
Croatia's president faces conservative rival in election run-offRainforest rescue
Several times following New England’s 24-21 loss to the Buffalo Bills, Patriots coach Jerod Mayo said he wanted to review the game film before making a final assessment of his team’s performance. He did, and on Monday he said the overarching feeling he was left with was one of pride. Going toe-to-toe with one of the best teams in the NFL is commendable. Mayo also remains confident this group has even more room for growth over its final two games this season. “To be frank, I don’t believe in good losses,” Mayo said. “I think there’s a lot to learn from the game. Look, we’re headed in the right direction, but it’s all about consistency, and we have to do that on a down-after-down, a game-after-game basis to be successful in this league.” What is also clear is that despite their 3-12 record, Patriots rookie quarterback Drake Maye wants people to know that he and his teammates believe in their coach. No matter what conversations might be going on outside the Patriots locker room regarding shortcomings by the coaching staff, or Mayo’s job status. “We’ve got his back, and he’s coached us hard. He wants to win. We all want to win. We’re all frustrated,” Maye said. “We’re just plays away, and it’s basically me turning the ball over. I think it’s just a testament to these guys that keep fighting. We keep fighting. Shoot, we’re not going to make the playoffs; we’re out of the race, and these guys are coming in, frustrated when we don’t score. ... So, I think we’re building something good, building something that feels right here, and I’m proud to be a Patriot.” What’s working The Patriots entered the week scoring only 7.5 points per game in the first half this season, which ranked 29th in the NFL. The offense woke up with 14 points in the first half on Sunday, notching multiple offensive touchdowns in the first half for the first time in 2024. What needs help Stopping the run has been an issue for New England’s defense for most of the season and it was on display against the Bills. With Buffalo trailing 14-0 in the second quarter, running back James Cook sliced through the interior of the Patriots defense and broke free for a 46-yard TD run. It was a big chunk of Buffalo’s 172 yards on the ground for the game. Stock up CB Jonathan Jones. He was tasked with being the primary defender on Buffalo’s top receiver Khalil Shakir for most of the game. The veteran held his own, helping limit the Bills’ leader in catches and receiving yards to only two catches for 22 yards on six targets. Jones also forced a fumble by Shakir in the fourth quarter, though Shakir was able to recover it. Stock down Marte Mapu. The linebacker started at safety with Jabrill Peppers sidelined with a hamstring injury. Mapu was strong for most of the game and had a chance to set up the Patriots offense in the second quarter when he snagged his second career interception, picking off Josh Allen’s pass in the end zone. But Mapu decided to run the ball out of the end zone and was tackled on the New England 1-yard line. The poor starting field position eventually led to a punt and the Patriots couldn’t add to their 14-7 lead. Injuries The Patriots didn’t announce any injuries during the game. But along with Peppers, cornerback Marcus Jones also sat out with a hip injury. Key number 2-6 — The Patriots’ record in one-score games this season. Four of those have been by three or fewer points. Next steps The Patriots host the Los Angeles Chargers on Saturday. ___ AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl Kyle Hightower, The Associated PressASHA workers promoting hygiene in rural Kashmir
Rockfire Resources (LON:ROCK) Shares Down 8.9% – What’s Next?Zayn Malik takes to stage in first gig since tragic death of ex-One Direction bandmate Liam Payne as he begins new tour
Huge Australian crocodile made famous by cameo role in Crocodile Dundee dies
NoDerog 2024 has been a pretty rough year for the shareholders of Reckitt Benckiser ( OTCPK:RBGLY ) ( OTCPK:RBGPF ). I last covered this British consumer staples giant back in January, rating the stock a 'Buy'. While the company had its issues, a then-P/E of Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of RBGLY either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.President-elect Donald Trump is considering nominating Kimberly Guilfoyle to be U.S. ambassador to Greece, three sources familiar with the selection confirmed to CBS News. Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host-turned-political fundraiser, was dating Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. The transition team declined comment. Guilfoyle's nomination would require Senate confirmation. Guilfoyle, 55, appeared on stage with the Trump family on election night . She traveled the country to raise money for Trump's presidential campaign and spoke at the Republican convention in July. "In our vision, America will combat foreign aggressors and ensure our service members are protected, not abandoned, as they carry out their dangerous missions abroad, because we know we can only have peace through strength," she said in the speech. Guilfoyle, a lawyer by training, served as a prosecutor in California early in her career before turning to television. She is divorced from California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Trump has a history of naming family members and people with close personal ties to key positions. He has chosen Charles Kushner , his son-in-law's father, to serve as ambassador to France, and has tapped the father-in-law of daughter Tiffany Trump to be a Middle East adviser. Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kusher, were senior White House officials during Trump's first term. Arden Farhi contributed to this report. Donald Trump Greece
