SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — Two people were rescued when a California pier partially collapsed and fell into the ocean Monday as the state's central coast was pounded by heavy surf from a major storm expected to bring hurricane-force winds to the seas off the Pacific Northwest. Residents were warned to stay away from low-lying areas near the beaches around the Santa Cruz Wharf, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of San Francisco. “You are risking your life, and those of the people that would need to try and save you by getting in or too close to the water,” the National Weather Service's Bay Area office said on the social platform X. Lifeguards rescued two people from the water and a third person was able to swim to safety, the Santa Cruz Fire Department said on Instagram. Their conditions were unknown. Coastal roads in Santa Cruz were closed following the pier's partial collapse, city officials said. Gov. Gavin Newsom's has been briefed and the state's Office of Emergency Services is coordinating with local officials, his office said. Ocean swells along California's central coast could reach 26 feet (8 meters) as the Pacific storm gains strength through Monday, the weather service said. “A rapidly developing storm will bring hurricane force winds to the areas well offshore of the Pacific Northwest tonight,” the weather service's Ocean Prediction Center said on X. Winds off Oregon and Washington could peak near 80 mph (130 kph) and seas will build over 30 feet (9.1 meters), forecasters said. The Santa Cruz Wharf collapse Monday came about a year after the Seacliff State Beach pier just down the coast was battered beyond repair by a heavy winter storm.Lakers predicted to cut ties with $17 million potential bust via trade to Jazz | Sporting News
MONACO - Canadians Alex Tessier, Sophie de Goede and Laetitia Royer have been named to World Rugby's Women’s 15s Dream Team of the Year. Read this article for free: Already have an account? As we navigate through unprecedented times, our journalists are working harder than ever to bring you the latest local updates to keep you safe and informed. Now, more than ever, we need your support. Starting at $14.99 plus taxes every four weeks you can access your Brandon Sun online and full access to all content as it appears on our website. or call circulation directly at (204) 727-0527. Your pledge helps to ensure we provide the news that matters most to your community! MONACO - Canadians Alex Tessier, Sophie de Goede and Laetitia Royer have been named to World Rugby's Women’s 15s Dream Team of the Year. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? MONACO – Canadians Alex Tessier, Sophie de Goede and Laetitia Royer have been named to World Rugby’s Women’s 15s Dream Team of the Year. Canada sevens captain Olivia Apps, meanwhile, was selected to World Rugby’s Women’s Sevens Dream Team. The women’s 15s world all-star squad also featured six players from top-ranked England and three from No. 2 New Zealand. The other three came from the U.S., Ireland and France. Tessier was also a finalist for the World Rugby Women’s 15s Player of the Year award won by England fullbackEllie Kildunne.France’s Pauline Bourdon Sansus and England’s Alex Matthews were the other finalists. Tessier won her 50th cap in 2024 and, playing at inside centre alongside fly half Claire Gallagher, led the Canada women to a historic first-ever victory over New Zealand to win the 2024 Pacific Four Series in May. The 22-19 comeback victory lifted Canada into second place in the women’s world rankings, its highest position since November 2016. Tessier’s strong kicking game was also key for Canada. The 31-year-old from Sainte-Clotilde-de-Horton, Que., scored 27 points in starting all six matches for Canada in 2024 to up her career total to 48 points (including five tries) in 54 appearances. Tessier plays professionally in England for the Exeter Chiefs. De Goede made the all-star team despite tearing her anterior cruciate ligament in training in June. A finalist for the Women’s Player of the Year award in 2022, the Victoria back-rower plays in England for Saracens. Royer, from Loretteville, Que., is a second-row forward who plays in France for ASM Romagnat. Top-ranked South Africa dominated the men’s 15s all-star squad with seven players represented. Ireland had four players with New Zealand three and Argentina one. — World Rugby’s 15s Dream Teams of the Year Women 1. Hope Rogers (U.S.); 2. Georgia Ponsonby (New Zealand); 3. Maud Muir (England); 4. Zoe Aldcroft (England); 5. Laetitia Royer (Canada); 6. Aoife Wafer (Ireland)’ 7. Sophie de Goede (Canada); 8. Alex Matthews (England); 9. Pauline Bourdon Sansus (France); 10. Holly Aitchison (England); 11. Katelyn Vahaakolo (New Zealand); 12. Alex Tessier (Canada); 13. Sylvia Brunt (New Zealand); 14. Abby Dow (England); 15. Ellie Kildunne (England). Men 1. Ox Nche (South Africa); 2. Malcolm Marx (South Africa); 3. Tyrel Lomax (New Zealand); 4. Eben Etzebeth (South Africa); 5. Tadhg Beirne (Ireland); 6. Pablo Matera (Argentina); 7. Pieter-Steph du Toit (South Africa); 8. Caelan Doris (Ireland); 9. Jamison Gibson-Park (Ireland); 10. Damian McKenzie (New Zealand); 11. James Lowe (Ireland); 12. Damian de Allende (South Africa); 13. Jesse Kriel (South Africa); 14. Cheslin Kolbe (South Africa); 15. Will Jordan (New Zealand). World Rugby Sevens Dreams Team of the Year Women Olivia Apps (Canada), Michaela Blyde (New Zealand), Kristi Kirshe (U.S.), Maddison Levi (Australia), Ilona Maher (U.S.), Jorja Miller (New Zealand), Séraphine Okemba (France). Men Selvyn Davids (South Africa), Antoine Dupont (France), Aaron Grandidier Nkanang (France), Terry Kennedy (Ireland), Nathan Lawson (Australia), Ponipate Loganimasi (Fiji), Matías Osadczuk (Argentina). This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 27, 2024. Advertisement AdvertisementChina okays mega dam in Tibet's high seismic zone
( MENAFN - Live Mint) (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Disaster. Flop. Average. If you had to bet on a Bollywood movie's fate in 2024, those would have been your three best options in a year set to end with a 30% to 40% drop in box-office collections. The world's most prolific film industry is desperately hoping for a better 2025. And so are the city's cops: When the theaters go empty, the body count starts to rise on the streets of Mumbai. That's what the 1990s were like - and everyone's dreading a repeat of lawlessness in India's financial capital. The fears are far from exaggerated. Baba Siddique, a local politician and real-estate developer who enjoyed close friendships with celebrity actors, was gunned down in October as he was about to get into his car. A member of the gang that claimed responsibility said in a Facebook post that“Bollywood, politics, and property dealings” were behind the murder. Organized crime and the show business of Bombay - as the megalopolis was known until 1995 - have been joined at the hip for a long time. The Golden Age of Indian Cinema that began around the country's 1947 independence from British rule had a 20-year run. Politics took a cynical turn in the late 1960s, and popular culture began to reflect the loss of idealism. Bollywood scripts shed the social concerns of a young republic and became the escapist fantasy the world knows today. By the early 1970s, India was releasing hundreds of Hindi-language films. Banks wouldn't finance them. That's where the likes of Haji Mastan came in. One of Mumbai's most powerful dons at the time, Mastan was a sucker for glamor. Dressed in all white, the stylish boss became something of a private-equity player for the entertainment business when he began to finance movies for his actress lover. The mob had eked out its initial capital from the docks of Bombay, smuggling gold and electronics. As it reinvented itself for a more open economy in the 1980s and 1990s, bootlegging and extortion gave way to money-laundering, trafficking in drugs and guns ... and more cinema. Dons were no longer satisfied with a profit share, a 2003 report by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies noted. They wanted“partnership by becoming producers and getting overseas rights for film and music distribution.” Leading this change was Dawood Ibrahim, a policeman's son who rose to prominence as the city's most feared mobster in the post-Mastan era. Dawood began operating from Dubai in the mid-1980s, but his syndicate, known as the D Company, is believed to have carried out the assassination of the founder of T Series, a music-production powerhouse, in 1997. That murder, as well as a subsequent attempt on the life of a producer - whose son Hrithik Roshan was the reigning teen heartthrob - shook the industry. Ibrahim's suspected involvement in the deadly 1993 terror attack on Mumbai, in which 257 people were killed in a series of bomb blasts across the city, provided urgency to the cleanup. Bollywood has an entire crime noir dedicated to so-called encounter specialists, who would, instead of apprehending underworld operatives and producing them in court, simply execute them. One of my personal favorites is Ab Tak Chhappan, or “56 So Far,” a reference to the kill count. Just when it looked like the city had escaped from that cycle of violence, there are fresh signs of unease. In February 2021, a car packed with explosives was found parked outside the home of Mukesh Ambani, India's richest tycoon. An elite detective - a former“encounter specialist” - is awaiting trial in that case. While denying the ex-cop's bail petition last year, a court said his aim was to spread terror in the mind of the Ambani family. Siddique's murder has deepened the foreboding. Police have invoked a harsh 1999 law designed to crush organized crime. But cops don't know the underworld's current level of engagement. “We must have made 20 to 25 films and earned profits, too,” Chhota Shakeel, an Ibrahim aide, had bragged in a 2001 interview, after authorities busted a high-profile case of the mafia's movie-financing operations.