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Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is to finance a joint initiative with the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) for paid maternity leave of “up to 12 months” for players on the women’s tennis circuit, it was announced on Thursday. The PIF WTA Maternity Fund Program “will offer benefits to more than 320 eligible WTA players”, the association said in a statement. “WTA players will for the first time receive paid maternity leave up to 12 months, and have access to grants for fertility treatments to build families, as well as other benefits,” it read. Players will have to compete “in…

DUBAI: India playing all their ICC Champions Trophy matches in Dubai was a pre-tournament decision and the talk of unfair advantage is baseless, the team’s batting coach said on Friday. Rohit Sharma’s team face New Zealand in the title clash on Sunday at the Dubai International Stadium, where India have been unbeaten in four matches. India refused to tour hosts Pakistan in the eight-nation tournament due to political tensions and were given Dubai as their venue in the United Arab Emirates. “The draw that happened, it happened before,” batting coach Sitanshu Kotak told reporters. “After India winning four matches, if…

ISLAMABAD: A 25-member Pakistan contingent on Friday reached Italian city of Turin to participate in the 16th World Winter Special Games commencing there on Saturday. Delegations from various countries, including Pakistan, have arrived in Turin to participate in the grand opening ceremony of the Games, said a press release. Earlier, the Special Olympics Italy officials welcomed the Pakistani contingent upon their arrival at Milan Airport. The World Games will take place from March 8 to 15 in Turin featuring over 1,500 athletes from more than 93 countries, along with 2,000 volunteers. Pakistan’s delegation includes 10 athletes (five male and as…

RAWALPINDI: Pakistan Television (PTV) captain Amad Butt led his team to a thrilling three-wicket victory over State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in the President’s Trophy Grade-I final here at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium on Friday. This triumph marked Amad’s second major title in recent months, having previously led Sialkot to Quaid-e-Azam Trophy 2024-25 glory. PTV’s Muhammad Shahzad was named player-of-the-match for his outstanding performance, which included a first-innings haul of 5-29, featuring a hat-trick, and an unbeaten 125. Resuming their second innings at 69-1, requiring 84 runs to win, PTV lost six wickets but ultimately achieved the target in the…

Investor interest in AI coding assistants is exploding. Anysphere, the developer of AI-powered coding assistant Cursor, is in talks with venture capitalists to raise capital at a valuation of nearly $10 billion, Bloomberg reported. The round, if it transpires, would come about three months after Anysphere completed its previous fundraise of $100 million at a pre-money valuation of $2.5 billion, as TechCrunch was first to report. The new round is expected to be led by returning investor Thrive Capital. Thrive Capital and Anysphere didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. While Anysphere’s previous round valued the company at 25…

DAMBULLA, Sri Lanka (AP) — After leaving school, Jeewanthi Adikari was determined to pursue her studies in accounting. But her life took a different path when she began a three-month training program in hospitality.She has since worked in different hotels throughout a career spanning over two decades. Now 42, she is in charge of Sri Lanka’s first resort fully operated and managed by women. It’s an attempt to address gender disparities in a male-dominated tourism sector crucial for the country’s economic recovery after a major crisis. “This is a place where women can realise their potential. They will not be…

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Facing the potential loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, Duke University is preparing for the worst. Like research universities around the United States, the private school in North Carolina’s Research Triangle would see a massive loss from Trump administration cuts to grants from the National Institutes of Health. Duke would be among the hardest hit. In its previous fiscal year, Duke took in $580 million in NIH grants and contracts, 11th most among the country’s research institutions. The cuts are delayed temporarily by a court challenge, but universities nationwide have implemented hiring…

KILGORIS, Kenya (AP) — “I am worth defending!” a group of girls chant as they each take up a fighting stance.They are about to practice combat techniques. And no, they are not part of a martial arts club. They are Maasai girls living at a boarding school in Transmara in western Kenya, which doubles up as a rescue center for teens who have escaped early marriage and female genital mutilation.“We learn how to protect ourselves, how to protect our bodies,” said Grace Musheni, 14, who has been living and studying at the Enkakenya Centre for Excellence since 2023.The center was…

Microsoft is accelerating its push to compete with OpenAI, its longtime collaborator, by developing its own powerful AI models and exploring alternatives to power products like Microsoft’s Copilot bot. Microsoft has developed its own AI “reasoning” models comparable to models like OpenAI’s o1 and o3-mini, the The Information reports. OpenAI is said to have refused Microsoft’s requests for technical details about how o1 works — stoking tensions between the firms. Microsoft has also developed a family of models called MAI that are competitive with OpenAI’s own, Bloomberg reports, and is reportedly considering offering them through an API later this year.…

TechCrunch will be on the ground at SXSW 2025 — the annual tech, music, comedy, and film conference that kicked off Friday in Austin — in search of the zeitgeist of this AI-centric era. Yup, we’re one sentence in and AI has already made its entrance. And why not? A quick scan of the massive SXSW schedule illustrates that AI is on center stage in Austin — and globally. It’s worth noting that this year there seems to be an emphasis on how AI is being applied to the real world, not just speculation on what it could be. SXSW…