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SentinelOne misses quarterly profit estimates, shares fallWhat Gifts Do You Give on Kwanzaa?It has a population of just under 3.5 million inhabitants, produces nearly 550,000 tons of beef per year, and boasts a glorious soccer reputation with two World Cups in its history and a present full of world-class stars. Uruguay, the country of writer Mario Benedetti and soccer player Luis Suárez, has achieved what many countries have pledged for decades: 98% of its grid runs on green energy. Luis Prats, 62, is a Uruguayan journalist and contributor to the Montevideo newspaper El País . He remembers that during his childhood, blackouts were common in Uruguay because there were major problems with energy generation. “At that time, more than 50 years ago, electricity came from two small dams and from generation in a thermal plant,” Prats explained in Spanish by telephone. “If there was a drought in the Negro River basin, where those dams are, there were already cuts and sometimes restrictions on the use of electrical energy.” Just 17 years ago, Uruguay used fossil fuels for a third of its energy generation, according to the World Resources Institute . | Today, only 2% of the electricity consumed in Uruguay is generated from fossil sources. The country’s thermal power plants rarely need to be activated, except when natural resources are insufficient. Half of Uruguay’s electricity is generated in the country’s dams, and 10% percent comes from agricultural and industrial waste and the sun. But wind, at 38%, is the main protagonist of the revolution in the electrical grid. But how did the country achieve it? Who were the architects of this energy transition? Energy revolution In 2008, Uruguay faced a problem that many developing countries face. The economy was growing, but it did not have enough electrical energy to fuel all that growth. Energy rationing had to be implemented, and electricity bills continued to rise. “It was difficult for us to cope,” Ramón Méndez Galain, a professor at the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay, said in an interview with NPR . He is one of the architects of the energy revolution in that country. “It was difficult to get electricity. For a while, we began to have power outages, but the crisis also represents an opportunity.” In 2008, President Tabaré Vázquez appointed Méndez Galain as national director of energy. Although the blackouts posed an immediate threat to the economy, the country’s continued dependence on oil undermined its autonomy. A primary question guided Méndez Galain’s work: What strategies could lead the country toward long-term energy independence? The physicist developed a detailed plan to move Uruguay toward almost exclusive dependence on renewable energy. Méndez Galain’s plan was based on two simple facts about his country. First, although there was no domestic supply of fossil fuels such as coal or oil, there was a large amount of wind. Second, that wind was blowing over a country that was largely made up of uninhabited agricultural land. His vision for Uruguay’s energy future was to cover those empty lands with hundreds of wind turbines. Pablo Capurro, agronomist and livestock engineer, shared with Deutsche Welle his concern at the time about the possible impact of wind turbines on the life of his farm. Capurro and other farmers in the region sought advice from a team of engineers and took a trip to Brazil to visit wind farms in that country. After the trip, they were convinced that the implementation of the wind turbines would not affect the production system. Capurro’s cows seem not to be affected by the presence of the windmills: “I feel very satisfied for having introduced a wind energy park on a livestock farm.” In 2010, Uruguay reached a multiparty agreement and adopted the energy transition to indigenous and renewable sources as a state policy, guaranteeing its execution and continuity, Walter Verri, Uruguay’s undersecretary of industry, energy, and mining, explained by telephone in Spanish: “This policy included a long-term perspective and also incorporated the social, ethical, and cultural dimensions in addition to the classic technical-economic analysis of the energy issue.” The state energy company, UTE, pays rent every year to the owners of the land where the wind farms operate. Don Quixote, Ivy, and the windmills In the vision of the ingenious gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, windmills stood like defiant giants, reflecting his boundless imagination and idealistic perspective on the world. This mythical interpretation of the windmills resonates with the contemporary perception of wind towers in Uruguay, where they are seen as symbols of a clean and renewable energy source. Today, Mendez Galain directs the nongovernmental organization Ivy , which means “land without evil” in Guaraní. Guaraní is the native language of the inhabitants of that area and is one of the two official languages ​​of Paraguay. Just as Don Quixote faced the windmills as a challenge that he had to overcome to fulfill his duty as a knight-errant, the installation and maintenance of wind farms in Uruguay also involved facing significant obstacles. From technical challenges to financial and regulatory barriers, the transition to clean energy sources needed a concerted effort to overcome these difficulties and move toward a more sustainable future. How to pay for all those