“Instead of extorting money from film personalities, we thought we would do business with them.” Have the proceeds of crime seeped in again, slipping through the veneers of Bollywood's corporatization? It's an important law-enforcement question. As the Indian investigative journalist Swati Chaturvedi wrote recently,“Nowhere else in the world does a film industry of this size face such organized threats.” The repercussions go beyond showbiz. Lawrence Bishnoi, the leader of the group suspected of murdering Siddique, has been accused by the Canadian police of colluding with Indian government agents to kill and harass members of the country's Sikh diaspora. A gangster who's at the center of a diplomatic spat - and at the same time threatening to eliminate Salman Khan, one of India's biggest film stars - adds a new dimension to the threat. Arthouse Indian cinema has always felt smothered by kitsch. That has only gotten worse in recent years with right-wing propaganda films competing with the usual song-and-dance and action routines. But now Mumbai is losing control even on its signature over-the-top entertainers. Studios in the southern city of Hyderabad can lay claim to two of the biggest hits in a dull year.(1) That is just like 1984 when the Mumbai industry's dalliance with crime had begun to get serious. Meanwhile, the acclaimed drama All We Imagine as Light, nominated for two Golden Globes and the winner of this year's Cannes Grand Prix, is struggling to find exhibitors at home. A second-generation Mumbai producer recently sold half of his studio to Adar Poonawalla, the billionaire vaccine maker who earned handsome profits during Covid-19. The pandemic marked a crucial intermission. It fueled demand for original content people could stream at home on Netflix, Amazon Prime and homegrown apps like Hotstar when cinemas were under lockdown. Now everything is open, and yet audiences are so bored of the insipid fare on screens big and small, they're neither out for a movie night, nor clicking through big-budget web dramas. When everything starts bombing for Bollywood, things take a sinister turn in Mumbai. More From Bloomberg Opinion: (1) Pushpa: The Rule -- Part 2, made in Telugu and dubbed into five other Indian languages, is an action thriller about a violent sandalwood smuggler. It has beaten Kalki 2898 AD, another Telugu-language movie, as the highest-grossing Indian film of 2024, according to IMDb. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Andy Mukherjee is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering industrial companies and financial services in Asia. Previously, he worked for Reuters, the Straits Times and Bloomberg News. More stories like this are available on bloomberg/opinion MENAFN26122024007365015876ID1109033456 Legal Disclaimer: MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.
President-elect Donald Trump has identified what he sees as an all-purpose fix for what ails America: Slap huge new tariffs on foreign goods entering the United States. On Monday, Trump sent shockwaves across the nation's northern and southern borders, vowing sweeping new tariffs on Mexico, Canada , as well as China, as soon as he takes office as part of his effort to crack down on illegal immigration and drugs. In a pair of posts on his Truth Social site, Trump railed against an influx of illegal migrants, even though southern border apprehensions have been hovering near four-year lows. He said he would impose a 25% tax on all products entering the country from Canada and Mexico, and an additional 10% tariff on goods from China, as one of his first executive orders. He said the new tariffs would remain in place "until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!" The president-elect asserts that tariffs — basically import taxes — will create more factory jobs, shrink the federal deficit, lower food prices and allow the government to subsidize childcare. Economists are generally skeptical, considering tariffs to be a mostly inefficient way for governments to raise money. They are especially alarmed by Trump's latest proposed tariffs. Carl B. Weinberg and Rubeela Farooqi, economists with High Frequency Economics said Tuesday that energy, automobiles and food supplies will be particularly hit hard. "Imposing tariffs on trade flows into the United States without first preparing alternative sources for the goods and services affected will raise the price of imported items at once," Weinberg and Farooqi wrote. "Since many of these goods are consumer goods, households will be made poorer." High Frequency Economics believes the threats are not meant to support new trade policy and are instead a