online games gun
Stock market today: Wall Street rises to records despite tariff talkOur community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since radio and TV star Marvin Humes skydived into the I’m A Celebrity jungle. Despite being terrified of heights, Marvin, 39, jumped out of a helicopter at 15,000ft to reach the outback, where he spent three weeks on a diet of rice and beans with the likes of reality star Sam Thompson, This Morning host Josie Gibson and politician Nigel Farage. And now, as the latest group of unwitting celebrities settles into jungle life for series 24, the JLS singer – who finished fifth on last year’s show – has some words of advice. “It’s really boring and it’s practical advice, but they’ve got to make the food stretch,” he says. “I can’t tell you how much we take for granted things like salt and pepper and sugar and seasoning. The food is so, so bland. We would get a camel’s foot to eat and we would keep the skin just to flavour the rice!” As well as I’m A Celebrity, Marvin, wife Rochelle , 35, and their three children Alaia-Mai, 11, Valentina, seven, and Blake, four, have been tuning into this year’s Strictly Come Dancing , to cheer on Marvin’s bandmate JB Gill . Here, we chat to Marvin about his own I’m A Celeb experience, his bromance with Sam Thompson and who he’s backing for jungle glory... Hi Marvin! We can’t believe you were in the jungle a whole year ago. What do you think of this year’s line-up? It’s going to be another incredible year. There are some great characters and big personalities. I’m close with Melvin [Odoom]. He’s a friend of ours – he worked with Rochelle on The Xtra Factor back in the day and I’ve known him through working in radio, but we are genuinely friends. I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago and he wanted to pick my brains. But I also told him it would be the greatest experience in his life. Are you backing Melvin? Yes! I’ve spent time with Danny Jones over the years, and Tulisa, and I’ve met GK Barry, but I’ve got to back my boy. How was your experience? What you see is what you get. There can be lots of sitting around in not comfortable places, like a wooden log, and obviously the food situation is tough. There were rats running around in the Bush Telegraph. There are obviously cameras everywhere, but it is a real jungle. But listen, on the flip side, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I wouldn’t ever have skydived, I wouldn’t ever have had snakes around my neck, eaten fish eyes and drunk the juice, and I would never have been in a tub of gravy with Nigel Farage singing Christmas carols. Not many people can say they have done that! Are you still friends with any of your campmates? I’m really, really close to Sam. He’s in Australia now doing the spin-off show, but I usually see him every day as we work at the same radio station. He comes into my studio for a little session in the morning to have 20 minutes together and a man chat. He’s a great guy. I speak to Tony Bellew and Danielle Harold , and I’ve seen Fred Sirieix out and about. We have to ask you about Strictly, which your bandmate JB is taking part in... He’s absolutely smashing it. It’s such a tough show in a different way to the jungle, because your life is still going ahead. You need to fit in the dancing while you’ve got your family life and your other work. The demand is tougher but he’s killing it. We’ve been watching him and voting every week. The kids love watching Uncle J. Blake was copying his body ripples the other day! And how is your family? They’re amazing, thank you. We’re super proud parents and we’re lucky to have three wonderful children. Blake has just turned four. Do you feel like your family is complete now? I can safely say we’re done. As I said, we’re very lucky that we’ve been very blessed with three beautiful children. We are at the point now where we can leave the house with just the children, nothing else – no buggies, no bags, no this, no that. It’s hard to believe it’s 15 years since JLS’s 2009 debut album, but you’ve just released a 15th anniversary album... I know! We had a signing at HMV yesterday. It was very old school and we had fans there who weren’t even born 15 years ago, but they’ve seen us in the jungle or on Strictly. It’s an important milestone to celebrate. We’ve been together since 2007 [they were on The X Factor in 2008] and 17 years later it’s still something we love. We see you’ve teamed up with Fairy for its #LoadsOfKindness campaign. How important is it to be kind? We hear statements about being kind, but this campaign is about reminding people. Social media, for example, can be quite a mean place and it’s about getting people to stop and think about what they can do to be kind. It might be helping someone down the stairs with a heavy bag or giving up your seat on public transport. When Rochelle and I have parents’ evening the most important thing we want to hear is that our children are kind. It can be simple manners or asking how someone is and being polite. There is no magic handbook to parenting, we are all winging it and doing the best we can, but we want to instil kindness in our children like our parents did with us. Fairy Non Bio has teamed up with Paddington In Peru to celebrate kindness. Pledge your own act of kindness on social media using #LoadsOfKindness
