Dr Manmohan Singh's Legacy Continues To Shape India: UK Foreign Secretary

By ROB GILLIES, Associated Press TORONTO (AP) — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Donald Trump that Americans would also suffer if the president-elect follows through on a plan to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products , a Canadian minister who attended their recent dinner said Monday. Trump threatened to impose tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico if they don’t stop what he called the flow of drugs and migrants across their borders with the United States. He said on social media last week that he would impose a 25% tax on all products entering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico as one of his first executive orders. Canadian Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, whose responsibilities include border security, attended a dinner with Trump and Trudeau at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club on Friday. Trudeau requested the meeting in a bid to avoid the tariffs by convincing Trump that the northern border is nothing like the U.S. southern border with Mexico . “The prime minister of course spoke about the importance of protecting the Canadian economy and Canadian workers from tariffs, but we also discussed with our American friends the negative impact that those tariffs could have on their economy, on affordability in the United States as well,” LeBlanc said in Parliament. If Trump makes good on his threat to slap 25% tariffs on everything imported from Mexico and Canada, the price increases that could follow will collide with his campaign promise to give American families a break from inflation. Economists say companies would have little choice but to pass along the added costs, dramatically raising prices for food, clothing, automobiles, alcohol and other goods. The Produce Distributors Association, a Washington trade group, said last week that tariffs will raise prices for fresh fruit and vegetables and hurt U.S. farmers when the countries retaliate. Canada is already examining possible retaliatory tariffs on certain items from the U.S. should Trump follow through on the threat. After his dinner with Trump, Trudeau returned home without assurances the president-elect will back away from threatened tariffs on all products from the major American trading partner. Trump called the talks “productive” but signaled no retreat from a pledge that Canada says unfairly lumps it in with Mexico over the flow of drugs and migrants into the United States. “The idea that we came back empty handed is completely false,” LeBlanc said. “We had a very productive discussion with Mr. Trump and his future Cabinet secretaries. ... The commitment from Mr. Trump to continue to work with us was far from empty handed.” Joining Trump and Trudeau at dinner were Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department, and Mike Waltz, Trump’s choice to be his national security adviser. Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., Kirsten Hillman, told The Associated Press on Sunday that “the message that our border is so vastly different than the Mexican border was really understood.” Hillman, who sat at an adjacent table to Trudeau and Trump, said Canada is not the problem when it comes to drugs and migrants. On Monday, Mexico’s president rejected those comments. “Mexico must be respected, especially by its trading partners,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said. She said Canada had its own problems with fentanyl consumption and “could only wish they had the cultural riches Mexico has.” Flows of migrants and seizures of drugs at the two countries’ border are vastly different. U.S. customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border during the last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border. Most of the fentanyl reaching the U.S. — where it causes about 70,000 overdose deaths annually — is made by Mexican drug cartels using precursor chemicals smuggled from Asia. On immigration, the U.S. Border Patrol reported 1.53 million encounters with migrants at the southwest border with Mexico between October 2023 and September 2024. That compares to 23,721 encounters at the Canadian border during that time. Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states. Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian (US$2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day. About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports as well. Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing for national security.EU rules requiring all new smartphones, tablets and cameras to use the same charger came into force on Saturday, in a change Brussels said will cut costs and waste. Manufacturers are now obliged to fit devices sold in the 27-nation bloc with a USB-C, the port chosen by the European Union as the common standard for charging electronic tools. "Starting today, all new mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, speakers, keyboards and many other electronics sold in the EU will have to be equipped with a USB Type-C charging port," the EU Parliament wrote on social media X. The EU has said the single charger rule will simplify the life of Europeans and slash costs for consumers. By allowing consumers to purchase a new device without a new charger, it will also reduce the mountain of obsolete chargers, the bloc has argued. The law was first approved in 2022 following a tussle with US tech giant