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quick hits slot machine Nissan and Honda confirm merger talks to create world's third largest car makerThe Yomiuri Shimbun 2:00 JST, December 25, 2024 The government plans to submit a bill to revise the Whistleblower Protection Law to the next ordinary Diet session, to be convened in January, to impose criminal punishments on corporations and other entities that mistreat whistleblowers by dismissing them or through other means. Officials concluded it was necessary to enhance the law in light of the case of a prefectural senior official who was given a three-month suspension after accusing of the governor of wrongdoing. Criminal punishment is expected to be imposed on organizations and individuals that violate the law. The degree of that punishment will be finalized going forward. The Whistleblower Protection Law already prohibits mistreating people for whistleblowing, but there have been no penal provisions against violations. Dismissing and taking disciplinary measures against whistleblowers are expected to be subjected to criminal punishment as forms of mistreatment. But the government does not plan to cover personnel relocations and harassment under this law, because it is expected to be difficult to objectively determine their causal connection with whistleblowing. The Whistleblower Protection Law already obliges companies and other entities with more than 300 employees to set up an internal consultation center for whistleblowing and assign personnel to respond to reports from whistleblowers. The government also plans to introduce criminal penalties for failure to meet these obligations. The government also plans to introduce new clauses that ban trying to figure out a whistleblower’s identity and trying to obstruct whistleblowing, such as by making employees promise not to blow the whistle when they sign an employment contract. According to a 2023 questionnaire by the Consumer Affairs Agency, 17.2% of whistleblowers said they regretted having made their reports, citing such reasons as they were mistreated or their colleagues found out that they were a whistleblower. In the case of Hyogo Gov. Motohiko Saito, who was accused of using his power to harass prefectural government officials, the prefectural government identified the whistleblower, who was then a senior government official, and handed him a three-month disciplinary suspension. It was pointed out that the prefectural government’s acts violated the Whistleblower Protection Law, which prohibits any mistreatment of whistleblowers due to their whistleblowing. In the case of major used car dealer Bigmotor Co., whose operations were taken over by a new company after revelations of fraudulent insurance claims by the original management, it came to light that the company failed to have a whistleblowing system. A Consumer Affairs Agency panel tasked with discussing systems to protect whistleblowers plans to compile a report by the end of this year. The report by the panel, which is headed by University of Tokyo Prof. Ryuji Yamamoto, is expected to point to the need to incorporate criminal penalties into the law. The government will make preparations to revise the law in line with the report’s findings. The government hopes to adopt the revision bill at a Cabinet meeting in February and submit it to the ordinary Diet session.

