Dickey’s Barbecue Pit Kicks Off Game Day Packs with Double Rewards PointsNoneThe former Geordie Shore star, who is nearly eight months pregnant, thanked a security company “for all the hard work this week” after adding the protections to her home. “Trebling our security measures, worth every penny to feel safe again in my own home,” the 34-year-old said in a post to her Instagram story. “Scumbags are gunna get a big shock the next time they even step foot on any perimeter of my land.” It comes after her fiance, Jake Ankers, said on social media that a group of men carrying a machete entered their home on Thursday evening while they were in the house with their two-year-old daughter. The businessman said one of the four men “had a red balaclava on” and was carrying the weapon at the top of the stairs. Durham Constabulary were alerted at 7pm on Thursday to reports of an aggravated burglary in Houghton-le-Spring, a town in the Sunderland area. A spokeswoman for the force said: “Officers attended the area, however the suspects left the scene before their arrival. “Nobody was injured in the incident and no items are believed to have been taken.” She added that an investigation is under way and anyone with information is asked to contact police. After the incident, Crosby was admitted to hospital after experiencing “serious pains” in her stomach, but confirmed her baby is “all fine”. Ankers appeared with the reality star on BBC Three reality show Charlotte In Sunderland. Crosby is best known for appearing in the MTV reality series Geordie Shore and winning the 12th series of Celebrity Big Brother in 2013. She and Ankers got engaged in October 2023 after she gave birth to their first child in 2022.
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Fox News loses bid for Smartmatic voting-tech company's records about Philippines bribery caseHARRISBURG — The next step toward faster permits in Pennsylvania starts with a simpler application process. So says Gov. Josh Shapiro, who traveled to Hazle Township in Luzerne County last week to sign an executive order launching the Pennsylvania Permit Fast Track Program, intended to improve efficiency for complex development projects in the commonwealth. The press conference was held at the site of a newly completed warehouse developed by NorthPoint Development, a primary player in the Hazelnut Project, a 1,300-acre technology campus in Hazle Township that will house tech infrastructure. “This new development will help PA continue to stay at the front of the pack when it comes to attracting jobs to the area,” said NorthPoint Vice President Brian Stahl. The governor’s office hopes to shake off Pennsylvania’s reputation for red tape and slow starts. The Fast Track program should reduce the time it takes for projects, like the one in Hazle Township, to get off the ground and create jobs along the way. The program tasks the Office of Transportation and Opportunity – another Shapiro administration creation via executive order – with overseeing complex high-impact economic development and infrastructure projects. Other work already underway includes the Bellwether District in Philadelphia and the Martinsburg Community Digester. For initiatives within the program, the office serves as a shepherd, facilitating the connections, applications and studies required to move a project forward. Key to the program is a public-facing dashboard that shows progress on the work being done, providing increased transparency for stakeholders affected by ongoing development projects. “Today’s executive order strengthens that critical partnership between private developers and permitting agencies, fostering a streamlined, transparent, and effective process,” Stahl said. “This collaboration accelerates investments, creates meaningful jobs, generates vital tax revenue, and further strengthens the economy for all Pennsylvanians.” Hazleton’s Republican mayor, Jeff Cusat, spoke about the common ground he shares with the Democratic governor. “Under my leadership, we’ve made critical updates to our code department, issuing thousands of permits and business licenses,” he said. “I’m glad to see the state also taking action to speed up their permitting processes.” “It takes everyone working together to get a project like this over the finish line and the township has worked incredibly hard to make this a successful public-private partnership,” said Dr. Anthony Grigoli, chairman of the Township Supervisors Board for Hazle Township. If the program can build upon the successes of earlier phases of the administration’s economic plan, which have dramatically slashed wait times in licensing and permitting processes across industries, officials believe the state can draw new business that may have been otherwise deterred by red tape. Brian Kirshner, who leads the Office of Transportation and Opportunity, hopes to see the state perform more competitively. “Speed and service are what companies care about,” he said.Apple Cash: How to use it to send and receive money
Monday marked the start of 16 days of activism for local groups who are trying to eliminate violence against women across British Columbia and the world. In 2023, there were reported to police in B.C. Last year – that is one woman every two days – across the nation, according to Women and Gender Equality Canada. Advocates say that number has increased since the pandemic particularly due to a lack of affordable housing. “We need to address this – awareness is okay, but we absolutely need action, and that’s why this day and the next 16 days are so important,” Angela Marie Macdougal, Director, Battered Women’s Support Services Association The women’s organization is hosting a two-day conference in Vancouver to address violence against women and girls, with a focus on those in Indigenous communities. “Half of the women that were killed in B.C. in 2024 were killed by their intimate partner, and that is appalling to us, so we need some big policy changes around housing,” Macdougal told CityNews. “A wide sweeping increase in housing subsidies for victims leaving transition housing so they can access housing in their community to manage the incredible unaffordability.” Experts say that the issue will not be solved overnight and has to include men and boys. “We’ve spent a lot of time teaching women and girls how to not get assaulted, and we haven’t spent any time teaching boys how to not assault,” Caithlin Scarpelli, Communication Director, DTES Women’s Centre, said at the conference. She said that social media plays a role in giving young people a “skewed sense of reality.” “I think it’s our schools, our parents, our aunties and uncles are encouraged to teach young boys about what it means to exist in a world where women are equal to them,” Scarpelli said. This comes after the provincial government treats