Beloved British animated couple Wallace and Gromit are returning to screens in their first feature-length film in 20 years for a typically mad-cap adventure that spotlights the dangers of technology in the wrong hands. "Vengeance Most Fowl" will air on the BBC on Christmas Day for the first time before being made available on the Netflix platform from January 3 worldwide. Inventor and director Nick Park has returned to the technology theme that he explored in his 1993 Oscar-winning hit "The Wrong Trousers", but updated to take into account the advent of artificial intelligence (AI). The tale centers on tea and cheese-loving Wallace's latest invention: an "intelligent" robotic gnome called Norbot, which helps around the house and garden, threatening to replace the ever-loyal Gromit, who takes pride in the daily tasks of life. "Wallace is completely deluded and obsessed, whereas Gromit represents the human touch," Park told AFP in a pre-release interview. "He likes doing his gardening. It's not about just seeing an end result, it's the act of doing that is enjoyable. "I love the fact that we have technology. We have to just sometimes ask: is it always enhancing our lives and our relationships, or is it somehow diminishing them in some way?" Park has shown loyalty to the idea of "doing" throughout his four-decade career and still insists on real-world modelling to create Wallace and Gromit instead of resorting to computerised imagery. At his Aardman Animations studio -- makers of other hits including "Chicken Run" and "Shaun the Sheep" -- films are shot frame-by-frame, with clay models slowly moved and altered in a technique known as "stop motion" that dates back to the dawn of cinema. At their fastest rate, the 200-person production team for "Vengeance Most Fowl" produced two minutes of film per week. "Everything's made by real human beings and that hopefully shines off the screen," Park said. The limitations actually spur creativity, he insists, and are a core part of the franchise's appeal. "With CGI (computer-generated imagery) I guess you are tempted to just use it to the full. You've got everything at your disposal," he said. "Whereas I think if you don't have that, you tend to be more creative with what little you've got." The film sees the return of the villainous penguin Feathers McGraw from "The Wrong Trousers", which won an Oscar for best short animated film. Feathers McGraw is blank-faced throughout, but his on-screen menace is always obvious -- often to comical effect -- while a full range of emotions are expressed, as ever, through the legendary eyebrows of Gromit. "Very small nuanced movements can say a lot," Park said. One small change to listen out for in the new film is Wallace's new voice after the death of English actor Peter Sallis, who had played him since his debut in 1989. Sallis has been replaced by Ben Whitehead, an English voice artist and actor who collaborated with Park on the last full-length Wallace and Gromit film, "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit", released in 2005.
Eagles Fans Rip Terry Bradshaw for Inappropriate A.J. Brown FeudPLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Newly married and sworn as a Naval officer, left his tiny hometown in 1946 hoping to climb the ranks and see the world. Less than a decade later, the death of his father and namesake, a merchant farmer and local politician who went by “Mr. Earl,” prompted the submariner and his wife, Rosalynn, to return to the rural life of Plains, Georgia, they thought they’d escaped. The lieutenant never would be an admiral. Instead, he became commander in chief. Years after his presidency ended in humbling defeat, he would add a Nobel Peace Prize, awarded not for his White House accomplishments but “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” The life of James Earl Carter Jr., the 39th and longest-lived U.S. president, ended Sunday at the age of 100 where it began: Plains, the town of 600 that fueled his political rise, welcomed him after his fall and sustained him during 40 years of service that redefined what it means to be a former president. With the stubborn confidence of an engineer and an optimism rooted in his Baptist faith, Carter described his motivations in politics and beyond in the same way: an almost missionary zeal to solve problems and improve lives. Carter was raised amid racism, abject poverty and hard rural living — realities that shaped both his deliberate politics and emphasis on human rights. “He always felt a responsibility to help people,” said Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend of Carter’s in Plains. “And when he couldn’t make change wherever he was, he decided he had to go higher.” Carter’s path, , pitted moral imperatives against political pragmatism; and it defied typical labels of American politics, especially caricatures of one-term presidents as failures. “We shouldn’t judge presidents by how popular they are in their day. That’s a very narrow way of assessing them,” Carter biographer Jonathan Alter told the Associated Press. “We should judge them by how they changed the country and the world for the better. On that score, Jimmy Carter is not in the first rank of American presidents, but he stands up quite well.” Later in life, Carter conceded that many Americans, even