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are gaming laptops good for vr Iran restores access to WhatsApp, Google Play after they were banned amid protestsNEW YORK: It’s a simple but brutal equation: The number of people going hungry or otherwise struggling around the world is rising, while the amount of money the world’s wealthiest nations are contributing toward helping them is dropping. The result: The United Nations says that, at best, it will be able to raise enough money to help about 60 percent of the 307 million people it predicts will need humanitarian aid next year. That means at least 117 million people won’t get food or other assistance in 2025. The UN also will end 2024 having raised about 46 percent of the $49.6 billion it sought for humanitarian aid across the globe, its own data shows. It’s the second year in a row the world body has raised less than half of what it sought. The shortfall has forced humanitarian agencies to make agonizing decisions, such as slashing rations for the hungry and cutting the number of people eligible for aid. The consequences are being felt in places like Syria, where the World Food Program (WFP), the UN’s main food distributor, used to feed 6 million people. Eyeing its projections for aid donations earlier this year, the WFP cut the number it hoped to help there to about 1 million people, said Rania Dagash-Kamara, the organization’s assistant executive director for partnerships and resource mobilization. Dagash-Kamara visited the WFP’s Syria staff in March. “Their line was, ‘We are at this point taking from the hungry to feed the starving,’” she said in an interview. UN officials see few reasons for optimism at a time of widespread conflict, political unrest and extreme weather, all factors that stoke famine. “We have been forced to scale back appeals to those in most dire need,” Tom Fletcher, UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, told Reuters. Financial pressures and shifting domestic politics are reshaping some wealthy nations’ decisions about where and how much to give. One of the UN’s largest donors – Germany – already shaved $500 million in funding from 2023 to 2024 as part of general belt tightening. The country’s cabinet has recommended another $1 billion reduction in humanitarian aid for 2025. A new parliament will decide next year’s spending plan after the federal election in February. Humanitarian organizations also are watching to see what US President-elect Donald Trump proposes after he begins his second term in January. Trump advisers have not said how he will approach humanitarian aid, but he sought to slash US funding in his first term. And he has hired advisers who say there is room for cuts in foreign aid. The US plays the leading role in preventing and combating starvation across the world. It provided $64.5 billion in humanitarian aid over the last five years. That was at least 38 percent of the total such contributions recorded by the UN. The majority of humanitarian funding comes from just three wealthy donors: the US, Germany and the European Commission. They provided 58 percent of the $170 billion recorded by the UN in response to crises from 2020 to 2024. Three other powers – China, Russia and India – collectively contributed less than 1 percent of UN-tracked humanitarian funding over the same period, according to a Reuters review of UN contributions data. The inability to close the funding gap is one of the major reasons the global system for tackling hunger and preventing famine is under enormous strain. The lack of adequate funding – coupled with the logistical hurdles of assessing need and delivering food aid in conflict zones, where many of the worst hunger crises exist – is taxing efforts to get enough aid to the starving. Almost 282 million people in 59 countries and territories were facing high levels of acute food insecurity in 2023. Reuters is documenting the global hunger-relief crisis in a series of reports, including from hard-hit Sudan, Myanmar and Afghanistan. The failure of major nations to pull their weight in funding for global initiatives has been a persistent Trump complaint. Project 2025, a set of policy proposals drawn up by Trump backers for his second term, calls on humanitarian agencies to work harder to collect more funding from other donors and says this should be a condition for additional US aid. On the campaign trail, Trump tried to distance himself from the controversial Project 2025 blueprint. But after winning the election, he chose one of its key architects, Russell Vought, to run the US Office of Management and Budget, a powerful body that helps decide presidential priorities and how to pay for them. For secretary of state, the top US diplomat, he tapped Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who has a record of supporting foreign aid. Project 2025 makes particular note of conflict – the very factor driving most of today’s worst hunger crises. “Humanitarian aid is sustaining war economies, creating financial incentives for warring parties to continue fighting, discouraging governments from reforming, and propping up malign regimes,” the blueprint says. It calls for deep cuts in international disaster aid by ending programs in places controlled by “malign actors.” Billionaire Elon Musk has been tapped by Trump to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a new body that will examine waste in government spending. Musk said this month on his social media platform, X, that DOGE would look at foreign aid. The aid cuts Trump sought in his first term didn’t pass Congress, which controls such spending. Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and close Trump ally on many issues, will chair the Senate committee that oversees the budget. In 2019, he called “insane” and “short-sighted” a Trump proposal to cut the budget for foreign aid and diplomacy by 23 percent. Asked about the aid conditions, a spokesperson for the US Agency for International Development, which oversees American humanitarian spending, said the agency acts “in accordance with the obligations and standards required by Congress.” Those standards aim to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of humanitarian aid, the spokesperson said, and aid conditions are meant to maintain “an appropriate measure of oversight to ensure the responsible use of US taxpayer funds.” In Ethiopia, as Reuters has detailed, massive amounts of aid from the UN World Food Program were diverted, in part because of the organization’s lax administrative controls. An internal WFP report on Sudan identified a range of problems in the organization’s response to an extreme hunger crisis there, Reuters reported earlier this month, including an inability to react adequately and what the report described as “anti-fraud challenges.” The UN has a “zero tolerance policy” toward “interferences” that disrupt aid and is working with donors to manage risks, said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. — Reuters

Fatigued drivers are one of the most common hazards on the road, but sleepy-heads on commercial wheels are to get AI-assisted safety prompts courtesy of biometric-tracking technology. The tech companies are targeting vehicle fleet operators and in particular long-haul trucking firms, reports , since such drivers usually drive the farthest distances and lengthiest times. While automakers have employed camera-based systems to monitor biometrics, such as drivers’ eye movements, posture, breathing and hand placement, for inattentiveness, companies are now using machine learning to detect signs of drowsiness. Driver monitoring tech developed by , , and (all California-based) deliver real-time audio alerts to a drowsy driver, prompting them to take a break to help avoid fatigue-related accidents. Motive’s AI monitors yawning and head movements; Nauto’s tech tracks yawning, blink duration and changes in the driver’s body posture; while Samsara’s system tracks drowsiness symptoms such as excessive eye closure, head nodding, eye-rubbing, slouching, and yawning. In order to develop such a system, Samsara had to train its AI on billions of minutes of video footage to come up with a model aligned with the clinical definition of drowsiness (the Karolinska Sleep Score). All the drowsiness-detection-tech companies have configured their systems so that fleet managers are directly contacted if a driver continues to operate the vehicle after they’ve been alerted of their drowsy condition. While Samsara says it is not seeking mass adoption of its technology in consumer vehicles, auto manufacturers such as Ford, Honda, Toyota and Daimler-Benz have incorporated similar alert signals for drowsy drivers to take a break. But as vehicles with Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) become more common, drowsiness-detection systems might turn into a feature of semi-autonomous vehicles as drivers could engage in risky behavior. In other biometrics-related auto news, professor and senior researcher in biometrics security and privacy Sébastian Marcel announced a new “iCarB” data set. The in-car biometric data set, which are actually three subsets, contains face videos, fingerprint images and voice samples for driver recognition collected by the Biometrics Security and Privacy Group at . The data set features demographic diversity as there is a fifty-fifty gender split, skin colors across the entire Fitzpatrick-scale spectrum, and ages ranging from 18 to 60-plus among the 200 data subjects. According to Marcel, the iCarB datasets can be used to evaluate and benchmark face, fingerprint and voice recognition systems; create multimodal pseudo-identities and to train and test multimodal fusion algorithms; create Presentation Attacks from the biometric data and to evaluate Presentation Attack Detection algorithms; investigate demographic and environmental biases in biometric systems, using the provided metadata. The paper “in-Car Biometrics (iCarB) Datasets for Driver Recognition: Face, Fingerprint, and Voice” can be found . The links to the subsets for face, fingerprint, and voice, respectively, can be found via Sébastian Marcel’s LinkedIn announcement . | | | | |Martin Lewis shares rare insight into relationship with 'poor wife' and says 'part of my personality'

PHILADELPHIA , Dec. 19, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- FMC Corporation (NYSE: FMC) announced today it will release its fourth quarter 2024 earnings on Tuesday, February 4, 2025 , after the stock market close via PR Newswire and the company's website https://investors.fmc.com . The company will host a webcast conference call on Tuesday, February 4, 2025 , at 5:00 p.m. ET that is open to the public via internet broadcast and telephone. At this time, management will provide commentary on the results from the fourth quarter and full year 2024, guidance for the first quarter and full year 2025, as well as an update on the three-year outlook and the company's strategy. The call time has been extended to 90 minutes from the usual 60 minutes to accommodate the number of topics and Q&A adequately. Conference Call Details: Internet broadcast: https://investors.fmc.com United States (Local): +1 404 975 4839 United States ( Toll-Free ): +1 833 470 1428 Global Dial-In Numbers: Global Dial-in Number Access Code: 338624 Pre-Registration Link: https://www.netroadshow.com/events/login?show=2f7e0221&confId=75596 A replay of the call will be available via the internet and telephone from 6:30 p.m. ET on February 4, 2025 , until February 24, 2025 . Internet replay: https://investors.fmc.com United States (Local): 1 929 458 6194 United States ( Toll-Free ): 1 866 813 9403 Access Code: 793208 About FMC FMC Corporation is a global agricultural sciences company dedicated to helping growers produce food, feed, fiber and fuel for an expanding world population while adapting to a changing environment. FMC's innovative crop protection solutions – including biologicals, crop nutrition, digital and precision agriculture – enable growers and crop advisers to address their toughest challenges economically while protecting the environment. With approximately 5,800 employees at more than 100 sites worldwide, FMC is committed to discovering new herbicide, insecticide and fungicide active ingredients, product formulations and pioneering technologies that are consistently better for the planet. Visit fmc.com to learn more and follow us on LinkedIn ® . View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fmc-corporation-announces-date-for-fourth-quarter-2024-earnings-release-and-webcast-conference-call-302336288.html SOURCE FMC Corporation