By MARC LEVY HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania conceded his reelection bid to Republican David McCormick on Thursday, as a statewide recount showed no signs of closing the gap and his campaign suffered repeated blows in court in its effort to get potentially favorable ballots counted. Casey’s concession comes more than two weeks after Election Day, as a grindingly slow ballot-counting process became a spectacle of hours-long election board meetings, social media outrage, lawsuits and accusations that some county officials were openly flouting the law. Republicans had been claiming that Democrats were trying to steal McCormick’s seat by counting “illegal votes.” Casey’s campaign had accused of Republicans of trying to block enough votes to prevent him from pulling ahead and winning. In a statement, Casey said he had just called McCormick to congratulate him. “As the first count of ballots is completed, Pennsylvanians can move forward with the knowledge that their voices were heard, whether their vote was the first to be counted or the last,” Casey said. The Associated Press called the race for McCormick on Nov. 7, concluding that not enough ballots remained to be counted in areas Casey was winning for him to take the lead. As of Thursday, McCormick led by about 16,000 votes out of almost 7 million ballots counted. That was well within the 0.5% margin threshold to trigger an automatic statewide recount under Pennsylvania law. But no election official expected a recount to change more than a couple hundred votes or so, and Pennsylvania’s highest court dealt him a blow when it refused entreaties to allow counties to count mail-in ballots that lacked a correct handwritten date on the return envelope. Republicans will have a 53-47 majority next year in the U.S. Senate. Follow Marc Levy at twitter.com/timelywriterFriday, November 22, 2024 TUI has unveiled a groundbreaking internal platform that empowers employees to create their own personalized AI assistants. With just a few simple steps, staff can tap into the transformative potential of generative artificial intelligence to streamline everyday tasks, all without needing any IT expertise. Whether it’s analyzing complex Excel data, drafting hotel descriptions, or setting personal career goals, these AI assistants are designed to handle a variety of tasks, enabling employees to focus on more strategic activities. The platform, known internally as the “TUI AI Assistant Store,” has seen remarkable engagement since its introduction. During the initial testing phase, over 200 custom AI assistants were created and used extensively. Within just a few weeks, more than 2,000 employees explored the platform, and today, over 400 assistants are readily available to support the workforce. The platform fosters collaboration by allowing employees to share their AI creations with colleagues. For those who prefer not to build their own assistants, the platform offers a library of pre-existing tools tailored to various job functions. Employees can also invite one another to use specific assistants, promoting teamwork and efficiency. In recent weeks alone, the TUI AI Assistant Store has processed an impressive 50 million words and over 15 million document pieces. These AI-driven solutions are making day-to-day operations smoother and more efficient, highlighting the platform’s significant impact on productivity. By integrating generative AI into the workplace, TUI is not only enhancing operational efficiency but also empowering its employees to innovate and adapt to the evolving demands of the modern workplace. This initiative underscores TUI’s commitment to leveraging technology to support its workforce and drive future growth. “Our developers have been working on AI since 2016. And today, we use more than 15 per cent of our cloud capacity for AI applications. Our focus is on integrating the technology into our processes and platforms. At the same time, we are ensuring that our teams also benefit from the potential of generative artificial intelligence in their day-to-day work with the TUI AI Assistant Store. It was important to us to have an offering that is easy for everyone to use and that guarantees the highest level of security for personal and company data,” says Pieter Jordaan, Member of the Group Executive Committee and Chief Information Officer of TUI Group. The launch of the TUI AI Assistant Store is transforming efficiency for TUI employees. By automating repetitive tasks, the AI assistants allow teams to prioritize essential activities such as personal interactions with customers, quality-focused content creation, and strategic projects. Early results highlight the impact: for TUI’s British ski holiday brand, an AI assistant has reduced the time needed to create hotel descriptions by up to 80%. Tasks that previously required two to three hours are now completed in just 20 to 30 minutes, delivering content that is both audience-focused and SEO-optimized. These AI assistants excel at handling specialized tasks that demand a deep understanding of context. Teams can easily provide this contextual knowledge through presentations, summaries, or text inputs, ensuring accurate and effective results. Additionally, the technology behind TUI AI Assistants supports IT teams in accelerating the deployment of secure and reliable generative AI features for TUI’s app and website, paving the way for enhanced digital experiences.

NoneColorado officials say avalanche conditions could be ‘tricky’ as slides become more dangerous with more snowfall

The Associated Press NEW 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.

The Associated Press NEW 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.Cam Ward breaks Bernie Kosar's single-season Miami passing yards and completions records

The rivalry between two of the world's richest men, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, has once again become a topic of discussion. Musk accused Bezos of having urged the public to sell Tesla and SpaceX stocks before the critical U.S. presidential election. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Musk also alleged that Bezos had said Trump was going to lose. In an unusual statement, Bezos responded by outright denying the claims. Musk's Accusation Elon Musk, a prominent supporter of Donald Trump during the election, accused Jeff Bezos of telling people that Trump would certainly lose. According to Musk, the panic created from this statement might have caused some people to sell their Tesla and SpaceX stocks out of a growing fear that if Trump lost, there might be market repercussions. Musk tweeted that someone had told him this at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's resort in Florida. Bezos Denies Claims Jeff Bezos, hardly ever present on social media, came back with a short but to-the-point denial of Musk's claims. In his first post since November 6, Bezos stated: “Nope. 100% not true.” Musk later pressed a laughing emoji and said: “Well, then, I stand corrected.” What It Looks Like Musk is said to have spent over $130 million on Trump's reelection campaign and has had a close connection with the former president. There have been a series of controversies over his association with Trump, fearing that it may sting Tesla and SpaceX stocks during political turmoil moments. It seems that Musk and Bezos fought an antagonistic battle, and the companies Tesla and Amazon are always embroiled in the technological and innovation wars with one another. In this case, for now, the matter appears to be settled, illustrating the growing public nature of disputes between billionaire titans. Get Latest News Live on Times Now along with Breaking News and Top Headlines from Technology Science and around the world.