JDI, one of the leading display technology companies, recently announced a setback in the production timeline for their eLEAP OLED panels. Originally scheduled for mass production in December 2024, the launch has now been delayed to March 2025. This news has sparked discussions and speculations within the industry about the reasons behind the delay and its potential impact on the market.Piers Morgan leads well-wishes for Michail Antonio after horror crash trapped him in his Ferrari for 45 minutes
In addition to its outstanding performance in occupant protection and active safety, the Ideal L6 has also excelled in pedestrian safety, scoring highly in tests that assess its ability to mitigate the impact of a collision with a pedestrian or cyclist. The vehicle's design features, such as energy-absorbing structures and pedestrian detection systems, play a crucial role in reducing the severity of injuries in such accidents, underscoring the Ideal L6's commitment to protecting not only its occupants but also vulnerable road users.
As we look towards the future, let us continue to support and uplift voices that challenge stereotypes and break barriers, creating a world where everyone can feel seen, heard, and valued for who they truly are. Chris Evans and Emma Dumont's actions remind us that authenticity is a superpower in itself, capable of inspiring change and acceptance in ways we never thought possible.The combined profits of listed housing developers are expected to decline by more than 10% this year compared with 2023, driven by intense market competition and aggressive discount campaigns to capture dwindling demand. Sumitra Wongpakdee, managing director of property research and consultancy Terra Media and Consulting, said a sluggish market prompted developers to make significant adjustments this year. "Many developers resorted to price cuts and promotional campaigns to lift sales, willingly sacrificing profit margins to maintain their yearly revenue targets," she said. During the first nine months of 2024, 35 listed housing developers reported a combined net profit of 20.8 billion baht on revenue totalling 223 billion baht, compared with 38.5 billion baht in net profit and 331 billion baht in revenue for the full 2023. The net profit margin to revenue ratio dropped to 9.3%, down from 11.6% at the end of 2023 and 13.1% in 2022, according to Terra. The combined revenue of the 35 listed housing developers is projected to decrease by 5-8%, tallying around 300 billion baht by the end of 2024, noted the consultancy. Only a few developers are expected to meet their annual targets, having achieved more than 63% of their goals in the first nine months, while others fell short, with some reaching only 36-38% of their annual targets. According to Kasikorn Securities, 12 listed developers under its analysis reported a combined net profit of 7.5 billion baht in the third quarter, a decline of 8% year-on-year and 2% quarter-on-quarter. While the results aligned with market and internal estimates, they were underwhelming, as quarter-on-quarter growth was absent despite significant condo backlog transfers during the previous three months, according to the brokerage. The combined net profit for the first nine months of 2024 fell 20% year-on-year to 21.3 billion baht and is expected to plunge 11% by year-end, noted Kasikorn Securities. In the third quarter, the 12 listed developers, particularly those with joint ventures, saw a significant rise in transfer value both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter, driven by the transfer of condo backlogs. This was reflected in a significant rise in profit contributions from investments. However, intense market competition, especially in low-rise houses, led to a drop in gross profit margin for residential properties. The 12 developers reported a decrease of 1.0 percentage point year-on-year and 0.5 percentage points quarter-on-quarter, reaching a four-year low of 30.6%. Given ongoing challenges, cash flow management strategies are crucial, said the brokerage. Project development has slowed, leading to reduced housing stock, which helps manage interest-bearing liabilities and improves cash flow. Kasikorn Securities reported the housing market in the third quarter remained under pressure because of weakening demand. Fierce competition further compressed gross profit margins, emphasising the critical need for effective cash flow management across the sector. While condo backlog transfers and the seasonal uptick in fourth-quarter transfers are expected to bolster profits, challenges persist, noted the brokerage. Several developers downgraded their 2024 project launches, leading to an anticipated 16% year-on-year decrease in the value of new project launches, totalling 314 billion baht. Fourth-quarter profits are likely to stand out, fuelled by high transfer volumes, the seasonality effect and the condo backlog, said Kasikorn Securities. The expiration of tax incentives for homes priced less than 7 million baht is expected to provide an added boost before year-end, yet there are no short-term catalysts in sight, noted the brokerage. A positive shift in macroeconomic conditions, coupled with lower interest rates and declining loan rejection rates, will be crucial for lifting sales and profits in 2025, potentially rekindling investor interest, according to Kasikorn Securities.
‘Oh, Canada’ review: Richard Gere shows the price of a lifetime of deceptionThe review process for the 6 language-related programs is rigorous, with a panel of experts evaluating the quality and cultural significance of each performance. The goal is to ensure that the selected programs not only entertain but also educate and inspire audiences, fostering a greater appreciation for the richness and diversity of world languages.