turbines? Méndez Galain, winner of the 2023 Carnot Prize , which recognizes distinguished contributions to energy policy, conceived a variation of an approach used by some electric companies in Brazil. These companies operated through public-private partnerships, where the companies were responsible for energy generation, while private entities managed distribution and customer service. Méndez Galain’s innovation lay in reversing that dynamic: Private companies would be responsible for installing and maintaining the wind turbines that would supply Uruguay’s grid, while the public company would continue to distribute the energy to consumers. This approach had the inherent advantage of transferring the costly initial outlay for the construction of wind turbines to private companies. The state company agreed to acquire all the energy produced by said turbines at a preestablished rate for 20 years. “Investors need assurance that their investment will be repaid,” Méndez Galain explained during the interview with NPR, “and for that, they need a specific time horizon.” There was political will for this approach: All parties in Uruguay agreed with the transition. In 2009, Uruguay began auctions in which wind companies from around the world competed to offer the cheapest renewable energy to the country. In 2011, a specific auction aimed to secure an additional 150 megawatts of wind energy, which would represent approximately 5% of the country’s total power generation capacity. After receiving offers from more than 20 international companies, the professor and his team decided to drastically accelerate the country’s energy transition. Ultimately, they accepted many more offers than initially planned, signing contracts that expanded Uruguay’s capacity to generate electricity not by 5%, but by more than 40%. Uruguay’s energy grid became powered almost exclusively by domestic renewable sources, and consumer prices, adjusted for inflation, fell. “Electricity bill prices dropped substantially,” said Alda Novell, a resident of Montevideo, by telephone. Today, Uruguay has more than 700 wind turbines distributed throughout its territory. “At first glance, the change is seen in many areas of the country: You go down the road and see the modern windmills in rural areas,” Prats said. “Starting in 2010, with the variety of energy sources, and also renewable ones, blackouts became very rare. It was a relief for state coffers not to have to spend on fossil fuels for energy generation.” For Walter Verri, undersecretary of industry, energy, and mines, the development of renewable energy in Uruguay has been possible thanks to the collaboration of various actors, including the entire political sector and public and private companies. This energy transformation created new careers, job opportunities, and training pathways in Uruguay, Verri added. Countries around the world have spent the last decade announcing ambitious goals to reduce the emissions that cause climate change. Few are on track to achieve that goal. Uruguay is a good example that the green transition is still possible. This article was translated by Climate Cardinals . This article first appeared on Yale Climate Connections and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. — Johani Carolina Poncebet with you 。

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — An online spat between factions of supporters over immigration and the tech industry has thrown internal divisions in his political movement into public display, previewing the fissures and contradictory views his coalition could bring to the White House. The rift laid bare the tensions between the newest flank of Trump's movement — wealthy members of the tech world including billionaire and fellow entrepreneur and their call for more highly skilled workers in their industry — and people in Trump's Make America Great Again base who championed his hardline immigration policies. The debate touched off this week when , a right-wing provocateur with a history of racist and conspiratorial comments, criticized Trump’s selection of as an adviser on artificial intelligence policy in his coming administration. Krishnan favors the ability to bring more skilled immigrants into the U.S. Loomer declared the stance to be “not America First policy” and said were doing so to enrich themselves. Much of the debate played out on the social media network X, which Musk owns. Loomer's comments sparked a back-and-forth with venture capitalist and former , whom Trump has tapped to be the “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar." Musk and Ramaswamy, , weighed in, defending the tech industry's need to bring in foreign workers. It bloomed into a larger debate with more figures from the hard-right weighing in about the need to hire U.S. workers, whether values in American culture can produce the best engineers, free speech on the internet, the newfound influence tech figures have in Trump's world and what his political movement stands for. Trump has not yet weighed in on the rift, and his presidential transition team did not respond to a message seeking comment. Musk, the world's richest man who has , was a central figure in the debate, not only for his stature in Trump's movement but his stance on the tech industry's hiring of foreign workers. Technology companies say H-1B visas for skilled workers, used by software engineers and others in the tech industry, are critical for hard-to-fill