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lucky me noodles price Why Myles Garrett still remains happy with the Browns, and his confidence in Andrew Berry and Kevin StefanskiA fake bomb threat at Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Georgia home led to a deadly car crash with a police officer, authorities said. An unknown person messaged the police department in Rome, Ga., on Monday and claimed there was a pipe bomb in Greene’s mailbox , according to Atlanta Fox affiliate WAGA. Greene lives in the city about 55 miles northwest of Atlanta. As cops raced to the scene, a member of the local bomb squad crashed into another vehicle , USA Today reported. The unnamed officer struck Tammie Pickelsimer, 66, as she was pulling out of a parking lot, authorities said. Pickelsimer was rushed to a local hospital , where she succumbed to her injuries, according to CBS News. The officer did not suffer serious injuries in the wreck. “I’m heartsick right now,” Greene wrote Monday on social media . “My prayers are with Tammie Pickelsimer, her family, the officer who was injured, and the entire Rome Police Department.” Greene, known for her far-right views, loyalty to Donald Trump and outspoken nature , has been targeted multiple times by fake bomb threats and other swatting calls in the four years since she was elected to the House of Representatives. Federal investigators learned the latest threat came from a Russian IP address, WAGA reported. While the feds probe the bomb threat, Georgia State Patrol will investigate the deadly car crash. ©2024 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.Cal Thomas: The Hunter Biden pardon calls for Donald Trump pardon

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was injured during a Congressional trip to Luxembourg and has been admitted to the hospital, her spokesperson announced Friday morning. While in Luxembourg to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, Pelosi, 84, "sustained an injury during an official engagement and was admitted to the hospital for evaluation," spokesperson Ian Krager said in a statement. "Speaker Emerita Pelosi is currently receiving excellent treatment from doctors and medical professionals." The statement did not provide any additional details about how the injury occurred or Pelosi's current condition. Krager said that Pelosi "continues to work" but will not attend the rest of the events of the Congressional delegation. This is a developing story. Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit npr.org .Wall St Week Ahead Fed rate view in focus as robust stocks year draws to close

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Jeff Graham’s heart sank when he showed up Sunday morning to see that the roof on his beloved Bayfield business, the Albion Hotel, had collapsed. “Initially on Sunday when we arrived, the talk was ‘This is dangerous.’ The Black Dog Restaurant could be in trouble, too. We need to tear this building down right away,” said the Albion’s owner. But following inspections by several engineers throughout the week, Graham said the iconic Albion Hotel will not be torn down. In fact, it will most certainly be rebuilt. “Leigh and I plan to rebuild the Albion and bring it back to its glory. The Municipality and the Heritage Committee are standing right behind us and want the same thing,” said Graham. So too does the community, and local history buffs, who watched in horror as their beloved Bayfield landmark, built in the 1840s and faithfully restored in 1964, sat in near ruins Sunday morning. Work to protect the damaged Albion Hotel following its roof collapse on Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024, seen on Dec. 10. (Scott Miller/CTV News London) “The way the roof had collapsed and thinking about how old the brick was and not knowing if the foundation sides that they're talking about were safe. No, it's awesome news,” said Barbara Durand, president of the Bayfield Historical Society. Graham said engineers determined the roof split at the peak and just folded out and essentially sat down on the second floor, which miraculously didn’t cause as much damage as feared to the 145-year-old structure. “There is damage, but not like we thought. So, that's a very positive thing. The walls, all the corners are very strong still,” said Graham. A temporary plywood and tarp roof was installed on the Albion on Wednesday. Graham said brick work will start on Monday and new roof trusses have already been ordered, which he hopes means the Albion will have a new roof by late January or early February. Sign on the Albion Hotel, seen on Dec. 9, 2024, following its roof collapse on Sunday, Dec. 8. (Scott Miller/CTV News London) More work to restore the interior will need to be done, so Graham can’t say when but he can say that the Albion will be restored and will reopen to the public again. The historical plaque that once sat out front of the Albion will also be put back in its rightful place. “We kept this plaque for when the building reopens and we all get to go and put this on the front of the building and we'll throw the hugest party that Bayfield has ever seen. I can't wait for that day for all of us to do that together,” said Graham. Albion Hotel Owner Jeff Graham, seen on Dec. 11, 2024, holds a historical plaque he rescued from his damaged business following its roof collapse on Sunday, Dec. 8. (Source: Jeff Graham) The Bayfield Historical Society, who installed the Albion’s plaque several years ago, can’t wait for re-opening day, either. “We would really love to be there, when the plaque is placed back on a restored building,” said Durand. In the meantime, more than $75,000 has been raised by the community to help keep the Albion’s 27 employees afloat during restoration. “We plan to fight tooth and nail to get the Albion back to the way it was. We can’t thank the community enough for their support,” said Graham. Shopping Trends The Shopping Trends team is independent of the journalists at CTV News. We may earn a commission when you use our links to shop. Read about us. 