RJ Johnson, Daylen Berry lift Charleston Southern to surprising 83-79 victory over MiamiNew Delhi: The production-linked incentive (PLI) for the food processing industry has generated employment of more than 2.89 lakh (as of October 31), the government said on Friday. According to data reported by the scheme's beneficiaries, an investment of Rs 8,910 crore has been made across 213 locations in the country, the Ministry of Food Processing Industries said in a statement. The PLI scheme for Food Processing Industry (PLISFPI) was approved by the Union Cabinet on March 31, 2021 with a budget of Rs 10,900 crore, to be implemented from 2021-22 to 2026-27. About 171 applicants have been enrolled under the scheme, informed the ministry. The beneficiary selection process under PLISFPI was conducted as a one-time exercise, preceded by active stakeholder engagement and extensive publicity to ensure broad participation. The Ministry said that by mandating the use of domestically-grown agricultural products (excluding additives, flavours and edible oils) in the manufacturing process, the scheme has substantially increased local raw material procurement, benefiting underdeveloped and rural areas while supporting farmers' incomes. 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The scheme has significantly contributed to the country's overall growth and development by scaling up domestic manufacturing, enhancing value addition, boosting the domestic production of raw materials, and creating employment opportunities. The Centre actively supports small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the food processing sector via schemes like Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana (PMKSY), PLISFPI, and the Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises (PMFME) scheme. These schemes provide financial, technical, and marketing support to SMEs, facilitating capacity expansion, innovation, and formalisation, the ministry said. Under the PLI scheme, a significant proportion of beneficiaries are MSMEs, with 70 MSMEs directly enrolled and 40 others contributing as contract manufacturers for larger companies. Under the scheme, beneficiaries are reimbursed 50 per cent of their expenditure on branding and marketing abroad, capped at 3 per cent of their annual food product sales or Rs 50 crore per year, whichever is lower. Applicants are required to spend a minimum of Rs 5 crore over five years to qualify. Currently, there are 73 beneficiaries under this component of the PLI scheme, according to the ministry. Nominations for ET MSME Awards are now open. The last day to apply is December 15, 2024. Click here to submit your entry for any one or more of the 22 categories and stand a chance to win a prestigious award.

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Shortly before sunrise on Wednesday, a shadowy figure shrouded in black stood quietly under the marquee of the historic Ziegfeld Theater in Midtown Manhattan, poised to raise the curtain on one of the city’s most sensational tales of cold-blooded murder, a murky motive and a frenzied manhunt for a mysterious killer. The masked murderer, who had been lying in wait on that cold, dark morning, finally spotted his quarry. He crept up behind UnitedHeathcare CEO Brian Thompson as he walked down W. 54th St. toward the Hilton hotel, and aimed a powerful pistol equipped with a silencer at the back of the unsuspecting insurance executive. The first bullet sent Thompson, 50, crumpling to the sidewalk. The gunman coolly cleared a jam in his pistol as he walked past his victim and fired two more times, leaving Thompson lying facedown on the grimy pavement. Thompson died at 7:12 a.m. after being rushed to Mount Sinai West Hospital. Within a matter of minutes, through a combination of careful planning and sheer luck, his killer walked into a bus terminal near the George Washington Bridge, preparing to board a bus heading out of the city. “We don’t know what bus he took and we’re working through the video with the Port Authority Police Department,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Friday. A whirlwind investigation of the seemingly ideologically motivated murder — a blood-soaked criticism of the cutthroat medical insurance industry — followed, slowly uncovering clues to the identity of the gunman and revealing a possible motive. But much remains a mystery. “Our thought is it could possibly be a disgruntled employee or a client,” Kenny said about the murder of Thompson, who was in town for a company-sponsored investors conference and was set to give a speech at the Hilton Hotel a couple of hours before he