situation, it like rubbing a wound, Gachagua’s natives took the impeachment as their own predicament and that is why they grow wild at the mention of the President and any leader who supported Gachagua’s ouster, they need to go slow and let the emotions dry up as opposed to fueling them,” Charles Njoroge an analyst noted.Two additional arrests made in connection with Val-des-Monts death investigation
Putin apologizes for crash but stops short of saying Azerbaijani plane was shot downWhat is it like to come of age under constant threat of war? Director Sareen Hairabedian ’s poignant documentary “ My Sweet Land ” follows an ethnic Armenian youngster named Vrej Khatchatryan from the small village of Tsaghkashen in the Martakert region of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Conflict, displacement and exile color everything in his and his extended family’s lives. Vrej and his peers are raised in a martial atmosphere, from their lessons at school and military camps, to the games they play, the clothes they wear and the songs they sing. Artfully combining lyrical images that she shot with news footage, Hairabedian (herself of mixed Armenian-Palestinian-Jordanian heritage) captures an indoctrination that, sadly, seems destined to keep the situation intractable from generation to generation. With the international news filled with the bloodshed in the Middle East and the Ukraine-Russia conflict, comparatively little time has been spent on what’s happening in the semi-autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, and its unresolved territorial issues. Hairabedian provides onscreen text at the beginning to offer context. We learn that the mountainous enclave between Armenia and Azerbaijan has long been home to ethnic Armenians who formed a majority of the population. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, the Armenian population there declared independence — a status not recognized by the rest of the world — leading to continuing wars with Azerbaijan, which seeks sovereignty over the territory. The ethnic Armenians living there, devoted to their homeland, call it Artsakh. When we first see Vrej in 2020, he’s 11, living in a place so small — just 150 people — that he jokes he is related to half of them. He’s the oldest of three kids, born to a couple whose participation in a mass wedding in 2008, opens the film. The priest who officiates the wedding declares that the offspring of the 700 couples he has blessed will repopulate the area and fight to maintain the homeland. A smart, sensitive, questioning lad, Vrej is born into a heavy destiny. Vrej’s school, where the walls are full of photographs of fallen soldiers, also inculcates blind love for the homeland. The kids learn that the maps of their part of the world are subject to frequent change and war could break out at any moment. A military officer, who comes to the school to teach the children about fighting, notes that it is essentially a kindergarten for soldiers. The pupils accept that by living in Artsakh, they are all considered soldiers because that’s what the situation demands. Nowhere do you hear discussion of any other solution to the territorial disputes apart from fighting. Over the course of the three years that Hairabedian follows the Khatchatryan family, they are displaced from their land twice. In 2020, Vrej’s father, Artak, who like most of the men in the village wears military fatigues, stays behind to fight. Meanwhile, life goes on as usual for the rest of the Khatchatryan clan, in a home some eight hours away from Tsaghkashen. As the women cook and clean, the kids play war games with improvised guns. When Vrej’s maternal grandmother Angela celebrates her 57th birthday, he steps into a patriarchal role, proposing a toast and assuring the others that Artsakh will prevail and lost lands will be recovered. By the time Vrej reaches 13, he holds fewer certainties. He’s learned from military camp that fighting isn’t fun. There, Hairabedian captures a heartbreaking scene of the male campers herded to a lake and allowed a brief moment in the water. Vrej, enraptured, is splashing happily like the kid he is, but never totally allowed to be, only to be rudely directed to get out by one of the soldiers. In the film’s closing conversation, Hairabedian finds the perfect ending as Vrej asks her, “What’s going to happen to the hero of the film at the end?” It’s a question to which only time can tell, but given his education and socialization, the answer seems bleak.The former England footballer, 39, said he was “proud” of how Coleen was doing in the Australian jungle in a post on social media on Saturday. The couple, who first met at school and began dating aged 16, share four sons – Kai Wayne, Klay Anthony, Kit Joseph and Cass Mac. Proud of @ColeenRoo on @imacelebrity she’s doing great ❤️ Me and the boys would love to see her doing a trial and we know she’d want to put herself to the test. If you can download the #ImACeleb app and let’s get voting! 🗳️🕷️🐍 pic.twitter.com/f1VEihHVzy — Wayne Rooney (@WayneRooney) November 23, 2024 “Proud of @ColeenRoo on @imacelebrity she’s doing great”, he wrote on X, formerly Twitter, alongside a collage of photos of her on the show. “Me and the boys would love to see her doing a trial and we know she’d want to put herself to the test. “If you can download the #ImACeleb and let’s get voting!” During the first task of the series, BBC Radio 1 presenter Dean McCullough chose to partner up with TV personality Coleen as he hailed her as “Wagatha Christie”. Rooney, 38, was given the nickname when she accused Rebekah Vardy, who is married to Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, of leaking her private information to The Sun in a viral post on social media. In July 2022, a judge at the High Court found the post was “substantially true”. During Vardy’s stint on I’m A Celebrity, she became the third celebrity to leave, saying the series helped her become more tolerant. Earlier this week, Liverpool-born Coleen told her fellow campmate that going to court over her feud with Vardy was her “worst nightmare” as she felt she was “putting on a show for the whole world”. However, she said she was not scared about making the viral post which kicked off the dispute, saying: “I just didn’t think it would have the impact it did, because I was just that sick and tired of it, it was draining.” Later in the episode, Rooney became emotional over the loss of her sister Rosie, after boxing star Barry McGuigan spoke about the death of his daughter. I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! continues on ITV1 and ITVX.
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James Earl “Jimmy” Carter Jr, a naval officer, Nobel Peace Prize winner and peanut farm operator who became governor of Georgia and later the 39th president of the United States, has died aged 100. Carter, who was the longest-living former American president, died at his home in Plains, Georgia, on Sunday, December 29, according to his son. He served as president for one term from 1977 to 1981, but is just as well-known for his humanitarian service after leaving Washington, DC, working for Habitat for Humanity and negotiating peace deals. He continued his volunteer work for decades after leaving office until he entered hospice care in February 2023. Carter, who throughout his political life went by Jimmy rather than James, was a towering figure in Democratic politics, both during and after his time in the White House. As president, he emphasized human rights in his foreign policy, championed environmentalism at a time when it was not yet popular and appointed record numbers of women and people of color during his administration. Follow for the latest information as we get it.