you bet meaning
As investigators delve deeper into the motive behind the heinous act, a picture is beginning to emerge of Reed's escalating grievances against his former employer. Sources close to the investigation revealed that Reed had recently been terminated from his position at the insurance company and harbored deep-seated animosity towards Thompson, whom he believed had unfairly treated him during his tenure.
Mistakes happen in life, and sometimes they can be quite unexpected. Just take the case of a man who recently encountered a rather unusual situation while enjoying a traditional Chinese rice dumpling, known as zongzi. What started off as a simple act of indulging in his favorite snack turned into a puzzling ordeal when he bit into something hard – a tough and unwelcome surprise. In a moment of disbelief, he wondered if he should tough it out, but ultimately, he couldn't bear the discomfort. And now, he is seeking compensation, but there's a catch – he needs "evidence".Pack come up short on the road
NPP needs to get serious about industrialisation to avoid another crisisNot to those who had witnessed the president’s shared anguish over his two sons after the boys survived a car crash that killed Biden's first wife and a daughter more than a half-century ago. Or to those who heard the president regularly lament the death of his older son, Beau , from cancer or voice concerns — largely in private — about Hunter’s sobriety and health after years of deep addiction. But by choosing to put his family first, the 82-year-old president — who had pledged to restore a fractured public’s trust in the nation’s institutions and respect for the rule of law — has raised new questions about his already teetering legacy. “This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation,” Colorado's Democratic Gov. Jared Polis wrote in a post on X. He added that while he could sympathize with Hunter Biden’s struggles, “no one is above the law, not a President and not a President’s son.” Biden aides and allies had been resigned to the prospect of the president using his extraordinary power in the waning days of his presidency to ensure his son wouldn't see time behind bars, especially after Donald Trump ’s win. The president's supporters have long viewed Biden's commitment to his family as an asset overall, even if Hunter's personal conduct and tangled business dealings were seen as a persistent liability. But the pardon comes as Biden has become increasingly isolated since the loss to Trump by Vice President Kamala Harris , who jumped in to the race after the president’s catastrophic debate against Trump in June forced his exit from the election. He is still struggling to resolve thorny foreign policy issues in the Middle East and Europe. And he must reckon with his decision to seek reelection despite his advanced age, which helped return the Oval Office to Trump, a man he had warned time and again was a threat to democratic norms. Trump has gleefully planned to undo Biden’s signature achievements on climate change and reverse the Democrat's efforts to reinvigorate the country’s alliances, all while standing poised to take credit for a strengthening economy and billions in infrastructure investments that are in the pipeline for the coming years. And now, Biden has handed the Republican a pretext to carry through with sweeping plans to upend the Department of Justice as the Republican vows to seek retribution against supposed adversaries. “This pardon is just deflating for those of us who’ve been out there for a few years yelling about what a threat Trump is,” Republican Joe Walsh, a vocal Trump critic, said on MSNBC. “‘Nobody’s above the law,’ we’ve been screaming. Well, Joe Biden just made clear his son Hunter is above the law.” Jean-Pierre said Monday from Air Force One that the president wrestled with the decision but ultimately felt his son’s case had been tainted by politics, though she tried to thread the needle — insisting he had faith in the Justice Department. “He believes in the justice system, but he also believes that politics infected the process and led to a miscarriage of justice,” she said. But Trump has already made very clear his intent to disrupt federal law enforcement with his initial nomination of outspoken critics like former Rep. Matt Gaetz to be attorney general and Kash Patel to replace FBI Director Christopher Wray , who nominally still has more than two years left in his term. (Gaetz ended up quickly withdrawing his name amid scrutiny over sex trafficking allegations.) Reacting to the pardon, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement: “That system of justice must be fixed and due process must be restored for all Americans, which is exactly what President Trump will do as he returns to the White House with an overwhelming mandate from the American people." In a social media post, the president-elect himself called the pardon “such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice.” “Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?” Trump asked. He was referring to those convicted in the violent Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by his supporters aiming to overturn the 2020 presidential election result. Biden and his spokespeople had repeatedly and flatly ruled out the president granting his son a pardon. In June, Biden told reporters as his son faced trial in the Delaware gun case, “I abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him.” In July, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters: “It's still a no. It will be a no. It is a no. And I don’t have anything else to add. Will he pardon his son? No." In November, days after Trump's victory, Jean-Pierre reiterated that message: “Our answer stands, which is no." Neither Biden nor the White House explained the shift in the president's thinking, and it was his broken promise as much as his act of clemency that was a lightning rod. He is hardly the first president to pardon a family member or friend entangled in political dealings. Bill Clinton pardoned his brother Roger for drug charges after he had served his sentence roughly a decade earlier. In his final weeks in office, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner , the father of his son-in law, Jared Kushner, as well as multiple allies convicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Yet Biden held himself up as placing his respect for the American judicial system and rule of law over his own personal concerns — trying to draw a deliberate contrast with Trump, who tested the bounds of his authority like few predecessors. Inside the White House, the timing of the pardon was surprising to some who believed Biden would put it off as long as possible, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke to The AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. It came just after Biden spent extended time over the past week with Hunter and other family members on Nantucket in Massachusetts, a family tradition for Thanksgiving. “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further,” Biden said in a statement announcing the pardon. Some in the administration have privately expressed anguish that the substance of Biden’s statement, including his claim of an unfair politically-tinged prosecution of his son resembled complaints Trump — who faced now-abandoned indictments over his role in trying to subvert the 2020 election — has been making for years about the Justice Department. Biden said the charges in his son's cases "came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election.” Many legal experts agreed that the charges against the younger Biden were somewhat unusual, but the facts of the offenses were hardly in dispute, as Hunter wrote about his gun purchase while addicted to illegal drugs in his memoir and ultimately pleaded guilty to the tax charges. The pardon too was unusual, coming before Hunter Biden was even sentenced and covering not just the gun and tax offenses against his son, but also anything else he might have done going back to the start of 2014. It's a move that could limit the ability of the Trump Justice Department to investigate the younger Biden's unsavory foreign business dealings, or to find new ground on which to bring criminal charges related to that time period. Biden, in his statement, asked for consideration: “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision."
