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NEW YORK — Stocks fell broadly on Friday as Wall Street closed out a holiday-shortened week on a down note. The losses were made worse by sharp declines for the Big Tech stocks known as the “Magnificent 7”, which can heavily influence the direction of the market because of their large size. The S&P 500 fell 66.75 points, or 1.1%, to 5,970.84. Roughly 90% of stocks in the benchmark index lost ground, but it managed to hold onto a modest gain of 0.7% for the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 333.59 points, or 0.8%, to 42,992.21. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite fell 298.33 points, or 1.5%, to 19,722.03. Semiconductor giant Nvidia slumped 2.1%. Microsoft declined 1.7%. Each has a market value above $3 trillion, giving the companies outsized sway on the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq. A wide range of retailers also fell. Amazon fell 1.5% and Best Buy slipped 1.5%. The sector is being closely watched for clues on how it performed during the holiday shopping season. Energy stocks held up better than the rest of the market, with a loss of less than 0.1% as crude oil prices rose. “There’s just some uncertainty over this relief rally we’ve witnessed since last week,” said Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist for LPL Financial. The S&P 500 gained nearly 3% over a 3-day stretch before breaking for the Christmas holiday. On Thursday, the index posted a small decline. Despite Friday’s drop, the market is moving closer to another standout annual finish . The S&P 500 is on track for a gain of around 25% in 2024. That would mark a second consecutive yearly gain of more than 20%, the first time that has happened since 1997-1998. The gains have been driven partly by upbeat economic data showing that consumers continued spending and the labor market remained strong. Inflation, while still high, has also been steadily easing. A report on Friday showed that sales and inventory estimates for the wholesales trade industry fell 0.2% in November, following a slight gain in October. That weaker-than-expected report follows an update on the labor market Thursday that showed unemployment benefits held steady last week. The stream of upbeat economic data and easing inflation helped prompt a reversal in the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy this year. Expectations for interest rate cuts also helped drive market gains. The central bank recently delivered its third cut to interest rates in 2024. Even though inflation has come closer to the central bank’s target of 2%, it remains stubbornly above that mark and worries about it heating up again have tempered the forecast for more interest rate cuts. Inflation concerns have added to uncertainties heading into 2025, which include the labor market’s path ahead and shifting economic policies under incoming President Donald Trump. Worries have risen that Trump’s preference for tariffs and other policies could lead to higher inflation , a bigger U.S. government debt and difficulties for global trade. Amedisys rose 4.7% after the home health care and hospice services provider agreed to extend the deadline for its sale to UnitedHealth Group. The Justice Department had sued to block the $3.3 billion deal, citing concerns the combination would hinder access to home health and hospice services in the U.S.This article was originally published on The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. Disclosure information is available on the original site. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * This article was originally published on The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. Disclosure information is available on the original site. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? This article was originally published on The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. Disclosure information is available on the original site. ___ Authors: Mark Turin, Associate professor, Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia; and N̓a̓ṇ̓gáinúx̌v – Robyn Humchitt, Digitization, Information & Technology and Archival Manager, Heiltsuk First Nation When it comes to digital access and internet technologies, some languages are still more equal than others. Speakers of majority languages, who type in English or text in Korean, assume their message will be transmitted accurately. But Indigenous language communities don’t share this same confidence. Computers and smartphones don’t come with the ability to type all letters in all languages. The unique characters integral to many Indigenous languages are often mangled as they travel across the ether. However, the inclusion of two capital letters needed to write Haíɫzaqvḷa in a recent update of the Unicode Standard means this Indigenous language can finally be written and read on all digital platforms. Why did it take so long? And what challenges do Indigenous communities face when wanting to type in their languages? Haíɫzaqv: “to act and speak correctly as a human being” Haíɫzaqvḷa is the language of the Heiltsuk (Haíɫzaqv) Nation whose traditional homeland is Bella Bella, British Columbia. The language has had its own orthography — an agreed written form with established spelling