lucky 777 online casino

Politics live chat: the Star's Ottawa reporters take your questions on the year in politicsLooking for champions and crowding the portal

Bus accident involving actors from ‘Kantara: Chapter 1’ leaves several injuredNone

FAIRFIELD — Calonni Holloway had a team-high 29 points as the Vanden High School girls basketball team opened the season with a 59-45 victory Saturday over Monterey Trail in a Northern California Showcase game in Sacramento. Makayla Smith added eight points. La'Miracle Lebon pulled down 12 rebounds. Vanden travels to Oakland Tech Tuesday night for a 7 p.m. matchup against their long-time regular season and playoff rivals.Nawrocki Faces Trzaskowski in Pivotal Polish Presidential RaceA federal appeals court panel on Friday unanimously upheld a law that could lead to a ban on TikTok in a few short months, handing a resounding defeat to the popular social media platform as it fights for its survival in the U.S. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied TikTok's petition to overturn the law — which requires TikTok to break ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance or be banned by mid-January — and rebuffed the company's challenge of the statute, which it argued had ran afoul of the First Amendment. “The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” said the court's opinion, which was written by Judge Douglas Ginsburg. “Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.” TikTok and ByteDance — another plaintiff in the lawsuit — are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court, though its unclear whether the court will take up the case. “The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue," TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people,” Hughes said. Unless stopped, he argued the statute “will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025.” Though the case is squarely in the court system, it's also possible the two companies might be thrown some sort of a lifeline by President-elect Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok during his first term but said during the presidential campaign that he is now against such action . The law, signed by President Joe Biden in April, was the culmination of a yearslong saga in Washington over the short-form video-sharing app, which the government sees as a national security threat due to its connections to China. The U.S. has said it’s concerned about TikTok collecting vast swaths of user data, including sensitive information on viewing habits , that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion. Officials have also warned the proprietary algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect — a concern mirrored by the European Union on Friday as it scrutinizes the video-sharing app’s role in the Romanian elections. TikTok, which sued the government over the law in May, has long denied it could be used by Beijing to spy on or manipulate Americans. Its attorneys have accurately pointed out that the U.S. hasn’t provided evidence to show that the company handed over user data to the Chinese government, or manipulated content for Beijing’s benefit in the U.S. They have also argued the law is predicated on future risks, which the Department of Justice has emphasized pointing in part to unspecified action it claims the two companies have taken in the past due to demands from the Chinese government. Friday’s ruling came after the appeals court panel, composed of two Republicans and one Democrat appointed judges, heard oral arguments in September. In the hearing, which lasted more than two hours, the panel appeared to grapple with how TikTok’s foreign ownership affects its rights under the Constitution and how far the government could go to curtail potential influence from abroad on a foreign-owned platform. On Friday, all three denied TikTok’s petition. In the court's ruling, Ginsburg, a Republican appointee, rejected TikTok's main legal arguments against the law, including that the statute was an unlawful bill of attainder, or a taking of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. He also said the law did not violate the First Amendment because the government is not looking to "suppress content or require a certain mix of content” on TikTok. Story continues below video “Content on the platform could in principle remain unchanged after divestiture, and people in the United States would remain free to read and share as much PRC propaganda (or any other content) as they desire on TikTok or any other platform of their choosing,” Ginsburg wrote, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China. Judge Sri Srinivasan, the chief judge on the court, issued a concurring opinion. TikTok’s lawsuit was consolidated with a second legal challenge brought by several content creators — for which the company is covering legal costs — as well as a third one filed on behalf of conservative creators who work with a nonprofit called BASED Politics Inc. Other organizations, including the Knight First Amendment Institute, had also filed amicus briefs supporting TikTok. “This is a deeply misguided ruling that reads important First Amendment precedents too narrowly and gives the government sweeping power to restrict Americans’ access to information, ideas, and media from abroad,” said Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the organization. “We hope that the appeals court’s ruling won’t be the last word.” Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, lawmakers who had pushed for the legislation celebrated the court's ruling. "I am optimistic that President Trump will facilitate an American takeover of TikTok to allow its continued use in the United States and I look forward to welcoming the app in America under new ownership,” said Republican Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, chairman of the House Select Committee on China. Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who co-authored the law, said “it's time for ByteDance to accept” the law. To assuage concerns about the company’s owners, TikTok says it has invested more than $2 billion to bolster protections around U.S. user data. The company has also argued the government’s broader concerns could have been resolved in a draft agreement it provided the Biden administration more than two years ago during talks between the two sides. It has blamed the government for walking away from further negotiations on the agreement, which the Justice Department argues is insufficient. Attorneys for the two companies have claimed it’s impossible to divest the platform commercially and technologically. They also say any sale of TikTok without the coveted algorithm — the platform’s secret sauce that Chinese authorities would likely block under any divesture plan — would turn the U.S. version of TikTok into an island disconnected from other global content. Still, some investors, including Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire Frank McCourt, have expressed interest in purchasing the platform. Both men said earlier this year that they were launching a consortium to purchase TikTok’s U.S. business. This week, a spokesperson for McCourt’s Project Liberty initiative, which aims to protect online privacy, said unnamed participants in their bid have made informal commitments of more than $20 billion in capital.

