In a year filled with uncertainties and disruptions due to the global pandemic, the WTA tour saw a mix of established stars and rising talents making their mark on the sport. However, it was Zheng Qianwen's remarkable performance at the Olympics that captivated the tennis world and sealed her place as the year's ultimate underdog story.

Lessons I've Learned From Writing 5,000 Articles For Seeking Alpha

King and PM honour former US president Jimmy Carter after his death aged 100Let us unite in condemning such reprehensible acts and stand together in support of the victims and their families. Together, we can create a safer and more secure future for our children, free from fear and intrusion. It is only through our collective efforts that we can ensure justice is served and that incidents like this are never repeated.CSU faculty, students rally against Board of Trustees policies

Billionaire Elon Musk called Canada’s prime minister an “insufferable tool” on his social media platform today. Musk’s comments were in response to Justin Trudeau likening Kamala Harris’s defeat in the U.S. presidential election to an attack on women’s rights and progress. This afternoon, Trudeau met with provincial and territorial premiers to discuss Canada’s approach to negotiations with the U.S. Canada is facing a threat of a 25 per cent tariff hike from incoming president Donald Trump, who defeated Harris in the November election. Earlier this week, Trump taunted Trudeau on social media, referring to the prime minister as the governor of what he called the “Great State of Canada.” The post was an apparent reference to a joke Trump cracked at his dinner with Trudeau at his Mar-a-Lago estate nearly two weeks ago, where the president-elect teased that Canada could join the U.S. as its 51st state. Speaking on Tuesday night at an event hosted by the Equal Voice Foundation — an organization dedicated to improving gender representation in Canadian politics — Trudeau said there are regressive forces fighting against women’s progress. “It shouldn’t be that way. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. We were supposed to be on a steady, if difficult sometimes, march towards progress,” Trudeau said, adding he is a proud feminist and will always be an ally. “And yet, just a few weeks ago, the United States voted for a second time to not elect its first woman president. Everywhere, women’s rights and women’s progress is under attack. Overtly, and subtly.” In a post on X on Wednesday, Musk responded to a clip of Trudeau’s remarks, saying, “He’s such an insufferable tool. Won’t be in power for much longer.”

Despite these challenges, there is still hope for Syria's future. The international community must come together to support the Syrian people and help rebuild the country from the ground up. This will require a comprehensive approach that addresses the humanitarian, economic, and political aspects of the crisis. Aid organizations must be given the resources they need to provide assistance to those in need, while efforts must be made to jumpstart the economy and create jobs for the Syrian people.Three poultry farms in Japan have been hit by an outbreak of avian influenza, leading to the grim decision to cull a total of 240,000 chickens. This unfortunate development has sparked concerns about the potential spread of the disease and its impact on both the poultry industry and public health.

NEW YORK (AP) — Top-ranked chess player Magnus Carlsen is headed back to the World Blitz Championship on Monday after its governing body agreed to loosen a dress code that got him fined and denied a late-round game in another tournament for refusing to change out of jeans . Lamenting the contretemps, International Chess Federation President Arkady Dvorkovich said in a statement Sunday that he'd let World Blitz Championship tournament officials consider allowing “appropriate jeans” with a jacket, and other “elegant minor deviations” from the dress code. He said Carlsen's stand — which culminated in his quitting the tournament Friday — highlighted a need for more discussion “to ensure that our rules and their application reflect the evolving nature of chess as a global and accessible sport.” Carlsen, meanwhile, said in a video posted Sunday on social media that he would play — and wear jeans — in the World Blitz Championship when it begins Monday. “I think the situation was badly mishandled on their side,” the 34-year-old Norwegian grandmaster said. But he added that he loves playing blitz — a fast-paced form of chess — and wanted fans to be able to watch, and that he was encouraged by his discussions with the federation after Friday's showdown. “I think we sort of all want the same thing,” he suggested in the