was slain. Four days after the murder, hundreds of NYPD detectives have recovered a tantalizing amount of information from witnesses and surveillance footage about the suspect’s actions leading up to Wednesday’s shooting, but so far his final destination is still unknown. The gunman arrived in New York City at Midtown’s Port Authority Bus Terminal on the night of Nov. 24. He immediately went to the Hilton — the scene of his future crime — before going to a HI New York City hostel on Amsterdam Ave. at 104th St. on the Upper West Side. On the morning of the killing, he left the hostel at 5:30 a.m. and rode a bike to W. 54th St. and Sixth Ave., where he was seen walking back and forth near the Hilton entrance. “While he’s walking around, he’s passing numerous New Yorkers going about their business,” Kenny said, bolstering the theory that the gunman was focused on one person: Thompson. After the caught-on-camera shooting , the gunman fled and was later seen on surveillance video riding a bicycle north on Sixth Ave. to Central Park. [cnx_script_code]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[/cnx_script_code] It’s believed he left the Big Apple behind him hours before cops released the first images of the masked shooter. At the scene, cops found three 9mm shell casings as well as a few live rounds that had been expelled from the pistol as the suspect freed a jam. The words “Delay,” “Deny,” and “Depose” — a supposed insurance industry mantra for delaying claims and maximizing profits — had been written on the ammunition with a Sharpie, police said. “We’re still in shock,” Thompson’s mother-in-law, Paulette Reveiz, told the Daily News hours after the health insurance CEO was killed. “The only thing I can say is he’s a good man. I can’t say anything else.” His wife, Paulette Thompson, told NBC News that the CEO had received threats before his trip to New York. “There had been some threats,” she told the TV station . “Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage? I don’t know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.” A cellphone was found near the scene and a bottle of water and a Kind bar wrapper handled by the gunman were found at a nearby Starbucks the gunman had visited shortly before the killing, and were taken in for DNA testing. But the fingerprints had “no value” and couldn’t be used to find an ID, Kenny said. During his 10 days in the city, the suspect never removed his black surgical mask, even when he ate in front of his roommates at the hostel, cops said. The biggest break the police got was on the night he arrived in the city where a flirtation with an employee at the hostel prompted the suspect to remove his mask and smile at the worker, providing police with a clear photo of the suspect. The image has been run through the NYPD’s facial recognition system, but has so far revealed no hits, Kenny said. Thompson, a father of two and valedictorian of his 1997 class at the University of Iowa, lived in Maple Grove, Minn., near the Minnetonka, Minn. headquarters of UnitedHealth Group. Thompson began at the company in 2004, working on mergers and acquisitions. He steadily climbed through the ranks at the insurance giant, acting as chief financial officer for one division and chief executive officer of another before being named CEO of UnitedHealthcare in April 2021. In 2023, Thompson’s total compensation was $10.2 million, including base pay, stock awards and cash incentives, according to a statement of executive pay from the company. His murder triggered a torrent of rage-filled reactions on social media , most of them expressing contempt and dissatisfaction with the health insurance industry he represented. “When you shoot one man in the street it’s murder,” one person wrote on X. “When you kill thousands of people in hospitals by taking away their ability to get treatment you’re an entrepreneur.” On Thursday night, UnitedHealth Group issued an updated statement on Thompson’s murder, thanking the “caring people” who have offered their condolences and asking for privacy for Thompson’s family. “While our hearts are broken, we have been touched by the huge outpouring of kindness and support in the hours since this horrific crime took place.” “Our priorities are, first and foremost, supporting Brian’s family; ensuring the safety of our employees; and working with law enforcement to bring the perpetrator to justice.” The FBI, which has been helping the NYPD in their investigation from the beginning late Friday, posted a $50,000 reward for information leading to the gunman’s capture — a gunman who, by now, could be anywhere. As the manhunt went national, detectives will be looking into every nugget of information that comes their way on this case, Kenny said. “We have teams specifically assigned to vet and investigate, as weird as some of them are, as detailed as some of them are,” he said. “We will vet and investigate every tip.” With Rocco Parascandola