Even blue states are embracing a tougher approach to crime
Their ages vary. But a conspicuous handful of filmmaking lions in winter, or let’s say late autumn, have given us new reasons to be grateful for their work over the decades — even for the work that didn’t quite work. Which, yes, sounds like ingratitude. But do we even want more conventional or better-behaved work from talents such as Francis Ford Coppola? Even if we’re talking about “Megalopolis” ? If Clint Eastwood’s “Juror #2” gave audiences a less morally complicated courtroom drama, would that have mattered, given Warner Bros.’ butt-headed decision to plop it in less than three dozen movie theaters in the U.S.? Coppola is 85. Eastwood is 94. Paul Schrader, whose latest film “Oh, Canada” arrives this week and is well worth seeking out, is a mere 78. Based on the 2021 Russell Banks novel “Foregone,” “Oh, Canada” is the story of a documentary filmmaker, played by Richard Gere, being interviewed near the end of his cancer-shrouded final days. In the Montreal home he shares with his wife and creative partner, played by Uma Thurman, he consents to the interview by two former students of his. Gere’s character, Leonard Fife, has no little contempt for these two, whom he calls “Mr. and Mrs. Ken Burns of Canada” with subtle disdain. As we learn over the artful dodges and layers of past and present, events imagined and/or real, Fife treats the interview as a final confession from a guarded and deceptive soul. He’s also a hero to everyone in the room, famous for his anti-Vietnam war political activism, and for the Frederick Wiseman-like inflection of his own films’ interview techniques. The real-life filmmaker name-checked in “Oh, Canada” is documentarian Errol Morris, whose straight-to-the-lens framing of interview subjects was made possible by his Interrotron device. In Schrader’s adaptation, Fife doesn’t want the nominal director (Michael Imperioli, a nicely finessed embodiment of a second-rate talent with first-rate airs) in his eyeline. Rather, as he struggles with hazy, self-incriminating memories of affairs, marriages, one-offs with a friend’s wife and a tense, brief reunion with the son he never knew, Fife wants only his wife, Emma — his former Goddard College student — in this metaphoric confessional. Schrader and his editor Benjamin Rodriguez Jr. treat the memories as on-screen flashbacks spanning from 1968 to 2023. At times, Gere and Thurman appear as their decades-young selves, without any attempt to de-age them, digitally or otherwise. (Thank god, I kind of hate that stuff in any circumstance.) In other sequences from Fife’s past, Jacob Elordi portrays Fife, with sly and convincing behavioral details linking his performance to Gere’s persona. We hear frequent voiceovers spoken by Gere about having ruined his life by age 24, at least spiritually or morally. Banks’ novel is no less devoted to a dying man’s addled but ardent attempt to come clean and own up to what has terrified him the most in the mess and joy of living: Honesty. Love. Commitment. There are elements of “Oh, Canada” that soften Banks’ conception of Fife, from the parentage of Fife’s abandoned son to the specific qualities of Gere’s performance. It has been 44 years since Gere teamed with Schrader on “American Gigolo,” a movie made by a very different filmmaker with very different preoccupations of hetero male hollowness. It’s also clearly the same director at work, I think. And Gere remains a unique camera object, with a stunning mastery of filling a close-up with an unblinking stillness conveying feelings easier left behind. The musical score is pretty watery, and with Schrader you always get a few lines of tortured rhetoric interrupting the good stuff. In the end, “Oh, Canada” has an extraordinarily simple idea at its core: That of a man with a movie camera, most of his life, now on the other side of the lens. Not easy. “I can’t tell the truth unless that camera’s on!” he barks at one point. I don’t think the line from the novel made it into Schrader’s script, but it too sums up this lion-in-winter feeling of truth without triumphal Hollywood catharsis. The interview, Banks wrote, is one’s man’s “last chance to stop lying.” It’s also a “final prayer,” dramatized by the Calvinist-to-the-bone filmmaker who made sure to include that phrase in his latest devotion to final prayers and missions of redemption. “Oh, Canada” — 3 stars (out of 4) No MPA rating (some language and sexual material) Running time: 1:34 How to watch: Opens in theaters Dec. 13, running 1in Chicago Dec. 13-19 at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St.; siskelfilmcenter.org Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.Former Liverpool player Ragnar Klavan, aged 39, has officially announced his retirement from professional football. Klavan, who enjoyed a successful career playing for Liverpool and the Estonia national team, revealed his decision to hang up his boots during a press conference held in Tallinn, Estonia. However, retirement does not signify the end of his involvement in football, as the veteran defender also disclosed his intention to run for the presidency of the Estonian Football Association next year.A lawsuit accusing Target of misleading shareholders following sales of its 2023 Pride Collection is set to move forward