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These LEGO Kits Are On Sale And Ready To Gift Black Friday May Be Over, But You Can Still Take Advantage Of These Amazing Sales On Amazon Canada London Top Stories 'Where are we supposed to go?': Emotional reaction to Ford government’s hard line on encampments All the evidence is in at bush party shooting trial Lumber mill levelled by mid-morning blaze Brother charged in St. Thomas homicide Damaged 1840s Bayfield landmark will be rebuilt Stevenson disagrees with Integrity Commissioner ruling she bullied Deputy City Manager and deserves financial punishment Labour minister unveils steps to end Canada Post strike Snow winding down, cold air persists, milder temperatures incoming CTVNews.ca Top Stories Labour minister unveils steps to end Canada Post strike Canada Post workers began their strike four weeks ago, halting mail and package deliveries across the country. Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon said he hopes work will resume as early as next week. Ottawa to remove 30% investment cap for Canadian pension funds Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says the upcoming fall economic statement on Monday will remove the cap that currently restricts Canadian pension funds from owning more than 30 per cent of the voting shares of a Canadian entity. Canada's homicide rate down in most provinces, with 2 exceptions The homicide rate is declining in Canada, and the country’s three largest cities all saw double-digit percentage decreases in homicides per capita, according to data released this week. 'They believe in diplomacy, good luck': Doug Ford doubles down on energy threat as some premiers distance themselves Doug Ford is standing behind his threat to stop providing the U.S. with electricity in response to president-elect Donald Trump’s promised tariffs, even as several other premiers publicly distance themselves from the stance. Vader case: What it's like to watch a parole hearing if you're the son of homicide victims On the other side of the planet, Bret McCann, whose parents went missing and died in the 2010s, sat anxiously as the man convicted in their deaths pleaded for parole. Top musician forced to cancel Toronto concert after Air Canada refused to give his priceless cello a seat on plane Famed British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who became a household name after performing at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, has said he had to cancel a concert in Canada after the country’s largest airline denied his pre-booked seat for his cello. Paula Abdul settles lawsuit that alleged sexual assault by 'American Idol' producer Nigel Lythgoe Paula Abdul and former 'American Idol' producer Nigel Lythgoe have agreed to settle a lawsuit in which she alleged he sexually assaulted her in the early 2000s when she was a judge on the show. Federal government says 'not to confuse' premiers' differing opinions on Trump tariff retaliation, 'confident' in Canada's response As it continues to tout a 'Team Canada' approach, the federal government is downplaying differing opinions from premiers on how Canada should respond to a potential 25 per cent tariff from U.S. president-elect Donald Trump. Eight people injured after horse-drawn wagon went out of control in eastern Ont. Eight people were injured after horses became out of control while a man was offering a horse-drawn wagon ride Thursday in eastern Ontario, according to the Brockville Police Service. Kitchener School warns parents of possible scarlet fever case in Waterloo, Ont. There are new concerns surrounding a highly contagious infection after a suspected case of scarlet fever was reported at a school in Waterloo, Ont. This little piggy went to the Humane Society The Kitchener Waterloo and Stratford Perth Humane Society has an unusual animal up for adoption after it was found wandering the streets. Labour minister unveils steps to end Canada Post strike Canada Post workers began their strike four weeks ago, halting mail and package deliveries across the country. Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon said he hopes work will resume as early as next week. Barrie South Simcoe police mourn death of officer facing discreditable conduct charges The South Simcoe Police Service is mourning the passing of one of its officers. Student charged with explosives-related offence in Kawartha Lakes Provincial police in Kawartha Lakes charged a student following a report that someone brought an unknown substance into a school. Pop-punk music festival to return to Burl's Creek event grounds 'All Your Friends Fest' will return to Burl’s Creek event grounds in Oro-Medonte in June. 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Ottawa Eight people injured after horse-drawn wagon went out of control in eastern Ont. Eight people were injured after horses became out of control while a man was offering a horse-drawn wagon ride Thursday in eastern Ontario, according to the Brockville Police Service. More than 1,500 vehicles reported stolen in Ottawa in 2024: Here are the hotspots for thefts Statistics on the Ottawa Police Service's Crime Map show 1,559 vehicles have been reported stolen in Ottawa between Jan. 1 and Dec. 12. Vehicle thefts include joy rides, opportunistic thefts, and "single-use crimes," according to police. Ottawa to remove 30% investment cap for Canadian pension funds Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says the upcoming fall economic statement on Monday will remove the cap that currently restricts Canadian pension funds from owning more than 30 per cent of the voting shares of a Canadian entity. 