Darnold gives Vikings another gem with career-high 377 yards in 27-25 win over PackersRegrettably, 2024 was a good year for scammers. Colorado is on pace to see a bigger financial loss from scams by the end of 2024 than the nearly $190 million stolen in 2023. The mass use of artificial intelligence could be driving the surge, according to the Colorado Attorney General’s office. Long gone are the days of using clear misspellings, unprofessional website design and fishy email domains as reliable identifiers for online scams. With the recent explosion of artificial intelligence into everyday life, scammers have transitioned from using flashy pop-up advertisements to duplicating the voices of family members in fake emergency situations to extract money and information. “Artificial intelligence takes existing scam opportunities and puts them on steroids,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said. The FBI Denver Field Office reported scammers stole $187 million from nearly 11,500 Coloradans in 2023. This was an increase of nearly $9 million over the 2022 dollar amount — an upward trend that shows no signs of slowing down in 2024. In 2023, the top three schemes with the largest dollar amount losses in Colorado were investment fraud ($60 million), business email compromise ($57 million) and tech support ($23 million), according to the FBI’s report. Weiser said his office has seen a record-breaking number of scam complaints since 2019, each year greater than the last. The complaints were reported through StopFraudColorado.gov , an education outreach program in the Attorney General’s Office where Coloradans can report cases of fraud and learn about online risks. In 2019, consumers in Colorado filed 9,819 complaints and inquiries with the Consumer Protection Section in the Attorney General’s office. During 2023, the number of complaints hit 20,390. According to the FBI Denver Field Office, Colorado ranks seventh in the nation for complaints per capita. “There’s no question that the use of AI is a part of what’s driving up those scams,” Weiser said. “I hate to say this because it will be a painful occasion, but I’m bracing myself for that number to go up this year,” he added. The most common types of complaints in 2023 were for unauthorized subscriptions and retail services, professional services, automobile sales and services, and home repair services. The fifth most common complaint alerted Weiser’s office of imposter scams. He gave the example of the “grandparent scam,” which involves targeting victims who have a grandchild traveling abroad. The scammer will contact the grandparent, either by email or phone, to tell them that their grandchild is in jail in a different country and they need money right away in order to be released. The selling point comes when scammers use AI to replicate the voice of the grandchild in a phone call, making it more believable. “One of the scary parts is many people have a hard time understanding the difference between the so-called deepfakes made by AI and what’s real, and the implication of this means that everybody needs to practice constant vigilance,” Weiser said. One of the telltale signs that something is a scam is a false sense of urgency. The pressure from the scammer to “act now before things get worse” can keep people from calling appropriate family members or authorities to make sure the call is real. “Don’t trust those calls. Hang up, and then you can call the right source — the bank, for example — and ask, ‘Is there anything going on with my account, or is this a scam?'” he said. “You will have saved yourself a lot of headache and a lot of money by proceeding carefully as opposed to acting immediately.” Weiser explained that the people most vulnerable to these scams are often younger internet users who are less experienced, and older adults who are perhaps overly trusting. “AI is not a brand-new technology, but the widespread use of ChatGPT has taken the adoption of AI to a new level,” Weiser said. Austin Hastings, assistant vice president and data analyst for Colorado-based Alpine Bank, said customers often see repeats of the same types of scams until people stop falling for them — after which scammers select a new strategy and use it until failure. “If there’s a big batch of people that fall for one scam and then ... people start talking to each other, posting things on social media, (they’re) not going to be able to compromise as many people,” he said. “They’re almost incentivized to ‘stay fresh.'” AI technology has been used by scammers to clone the voices of loved ones or employers (often paired with fake caller IDs), forge copies of trusted websites to steal login credentials, hijack smartphones and other devices with malware, and place fake QR codes over parking meters, restaurants and advertisements. Hastings said they’ve seen an increase in reports of fraud involving AI this year, mostly in the form of phishing rather than video or audio manipulation. Part of what’s behind the increase is the ability of AI to mass-produce email and website templates to look like the real thing. Alpine Bank, which serves over 170,000 customers across the state, suggests that its customers be extra vigilant around holidays as scammers are more active during seasons of high spending. Alpine Bank offers the following guidelines to help consumers avoid falling victim to sophisticated scams: “No. 1 would be, don’t click the link. But if you do, communicate it with the bank,” Hastings said. It’s better to report things right away, as timing can impact what kind of help victims can get from their bank. Alpine Bank has worked with victims of scams to recover funds, restrict accounts and coordinate with law enforcement. Another way to avoid becoming the target of scammers is restricting the sharing of personal data, an option enabled by the Colorado Privacy Act in 2021 . The act gives Coloradans the right to opt out of the sale of their personal data or its use for targeted advertising, as well as requiring entities to safeguard personal data. “It’s a dangerous world out there, and AI is making it more dangerous, so please protect yourself and protect those you love,” Weiser said.