conventions — since the 1970s. Working in partnership with native speakers, a Dutch linguist was invited by tribal leadership to document their increasingly endangered language and develop learning resources. The results of this collaborative work included an alphabet chart, storybooks and a dictionary. Before the advent of digital technologies, Indigenous communities used specially modified typewriters to represent their languages in print. Customized typewriters designed to support the Latin, Syllabics and Cherokee scripts allowed users to publish in Indigenous languages like Haíɫzaqvḷa. The digital divide The digital age has created many opportunities and some new challenges. The American Standard Code for Information Interchange, the first computer text encoding standard, introduced in the early 1990s, did not support 44 of the 129 letters in the Haíɫzaqvḷa orthography. Special fonts and keyboards were required to render these characters on early desktop computers. Designers around the world produced countless fonts to support typing in digitally under-resourced languages, each using a unique font-keyboard pairing to encode a specific language. But this system had a major weakness: when files using custom fonts were shared, both the creator and the recipient needed to have the same font installed on their device. And if a recipient wanted to send a reply, they would need a keyboard input system that paired with that same custom font. Without these elements in place, the missing characters would be shown as “tofu,” or worse yet, rendered as a random string of meaningless characters. The Unicode Standard’s goal is to represent all characters required by all of the world’s languages and writing systems in digital form. Unicode now defines 154,998 characters covering 168 scripts and has fast become the chosen standard for digital character encoding. Yet, until version 16.0 of the standard, released in September 2024, two capital letters needed to write Haíɫzaqvḷa remained absent. Encoding Haíɫzaqvḷa Through a partnership between Heiltsuk Revitalization, the University of British Columbia and international type design company, Typotheque, we have been working to ensure that each and every Haíɫzaqvḷa character is consistently represented and accurately reproduced on all digital platforms and devices. Before this community-led collaboration, it was not possible to fully encode Haíɫzaqvḷa in digital text. This meant that community members couldn’t access the full range of characters they needed to input their language digitally. That would be like typing English without having access to capital E or S, and relying on workarounds like Σ for E or ∫ for S. Ensuring accurate character encoding that is predictable on all operating systems is a cornerstone of language justice. Yet the burden is still on communities to petition Unicode to have their scripts included, and the process is exacting. Harder still, a proposal must consider whether other languages that use the same script might be impacted by the proposed additions, and then mitigate and navigate potential conflicts. The stakes are high for changes to the encoding standard: decisions are almost impossible to reverse on account of the need to maintain stability and ensure both backward and forward compatibility. Important projects like the Script Encoding Initiative have for decades been helping communities to prepare technical proposals for the encoding of scripts and characters that are as of yet not supported by Unicode. There is still much work to be done. Language rights and government documents ​’Cúagilákv — also known as Jess H̓áust̓i — is a Haíɫzaqv leader, parent, educator and poet from Bella Bella. In 2021, H̓áust̓i approached Canadian government agencies, both provincial and federal, to change Haíɫzaqv identification documents to remove colonial anglicizations and reclaim the correct spelling of their name. H̓áust̓i was informed that the existing backend systems were unable to accommodate the representation of diacritic marks. “The reason why I have an incorrect name is because it was anglicized by Indian agents. I didn’t create the problem, but I’m not getting any help to fix that,” H̓áust̓i told CBC News in 2021. “I feel that it’s important to honour my ancestors and my language by spelling and pronouncing it correctly. I would love for my children to grow up with the correct spelling of their name on their ID.” The ability to fully encode Haíɫzaqvḷa in the Unicode Standard means the language can now be successfully input into any Unicode compliant system. This is a baseline requirement for the elimination of many remaining digital language barriers. Beyond bilingualism Canada is fond of celebrating its commitment to bilingualism. Extensive provisions are in place to support English and French. But the origins of these colonial languages lie in Europe, brought by settlers as they first traded and then colonized; and both have vibrant speech communities in their original homelands and around the globe. In 2019, the Canadian government passed the Indigenous Languages Act designed to support the revitalization, maintaining and strengthening of the languages Indigenous to this land. As Canada works to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, it should also simultaneously