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Utah DWR stocks 12.8M fish in 2024, the most in last 5 yearsRené Bennett | (TNS) Bankrate.com If you’re an iPhone user, you might not realize that you already have access to Apple Cash. It’s a digital cash card that’s built into Apple devices and can be found in the default Wallet app. (Note: You must link an eligible debit card to use this service.) The main function of Apple Cash is to make it easier for Apple device users to send money to one another, including sending money through the iMessage app. But Apple Cash is more than just a peer-to-peer (P2P) payment service — it can be used to shop online, in stores or to make in-app purchases. Apple Cash is a convenient way to transfer money between friends and family. Once it’s set up, a user can simply open the iMessage app and send money to a contact through their chat. It’s also useful for those who use Apple Pay, a separate service that allows Apple device users to make contactless payments with any linked card, including an Apple Cash card. Here are some important things to know about setting up and using Apple Cash. Apple Cash is a digital cash card that’s stored in the Wallet app of Apple devices, and it can be used for making P2P payments, as well as purchases through Apple Pay. When you receive money from another Apple Cash user, that money appears in your Apple Cash balance. The balance can then be spent or transferred to a linked bank account or debit card. Sending money to peers with Apple Cash can be done either directly from the digital Apple Cash card (in the Wallet app) or through the iMessage app. You can send or receive anywhere between $1 and $10,000 per message. The money shows up on the recipient’s Apple Cash card instantly, but it may take from one to three days for the balance to be transferred to a bank account. Instant transfers to a bank account are possible, but it comes with a 1.5% fee. There’s also an option to set up Apple Cash Family for children who are under 18 years old. This option limits the amount a child can send to $2,000 per message. Those younger than 18 also cannot add money to their Apple Cash card from a bank account; rather, their balance only grows when they receive money from another Apple Cash user. Apple Cash is a digital card within your Wallet that allows you to spend your Apple Cash online, in stores and in apps as well send and receive money. Apple Pay, however, allows you to make purchases using any credit card or debit card you have stored in your Wallet — including Apple Cash. With Apple Pay, you add credit and debit cards to your Wallet and then have the ability to pay right with your phone (or other Apple product). To set up Apple Cash, you’ll need three things: —A compatible Apple device. —Two-factor authentication enabled for your Apple ID (this can be done in Settings). —An eligible debit card to load funds onto the Apple Cash card. In the Settings app, you can turn on Apple Cash in the Wallet and Apple Pay section. Tap on the Apple Cash card icon and follow the instructions on the screen. You’ll be asked to agree to the terms and conditions, after which your device will set up Apple Cash for you. The Apple Cash card, once set up, can be found in your device’s Wallet app. If you want to set up Apple Cash Family, you’ll first need to have Family Sharing turned on, which can be done in Settings. The family organizer can add children to Apple Cash in the Family Sharing section of Settings. You’ll need to have a debit card linked to your digital Wallet to add money to an Apple Cash card. You can add a debit card to Wallet in the same place where you set up Apple Cash — the Wallet and Apple Pay section of Settings. Once a debit card is linked to your Wallet, open Wallet and tap on the Apple Cash card. Then, tap the More button (an icon with three dots). This will open a page where you can see your Apple Cash balance, add money and transfer funds to a bank account. Tap Add Money and enter the amount you’d like to add (the minimum is $10). You’ll be asked to confirm which debit card you want to use to fund the Apple Cash balance, and then the money is added to the Apple Cash card. There are two ways to send a payment to someone using Apple Cash: directly from your Wallet or in the iMessage app. Both the sender and recipient need Apple Cash to send or receive money. To send money from Wallet, simply tap the Apple Cash card in Wallet and then tap Send. Type in the contact name or phone number of the recipient. Enter the amount you’d like to send (between $1 and $10,000), then review the payment and confirm it with Face ID, Touch ID or a passcode. In iMessage, open the conversation with who you’d like to send money to, or start a new one. Tap on the app button, which appears next to the type bar, and then tap on the Apple Cash icon. You’ll be prompted to enter an amount (between $1 and $10,000). Once you’ve reviewed the amount, tap Send and confirm with Face ID, Touch ID or a passcode. The first time money is sent to someone, the recipient will need to accept the payment within seven days for it to go through. After the first instance, payments are automatically accepted. If you’re using Apple Cash to make a purchase either online or in a store, you’ll need to pay using Apple Pay. To request money from your iPhone, open the conversation in the Messages app. Tap the plus icon, followed by Apple Cash. Then, tap Request. Tap the send button to send your payment request. Once the