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rich9 legit Boris Epshteyn, a leading adviser to President-elect Donald Trump , allegedly sought payments in the tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for promoting candidates for top positions in the incoming administration, a scheme that observers saw as further evidence of the corruption pervading the Republican leader’s inner circle. Multiple news outlets reported Monday that the top attorney on Trump’s transition team investigated Epshteyn — who helped represent the former president during his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election — over accusations that he requested payments from people seeking roles in the incoming administration. Scott Bessent, Trump’s pick to lead the Treasury Department , was among those Epshteyn pushed for payments , according to The Associated Press . The Washington Post reported Monday that Epshteyn asked Bessent for “a monthly stipend of at least $30,000” in exchange for promoting him for the Treasury role, an offer Bessent declined. Epshteyn “later asked Bessent to invest $10 million in a three-on-three basketball league,” according to the Post , which cited an internal legal review. Epshteyn called the accusations “fake” and “defamatory.” Reports of Epshteyn’s scheme came amid broader concerns about glaring conflicts of interest within Trump’s transition team and incoming administration, both of which are teeming with lobbyists and executives who stand to benefit from the president-elect’s second term. “In any organization, when the person at the top is as corrupt as Trump, everyone else becomes corrupt, because otherwise you’re a sucker,” journalist Jon Schwarz wrote Monday. In what one watchdog group called “a highly unprecedented move,” Trump has thus far refused to sign a legally required ethics pledge and other documents necessary to formally set the transition in motion. By not signing the ethics pledge, Trump has been able to conceal the names of individuals and corporations financing his return to power, allowing them to contribute unlimited sums. “This resistance to commit to ethical conduct while serving as president is a red flag pointing to nothing so much as greed and corruption and an intention to enrich himself and/or his family through the extensive powers of his office,” Virginia Kase Solomón, president and CEO of Common Cause, said in a statement Monday. “Americans expect and deserve a president who prioritizes the nation’s well-being over personal gain. They will not tolerate a president who abuses the powers of his office to line his own pockets.” During his first term, according to a recent analysis by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Trump “likely benefited from $13.6 million in payments from foreign governments” to his companies. Trump, granted sweeping immunity by the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, is poised to enrich himself further during his second term. As the Post noted last week, the president-elect “has made no promises to divest from any of his financial interests, which have now soared to include a cryptocurrency business and a stake valued at $3.76 billionin a social media company, in addition to his family firm’s growing number of foreign deals.” “The unprecedented scenario of a president holding a single company’s shares worth billions of dollars — as Trump does in Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., the parent company of Truth Social — is unanticipated by existing law,” the Post added. Delaney Marsco and Maha Quadri of Campaign Legal Center wrote earlier this month that “in the absence of swift, concrete action by the president-elect to signal his dedication to ethics standards, all signs point to a second term that will prioritize personal interest over public good, and a declining trust in public institutions.”