Boeing is resuming production of its bestselling plane, the 737 Max, for the first time since 33,000 workers began a seven-week strike that ended in early November. The company said Tuesday that plane-building resumed at its plant in Renton, Washington, after going through a process of training workers and identifying and fixing potential problems. Boeing shares rose 4.5%, their best single-day percentage gain in nearly four months. Production and deliveries of Max jets and another airline plane, the 787 Dreamliner, have been stopped several times in recent years to fix manufacturing flaws. “Our team has worked methodically to restart factory operations in the Pacific Northwest. We have now resumed 737 production in our Renton factory, with our Everett (Washington) programs on plan to follow in the days ahead," the company said in a statement. Boeing builds its 777 and 767 jets in Everett, north of Seattle. Separately, the company said it took orders for 49 planes in November but lost an order by U.K. carrier TUI for 14 Max jets. It delivered 13 planes, down from 56 a year earlier. Ever since a panel called a door plug blew off a Max operated by Alaska Airlines in January, the Federal Aviation Administration has capped Boeing’s production of Max jets to 38 per month. Boeing hopes to convince regulators that it has corrected quality and safety issues and can raise that number to 56 planes per month. Boeing has been losing money since 2019, after two Max jets crashed, killing 346 people. It needs the cash it earns from delivering new planes to begin digging out of a deep financial hole . New CEO Kelly Ortberg has announced plans to lay off about 17,000 workers and sell new stock to raise cash and prevent the company’s credit rating from sliding into junk status.
Drop in Boxing Day footfall ‘signals return to declining pre-pandemic levels’
The City of Arlington premiered "The Heartbeat of Arlington" on Nov. 22, a documentary about the city's General Motors manufacturing plant's start, growth and impact on the community. The documentary was produced by the city's office of communication, which said the GM plant played a large role in shaping Arlington as "The American Dream City." “General Motors was the catalyst that made Arlington be the first city that exploded and became the DFW region,” said Victor Vandergriff, son of Tom Vandergriff. Tom Vandergriff is credited with helping to convince GM in 1951 to build a manufacturing plant in Arlington. The assembly plant opened three years later. “I'll argue the case that Arlington's luckiest day ever was when General Motors decided to cast its lot with us,” said Tom Vandergriff. Arlington said the documentary focuses on "pivotal moments in the assembly's history," including how the company landed in Arlington, its economic impact on the city, communitywide efforts to keep the plant open during potential closures in the early 1990s, technological advancements, and a glimpse into the future of vehicle production. “We used to talk about GM as ‘The Heartbeat of Arlington,’ and I am proud to say that yes, because of all the efforts made into the plant, they still are very much the heartbeat of our community,” said Arlington City Manager Trey Yelverton. “We are so appreciative of General Motors’ continued innovation and investment to keep the plant viable, productive, and highly efficient.” The documentary also featured the plant's shift in production of cars to trucks, it's process in becoming the exclusive plant to produce every new full-sized SUV in GM's lineup, to achieving the milestone of 13 million vehicles produced earlier this year. “I still believe to this day it took visionary people and political leadership to say, ‘We have to keep it here, but those workers made it happen,’” said Victor Vandergriff. “The result of what’s happened since in the decades that followed is just amazing.” The 45-minute production summed up a nearly two-year search through archival footage from The University of North Texas's "The Portal to Texas History" , which was primarily sourced by NBC 5. The footage held interviews with long-time employees, current and former leaders, historians and Arlington residents sharing their insight into the plant's impact. Several North Texas entities assisted and provided archival footage, including the Arlington Historical Society, the Arlington Public Library, the Dallas Public Library, the Delta County Public Library in partnership with the Delta County Historical Commission, General Motors Arlington Assembly, the University of North Texas’ Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington’s Special Collections and the Vandergriff family. GM says their employment of about 8,400 Texas workers and partnerships with more than 550 suppliers puts $1.2 billion into the economy. “We are very aware and conscious of the fact that this has been going on for a long time,” said GM Arlington Assembly Plant Executive John Urbanic. “It is a legacy, and we take that to heart. We’re really committed to continuing and growing that legacy here in Arlington.” In addition to watching the documentary at the top of this article, "The Heartbeat of Arlington" is available on the City of Arlington's YouTube Channel .