request is sent, the person you sent it to can confirm or change the amount they send to you. You can also request money from your Apple watch. Open your messages app, choose a conversation, tap the plus icon and then choose Apple Cash. Once you enter the amount you are requesting, swipe left on the Send button. Tap Request. As you start to accumulate money on the Apple Cash card, you may want to move it to a debit card or a bank account . This can be done by going to the same place where you added funds to the card, by clicking the icon with three dots next to your digital card. Enter an amount to be transferred, then tap Next. You’ll be asked whether you want to do an instant transfer (for a 1.5% fee) or a transfer in one to three business days for free. After making a selection, the screen will instruct you to set up a bank account if you don’t already have one set up. You’ll confirm the payment, and the transfer is initiated. Instant transfers can only be made to an eligible debit card, not a bank account. Money is sent within 30 minutes when you select instant transfer. —Zelle: If your bank is offers Zelle, it might be a good idea to take advantage of the P2P payment service. Zelle can be accessed directly from your bank’s mobile app, and it allows you to send instant transfers at no extra cost. —Venmo: Anyone can use Venmo, as long as they’ve downloaded the app. Unlike Apple Cash or Zelle, it’s a standalone P2P payment app. Venmo comes with a social element — users can follow each other and add fun emojis to their payments, although they can also keep their account activity private. —PayPal: This P2P payment service is a good option if you want to send money internationally. It also offers a PayPal Debit card, which, like the Apple Cash card, can be used to make purchases online or in stores. —Samsung Pay Cash: Samsung device users can use this option instead of Apple Cash. Similar to Apple Cash, it is a digital wallet that you can access from a Samsung mobile device. However, to take full advantage of Samsung Pay Cash, users will need to undergo an extra registration process to upgrade to a Full Card Account. Apple Cash makes it easy for Apple device users to send money to each other. Users can simply tap the Apple Cash icon in their text messages to send money through iMessage. It can also be used as an extra repository for spending money and can be used for purchases anywhere Apple Pay is accepted. With that said, only Apple device users can send and receive money using Apple Cash, so those looking for a more universal payment service may want to consider other P2P payment apps . ©2024 Bankrate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.A report from the charity on hurricanes, floods, typhoons and storms influenced by climate change warns that the top 10 disasters each cost more than 4 billion US dollars in damage (£3.2 billion). The figures are based mostly on insured losses, so the true costs are likely to be even higher, Christian Aid said, as it called for action to cut greenhouse gas emissions and finance for poor countries to cope with climate change. Politicians who “downplay the urgency of the climate crisis only serve to harm their own people and cause untold suffering around the world”, climate expert Joanna Haigh said. While developed countries feature heavily in the list of costliest weather extremes, as they have higher property values and can afford insurance, the charity also highlighted another 10 disasters which did not rack up such costs but were just as devastating, often hitting poorer countries. Most extreme weather events show “clear fingerprints” of climate change, which is driving more extreme weather events, making them more intense and frequent, experts said. The single most costly event in 2024 was Hurricane Milton, which scientists say was made windier, wetter and more destructive by global warming, and which caused 60 billion US dollars (£48 billion) of damage when it hit the US in October. That is closely followed by Hurricane Helene, which cost 55 billion US dollars (£44 billion) when it hit the US, Mexico and Cuba just two weeks before Milton in late September. The US was hit by so many costly storms throughout the year that even when hurricanes are removed, other storms cost more than 60 billion US dollars in damage, the report said. Three of the costliest 10 climate extremes hit Europe, including the floods from Storm Boris which devastated central European countries in September and deadly flooding in Valencia in October which killed 226 people. In other parts of the world, floods in June and July in China killed 315 people and racked up costs of 15.6 billion US dollars (£12.4 billion), while Typhoon Yagi, which hit south-west Asia in September, killed more than 800 people and cost 12.6 billion dollars (£10 billion). Events which were not among the most costly in financial terms but which have still been devastating include Cyclone Chido which hit Mayotte in December and may have killed more than 1,000 people, Christian Aid said. Meanwhile, heatwaves affected 33 million people in Bangladesh and worsened the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, flooding affected 6.6 million people in West Africa and the worst drought in living memory affected more than 14 million in Zambia, Malawi, Namibia and Zimbabwe, the charity said. Christian Aid chief executive Patrick Watt said: “There is nothing natural about the growing severity and frequency of droughts, floods and