Donald Trump to ring New York Stock Exchange bell as he's named Time's Person of the Year

Southwest Airlines Co. stock underperforms Friday when compared to competitorsDyskinetic Cerebral Palsy: A Closer Look at Symptoms, Diagnosis and Clinical Research UnderwayDrama kingsThe Boston Celtics look good value to defend their title, in large part to the play of Jayson Tatum. A consensus top-five player in the league who is coming off his first NBA championship and Olympic gold medal over the summer, the Celtics star has positioned his squad to a 16-4 start, good for second in the East. However, the last couple of months weren't as smooth sailing for Tatum as everyone would like to believe. During the Olympics , Tatum received very little to no playing time throughout Team USA's run to the gold. But Celtics teammate and Team USA teammate Jrue Holiday revealed on the Podcast P with Paul George that Tatum could not have handled his situation any better. “JT, the way he handled it, he handled it like a professional," Holiday said. “He never brought it in the locker room, he never brought it to us like, yeah, we talked about it and all that, but it was never like it was an issue.” Holiday sang Tatum's maturity and professionalism, while also being puzzled at the same time as to why Team USA's head coach, Steve Kerr, chose to restrict Tatum's playing time. “Was it weird? Yeah, it’s Jayson Tatum ,” Holiday said. “What do you mean? He’s a top five player in the league, just won a championship, one of the best players in the playoffs and in the Finals. “When it was happening, you felt for him. You could see that he was upset, he wanted to play. "But he wasn't pouting, I can tell you that. He would get in the gym. It's not like he stopped working. "He was the one seriously trying to be like, all right, well, I'm gonna stay ready whenever my numbers called." George was also impressed with how Tatum handled the whole situation. "I did think he handled that amazingly," George said. "He handled it like a professional. Shoutout JT, that was dope." Not often does a player coming off a championship run have to take a backseat at the Olympics. But that is exactly what Tatum did, as the team was centered on the presumed last run for LeBron James , Steph Curry and Kevin Durant . It was the proverbial swan song for the big three and their Team USA careers. They didn't lose a single game, while all three superstars had their individual moments, most notably Curry in the semifinals against Serbia, and then again in the gold medal game against France. Tatum's limited playing time in Paris clearly hasn't impacted his start to the season as he is currently averaging 28.9 points per game to go along with 8.5 rebounds and 5.7 assists. In other words, he's once again playing at an MVP-level. As Holiday noted, Tatum handled it all with class, and in turn, it looks as though it has fueled him to begin the season. That's a scary sign for the rest of the league.

The picture shows arrive in Fiji

House approves $895B defense bill with military pay raise, ban on transgender care for minors

C3.ai ( AI 8.08% ) stock enjoyed another day of big gains Friday. The software and consulting specialist's share price closed out the session up 8.1% and had been up as much as 8.4% earlier in the day's trading. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 index ended the daily session up 0.25%, and the Nasdaq Composite index closed out the day up 0.8%. C3.ai gained ground today thanks to a promising political development and news that one of its competitors had forged a significant new defense partnership. With just a few weeks in the year remaining, the stock is now up roughly 41% across this year's trading. AI stocks jump on Trump czar announcement President-elect Donald Trump published a message on social media today announcing that he plans to name venture capitalist David Sacks as artificial intelligence ( AI ) and crypto czar in his administration. Some investors are interpreting the announcement as a signal that the incoming Trump administration will help to create favorable demand and regulatory backdrops and drive business for AI players. While it's too early to say what the net political effects for AI companies will look like under the new administration, there are good reasons to think that demand in key AI category verticals will remain very strong. Why are Palantir's partnerships good news for C3.ai? Palantir and Booz Allen Hamilton announced a new partnership that will see them collaborating on innovations for the defense industry. Palantir also announced that it was partnering with Shield AI to improve the capabilities of autonomous, unmanned vehicles. Again, the partnership has a defense-industry focus, and Shield AI will be using Palantir's Warp Speed manufacturing operating system for scalable AI solutions. While Palantir competes with C3.ai in some spaces, evidence of ramping demand in the defense industry is a broadly bullish sign. C3.ai has also won substantial deals and partnerships with the U.S. government and related defense contractors, and its recent partnership with Microsoft to expand the adoption of enterprise AI points to unfolding opportunities in the private sector as well.