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Montreal Quebec, Ottawa announce $100-million deal to fight homelessness, add shelter spaces Ottawa and Quebec announced an agreement Friday to help unhoused Quebecers as homeless encampments continue to multiply in the province and frigid weather sets in. Two Montreal anesthesiologists suspended for questionable practices: College of Physicians Two anesthesiologists at Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital were brought before the Quebec College of Physicians disciplinary board for questionable practices and were suspended. Quarry fire in St-Lazare still burning five days later You won’t see flames, but there’s still smoke emanating from a burning pile of debris at the Chevrier et Fils Sand Quarry in Saint-Lazare from a fire that started Sunday. Atlantic P.E.I. RCMP looking for man who reportedly jumped from Confederation Bridge Multiple police and search and rescue teams are looking for a man who reportedly jumped from the Confederation Bridge Friday morning. Nova Scotia non-profit groups trying to save huge Acadian church now facing lawsuit The Roman Catholic Church in southwestern Nova Scotia has filed a lawsuit against two non-profit groups trying to save a historic deconsecrated Acadian church. Man charged with manslaughter in death of missing Cape Breton man A man has been charged with manslaughter in connection with the disappearance and homicide of a man in Cape Breton this past summer. Winnipeg Saying goodbye to a Winnipeg restaurant owner with a legacy of kindness Shirley Eng, the charismatic, down-to-earth owner of the famous chicken finger restaurant Mitzi’s, unexpectedly passed away at the beginning of December at age 78, according to her family. Century-old Manitoba creamery burns down in major fire A 106-year-old creamery in Inwood, Man., was destroyed in a major blaze Wednesday evening. 'Tremendous donation': Police and Fire Games donating to Manitoba organizations to help fund sports Following a successful Winnipeg World Police and Fire Games in 2023, the host society is setting up a legacy program that will help distribute money to fund local sports in Manitoba. It was announced Friday the program will provide $300,000 through three main avenues. Calgary Widow of pedestrian hit and killed on Elbow Drive supports crosswalk changes The wife of a Calgary man killed while crossing the road in a marked intersection is pushing for flashing lights to be installed. Alberta's new CTrain Green Line plan includes elevated downtown tracks, more stops The province has released a “reimagined” plan for the Green Line CTrain track that it says is longer and less expensive than what the City of Calgary had planned. 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New Democratic and Green parties have reached an "agreement in principle" on a "co-operation and responsible government accord" that will see the smaller party support the government on confidence matters. Nanaimo liquor store robbed at knifepoint, RCMP seek suspect Nanaimo RCMP have released a photograph of a suspect who allegedly robbed a liquor store in the city in an effort to garner new information from the public. B.C. girl inspired by Hollywood star to donate turkeys to local families in need When Maria-Clara Patrick first watched that video of Arnold Schwarzenegger, she assumed they had nothing in common. Stay Connected

Enabling AI to explain its predictions in plain language December 10, 2024 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Researchers developed a system that converts AI explanations into narrative text that can be more easily understood by users. This system could help people determine when to trust a model's predictions. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIN Email Machine-learning models can make mistakes and be difficult to use, so scientists have developed explanation methods to help users understand when and how they should trust a model's predictions. These explanations are often complex, however, perhaps containing information about hundreds of model features. And they are sometimes presented as multifaceted visualizations that can be difficult for users who lack machine-learning expertise to fully comprehend. To help people make sense of AI explanations, MIT researchers used large language models (LLMs) to transform plot-based explanations into plain language. They developed a two-part system that converts a machine-learning explanation into a paragraph of human-readable text and then automatically evaluates the quality of the narrative, so an end-user knows whether to trust it. By prompting the system with a few example explanations, the researchers can customize its narrative descriptions to meet the preferences of users or the requirements of specific applications. In the long run, the researchers hope to build upon this technique by enabling users to ask a model follow-up questions about how it came up with predictions in real-world settings. "Our goal with this research was to take the first step toward allowing users to have full-blown conversations with machine-learning models about the reasons they made certain predictions, so they can make better decisions about whether to listen to the model," says Alexandra Zytek, an electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) graduate student and lead author of a paper on this technique. She is joined on the paper by Sara Pido, an MIT postdoc; Sarah Alnegheimish, an EECS graduate student; Laure Berti-Équille, a research director at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development; and senior author Kalyan Veeramachaneni, a principal research scientist in the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems. The research will be presented at the IEEE Big Data Conference. Elucidating explanations The researchers focused on a popular type of machine-learning explanation called SHAP. In a SHAP