Fox News Flash top sports headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. The Cleveland Browns dropped to 3-9 after falling to the Denver Broncos on "Monday Night Football," but fans have to admit Jameis Winston has kept the team in games as the team’s starting quarterback. He's won games against two divisional opponents, the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers. With the first half clock winding down Monday, ESPN color commentator and Pro Football Hall of Famer Troy Aikman discussed the Browns’ quarterback situation. During his synopsis, he called Deshaun Watson, the embattled quarterback out for the remainder of the season, an "albatross." CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM Former NFL quarterback and TV commentator Troy Aikman before a game between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Cincinnati Bengals Dec. 4, 2023, at EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla. (David Rosenblum/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) "You know, this is a tough league," Aikman began his monologue, via Awful Announcing. "And we all talk about parity. But when it comes to your hometown team, nobody wants to hear it. And Kevin Stefanski is an outstanding football coach, and he’s proven that. Two-time Coach of the Year. What he did to that group last year to get them in the postseason — they started four quarterbacks, they were decimated with injuries. "And I get it. You know, this year hasn’t been what people thought coming in, but the albatross is Deshaun Watson. If you go to Jameis Winston earlier in the year, does this look different? Because I would say the defensive struggles, in at least a small part, have had to do with how inept the offense has been moving the football. I think it’s affected the defensive play, as well." 2025 SUPER BOWL ODDS: LIONS HOLD STEADY, COMMANDERS SURGE Aikman doubled down later in the game when Winston had 355 passing yards and Jerry Jeudy caught six of those passes for 167 yards and a touchdown. "You can’t help but wonder what this year might have looked like for Cleveland if Jameis had taken over from the start or at least much sooner than when he did," Aikman said. "I know Deshaun Watson goes down with a torn Achilles, but it had been a real struggle offensively watching him." The Browns’ season is virtually over in terms of playoff contention, but the organization has a lot of evaluation to do at the quarterback position after Watson went 1-6 to start the season before tearing his Achilles against the Cincinnati Bengals Oct. 20. Cleveland Browns quarterback Jameis Winston passes the ball in the first quarter against the Denver Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High. (Ron Chenoy/Imagn Images) During those games, Watson threw for 1,148 yards with five touchdowns and three interceptions, while getting sacked 33 times. Since Winston took over Stefanski’s offense, the Browns have gone 2-3 with the 30-year-old passing for 1,680 yards, 10 touchdowns and seven interceptions in the five games he’s started. The biggest issue with Watson is the $230 million contract he signed that has him under Cleveland control until the 2027 campaign, when he becomes an unrestricted free agent. Do the Browns want to see Watson recover and try to find his way again, hoping he can recreate the magic he had in Houston with the Texans? Or does the organization want to move on, especially considering off-the-field allegations that continue even after the numerous civil lawsuits that led to an 11-game suspension in 2022? Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson looks for an open receiver during the second half of a game against the Jacksonville Jaguars Sept. 15, 2024, in Jacksonville, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack) CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The Browns will deliberate over those very questions while evaluating Winston over the team’s final five games, starting with a rematch against the Steelers Sunday in Pittsburgh. Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X , and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter . Scott Thompson is a sports writer for Fox News Digital.SHANGHAI , Dec. 17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Sentage Holdings Inc. (the "Company", "we", "our") (Nasdaq: SNTG ), is a holding company incorporated in the Cayman Islands with no material operations of its own. Through its China -based operating entities, the Company offers consumer loan repayment and collection management, loan recommendation, and prepaid payment network services in China . The Company today announced its financial results for the first six months of fiscal year 2024 ended June 30, 2024 . The following summarizes such financial results. Financial Highlights for the First Six Months of Fiscal Year 2024 Total operating revenue was $nil in the six months ended June 30, 2024 , compared with $82 for the same period of last year, representing a 100% decrease. The reason for the decrease in revenue was that the Company's existing business had declined while the Company attempting to enter into new businesses. the company has been adjusting and improving its products and services to enhance its competitiveness. These improvements require more time to be completed. Net loss was $1.12 million in the six months ended June 30, 2024 , compared with net loss of $1.08 million for the same period of last year. Basic and diluted loss per share was $0.47 in the six months ended June 30, 2024 , compared with basic and diluted loss per share of $0.46 for the same period of last year. Financial Results for the First Six Months of Fiscal Year 2024 Operating Expenses Selling, general and administrative expenses increased by $43,366 , or 4%, to $1,123,711 in the six months ended June 30, 2024 , from $1,080,345 for the same period of last