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HOLLY Cairns' dad has shared his "delight" at becoming a new grandfather after he rushed to hear the count for her constituency. The Social Democrats leader, who is the first party leader to have been pregnant in the Dail, shared the news of her daughter's birth on election day yesterday. Cairns, 35, and hotelier partner Barry Looney revealed they had welcomed their first bundle of joy into the world, with the party leader announcing: "She’s here. We're completely in love with her." Her father Clem headed to the Cork South West count centre this evening and revealed his positivity for his daughter, new mum and Soc Dems party leader Holly Cairns. The tallies for the constituency have so far shown that the party leader has doubled her first preferences since 2020. Speaking to RTE , Clem said: "As a new grandfather, I am delighted and relieved and proud of Holly. More excited about the baby than the election." The proud granddad travelled to the count centre after visiting Holly and her newborn at Cork Maternity Hospital in Mallow - where mother and baby are both doing "great." He said: "I think Holly was looking better than her partner Barry but he was probably carrying a lot too. "I don't think he slept at all. "I think that's the third election now that she's probably surprised everybody and somebody who you wouldn't write off easily I think." He said his daughter is taking to motherhood "like a duck to water " and her child looks just like her dad Barry. He continued: "You always wonder in spite of everything that might happen, are you going to be a good parent? "Looking at Holly she took to it like a duck to water." The proud granddad recalled Holly's 2019 council election run when she won by just one vote in the recount. He said: "I think the one thing we can all be thankful for is that it is not depending on one vote anymore like it was the first time she got elected because that would have been her vote this time!" The Cork TD, who was still knocking on doors in the lead-up to the general election , took over as party leader last year after founding members Catherine Murphy and Roisin Shortall stepped down. HOLLY Cairns has experienced a whirlwind political career going from newly elected TD to party leader in just three years. The Cork native took over as leader of the Social Democrats in May 2023 - after five years representing the party. She was a founding member of the party's west Cork branch and quickly rose up the ranks - making it to Dail Eireann as a TD in the 2020 election. The farming expert paid tribute to former party leaders Roisin Shortall and Catherine Murphy after they announced they were stepping down from the party and would not be seeking reelection. The former co-leaders said it was time for a "new generation to take over". Cairns, 35, has gained public favour raising topics like domestic violence, abortion, mother and baby homes and the environment. And she has also previously spoken out about the abuse and harassment she has experienced since entering politics. The politician grew up on a small dairy farm on the Turk Head peninsula near Skibbereen, in Cork. Holly completed her Master of Science and got a First Class Honours degree in Horticulture. Holly first got involved in politics as an activist for LGBT and women's rights. She campaigned for Senator David Norris during the 2011 presidential election. Cairns worked abroad for a couple of years before returning to Ireland and becoming involved in the Together for Yes campaign to repeal the 8th Amendment. In 2020, Cairns ran against her then-partner, Christopher O’Sullivan, a Fianna Fail candidate, for the Cork South-West constituency in the general elections. Deputy Cairns said that after O'Sullivan's last-minute addition to the ticket, it felt like being in a "badly written rom-com". In June 2024, the party leader announced she is expecting a girl with her partner, hotelier Barry Looney. Discussing the pregnancy , she said: “We’ve been trying for some time, so we are absolutely delighted.” Speaking on RTE’s Sunday with Miriam , the deputy said she had two miscarriages in the last year or so. However, she said that “fingers crossed, it is looking good” for her this time around. She added: “It is something that we know happens to quite a lot of people. “I think it is one in three women experience it, and we just do not hear a lot about it.” Cairns said hearing other women speak about miscarriages was comforting, adding: “You’re less alone, you’re not the only one going through it.” Following her announcement, congratulations poured in for the politician after she announced her baby news . Speaking to the Irish Sun just days before her due date , Cairns said she felt "excited" and "grateful". She said: "It’s that kind of stage in the pregnancy where you’re so excited but also it could be tomorrow or it could be two weeks away — you don’t know. “I’m very excited but obviously I’m trying to juggle things and make sure to not over do it. “People are so supportive here at home. They’re so nice saying ‘oh you don’t need to call’ which is so, so nice, but obviously I think it is really important to call to people as much as possible so I’m out doing what I can. “I’m so grateful for the canvassing teams and the postering teams. It’s that time when so many people have pitched in to help that I just feel extremely grateful.”