explanation, a value is assigned to every feature the model uses to make a prediction. For instance, if a model predicts house prices, one feature might be the location of the house. Location would be assigned a positive or negative value that represents how much that feature modified the model's overall prediction. Often, SHAP explanations are presented as bar plots that show which features are most or least important. But for a model with more than 100 features, that bar plot quickly becomes unwieldy. "As researchers, we have to make a lot of choices about what we are going to present visually. If we choose to show only the top 10, people might wonder what happened to another feature that isn't in the plot. Using natural language unburdens us from having to make those choices," Veeramachaneni says. However, rather than utilizing a large language model to generate an explanation in natural language, the researchers use the LLM to transform an existing SHAP explanation into a readable narrative. By only having the LLM handle the natural language part of the process, it limits the opportunity to introduce inaccuracies into the explanation, Zytek explains. Their system, called EXPLINGO, is divided into two pieces that work together. The first component, called NARRATOR, uses an LLM to create narrative descriptions of SHAP explanations that meet user preferences. By initially feeding NARRATOR three to five written examples of narrative explanations, the LLM will mimic that style when generating text. "Rather than having the user try to define what type of explanation they are looking for, it is easier to just have them write what they want to see," says Zytek. This allows NARRATOR to be easily customized for new use cases by showing it a different set of manually written examples. After NARRATOR creates a plain-language explanation, the second component, GRADER, uses an LLM to rate the narrative on four metrics: conciseness, accuracy, completeness, and fluency. GRADER automatically prompts the LLM with the text from NARRATOR and the SHAP explanation it describes. "We find that, even when an LLM makes a mistake doing a task, it often won't make a mistake when checking or validating that task," she says. Users can also customize GRADER to give different weights to each metric. "You could imagine, in a high-stakes case, weighting accuracy and completeness much higher than fluency, for example," she adds. Analyzing narratives For Zytek and her colleagues, one of the biggest challenges was adjusting the LLM so it generated natural-sounding narratives. The more guidelines they added to control style, the more likely the LLM would introduce errors into the explanation. "A lot of prompt tuning went into finding and fixing each mistake one at a time," she says. To test their system, the researchers took nine machine-learning datasets with explanations and had different users write narratives for each dataset. This allowed them to evaluate the ability of NARRATOR to mimic unique styles. They used GRADER to score each narrative explanation on all four metrics. In the end, the researchers found that their system could generate high-quality narrative explanations and effectively mimic different writing styles. Their results show that providing a few manually written example explanations greatly improves the narrative style. However, those examples must be written carefully -- including comparative words, like "larger," can cause GRADER to mark accurate explanations as incorrect. Building on these results, the researchers want to explore techniques that could help their system better handle comparative words. They also want to expand EXPLINGO by adding rationalization to the explanations. In the long run, they hope to use this work as a stepping stone toward an interactive system where the user can ask a model follow-up questions about an explanation. "That would help with decision-making in a lot of ways. If people disagree with a model's prediction, we want them to be able to quickly figure out if their intuition is correct, or if the model's intuition is correct, and where that difference is coming from," Zytek says. Story Source: Materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Original written by Adam Zewe. Note: Content may be edited for style and length. Journal Reference : Cite This Page :

This is the endgame to a saga that has been playing out for most of Biden’s tenure: the tension between the administration’s goal of improving public services and its habit of catering to public-service unions. It would be an exaggeration to say that public dissatisfaction with government services played a major role in President-elect Donald Trump’s victory. But the incoming administration’s fixation with government efficiency, however misguided, will certainly play a role going forward. No controversy surrounded federal workers going remote in 2020, during the pandemic, and as Biden was inaugurated in January 2021. But over the next few months, vaccines became widely available, and Americans returned to tourism, business travel and office work. By March 1, 2022, when Biden delivered the State of the Union, the clear desire was to return to normal. “It’s time for America to get back to work and fill our great downtowns again with people,” Biden said. “The vast majority of federal workers will once again work in person.” Yet it never happened. The White House issued various directives, and every political appointee I know was routinely in the office (and routinely complaining about the absence of so many civil servants making their jobs harder). But despite this widespread discontent among his own appointees, Biden never got the workers back. One reason is that civil servants overwhelmingly view the return-to-office push as a bad-faith political stunt designed to assuage critics in Congress or provide economic benefits to