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Canada Post strike update: Union 'frustrated' with proposals, but postal service says it has yet to see formal response
It appears that the Detroit Tigers have finally emerged from the ashes of their long and grueling rebuild — and not a moment too soon. Detroit was baseball’s biggest surprise this past season, as the team went from being a seller at July’s trade deadline to knocking off perennial World Series contender Houston in the postseason. Despite a flawed roster with various holes, thanks to the combination of gritty players, some good fortune and a manager in AJ Hinch who kept everything together, the Tigers found a way to become 2024’s Cinderella team. And now, this offseason provides Detroit a unique opportunity to build off their success and get back to being a powerhouse in the AL Central. Detroit has quietly developed a handful of talented players at the big-league level, including Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter. Greene is a budding star who earned his first All-Star appearance this past season and is a staple in the middle of Detroit’s lineup. Carpenter has become one of the better left-handed bats in the American League, and while he spent time in '24 on the injured list, he posted an impressive .932 OPS with 18 homers and looked very comfortable hitting in the postseason. The crown jewel of the Tigers’ turnaround is none other than 2024 AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal. He has been one of the best pitchers in baseball since his return from left flexor tendon surgery in late 2023. His performance skyrocketed last season as he turned himself into arguably the best starter in MLB. While many wondered during his phenomenal season if the Tigers would trade Skubal, the decision to not move the young star was arguably the biggest turning point of Detroit’s season. And as Skubal continued to dominate in the season’s second half, Detroit continued to win. Coming off their surprise success in '24, the Tigers still have a young and inexperienced roster. The team’s moves this winter should be focused on raising their ceiling while supporting the core pieces on the current roster so they can take the next jump. From an offensive standpoint, the Tigers were one of the more left-handed lineups in baseball last season. They would benefit tremendously from adding a right-handed bat or two. One of the . He would bring a boatload of veteran and postseason experience to a young team on the rise and fill a big hole at third. Not to mention, this pairing would give him the opportunity to play for his former manager in Hinch. The other question for Detroit to answer on offense is what will the Tigers do with Javier Báez and Spencer Torkelson? Báez has been a disaster in Detroit and missed most of the second half of 2024 due to a hip injury. Detroit acquired rookie shortstop Trey Sweeney in the July trade that sent Jack Flaherty to the Dodgers, and now Sweeney needs a place to play. Báez will have to at least show that he can hit against left-handers if he hopes to see time consistently next season. As for Torkelson, he has not lived up to the hype that accompanied him when he was the No. 1 pick in the 2020 MLB Draft. His inability to hit consistently at the big-league level has been a speed bump in the Tigers’ rebuild. While Torkelson will likely get one more opportunity to show he belongs in the big leagues, there are possible upgrades on the market. Free agent Christian Walker . If the Tigers aren’t looking to spend at that level, someone such as Carlos Santana could provide similar traits for much less. Detroit could also use a few veteran arms to add to its rotation behind Skubal. Detroit's rotation, or lack thereof, was one of the main reasons its season came to an end in the ALDS. The Tigers didn’t have enough starting pitching for a full postseason series and were forced to go with openers and bullpen games. The Tigers would particularly benefit from some experience to go with their relatively young rotation. Starters such as Walker Buehler and Sean Manaea could be the type of experienced arms that would fit the Tigers’ needs. The AL Central surprised the entire sport this year, with three teams reaching the postseason in the Tigers, Royals and Guardians. All three advanced at least one round. Going forward, the advantage the Tigers have over the other teams in the division is their ability to spend. Their payroll for 2024 was $98.5 million, and they have a projected payroll of just $79 million for 2025, which would rank 27th in the league, according to Spotrac. Historically, the Tigers have never been afraid to flex financial might in free agency or make a big splash in the trade market. And outside of Báez, who is owed $73 million over the next three years, the Tigers don't have huge financial commitments, and most of their roster is still pre-arbitration. With the retired Miguel Cabrera’s massive contract finally off the books, Detroit has the kind of financial flexibility the organization hasn’t enjoyed in more than a decade. In his two years with the Tigers, president of baseball operations Scott Harris has been methodical in his approach to building the roster. But after Detroit’s standout 2024 with a team that had some holes, a few key additions this winter could give the Tigers a strong chance to make back-to-back postseasons for the first time since 2013-14.