storms. “Disasters are being supercharged by decisions to keep burning fossil fuels, and to allow emissions to rise. “And they’re being made worse by the consistent failure to deliver on financial commitments to the poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries. “In 2025 we need to see governments leading, and taking action to accelerate the green transition, reduce emissions, and fund their promises.” Dr Mariam Zachariah, World Weather Attribution researcher who analyses extreme events in near-real time to discern the role of climate change, at Imperial College London, said: “This report is just a snapshot of climate devastation in 2024. “There are many more droughts, heatwaves, wildfires and floods not included that are becoming more frequent and intense. “Most of these disasters show clear fingerprints of climate change. “Extreme weather is clearly causing incredible suffering in all corners of the world. Behind the billion-dollar figures are lost lives and livelihoods.” And Prof Haigh, emeritus professor of atmospheric physics at Imperial College London, said: “The economic impact of these extreme weather events should be a wake-up call. “The good news is that ever-worsening crises doesn’t have to be our long-term future. “The technologies of a clean energy economy exist, but we need leaders to invest in them and roll them out at scale.” The 10 costliest climate disasters of 2024 were: – US storms, December to January, more than 60 billion US dollars; – Hurricane Milton in the US, October 9-13, 60 billion US dollars (£48 billion); – Hurricane Helene in the US, Mexico, Cuba, 55 billion US dollars (£44 billion); – China floods, June 9-July 14, 15.6 billion US dollars (£12.4 billion); – Typhoon Yagi, which hit south-west Asia from September 1 to 9, 12.6 billion US dollars (£10 billion); – Hurricane Beryl, in the US, Mexico and Caribbean islands from July 1-11, 6.7 billion US dollars (£5.3 billion); – Storm Boris in central Europe, September 12-16, 5.2 billion US dollars (£4.1 billion); – Rio Grande do Sul floods in Brazil, April 28-May 3, 5 billion US dollars (£4 billion); – Bavaria floods, Germany, June 1-7, 4.45 billion US dollars (£3.5 billion); – Valencia floods, Spain, on October 29, 4.22 billion US dollars (£3.4 billion).
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Christmas Eve is shaping up to be a difficult time for homeless people who are struggling to find shelter with space to accommodate them. In the Greater Montreal area, temperatures are expected to drop to -20 degrees Celsius on the nights of December 24 and 25. Many homeless people will spend the day trying to find shelter that will accept them. The Canadian Press asked several people who work in shelters how the last few days have been, which have been very cold across Quebec. The situation is worrying, as shelters are turning away several people every day due to lack of capacity. The workers are worried sick about those looking for a place to spend Christmas Eve night. Louise Waridel, deputy general director of “La rue des femmes”, reports that traffic is very high at the moment. Every day, her organization turns away between 20 and 25 women, sometimes exceeding 30 refusals. “It’s a lot,” comments Waridel. “It’s certain that we are concerned all year round to see so many refusals, so many people staying outside, but in times of extreme cold it’s even more worrying because we know that someone staying outside can be fatal.” “It’s always a little more heartbreaking when it’s full and Christmas is coming up,” she continues. Waridel says women often feel anxious about not finding a place to spend the holidays. She emphasizes that the people who are refused are known to the center. “The women who frequent our resources are women we see again from one day to the next, sometimes from one week to the next. They become a bit like family members, so knowing they are on the street is indeed worrying,” she confides. “La rue des femmes” offers meal services, day therapy activities and transitional housing. Maison Jacqueline also has 24 emergency beds and Maison Olga has nine emergency beds. Currently, all emergency beds are full on a daily basis. The situation is similar at CAP St-Barnabé, which has three inclusive emergency shelters that can accommodate 350 people per day in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, in Montreal. According to estimates by Carlens Solol, who works at reception, every day, CAP St-Barnabé has to refuse an emergency bed to around ten people. Lunches and dinners are also served at the centres, and some neighbourhood residents in need come to benefit, he said. Steven Fortin, coordinator at “L’Amour en Action”, located in Montreal North, indicates that the teams do everything in their power to find an emergency bed in another shelter when they are full. “L’Amour en action” has 51 beds and they are all occupied at the moment. “We are full, we are overflowing, we have a waiting list of at least three pages,” says Mr. Fortin, which corresponds to nearly forty people waiting for a bed. The Montreal North organization also has a 30-chair warming shelter that opened in November. With the cold temperatures of the last few days, Fortin said there is often a line of people outside, waiting under a gazebo, waiting for 6 p.m. to arrive so they can enter the warming shelter. Solol confirms that homeless people are not thrown out when a shelter is full. “When people come and ask for a place, when we see that we are full, the workers refer them to other centers,” he explains. He also said he was calling on ÉMMIS (Équipe mobile de médiation et d’intervention sociale) to have workers help move a person from one shelter to another.