Over 130 leaders, including former Heads of State and Government (Members of Club de Madrid ), scholars, dignitaries, and representatives from more than 40 countries, as well as Chinese and Spanish authorities, have agreed on measures to revitalise multilateralism, strengthen international cooperation and rebuild trust among nations. Hu Chunhua, Vice-Chairman of the National Committee of the 14 th CPPCC, delivered a message from President Xi Jinping, highlighting " since its establishment, the Forum has adhered to advocating multilateralism, conducted in-depth discussions on global governance issues, and actively shared China's propositions ." Diego Martínez Belío, Spain's Secretary of State for Foreign and Global Affairs, added: " The responsibility to generate inclusive economic growth transcends borders, and Spain defends and will continue to advocate for a constructive role between our country and China ." Discussions have focused on global challenges, including inflation, protectionism, and fragile supply chains. Leaders have called for reforming the WTO, stabilising international trade, and bolstering multilateral financial institutions like the G20 and development banks to promote financial stability and reduce debt in low- and middle-income countries. The Forum has underscored the need for equitable international tax systems, debt restructuring for vulnerable countries, and inclusive financial frameworks. It has called for global governance frameworks for artificial intelligence and green technologies, ensuring fair access and preventing monopolisation. Participants have prioritised implementing the Pact for the Future, adopted at the United Nations Summit on the Future in 2024. This Pact addresses sustainable development, security, climate action, and digital cooperation, emphasising accountability and resource mobilisation. Danilo Türk, President of Club de Madrid , concluded: " This edition has illustrated that, even in a fragmented world, dialogue and cooperation remain our most effective tools for addressing shared challenges. The collective action we take today will shape the global governance of tomorrow."
Low prices. Wide selection. Tough-to-beat convenience. Those have been crucial keys to Amazon’s e-commerce dominance for the past two decades. Now the tech titan seems to be doubling down on this winning playbook by borrowing pieces of it to propel a new AI strategy from its Amazon Web Services division that is focused in part on low prices and wide selection. To be clear, it’ll be a long time before the business world can judge the effectiveness and financial sustainability of Amazon’s approach. But, if successful, the game plan would go a long way toward both quieting critics who argue Amazon is playing catch-up in the AI wars, while also future-proofing the company’s standing as one of the world’s most powerful and influential technology corporations for decades to come. Amazon executives have been unveiling crucial pieces of their AI strategy at their flagship AWS Re:Invent conference in Las Vegas this week. One key element is a new portfolio of in-house-built foundation models, known as FMs or LLMs, dubbed Nova, that can handle text, image, and video queries, respectively. The introduction of a new class of Amazon’s own AI models could, on the surface, be confounding since the company has already invested $8 billion into Anthropic , maker of the popular Claude family of gen AI models. But, as my colleague Sharon Goldman recently noted , Amazon is betting that there is “never going to be one tool”—or AI model—to rule them all. In short, Amazon believes that enterprises will want choice in models, whether from Amazon, Anthropic, or other tech giants like Meta. Amazon actually started pushing this idea of offering a selection of AI models through a single API to business customers when its AWS division introduced a service called Amazon Bedrock last year. Through Bedrock, business customers could choose from a relatively limited selection of AI models—but a selection nonetheless—to train for their own needs and to serve as a foundation for their own gen AI applications. On Wednesday, Amazon doubled down on the strategy by announcing Bedrock Marketplace, which offers a total of 100 AI models. The LLMs in the marketplace come from a host of different companies, with some designed for specialized purposes. “Finding and evaluating these models can be challenging and costly,” Amazon said in its blog post announcing the marketplace. “You need to discover them across different services, build abstractions to use them in your applications, and create complex security and governance layers. Amazon Bedrock Marketplace addresses these challenges by providing a single interface to access both specialized and general-purpose [foundation models].” Looking back to Amazon’s e-commerce business, a core piece is the Amazon Marketplace, where hundreds of thousands of outside merchants list products for sale that make up 60% of all the goods sold through Amazon. Amazon complements the selection of these marketplace sales by also selling its own inventory of goods, including some under its own brand names when a certain product category or price point isn’t being filled by the marketplace sellers or Amazon’s brand partners. Similarly, Amazon is offering businesses an enterprise AI version of the marketplace that one could imagine will only expand in selection in the future. (It’s also worth noting that Amazon’s core AWS business offers a marketplace of more than 10,000 software tools covering categories from cybersecurity to data analytics.) Low prices have also been another hallmark of Amazon’s retail business. Amazon aggressively matches prices from other retailers, and throws two giant discount events that attract heavy spending and new Prime customers. (The FTC has argued in its antitrust suit against Amazon that the e-commerce giant artificially inflates consumer prices around the web by penalizing merchants who sell products for less at other retailers, but that’s a topic for another day.) And sure enough, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy ’s slide deck