Snowy owl rescued from car grille near Duluth diesLeftist women are virtually throwing their bras at alleged United Healthcare CEO killer Luigi Mangione in a fit of sexual mass hysteria that’s taking over social media — and it can be traced to years of denigrating masculinity. Following Mangione’s December arrest at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s, he instantaneously became a progressive sex symbol, dubbed a “ prettier Jesus ” and “ too fine to get the death penalty ,” amidst much more explicit discourse . His Brooklyn jailhouse mailing address has even gone viral . When he pleaded not guilty to first degree murder charges in a New York courtroom on Monday, seats reserved for members of the public were occupied almost entirely by young women reportedly there to support the 26-year-old. More yet lined up outside with posters reading “Free Luigi.” Sure, some women in the past have inexplicably swooned over killers like Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez. But the scale and intensity of Mangione madness is unparalleled. That’s because he’s tapped into a mass sexual frustration that’s been waiting to explode. After years of harping on toxic masculinity, shaming men and stiff-arming chivalry, some women on the left seem to have fixated on Mangione because he represents a sort of masculinity they are finally allowed to celebrate — one that is coded as politically acceptable. Murdering someone in cold blood is the most “toxic” form of masculine aggression imaginable ... unless, apparently, it’s allegedly done in the name of being anti-corporate and anticapitalist. Sure it’s hypocritical, but it makes sense on a psychological level. A generation of young women have been taught to demonize men and stifle their natural desire for the male-female dichotomy in their lives. In walks Luigi, the pinnacle of masculinity, both in terms of his aesthetics and his actions: a heteronormative frat boy with a strong jawline who allegedly committed coldblooded murder in the most brash manner possible. He’s catnip for repressed, anti-capitalist ghouls who are able to hide behind their critiques of the insurance industry — and behind their Covid-era masks, lest you try to figure out who his courthouse fans were. If leftist women are damsels in distress, held captive by the insurance industry and pricey healthcare system, Mangione is their knight in shining armor: fighting on their behalf, slaying the enemy, taking up arms to defend their cause. This feminine angst is even manifested in the form of frilly “Deny, Defend, Depose” panties, the phrase Mangione allegedly scrawled on the bullets used to ruthlessly murder Brian Thompson. Anti-capitalists are sticking it to the man by shelling out $35 for a single pair. Mangione fans can also snag a cropped tee of his mug framed in a heart with the phrase “but daddy I love him” — a Taylor Swift reference — printed in hot pink. It’s all an expression of a feral desperation for a masculine force, a sexual fantasy so twisted that these women have almost forgotten that the slain enemy is no dragon, but rather a father leaving behind two sons. After shaming the masculinity out of the men around them, ultra-feminists are left with no choice but to grasp at an exaggerated fantasy of gallantry in the form of Mangione, because, when healthy expressions of masculinity and femininity get suppressed, unhealthy extremes get fetishized. This is no mere theory. While young women today are outspokenly progressive on gender dynamics in public, a very different story is playing out behind closed doors. Privately, they are demanding en masse that their sexual partners choke them during sex. In fact, a full two-thirds of college girls — perhaps the most progressive sampling possible — report having been choked during intercourse. Young women insist that they are just as powerful as men in day to day life and yet, in the bedroom, they are turned on by handing their sexual partner the power to kill them. Because, when women are conditioned to believe that holding a door and offering a subway seat are misogynistic slights, a suppressed desire for natural gender dynamics will express itself in some other way. Clearly, third-wave feminism has left women with a distorted relationship with masculinity: It’s something to be disparaged in its healthy forms, and fetishized in its depraved extremes. That’s because young women have been taught to deny nature by emasculating their partners and suppressing their longing for the yin to their feminine yang. They drove masculinity out of their lives, and now they miss it, whether or not they even consciously know it. Enter a good-looking alleged killer whose motive aligns with their politics , and you have a sexual sensation on your hands. In our age where masculinity is toxic, vigilantism is fetishized.Snooker world champ Kyren Wilson makes I'm A Celeb plea but has UK Championship problem