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More than a dozen New York-based Barclays bankers and traders were fired just before the holidays — and they received coal in their stocking by being denied bonuses, The Post has learned. The scrooges at Barclays, the UK-based lending giant, canned 15 Wall Street workers out of the roughly 50 it pink-slipped last month, two sources with close knowledge of the situation said. None were given a bonus, the sources added, depriving them of a windfall since the majority of their compensation comes from the year-end bump. For example, an investment banker might make a $200,000 salary and an expected $1 million bonus, one of the sources said. One employment lawyer told The Post that while it is not unheard of for banks to fire workers late in the year, the fact that they were not giving a bonus is pretty heartless. “A good employer will pay the bonus pro-rata for the amount of time worked during the year, but some don’t,” said Tanvir Rahman, an attorney for law firm Filippatos. Rival Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, award bonuses — perhaps half — when firing bankers and traders toward the end of the year, one of the sources said. A spokesperson for Barclays stood by its decision. “We regularly review our talent pool to ensure that we are investing in talent, delivering for clients and best positioned for long-term success as we execute against our strategy,” the rep told The Post. Some of the fired bankers are considering filing $10 million-plus lawsuits, a source said. They will likely contend that the bonus is earned throughout the year and is not discretionary, sources said. Rahman said they may have a tough time winning their cases, though they often end up in arbitration with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). “The banks often in their labor agreements say you have to be employed at the time of the bonus to get your bonus,” Rahman said. Barclays, which has more than 13,000 workers in the US, didn’t pay bonuses to dozens of bankers last year as revenue declined and cut bonuses by 43% across the bank in 2023, according to Financial News. The lender was expected to increase bonuses by as much as 20% to some departments this year as dealmaking rebounded, the outlet added. Earlier this year, Barclays announced a three-year plan to become a simpler and more efficient bank, in which it doesn’t rely on a large percentage of its revenue from investment banking.Ducks starting to ‘play with an identity’ ahead of hosting Ottawa

Nebraska plans not to get caught sleeping vs. South DakotaJudy Heath

Hugh Grant Has Always Played the VillainWillis finished 3 of 9 from 3-point range and 6 for 7 from the line for the Golden Hurricane (4-3). Isaiah Barnes scored 12 points while shooting 4 for 9, including 4 for 6 from beyond the arc and added seven rebounds. Dwon Odom had 11 points and went 5 of 8 from the field. Jared Lary led the way for the Titans (3-4) with 12 points and two steals. Tulsa led 36-27 at halftime, with Willis racking up nine points. Tulsa extended its lead to 54-35 during the second half, fueled by a 9-2 scoring run. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .

We usually think about AI in terms of how the models and characters interact with humans. But what happens when AI personalities are left mostly on their own in a virtual world? AI startup Altera decided to find out by setting up a population of AI characters in the digital world of for what it calls . The result was an entire society of AI bots forming communities, taking on jobs to help that community, and even adhering to and spreading an in-game religion. Altera set up Project Sid, with up to 1,000 AI-controlled characters able to interact within Minecraft's open-world environment. Each AI character was powered by a large language model (LLM) along with specialized task modules. Altera set up groups of 50 agents able to engage with each other over 12 in-game days or four real hours. After a couple of text prompts to kick things up, the AI personalities evolved on their own. The personalities of the AI characters emerged pretty quickly, with outgoing and introverted personalities setting limits for interacting with other AIs. They soon developed unique personality traits, made a kind of etiquette for their interactions, and made decisions based on their simulated experiences. AI characters would adjust their behavior based on the reactions of those around them, even favoring those who behaved more kindly to them. When put into larger groups of 30, the characters spontaneously developed jobs within their community despite initially sharing the same goals of building a sustainable village and defending it from threats. Soon, farmers, builders, and security guards were taking up their jobs. Some AI characters even became artists focused on beautifying the village with flowers and paint. Altera sought to make the community mimic more complex communities and arranged a taxation system where the AI characters could vote on policies related to raising and spending money for the community. Factions of pro- and anti-tax groups began debating and arguing ahead of the votes, operating a lot like a real human community in some ways. AI shares the (pasta) gospel When the simulation included up to 500 AI agents, Altera suddenly found a modern culture forming. The AIs would share culture and hobbies with each other, ranging from pulling pranks to an interest in environmentalism. It was at this level that the AI characters suddenly found religion. Specifically, they adopted the parody religion of Pastafarianism, known for its tongue-in-cheek worship of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. A small group of "priests" seeded the belief system, which then spread through towns, replicating the dynamics of cultural and religious proliferation in human history. Of course, these AI characters aren't conscious of picking a religion or any of their other choices. But, they do show how AI can successfully mimic human behavior in ways that appear to be based on self-awareness. It's really just algorithms based on patterns learned from datasets. If you didn't know better, you might be fooled by the strikingly lifelike behavior of the AI and their cultures. The experiment is impressive in what it shows about AI imitating humanity, but virtual societies like these do have larger value, according to Altera. The better that AI can reflect realistic human behavior, the better it will be at helping simulate how people would deal with different scenarios. It might help form social policies or guide the creation of disaster management plans. That may seem a stretch from Minecraft characters worshipping an airborne knot of noodles and meatballs, but unlike the Pastafarians, there's a lot more than faith behind it. "These simulations, set within a Minecraft environment, reveal that agents are capable of meaningful progress – autonomously developing specialized roles, adhering to and changing collective rules, and engaging in cultural and religious transmission," Altera's researchers explained in a scientific report. "These preliminary results show that agents can achieve significant milestones towards AI civilizations, opening new avenues for large-scale societal simulations, agentic organizational intelligence, and integrating AI into human civilizations."

