President Donald Trump has issued several executive actions aimed at reforming public education in the United States, including one that targets transgender ideology, keeping a promise he made after winning the 2024 election. “We will get critical race theory and transgender insanity the [expletive] out of our schools, and we’re going to get it out…
Travelling can be a dream but the stress of packing, queues and flight delays often turns it into a nightmare. Not to mention, being squeezed into a tiny seat for hours can be uncomfortable. But fear not, as travel influencers have unveiled an incredible flight hack on TikTok that could significantly up the comfort level…
Open this photo in gallery:Philadelphia Eagles fans hold up a sign for wide receiver A.J. Brown (11) and Inner Excellence, the book he was seen reading on the sidelines, during the NFL divisional playoff football game against the Los Angeles Rams on Jan. 19 in Philadelphia.Chris Szagola/The Associated PressWhen you’re looking for an explanation about how we got to this point in history, you could do worse than the case of A.J. Brown, renaissance man.Brown is a very good wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles. He has the famous-person curse of having a difficult-to-remember name. Until last week, he was another wideout in a mess of NFL Browns, Hills, Evanses and Jeffersons.But then Brown did something to set himself apart – he read.Not at home, where most of us now pretend to do so, but out in public where you could prove it was occurring. Cameras caught Brown mid-game with a self-help book, Inner Excellence, open in his hands.American outlets rushed in to cover this story like a natural disaster. ESPN titled its segment, ‘The Infamous Book,’ which suggests the network should probably read a little more itself. Maybe start with a dictionary.The beginning of the narration on that piece – “It was the fourth quarter in the Eagles’ wild card game against the Packers when a national television audience saw something it’s never seen before – a player reading a book on the bench.”That last bit was said with the wonder one might bring to, “ … a bear flying a spaceship around the moon.”Brown has been all over the place talking about his unusual ability. The angle of these features is uniform – ‘Get a load of this weirdo.’Though a delightful person, Brown has not helped matters by talking about reading like it is something to be done in the garage between 2 and 4 a.m.“I’m not changing who I am just because the world may say, ‘This is strange. This is unorthodox.’ I’m not afraid to push myself in areas or pick up a book because we’re playing this masculine football game,” Brown told ESPN. “Best believe, I’m the first one who’s going to try to smash somebody’s face in.”As he said it, the piano soundtrack rose to a crescendo. Something inspiring had just happened, though it was hard to say what. That Brown had overcome the enemies of literacy? That he’s masculine, but not, you know, too masculine?I get that reading isn’t cool any more, and that buying books is the new collecting china. But it had not occurred to me how bizarre a behaviour it now seems to most people until Brown’s story made headlines, and then kept making them for days and days.The initial reaction online was rage and confusion – How could he be reading right now? What sort of a layabout reads at work??The secondary reaction was worse – mild amusement tinged with scorn. Reading is now something done by the sort of people who pop the collars on their polos. Showoffs, poseurs and other vaguely effete types.There have always been meatheads who fear literature, but until recently they knew to be ashamed of it. Now they are in the ascendance.Not 20 years ago, Toronto Blue Jay Roy Halladay would bring a copy of The Mental ABC’s of Pitching everywhere with him. Sometimes, you’d catch him sitting facing into his locker, staring at it and rocking Talmudically.The story was endlessly repeated as evidence that Halladay was operating on a higher level than everyone else. Reading made Halladay seem special, where it has now made Brown seem suspect.It is not a coincidence that the golden ages of American literature and sports were simultaneous. One fed the other in an inspired loop. If you want to talk about the artifacts, say, baseball has produced, I would put The Natural above any home-run record.Great novelists once took sports as their subject because people wanted to consume and discuss ideas that happened to be most easily explicated through games. Sports was the artistic means, not the end.You think of a piece like Gay Talese’s The Loser and you realize that not only is it not being done any more, but that it couldn’t be. There is no outlet regularly writing that way, and no club or manager that would allow them the access if there were.Athletes want to tell their own stories now – understandable – but they’re not good at it. Not much better than the writers would be playing the games.As a result, most sportswriting has become a roughage of stats and cliches, the stories told about athletes are news releases and the people who like sports no longer get why anyone who’s made the pros would bother reading a book.That’s part of what success has become – never again feeling you must read anything.It