tool to elicit some changes along the borders and for imports from Canada, Mexico and China. Though Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Trump's tariff threats as unserious during her failed bid for the presidency, the Biden-Harris administration retained the taxes the Trump administration imposed on $360 billion in Chinese goods. And it imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles. Indeed, the United States in recent years has gradually retreated from its post-World War II role of promoting global free trade and lower tariffs. That shift has been a response to the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs, widely attributed to unfettered trade and an increasingly aggressive China. They are typically charged as a percentage of the price a buyer pays a foreign seller. In the United States, tariffs are collected by Customs and Border Protection agents at 328 ports of entry across the country. The tariff rates range from passenger cars (2.5%) to golf shoes (6%). Tariffs can be lower for countries with which the United States has trade agreements. For example, most goods can move among the United States, Mexico and Canada tariff-free because of Trump's US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. Trump insists that tariffs are paid for by foreign countries. In fact, its is importers — American companies — that pay tariffs, and the money goes to U.S. Treasury. Those companies, in turn, typically pass their higher costs on to their customers in the form of higher prices. That's why economists say consumers usually end up footing the bill for tariffs. Still, tariffs can hurt foreign countries by making their products pricier and harder to sell abroad. Yang Zhou, an economist at Shanghai's Fudan University, concluded in a study that Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods inflicted more than three times as much damage to the Chinese economy as they did to the U.S. economy By raising the price of imports, tariffs can protect home-grown manufacturers. They may also serve to punish foreign countries for committing unfair trade practices, like subsidizing their exporters or dumping products at unfairly low prices. Before the federal income tax was established in 1913, tariffs were a major revenue driver for the government. From 1790 to 1860, tariffs accounted for 90% of federal revenue, according to Douglas Irwin, a Dartmouth College economist who has studied the history of trade policy. Tariffs fell out of favor as global trade grew after World War II. The government needed vastly bigger revenue streams to finance its operations. In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the government is expected to collect $81.4 billion in tariffs and fees. That's a trifle next to the $2.5 trillion that's expected to come from individual income taxes and the $1.7 trillion from Social Security and Medicare taxes. Still, Trump wants to enact a budget policy that resembles what was in place in the 19th century. He has argued that tariffs on farm imports could lower food prices by aiding America's farmers. In fact, tariffs on imported food products would almost certainly send grocery prices up by reducing choices for consumers and competition for American producers. Tariffs can also be used to pressure other countries on issues that may or may not be related to trade. In 2019, for example, Trump used the threat of tariffs as leverage to persuade Mexico to crack down on waves of Central American migrants crossing Mexican territory on their way to the United States. Trump even sees tariffs as a way to prevent wars. "I can do it with a phone call,'' he said at an August rally in North Carolina. If another country tries to start a war, he said he'd issue a threat: "We're going to charge you 100% tariffs. And all of a sudden, the president or prime minister or dictator or whoever the hell is running the country says to me, 'Sir, we won't go to war.' " Tariffs raise costs for companies and consumers that rely on imports. They're also likely to provoke retaliation. The European Union, for example, punched back against Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum by taxing U.S. products, from bourbon to Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Likewise, China responded to Trump's trade war by slapping tariffs on American goods, including soybeans and pork in a calculated drive to hurt his supporters in farm country. A study by economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Zurich, Harvard and the World Bank concluded that Trump's tariffs failed to restore jobs to the American heartland. The tariffs "neither raised nor lowered U.S. employment'' where they were supposed to protect jobs, the study found. Despite Trump's 2018 taxes on imported steel, for example, the number of jobs at U.S. steel plants barely budged: They remained right around 140,000. By comparison, Walmart alone employs 1.6 million people in the United States. Worse, the retaliatory taxes imposed by China and other nations on U.S. goods had "negative employment impacts,'' especially for farmers, the study found. These retaliatory tariffs were only partly offset by billions in government aid that Trump doled out to farmers. The Trump tariffs also damaged companies that relied on targeted imports. If Trump's trade war fizzled as policy, though, it succeeded as politics. The study found that support for Trump and Republican congressional candidates rose in areas most exposed to the import tariffs — the industrial Midwest and manufacturing-heavy Southern states like North Carolina and Tennessee.