Many people are familiar with typical symptoms of dementia such as memory loss and changes in behaviour, but some more obscure signs could manifest themselves within the eyes, scientists have said. Saccades, or rapid eye movements, tend to be slower in those with dementia, experts have said. This is especially true for those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, the most prevalent type of dementia. A recent report featured on details new insights into the relationship between saccades and dementia, stating: "People with Alzheimer's exhibit a loss of motor control along with cognitive decline." These eye movements, which may be less accurate or delayed in dementia patients, are among the preliminary symptoms of decay. Researchers at École de Technologie Supérieure and Dartmouth University suggested this unique symptom could be detected via earpiece microphones. Researcher Arian Shamei explained: "Eye movements are fascinating since they are some of the most rapid and precise movements in the human body, thus they rely on both excellent motor skills and cognitive functioning." The team shared their breakthrough at this year's annual meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. They suggested that microphones might be the most effective way to identify these slower eye movements. Traditional methods involve using eye-tracking equipment to detect and analyse saccades, but such technology isn't widely available. Miriam Boutros, who presented the research, said: "We are using a device called a hearable. It is an earpiece with in-ear microphones that captures physiological signals from the body. Our goal is to develop health-monitoring algorithms for hearables, capable of continuous, long-term monitoring and early disease detection." The team believes that eye movements, including saccades, create eardrum vibrations detectable by these in-ear microphones. They're currently testing this hypothesis with volunteers using both hearables and traditional eye trackers, aiming to distinguish between normal saccades and those that could indicate neurological conditions like Alzheimer's. The NHS lists symptoms of dementia as: “These symptoms are often mild and may get worse only very gradually,” the health body says. If you spot any of these signs you should speak to your GP.Israel detains director of one of northern Gaza's last functioning hospitals, Palestinians sayMillions more Americans might get access to GLP-1 drugs
These Republicans may challenge JD Vance for the Presidential nominee in 2028; who are they, here's all you need to knowBiden says he was ‘stupid’ not to put his name on pandemic relief checks like Trump didOn a day when the world woke up to a nightmare in progress, they were in the control room
Amaravati: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday expressed deep sadness over the passing away of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Singh, the architect of India’s economic reforms, died in Delhi on Thursday night. He was 92. Singh’s death was announced by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, where he was admitted in the Emergency ward around 8.30 PM in a critical condition. Terming the former PM as an intellectual statesman, the chief minister said Singh had embodied humility, wisdom and integrity. Deeply saddened by former Prime Minister and renowned economist, Shri Manmohan Singh Ji’s demise. An intellectual statesman, Dr Singh embodied humility, wisdom, and integrity. From his economic reforms in 1991 as Finance Minister to his leadership as Prime Minister, he served the... pic.twitter.com/PAhiHfozMD “Deeply saddened by former Prime Minister and renowned economist, Manmohan Singh Ji’s demise. An intellectual statesman, Dr Singh embodied humility, wisdom, and integrity,” said Naidu in a post on ‘X’. From his economic reforms in 1991 as Finance Minister to his leadership as Prime Minister, he served the nation tirelessly and uplifted millions, he said. Further, he observed that the passing of Singh is a great loss to the nation, offering condolences to the latter’s family, loved ones and admirers.