would amaze me to hear that any of our leaders today, in any industry, of any political persuasion, read fiction. Or not the good kind, at least. The stuff that isn’t purpose-designed to make you feel better about your choices.If they did, they wouldn’t be so dull-minded. Go back and read anything – anything at all – written by Abraham Lincoln. It will make you weep at the poverty of modern discourse.After years of absorbing what now passes for discussion, you get one mildly thoughtful person breaking cover in a space reserved for face smashing and his audience’s reaction is ‘Burn the witch.’And I’m okay with that. In a world where no one reads, the few who do have an advantage. They already know what’s happening and where it’s headed because it was in a book they read. Nothing people say or do amazes or unsettles them. They’ve heard about much worse.Why are people so anxious today? Everyone’s got their pet theory so here’s mine – they don’t read.If they did, they wouldn’t feel so adrift in history. If they had regular access to the deepest feelings of others, they wouldn’t be so captive to their own.Strangely, it is the non-readers who now operate in the realm of fantasy. Everything that happens surprises them. Current events are their magic. They keep using words like ‘unprecedented’ for things that are not that. But they were precedented in books, so …
The second Trump term is not like the first, or if it is it’s an augmented version. The oldest US president to take office – at 78 years old – intends to redraw America’s borders. He asserted in the speech following his swearing-in on Monday, January 20, that, under his aegis, his country will consider itself “once again” as a nation that expands our “territory.” The phrase is as polarizing as it is polysemous and represents a clean break with the Republican’s first term in office. As during the campaign that paved the way for his incredible return to power, Trump stuck to a static definition of the border. It was almost reduced to the “wall” he intended to erect over the 3,000 kilometers running from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, and which Mexico, he claimed, would finance. His aim was then to protect his country from “drug dealers, criminals and rapists” (2015) who were “poisoning the blood of our country” (2023), as well as from globalization, which had turned to benefit rival China. His trade protectionism was part of the same project of a fortress America, as was his criticism of the alliances set up after the Second World War, which he felt could at any moment drag the United States into military adventurism beyond its borders. Trump didn’t shy away from this defensive obsession in the early hours of his inauguration, announcing the introduction, on February 1, of the first taxes on imports from Canada and Mexico. He also wants to revisit the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, in order to deprive the children of undocumented migrants born on American soil of their American nationality. But he seems to believe that the time has come to complement this posturing with an expansionist policy that will not be merely lexical and limited to the rather derisory desire to rename the Gulf of Mexico after America. Hence the return of the “manifest destiny” that supposedly belongs to the US and the mythologized narrative of the conquest of the West, supposedly empty of any native population. Trump intends to underline this by stripping the highest point in the US of its ancestral name, Denali, reinstated by Barack Obama. Trump will return the Alaska mountain to the name of the 25th American president, William McKinley. You have 57.26% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
Sky Force starring Akshay Kumar and Sara Ali Khan is all set to hit theaters on January 24. The action drama will focus on India’s retaliatory attack on the Sargodha airbase of Pakistan in the Indo-Pakistani air war of 1965, which marked India’s first airstrike. Apart from them, the film also stars Veer Pahariya and Nimrit Kaur. Notably, Veer is making his acting debut with Abhishek Anil Kapur and Sandeep Kewlani’s directorial. As the release date is near, let’s find out about Veer Pahariya, the grandson of the former Maharashtra Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, who is all set to debut with Sky Force. All you need to know about Veer PahariyaBorn in 1995, Veer Pahariya is the son of Smruti Shinde, the owner of Sobo Films Pvt Ltd, a media and production company. He is the grandson of Sushilkumar Shinde, the former Chief Minister of Maharastra. Veer’s father is Sanjay Pahariya, a business tycoon.
Notably, he also cofounded Indiawyn Gaming with his brother Shikhar Pahariya in 2018. Meanwhile, his brother is dating actress Janhvi Kapoor. Earlier, Veer was in the public eye for his previous relationship with actress Sara Ali Khan. Veer has been lately linked with former Miss Universe Harnaaz Kaur Sandhu and former Miss World Manu.Veer Pahariya and Akshay Kumar in Sky ForceVeer Pahariya’s profession before acting Before acting, Veer worked as an assistant director on Bhediya. The film starred Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sanon. He studied at Dhirubhai Ambani International School and Regent’s University in London.