positions. But critics have said they undercut U.S. citizens who could take those jobs. Some on the right have called for the program to be eliminated, not expanded. Born in South Africa, Musk was once on an a H-1B visa himself and defended the industry's need to bring in foreign workers. “There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent," he said in a post. “It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley.” Trump's own positions over the years have reflected the divide in his movement. His tough immigration policies, including his pledge for a mass deportation, were central to his winning presidential campaign. He has focused on immigrants who come into the U.S. illegally but he has also , including family-based visas. As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump called the H-1B visa program “very bad” and “unfair” for U.S. workers. After he became president, Trump in 2017 issued a “Buy American and Hire American” , which directed Cabinet members to suggest changes to ensure H-1B visas were awarded to the highest-paid or most-skilled applicants to protect American workers. Trump's businesses, however, have hired foreign workers, including , and his social media company behind his Truth Social app for highly skilled workers. During his 2024 campaign for president, as he made immigration his signature issue, Trump said immigrants in the country illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country" and promised to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. But in a sharp departure from his usual alarmist message around immigration generally, Trump this year that he wants to give automatic green cards to foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges. “I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country," he told the “All-In" podcast with people from the venture capital and technology world. Those comments came on the cusp of Trump's budding alliance with tech industry figures, but he did not make the idea a regular part of his campaign message or detail any plans to pursue such changes.AI fact checks can increase belief in false headlines, study finds

No. 25 UConn working on climbing back up poll, faces No. 15 BaylorIs ‘SNL’ New This Weekend? Here’s Everything to Know

SAN FRANCISCO — About 90 minutes before the Warriors’ Christmas Day game against the Lakers, Steph Curry addressed his team. This season can go one way or another, he told them. The message was brief, only two or three minutes. They’d lost 10 of 13 entering the Lakers matchup, sinking from 12-3 to 15-13. They didn’t quite need a players-only meeting, but Curry decided it was time to at least speak up. “It is an inflection point on obviously which direction our season can go,” Curry said at the postgame podium. “Thirty games in, you’re one game above .500. You need some context on how you got there. I think our last 14 games, it’s just been tough. Trying to find any type of momentum or consistency. Through that, you just can’t lose spirit and belief that we’re a good enough team to figure it out. Because this league is ruthless, this league changes from window to window of what you’ve got to fall back on. When you dig yourself a hole like that, sometimes it can be hard to pull out of. We’re right in that window where we can still regain some momentum. These next however many weeks before the break are pivotal. Or else we’ll be in a situation where we’re chasing down the stretch, and nobody wants to do that.” Curry has always chosen his words carefully with the media, but it seems like he’s been more pointed this season than in years past. At media day, he said he was confident that the Warriors can be “relevant” early. Recently, he said that if the team’s string of late-game offensive failures continues, they’ll be a “mediocre” team. Taking time to address his teammates is far from unprecedented, but it is noteworthy from Curry. He often uses the word “urgency,” and this was another way to try to evoke more of it. Golden State played with ample effort on Christmas Day, but couldn’t beat the Lakers even after Anthony Davis exited seven minutes into the game. Curry scored the Warriors’ last eight points, including two ridiculous 3-pointers to tie the game late, but Austin Reaves beat Andrew Wiggins off the dribble and Jonathan Kuminga didn’t rotate as the help defender, allowing Reaves to bank in the game-winner. Curry scored a season-high 38 points in the loss. He has had two stinkers recently, but unimpeachably remains one of the best players in the league. And he’s always been a revered leader in his own right. “When Steph talks, he talks at the right moment,” Wiggins said. “It was needed. The message was clear. That’s the leader here. We go where Steph goes. Definitely needed. Motivational. I think it’ll be the start of something good for us.” The start of something good will have to begin after Christmas. Golden State has games against the Clippers, Suns, Cavaliers, Grizzlies and 76ers — who just beat the Celtics — upcoming. Their schedule has been unrelenting and doesn’t let up immediately. In their 3-11 skid, the Warriors have proven that they’re not solid enough to overlook any opponent. They’ve lost to the Nets, Spurs, Pacers and now the Lakers without Davis or D’Angelo Russell. “We’re down,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. “Everybody’s disappointed. We’ve lost some confidence, you can feel it. We had a great