Election consequencesPakistani police arrest thousands of Imran Khan supporters ahead of rally in the capital
US auto giant General Motors announced Tuesday it will abandon its robotaxi development efforts after a highly publicized incident last year stymied its progress in the autonomous vehicle field. The Detroit-based manufacturer plans to merge the Cruise robotaxi vehicle unit with GM's technical teams to concentrate on developing advanced driver assistance systems for personal vehicles, a statement said. The company said it abandoned the Cruise project "given the considerable time and resources that would be needed to scale the business, along with an increasingly competitive robotaxi market." It marks a major turnaround for GM, which bought the Cruise startup in 2016 and has since spent billions of dollars to make the operation viable. "A robotaxi business is not General Motors’ core business," said GM CEO Mary Barra in a call with analysts. But Barra said GM's commitment to autonomous technology "is unwavering." The halt of operations comes a year after Cruise was forced to suspend all operations in San Francisco after one of its self-driving cars dragged a woman who had first been hit by a hit-and-run driver in the city. Cruise lost its operating permits from regulators, paused expansions into other states and laid off 900 employees -- a quarter of its workforce. Shortly before the incident, California authorities had allowed for expanded driverless taxi services in San Francisco, giving the go-ahead for Alphabet-owned Waymo and Cruise. Cruise's exit confirms Waymo as the dominant player in the business, which was valued at $45 billion after a fundraising round in October, according to Bloomberg. The company has been expanding its reach and currently runs robotaxi fleets in San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles. And in a team-up with Uber, the company is planning to offer Waymo robotaxi rides in Atlanta and Austin. Amazon's Zoox meanwhile is conducting robotaxi testing in California and Las Vegas, while Elon Musk recently unveiled what he said was a robotaxi capable of self-driving, predicting it would be available by 2027. GM's strategic pivot comes as embattled automakers worldwide face mounting pressure to balance investments in emerging technologies with near-term profitability. The auto giant said that the restructuring is expected to generate annual savings exceeding $1 billion once completed in the first half of 2025. GM's share price was up by more than three percent in after hours trading on Wall Street. arp/dwNEW YORK (AP) — What a wonderful year 2024 has been for investors. U.S. stocks ripped higher and carried the S&P 500 to records as the economy kept growing and the Federal Reserve began cutting interest rates. The year featured many familiar winners, such as Big Tech, which got even bigger as their stock prices kept growing . But it wasn’t just Apple, Nvidia and the like. Bitcoin , gold and other investments also drove higher. Here’s a look at some of the numbers that defined the year. All are as of Dec. 20. Remember when President Bill Clinton got impeached or when baseball’s Mark McGwire hit his 70th home run against the Montreal Expos? That was the last time the U.S. stock market closed out a second straight year with a leap of at least 20%, something the S&P 500 is on track to do again this year. The index has climbed 24.3% so far this year, not including dividends, following last year’s spurt of 24.2%. The number of all-time highs the S&P 500 has set so far this year. The first came early, on Jan. 19, when the index capped a two-year comeback from the swoon caused by high inflation and worries that high interest rates instituted by the Federal Reserve to combat it would create a recession. But the index was methodical through the rest of the year, setting a record in every month outside of April and August, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. The latest came on Dec. 6. The number of times the Federal Reserve has cut its main interest rate this year from a two-decade high, offering some relief to the economy. Expectations for those cuts, along with hopes for more in 2025, were a big reason the U.S. stock market has been so successful this year. The 1 percentage point of cuts, though, is still short of the 1.5 percentage points that many traders were forecasting for 2024 at the start of the year. The Fed disappointed investors in December when it said it may cut rates just two more times in 2025, fewer than it had earlier expected. That’s how many points the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by the day after Election Day, as investors made bets on what Donald Trump’s return to the White House will mean for the economy and the world . The more widely followed S&P 500 soared 2.5% for its best day in nearly two years. Aside from bitcoin, stocks of banks and smaller winners were also perceived to be big winners. The bump has since diminished amid worries that Trump’s policies could also send inflation higher. The level that bitcoin topped to set a record above $108,000 this