Apple. It allowed companies until December 28 this year to adapt. Makers of laptops will have extra time, from early 2026, to also follow suit. Most devices already use these cables, but Apple was more than a little reluctant. The firm said in 2021 that such regulation "stifles innovation", but by September last year it had begun shipping phones with the new port. Makers of electronic consumer items in Europe had agreed on a single charging norm from dozens on the market a decade ago under a voluntary agreement with the European Commission. But Apple, the world's biggest seller of smartphones, refused to abide by it and ditch its Lightning ports. Other manufacturers kept their alternative cables going, meaning there were about half a dozen types knocking around, creating a jumble of cables for consumers. USB-C ports can charge at up to 100 Watts, transfer data up to 40 gigabits per second, and can serve to hook up to external displays. At the time of its approval, the commission said the law was expected to save at least 200 million euros ($208 million) per year and cut more than a thousand tonnes of EU electronic waste every year. "It's time for THE charger," the European Commission wrote on X on Saturday. "It means better-charging technology, reduced e-waste, and less fuss to find the chargers you need." ub/giv

NEW YORK (AP) — If you're planning on ringing in the new year quietly at home, you're not alone. A majority of U.S adults intend to celebrate New Year’s Eve at home, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research . “As I’ve gotten older over the last few years, it’s like if I don’t make it to midnight, it’s not a big deal, you know?” says Carla Woods, 70, from Vinton, Iowa. Nearly 2 in 10 will be celebrating at a friend or family member’s home, and just 5% plan to go out to celebrate at a bar, restaurant or organized event, the poll found. But many U.S. adults will celebrate the new year in a different way — by making a resolution. More than half say they'll make at least one resolution for 2025. There's some optimism about the year ahead, although more than half aren't expecting a positive change. About 4 in 10 say 2025 will be a better year for them personally. About one-third don’t expect much of a difference between 2024 and 2025, and about one-quarter think 2025 will be a worse year than 2024. Kourtney Kershaw, a 32-year-old bartender in Chicago, often fields questions from customers and friends about upcoming events for New Year's Eve. She said this year is trending toward low-key. “A majority of who I’ve spoken to in my age range, they want to go out, but they don’t know what they’re going to do because they haven’t found anything or things are just really expensive,” she said. “Party packages or an entry fee are like a turnoff, especially with the climate of the world and how much things cost.” As expected, younger people are more interested in ringing in the new year at a bar or organized event — about 1 in 10 U.S. adults under 30 say they plan to do that. But about 3 in 10 older adults — 60 and above — say they won’t celebrate the beginning of 2025 at all. Anthony Tremblay, 35, from Pittsburgh, doesn't usually go out to toast the arrival of the new year, but this year he's got something special cooked up: He and his wife will be traveling through Ireland. “I don’t do anything too crazy for New Year’s, usually. So this is definitely a change,” he said. “I wanted to do something unique this year, so I did.” Woods will be working New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. She answers calls on The Iowa Warmline, a confidential, noncrisis listening line for people struggling with mental health or substance use issues. “Holidays are really hard for people, so I don’t mind working,” she said. “I’m passionate about it because I have mental health issues in the family and so being able to help people is rewarding to me.” Every New Year's also triggers the eternal debate about resolutions. A majority of U.S. adults say they intend to make a New Year’s resolution of some type, but millennials and Gen Z are especially likely to be on board — about two-thirds expect to do so, compared to about half of older adults. Women are also more likely than men to say they will set a goal for 2025. Tremblay hopes to lose some weight and focus more on self-care — more sleep, meditation and breathing exercises. “It’s probably a good year to focus on mental health,” he said. Many others agree. About 3 in 10 adults choose resolutions involving exercise or eating healthier. About one-quarter said they'll make a resolution involving losing weight and a similar number said they'll resolve to make changes about priorities of money or mental health. Woods' resolutions are to stay social and active. As a mental health counselor, she knows those are key to a happy 2025 and beyond: “Probably one of my biggest resolutions is trying to make sure I stay social, try to get out at least once a week — get out and either have coffee or do something with a friend. That’s not only for the physical but also for the mental health part.” Kershaw, the bartender, says weight loss and better health are the top resolutions she hears people make. “Mental health is the new one, but I think it’s high up there as well as with regular health,” she said. She prefers more goal-oriented resolutions and, this time, it's to do more traveling and see more of the world: “I don’t know if that’s really a resolution, but that’s a goal that I’m setting.” And how will she welcome the arrival of 2025? Usually, she takes the night off and stays home watching movies with plenty of snacks, but this year Kershaw has a different plan, maybe one of the most Chicago things you can do. This die-hard sports fan will be at Wrigley Field on Tuesday watching the Chicago Blackhawks take on the St. Louis Blues. “Hockey’s my favorite sport. So I will be watching hockey and bringing in the new year,” she said. The AP-NORC poll of 1,251 adults was conducted Dec. 5-9, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. Sanders reported from Washington.Brandon Libby, 36, left, enters a Cumberland County Superior Courtroom for a hearing in February. Libby was charged with murder in the death of his girlfriend in 2021. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer A Standish man accused of killing his girlfriend is headed to trial next week, and prosecutors plan to challenge his version of events with a reconstruction of the shooting. Brandon Libby, 37, has been charged with murder in connection with the death of Amanda Brown, whom police found dead in their home in 2021. Libby pleaded not guilty that fall. He rejected a plea offer from the Office of the Maine Attorney General in June, which would have capped his sentence at 42 years. Police responded to a call on June 16, 2021, and forced their way into the couple’s Standish home, where they found Brown, 29, who had been shot in the stomach and killed. Police found Libby barricaded in a home about 14 miles away in North Waterboro before convincing him to come out and talk. It wasn’t until after he was indicted by a grand jury in November 2021 that he was taken to the Cumberland County Jail, where he has spent three years waiting for trial. Libby is scheduled for trial Dec. 4. In excerpts of a police interview that prosecutors played in court during a pretrial hearing Tuesday, Libby could be heard saying that Brown pointed the gun at him first. He suggested that the gun went off after he tried pushing it out of her hand. Larry Rose, a Maine State Police sergeant who said he reconstructed the shooting, said in court that he reviewed Brown’s autopsy report, police reports and videos of the home where Brown was found. Gunshot markings on Brown’s clothing suggest that the gun was fired at extremely close range, with the muzzle against her shirt, Rose said. An employee from the Maine State Police crime lab tried replicating those markings by firing guns at varying distances, Rose said, but it only worked when the gun was in close contact. Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Liam Funte helped Rose determine the trajectory of the bullet, from its entry point in Brown’s stomach to where it stopped in her back, Rose said. Rose even demonstrated for Superior Justice Thomas McKeon how he believes the gun was fired, using a small plastic blue gun on Maine State Police detective Justin Huntley, who stood in Brown’s place. The sergeant said his theory was peer-reviewed. He also said the plastic gun was similar to the one used to shoot Brown. Rose also demonstrated for McKeon what Libby said happened. But the officer said it would have been “difficult” for the gun to go off the same way, according to Libby’s version. “It doesn’t get to the angle that it needs to be,” Rose said, theatrically pretending to knock the gun from Huntley’s hand. Libby attorney Matthew Crockett said in an email Tuesday that Libby’s legal team had no response to Rose’s testimony but “look(s) forward to presenting our defense next week.” Libby’s lawyers previously opposed the state’s plans to show Rose’s reconstruction, but they withdrew that objection Tuesday. Earlier this year, Libby tried to prevent the use of several statements he made to police while they were bringing him to a hospital, after he had been bitten by one of their K-9s in North Waterboro. Although Libby’s statements were made before police read him his Miranda rights, Superior Justice MaryGay Kennedy agreed that the statements were fair game for the state because police told him repeatedly he didn’t have to talk with them. Comments are not available on this story. Send questions/comments to the editors. « PreviousJamiya Neal's monster game leads Creighton past UNLV

An archbishop's knock formally restores Notre Dame to life as winds howl and heads of state look onCleanSpark Reports Record-Breaking FY 2024 Results: Outpacing Halving and DifficultyWe’re just days away at this point from putting 2024 in our rearview mirror — which, for those of us who cover all things streaming, means that it’ll soon be time to turn our attention to what all the major streamers have teed up for the year to come. In this post, I’m going to take a closer look at three upcoming that will be available on in 2025. They don’t have official release dates yet, but what’s already certain is that all three of these will dominate the cultural conversation once they arrive. HBO has already teased a look at its jam-packed release slate for 2025, via a sizzle reel that offered sneak peeks of new seasons of and , in addition to shows like , , and . For the moment, there are the three upcoming HBO titles that I’m most excited for — arranged in no particular order, we’ll start things off with a return to Westeros. is getting another highly anticipated addition to the franchise in the coming year, via the spinoff . In terms of what we know about it so far: The story is set a century before the events of the OG series, in an age when the Targaryen