video on his Take Take Take chess app’s YouTube channel. “We want the players to be comfortable, sure, but also relatively presentable.” The events began when Carlsen wore jeans and a sportcoat Friday to the Rapid World Championship, which is separate from but held in conjunction with the blitz event. The chess federation said Friday that longstanding rules prohibit jeans at those tournaments, and players are lodged nearby to make sartorial switch-ups easy if needed. An official fined Carlsen $200 and asked him to change pants, but he refused and wasn't paired for a ninth-round game, the federation said at the time. The organization noted that another grandmaster, Ian Nepomniachtchi, was fined earlier in the day for wearing sports shoes, changed and continued to play. Carlsen has said that he offered to wear something else the next day, but officials were unyielding. He said “it became a bit of a matter of principle,” so he quit the rapid and blitz championships. In the video posted Sunday, he questioned whether he had indeed broken a rule and said changing clothes would have needlessly interrupted his concentration between games. He called the punishment “unbelievably harsh.” “Of course, I could have changed. Obviously, I didn’t want to,” he said, and “I stand by that.”Another important factor driving the growth of SMEs in China is the increasing adoption of digital technology and e-commerce platforms. In recent years, Chinese SMEs have embraced digital tools and online platforms to enhance their operational efficiency, reach a wider customer base, and explore new market opportunities. The digital transformation of SMEs has not only improved their competitiveness but also enabled them to adapt to the changing consumer preferences and market trends.

It’s been nearly a year since the record-breaking Ingenuity helicopter broke a blade , ending the airborne ventures of the first powered, controlled aircraft to take flight on another planet. Now, NASA engineers are investigating the rotorcraft’s final flight, to better understand the circumstances of its end. Ingenuity broke records on Mars, with the Perseverance rover capturing mind-blowing video as it flew above the Martian surface. That all came to an end in January 2024, and now, researchers are getting close to understanding how the helicopter broke apart. Ingenuity surpassed all expectations during its three-year tenure. The helicopter arrived on the Red Planet as a technology demonstrator—merely to showcase the ability for humankind to launch powered, controlled flights on other worlds. After five test flights, the helicopter became a scout for the Perseverance rover on Mars, as the latter explored the arid environment of Jezero Crater. Ingenuity ultimately operated for nearly three years and performed 72 flights over that span. On its final flight, the helicopter climbed to 40 feet (12 meters) above the Martian surface, but after 32 seconds, the chopper was back on the ground and communications had stopped. “When running an accident investigation from 100 million miles away, you don’t have any black boxes or eyewitnesses,” said Håvard Grip, Ingenuity’s first pilot at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a release . “While multiple scenarios are viable with the available data, we have one we believe is most likely: Lack of surface texture gave the navigation system too little information to work with.” Based on photographs taken after the flight, the team believes that in-flight navigation errors caused “high horizontal velocities at touchdown,” according to the release. In other words, a crash landing that likely made Ingenuity pitch and roll on a sandy Martian slope. That snapped the rotor blades, with one blade completely separating from the helicopter. Ingenuity can no longer fly, but it still delivers weather and avionics data to Perseverance on a weekly basis. NASA engineers are using Ingenuity’s relatively cheap cost and surprising durability as a blueprint on which to build a future Mars helicopter—one that could weigh 20 times heavier than Ingenuity and fly up to two miles (3 km) in a day, about 4.6 times farther than Ingenuity’s longest flight. “Because Ingenuity was designed to be affordable while demanding huge amounts of computer power, we became the first mission to fly commercial off-the-shelf cellphone processors in deep space,” said Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity’s project manager, in the same release. “We’re now approaching four years of continuous operations, suggesting that not everything needs to be bigger, heavier, and radiation-hardened to work in the harsh Martian environment.” Ingenuity was the beginning of a hopefully fruitful investigation of the cosmos using