cities. The belief that regular presence in an office is beneficial, expressed by many managers in the private sector, doesn’t have much traction. The larger issue is that return-to-work policies need to be bargained collectively with the unions representing federal workers. The job of union leaders is to win concessions for their members, so they argue that requiring an in-office presence is burdensome and pointless. That lets them maximize financial concessions or whatever else in exchange for going to in-person work. Biden officials generally treated this collective bargaining situation as an external constraint on their ability to manage the federal workforce. But the president’s own appointees controlled the National Labor Relations Board. It’s of course appropriate that a dramatic shift in working conditions should be subject to collective bargaining. But we all lived through the pandemic and saw what happened: Employers made a dramatic shift to remote work as a result of a public health emergency. The idea that this should have also created a new bargaining chit for public-sector unions doesn’t make sense. If the White House really couldn’t persuade the NLRB to treat this more sensibly, it could have tried to work with Congress to make a statutory change to require common-sense policies. But the Biden administration didn’t do that, either. The president told the public he was going to bring federal workers back and then didn’t, because of deference to labor unions. Under Trump, America is going to get the polar-opposite approach to remote work. Instead of policies that balance the collaborative benefits of time in office with the recruiting and retention benefits of flexibility, the new regime doesn’t really care about public-sector performance and wants to purge the “deep state” of professionalism and perceived political enemies. To that end, being as strict as possible — in the hope that career civil servants will quit — will serve Trump’s ends. That’s unfortunate. The option of working remotely at least some of the time has real value to both workers and employers. Pretending that Zoom doesn’t exist would be absurd. Prudent members of Congress should push back against efforts, already apparent among the president-elect’s allies, to use return-to-work as a hammer to destroy state capacity. For Democrats, there will always be some friction between serving the public’s interest in efficient government services and its own interest in accommodating its supporters in public unions. These interests are not often aligned. Successful Democratic presidents, such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, were especially attentive to the ways in which teachers unions could be impediments to improving public education, and made a point of standing up to them. Biden — and Biden-era Democrats — generally prioritized coalition management over such concerns. That’s why they made COVID-era work policies permanent as a giveaway to civil-service unions. It’s a decision Democrats will come to regret, as Trump now wields the very real shortcomings of the status quo as a pretext for dismantling systems that Americans very much need.

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PARIS -- French President Emmanuel Macron’s office announced a new government Monday, after the previous Cabinet collapsed in a historic vote prompted by fighting over the country's budget. The government, put together by newly named Prime Minister Francois Bayrou , includes members of the outgoing conservative-dominated team and new figures from centrist or left-leaning backgrounds. Coming up with a 2025 budget will be the most urgent order of business. The new government enters office after months of political deadlock and crisis and pressure from financial markets to reduce France’s colossal debt. Macron has vowed to remain in office until his term ends in 2027, but has struggled to govern since snap elections in the summer left no single party with a majority in the National Assembly. Since his appointment 10 days ago, Bayrou has held talks with political leaders from various parties in search of the right balance for the new government. Some critics on Monday were angry at Bayrou for consulting with Marine Le Pen’s far-right party, and some argue the government looks too much like the old one to win lawmakers’ trust. Former Prime Minister Michel Barnier resigned this month following a no-confidence vote prompted by budget disputes in the National Assembly , leaving France without a functioning government. Le Pen played a key role in Barnier’s downfall by joining her National Rally party’s forces with the left to pass the no-confidence motion. Bayrou will need support from moderate legislators on the right and left to keep his government alive. Banker Eric Lombard will be finance minister, a crucial post when France is working to fulfill its promises to European Union partners to reduce its deficit, estimated to reach 6% of its gross domestic product this year. Lombard briefly worked as an adviser to a Socialist finance minister in the 1990s. Bayrou has said he supports tax hikes championed by his predecessor, but it’s not clear how the new government can find the right calculation for a budget that satisfies a majority of lawmakers angry over spending cuts. Hard-right Bruno Retailleau stays on as interior minister, with responsibility for France’s security and migration policy. Sebastien Lecornu, who has been at the forefront of France’s military support for Ukraine, remains defense minister, while Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, who has traveled extensively in the Mideast in recent weeks, also retains his post. Among new faces are two former prime ministers. Manuel Valls will be minister for overseas affairs, and Elisabeth Borne takes the education ministry.

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