year. The increase was due to the following reasons: Professionals consulting expenses increased by $122,525 or 30% to $ 534,675 in the six months ended June 30, 2024 , from $412,151 for the same period of last year. The increase was primarily due to the company paying more for consulting services to third party professionals. Provision for Income Taxes Provision for income taxes was nil for the six months ended 30 June 2024 , compared with nil for the same period last year. Net Loss Net loss was $1.12 million in the six months ended June 30, 2024 , compared with net loss of $1.08 million for the same period of last year. Loss Per Share Basic and diluted loss per share was $0.47 in the six months ended June 30, 2024 , compared with basic and diluted loss per share of $0.46 for the same period of last year. Cash and Cash Equivalents As of June 30, 2024 , the Company had cash and restricted cash of $1.61million , compared with $2.26 million as of December 31, 2023 . Cash Flow Net cash used in operating activities was $1.09 million , compared with Net cash used in operating activities of $1.01 million for the same period of last year. Net cash used in investing activities was $nil, compared with Net cash used in investing activities of $537 , for the same period of last year. Net cash provided by/ (used in) financing activity was $0.43 million , compared with Net cash used in financing activity of $(4,709) for the same period of last year. About Sentage Holdings Inc. Sentage Holdings Inc., headquartered in Shanghai, China , is a holding company incorporated in the Cayman Islands with no material operations of its own (the "Company"). Through its China -based operating entities, the Company offers consumer loan repayment and collection management, loan recommendation, and prepaid payment network services in China . Leveraging the Company's deep understanding of its client base, strategic partner relationships, and proprietary valuation models and technologies, the Company is committed to working with its clients to understand their financial needs and challenges and offering customized services to help them meet their respective objectives. For more information, please visit the company's website at ir.sentageholdings.com. Forward-Looking Statement Certain statements in this announcement are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that the Company believes may affect its financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. Investors can identify these forward-looking statements by words or phrases such as "may," "will," "expect," "anticipate," "aim," "estimate," "intend," "plan," "believe," "potential," "continue," "is/are likely to" or other similar expressions. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent occurring events or circumstances, or changes in its expectations, except as may be required by law. Although the Company believes that the expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot assure you that such expectations will turn out to be correct, and the Company cautions investors that actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results and encourages investors to review risk factors that may affect its future results in the Company's registration statement. For more information, please contact: Sentage Holdings Inc. Investor Relations Department Email: [email protected] Ascent Investor Relations LLC Tina Xiao President Tel: +1-646-932-7242 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Sentage Holdings Inc.
Wall Street Lunch: Quantum Stocks ManicIsraeli drone strikes hit Kamal Adwan Hospital on Tuesday, wounding three medical staff at one of the few hospitals still partially operating in the northernmost part of Gaza , the facility’s director said. Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya said the drones were dropping bombs, spraying shrapnel at the hospital. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. In Lebanon, a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has held despite Israeli forces carrying out several new drone and artillery strikes on Tuesday, killing a shepherd in the country's south. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed keep striking “with an iron fist” against perceived Hezbollah violations of the ceasefire. Hezbollah began launching rockets, drones and missiles into Israel last year in solidarity with Hamas militants who are fighting in the Gaza Strip. The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage . Israel’s blistering retaliatory offensive has killed at least 44,500 Palestinians , more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence. The war in Gaza has destroyed vast areas of the coastal enclave and displaced 90% of the population of 2.3 million, often multiple times . Here's the Latest: WASHINGTON — U.S. forces conducted a self-defense strike Tuesday in the vicinity of Mission Support Site Euphrates, a U.S. base in eastern Syria, against three truck-mounted multiple rocket launchers, a T-64 tank and mortars that Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said presented “a clear and imminent threat” to U.S. troops. The self-defense strike occurred after rockets and mortars were fired that landed in the vicinity of the base, Ryder said. The Pentagon is still assessing who was responsible for the attacks — that there are both Iranian-backed militias and Syrian military forces that operate in the area. Ryder said the attack was not connected to the offensive that is ongoing in Aleppo, where Syrian jihadi-led rebels taken over the country’s largest city. The U.S. has about 900 troops in Syria to conduct missions to counter the Islamic Stage group. CAIRO — Israeli drone strikes hit the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza on Tuesday, wounding three medical personnel, the facility’s director said. Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya said the drones were dropping bombs, spraying shrapnel at the hospital, located in the town of Beit Lahiya. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. In comments released by Gaza’s Health Ministry, Abu Safiya said one of the injured was in critical condition and was undergoing a complex surgery. “The situation has become extremely dangerous,” he said. “We are exhausted by the ongoing violence and atrocities.” Kamal Adwan Hospital has been struck multiple times over the past two months as Israeli forces have waged a fierce offensive in the area, saying they are rooting out Hamas militants who regrouped there. In October, Israeli forces raided the hospital, saying that militants were sheltering inside and arrested a number of people, including some staff. Hospital officials denied the claim. Abu Safiya was wounded in his thigh and back by an Israeli drone strike on the hospital last month. TEL AVIV, Israel — An Israeli court has ordered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take the stand next week in his long-running corruption trial, ending a long series of delays. Netanyahu’s lawyers had filed multiple requests to put off the testimony, arguing first that the war in Gaza prevented him from properly preparing for his testimony, and later that his security could not be guaranteed in the court chamber. In Tuesday’s decision, judges in the Jerusalem district court said that following a security assessment, his testimony will be moved to the Tel Aviv district court. Israeli media said the session would take place in an underground chamber. His testimony in the trial, which began in 2020, is expected to begin on Dec. 10 and to last at least several weeks. Netanyahu is charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate scandals involving powerful media moguls and wealthy associates. He denies wrongdoing. NABATIYEH, Lebanon — In destroyed areas of southern Lebanon, residents clearing away rubble on Tuesday said they didn’t trust Israel to abide by the week-old ceasefire with Hezbollah. “The Israelis are breaching the ceasefire whenever they can because they are not committed,” said Hussein Badreddin, a vegetable seller in the southern city of Nabatiyeh, which was pummeled by Israeli airstrikes over several weeks. “This means that they (can) breach any resolution at any time.” Since it began last Wednesday, the U.S.- and French-brokered 60-day ceasefire has been rattled by near daily Israeli strikes, although Israel has been vague about the purported Hezbollah violations that prompted them. Imad Yassin, a trader who owns a clothing shop in Nabatiyeh, said Israel was constantly breaching the ceasefire because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to continue the displacement of residents of southern Lebanon. “The Israeli enemy was defeated and the truth is that he is trying to get revenge. Netanyahu is trying to displace us as citizens of southern Lebanon,” Yassin said. They spoke as bulldozers cleared streets strewn with rubble and debris from destroyed buildings. Electricians worked to fix power lines in an effort to restore electricity to the city. Both men were displaced by the war and returned to Nabatiyeh on Wednesday, the day the ceasefire went into effect. Yassin found his clothing shop had been destroyed. He said he would wait to see if the state will dispense compensation funds so that he can repair and reopen his business. GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Two separate Israeli airstrikes killed at least nine people in Gaza City on Tuesday, Palestinian medical authorities said. Six people, including two children, who were killed when an Israeli strike hit a school sheltering displaced people Tuesday afternoon in the Zaytoun neighborhood, according to the Health Ministry’s emergency services. A second strike hit a residential building in the Sabra neighborhood, killing at least three people, the services said. Israeli forces have almost completely isolated northernmost Gaza since early October, saying they’re fighting regrouped Hamas militants there. That has pushed some families south to Gaza City, while hundreds of thousands more live in the territory's center and south in squalid tent camps, where they rely on international aid. JERUSALEM — Israel's military confirmed it killed a senior member of Hezbollah responsible for coordinating with Syria's army on rearming and resupplying the Lebanese militant group. Syrian state media said a drone strike on Tuesday hit a car in a suburb of the capital Damascus, killing one person, without saying who was killed. Israel's military said he was Salman Nemer Jomaa, describing him as “Hezbollah’s representative to the Syrian military,” and that killing him “degrades both Hezbollah’s presence in Syria and Hezbollah’s ongoing force-building efforts.” Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of war-torn Syria in recent years. Israel rarely acknowledges its actions in Syria, but it has said that it targets bases of Iran-allied militant groups. Iran supports both Hezbollah and the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad, which is currently fighting to push back jihadi-led insurgents who seized the country’s largest city of Aleppo . TUBAS, West Bank — Israeli soldiers opened fire inside a hospital in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday during a raid to seize the bodies of alleged militants targeted in earlier airstrikes, a Palestinian doctor working at the hospital told The Associated Press. Soldiers entered the Turkish Hospital complex in Tubas after the bodies of two Palestinians killed and one wounded in airstrikes in the northern West Bank on Tuesday were brought there, said Dr. Mahmoud Ghanam, who works in the hospital’s emergency department. The troops briefly handcuffed and arrested Ghanam and another doctor. “The army entered in a brutal way, and