Books & the Arts / Thomas Müntzer's Misunderstood Revolution The German reformer Thomas Muntzer (1491–1525) and his people during the German Peasants' War (1524–25). Colored engraving. 19th century. (Ipsumpix / Corbis via Getty Images) Whenever and wherever the world has been consumed in the flames of social crisis, prophets of apocalypse have emerged, organizing popular participation in and resistance to political transformations perceived as literally world-ending. Thomas Müntzer, a "radical anti-authoritarian" preacher who was briefly the scourge of 16th-century, Reformation-era Germany, was among the first and fiercest of these doomsaying prophets. Five hundred years have passed since Müntzer led a ragtag, landless army to its death against a reactionary coalition of German nobles, clerics, and landlords. The renegade priest's legacy remains up for debate—he's been valorized as a proto-Marxist hero, vilified in turn by anti-Marxist critics, and even dismissed through a comparison to ISIS. Books in review The Dreadful History and Judgement of God on Thomas Müntzer: The Life and Times of an Early German Revolutionary Buy this book Half a millennium on, a recent biography by British historian Andrew Drummond, The Dreadful History and Judgement of God on Thomas Müntzer: The Life and Times of an Early German Revolutionary, seeks to rehabilitate Müntzer as a flawed but nonetheless inspirational link in a "global" history of anti-authoritarian uprisings. While Drummond carefully presents Müntzer as a man of his time, the Peasants' War (1524–25) in which he played a leading role has its echoes in the French, American, Russian and anti-colonial revolutions of subsequent centuries—and perhaps even in our own era. Müntzer was born in a revolutionary age. Drummond describes a 16th-century Germany in which the opening of trade routes brought about not only plagues, depopulation, and the opportunity for elites to "further enrich and empower themselves," but also the... https://www.thenation.com/authorsATLANTA — Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who won the presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, endured humbling defeat after one tumultuous term and then redefined life after the White House as a global humanitarian, has died. He was 100 years old. The longest-lived American president died Sunday, more than a year after entering hospice care, at his home in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died at 96 in November 2023, spent most of their lives, The Carter Center said. “Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia,” the center said on the social media platform X. It added in a statement that he died peacefully, surrounded by his family. As reaction poured in from around the world, President Joe Biden mourned Carter’s death, saying the world lost an “extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian” and he lost a dear friend. Biden cited Carter’s compassion and moral clarity, his work to eradicate disease, forge peace, advance civil and human rights, promote free and fair elections, house the homeless and advocacy for the disadvantaged as an example for others. “To all of the young people in this nation and for anyone in search of what it means to live a life of purpose and meaning — the good life — study Jimmy Carter, a man of principle, faith and humility,” Biden said in a statement. “He showed that we are a great nation because we are a good people — decent and honorable, courageous and compassionate, humble and strong.” Biden said he is ordering a state funeral for Carter in Washington. Businessman, Navy officer, evangelist, politician, negotiator, author, woodworker, citizen of the world — Carter forged a path that still challenges political assumptions and stands out among the 45 men who reached the nation’s highest office. The 39th president leveraged his ambition with a keen intellect, deep religious faith and prodigious work ethic, conducting diplomatic missions into his 80s and building houses for the poor well into his 90s. “My faith demands — this is not optional — my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference,” Carter once said. A moderate Democrat, Carter entered the 1976 presidential race as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad smile, outspoken Baptist mores and technocratic plans reflecting his education as an engineer. His no-frills campaign depended on public financing, and his promise not to deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and U.S. defeat in southeast Asia. “If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Carter repeated before narrowly beating Republican incumbent Gerald Ford, who lost popularity after pardoning Nixon. Carter governed amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets and social upheaval over racism, women’s rights and America’s global role. His most acclaimed achievement in office was a Mideast peace deal that he brokered by keeping Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the bargaining table for 13 days in 1978. That Camp David experience inspired the post-presidential center where Carter would establish so much of his legacy. Yet Carter’s electoral coalition splintered under double-digit inflation, gasoline lines