Author: admin

Last week, Moody’s downgraded the credit rating of the United States due to concerns over its $36 trillion debt pile. The move sent ripples through financial markets and could complicate President Donald Trump’s efforts to cut taxes. The Moody’s rating agency dropped the US government’s credit score by one notch from the pristine Aaa to Aa1. It cited rising debt and interest costs “that are significantly higher than similarly rated sovereigns.” Last week’s cut followed a downgrade by rating rival Fitch, which lowered the US credit score by one notch in 2023. Fitch was the second major rating agency to…

OpenAI pushed generative AI into the public consciousness. Now, it could be developing a very different kind of AI device. According to a WSJ report, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees Wednesday that the company’s next major product won’t be a wearable. Instead, it will be a compact, screenless device, fully aware of its user’s surroundings. Small enough to sit on a desk or fit in a pocket, Altman described it as both a “third core device” alongside a MacBook Pro and iPhone, and an “AI companion” integrated into daily life. The preview followed OpenAI’s announcement that it will acquire…

ZIMBABWE pacer Blessing Muzarabani bowls during a practice session at Trent Bridge on Wednesday.—Reuters LONDON: England captain Ben Stokes, who leads his side in one-off Test against Zimbabwe on Thursday, has challenged his players to make the jump from second in the Test world rankings to first. It is now more than a decade since Andrew Strauss was the last England skipper to take the team to the summit, back in 2011. England held the number one spot for under a year and have struggled to challenge since. When all-rounder Stokes succeeded close friend Joe Root as Test captain in…

LAHORE: Quetta Gla­dia­tors sealed a spot in the HBL Pakistan Super League (PSL) with a clinical 30-run victory over Islamabad United in the Qualifier here at the Gadd­afi Stadium on Wednesday, thanks to brilliant contributions by Dinesh Chandi­mal, Faheem Ashraf and Usman Tariq. It was a statement win for Gladiators, who came into the match against the defending champions as the league stage’s table toppers and the Saud Shakeel-led side hardly felt the heat of the big occasion. After having posted 209-5, thanks to what proved to be a match-winning partnership between Chandimal and Faheem, Gladiators never really let United…

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — There are hardly any tourists in the scenic Himalayan region of Kashmir. Most of the hotels and ornate pinewood houseboats are empty. Resorts in the snowclad mountains have fallen silent. Hundreds of cabs are parked and idle.It’s the fallout of last month’s gun massacre that left 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, dead in Indian-controlled Kashmir followed by tit-for-tat military strikes by India and Pakistan, bringing the nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of their third war over the region.“There might be some tourist arrivals, but it counts almost negligible. It is almost a zero footfall right now,”…

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — No Mow May encourages homeowners to stash the lawnmower each spring and let flowers and grass grow for pollinators and water retention. And if your neighbor’s lawn already looks like a wildflower field most of the time, it could be more intentional than passersby might assume.The movement has expanded to “Let It Bloom June” and the fall version: “Leave the leaves.” Conservation and horticulture groups say year-round low-mowing while selectively leaving native plants to grow can save huge amounts of drinking water and lead to lasting and impactful ecological changes.When Amanda Beltranmini Healen moved into her…

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — Kermit the Frog knows it’s not easy being green — or graduating from college and entering the real world, especially during a time of economic uncertainty and political turmoil. Members of the University of Maryland’s class of 2025 will receive their diplomas Thursday evening with sage advice from the amphibious Muppet ringing in their ears. The university announced in March that Kermit, who was created in 1955 and became the centerpiece of the Muppets franchise, would be this year’s commencement speaker. He’s also no stranger to the school.Muppets creator Jim Henson graduated from Maryland in…

The administration of President Donald Trump has begun the process of ending the federal government’s involvement in reforming local police departments, a civil rights effort that gained steam after the deaths of unarmed Black people like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. On Wednesday, the United States Department of Justice announced it would cancel two proposed settlements that would have seen the cities of Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, agree to federal oversight of their police departments. Generally, those settlements — called consent decrees — involve a series of steps and goals that the two parties negotiate and that a federal…

Sebastian Siemiatkowski is leaning all the way into the idea that his buy-now-pay-later, IPO-bound startup Klarna is an AI company. When Klarna delivered updated quarterly earnings on Monday, it was his AI avatar (pictured above) that presented the highlights, according to the company’s YouTube video. Other than AI Siemiatkowski’s admission, it wasn’t obvious that this was AI. There were only a few subtle signs: AI Siemiatkowski didn’t blink as much as most humans do. The voice sync was good, but not perfect. The AI was also wearing a brown jacket that looked a lot like the one from a widely…

Johannesburg, South Africa – When the millionaire mining magnate-turned-president of South Africa landed in Washington to meet the billionaire real estate tycoon-turned-president of the United States, it was with a deal in mind. Tensions have been escalating between the US and its African trade ally since Donald Trump took office this year, cut off aid to South Africa, repeated false accusations that a “white genocide” is taking place there and began welcoming Afrikaners as refugees. At the meeting between Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House on Wednesday, the South African president began by focusing heavily on trade and…