those too young to remember his tenure, judged him ineffective for failing to contain inflation or interest rates, end the energy crisis or quickly bring home American hostages in Iran. He gained admirers instead for his work at The Carter Center — advocating globally for public health, human rights and democracy since 1982 — and the decades he and Rosalynn wore hardhats and swung hammers with Habitat for Humanity. Yet the common view that he was better after the Oval Office than in it annoyed Carter, and his allies relished him living long enough to see historians reassess his presidency. “He doesn’t quite fit in today’s terms” of a left-right, red-blue scoreboard, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the former president multiple times during his own White House bid. At various points in his political career, Carter labeled himself “progressive” or “conservative” — sometimes both at once. His most ambitious health care bill failed — perhaps one of his biggest legislative disappointments — because it didn’t go far enough to suit liberals. Republicans, especially after his 1980 defeat, cast him as a left-wing cartoon. It would be easiest to classify Carter as a centrist, Buttigieg said, “but there’s also something radical about the depth of his commitment to looking after those who are left out of society and out of the economy.” Indeed, Carter’s legacy is stitched with complexities, contradictions and evolutions — personal and political. The self-styled peacemaker was a war-trained Naval Academy graduate who promised Democratic challenger Ted Kennedy that he’d “kick his ass.” But he campaigned with a call to treat everyone with “respect and compassion and with love.” Carter vowed to restore America’s virtue after the shame of Vietnam and Watergate, and his technocratic, good-government approach didn’t suit Republicans who tagged government itself as the problem. It also sometimes put Carter at odds with fellow Democrats. The result still was a notable legislative record, with wins on the environment, education, and mental health care. He dramatically expanded federally protected lands, began deregulating air travel, railroads and trucking, and he put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. As a fiscal hawk, Carter added a relative pittance to the national debt, unlike successors from both parties. Carter nonetheless struggled to make his achievements resonate with the electorate he charmed in 1976. Quoting Bob Dylan and grinning enthusiastically, he had promised voters he would “never tell a lie.” Once in Washington, though, he led like a joyless engineer, insisting his ideas would become reality and he’d be rewarded politically if only he could convince enough people with facts and logic. This served him well at Camp David, where he brokered peace between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Epypt’s Anwar Sadat, an experience that later sparked the idea of The Carter Center in Atlanta. Carter’s tenacity helped the center grow to a global force that monitored elections across five continents, enabled his freelance diplomacy and sent public health experts across the developing world. The center’s wins were personal for Carter, who hoped to outlive the last Guinea worm parasite, and nearly did. As president, though, the approach fell short when he urged consumers beleaguered by energy costs to turn down their thermostats. Or when he tried to be the nation’s cheerleader, beseeching Americans to overcome a collective “crisis of confidence.” Republican Ronald Reagan exploited Carter’s lecturing tone with a belittling quip in their lone 1980 debate. “There you go again,” the former Hollywood actor said in response to a wonky answer from the sitting president. “The Great Communicator” outpaced Carter in all but six states. Carter later suggested he “tried to do too much, too soon” and mused that he was incompatible with Washington culture: media figures, lobbyists and Georgetown social elites who looked down on the as “country come to town.” Carter carefully navigated divides on race and class on his way to the Oval Office. , Carter was raised in the mostly Black community of Archery, just outside Plains, by a progressive mother and white supremacist father. Their home had no running water or electricity but the future president still grew up with the relative advantages of a locally prominent, land-owning family in a system of Jim Crow segregation. He wrote of President Franklin Roosevelt’s towering presence and his family’s Democratic Party roots, but his father soured on FDR, and Jimmy Carter never campaigned or governed as a New Deal liberal. He offered himself as a small-town peanut farmer with an understated style, carrying his own luggage, bunking with supporters during his first presidential campaign and always using his nickname. And he began his political career in a whites-only Democratic Party. As private citizens, he and Rosalynn supported integration as early as the 1950s and believed it inevitable. Carter refused to join the White Citizens Council in Plains and spoke out in his Baptist church against denying Black people access to worship services. “This is not my house; this is not your house,” he said in a churchwide meeting, reminding fellow parishioners their sanctuary belonged to God. Yet as the appointed chairman of Sumter County schools he never pushed to desegregate, thinking it impractical after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board decision. And while presidential candidate Carter would hail the 1965 Voting Rights