powered, controlled aircraft. The Martian helicopter went beyond what was expected, and set the stage for future drones poised to provide never-before-seen views of the worlds and moons that make up our solar system.A local driver seems to not be worried about driving without insurance. Vancouver police pulled over a Tesla on Nov. 21, 2024, for driving without insurance. It wasn't the first time for this driver this year, according to a social media post by the VPD's traffic section. Or the second. Or the third. In the last year, the driver had been pulled over four times across Metro Vancouver, with incidents in Vancouver, Burnaby, and Coquitlam. Police note he was operating as a rideshare driver at the time he was pulled over. In fact, according to a photo shared by the police, it was the fourth time since May, meaning he's been pulled over more than once every two months for the same issue. "Traffic enforcement used ALPR (Automated Licence Plate Recognition) to catch this driver for no vehicle insurance," state police. Officers issued a $598 for the infraction, and the vehicle was towed. If the driver pays in under 30 days, the fine is reduced to $573; altogether, the fines for driving with no insurance four times add up to at least $2,292. However, while it was the fourth such infraction for the driver this year, his Tesla wasn't impounded, according to the VPD traffic section. "A vehicle with no insurance could be towed to a person’s residence if it can’t be parked on public property," Sgt. Steve Addison tells V.I.A. A note has been sent to the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles and Passengers about the driver, according to the traffic section. The Superintendent of Motor Vehicles and Passengers is a provincial office that acts as the authority for drivers in B.C. and has different powers from the police and can prohibit a person from driving if they have an "unsatisfactory driving record," according to the government .

In a heartfelt message to her supporters, Zhao Lusi expressed her gratitude and appreciation for their unwavering support during this challenging time. She acknowledged the pain and confusion that can arise from online bullying and cyberbullying, but emphasized the importance of staying true to oneself and spreading love and positivity in the face of adversity.For “Hysteria!” actresses Anna Camp and Julie Bowen, horror is harder than comedy. “Horror is really hard actually because there is a fine line you have to walk; you have to make it feel grounded and you’re put in these extreme circumstances: You’re being possessed or pulled through the air, there’s nothing you can do to relate to that,” explained Camp of “Pitch Perfect” fame. “With comedy, you can have a relatable situation and go, ‘I’ve been in situations like that.’ There’s nothing you can compare (horror) to, so you have to use your imagination. I find it harder. Your imagination goes home with you at the end of the day. You’re still thinking crazy thoughts.” Bowen, best known for playing Claire Dunphy on “Modern Family,” agreed. “Comedy’s pretty binary because it’s like either you can make people laugh or you don’t. I can’t watch horror. I’m terrified, terrified! I am the easiest scare in the world, so as far as doing (horror), I want to make it as real as possible. It was hard because I had to be really, really crazy. There were times when I’d get back to my hotel room at 3 a.m., I didn’t want to be alone in my head,” said Bowen, laughing. Camp, Bowen, Royal Oak native Bruce Campbell (“Evil Dead”), showrunner David A. Goodman (“Futurama”), and Ypsilanti native/creator Matthew Scott Kane (“American Horror Story”) were promoting “Hysteria!” at the New York Comic Con in October. The horror series is streaming on Peacock. Set in the fictional Michigan town of Happy Hollow, the first episode of “Hysteria” begins with a popular quarterback’s disappearance and a pentagram is discovered on a garage door. As a result, rumors of the occult and satanic influence run rampant through the town. A trio of outcasts in a heavy metal band called Dethkrunch exploit this by rebranding themselves as a satanic metal band, which leads to them becoming the targets of the town’s witch hunt. “Something on my mind a lot in 2019 was we’re living in this post-factual age with social media. It seemed like decades and decades ago, you could trust the news. Now everything is in question. When lies end up getting disseminated as truth, that starts to warp people’s version of reality. Suddenly, they’re living in a world other people are not. That was going on in the world I was living in and I very quickly connected it to the 1980s satanic panic. It’s not really that different because people were saying Ozzy