mnl168.org The NBA got viewers for Christmas, even while going up against NFL games. The NBA's five-game Christmas lineup was the league's most-watched in five years, with the games averaging about 5.25 million viewers per game across ABC, ESPN and its platforms, the league said Thursday based on Nielsen's preliminary numbers. Recommended Videos It's an 84% rise over the NBA's Christmas numbers from 2023. The Los Angeles Lakers’ 115-113 victory over the Golden State Warriors — a game pitting Olympic teammates LeBron James and Stephen Curry — averaged 7.76 million viewers and peaked with about 8.32 million viewers toward the end of the contest, the league said. Those numbers represent the most-watched NBA regular season game in five years. “I love the NFL,” James said in his televised postgame interview Wednesday night. “But Christmas is our day.” The NBA said all five Christmas games on its schedule — San Antonio at New York in Victor Wembanyama's holiday debut, Minnesota at Dallas, Philadelphia at Boston, Denver at Phoenix and Lakers-Warriors — saw year-over-year viewership increases. Wednesday's numbers pushed NBA viewership for the season across ESPN platforms to up 4% over last season. The league also saw more than 500 million video views on its social media platforms Wednesday, a new record. For the NBA, those are all good signs amid cries that NBA viewership is hurting. “Ratings are down a bit at beginning of the season. But cable television viewership is down double digits so far this year versus last year," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this month. “You know, we’re almost at the inflection point where people are watching more programing on streaming than they are on traditional television. And it’s a reason why for our new television deals, which we enter into next year, every game is going to be available on a streaming service.” Part of that new package of television deals that the NBA is entering into next season also increases the number of regular season games broadcast on television from 15 to 75. ___ AP NBA: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NBAAustralia’s world-first social media ban has passed the parliament, but it will do little to protect Australian children, writes Melissa Marsden . The Albanese Government's new social media laws masquerade as making the internet safer for children despite statistics showing the outside world has a reputation for being more dangerous. Whilst in most states in Australia the minimum age of criminal responsibility is 10 years old — yet there is a distinct lack of anti-bullying legislation. On an average night in the June quarter of 2023, 812 young Australians aged 10 and over were in detention because of their involvement – or alleged involvement – in criminal activity. There are no details as to whether these convictions resulted from online or offline crimes. However, the sudden push by the government to ram new social media laws into effect suggests it is not the children who perpetrate crimes that are under scrutiny. Statistics show that young people are most likely to be in detention if they are male, aged between 14 and 17, and are of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) descent. Whilst it is questionable as to whether these crimes were committed online or offline, the rate of youth detention for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 10-17 years was higher than the rate for other Australian young people in all Australian states and territories. Alternatives to a social media age ban The Government's proposed age limit for social media use is an excessive measure and not the only solution to regulating online usage. In September, twelve-year-old Sydney girl Charlotte ended her life after experiencing rampant bullying despite her parents raising the issue with her school. In a statement, the girl's family said: “When the most recent case of bullying was raised, the school simply said that they had investigated, and the girls denied it.” Were tougher anti-bullying laws legislated rather than removing access to online communities that children often use as an escape from bullying, could instances like these have been avoided? According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare ( AIHW ), in 2023 , 298 Australian young people (aged 18–24 years) took their own lives. Ninety-four of those deaths by suicide occurred among children and adolescents – aged 17 and below– with the majority occurring in those aged 15–17 (71.3%). In the years before social media, bullying was often physical and verbal. According to Edith Cowan University : “In decades past, bullying was mainly associated with schools and playgrounds — a problem that ended when children returned to the safety of their homes." Draconian social media ban doomed to fail The proposed legislation to restrict the age limit for social media use is destined to fail and may harbour another insidious purpose. In 1999, Bullying in Australian schools was rampant, with over 20% of males and 15% of females aged 8 to 18 years reporting being bullied at least once a week. In 2022, Melbourne-based freelance journalist, Mel Buttigieg , wrote that in the 1990s, kids’ physical bullying – whilst not always direct – was constantly perpetuated in full view of teachers and students. As a child who grew up in the early 2000s – having been born in 1996 – I too can confirm that this lack of response to bullying was widespread. Around the same time I joined social media, I experienced severe bullying at my private primary school. I was