unveiling the new Nova AI models started with price: “75% more cost effective,“ was the first feature called out. Simon Willison, an independent AI researcher, ran a quick test and agreed, writing on the social network app Bluesky that Amazon’s “price and performance [are] competitive with the Google Gemini family, which means they are _really_ inexpensive.” “With this release I think Amazon may have earned a spot among the top tier of model providers,” Willison added . “Maybe we need a new FAANG acronym that covers OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, and Amazon. I like GAMOA.” Amazon leaders won’t care what the new acronym is called as long as they earn a place in it. If they do, the company’s longtime hallmarks of low prices and selection will likely be key reasons why. Are you a current or former Amazon or AWS employee with thoughts on this topic or a tip to share? Contact Jason Del Rey at jason.delrey@fortune.com , jasondelrey@protonmail.com , or through messaging apps Signal and WhatsApp at 917-655-4267 . You can also message him on LinkedIn or at @delrey on X . This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
India News | Army Has Increased Operational Footprint in Jammu Region: Lt Gen Navin Sachdeva
Video: Bears' Caleb Williams Has No. 13 USC Jersey Retired During Halftime of ND GameFormer Green Party leader Caroline Lucas has also resigned as vice-president of the animal welfare organisation, with both of them expressing their “sadness” over leaving the roles. It comes after an Animal Rising investigation made claims of cruelty at “RSPCA Assured” slaughterhouses in England and Scotland, with the campaign group sharing footage of alleged mistreatment. RSPCA Assured is a scheme whereby approved farms must comply with the organisation’s “stringent higher welfare standards”, according to its website. Mr Packham shared the news of his resignation on social media, saying: “It is with enormous sadness that I have resigned from my role as president of the RSPCA. “I would like to register my respect and admiration for all the staff and volunteers who work tirelessly to protect animals from cruelty.” Ms Lucas said she and Mr Packham failed to get the charity’s leadership to act. She posted on X, formerly Twitter: “With huge sadness I’m resigning as VP of the RSPCA, a role I’ve held with pride for over 15 years. “But their Assured Schemes risk misleading the public & legitimising cruelty. “I tried with @ChrisGPackham to persuade the leadership to act but sadly failed.” In June, the RSPCA commissioned an independent review of 200 farms on its assurance scheme which concluded the scheme was “operating effectively” to assure animal welfare on member farms. Following Animal Rising’s release of footage last week, the charity said it was “appalled” by what was shown, adding that it launched an immediate investigation and suspended three slaughterhouses from the scheme. In the wake of Mr Packham and Ms Lucas’ resignations, an RSPCA spokesperson said it is “simply not true” that the organisation has failed to take urgent action. They said: “We agree with Chris and Caroline on so many issues and have achieved so much together for animals, but we differ on how best to address the incredibly complex and difficult issue of farmed animal welfare. “We have discussed our work to drive up farmed animal welfare standards openly at length with them on many occasions and it is simply not true that we have not taken urgent action. “We took allegations of poor welfare incredibly seriously, launching an independent review of 200 farms which concluded that it was ‘operating effectively’ to improve animal welfare. “We are taking strong steps to improve oversight of welfare, implementing the recommendations in full including significantly increasing unannounced visits, and exploring technology such as body-worn cameras and CCTV, supported by £2 million of investment.” The charity insisted that while 94% of people continue to choose to eat meat, fish, eggs and dairy, it is the “right thing to do” to work with farmers to improve the lives of animals. “RSPCA Assured visit all farms on the scheme every year, but last year just 3% of farms were assessed for animal welfare by state bodies,” the spokesperson continued. “No-one else is doing this work. We are the only organisation setting and regularly monitoring animal welfare standards on farms. “We have pioneered change through RSPCA Assured, which has led to improvements throughout the industry including CCTV in slaughterhouses, banning barren battery cages for hens and sow stalls for pigs, giving salmon more space to swim and developing slower growing chicken breeds who have better quality of life.”AMMAN — The Arab Water Council (AWC) opened a preparatory meeting at the Dead Sea ahead of the 6th Arab water conference on Wednesday under the umbrella of the Arab League. Secretary-General of the Ministry of Water Jihad Mahamid said the AWC Technical Scientific Advisory Committee discussed the executive plan of the water security strategy in the Arab region for 2030, as well as relevant strategies prepared by the Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands, the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, FAO, UNESCO, and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). He also said that the session also discussed the implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Plan in Arab countries, sixth goal indicators, preparations for global water forums, cooperation in exploiting shared water resources, in addition to the regional initiative on the interconnection between the water, energy and food sectors, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. In its three-day meeting, the technical committee will discuss other items, including strengthening the negotiating hand of Arab countries that share water resources with non-Arab countries, expanding use of non-traditional water sources, developing the Palestinian water sector, supporting Iraq's rights regarding the preservation of water resources in the Tigris and Euphrates basin, and legislation regulating the water sector, according to Petra.