vibe early in the season and we’re going through it now. I love our guys. High-character guys. They care about the game. They care about each other. I believe in them, I believe we’re going to get this thing turned around.” Curry has a similar belief. The Lakers loss, while a gut punch, was a nice reminder that he can still ramp it up and take over a game in crunch time, like he did consistently during the 12-3 start. Perhaps the biggest source of optimism for the Warriors should be the status of the Western Conference. They’re currently the 10-seed, but they’re 1.5 games back of fifth place. The Thunder, Rockets and Grizzlies have separated themselves at the top of the West. The Mavericks were right there, but on Christmas lost Luka Doncic to a calf strain. The rest of the conference is up for grabs. The Warriors are certainly a candidate to snatch a real seed. Or they could keep tumbling and spiral toward the lottery. The season can go one way or another. “I still have hope, faith and confidence that we can figure it out,” Curry said. “That’s how I’m built. I feel like we can go out there and talk about it, but how you execute, how you show up on a nightly basis — the effort we’re giving, even considering what our record’s been over the last stretch — is a team that’s desperate, trying to figure it out. It just hasn’t gone our way. Until things change, you have to keep that mentality.” ©2024 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at mercurynews.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.Congress to focus on organisation in 2025, says Mallikarjuna KhargeMINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota Republicans filed a lawsuit Monday to try to force a rerun of a state House race where the incumbent Democrat won by 14 votes — but in which investigators concluded that election workers probably destroyed 20 valid absentee ballots after failing to count them. It's a race that could determine the balance of power in the Minnesota House, where leaders from both parties are working out the details of a power-sharing agreement that currently presumes a 67-67 tie when the Legislature convenes next month. A Republican victory in a special election could shift that balance to a two-vote, 68-66 GOP majority. Democrats have a one-vote majority in the state Senate. So regardless of the outcome in the disputed race, Minnesota will be returning to some degree of divided government in 2025 after two years of full Democratic control. “The actions of Scott County elections officials constitute a serious breach of not only Minnesota Election Law, but the public trust in our electoral system,” the lawsuit said. Democratic Rep. Brad Tabke was declared the winner last week of the swing suburban Shakopee-area District 54A race by 14 votes after a recount and the official canvass. But Scott County election officials had said earlier, after a post-election audit, that they were unable to account for 21 absentee ballots in the district southwest of Minneapolis. County Attorney Ronald Hocevar reported last Wednesday that his preliminary investigation determined that election workers most likely threw at least 20 of those absentee ballots away, and that they may have been in a paper bale that a recycler had already sent away for shredding. He wrote that they “most likely will not be recovered,” and that even if they were found, it's unlikely that an unbroken chain of custody could be proven to assure that they weren't tampered with. In Minnesota, absentee voters complete their ballots, place them in a security envelope to protect their privacy, then place that envelope inside a signature envelope with identifying information on the outside so that election workers can check those ballots in. Once the counting begins, the ballots are supposed to be removed from the security envelopes and tabulated. The county attorney concluded that the 20 ballots, all from the same precinct, were properly accepted for counting on Oct. 17, but “most likely were never removed from their secrecy envelopes,” and were probably still in them when those envelopes were thrown away. The investigation didn’t determine what happened to the 21st ballot, which was cast in a different precinct. It’s not the first time in recent years that absentee ballots have gone missing. When a small number of military ballots in Pennsylvania ended up in a trash can in 2020, President Donald Trump repeatedly seized on the case to support his claims of fraud heading into that election. After investigating, authorities found a temporary county election worker had mistakenly discarded seven military ballots in the trash and mishandled two others. The ballots were later retrieved from a garbage dumpster and counted, and the worker was fired. Minnesota House Republicans filed Monday's lawsuit on behalf of GOP candidate Aaron Paul, asking a court to declare the results invalid and Tabke's seat vacant, saying the “undisputed facts” make it impossible to rely on the results. The current House minority leader, Rep. Lisa Demuth, of Cold Spring, said a new election is the best way to protect the integrity of the process. "We appreciate the efforts by Scott County to investigate this matter and be transparent about their findings,” Demuth said in a statement. But House Democrats said they believe they will win the court challenge. “Rep. Brad Tabke won the election in District 54A by the count on Election Night and in the recount," current Speaker Melissa Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, said in a statement. "We expect Rep. Tabke will prevail again in the election contest.” Republicans also filed a lawsuit last month over a different House race, in the suburban Roseville area, where they allege the winner doesn't live in the district. Democrats deny that, and the district is heavily Democratic, so that case is unlikely to change the balance of power even if there's a special election. ___ Associated Press writer Christina Almeida Cassidy contributed to this story from Atlanta. ___ This story has been corrected to show the GOP House majority would be two votes, not one, if its candidate wins a special election, not . Steve Karnowski, The Associated Press