NEW YORK — There's a Christmas Day basketball game at Walt Disney World, featuring Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Wemby. An animated game, anyway. The real game takes place at Madison Square Garden, where Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs face the New York Knicks in a game televised on ABC and ESPN and streamed on Disney+ and ESPN+. The special alt-cast, the first animated presentation of an NBA game, will be shown on ESPN2 and also stream on Disney+ and ESPN+. Madison Square Garden is a staple of the NBA's Christmas schedule. Now it merges with a bigger home of the holidays, because the "Dunk the Halls" game will be staged at Disney, on a court set up right smack in the middle of where countless families have posed for vacation photos. Why that location? Because it was Mickey Mouse's Christmas wish. "Basketball courts often have the ability to make a normal environment look special, but in Disney it can only turn out incredible," Wembanyama said in an ESPN video promoting his Christmas debut. The story — this is Disney, after all — begins with Mickey penning a letter to Santa Claus, asking if he and his pals can host a basketball game. They'll not only get to watch one with NBA players, but some of them will even get to play. Goofy and Donald Duck will sub in for a couple Knicks players, while Mickey and Minnie Mouse will come on to play for the Spurs. "It looks to me like Goofy and Jalen Brunson have a really good pick-and-roll at the elite level," said Phil Orlins, an ESPN vice president of production. Walt Disney World hosted real NBA games in 2020, when the league set up there to complete its season that had been suspended by the COVID-19 pandemic. Those games were played at the ESPN Wide World of Sports. The setting for the Christmas game will be Main Street USA, at the entrance of the Magic Kingdom. Viewers will recognize Cinderella's castle behind one baseline and the train station at the other end, and perhaps some shops they have visited in between. Previous alternate animated broadcasts included an NFL game taking place in Andy's room from "Toy Story;" the "NHL Big City Greens Classic" during a game between the Washington Capitals and New York Rangers; and earlier this month, another NFL matchup between the Cincinnati Bengals and Dallas Cowboys also taking place at Springfield's Atoms Stadium as part of "The Simpsons Funday Football." Unlike basketball, the players are helmeted in those sports. So, this telecast required an extra level of detail and cooperation with players and teams to create accurate appearances of their faces and hairstyles. "So, this is a level of detail that we've never gone, that we've never done on any other broadcast," said David Sparrgrove, the senior director of creative animation for ESPN. Wembanyama, the 7-foot-3 phenom from France who was last season's NBA Rookie of the Year, looks huge even among most NBA players. The creators of the alternate telecast had to design how he'd look not only among his teammates and rivals, but among mice, ducks and chipmunks. "Like, Victor Wembanyama, seeing him in person is insane. It's like seeing an alien descend on a basketball court, and I think we kind of captured that in his animated character," said Drew Carter, who will again handle play-by-play duties, as he had in the previous animated telecasts, and will get an assist from sideline reporter Daisy Duck. Wembanyama's presence is one reason the Spurs-Knicks matchup, the leadoff to the NBA's five-game Christmas slate, was the obvious choice to do the animated telecast. The noon EST start means it will begin in the early evening in France and should draw well there. Also, it comes after ABC televises the "Disney Parks Magical Christmas Day Parade" for the previous two hours, providing more time to hype the broadcast. Recognizing that some viewers who then switch over to the animated game may be Disney experts but NBA novices, there will be 10 educational explainers to help with basketball lingo and rules. Beyond Sports' visualization technology and Sony's Hawk-Eye tracking allow the animated players to make the same movements and plays made moments earlier by the real ones at MSG. Carter and analyst