chased from one end of the school to the other, blockaded in between the lockers and the library toilets by my bullies, pushed on the school bus, and taunted daily. My ability to block my bullies from social media provided a welcome reprieve from the daily taunts and abuse. At this point, I had already been isolated from my friends after having a traumatic brain injury and acquiring a disability — which meant my school thought segregating me from my peers was the best solution. While in-person bullying is still an issue in many schools, cyberbullying has taken over as the major concern for the health and wellbeing of school-age children”. In a study published in Nature Communications , UK data shows girls experience a negative link between social media use and life satisfaction when they are 11-13 years old and boys when they are 14-15 years old. And, whilst the concerns surrounding these statistics are warranted, the blanket approach to the Australian legislation fails to account for vulnerable groups who have benefited from the escape that social media brings. Government bans social media fearing rise of 'Generation Left' The recent announcement of age restrictions for social media use raises questions regarding the Government's true motives. A reporter for Channel 6 News , Maggie Perry said, “The government’s plan to prevent under 16s using social media will not protect them – instead, it will cut off many vulnerable and isolated children from vital online support communities”. These voices have been conveniently left out of the political discourse on Australia’s world-first social media bans, they have been the voices most marginalised from mainstream public and political debate for decades. The laws do not come into effect until next year, begging the questions: if they are really about saving the lives of children, why wait? And, why exclude those the legislation proposes to protect from the conversation? Melissa Marsden is a freelance journalist and PhD candidate at Curtin University. You can follow Melissa on Twitter @MelMarsden96 , on Bluesky @melissamarsdenphd or via Melissa's website, Framing the Narrative . This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License Support independent journalism Subscribe to IA. Related Articles CARTOONS: Mark David is banning things, by golly! POLITICS AUSTRALIA TECHNOLOGY CHILDREN SOCIAL MEDIA BAN bullying Charlotte Maggie Perry Channel 6 News Mel Buttigieg Auspol Melissa Marsden Australia children Share Article

New pro-European coalition approved in Romania amid period of political turmoilNASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Tennessee Titans ' most consistent scoring threat in an ugly season now is on the injury report, and that's why they brought back a player for a bit of insurance. Kicker Nick Folk worked through some soreness, making a pair of field goals for Tennessee's only points last week in the Titans' loss to the Jaguars , his longest a 46-yarder. Both Folk and Brayden Narveson were on the field Wednesday during the portion of practice open to reporters, though the Titans listed Folk among six who did not practice. Coach Brian Callahan said it was just some “general soreness" for Folk. But as good as Folk has been this season, he turned 40 last month. So the Titans (3-10) signed Narveson to the practice squad Tuesday after he spent training camp with them in case they need an option Sunday when they host Cincinnati (5-8). “You’re always mindful of it with kickers and that kind of leg soreness," Callahan said. "So he finished the game but was sore. ... He doesn’t do anything on Wednesdays anyway. He’ll try to kick (Thursday), and we’ll see where he’s at. So I don’t really know how to feel about it either way. I just know he’ll kick tomorrow, and then we’ll have a better feel for his status after that.” Folk has an NFL record streak of 85 consecutive field goals made on attempts from less than 40 yards, which included a 39-yarder that put the Titans up 6-0 last week. He ranks 14th in NFL history with 403 field goals and trails Arizona kicker Matt Prater by just four. Prater, who has 407 field goals, currently is on injured reserve. The kicker signed a new deal this offseason after New England traded him to Tennessee in 2023 with Folk going on to lead both the NFL and set a franchise record, making 96.7% of his field goals (29 of 30). Folk has been nearly perfect this season, making all 22 extra point attempts and is 21 of 22 on field goals, including matching his career-long with a 56-yarder earlier this season. Narveson had an impressive preseason for Tennessee, letting Folk focus on preparing for the regular season. The rookie from N.C. State was 6 of 7 on field-goal attempts, including a 59-yarder. He also made a 46-yard attempt as time expired in a 16-15 victory over the Seattle Seahawks. His lone miss was a 58-yarder at the end of the Titans' preseason finale that was nearly returned for a touchdown. He made his first try only to have it nullified because a timeout had been called. Green Bay claimed Narveson when Tennessee waived him at the final roster cutdown. The Packers waived Narveson in October after the kicker missed a league-high five field-goal attempts. “If for some reason he can’t go Sunday, Brayden will be ready to roll in and he’ll kick and do all that,” Callahan said of Narveson. "So obviously it’s nice to have some familiarity with him, and he’s here in case we need him.” Levis update Among the Titans who practiced fully Wednesday was quarterback Will Levis . He said after the loss to the Jaguars that he played the second half after getting a shot after aggravating his right, throwing shoulder. He sprained the AC joint in that shoulder early in a win over Miami on Sept. 30 and later missed three games with the injury. “Feel good,” Levis said after a 75-minute practice. “Just going to see how the week goes and see how the body responds, but I definitely feel better than the last time I nicked it up.” AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nflSBB Research Group Foundation Names November 2024 Grant Finalists: Double Blessings Inc., Street Samaritans, Violets Kitchen