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Mumbai: On Wednesday, Uber launched a new feature allowing riders to share live location and trip details directly with police through the app's SOS integration switch. Uber will share with the police department complete driver details, the car's GPS, number, name, and colour in real-time, so that they can respond if the rider presses the SOS button on the app. Uber additionally introduced a pioneering audio recording capability for passengers within the app, whereby they can document audio if they experience discomfort or safety concerns during journeys. Uber maintains no access to the audio unless the passenger opts to present it within a safety report. It can be furnished to law enforcement authorities as evidence should a grievance arise against the driver. A third innovative feature utilised Machine Learning (Artificial Intelligence) ensuring women drivers have the option to exclusively accept women passengers, particularly beneficial during night-time hours. Implemented following driver feedback, this optional feature facilitated over 21,000 journeys nationwide, with few women drivers operating across MMR. "The SOS button (in app) integration with state police is a new feature apart from our 24x7 helpline on the app. It is designed to provide immediate support when every second counts. The feature is live in Telangana, and the pilot project was launched across Maharashtra," said Sooraj Nair, Head — Safety Operations, Uber India. Uber collaborated with Bengaluru-based NGO Durga, intensifying efforts to educate drivers regarding appropriate conduct, particularly concerning female passengers. Priya Varadarajan, founder of Durga, said: "This partnership will encompass sessions for drivers to comprehend and address the distinctive safety concerns of women passengers. Our emphasis will be on sensitising drivers to behave appropriately with women passengers and ensure their security throughout the journey." Uber additionally launched ‘Safety Preferences' whereby passengers can automatically activate technology-driven safety features during each journey. The feature enables passengers to customise their safety settings—from automatically sharing journey details with trusted contacts to enabling audio recording and RideCheck alerts. Passengers can configure safety features to activate based on time or location, such as night-time journeys or rides from specific localities.
New federal party looks for 'lightning' in the mushy middlePLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Newly married and sworn as a Naval officer, Jimmy Carter 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, a mix of happenstance and calculation , 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 Georgians and their inner circle as “country come to town.” Carter carefully navigated divides on race and class on his way to the Oval Office. Born Oct. 1, 1924 , 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 died on Nov. 19 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.” Related Articles Yet looking ahead to 2020, with Sanders running again, Carter warned Democrats not to “move to a very liberal program,” 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 family property alongside Rosalynn . 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 public pilgrimages to Plains became advantageous 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.” —- Bill Barrow, based in Atlanta, has covered national politics including multiple presidential campaigns for the AP since 2012.Croatia's president faces conservative rival in election run-off
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Google has released 'Veo', a generative AI model that can transform images and text into high-resolution videos. 'Veo' is Goolgle's first generative AI model. A recent study by Google found that companies working in generative AI have seen an 86% growth surge. Veo's release follows this trend. Videos produced by Veo will have more accuracy. Veo aims to surpass 'Sora', the AI model developed by OpenAI three months ago. Meanwhile, cyber experts have raised concerns about the potential misuse of women's and children's photos on the platform. However, Google has assured that it will take measures to prevent the misuse of copyrighted images. Videos with 1080p resolution Google's 'Veo' allows users to create custom videos using simple text prompts. For instance, you can instruct Veo to create a video of a butterfly flying through a garden. Alternatively, you can provide separate images of the butterfly and garden. The resulting video will have a 1080p resolution. Veo also enables users to create videos longer than a minute.