Osbourne, Jason Voorhees (of ‘Friday the 13th’), and the Smurfs were going to turn your kids into satanists and kill you in your sleep. That didn’t happen. It wasn’t true, but so many people got worked up into such a fervor over it, bad things happened. ... It was smoke without fire,” Kane said. “Disinformation is not new,” Campbell said. “Disinformation will tear a town apart.” Campbell portrays Happy Hollow Police Chief Ben Dandridge. “This guy’s a reasonable cop; he’s a rational person who doesn’t treat the teenagers like they’re idiots. It’s all very refreshing,” he said. “I want to play that guy again. I want cops to be that guy. I’m playing the cop (that) cops need to be. That’s my whole motivation for playing this guy: How would you like cops to be, especially the guy in charge, the chief of police? They’re lucky to have Chief Dandridge.” “It was truly an exciting moment when Bruce signed on,” Goodman said. By the end of the first episode, a supernatural phenomenon happens to Linda Campbell, played by Bowen. “Linda seems like one thing, then you realize she’s bananas. She’s either bananas or she’s possessed. Either way, it’s a complicated thing to play,” Bowen said. “With Julie, you can have your cake and eat it too,” Kane said. “She’s this fun, quirky mom. ... As the episode goes on, she’s pulled deeper into this thing and crazy stuff starts happening. That final act of the first episode was my favorite moment with her because this announced that this is not Claire Dunphy. We’re not doing that again; we’re pushing her as a performer. “Julie was so excited about doing stunts. She told us on many occasions she’s very sturdy and can take it. The same goes for Bruce and for Anna. We didn’t ask anyone to give us a flavor of the thing they did before. We cast people we loved so much (in their famous projects) that we wanted to give them the opportunity to do the exact opposite.” Added Bowen: “I got this script and was like, ‘Oh great. She’s a mom. How fun.’ I love moms. I’m a mom, but I felt this was not worth flying out of town to Georgia and being away from my kids. Then I got to the end of the pilot and was like, ‘She’s crazy!’ Is she possessed? There’s a lot more questions. It’s fun to just stretch again and do things I haven’t done in a while, which I found really exciting.” Kane said he felt lucky Bowen signed on at the beginning. “She was the first adult actor to sign on. That gave us such credibility to have a two-time Emmy-winning actor leading this show. Suddenly, it goes from this script from a relatively unknown writer into the new Julie Bowen show,” he said. It was the quality of the writing that attracted Camp, Bowen and Campbell to “Hysteria!” “I loved the script; it was incredibly well-written. It was immersed in the time period. It was such a good coming-of-age story, too — the feeling of being in high school again, being in the 1980s,” Camp said. “I talked to Matt who said my character (Tracy) was incredibly pivotal to the series and we’ll learn about why she is the way she is. So I was like, ‘I’d love to do this!’” For Campbell, the writing is everything. “A lot of times, I’ll get a script that could make the words interchangeable with every other character because the writing is very bland and just doesn’t have the detail you need. This was different. Every character was pretty distinct and pretty well-drawn,” he said. “It’s quality. It’s not a (expletive) show. It’s a real show that’s playing around with interesting themes. A lot of it is still relevant to this day.” “Hysteria!” has other Michigan connections, including University of Michigan alumnus Jonathan Goldstein (“Spider-Man: Homecoming”) and Dondero High School alumnus Jordan Vogt-Roberts (“Kong: Skull Island”), who both serve as executive producers. Kane explained why he set “Hysteria!” in Michigan. “You write what you know. I grew up in Ypsilanti, so that had a lot to do with it. More importantly, when you’re in a small town in the Midwest — somewhere like Michigan — these things don’t ever happen and word spreads fast and paranoia spreads quickly and (everything’s) blown out of proportion and takes up a lot of people’s minds,” he said. “Whether or not something is real doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if there are people willing to believe it does and willing it into the world. What does it matter if it’s objectively real or living rent-free in someone’s head?”As the case unfolds, it serves as a sobering reminder of the fragility of trust and the potential for betrayal in any setting. What may have seemed like an ordinary sequence of events has unraveled into a complex web of deceit and intrigue, leaving many stunned and bewildered by the revelations that continue to emerge.