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health are using large language models to develop an artificial intelligence framework to streamline the clinical trial matching process and more quickly link potential volunteers to relevant trials listed on ClinicalTrials.gov. Benchmarking its accuracy against three human clinicians, researchers have found that the tool, TrialGPT, achieved nearly the same level of accuracy, according to an NIH announcement this month. WHY IT MATTERS Because finding the right clinical trial for a patient is both time and resource-intensive, researchers at the National Library of Medicine and National Cancer Institute developed the TrialGPT framework to streamline it. The new clinical trial matching algorithm analyzes patient summaries for relevant medical and demographic information then identifies clinical trials for which a patient is eligible and excludes trials for which they are not. TrialGPT produces an annotated list of clinical trials – ranked by relevance and eligibility – that clinicians can use to discuss clinical trial opportunities with their patients. The AI tool also explains how a person meets the study enrollment criteria, which is critical to its efficacy. To assess how well TrialGPT predicted if a patient met a specific requirement for a clinical trial, the researchers compared the tool's results to those of three human clinicians who assessed more than 1,000 patient-criterion pairs, NIH said. "Machine learning and AI technology have held promise in matching patients with clinical trials, but their practical application across diverse populations still needed exploration," Stephen Sherry, NLM's acting director, said in a statement. The researchers also conducted a pilot user study and found that when clinicians used TrialGPT, they spent 40% less time screening patients but maintained the same level of accuracy. Of note, TrialGPT relies on OpenAI’s GPT series LLMs such as GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 and the latter is closed-source and can only be accessed via commercial applications or API, the researchers said in their report . For their study, published in Nature Communications and co-authored by collaborators from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and University of Maryland, College Park, the research team received an innovation award and will further assess the model’s performance and fairness in real-world clinical settings, NIH said. THE LARGER TREND Using AI to improve patient recruitment, retention and outcomes of clinical trials began before OpenAI launched its ChatGPT generative AI model. During the COVID-19 pandemic, oncology organizations sought ways to find patients across the country who would qualify for trials, even if they weren't physically there, through healthcare data. In driving decentralized clinical trials , increased AI adoption helped to advance health equity and trial diversity, according to Jeff Elton, CEO of ConcertAI, a vendor of data and AI SaaS platforms for clinical trial optimization. "With integrated digital trials, clinical studies are integral to the care process itself, versus being imposed on it," Elton told Healthcare IT News . "Trials don't need to place a higher burden on providers and patients than the standard of care." Reducing friction throughout the clinical trial lifecycle is critical to helping patients access trial therapies, according to Seth Howard, vice president of research and development at Epic. The electronic health record vendor implemented data-driven clinical trial matchmaking two years ago. Using its de-identified Cosmos data set, Epic allows providers that register for the service to match clinical trial opportunities from sponsors and a count of their organization’s eligible patients. Many health systems have also tested using analytical applications that can surface clinical trial opportunities for patients using their organizations' EHR data. In October, Microsoft announced new AI tools that will enable health systems to build their custom AI tools for many administrative needs – including clinical trial matching. Bias in AI, however, is still a concern for clinical outcomes. It can surface in any algorithm development pipeline and worsen healthcare disparities , Yale School of Medicine researchers said in new research published earlier this month. ON THE RECORD "Our study shows that TrialGPT could help clinicians connect their patients to clinical trial opportunities more efficiently and save precious time that can be better spent on harder tasks that require human expertise," Zhiyong Lu, NLM senior investigator and the study's corresponding author, said in a statement. "This study shows we can responsibly leverage AI technology so physicians can connect their patients to a relevant clinical trial that may be of interest to them with even more speed and efficiency," Sherry added. Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News. Email: afox@himss.org Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — New York Jets kicker Greg Zuerlein will be activated from injured reserve and will play against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. Interim coach Jeff Ulbrich announced Friday that Zuerlein is returning after missing seven games with a knee injury to his left, non-kicking leg. He had been shaky before the injury, but the Jets have since been unsettled at the position, with Riley Patterson, Spencer Shrader and Anders Carlson all filling in. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.