they were shooting inside the emergency department,” said Ghanam. “They handcuffed us and took me and my colleague.” The military confirmed that its troops were operating around the hospital searching for those targeted in the airstrikes, which they said had hit a militant cell near the Palestinian town of Al-Aqaba in the Jordan Valley. It denied that troops had entered the hospital building or fired gunshots inside. The soldiers left after learning that the wounded man had been transferred to another hospital, Ghanam said. The soldiers wanted to take the bodies of the two men killed in the strike, but the hospital’s manager refused to hand over the bodies, Ghanam said. Israeli raids on hospitals in the West Bank are rare but have grown more common since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. In Gaza, Israeli troops have systematically besieged, raided and damaged many hospitals. About 800 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza ignited the war there. Israel has carried out near-daily military raids in the West Bank that it says are aimed at preventing attacks on Israelis — attacks which have also been on the rise. Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three territories for an independent state. CAIRO — Palestinian officials say Fatah and Hamas are closing in on an agreement to appoint a committee of politically independent technocrats to administer the Gaza Strip after the war . It would effectively end Hamas’ rule and could help advance ceasefire talks with Israel. The rival factions have made several failed attempts to reconcile since Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007. Israel has meanwhile ruled out any postwar role in Gaza for either Hamas or Fatah, which dominates the Western-backed Palestinian Authority . A Palestinian Authority official on Tuesday confirmed that a preliminary agreement had been reached following weeks of negotiations in Cairo. The official said the committee would have 12-15 members, most of them from Gaza. It would report to the Palestinian Authority, which is headquartered in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and work with local and international parties to facilitate humanitarian assistance and reconstruction. A Hamas official said that Hamas and Fatah had agreed on the general terms but were still negotiating over some details and the individuals who would serve on the committee. The official said an agreement would be announced after a meeting of all Palestinian factions in Cairo, without providing a timeline. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media on the talks. There was no immediate comment from Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is dismantled and scores of hostages are returned. He says Israel will maintain open-ended security control over Gaza , with civilian affairs administered by local Palestinians unaffiliated with the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. No Palestinians have publicly volunteered for such a role, and Hamas has threatened anyone who cooperates with the Israeli military. The United States has called for a revitalized Palestinian Authority to govern both the West Bank and Gaza ahead of eventual statehood. The Israeli government is opposed to Palestinian statehood. Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed. NUSEIRAT REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip — Palestinians lined up for bags of flour distributed by the U.N. in central Gaza on Tuesday morning, some of them for the first time in months amid a drop in food aid entering the territory. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, gave out one 25-kilogram flour bag (55 pounds) to each family of 10 at a warehouse in the Nuseirat refugee camp, as well as further south in the city of Khan Younis. Jalal al-Shaer, among the dozens receiving flour at the Nuseirat warehouse, said the bag would last his family of 12 for only two or three days. “The situation for us is very difficult,” said another man in line, Hammad Moawad. “There is no flour, there is no food, prices are high ... We eat bread crumbs.” He said his family hadn’t received a flour allotment in five or six months. COGAT, the Israeli army body in charge of humanitarian affairs, said it facilitated entry of a shipment of 600 tons of flour on Sunday for the World Food Program. Still, the amount of aid Israel has allowed into Gaza since the beginning of October has been at nearly the lowest levels of the 15-month-old war. UNRWA’s senior emergency officer Louise Wateridge told The Associated Press that the flour bags being distributed Tuesday were not enough. “People are getting one bag of flour between an entire family and there is no certainty when they’ll receive the next food,” she said. Wateridge added that UNRWA has been struggling like other humanitarian agencies to provide much needed supplies across the Gaza Strip. The agency this week announced it was stopping delivering aid entering through the main crossing from Israel, Kerem Shalom, because its convoys were being robbed by gangs. UNRWA has blamed Israel in large part for the spread of lawlessness in Gaza. The International Criminal Court is seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister over accusations of using “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid into Gaza. Israel rejects the allegations and says it has been working hard to improve entry of aid. JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the war isn't over against Hezbollah and vowed to use "an iron fist" against the Lebanese militant group for any perceived violations of a week-old ceasefire. “At the moment we are in a ceasefire, I note — a ceasefire, not the end of the war," Netanyahu said at the start of the government meeting Tuesday. He said the military would retaliate for “any violation — minor or major.” Netanyahu