Tulane QB Mensah transfers to Duke; Mississippi State’s Van Buren, Cal’s Mendoza enter portal

NEW YORK , Dec. 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Halper Sadeh LLC, an investor rights law firm, is investigating the following companies for potential violations of the federal securities laws and/or breaches of fiduciary duties to shareholders relating to: Patterson Companies, Inc. (NASDAQ: PDCO)'s sale to Patient Square Capital for $31.35 in cash per share. If you are a Patterson shareholder, click here to learn more about your rights and options . NeuroMetrix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NURO)'s sale to electroCore, Inc. If you are a NeuroMetrix shareholder, click here to learn more about your legal rights and options . Penns Woods Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ: PWOD)'s sale to Northwest Bancshares, Inc. for 2.385 shares of Northwest common stock for each share of Penns Woods common stock. If you are a Penns Woods shareholder, click here to learn more about your rights and options . Cara Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CARA)'s merger with Tvardi Therapeutics, Inc. Upon completion of the proposed transaction, Cara shareholders are expected to own approximately 17.0% of the combined company. If you are a Cara shareholder, click here to learn more about your rights and options . Halper Sadeh LLC may seek increased consideration for shareholders, additional disclosures and information concerning the proposed transaction, or other relief and benefits on behalf of shareholders. We would handle the action on a contingent fee basis, whereby you would not be responsible for out-of-pocket payment of our legal fees or expenses. Shareholders are encouraged to contact the firm free of charge to discuss their legal rights and options. Please call Daniel Sadeh or Zachary Halper at (212) 763-0060 or email sadeh@halpersadeh.com or zhalper@halpersadeh.com . Halper Sadeh LLC represents investors all over the world who have fallen victim to securities fraud and corporate misconduct. Our attorneys have been instrumental in implementing corporate reforms and recovering millions of dollars on behalf of defrauded investors. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Contact Information: Halper Sadeh LLC Daniel Sadeh, Esq. Zachary Halper, Esq. (212) 763-0060 sadeh@halpersadeh.com zhalper@halpersadeh.com https://www.halpersadeh.com View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/shareholder-investigation-halper-sadeh-llc-investigates-pdco-nuro-pwod-cara-on-behalf-of-shareholders-302338483.html SOURCE Halper Sadeh LLPNoneNova Scotia's child welfare social workers devalued and burned out: report

Lockport student charged with making school threatDynamic pricing: how algorithms are changing costs If rental cars, hotel rooms, airfares, ride-share trips and concert tickets have anything in common, it’s certainly not the overwhelming confidence Americans feel when booking and buying them, reports Bloomberg. Prices for these kinds of purchases fluctuate from one minute to the next -- or, in many cases, from buyer to buyer. It’s not that fair prices don’t exist, but it can be impossible to feel sure that you’re getting one. You have no idea what anyone else might be paying for the same flight or seat or midsize sedan, or what you might have paid yesterday or could pay tomorrow. The possibility that you’re being taken for a fool (or outright discriminated against) looms every time you click ‘Buy’. Put another way, no regular person has ever sat back and thought, “You know what? I want more of my interactions with the economy to feel like renting a car.” Nevertheless, a suite of tactics collectively known as dynamic pricing has already crept into an expansive array of consumer transactions. Through dynamic pricing, retailers algorithmically adjust prices, sometimes in real time, using whatever data they can scrape together -- the time of day, your location, the product’s popularity and inventory level, competitors’ prices, even whether you’ve visited the product page before. And this practice is likely to become much more widespread in pretty short order. According to Dipanjan Chatterjee, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research Inc, consumer businesses that have been profit-taking by raising prices over the past few years can’t just keep marking up their products the old-fashioned way. Americans seem to have been pushed to their limit, financially and psychologically, by the highest inflation in four decades; additional broad markups would risk alienating customers and tanking revenue, Chatterjee said in an email. “I fully expect companies will turn to more sophisticated pricing mechanisms like dynamic pricing to boost profitability,” he wrote. Dynamic pricing -- a blanket term that covers many slightly different tactics, including surge pricing, demand pricing and personalized pricing -- is easiest to implement online, and plenty of