and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His bleakest hour came when eight Americans died in a failed hostage rescue in April 1980, helping to ensure his landslide defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan. Carter acknowledged in his 2020 “White House Diary” that he could be “micromanaging” and “excessively autocratic,” complicating dealings with Congress and the federal bureaucracy. He also turned a cold shoulder to Washington’s news media and lobbyists, not fully appreciating their influence on his political fortunes. “It didn’t take us long to realize that the underestimation existed, but by that time we were not able to repair the mistake,” Carter told historians in 1982, suggesting that he had “an inherent incompatibility” with Washington insiders. Carter insisted his overall approach was sound and that he achieved his primary objectives — to “protect our nation’s security and interests peacefully” and “enhance human rights here and abroad” — even if he fell spectacularly short of a second term. Ignominious defeat, though, allowed for renewal. The Carters founded The Carter Center in 1982 as a first-of-its-kind base of operations, asserting themselves as international peacemakers and champions of democracy, public health and human rights. “I was not interested in just building a museum or storing my White House records and memorabilia,” Carter wrote in a memoir published after his 90th birthday. “I wanted a place where we could work.” That work included easing nuclear tensions in North and South Korea, helping to avert a U.S. invasion of Haiti and negotiating cease-fires in Bosnia and Sudan. By 2022, The Carter Center had declared at least 113 elections in Latin America, Asia and Africa to be free or fraudulent. Recently, the center began monitoring U.S. elections as well. Carter’s stubborn self-assuredness and even self-righteousness proved effective once he was unencumbered by the Washington order, sometimes to the point of frustrating his successors. He went “where others are not treading,” he said, to places like Ethiopia, Liberia and North Korea, where he secured the release of an American who had wandered across the border in 2010. “I can say what I like. I can meet whom I want. I can take on projects that please me and reject the ones that don’t,” Carter said. He announced an arms-reduction-for-aid deal with North Korea without clearing the details with Bill Clinton’s White House. He openly criticized President George W. Bush for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He also criticized America’s approach to Israel with his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” And he repeatedly countered U.S. administrations by insisting North Korea should be included in international affairs, a position that most aligned Carter with Republican President Donald Trump. Among the center’s many public health initiatives, Carter vowed to eradicate the guinea worm parasite during his lifetime, and nearly achieved it: Cases dropped from millions in the 1980s to nearly a handful. With hard hats and hammers, the Carters also built homes with Habitat for Humanity. The Nobel committee’s 2002 Peace Prize cites his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” Carter should have won it alongside Sadat and Begin in 1978, the chairman added. Carter accepted the recognition saying there was more work to be done. “The world is now, in many ways, a more dangerous place,” he said. “The greater ease of travel and communication has not been matched by equal understanding and mutual respect.” Carter’s globetrotting took him to remote villages where he met little “Jimmy Carters,” so named by admiring parents. But he spent most of his days in the same one-story Plains house — expanded and guarded by Secret Service agents — where he and Rosalynn lived before he became governor. He regularly taught Sunday School lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church until his mobility declined and the coronavirus pandemic raged. Those sessions drew visitors from around the world to the small sanctuary where Carter will receive his final send-off after a state funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral. The common assessment that he was a better ex-president than president rankled Carter and his allies. His prolific post-presidency gave him a brand above politics, particularly for Americans too young to witness him in office. But Carter also lived long enough to see biographers and historians reassess his White House years more generously. His record includes the deregulation of key industries, reduction of U.S. dependence on foreign oil, cautious management of the national debt and notable legislation on the environment, education and mental health. He focused on human rights in foreign policy, pressuring dictators to release thousands of political prisoners. He acknowledged America’s historical imperialism, pardoned Vietnam War draft evaders and relinquished control of the Panama Canal. He normalized relations with China. Jonathan Alter, who penned a comprehensive Carter biography published in 2020, said in an interview that Carter should be remembered for “an epic American life” spanning from a humble start in a home with no electricity or indoor plumbing through decades on the world stage across two centuries. “He will likely go down as one of the most misunderstood and underestimated figures in American history,” Alter told The Associated Press. Get local news delivered to your inbox!