The 26-year-old man charged in the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO appeared in a Pennsylvania courtroom on Tuesday, where he was denied bail and his lawyer said he’d fight extradition to New York City, where the attack happened. Luigi Nicholas Mangione was arrested Monday in the Dec. 4 attack on Brian Thompson after they say a worker at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, alerted authorities to a customer who resembled the suspected gunman. When arrested, Mangione had on him a gun that investigators believe was used in the attack and writings expressing anger at corporate America, police said. As Mangione arrived at the courthouse Tuesday, he struggled with officers and shouted something that was partly unintelligible but referred to an “insult to the intelligence of the American people.” Mangione is being held on Pennsylvania charges of possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. Manhattan prosecutors have charged him with five counts, including murder, criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a forged instrument. Here are some of the latest developments: Wearing an orange jumpsuit, Mangione mostly stared straight ahead during the hearing, occasionally consulting papers, rocking in his chair, or looking back at the gallery. At one point, he began to speak to respond to the court discussion but was quieted by his lawyer. Judge David Consiglio denied bail to Mangione, whose attorney, Thomas Dickey, told the court that his client did not agree to extradition and wants a hearing on the matter. Blair County (Pennsylvania) District Attorney Peter Weeks said that although Mangione’s fighting extradition will create “extra hoops” for law enforcement to jump through, it won’t be a substantial barrier to sending him to New York. In addition to a three-page, handwritten document that suggests he harbored “ill will toward corporate America,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Monday that Mangione also had a ghost gun, a type of weapon that can be assembled at home and is difficult to trace. Officers questioned Mangione, who was acting suspiciously and carrying multiple fraudulent IDs, as well as a U.S. passport, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. Officers also found a sound suppressor, or silencer, “consistent with the weapon used in the murder,” she said. He had clothing and a mask similar to those worn by the shooter and a fraudulent New Jersey ID matching one the suspect used to check into a New York City hostel before the shooting, the commissioner said. Kenny said Mangione was born and raised in Maryland, has ties to San Francisco and that his last known address is in Honolulu. Mangione, who was valedictorian of his Maryland prep school, earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science in 2020 from the University of Pennsylvania, a university spokesman told The Associated Press on Monday. Mangione comes from a prominent Maryland family. His grandfather Nick Mangione, who died in 2008, was a successful real estate developer. Mangione likely was motivated by his anger with what he called “parasitic” health insurance companies and a disdain for corporate greed, said a law enforcement bulletin obtained by The Associated Press. He wrote that the U.S. has the most expensive health care system in the world and that the profits of major corporations continue to rise while “our life expectancy” does not, according to the bulletin, which was based on a review of the suspect’s hand-written notes and social media postings. The defendant appeared to view the targeted killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO as a symbolic takedown and may have been inspired by “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, whom he called a “political revolutionary,” the document said. Police said the person who killed Thompson left a hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side at 5:41 a.m. on Dec. 4. Eleven minutes later, he was seen on surveillance video walking back and forth in front of the New York Hilton Midtown, wearing a distinctive backpack. At 6:44 a.m., he shot Thompson at a side entrance to the hotel, fled on foot, then climbed aboard a bicycle and within four minutes had entered Central Park, according to police. Another security camera recorded the gunman leaving the park near the American Museum of Natural History at 6:56 a.m. still on the bicycle but without the backpack, police said. After getting in a taxi, he headed north to a bus terminal near the George Washington Bridge, arriving at about 7:30 a.m. From there, the trail of video evidence ran cold. Police did not see video of the suspect exiting the building, leading them to believe he likely took a bus out of town. Police said they are still investigating the path the suspect took to Pennsylvania. “We’ll be working, backtracking his steps from New York to Altoona, Pennsylvania,” Kenny said. Get local news delivered to your inbox!Spending squeeze ‘could cost more than 10,000 Civil Service jobs’Stock market today: Wall Street ends little changed after giving up a big morning gain

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