By LOLITA C. BALDOR and MATTHEW LEE WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is expected to announce that it will send $1.25 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, U.S. officials said Friday, as the Biden administration pushes to get as much aid to Kyiv as possible before leaving office on Jan. 20. The large package of aid includes a significant amount of munitions, including for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems and the HAWK air defense system. It also will provide Stinger missiles and 155 mm- and 105 mm artillery rounds, officials said. The officials, who said they expect the announcement to be made on Monday, spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public. The new aid comes as Russia has launched a barrage of attacks against Ukraine’s power facilities in recent days, although Ukraine has said it intercepted a significant number of the missiles and drones. Russian and Ukrainian forces are also still in a bitter battle around the Russian border region of Kursk, where Moscow has sent thousands of North Korean troops to help reclaim territory taken by Ukraine. Earlier this month, senior defense officials acknowledged that that the Defense Department may not be able to send all of the remaining $5.6 billion in Pentagon weapons and equipment stocks passed by Congress for Ukraine before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in. Trump has talked about getting some type of negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia, and spoken about his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin . Many U.S. and European leaders are concerned that it might result in a poor deal for Ukraine and they worry that he won’t provide Ukraine with all the weapons funding approved by Congress. The aid in the new package is in presidential drawdown authority, which allows the Pentagon to take weapons off the shelves and send them quickly to Ukraine. This latest assistance would reduce the remaining amount to about $4.35 billion. Officials have said they hope that an influx of aid will help strengthen Ukraine’s hand, should Zelenskyy decide it’s time to negotiate. One senior defense official said that while the U.S. will continue to provide weapons to Ukraine until Jan. 20, there may well be funds remaining that will be available for the incoming Trump administration to spend. According to the Pentagon, there is also about $1.2 billion remaining in longer-term funding through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which is used to pay for weapons contracts that would not be delivered for a year or more. Officials have said the administration anticipates releasing all of that money before the end of the calendar year. If the new package is included, the U.S. has provided more than $64 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022."Moana 2" beats multiple box office records Thanksgiving weekendNebraska plans not to get caught sleeping vs. South Dakota

25 Tsunami memes taking the internet by stormHighway 11 NB reopens after snowstorm blasted the region, stranding motoristsGiller protesters relieved to see charges dropped, vow to continue antiwar action TORONTO — Charges against four of the five people arrested for protesting at last year's Giller Prize have been withdrawn, antiwar organizers announced Friday as they pledged to keep fighting for an end to Israel's attacks on Gaza. Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press Dec 6, 2024 1:20 PM Share by Email Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Print Share via Text Message Arrestee and writer Maysam Abu Khreibeh poses for a portrait in Toronto, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. It was announced today that four of the five people arrested and charged at a protest at the 2023 Giller Prize awards ceremony have had their charges withdrawn. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young TORONTO — Charges against four of the five people arrested for protesting at last year's Giller Prize have been withdrawn, antiwar organizers announced Friday as they pledged to keep fighting for an end to Israel's attacks on Gaza. The group CanLit Responds announced the development at a press conference across from a Scotiabank Toronto branch on Friday, more than a year after protesters interrupted the literary award decrying the big bank — then a title sponsor — for its investment in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. Scotiabank is still a Giller sponsor, though it's no longer in the award's title. "As a Palestinian writer and organizer, I know that this act of protest is the bare minimum of what we can do when bunker-busting bombs are dropping on our families back home," said Maysam Abu Khreibeh, 26, who was arrested that night. She said the move to withdraw the charges was delayed for months, leaving her and her fellow protesters in legal limbo longer than necessary. "I do feel relieved to hear that the courts finally recognize that what we did is not something that should be criminalized, that the charges were withdrawn," she said after the press conference. Abu Khreibeh was one of three people arrested the night of the ceremony and charged with criminal mischief and using a forged document to gain entry to the ceremony, while CanLit Responds said two others were arrested later. The protest took place just over a month after the war began, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 others hostage. In response, Israel launched an assault on Gaza killing at least 44,500 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence. This week, Amnesty International called Israel's actions a genocide and said the Oct. 7 attacks did not justify it. Israel rejects the allegations. Abu Khreibeh's lawyer, Riaz Sayani, said in a written statement that the Giller protesters never should have been charged. "The Crown correctly withdrew the charges. It was not in the public interest to proceed, given the nature of this protest. In my view, there was also no reasonable prospect of conviction," he said. "To mislabel this kind of protest as a criminal act has a chilling effect and undermines everyone’s right to free expression." In an email, Toronto Police spokeswoman Stephanie Sayer said the Crown’s decision to drop the charges "does not negate the reasonable grounds upon which charges were laid or the validity of the charges." CanLit Responds said charges against the fifth protester are still before the court. Toronto police say charges were filed against her in May, and she was arrested in September 2024. Abu Khreibeh said she didn't expect the Canadian literary community to rally around the protesters in the way many of them have. The day after she was arrested, when she was still feeling paranoid and anxious, thousands of writers signed a letter calling for the charges against the protesters to be dropped. Since then, dozens of authors withdrew their books from consideration for the prize and many pledged to boycott the award. They're calling on the Giller Foundation to sever ties with Scotiabank, and for the financial institution's subsidiary to divest from Elbit Systems. Prize organizers have not ended any of those sponsorships but did drop Scotiabank from the name of the award. Giller Foundation Executive Director Elana Rabinovitch said the board made that change in order to keep the focus on the writers. Scotiabank representatives did not respond to requests for comment. Asked to comment on the charges being dropped, Rabinovitch said the literary non-profit "fully and unequivocally supports freedom of speech, expression, dissent and the right to protest." Fatima Hussain, who was also arrested last November, said the last year has been jarring. The 24-year-old wasn't able to travel to the U.S. to visit an ill grandparent. Nor was she allowed to speak with her co-accused while the charges were before the courts. She still can't communicate with the final protester who was arrested. But still, she doesn't regret getting involved in the protest. This sort of action is ingrained in her, she said. She was born in Iraq in the years between the Gulf War and Iraq War, and she said one of her earliest memories was at an antiwar protest. So while the arrests may have had a chilling effect on some, it won't work on her. "We keep fighting because the genocide doesn't end," Hussain said. "People don't stop dying. We keep going." This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 6, 2024. Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press See a typo/mistake? Have a story/tip? This has been shared 0 times 0 Shares Share by Email Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Print Share via Text Message More The Mix Police believe the gunman who killed UnitedHealthcare's CEO left NYC on a bus after the shooting Dec 6, 2024 2:01 PM Health Canada says daily cannabis use hasn't changed much since legalization Dec 6, 2024 1:56 PM Tech stocks help lift S&P/TSX Friday, U.S. stock markets mixed after jobs report Dec 6, 2024 1:50 PM Featured Flyer