He is also friends with high-profile people like Anant Ambani, (son of Mukesh Ambani) and Radhika Merchant. He was seen attending their wedding and other events of the Ambani family. Veer Pahariya in Sky ForceVeer is all set to make his acting debut with Sky Force. He plays Squadron Leader Ajjamada Boppayya Devayya in the film. The character is based on a real-life Air Force officer who was posthumously awarded the Maha Vir Chakra.Sky Force will hit theaters on January 24, 2025.
Param Sundari shoot has a Mani Ratnam connectionFilmfare learned that there’s a special Mani Ratnam connection to Param Sundari’s shoot. Janhvi Kapoor and Sidharth Malhotra recently shot at Athirappilly waterfalls which is the same location where Mani Ratnam shot some of the most iconic sequences of his films like Iruvar, Dil Se.., Raavan, and Guru. Fans are in for some picturesque scenes in Param Sundari as the shooting locations are picture-perfect. Sidharth Malhotra and Janhvi KapoorParam Sundari to cast new actor?The media portal also revealed that the Param Sundari team is all set to welcome a new actor on board. The young actor hails from Chennai and he will play Janhvi’s suitor in the movie. Sidharth Malhotra shares video from Param Sundari setsA few days ago, Malhotra shared a picturesque waterfall view from the sets of Param Sundari on his Instagram story. He captioned the video, “Namaskaram Kerala.” Sidharth Malhotra (Instagram).Dinesh Vijan’s on Param SundariDinesh Vijan had previously compared the movie to Mani Ratnam films. In an interview with Variety, he said that the conflict between Sidharth’s North Indian boy meeting Janhvi’s South Indian girl is ‘very cool.’
“It’s like maybe taking Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya (Shahid Kapoor-Kriti Sanon’s film) forward – there’s a high-tech idea in there. But we are going into the Kantara world of sorts – we are going a little more than that,” Vijan said.
Directed by Tushar Jalota and produced by Dinesh Vijan’s Maddock Films, Param Sundari is about a North Indian man falling in love with a South Indian woman. The film will hit theaters on July 25.
As his debut directorial in Malayalam, Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse, counts down to its theatrical outing on January 23, 2025, director Gautham Vasudev Menon has already begun making plans for the future. The filmmaker admits to being so taken in by Mammootty and the experience of working with the Mollywood superstar that he’s hopeful of many more collaborations. Gautham has already hinted at turning the character of Dominic into a detective franchise, but given a choice, he’d like to do much more.
Mammootty in Dominic and the Ladies’ PurseGautham Vasudev Menon: I learnt a lot from Mammootty
In a recent promotional interview for Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse, Gautham was asked since he’s directed Mammootty, whether he’d next like to work with Mohanlal. The filmmaker’s immediate response, though, was that he’d now like to do at least 10 more films with Mammootty. “I learnt a lot from him. The entire team enjoyed the process of making Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse. Mammootty has worked with so many filmmakers and knows exactly what a shot is going to be like even before I explain. He’s been there, done that. And yet, he does not approach any role with that sense of familiarity,” says Gautham speaking to One 2 Talks.Every scene and line was thoroughly discussed before take and then Mammootty would bring magic to the screen, says the filmmaker. But besides that, Gautham says that he’s written in several celebratory moments in Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse to satisfy the fanboy in him. “I like what he’s done for this film and there will be lots more in the years to come,” he says.
Mammootty in a still from Dominic and the Ladies’ PurseEarlier in the conversation, Gautham had spoken at length about approaching the character of Dominic as realistic as possible, unlike other investigative thrillers with larger-than-life massy heroes. “Dominic is a loner, is not well off and does not even own any vehicles, but he’s highly intelligent. He does justice to the job he’s paid for, but besides that, there is a dogged pursuit about him,” Gautham says about his protagonist.