Former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh has died at the age of 92. Singh was one of India’s longest-serving prime ministers and he was considered the architect of key liberalising economic reforms, as premier from 2004-2014 and before that as finance minister. He had been admitted to a hospital in the capital Delhi after his health condition deteriorated, reports say. Among those who paid tribute to Singh on Thursday were Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who wrote on social media that “India mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished leaders”. Modi said that Singh’s “wisdom and humility were always visible” during their interactions and that he had “made extensive efforts to improve people’s lives” during his time as prime minister. Priyanka Gandhi, the daughter of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and a Congress party member, said that Singh was “genuinely egalitarian, wise, strong-willed and courageous until the end”. Her brother Rahul, who leads Congress, said he had “lost a mentor and guide”. Singh was the first Indian leader since Jawaharlal Nehru to be re-elected after serving a full first term, and the first Sikh to hold the country’s top post. He made a public apology in parliament for the 1984 riots in which some 3,000 Sikhs were killed. But his second term in office was marred by a string of corruption allegations that dogged his administration. The scandals, many say, were partially responsible for his Congress party’s crushing defeat in the 2014 general election. Singh was born on 26 September 1932, in a desolate village in the Punjab province of undivided India, which lacked both water and electricity. After attending Panjab University he took a master’s degree at the University of Cambridge and then a DPhil at Oxford. While studying at Cambridge, the lack of funds bothered Singh, his daughter, Daman Singh, wrote in a book on her parents. “His tuition and living expenses came to about £600 a year. The Panjab University scholarship gave him about £160. For the rest he had to depend on his father. Manmohan was careful to live very stingily. Subsidised meals in the dining hall were relatively cheap at two shillings sixpence.” Daman Singh remembered her father as “completely helpless about the house and could neither boil an egg, nor switch on the television”. Singh rose to political prominence as India’s finance minister in 1991, taking over as the country was plunging into bankruptcy. His unexpected appointment capped a long and illustrious career as an academic and civil servant – he served as an economic adviser to the government, and became the governor of India’s central bank. In his maiden speech as finance minister he famously quoted Victor Hugo, saying that “no power on Earth can stop an idea whose time has come”. That served as a launchpad for an ambitious and unprecedented economic reform programme: he cut taxes, devalued the rupee, privatised state-run companies and encouraged foreign investment. The economy revived, industry picked up, inflation was checked and growth rates remained consistently high in the 1990s. Manmohan Singh was a man acutely aware of his lack of a political base. “It is nice to be a statesman, but in order to be a statesman in a democracy you first have to win elections,” he once said. When he tried to win election to India’s lower house in 1999, he was defeated. He sat instead in the upper house, chosen by his own Congress party. The same happened in 2004, when Singh was first appointed prime minister after Congress president Sonia Gandhi turned down the post – apparently to protect the party from damaging attacks over her Italian origins. Critics however alleged that Sonia Gandhi was the real source of power while he was prime minister, and that he was never truly in charge. The biggest triumph during his first five-year term was to bring India out of nuclear isolation by signing a landmark deal securing access to American nuclear technology. But the deal came at a price – the government’s Communist allies withdrew support after protesting against it, and Congress had to make up lost numbers by enlisting the support of another party amid charges of vote-buying. A consensus builder, Singh presided over a coalition of sometimes difficult, assertive and potentially unruly regional coalition allies and supporters. Although he earned respect for his integrity and intelligence, he also had a reputation for being soft and indecisive. Some critics claimed that the pace of reform slowed and he failed to achieve the same momentum he had while finance minister. (BBC News) Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.