Author: admin

INVERNESS, Scotland (AP) — As we crossed the Keswick Bridge into the rolling hills outside Inverness, green fields of early-spring barley still had months to grow until harvest. The grain will be sent to a nearby malting factory and eventually made into whisky at some of Scotland’s 150-plus distilleries.Interspersed among the barley fields were yellow rows of flowering rapeseed, used to make cooking oil, and herds of grazing sheep that seemed to outnumber people.It was a tableau I thought would have been the same for a thousand years. But rapeseed only started to be planted in the 1970s, and at…

NEW YORK (AP) — It starts with a Post-it note scrawled with a reminder. Then a chocolate bar you’ll probably eat later. An extra charging cord or two find their way into the mix, along with a laptop, a folder full of projects, a lanyard from a recent conference and a permission slip sent home from school.And soon, the pile of things on your desk that are set aside for later becomes a giant, overwhelming stack.The chaos of modern life and the ease of accumulating cheap items through online shopping have contributed to an abundance of clutter. That’s true in…

ROME, Italy (AP) — As cardinals gather in Rome for the start next week of the conclave, where they will vote for the successor to Pope Francis, two longtime papal tailors are also pondering the transition.There are no clear frontrunners for pontiffs — unsurprisingly, given the secretive nature of a process that is supposed to be more about inspiration from the Holy Spirit than politicking.And the tailors said they haven’t received orders yet to make different-sized cassocks.Raniero Mancinelli, who’s been working on papal vestments since the early 1960s, said he’s prepped three robes — sizes small, medium and large —…

Tech giants beat Wall Street expectations after weeks of volatility in US stocks.Tech giants Microsoft and Meta posted better-than-expected results in the first quarter of the year, offering some reprieve to investors after months of turbulence unleashed by United States President Donald Trump’s trade war. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, reported a net quarter profit of $16.64bn, or $6.43 per share, for the January–March period – up 35 percent year-on-year. Revenue rose 16 percent, ending at $42.31bn and higher than Wall Street expectations of about $41.4bn. Microsoft posted a net quarter profit of $25.8bn, or $3.46 per…

Three Republican senators join Democrats in voting for resolution to oppose US president’s trade policy.The United States Senate has rejected an effort to block US President Donald Trump’s tariffs amid bipartisan concerns about the impact of his trade salvoes on the economy. The upper house of the US Congress voted 49-49 to knock back the resolution on Wednesday, hours after government data showed that the US economy shrank for the first time in three years. Three Republican senators – Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – voted for the measure in a rare rebuke…

Microsoft launched several new “open” AI models on Wednesday, the most capable of which is competitive with OpenAI’s o3-mini on at least one benchmark. All of the new pemissively licensed models — Phi 4 mini reasoning, Phi 4 reasoning, and Phi 4 reasoning plus — are “reasoning” models, meaning they’re able to spend more time fact-checking solutions to complex problems. They expand Microsoft’s Phi “small model” family, which the company launched a year ago to offer a foundation for AI developers building apps at the edge. Phi 4 mini reasoning was trained on roughly 1 million synthetic math problems generated by…

MADRID: Madison Keys of the US returns to Poland’s Iga Swiatek during their Madrid Open quarter-final at Caja Magica on Wednesday.—AFP MADRID: Iga Swiatek kept her Madrid Open title defence alive, as she avenged her Australian Open defeat to Madison Keys with a 0-6, 6-3, 6-2 win against the American in the quarter-finals on Wednesday. The second seed will next square off with Coco Gauff, who beat 18-year-old Mirra Andreeva for the third time in as many meetings, 7-5, 6-1. Searching for her first title of the season, the second-seeded Swiatek recovered from a poor opening set to improve her…

LAHORE: Islamabad United finally met their match. Imperious after winning their opening five games of the ongoing HBL Pakistan Super League season, they were routed by a rampant Lahore Qalandars at the Gaddafi Stadium on Wednesday. The 88-run victory saw Qalan­dars win for a second time in two matches and move up to second in the table behind United. Lahore were powered by a brilliant all-round show by Sikandar Raza, as well as valuable contributions from the bat by Sam Billings and Fakhar Zaman with Haris Rauf showing signs of returning to his lethal best with the ball. After Raza…

ROME: Record 24-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic will not take part in the Italian Open in Rome from May 7-18, tournament organisers announced on Tuesday. “Novak Djokovic has announced he won’t take part to #IBI25,” organisers of the clay court tournament announced on social media. The organisers did not state the reason for 37-year-old Djokovic’s withdrawal. The Serb’s wait for a 100th ATP title goes on after his withdrawal from the Masters event in the Italian capital which he has won six times, most recently in 2022. His last silverware came at the Paris Olympics last year — at…

MADRID: Madison Keys of the US returns to Poland’s Iga Swiatek during their Madrid Open quarter-final at Caja Magica on Wednesday.—AFP MADRID: Iga Swiatek kept her Madrid Open title defence alive, as she avenged her Australian Open defeat to Madison Keys with a 0-6, 6-3, 6-2 win against the American in the quarter-finals on Wednesday. The second seed will next square off with Coco Gauff, who beat 18-year-old Mirra Andreeva for the third time in as many meetings, 7-5, 6-1. Searching for her first title of the season, the second-seeded Swiatek recovered from a poor opening set to improve her…