In a big move to fuel the burgeoning demand for AI infrastructure, US President Donald Trump has announced a private sector investment of up to $500 billion with the launch of ‘Stargate’— a joint venture between OpenAIand SoftBankto build data centres and create over 1,00,000 jobs in the country. The venture will be initially funded by SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX. SoftBank and OpenAI will serve as the primary partners, with SoftBank overseeing financial responsibilities and OpenAI managing the operations. Masayoshi Son will assume the role of chairman.These companies, alongside the other equity backers of Stargate, have pledged an immediate investment of $100 billion. The remaining funding is projected to come in over the next four years.“The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately,” read OpenAI’s blog. “This infrastructure will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world. This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies,” it added. Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI will serve as the primary technology partners. Construction efforts for the data centres are already underway in Texas, and as final agreements are completed, additional sites across the country are being evaluated for more campuses.“I think this will be the most important project of this era. We wouldn’t be able to do this without you, Mr. President,” Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said during a press conference held at the White House.Under the initiative, Oracle, NVIDIA, and OpenAI will work closely to build and operate the computing infrastructure. This partnership builds on a longstanding collaboration between OpenAI and NVIDIA, dating back to 2016, as well as a newer partnership between OpenAI and Oracle. It also expands on OpenAI’s existing partnership with Microsoft, with the firm set to increase its usage of Azure, the cloud computing platform of Microsoft. This additional computing infrastructure will help the Altman-led company to continue training AI models and deliver their products and services.“All of us look forward to continuing to build and develop AI—and in particular AGI (artificial general intelligence)—for the benefit of all of humanity. We believe that this new step is critical on the path, and will enable creative people to figure out how to use AI to elevate humanity,” said OpenAI.
The world of finance is undergoing a major transformation, and artificial intelligence is leading the charge. Gone are the days of manual number crunching and time-consuming spreadsheets. Today, AI is helping businesses streamline their financial processes, providing deeper insights, and making smarter decisions with greater speed and accuracy.
AI-powered tools are reshaping how businesses handle accounting and budgeting by automating repetitive tasks, reducing errors, and offering real-time financial insights. Whether it’s managing expenses, forecasting revenue, or detecting fraud, AI is making financial management more efficient than ever before.
One of the biggest advantages AI brings to accounting is automation. Tasks that used to take hours such as data entry, invoice processing, and reconciliation can now be done in minutes. AI algorithms can automatically categorize expenses, match transactions, and even flag anomalies, allowing finance teams to focus on higher-level strategic planning instead of getting lost in the numbers. This automation not only saves time but also reduces costly human errors.
Budgeting is another area where AI is making a huge impact. Traditional budgeting methods often rely on historical data and educated guesses. AI, on the other hand, can analyze large volumes of data, recognize patterns, and provide predictive insights that help businesses anticipate future financial trends with remarkable accuracy. By analyzing spending patterns, cash flow, and market conditions, AI-driven budgeting tools allow businesses to make proactive financial decisions rather than reactive ones.
AI is also enhancing financial forecasting, making it easier for businesses to predict revenue, identify potential risks, and allocate resources effectively. By processing real-time data from multiple sources such as sales trends, economic indicators, and even social media sentiment AI can provide a more comprehensive view of a company’s financial health and future opportunities.
Another significant benefit AI brings to finance is its ability to detect fraud and ensure compliance. With advanced machine learning algorithms, businesses can identify suspicious transactions, unusual patterns, and potential compliance violations before they become major problems. This not only protects the company’s bottom line but also helps maintain trust with customers and stakeholders.
Despite all these advantages, businesses must be mindful of potential challenges when adopting AI in finance. Data security and privacy remain top concerns, as financial data is highly sensitive and requires robust protection measures. Additionally, while AI can enhance efficiency, it’s important to remember that human oversight is still necessary to ensure accuracy and make strategic decisions based on AI-generated insights.
As AI continues to evolve, businesses that embrace its capabilities in accounting and budgeting will gain a competitive edge. From automating routine tasks to providing actionable financial insights, AI is redefining how businesses manage their finances, helping them operate more efficiently and make smarter financial decisions.