Article content Every politician – every successful one, anyway – has a turn. Recommended Videos For Jean Chretien and Brian Mulroney, it was coming up short in their 1984 and 1976 leadership races, respectively. For Dalton McGuinty and Doug Ford, it was losing their campaigns to be Ontario premier or Toronto mayor in 1999 and 2014. There are other examples. After those losses, all of those leaders made a turn. They made changes to their staff, they revised their strategy, they modified their approach. All then went on to massive and successive wins. But executing a turn in politics is easier said than done. It requires a willingness to take a hard look at oneself, and do what the Russians call samokritika: self-criticism. It isn’t easy. Pierre Poilievre has executed a turn, and it accounts for most of the considerable success he now enjoys. He has jettisoned the bumper sticker populist stuff for which he was once known – pro-convoy, anti-vaxx, volume and rhetoric always dialled up to 11 – and a different sort of politician has emerged. There’s been a turn. At one point, this writer thought he was awful, even pestilential. I wrote a column in this newspaper excoriating Poilievre , calling him a joke. Like other members of Jean Chretien’s circle, we were livid about how Poilievre had treated Chretien’s former chief of staff Jean Pelletier. Pelletier was dying of cancer and a shadow of his former self when he was hauled before a Parliamentary committee in 2007. Despite his obvious illness, Poilievre mocked Pelletier and accused him of being a liar. “Did you lie in front of the committee the last time you appeared, or are you lying now?” Poilievre asked Pelletier, who was gaunt and thin. Pelletier himself was stoic about how Poilievre treated him as he left the committee hearing room. “I am 72 years old, I am fighting cancer. So it was a good day,” he said, just months away from his death. But Chretien’s loyalists were not as willing to forgive. Poilievre continued like that for some time, voting against gay marriage, voting against abortion, voting with the hardcore conservative fringe. Always angry, always seemingly against everything. And then, something changed. After he became Conservative Leader in 2022, the turn started to reveal itself. Poilievre reversed his position on abortion and equal marriage. He gravitated away from the extremes of the conservative movement. He looked different, too: he dispensed with the glasses and he looked beefed up. He started to smile more. Poilievre could still indulge in rhetorical overkill – Canada isn’t “broken,” sir, our politics are – but not as much as before. Most notably, Poilievre started to sound like a prime minister. Since Oct. 7, Canada has become one of the worst places in the world for antisemitism. Synagogues and Jewish schools have been firebombed and shot up; Jews have been targeted in the streets and in their homes. For his part, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to please both sides, and ended pleasing no one. His ministers, too, sounded indifferent to the atrocities of Hamas and its murderous cabal. Not Poilievre. The Conservative Leader condemned the antisemitism and the hate without obfuscation, without qualification. His voice, alone among the federal leaders, became one of absolute moral clarity. It was not without risk for him – there are many, many more Muslim than Jewish voters in Canada – but he did the right thing. This week, too, when president-elect Donald Trump made his imbecilic promise to slap a 25% tariff on everything Canada exports to the United States, Poilievre did not do what some conservatives have done. He did not attack his own country, and say that Trump was somehow justified. He said the opposite – he said Trump’s threat was “unjustified.” He said he’d “fight fire with fire.” He said he’d respond with tariffs of his own, if need be. Unlike too many conservative partisans, Poilievre did not cravenly seek to justify Trump’s threat. He condemned it, clearly. That is what we expect of our prime ministers: to always put the country, and its people, first. To be a fighter, and make important decisions on our behalf. Without fanfare, without hoopla, Poilievre has evolved into a different sort of politician. More mature, more moderate, more measured. It looks good on him.