past month. It’s been climbing as interest rates come down, and it got a particularly big boost following Trump’s election. He’s turned around and become a fan of crypto, and he’s named a former regulator who’s seen as friendly to digital currencies as the next chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, replacing someone who critics said was overly aggressive in his oversight. Bitcoin was below $17,000 just two years ago following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. Gold’s rise for the year, as it also hit records and had as strong a run as U.S. stocks. Wars around the world have helped drive demand for investments seen as safe, such as gold. It’s also benefited from the Fed’s cut to interest rates. When bonds are paying less in interest, they pull away fewer potential buyers from gold, which pays investors nothing. It’s a favorite number of Elon Musk, and it’s also a threshold that Tesla’s stock price passed in December as it set a record. The number has a long history among marijuana devotees, and Musk famously said in 2018 that he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 per share . Tesla soared this year, up from less than $250 at the start, in part because of expectations that Musk’s close relationship with Trump could benefit the company. That’s how much revenue Nvidia made in the nine months through Oct. 27, showing how the artificial-intelligence frenzy is creating mountains of cash. Nvidia’s chips are driving much of the move into AI, and its revenue through the last nine months catapulted from less than $39 billion the year before. Such growth has boosted Nvidia’s worth to more than $3 trillion in total. GameStop’s gain on May 13 after Keith Gill, better known as “Roaring Kitty,” appeared online for the first time in three years to support the video game retailer’s stock, which he helped rocket to unimaginable heights during the “ meme stock craze ” in 2021. Several other meme stocks also jumped following his post in May on the social platform X, including AMC Entertainment. Gill later disclosed a sizeable stake in the online pet products retailer Chewy, but he sold all of his holdings by late October . That’s how much the U.S. economy grew, at annualized seasonally adjusted rates, in each of the three first quarters of this year. Such growth blew past what many pessimists were expecting when inflation was topping 9% in the summer of 2022. The fear was that the medicine prescribed by the Fed to beat high inflation — high interest rates — would create a recession. Households at the lower end of the income spectrum in particular are feeling pain now, as they contend with still-high prices. But the overall economy has remained remarkably resilient. This is the vacancy rate for U.S. office buildings — an all-time high — through the first three quarters of 2024, according to data from Moody’s. The fact the rate held steady for most of the year was something of a win for office building owners, given that it had marched up steadily from 16.8% in the fourth quarter of 2019. Demand for office space weakened as the pandemic led to the popularization of remote work. That’s the total number of previously occupied homes sold nationally through the first 11 months of 2024. Sales would have to surge 20% year-over-year in December for 2024’s home sales to match the 4.09 million existing homes sold in 2023, a nearly 30-year low. The U.S. housing market has been in a sales slump dating back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. A shortage of homes for sale and elevated mortgage rates have discouraged many would-be homebuyers.None
West Bengal's ruling Trinamul Congress has started growing distance from its Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Sekhar Roy for his stand against the Mamata Banerjee government into the brutal rape and murder of an-duty female doctor at R G Kar Medical College and Hospital (RGKMCH). In a rare instance, Mr Roy has not been invited to his party's national executive committee meeting which will be held on Monday. While the TMC MP, who has been in the party panel, has remained silent on his poor treatment by his own party, state minister and Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim made a veiled reference to Mr Roy's role at the peak of mass protests across the state over the brutal crime in August. Mr Roy had not only participated in the August 15-midnight vigil but also sought the arrests of the then Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal and former RGKMCH principal Sandip Ghosh by the CBI in a social media post. He later got summons from the city police for questioning for his call but challenged it at the Calcutta High Court before withdrawing his petition. On Sunday Mr Hakim said, “Party discipline is above everything. It can't happen that someone can say anything and everything against party discipline. Party won't back whoever supported it. The state government wasn't involved in the RG Kar incident. We want death penalty in the crime as much as the junior doctors, who held protests, did.”
- Previous:
- Next: online games in laptop