internet retailers have been using it in some capacity for years. These merchants have a significant advantage in doing the kind of large-scale, fine-grained data collection that makes it possible to deploy algorithmic models to maximise purchases. Amazon[dot]com Inc is generally regarded as the retailer with the most sophisticated pricing operation. Not only does the megaretailer reprice its own products constantly, but it also gives its army of third-party sellers access to tools that can adjust their listings’ prices automatically to compete with other sellers or better comply with the changing preferences of Amazon’s internal search. Thanks in part to the investment dollars pouring into seemingly every vaguely artificial-intelligence-tinged business, third-party software vendors have sprung up to offer similar capabilities to everyone from your landlord to your local ice cream shop. Plenty of them seem ready to give it a shot: In a recent survey of 755 American restaurant operators, the ordering platform Toast found that 70 per cent were “very or extremely interested” in implementing dynamic pricing that would raise or lower prices depending on foot traffic or order volume. (Only 7.0 per cent reported currently using the practice.) The proliferation of things such as plug-and-play order management software and Square’s tablet-based checkout systems has made it feasible for many more types of businesses to collect basic data on customers and use it to quickly adjust prices, dynamically or not. For larger brick-and-mortar retailers, the increasing popularity of installing digital shelf-labelling systems provides similar capabilities across thousands of products. The problem -- or one of them, anyway -- is that customers hate dynamic pricing almost as much as they hate normal price increases. Earlier this year, when Wendy’s Restaurant LLC announced it would test demand-based pricing at some of its restaurants in 2025, the internet blowback was so swift and forceful that the company ditched the plan entirely. Similarly, when news got out this summer that Walmart and Kroger stores were replacing paper price tags with digital shelf labels, both retailers had to publicly promise they had no plans to use them to raise prices indiscriminately. Ticketmaster’s demand-based pricing has provoked the ire of fan bases as disparate as Taylor Swift’s and Bruce Springsteen’s. When Oasis announced its long-awaited reunion tour dates in the UK, prices soared so high that the band refused to allow Ticketmaster to use the same tactic on subsequent American dates, calling it “an unacceptable experience for fans.” The Federal Trade Commission has taken an interest in some of these pricing gambits, initiating a study last summer on how a handful of popular pricing services use surveillance data to manipulate how much they charge people. But as it stands, dynamic pricing is largely regarded as legal, as long as sellers don’t use protected characteristics such as race or gender to determine what buyers will pay. The algorithmic nature of dynamic pricing also gives sellers plausible deniability; who’s to say which data points were dispositive? The main risk for retailers is one of perception. “Nontraditional pricing strategies like dynamic pricing have a marketing problem,” Forrester’s Chatterjee says. He points to Uber Technologies Inc’s clumsy surge pricing -- the flavour of dynamic pricing that people hate most virulently -- as one source of broad public animus toward the idea, especially in transactions in which buyers expect static pricing. No one likes that airfares are higher around the holidays or that beachside hotels are more expensive during the summer, but it’s been that way for so long and is predictable enough that people generally accept it. Most will need to contend with these premiums only once or twice a year, plus advice abounds on money-saving travel hacks. Having to do some form of that calculus every time you buy groceries is an entirely different kind of budgeting burden. Whether dynamic pricing does lead to the higher prices everyone is afraid of is a more complicated question. When used well, pretty much everyone agrees that it results in larger and more consistent profits for merchants, who are able to maximize margins and volumes simultaneously in a way that’s much harder with static prices. By definition, that means that at least some customers are getting good deals. A 2021 study of European grocery stores found that those using dynamic pricing through digital tags both improved margins for retailers and reduced the average cost of goods sold to consumers, especially for perishable products, which could be more effectively discounted as expiration dates neared. Some people in the pricing industry have tried to encourage retailers to adopt dynamic pricing in ways that paint the practice in a more positive light. In an editorial in the trade publication Restaurant Dive, Catherine Tabor, the chief executive officer of the food service software company Sparkfly, urged restaurants to try out “dynamic offers”—essentially, a spontaneous, data-driven happy hour to boost foot traffic during slow periods (which was, of course, why analog happy hour was invented in the first place), instead of surge pricing that penalizes shoppers during high demand. Chatterjee was less optimistic about the possibility that companies would use new pricing methods purely to offer better value to their customers. “‘Surge pricing’ is a dirty word,” he says. “Companies are trying to figure out how to do it without saying it.