The following article is an opinion piece written by Philipp Koellinger. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Technology Networks.Science and technology are co-dependent with a feedback loop between the two. Science is currently in the midst of a replication crisis with many studies appearing novel on the surface but being difficult to replicate. This barrier to scientific progress, in turn, holds back technological innovation as breakthroughs are slowed by the current publishing landscape. Here, I explore the changes required to level the playing field and accelerate both scientific and technological progress. Currently, the scientific publishing industry is unable to publish anything other than manuscripts (PDFs). Though these texts provide valuable information, it’s only one part of reporting scientific research – data, code and other artefacts are often at least equally important to support an author’s claims and aid those trying to repeat the results. Without access to these elements, it’s difficult to test how robust or trustworthy a study is or reproduce its findings – holding back scientific progress. A lack of access to data and code also leads researchers to “reinvent the wheel,” duplicating efforts. Good science enables new, breakthrough technologies, new medical treatments and general innovation. But, when research that looks promising turns out to be false and not replicable, society loses time and money, misinformation spreads and future R&D efforts get misdirected, which in turn slows down technological progress, economic growth and our ability to solve urgent problems. Better technologies enable better scienceThat said, we have seen a lot of scientific breakthroughs in recent years that have been aided by new technologies, including the ability to quickly and cheaply sequence DNA or genotype individuals. This has completely revolutionized the way genetics research is done, and it is starting to have downstream effects that improve medical diagnoses and treatment options. Two decades ago, collecting genetic samples used to be incredibly expensive, but now there are massive datasets that allow scientists to run a vast range of studies that are much bigger and better statistically powered than before. This has enabled a cascade of robust, replicable scientific discoveries that wouldn’t have been possible without this positive feedback loop between technology and science. Also, new technologies are often enabled by scientific progress. To again use DNA and genetics as an example, the development of modern genotyping and sequencing technology was enabled by major scientific breakthroughs such as the Human Genome Project, which decoded the first complete human genetic sequence 25 years ago. The competitive race between two scientific teams to complete this scientific breakthrough led to major innovations in measuring DNA accurately, quickly and at scale. This sparked the development of new sequencing and genotyping technologies, which led to price decreases per human genome over time that outpaced the rate of progress in computer chip making (i.e., Moore’s law). In turn, these technological advances made the emergence of gigantic biobanks possible that collect genetic information, medical records and other markers for millions of people (e.g., UK Biobank). Many of these biobanks can be accessed and used by researchers around the world for free or for modest fees, which led to a flurry of robust and reproducible scientific breakthroughs. But just like the feedback loop between science and technology can speed up progress, bad science can severely harm our ability for technological, medical and social progress. Consider the example of laboratory experiments for pre-clinical studies, which are often conducted with small sample sizes and without giving others access to the raw data, code or experimental protocols that are detailed enough to enable replications.In a commentary piece published in Nature in 2012, it was reported that from biotech giant Amgen’s attempts to replicate over 50 landmark cancer studies that were published in leading scientific journals, almost 90% could NOT be successfully replicated. This not only led to an enormous waste of time and money that slowed down the development of cancer treatments, but it also undermined trust in studies that were published in high-impact journals, leading Amgen to look for other ways to inform their R&D pipeline. Efforts to make science more transparent and accessible (including data and code) make it easier for others to reproduce findings and help to separate true discoveries from noise. This, in turn, can save R&D-intensive companies a lot of time and resources, speeding up their ability to develop novel products and services that actually work. Novelty: The catalyst of innovation When scientific novelty and rigor coincide, actual discoveries happen that can spur technological innovation. Improving access to data and code, and properly measuring both novelty and rigor of scientific outputs would go a long way toward improving the returns on R&D investments. The existing publishing system typically relies on the subjective “smell test” of editors and referees to assess novelty, which often results in disagreements and wrong decisions. This subjective, manual system of assessing novelty is also very labor-intensive, slow, inefficient and prone to biases. This is why we released a first-of-its-kind novelty scores calculator that ranks both content novelty and context novelty of scientific manuscripts using a machine-learning model that progresses over time, taking scientific advances into account. With thousands of scientific papers getting published every day and an exponential increase in publication volumes that has been going on for decades, the utility of a tool that objectively and quickly assesses novelty is obvious: It helps to surface the research that has the highest chance of moving the needle. These scores are highly correlated with future citation counts and identify papers with citations of more than 90 percent of those published in the same year and field more accurately than top scientific journals such as Nature, Cell and Science. In addition, robustness is aided by access to data, code and other artefacts that underline a study’s claims. Developing a preprint network that supports manuscript, data, code and other research outputs that allows them to be reviewed can also give researchers the credit for sharing them. With this information available, the rigor of any previous study can be tested by an independent team of researchers who can try and replicate the results – arguably the most convincing test of rigor. This can be done by using a crowdfunding mechanism for published papers that enables scientists and companies to identify studies that can test its initial outcomes. With the right incentives to carry out these studies, research and development organizations could have saved a lot of time by outsourcing replication studies to the scientific community at a fraction of the cost. DeSci Labs aims to accelerate scientific progress by making science both more robust and more novel. That’s why we have launched the first objective novelty metric and allow users to upload vital supporting material to research manuscripts. It enables the technology and science feedback loop to continue functioning, while preserving content from the past that can help differentiate true discovery from noise – allowing for true advances to take place.