Adele is getting emotional as she closes out her residency in Las Vegas. “I will miss it terribly, and I will miss you terribly,” the British singer, 36, told the audience during the 100th and final show of her Weekends with Adele residency in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Saturday, November 23, per social media footage . “I don’t know when I’m next gonna perform again,” she continued while on stage at the Colosseum in Caesars Palace. “I’m not doing anything else. I’m actually s—ting myself like, what I am gonna do while I’m gone. I don’t have any f—ing plans.” She continued, “Of course I’ll be back, the only thing I’m good at is singing. I don’t know when I want to next come onstage.” Adele’s residency at Caesars Palace kicked off in November 2022 after being postponed earlier in the year due to production challenges as well as other obstacles. “I’m so sorry, but my show ain’t ready,” she shared in an emotional video via Instagram at the time. “We’ve tried absolutely everything that we can to put it together in time and for it to be good enough for you, but we’ve been absolutely destroyed by delivery delays and COVID – half my crew are down with COVID, they still are — and it’s been impossible to finish the show. ... I can’t give you what I have right now.” Two years later, the “Someone Like You” singer acknowledged the residency’s “rocky” start during her final show. “I’m so sad this residency is over but I am so glad that it happened, I really, really am,” she said on Saturday, per Rolling Stone , describing the period of time between January 2022 and November 2022 as “the worst year of my life.” She further advised the crowd, “If something doesn’t feel right to you, don’t fucking do it.” You have successfully subscribed. By signing up, I agree to the Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive emails from Us Weekly Check our latest news in Google News Check our latest news in Apple News In August, Adele confirmed during a performance in Munich that a lengthy musical hiatus was in her future after the conclusion of her Las Vegas residency. “After that, I will not see you for an incredibly long time and I will hold you dear in my heart,” she said. “I’m not the most comfortable performer, I know that. But I am very f—ing good at it. And I have really enjoyed performing for nearly three years now, which is the longest I’ve ever done and probably the longest I will ever do,” she shared. “It has been amazing, I just need a rest.” She said, “I have spent the last seven years building a new life for myself and I want to live it. I want to live my new life that I’ve been building. I will miss you terribly.”Ruth’s upbringing, where shelves were lined with jars of preserved homegrown vegetables, inspired this colourful beginner’s guide to pickling and fermentation. Requiring no specialist equipment, there are classics – sauerkraut, kimchi, dill pickles – and wildcards such as fiery pickled sausage. Each recipe includes a suggested accompaniment. Kin cements Mitchell’s position as one of the UK’s leading voices on Caribbean food. She’s a family chronicler, curious cultural researcher and, above all, a chef who knows what people want – honey jerk wings, saltfish fritters, pepperpot and her famed lime cheesecake. A delicious exploration of how cultural and personal identities intertwine. In a celebration of al fresco feasting, Graves makes a compelling case to keep the coals burning all year round. Each season has a chapter: curried brown butter new potato salad in spring; tequila-macerated strawberries in summer; autumn’s smoky aubergine and maple-pickled sultanas; whole Marmitey cabbage for the winter. The peppy menus are comprehensive and interchangeable. Tan is a chef, teacher and food scholar who built a school of Asian culinary excellence in rural Australia. This book is a cultural grounding reminiscent of the works of Claudia Roden or Elizabeth David. Tan starts with Malaysian classics such as char kwey taow and nasi lemak, moves further afield (India, Japan) and includes his own creations. At the Pem in London, Sally Abé runs a kitchen largely staffed by women, but her rise to the top was anything but female dominated. Her memoir is a story of graft and tenacity, learned amid the often military brutality of professional kitchens. It is unflinching and funny, and features plenty of candid stories. Famed for showstopping roasts at his London gastropub, the Camberwell Arms, Davies’ first cookbook also makes him the king of entertaining. Cooking for friends isn’t always easy, but his reassuring voice fills you with confidence. His influences sweep through Europe with osso bucco and romesco, but you can tell by his sticky toffee pudding that his heart belongs in Britain. A not entirely faithful take on Greek food that prioritises convenience and imagination over tradition. Who cares when the recipes are as good as Hayden’s comforting youvetsi (meat and orzo stew), hearty spanakopita risotto and indulgent baklava cheesecake. She draws on her Cypriot roots and travels across Greece to deliver clever dishes that work. In his notebooks Slater collects “haphazard observations” about life, crystallising its details – a mango in a Goan rainstorm, the pockmarks in a well made pancake – in quietly poetic prose. It’s not just about food; he also writes about packing light and tending his garden, but it’s the descriptions of mosslike matcha tea and brick-red tomato soup that linger. Jones has identified 12 everyday ingredients that punch well above their weight, including lemons, capers, chillies and vinegar, and structured her latest book around them. The recipes, all vegetarian, are reliably great – artichoke and butter bean paella, lemon and bay pudding – and there’s a wealth of knowledge on subjects such as salting and layering flavour. The Observer’s restaurant critic may be best known for his merciless skewerings, but now he is redressing the balance. Rayner is a keen home cook and here he reverse-engineers the restaurant dishes that have wowed him over the years, providing interpretations of Oslo Court’s duck à l’orange, Persian Cottage’s fesenjan and – yes – Greggs’s steak bakes.