cases of sexual and intimate partner violence. Statistics Canada says that from 2014 to 2022, intimate partner violence among adults aged 25 to 64 years increased by 32 per cent, and by 42 per cent among seniors aged 65 years and older. It also notes in 2022, there were 117,093 victims of police-reported intimate partner violence, a higher rate of which were women and girls. B.C.’s attorney general, Niki Sharma, says that those numbers are a part of the reason for launching the review. The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to people’s reluctance to report sexual assault and violence, and she’d like that reluctance to shift. British Columbia holds the highest provincial percentage of both men and women reporting being sexually assaulted since the age of 15. The most recent self-reported data provided by Statistics Canada shows that women were five times more likely than men to be victims of sexual assault.Nov 21 (Reuters) - Efforts by U.S. antitrust regulators to break up Alphabet by forcing a sale of its Google Chrome browser and other proposals to limit its search dominance are likely to run into legal challenges on grounds the remedies are extreme. After a ruling in August that Google (GOOGL.O) , opens new tab illegally monopolized the search market, U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors argued to a judge on Wednesday that the company must sell Chrome , share data and search results with rivals and possibly sell its Android smartphone software. Alphabet shares fell as much as 7%, on track for their biggest daily percentage decline since Jan. 31. The proposals are part of a landmark case aimed at reshaping how users find information. But a new pro-business administration of President-elect Donald Trump next year could change that effort and legal proceedings could last years, experts said. "It would strike me as an over-ask," said Kevin Walkush at Jensen Investment Management, which holds Google stock and is skeptical a Chrome divestiture will happen. "You ask for everything possible, not necessarily with an eye towards what would be probable and proportional, and then see what sticks." The DOJ sought and won a breakup of Microsoft (MSFT.O) , opens new tab in the early 2000s after alleging it illegally monopolized the web browser market. That ruling was overturned by an appeals court, and Microsoft and the DOJ eventually settled. Walkush expects the Google case to take years to play out as the company appeals. "The wheels of justice do not turn quickly," he said. Google called the DOJ's approach "unprecedented government overreach that would harm American consumers, developers, and small businesses," giving as examples diminished user privacy and less funding for companies such as browser maker Mozilla when they feature Google search. The case could also face challenges from Trump. While Trump's administration originally filed the search case against Google during his first term, he indicated in October he might not break up the company because it could hurt the American tech industry at a time competition is heating up with China in areas including AI. Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Chrome, the most widely used web browser, is a pillar of Google's business, providing the company with valuable user data that helps it target ads. The search ads business brought in more than half of Alphabet's total revenue of $88.3 billion in the latest quarter. The value of Chrome, estimated to hold about two-thirds of the global browser market, diminishes sharply as a standalone browser. "The reason why it's valuable to Google is because Google uses it to enhance its ad business and its search business," said Megan Gray, former general counsel at search rival DuckDuckGO who has also worked as an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission. "If you don't have those, then Chrome would just be a data broker." A forced sale would not address several key issues raised in the DOJ lawsuit, including a search monopoly, critics say. U.S. antitrust enforcers, who are also pursuing Apple (AAPL.O) , opens new tab and Amazon (AMZN.O) , opens new tab in other monopoly cases, would have to approve any potential Chrome buyer. "DOJ will face substantial headwinds with this remedy," because Chrome can run search engines other than Google, said Gus Hurwitz, senior fellow and academic director at University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. "Courts expect any remedy to have a causal connection to the underlying antitrust concern. Divesting Chrome does absolutely nothing to address this concern." The DOJ proposed a blanket ban on Google offering incentives to give its search engine preferential treatment. That would include Google's lucrative partnership with Apple, where it pays the smartphone maker billions of dollars annually to make Google Search the default on Apple smartphones. Evercore analysts called the proposed curbs "draconian." Given Google Search's popularity, Apple is likely to continue with Google as the default search engine even without any agreement or payments, Hurwitz said. DOJ's proposals also include demands for Google to license search results at a nominal cost and share the user data it gathers with competitors for free. D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said it was harder to ascertain the impact of Google having to open up its search data until the terms are clearer. The Center for Journalism & Liberty said Google licensing its search data would be "transformative" for news publishers because it would help them better understand their audiences. Sign up here. Reporting by Deborah Sophia and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru and Kenrick Cai in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Jody Godoy and Chris Sanders in Washington; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh, Aditya Soni and Rod Nickel Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tab Thomson Reuters Akash reports on technology companies in the United States, electric vehicle companies, and the space industry. His reporting usually appears in the Autos & Transportation and Technology sections. He has a postgraduate degree in Conflict, Development, and Security from the University of Leeds. Akash's interests include music, football (soccer), and Formula 1. Thomson Reuters Kenrick Cai is a correspondent for Reuters based in San Francisco. He covers Google, its parent company Alphabet and artificial intelligence. Cai joined Reuters in 2024. He previously worked at Forbes magazine, where he was a staff writer covering venture capital and startups. He received a Best in Business award from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing in 2023. He is a graduate of Duke University.
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