realize the slogan of the Unicode Consortium: “everyone in the world should be able to use their own language on phones and computers.” The challenges to achieving universal encoding for historically-marginalized languages are no longer technical; they are bureaucratic and political. In 2009, Canada’s then Commissioner of Official Languages, Graham Fraser, was quoted as saying: “In the same way that race is at the core of ... American experience and class is at the core of British experience, I think that language is at the core of Canadian experience.” Through ensuring linguistic justice for all of its citizens, Canada can exercise global leadership in language policy and planning. This article was co-authored by Bridget Chase, a language technologist and researcher, and Kevin King, a typeface designer at Typotheque. ___ Mark Turin receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. N̓a̓ṇ̓gáinúx̌v – Robyn Humchitt has received funding from the First Peoples’ Cultural Council in British Columbia, Canada. ___ This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Disclosure information is available on the original site. Read the original article: https://theconversation.com/why-is-it-so-hard-to-type-in-indigenous-languages-245247 Advertisement Advertisementwow88 。

Futures File: Hot cocoa — a hot commodityLil Wayne, GloRilla, Camila Cabello to perform at College Football National Championship

Sometimes trying to ice the kicker backfires, and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights found that out the hard way in a 38-31 loss to Illinois on Saturday. With Rutgers clinging to a one-point lead and 14 seconds to play in the fourth quarter, Illinois lined up for a potential game-winning 58-yard field-goal attempt into the wind. Just as Illinois snapped the ball, Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano called a timeout in an effort to ice Illinois kicker David Olano. The kick, which did not count because of the timeout, badly missed. Upon seeing how poorly the field-goal attempt went, Illinois decided to put its offense back on the field for a 4th-and-13 play. It not only worked, but it resulted in a game-winning touchdown with four seconds to play in regulation. Have a look. PAT BRYANT HOUSE CALL He scores on fourth down with 4 second left for @Illinifootball !!️ #B1GFootball on Peacock pic.twitter.com/7VmxZztAqw That is quarterback Luke Altmeyer finding Pat Bryant for a 40-yard touchdown to win the game. Bryant finished the game with 197 yards on seven catches. That win lifts Illinois to an 8-3 record and gives the Illini eight wins in a season for just the fourth time since the 2000 season . You should still expect your defense to be able to make a stop on 4th-and-13, but Schiano is probably going to have a lot of regret after that outcome. A 58-yard kick is difficult under any circumstances, especially for a college kicker into the wind (as this kick was). Sometimes you just have to trust that they might miss it and not try to overthink it.

Central Committee on Counter-Terrorism meeting 2024 held

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli troops stormed one of the last hospitals operating in northern Gaza on Friday, forcing many staff and patients outside to strip in winter weather , the territory’s health ministry said. The army denied claims it had entered or set fire to the complex and accused Hamas of using the facility for cover. Kamal Adwan Hospital has been hit multiple times over the past three months by Israeli troops waging an offensive against Hamas fighters in surrounding neighborhoods, according to staff. The ministry said a strike on the hospital a day earlier killed five medical staff. Israel's military said it was conducting operations against Hamas infrastructure and militants in the area and had ordered people out of the hospital, but said it had not entered the complex as of Friday night. It repeated claims that Hamas militants operate inside Kamal Adwan but provided no evidence. Hospital officials have denied that. The Health Ministry said troops forced medical personnel and patients to assemble in the yard and remove their clothes. Some were led to an unknown location, while some patients were sent to the nearby Indonesian Hospital, which was knocked out of operation after an Israel raid this week. Israeli troops during raids frequently carry out mass detentions, stripping men to their underwear for questioning in what the military says is a security measure as they search for Hamas fighters. The Associated Press doesn’t have access to Kamal Adwan, but armed plainclothes members of the Hamas-led police forces have been seen in other hospitals, maintaining security but also controlling access to parts of the facilities. The Health Ministry said Israeli troops also set fires in several parts of Kamal Adwan, including the lab and surgery department. It said 25 patients and 60 health workers remained in the hospital. The account could not be independently confirmed, and attempts to reach hospital staff were unsuccessful. “Fire is ablaze everywhere in the hospital,” an unidentified staff member said in an audio message posted on social media accounts of hospital director Hossam Abu Safiya. The staffer said some evacuated patients had been unhooked from oxygen. “There are currently patients who could die at any moment,” she said. Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, denied the accusations. “While IDF troops were not in the hospital, a small fire broke out in an empty building inside the hospital that is under control,” he said Friday night. He said a preliminary investigation found “no connection” between military activity and the fire. The Israeli military heavily restricts the movements of Palestinians in Gaza and has barred foreign journalists from entering the territory throughout the war, making it difficult to verify information. “These actions put the lives of all of these people in even more danger than what they faced before,” U.N. spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay told journalists, and noted colleagues' reports of “significant damage” to the hospital. It should be protected as international law requires, she added. Since October, Israel’s offensive has virtually sealed off the northern Gaza areas of Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and leveled large parts of them. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were forced out but thousands are believed to remain in the area, where Kamal Adwan and two other hospitals are located. Troops raided Kamal Adwan in October, and on Tuesday troops stormed and evacuated the Indonesian Hospital. The area has been cut off from food and other aid for months , raising fears of famine . The United Nations says Israeli troops allowed just four humanitarian deliveries to the area from Dec. 1 to Dec. 23. The Israeli rights group Physicians for Human Rights-Israel this week petitioned Israel’s High Court of Justice, seeking a halt to military attacks on Kamal Adwan. It warned that forcibly evacuating the hospital would “abandon thousands of residents in northern Gaza.” Before the latest deaths Thursday, the group documented five other staffers killed by Israeli fire since October. Israel launched its campaign in Gaza vowing to destroy Hamas after the group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel in which militants killed around 1,200 people and abducted some 250 others. Around 100 Israelis remain captive in Gaza, around a third believed to be dead. Israel’s nearly 15-month-old campaign of bombardment and offensives has devastated the territory’s health sector. A year ago, it carried out raids on hospitals in northern Gaza, including Kamal Adwan, Indonesian and al-Awda Hospital, saying they served as bases for Hamas, though it presented little evidence. Israel’s campaign has killed more than 45,400 Palestinians, more than half women and children, and wounded more than 108,000 others, according to the Health Ministry. Its count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. More than 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians have been driven from their homes, most now sheltering in sprawling tent camps in south and central Gaza. Children and adults, many barefoot, huddled Friday on the cold sand in tents whose plastic and cloth sheets whipped in the wind. Overnight temperatures can dip into the 40s Fahrenheit (below 10 Celsius), and sea spray from the Mediterranean can dampen tents just steps away. "I swear to God, their mother and I cover ourselves with one blanket and we cover (their five children) with three blankets that we got from neighbors. Sea waters drowned everything that was ours,” said Muhammad al-Sous, displaced from Beit Lahiya in the north. The children collect plastic bottles to make fires, and pile under the blankets when their only set of clothes is washed and dried in the wind. At least three babies in Gaza have died from exposure to cold in recent days , doctors there have said, and the Health Ministry said an adult — a nurse who worked at the European Hospital — also died this week. Khaled and Keath reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Narions contributed to this report.( MENAFN - Asia Times) This article was originally published by Pacific Forum. It is republished with permission. Vietnam's maritime security is shaped by its geographic position, strategic interests, and the pressing need to safeguard its territorial waters. The South China Sea (known in Vietnam as the East Sea) serves as a crucial route for international trade. It is also marked by intricate territorial disputes, highlighting the importance of Vietnam's naval and coast guard forces. China's growing fleet of unmanned air, surface, and underwater systems poses a serious security threat to Hanoi. In August 2024, a Chinese WZ-10 drone entered Vietnam's airspace 160 to 170 kilometers from Cam Ranh, a vital naval base. The Chinese have raised the temperature in the South China Sea by using unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), gliders and Argo floats , which are dual-use. This has prompted Vietnam to seek measures to enhance its monitoring, patrolling, and response capabilities without overcommitting its limited conventional forces. A key opportunity to bolster these efforts is integrating unmanned systems into Vietnam's defense arsenal. Given the existing capacity shortfalls, Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“Quad”) nations, which have a plan to support capacity-building for regional navies in Southeast