FLAGSTAR FINANCIAL, INC. APPOINTS BRIAN CALLANAN TO BOARD OF DIRECTORS
DrBalcony App Redefines Balcony Inspections with Unparalleled EfficiencyWASHINGTON — Donald Trump has big plans for the economy — and a big debt problem that will be a hurdle to delivering on them. Trump has bold ideas on tax cuts, tariffs and other programs, but high interest rates and the price of repaying the federal government’s existing debt could limit what he’s able to do. Not only is the federal debt at roughly $36 trillion, but the spike in inflation after the coronavirus pandemic has pushed up the government’s borrowing costs such that debt service next year will easily exceed spending on national security. The higher cost of servicing the debt gives Trump less room to maneuver with the federal budget as he seeks income tax cuts. It’s also a political challenge because higher interest rates have made it costlier for many Americans to buy a home or new automobile. And the issue of high costs helped Trump reclaim the presidency in November’s election. “It’s clear the current amount of debt is putting upward pressure on interest rates, including mortgage rates for instance,” said Shai Akabas, executive director of the economic policy program at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “The cost of housing and groceries is going to be increasingly felt by households in a way that are going to adversely affect our economic prospects in the future.” Akabas stressed that the debt service is already starting to crowd out government spending on basic needs such as infrastructure and education. About 1 in 5 dollars spent by the government are now repaying investors for borrowed money, instead of enabling investments in future economic growth. It’s an issue on Trump’s radar. In his statement on choosing billionaire investor Scott Bessent to be his treasury secretary, the Republican president-elect said Bessent would “help curb the unsustainable path of Federal Debt.” The debt service costs along with the higher total debt complicate Trump’s efforts to renew his 2017 tax cuts, much of which are set to expire after next year. The higher debt from those tax cuts could push interest rates higher, making debt service even costlier and minimizing any benefits the tax cuts could produce for growth. “Clearly, it’s irresponsible to run back the same tax cuts after the deficit has tripled,” said Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a former Republican congressional aide. “Even congressional Republicans behind the scenes are looking for ways to scale down the president’s ambitions.” Democrats and many economists say Trump’s income tax cuts disproportionately benefit the wealthy, which deprives the government of revenues needed for programs for the middle class and poor. “The president-elect’s tax policy ideas will increase the deficit because they will decrease taxes for those with the highest ability to pay, such as the corporations whose tax rate he’s proposed reducing even further to 15%,” said Jessica Fulton, vice president of policy at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington-based think tank that deals with issues facing communities of color. Trump’s team insists he can make the math work. “The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail, including lowering prices. He will deliver,” said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump transition spokeswoman. When Trump was last in the White House in 2020, the federal government was spending $345 billion annually to service the national debt. It was possible to run up the national debt with tax cuts and pandemic aid because the average interest rate was low, such that repayment costs were manageable even as debt levels climbed. Congressional Budget Office projections indicate that debt service costs next year could exceed $1 trillion. That’s more than projected spending on defense. The total is also greater than nondefense spending on infrastructure, food aid and other programs under the direction of Congress. What fueled the increased cost of servicing the debt has been higher interest rates. In April 2020, when the government was borrowing trillions of dollars to address the pandemic, the yield on 10-year Treasury notes fell as low as 0.6%. They’re now 4.4%, having increasing since September as investors expect Trump to add several trillions of dollars onto projected deficits with his income tax cuts. Democratic President Joe Biden can point to strong economic growth and successfully avoiding a recession as the Federal Reserve sought to bring down inflation. Still, deficits ran at unusually high levels during his term. That’s due in part to his own initiatives to boost manufacturing and address climate change, and to the legacy of Trump’s previous tax cuts. People in Trump’s orbit, as well as Republican lawmakers, are already scouting out ways to reduce government spending in order to minimize the debt and bring down interest rates. They have attacked Biden for the deficits and inflation, setting the stage for whether they can persuade Trump to take action. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the wealthy businessmen leading Trump’s efforts to cut government costs, have proposed that the incoming administration should simply refuse to spend some of the money approved by Congress. It’s an idea that Trump has also backed, but one that would likely provoke challenges in court as it would undermine congressional authority. Russell Vought, the White House budget director during Trump’s first term and Trump’s choice to lead it again, put out an alternative proposed budget for 2023 with more than $11 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years in order to potentially generate a surplus. Michael Faulkender, a finance professor who served in Trump’s Treasury Department, told a congressional committee in March that all the energy and environmental components of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act from 2022 should be repealed to reduce deficits. Trump has also talked up tariffs on imports to generate revenues and reduce deficits, while some Republican lawmakers such as House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, have discussed adding work requirements to trim Medicaid expenses. The White House was last pressured by high rates to address debt service costs roughly three decades ago during the start of Democrat Bill Clinton’s presidency. Higher yields on the 10-year Treasury notes led Clinton and Congress to reach an agreement on deficit reduction, ultimately producing a budget surplus starting in 1998. Clinton political adviser James Carville joked at the time about how bond investors pushing up borrowing rates for the U.S. government could humble the commander in chief. “I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a .400 baseball hitter,” Carville said. “But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”
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