after the retail giant failed to have it dismissed in a Florida court. The lawsuit had enough information to back accusations that Target deceived investors and customers about the social and political risks to the Pride-themed push, according to a report citing U.S. District Judge John Badalamenti. The retail giant concentrated on LGBT -centered activism while overlooking serious negative responses to the 2023 campaign, the suit alleges. “A lawsuit against Target over its controversial 2023 Pride Collection can move forward, a Florida judge has ruled... ‘Target embraced a radical transgender agenda targeting children and families through the corporation’s infamous 2023 “Pride” campaign,’ conservative group... pic.twitter.com/m23mdUOX8K — America First Legal (@America1stLegal) "Target assured shareholders that it was monitoring for political and social issues and risks that could arise as a result of the ESG and DEI policies. However, management only cared when leftist 'stakeholders' cared about these business decisions," a statement from America First Legal, the conservative group that filed the lawsuit in August 2023, read. "Following Target's May 2023 embrace of the radical transgender agenda, Target shares have seen more than a $12 billion collapse in value, the largest stock price decline in over 20 years." Target's campaign toward a "radical transgender agenda targeting children and families" generated a backlash and consumer boycott that cost billions in losses, American First Legal said in a statement posted to X. America First Legal believes their action will serve as a "warning to publicly traded corporations' boards and management." CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER The lawsuit will move forward as "Merry Christmas" have been spotted in Target locations across the country, appearing to end the push for LGBT-themed holiday decorations. Nice job @Target ! Merry Christmas! 🎅🏻🎄🇺🇸 this was taken inside the store in Falls Church, Virginia. #merrychristmas #tistheseason #blackfriday #shopping #retail #holidays pic.twitter.com/aaOItufMZK — Maria Leaf (@MariaLeaf) Last year, the company's Christmas products included gay Santas and LGBT-themed nutcrackers .
Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen enters Saturday's Las Vegas Grand Prix on the verge of clinching his fourth consecutive Formula 1 world championship. There are various scenarios that will land Verstappen his fourth title on Saturday night, the most basic of which is him simply finishing ahead of Lando Norris at the race's conclusion. Verstappen can still finish behind Norris in the race and clinch the championship however, as Norris would need to outscore Verstappen by at least three points to keep his hopes alive. Prior to the Miami Grand Prix in May, it would have seemed like a fever dream that another driver would be competing with Verstappen for the title this late in the season. Despite McLaren having the best car since Red Bull engineer Adrian Newey departed four days prior to the Miami GP, Norris felt he wasn't fully prepared for a championship battle of this magnitude. "I probably wasn't outright ready to go up against Red Bull and Max," Norris said. "I think I am now, and it's probably too late (for that). ... Maybe there are other drivers in the past that were ready for such an occasion. But no one has gone up against Max so early in their career, halfway through the season, and put up, I think, a pretty reasonable fight. "I mean, I'm there, but there's no one else doing it, you know? So I've done my best. I've not done well enough. I've always admitted that. I think Max is probably one of the best drivers ever in Formula 1. I don't think you'll get a much better driver than Max in Formula 1 ever again." Saturday's foray in Vegas will also be the penultimate race for Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes, as the sport's most popular driver heads to the legendary Ferrari outfit to partner with Charles Leclerc next season. Hamilton had a fiery response to Mercedes' principal Toto Wolff's comment that "everyone has a shelf life" in regards to Hamilton's exit to Ferrari potentially being a positive for Mercedes. "Honestly I feel like I'm in the best place I've been all year mentally and considering how bad the last race was," Hamilton said. "I think that says enough. Nothing can take me down. I'm still here, I'm still fighting and I'm going to continue to push. I've got a team that I generally still love, even though I'm leaving and I want to make sure to give them the best I can in these next races." Hamilton drove with the same fire in Thursday's free practice, finishing first in both sessions. To sweeten the deal for Mercedes, Russell finished second to Hamilton in the first practice session and third behind Hamilton and Norris in the second session. Norris' second place finish in FP2 capped off a relatively successful day for the Brit as he also finished third behind Russell in FP1. It wasn't as good of an evening for Verstappen, who finished fifth in FP1 before tire issues forced him to a P17 finish in FP2. Sergio Perez provided little encouragement for Red Bull either, finishing behind Verstappen at 19th in the second practice session. This article first appeared on Field Level Media and was syndicated with permission.