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MicroStrategy, Inc. MSTR shares are climbing after-hours after the company announced it completed its previously announced offering of its 0% convertible senior notes due 2029. The Details: MicroStrategy said the aggregate principal amount of the notes sold in the offering was $3 billion, which includes $400 million aggregate principal amount of notes issued pursuant to an option to purchase. Read More: Rumble CEO Considers Bitcoin Investment, Engages Michael Saylor As Shares Rally The net proceeds from the sale of the notes were approximately $2.97 billion, after deducting the initial purchasers’ discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by the company. MicroStrategy intends to use the net proceeds from the sale of the notes to acquire additional Bitcoin BTC/USD and for general corporate purposes. MicroStrategy holds a total of 331,200 Bitcoin purchased at an average price of approximately $49,874 per coin as of Nov. 17. What Else: MicroStrategy shares fell more than 16% in Thursday's regular session after short-seller Citron Research's Andrew Left announced he took a new short position in the stock which has rallied more than 50% since President-elect Donald Trump won the election on Nov. 5. "Fast forward to today: $MSTR has skyrocketed to over $5,000 (adjusted) ... while Citron remains bullish on Bitcoin, we’ve hedged with a short $MSTR position," Left said. "Much respect to @saylor, but even he must know $MSTR is overheated," Citron Research wrote in a post on X. MSTR Price Action: According to Benzinga Pro , MicroStrategy shares are up 5.48% after-hours at $410.05 at the time of publication Thursday. Read More: Bitcoin Could Reach $1 Million By 2037, Economist Says: ‘Buy Of A Lifetime’ Opportunity Photo: Courtesy of MicroStrategy, Inc. © 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.Global stocks mostly rose Thursday following strong earnings from artificial intelligence leader Nvidia as bitcoin prices zoomed near $100,000 and oil prices rose. Nvidia itself had a volatile day, finishing modestly higher after several reversals. The chip company reported a whopping $19 billion in profits, although investors wondered if its current rate of stupendous growth is sustainable. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. Get the latest need-to-know information delivered to your inbox as it happens. Our flagship newsletter. Get our front page stories each morning as well as the latest updates each afternoon during the week + more in-depth weekend editions on Saturdays & Sundays.

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Monday, December 30, 2024 UK citizens heading to the European Union will face new travel regulations in 2025, including the implementation of biometric border checks under the Entry/Exit System (EES) and the introduction of visa-waiver requirements. These changes are part of the EU’s effort to modernize and secure its borders. EES Biometric Border Checks The long-anticipated EES system is expected to go live in 2025 after several delays. This digital border control system will replace the traditional passport stamp process with biometric data collection, such as fingerprints and facial scans, to record travelers’ entries and exits from EU countries. First-Time Registration: When the system launches, UK travelers will need to scan their passport, provide fingerprints, have a facial photograph taken, and answer four questions about their trip. Subsequent Travel: For future trips over the next three years—or until their passport expires—travelers will only need to provide one biometric detail, either a fingerprint or a facial scan. Process at Ports and Airports At airports, biometric checks will occur upon landing. For Eurostar, Eurotunnel, or ferry travelers, the checks will be conducted on UK soil before departure. Drivers crossing via ferry ports will be required to exit their vehicles for biometric processing, raising concerns about potential delays and longer queues. To streamline the process, travelers will be able to pre-register their details via an app or self-service kiosks at select locations. However, the rollout is expected to be phased, with some teething issues anticipated during the initial implementation. Exemptions for Children Children under 12 will only need to have their photo taken and will not be required to provide fingerprints. Visa Waiver Requirements Alongside the EES, UK citizens traveling to the EU will also need to obtain a visa waiver under the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS), which is set to be introduced in 2025. This electronic authorization will cost €7 and will be valid for three years or until the traveler’s passport expires. Impact on Travelers The new rules aim to enhance border security and streamline data collection, but they are likely to alter the travel experience for British citizens. Critics have expressed concerns about potential delays, particularly at ferry ports where drivers must leave their vehicles for checks. To minimize inconvenience, officials recommend pre-registering biometric details and ensuring all travel documentation is up to date. The UK government advises travelers to familiarize themselves with the new requirements before their first trip to the EU in 2025. Conclusion These new measures mark a significant change for UK travelers to the EU, with the introduction of advanced biometric technology and visa-waiver systems. While the updates aim to improve border security and efficiency, travelers are advised to prepare for potential initial delays as the systems are rolled out across member states.