COLUMBIA — Mayor Daniel Rickenmann is not happy with the University of South Carolina football team’s playoff ranking. So unhappy that he plans on issuing a resolution of approval at the next City Council meeting on Dec. 17 that celebrates the team’s season and condemns their ranking by the college playoff committee. “We got robbed, twice this year, once by the SEC refs and by the college playoff committee,” Rickenmann told The Post and Courier, referring to the Gamecocks' loss against Louisiana State University in September. Rickenmann graduated from USC with a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1992. USC finished 14th in the College Football Playoff rankings, narrowly missing the 12-team cut to advance to the playoffs. “The Gamecocks deserve a spot in the playoffs and we’ve been excited because of their hard work this entire season,” Rickenamnn said in a Facebook post. “Columbia is proud of our flagship university and its positive impact on our state. This team deserves recognition and the committee made its decision behind closed doors without a clear process.”THE donkey work is over, now the horse trading begins. Ireland's general election 2024 managed to be both dramatic and stale, fascinating and mundane. Cue the messy and protracted negotiations currently taking place in the aftermath to form a government by St Valentine's Day. Or more likely by Donald Trump's Inauguration on January 20th. Being up close and personal with key national players at Cork's election count centre offered me quite an insight. Current Tánaiste, former - and now next - Taoiseach Micheál Martin appeared cautiously victorious. He patiently awaited the national results with his Fianna Fáil foot soldiers. He had an air of vindication and relief, as rival parties' candidates looked on. The Rebel City's other national figures, outgoing Finance Minister Michael McGrath and Fine Gael's Simon Coveney mingled effortlessly among election staff, canvassers and reporters also with a sense of quiet reassurance for their parties' fortunes. The long expected 'Sinn Féin surge' did not materialise. From the party's highwater mark of 36% popularity in 2022, its leader Mary Lou McDonald has boisterously presented herself as Taoiseach in waiting. Her party's confident stance on anti-poverty measures and particularly as champions of the housing crisis solution was seemingly neutered by a resurgent Fianna Fáil -Fine Gael counteraction. The British Conservatives' past election slogan under Theresa May was 'Strong and Stable' and was widely ridiculed. In Ireland, this approach seemed to work in the incumbent parties' favour, who promised more of the same. Yet both incumbent parties of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael fell two TDs short of the overall combined majority needed of 88 in the Dáil. The fragmented nature of Irish politics means that the dubious dating game of coalition building and maintenance is built into elections and their aftermath. With it comes temptation, thrills and dangers for smaller parties. They often act as the 'mud-guard' on the wheels of larger government parties and then face the wrath of the electorate afterwards. The Green Party's decimation from 12 seats to a solo TD, in its leader- and only just, was a salutary reminder last week. Now the two mainstream parties look around for likely coalition partners, perhaps with Irish Labour and the Social Democrats - the latter securing a certain 'novelty party' status. However, Irish Labour will be painfully aware of their bruising experience of losing 30 TDs after their 2011 government partnership with Fine Gael. Their subsequent decimation at the 2016 election should make Labour allergic to even the thought of contemplating the current coalition. It is likely to be down to a marriage of convenience between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and a hotchpotch of Independents. This disproportionate mix will be fascinating to see in its working out. Hitherto nationally unknown names such as Verona Murphy, Michael Fitzmaurice, Michael Collins, Carol Nolan and Ken O'Flynn may secure unexpectedly exalted status. They could join established independents such as Marian Harkin and Noel Grealish. These probable and unlikely 'king makers' of Irish politics will want to exact a price from the finances of the state to ensure continued loyalty. See the Healy-Rae fortunes for their constituency in Kerry for prior proof. The adage that politics is the art of the possible is about to be played out. But we are also reminded that a week is a long time in politics, and that any outcome is possible. Electoral acrobatics is no doubt being performed behind the scenes in Dublin to shape government formation as we speak. Like an electoral form of papal conclave, we await the white smoke and ultimate, final outcome of Election 2024. Time will tell. See More: Election, IrelandReview: The Anker Solix C300 rewrites the compact portable power station rule book

'Devastating': sailors killed in Sydney to Hobart race after boom accidents

AP Trending SummaryBrief at 1:04 p.m. EST‘More than rugby’: PM announces Papua New Guinea NRL team