Asia, are well-positioned to enhance Vietnam's capabilities in this area. The Vietnamese People's Army (VPA) has extensive experience operating UAVs to augment its maritime intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. These UAVs are either domestically developed with foreign assistance or imported from abroad. Vietnam also showcased its larger class of UAVs, conceivably a medium-altitude long-endurance system, during its first international defense expo in 2022. However, Vietnam's focus on unmanned maritime vehicles, both surface and underwater, is still in a nascent stage. As tensions in the maritime domain with China escalate, the VPA seeks advanced unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) and UUVs to bolster its maritime security and protect critical maritime infrastructure in the Vietnamese EEZs. These systems not only are cost-effective but they also play a crucial role in ISR capabilities. The Quad is now more strategically aligned and is recognized as a valuable platform for fostering regional cooperation that aims to enhance peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific. The September 2024 Quad joint statement explicitly highlights the importance of strengthening maritime security capabilities of Southeast Asian nations. Vietnam, given its robust ties with the Quad countries, has much to gain from partnering with the Quad, particularly in improving its technological and operational prowess in maritime security. The Quad nations have expertise in developing and operating unmanned maritime systems. Sharing technological knowledge or co-developing specialized systems tailored to Vietnam's requirements would substantially help its ISR capabilities. In particular, India and Vietnam maintain close defense ties, given that both use Soviet weapon systems. During Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh's state visit to India in August 2024, both nations reiterated their commitment to strengthening mutual relations. India has provided a $300 million loan to Hanoi for acquiring two types of patrol vessels. In addition, the US has supplied the Vietnam Coast Guard with 18“Metal Shark” patrol boats, while Japan is offering a $348 million loan to Hanoi for constructing six patrol boats, set to be operational by 2025. There is potential for industrial collaboration, which could lead to a joint venture in constructing UUVs or USVs that would be advantageous for both nations. Defense industry cooperation to develop unmanned maritime systems presents a significant opportunity for the Quad nations to collaborate with Hanoi. This can include building or upgrading command-and-control infrastructure to ensure seamless operation and coordination. Additionally, supporting Vietnam in building a domestic unmanned maritime systems industry, potentially through technology transfers and specialized human resource training, could foster greater autonomy and capability in Vietnam's defense sector. While the potential benefits of unmanned systems are clear, they are not without challenges. Vietnam's approach to security partnerships is carefully balanced to avoid over-reliance on any one partner. Vietnam aims to engage with the Quad, ensuring its non-alignment policy remains intact while maximizing cooperation benefits. Although unmanned systems are more cost-effective than manned alternatives, acquiring and maintaining these still entails significant investment. Vietnam may need to explore financing options with the assistance of Quad nations. Additional challenges include the absence of a comprehensive legal and regulatory framework for unmanned systems development and deployment in Vietnam. The collaboration in unmanned maritime systems may represent a significant advancement for Vietnam and the Quad. In conclusion, Vietnam's maritime security is a linchpin for regional stability and economic prosperity. As maritime threats grow more sophisticated, integrating unmanned maritime systems into its strategy will provide a critical edge for VPA. With its collective technological expertise and strategic interest in a free and open Indo-Pacific, the Quad can play a pivotal role. By focusing on technology transfer, training, infrastructure support, and joint exercises, the Quad can help build Vietnam's capacity to protect its waters. While Vietnam maintains a non-aligned stance, its advocacy for a rule-based order and its reliance on international law to safeguard its maritime interests make it a natural partner for the Quad. Strengthening Vietnam's maritime capabilities will therefore greatly enhance regional security and also underscore the Quad's commitment to safeguarding the shared interests of Southeast Asian countries. Prakash Panneerselvam, PhD, (... ) is a Japan Foundation Indo-Pacific Partnership (JFIPP) research fellow and an assistant professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru. Van T. Pham, rer, (... ) is founding director of the South China Sea Chronicle Initiative in Vietnam. Thank you for registering! An account was already registered with this email. Please check your inbox for an authentication link. MENAFN19122024000159011032ID1109014646 Legal Disclaimer: MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. 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