Act, signed by fellow Democrat Lyndon Johnson when Carter was a state senator, there is no record of Carter publicly supporting it at the time. Carter overcame a ballot-stuffing opponent to win his legislative seat, then lost the 1966 governor’s race to an arch-segregationist. He won four years later by avoiding explicit mentions of race and campaigning to the right of his rival, who he mocked as “Cufflinks Carl” — the insult of an ascendant politician who never saw himself as part the establishment. Carter’s rural and small-town coalition in 1970 would match any victorious Republican electoral map in 2024. Once elected, though, Carter shocked his white conservative supporters — and landed on the cover of Time magazine — by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” Before making the jump to Washington, Carter befriended the family of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whom he’d never sought out as he eyed the governor’s office. Carter lamented his foot-dragging on school integration as a “mistake.” But he also met, conspicuously, with Alabama’s segregationist Gov. George Wallace to accept his primary rival’s endorsement ahead of the 1976 Democratic convention. “He very shrewdly took advantage of his own Southerness,” said Amber Roessner, a University of Tennessee professor and expert on Carter’s campaigns. A coalition of Black voters and white moderate Democrats ultimately made Carter the last Democratic presidential nominee to sweep the Deep South. Then, just as he did in Georgia, he used his power in office to appoint more non-whites than all his predecessors had, combined. He once acknowledged “the secret shame” of white Americans who didn’t fight segregation. But he also told Alter that doing more would have sacrificed his political viability – and thus everything he accomplished in office and after. King’s daughter, Bernice King, described Carter as wisely “strategic” in winning higher offices to enact change. “He was a leader of conscience,” she said in an interview. Rosalynn Carter, who at the age of 96, was identified by both husband and wife as the “more political” of the pair; she sat in on Cabinet meetings and urged him to postpone certain priorities, like pressing the Senate to relinquish control of the Panama Canal. “Let that go until the second term,” she would sometimes say. The president, recalled her former aide Kathy Cade, retorted that he was “going to do what’s right” even if “it might cut short the time I have.” Rosalynn held firm, Cade said: “She’d remind him you have to win to govern.” Carter also was the first president to appoint multiple women as Cabinet officers. Yet by his own telling, his career sprouted from chauvinism in the Carters’ early marriage: He did not consult Rosalynn when deciding to move back to Plains in 1953 or before launching his state Senate bid a decade later. Many years later, he called it “inconceivable” that he didn’t confer with the woman he described as his “full partner,” at home, in government and at The Carter Center. “We developed a partnership when we were working in the farm supply business, and it continued when Jimmy got involved in politics,” Rosalynn Carter told AP in 2021. So deep was their trust that when Carter remained tethered to the White House in 1980 as 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, it was Rosalynn who campaigned on her husband’s behalf. “I just loved it,” she said, despite the bitterness of defeat. Fair or not, the label of a disastrous presidency had leading Democrats keep their distance, at least publicly, for many years, but Carter managed to remain relevant, writing books and weighing in on societal challenges. He lamented widening wealth gaps and the influence of money in politics. He voted for democratic socialist Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and later declared that America had devolved from fully functioning democracy to “oligarchy.” Yet looking ahead to 2020, with Sanders running again, Carter warned Democrats not to lest they help re-elect President Donald Trump. Carter scolded the Republican for his serial lies and threats to democracy, and chided the U.S. establishment for misunderstanding Trump’s populist appeal. He delighted in yearly convocations with Emory University freshmen, often asking them to guess how much he’d raised in his two general election campaigns. “Zero,” he’d gesture with a smile, explaining the public financing system candidates now avoid so they can raise billions. Carter still remained quite practical in partnering with wealthy corporations and foundations to advance Carter Center programs. Carter recognized that economic woes and the Iran crisis doomed his presidency, but offered no apologies for appointing Paul Volcker as the Federal Reserve chairman whose interest rate hikes would not curb inflation until Reagan’s presidency. He was proud of getting all the hostages home without starting a shooting war, even though Tehran would not free them until Reagan’s Inauguration Day. “Carter didn’t look at it” as a failure, Alter emphasized. “He said, ‘They came home safely.’ And that’s what he wanted.” Well into their 90s, the Carters greeted visitors at Plains’ Maranatha Baptist Church, where he taught Sunday School and where he will have his last funeral before being buried on . Carter, who made the congregation’s collection plates in his woodworking shop, still garnered headlines there, calling for women’s rights within religious institutions, many of which, he said, “subjugate” women in church and society. Carter was not one to dwell on regrets. “I am at peace with the accomplishments, regret the unrealized goals and utilize my former political position to enhance everything we do,” he wrote around his 90th birthday. The politician who had supposedly hated Washington politics also enjoyed hosting Democratic presidential contenders as again. Carter sat with Buttigieg for the final time March 1, 2020, hours before the Indiana mayor ended his campaign and endorsed eventual winner Joe Biden. “He asked me how I thought the campaign was going,” Buttigieg said, recalling that Carter flashed his signature grin and nodded along as the young candidate, born a year after Carter left office, “put the best face” on the walloping he endured the day before in South Carolina. Never breaking his smile, the 95-year-old host fired back, “I think you ought to drop out.” “So matter of fact,” Buttigieg said with a laugh. “It was somehow encouraging.” Carter had lived enough, won plenty and lost enough to take the long view. “He talked a lot about coming from nowhere,” Buttigieg said, not just to attain the presidency but to leverage “all of the instruments you have in life” and “make the world more peaceful.” In his farewell address as president, Carter said as much to the country that had embraced and rejected him. “The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language,” he declared. “Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity and who suffer for the sake of justice — they are the patriots of this cause.” Carter pledged to remain engaged with and for them as he returned “home to the South where I was born and raised,” home to Plains, where that young lieutenant had indeed become “a fellow citizen of the world.” —-SCIENTISTS have developed a terrifying AI-powered app that can predict when you die - and you can try it now if you're brave enough. Death Clock is the innovate programme that takes factors such as diet, exercise level and sleeping habits into account when calculating life expectancy. 4 Death Clock has been downloaded over 125,000 times since launching in July Credit: Getty 4 AI has used over 1,200 studies to hone its predictions Credit: Getty The morbid app launched in July and has already been downloaded over 125,000 times. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the results are relatively optimistic. For example, TechCrunch reporter Anthony Ha learned that he would die at the ripe old age of 90, with a chance to extend his life to 103, if he makes some lifestyle changes. There are some institutions that contradict Death Clock's data, however. read more in AI GO FOR A SPIN AI bath of the future is 'human WASHING MACHINE' - and it can read your mind GO AWAY Pokémon Go developer uses its unwitting players’ data to train its latest AI The Social Security Administration’s mortality rates table estimates that an 85-year-old man in the US has about 5.6 years to live. Meet Guanghua No 1: The World's First Emotional Robot The app uses a dataset of over 1,200 life expectancy studies and 53 million participants to provide personalized death predictions to its users. Death Clock users are required to answer a questionnaire that includes basic demographic information. This includes as age, gender, and ethnicity, as well as detailed questions about family history, mental health, and chronic diseases. Most read in Tech GOLF FURY Ex-Rangers star joins campaign to save Scots golf course from closure 'ROCCAN ROLE I landed a job at Rangers after Nils Koppen came into my restaurant PYRO CHARGE Celtic break silence after being charged by SPFL over fan pyro use SMASH ON TRACKS Terrifying moment Scots train ploughs into pick-up truck at level crossing Diet, exercise habits, stress levels, and sleep patterns are also factored included in the calculations. DEATH CLOCK BENEFITS The technology is being eyed by industry professionals who believe it could change the game when it comes to things like financial planning. It could offer more accurate data for these industries, potentially transforming how policies and personal financial strategies are developed. Financial planner Ryan Zabrowski told Forbes: “A huge concern for elderly people, our retirees, is outliving their money." Something like Death Clock could help people make more informed decisions when it comes to their cash. 4 There has been a growing interest in research on AI-driven life expectancy tools in recent years. One study, titled "On the Limits of Chronological Age," challenges the idea that chronological age is an accurate measure of an individual's ability to function. The researchers suggest that policies based on age, such as retirement, may overlook other factors that influence economic behaviour. Another focused on the "value per statistical life" (VSL), examining how older Americans are willing to spend on medical services to reduce mortality risk. The study found that those in better health are willing to spend significantly more, which could impact economic policies related to healthcare and insurance. Read more on the Scottish Sun DARR-ARGH! Weather maps reveal exact date Storm Darragh to hit Scots with rain, wind & SNOW 'SICK BEYOND BELIEF' Cops probe footage 'showing Scots woman having sex with XL Bully dog' This comes after life expectancy in some of the most influential nations has lagged behind in recent years. According to stats from Data Commons 2022, Americans have a life expectancy of 77 years, and the UK has 82. 4 Financial experts believe this technology could greatly imporve the ability to financially plan your future Credit: Getty