line still controls the Iron Throne and “the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory.” At the story’s center are two unlikely heroes wandering Westeros — a naive but courageous young knight named Ser Duncan the Tall and his diminutive squire Egg. Creator George R.R. Martin has given interviews in the past in which he’s talked about wanting to tell more “small” stories like this one within the larger world of — in the style of , which took two minor characters from and focused on them rather than the bigger and more familiar story. This new spinoff, needless to say, promises an exciting return to the franchise’s world of politics and power struggles. Sign up for the most interesting tech & entertainment news out there. By signing up, I agree to the and have reviewed the for this next upcoming HBO series, which dropped back in September, has already whetted the appetites of fans craving the new season of . The relationship between Pedro Pascal’s Joel and Bella Ramsey’s Ellie will obviously continue to be core to the show. Season 2 will also bring us the continued presence of the fearsome Clickers, as well as the Seraphite religious sect. The story will pick up after the dramatic first season finale, which saw Joel and Ellie reach Salt Lake City and the latter being resolute in accepting that her immunity might be the only path toward a cure for the show’s pandemic. New characters who will join the show this season include Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby, as well as Ellie’s love interest Dina, played by Isabela Merced. The luxury hotel chain at the center of this next popular HBO series will expand its fictional footprint to Thailand for the third season of , following the brand welcoming guests to Hawaii and Sicily in Seasons 1 and 2. The great draw of the show from creator Mike White is how it uses a luxurious setting as the backdrop for slice-of-life stories about both guests and hotel staff, mixing dark humor and social satire to create one of the most memorable TV releases of the last several years. The cast for Season 3 will include Carrie Coon, Walton Goggins, Michelle Monaghan, and Parker Posey, with Blackpink member and Thailand native Lisa (credited as Lalisa Manobal) also making an appearance. Beyond that, we know almost nothing of the new season’s plot. Both previous seasons, of course, opened with a shot of an unidentified body, setting up a mystery that propelled each season’s story. Meanwhile, there’s already been talk of a potential fourth season in the works, even before HBO gives us a release date for Season 3.

Donald Trump has nominated Warren Stephens, a billionaire banker, to be his ambassador to the United Kingdom. Since 1986 Stephens has been chief executive of Stephens Inc, a privately owned investment bank based in Arkansas that was set up by his family. He is estimated to be worth about $3.5 billion and was a donor to Trump’s presidential campaign. “I am pleased to announce that Warren A Stephens, one of the most successful businessmen in the country, has been nominated to serve as the United States Ambassador to the Court of St James’s, a role in which he will act as our representative to the United Kingdom,” Trump said in a post on social media. “Over the last 38 years, while serving as the president, chairman and CEO of his company, Stephens Inc, Warren has built a wonderful financial services firm, while selflessly giving back to his community as a philanthropist,” Trump added. “Warren has always dreamed of serving the United States full time. I am thrilled that he will now have that opportunity as the top diplomat, representing the USA to one of America’s most cherished and beloved allies.”

Olivia Hussey, Star of Romeo and Juliet, Dead at 73Arsenal make Mikel Arteta proud after smashing Sporting LisbonJamiya Neal finished with 19 points, nine rebounds, nine assists and four blocks to lead host Creighton over UNLV 83-65 on Saturday in Omaha, Neb. Creighton was without star Pop Isaacs, who was ruled out for the season on Saturday morning after undergoing surprise hip surgery. It was a startling turn, considering Isaacs led Creighton with 27 points in Wednesday's win over No. 1 Kansas. Neal and Steven Ashworth (17 points) anchored the backcourt in Isaacs' absence, combining to make 13-of-20 shots from the field. Neal made 7 of his 10 and Ashworth 6 of 10. Isaac Traudt also stepped up, making five 3-pointers off the bench to account for all 15 of his points. Ryan Kalkbrenner scored 12 points, making 4-of-5 attempts from the field, and added six rebounds. Creighton opened the second half on a 10-0 run, extending its lead to 49-27 before UNLV mustered an answer. Creighton made 10 consecutive shots early in the second half, extending its lead to a 62-41 with 12:20 remaining. Dedan Thomas Jr. paced UNLV with 18 points on 7-of-16 shooting, making 1 of 4 attempts from 3-point range. Jailen Bedford added a team-high 20 points for the Rebels on 8-of-15 shooting, scoring 17 points in the second half. Julian Rishwain added 10 points on 4-of-8 shooting, but UNLV's second leading scorer for the season, Jeremiah Cherry, was limited to just four points in 16 minutes after early foul trouble. Creighton shot a resounding 63.3 percent from the field for the game, including going 10-of-20 from beyond the arc. Creighton outscored UNLV 38-34 in the paint and outrebounded them 34-21. UNLV finished the game shooting 42.2 percent field, making 7-of-21 attempts from distance. --Field Level Media