also thanked U.S. President-elect Donald Trump for his recent demands for Hamas to release the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza. Trump posted on social media Monday that if the hostages are not freed before he takes office in January there would be “HELL TO PAY.” Netanyahu convened Tuesday's meeting in northern Israel, where around 45,000 Israelis had been displaced by the war as of last week, according to the prime minister’s office. Netanyahu said the government was focused on getting them back in their homes and rehabilitating the area. BERLIN — German authorities have arrested a Lebanese man accused of being a member of Hezbollah and working for groups controlled by the militant organization in Germany. Federal prosecutors said the suspect, identified only as Fadel R. in line with German privacy rules, was arrested in the Hannover region on Tuesday. The man is suspected of membership in a foreign terrorist organization and is not accused of direct involvement in any violence. Prosecutors said he joined Hezbollah in the summer of 2008 or earlier and took part in leadership training courses in Lebanon. From 2009, he allegedly had leadership duties in two groups controlled by Hezbollah in the Hannover area, organizing appearances by preachers close to the militants. According to prosecutors, he was briefly a correspondent for a Hezbollah media outlet in 2017 and was tasked with coordinating building work at a mosque. Germany is a staunch ally of Israel. It is also home to a Lebanese immigrant community of more than 100,000. BEIRUT — The Lebanese army is looking for more recruits as it beefs up its presence in southern Lebanon after the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire. Lebanon’s army is a respected national institution that kept to the sidelines during the nearly 14-month conflict. During an initial 60-day truce, thousands of Lebanese troops are supposed to deploy in southern Lebanon, where U.N. peacekeepers also have a presence. Hezbollah militants are to pull back from areas near the border as Israel withdraws its ground forces. The army said those interested in joining up have a one-month period to apply, starting Tuesday. The Lebanese army has about 80,000 troops, with around 5,000 of them deployed in the south. DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria’s state news agency says a drone strike hit a car in a suburb of the capital, Damascus, killing one person. The agency did not give further details or say who was killed. It said the attack occurred Tuesday on the road leading to the Damascus International Airport south of the city. The area is known to be home to members of Iran-backed militant groups. Israel is believed to have carried out a number of strikes in the area in recent months as it has battled Iran-backed Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon. Israeli officials rarely acknowledge such strikes. JERUSALEM — Israel’s defense minister warned that if the shaky ceasefire with Hezbollah collapses, Israel will widen its strikes and target the Lebanese state itself. He spoke the day after Israel carried out a wave of airstrikes that killed nearly a dozen people. Those strikes came after the Lebanese militant group fired a volley of projectiles as a warning over what it said were previous Israeli violations. Speaking to troops on the northern border Tuesday, Defense Minister Israel Katz said any violations of the agreement would be met with “a maximum response and zero tolerance.” He said if the war resumes, Israel will widen its strikes beyond the areas where Hezbollah’s activities are concentrated, and “there will no longer be an exemption for the state of Lebanon.” During the 14-month conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which came to an end last week with a ceasefire brokered by the United States and France, Israel largely refrained from striking critical infrastructure or the Lebanese armed forces, who kept to the sidelines . When Israeli strikes killed or wounded Lebanese soldiers, the Israeli military said it was accidental . The ceasefire agreement that took effect last week gives 60 days for Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and for Hezbollah militants to relocate north of the Litani River. The buffer zone is to be patrolled by Lebanese armed forces and U.N. peacekeepers. Israel has carried out multiple strikes in recent days in response to what it says are violations by Hezbollah. Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, accused Israel of violating the truce more than 50 times in recent days by launching airstrikes, demolishing homes near the border and violating Lebanon’s airspace. Berri, a Hezbollah ally, had helped mediate the ceasefire. JERUSALEM — Palestinian officials say an Israeli airstrike in the northern West Bank has killed two Palestinians. Israel’s military said it struck a militant cell near the town of Al-Aqaba, in the Jordan Valley. It did not immediately give more details. The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the two deaths and said a third person was moderately wounded. About 800 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza ignited the war there. Israel has carried out near-daily military raids in the West Bank that it says are aimed at preventing attacks on Israelis, which have also been on the rise. Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for an independent state. BEIRUT — Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon made his first public appearance in Beirut since he was wounded in an attack involving exploding pagers in mid-September. Mojtaba Amani, who returned to Lebanon over the weekend after undergoing treatment in Iran, visited on Tuesday the scene south of Beirut where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Sept. 27. Speaking about the airstrike that destroyed six buildings and killed Nasrallah and others, Amani said Israel should get for its act “the highest medal for sabotage, terrorism, blood and killing civilians.” Amani suffered serious injuries in his face and hands when a pager he was holding exploded in mid-September. The device was one of about 3,000 pagers that exploded simultaneously, killing and wounding many Hezbollah members. A day after the pager attack, a similar attack struck walkie-talkies. In total, the explosions killed at least 37 people and wounded more than 3,000, many of them civilians. Last month, a spokesperson for the office of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the pager attack was approved by Netanyahu.
Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have become essential technologies across industries, automating tasks at a speed and scale far beyond human capabilities. However, building these systems at scale requires deep engineering expertise and skilled teams to ensure success. Niloy Gupta, Machine Learning Engineer Tech Lead at Attentive Mobile, is an expert in scaling machine learning systems for various industry verticals. Gupta’s experience spans critical roles, including CTO of Lambent Logic and a pivotal position in scaling Affirm’s Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) platform, one of the largest in the U.S. He was also instrumental in scaling Yelp’s Ads Targeting system. Niloy holds a graduate degree from the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. His research focused on machine learning systems. Engineering AI/ML Applications Niloy’s journey as a technology leader showcases his ability to build scalable AI/ML systems for diverse industries. At Affirm, he contributed to production-scale systems while advancing model interpretability. Niloy shares, “AI/ML models must be interpretable to understand why a loan is approved or denied. If a FinTech company were to deny a loan, they would be legally obligated to tell the consumer why their loan application was rejected. As a result, companies are biased toward simpler and more interpretable models.” Niloy’s work reflects the complexities of regulated FinTech systems, where model updates need regularity approval, in contrast to AdTech’s fast feedback cycles and rapid iterations. At Yelp, he developed a distributed ML training system and online model inference to handle billions of training samples and efficiently ensure real-time predictions. Leveraging distributed computing tools, Niloy built a fault-tolerant system optimized for cost and performance. “Since model predictions need to be served in real-time, having a model inference service that meets the SLA requirements is paramount. We applied novel model compression techniques to reduce the memory footprint of the model and thereby reduce cache misses,” Niloy notes. Niloy’s ability to adapt engineering principles to meet industry-specific challenges demonstrates his expertise. He blends technical skills with leadership to create high-impact AI/ML solutions in finance and advertising. Building large-scale AI/ML systems AI/ML systems intersect with machine learning theory and software engineering. The system should scale to large data sets, train models reliably and cost-effectively, and serve the model predictions while meeting latency requirements. All these stages must be monitored effectively to catch any degradation or bugs. The system should also support failure management and rollbacks. An engineering team needs to leverage the right technologies and tools to automate all three stages of a machine learning system—feature generation, model training, and model serving. These include distributed computing, microservices, security, and feature stores. The design of the AI/ML system also depends upon the industry vertical and product. Typically, in credit underwriting, labels (defaults or repayments) arrive weeks, if not months, after the loans have been issued. This creates a long lag between model deployment and evaluation. Investing in a reliable experimentation platform is crucial for any company working with AI/ML models. Niloy’s career reflects his ability to solve these challenges efficiently, ensuring models perform well and comply with industry standards. His expertise is building robust, high-performance systems that balance regulatory demands with technical innovation. AI/ML system quality assurance Building effective AI/ML systems requires careful planning, from data collection to model monitoring, based on Niloy’s experience. He shares, “The first AI/ML model provides the biggest lift to the product, so it should be kept simple. This allows the engineering team to focus on infrastructure where typically more issues lie.” Good data is essential—ML models can only perform as well as the training data they are fed. Niloy emphasizes the importance of validating data to catch issues like missing values and shifts in distribution. Features must be cataloged with ownership if they originate from multiple sources, ensuring accountability. Monitoring is critical for maintaining performance over time. Niloy explains, “Any AI/ML pipelines should invest in monitoring. The major one is checking for any training-serving skew. If the data at inference time has a different distribution than what was used for training, the model performance could not meet expectations.” To address challenges like feedback loops and skew, Niloy recommends piping inference data back into training pipelines and reusing code between training and serving environments. Testing models on holdout datasets ensures robustness beyond the original training data. While complex to build, these pipelines ultimately automate processes and unlock new growth opportunities. Niloy’s expertise and contributions to production-scale machine learning reflect engineers' vital role in shaping the future of AI/ML across industries.