Monica McNutt will be animated in the style of the telecast, donning VR headsets to experience the game from Main Street, USA. Other animated faces recognizable to some viewers include NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who will judge a halftime dunk contest among Mickey and his friends, and Santa himself, who will operate ESPN's "SkyCam" during the game. The players are curious how the production — and themselves — will look. "It's going to be so crazy to see the game animated," Spurs veteran Chris Paul said. "I think what's dope about it is it will give kids another opportunity to watch a game and to see us, basically, as characters." Get local news delivered to your inbox!PAT Kenny has accused RTE of blundering by having two debate moderators on Wednesday night. The broadcaster hit out at the hosts of RTE’s Prime Time leaders’ debate Sarah McInerney and Miriam O’Callaghan on his Newstalk radio programme. He said on the Pat Kenny Show: “It really wasn’t a debate , and it comes down to the format that they had. “They had two moderators and I think that was the big competition of the night. Who could ask the best questions , who could be the best moderator, rather than who is going to be the best leader of the country . “Because I watched that from a professional perspective watching how that was done, and I think that probably did inhibit the debate a bit.” He said the best debate he could host is one where “I say nothing and I let them at it. That’s where it becomes, for me, I’m watching like a sentry waiting to jump in if I have to, but otherwise I want the protagonists to have a right go at each other”. He added: “The moderators were kind of like the fire brigade putting out the fires before the fires could erupt.” Meanwhile, a Sinn Fein TD has said anyone voting for Fianna Fail will be voting for Simon Harris . Housing spokesperson Eoin O Broin warned voters that backing Fianna Fail on Friday will put Fine Gael and Mr Harris back into government. He said: “This Friday will be the last chance voters have for the next five years to fix the housing crisis and to change the government. “Five years ago, Micheal Martin told voters that Fine Gael had been in power for too long and that they needed to come out of government. He then went and put them in. We all know the results of that decision. “Micheal Martin now wants to give Fine Gael five more years - a fourth term in government. His only offering to the Irish people is 19 unbroken years of Fine Gael in government. “Mícheal Martin is determined to put the discredited Simon Harris back into government, despite everything that we have seen during this campaign. “The best way and the only way to stop this is to vote for Sinn Féin on Friday. Sinn Féin is the only party that can change the government, and chart a new course which will tackle the critical issues facing our society.” The Greens have accused their former coalition partners of wanting them out for an easier life. Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman fears a new government made up of small right-wing groups will set Ireland back. He said: “It’s been clear from the briefings that have been coming out from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that they want a coalition partner that represents the path of least resistance. “They know that the Green Party fights hard. We fought hard in the programme for government negotiations in 2020. We got one of the strongest, one of the greenest programmes for governments ever agreed. “My sense is certainly the mood music from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is that they like an easier life in the next government and my concern is they use these kind of populists, small populist parties, right-wing independents that they can put little deals [in place] with, but who are then in Cabinet and are actually rolling back the progressive policies of climate, on transport, on supporting families and kids that we’ve introduced over the last four-and-a-half years.” Elsewhere, the Social Democrats said it’s not possible to cut taxes and invest heavily in the likes of health and housing - despite what the other parties make out. Deputy Leader Cian O’Callaghan said: “A lot of other parties are promising very significant tax cuts and very significant increases in public services and investment and it is simply not possible to do the two, to erode the tax base and improve our public services. “So, if you want to have change, you want to see affordable purchase housing, you want to see improvements in disability services, you want to see affordable childcare, a full implementation of Sláintecare, you want real action on climate, then you need to vote Social Democrats number one. “It’s not going to be delivered by parties that are promising to do two contradictory things, erode funding for public services and improve public services at the same time.”