One of the most talked about issues throughout the 2024 election season was immigration and border control. Social media posts online claim thousands of migrant children have gone missing during Joe Biden’s term as president. During the vice presidential debate in October, Vice President-elect JD Vance claimed there are “320,000 children that DHS has effectively lost.” President-elect Donald Trump made similar remarks throughout his campaign, including at an Arizona rally where he claimed “325,000 migrant children are gone, they’re missing.” Multiple VERIFY readers have asked us if that statistic is accurate. THE QUESTION Did 320,000 migrant children go missing under the Biden Administration? THE SOURCES U.S. Department of Homeland Security report published in August 2024 Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications at the Migration Policy Institute told VERIFY. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director of the American Immigration Council A City of Philadelphia Action Guide An Immigration Impact article THE ANSWER The Department of Homeland Security reported in August that it was unable to monitor the locations of approximately 320,000 migrant children who were released from federal custody, but the report did not declare the kids were missing. WHAT WE FOUND The 320,000 number that Vance and others have referenced comes from a Department of Homeland Security report published in August 2024. The count also includes children who were released during Donald Trump’s presidency, in addition to Biden’s administration. That report said federal authorities may not be able to monitor the locations of about 320,000 unaccompanied migrant children who had been released from federal custody between 2018 and 2023, due in part to poor communication between agencies. But the report did not say that all of the children are lost or missing. Experts also attribute the number of unaccounted for children to missing paperwork – not children who are actually endangered or missing. Instead, the report is referring to the government being unable to track the children after being released from custody. The DHS report “explains that 32,000 unaccompanied children were ordered deported for missing a court hearing from 2019 to 2023,” and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement “had not filed charging documents to start the removal process for 291,000 unaccompanied children who entered the country over that time period,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director of the American Immigration Council explained to VERIFY. The claims online combine the 32,000 and the 291,000 counts that appear in the report. Although DHS has stated its inability to monitor the approximate 320,000 migrant children in the United States who did not appear for a hearing or receive a notice, it has not declared them to be missing. There are many factors as to why a child may not have appeared for a hearing or received a notice, including a lack of communication between government agencies to secure the correct mailing address or a guardian’s inability to take them to court. “The issue is a paperwork one – both with ICE not having contact with these minors since their release from HHS custody and lack of communication between ICE and the Justice Department or by a federal agency with the child’s sponsor,” Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications at the Migration Policy Institute told VERIFY. “The lack of a current address on file does not mean that the children have been trafficked, are lost, or that their parents or sponsors are purposely evading immigration proceedings. Quite the contrary, a majority of the children may be residing in loving homes, attending school, and acclimating to their new surroundings after being reunited with family members in the United States,” an Immigration Impact article explains . Many of the unaccounted for children may have been separated from their parents under Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, which required children to be separated from their parents during Trump’s first administration. “Upon separation from their families, children are officially labeled ‘unaccompanied alien children,’ before being sent into government custody or foster care, a City of Philadelphia Action Guide explains . The Associated Press contributed to this report. The VERIFY team works to separate fact from fiction so that you can understand what is true and false. Please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter , text alerts and our YouTube channel . You can also follow us on Snapchat , Instagram , Facebook and TikTok . Learn More » Follow Us Want something VERIFIED? Text: 202-410-8808One common misconception is that as we age, we require less sleep. While it's true that older adults may experience changes in their sleep patterns and find it harder to stay asleep through the night, the need for adequate rest remains crucial for their physical and mental well-being. In fact, research has shown that chronic sleep deprivation in older adults can lead to a higher risk of developing chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and cognitive decline.It is said that Man-Ying's smile is like a ray of sunshine on a rainy day – warm, comforting, and utterly beguiling. When she stands before the lens of a vintage camera, her smile seems to light up the entire frame, infusing each shot with a sense of joy and nostalgia that is impossible to replicate with modern digital technology. The subtle nuances of her expressions, the play of light and shadow on her flawless complexion, all come together to create a portrait of timeless beauty that transcends the boundaries of time and space.