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AFP-JIJI – Heavy security blanketed New Orleans on Thursday as college football’s Sugar Bowl went off without a hitch, one day after a truck-ramming attack killed 14 people in the city’s famed nightlife district. While thousands of rival fans of the University of Georgia and Notre Dame converged on the Superdome for the much-hyped matchup, the New Year’s Day tragedy put a discernable damper on the event. Originally set for Wednesday, the Sugar Bowl was postponed to Jan. 2, sending many fans scrambling to change flights and extend hotel stays. Source link

Washington – The U.S. government said Thursday that it has approved the sale of AIM-120D-3 and AIM-120C-8 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles and related equipment to Japan for an estimated cost of $3.64 billion. Japan has sought to buy up to 1,200 missiles. The sale is designed to strengthen Japan’s deterrence against threats from China and others in the Indo-Pacific region. The move will “improve Japan’s capability to meet current and future threats by defending its homeland,” the U.S. government said in a statement. Source link

Kobe – A 64-year-old man was found dead in his home in the city of Kobe on Thursday in an apparent hanging, while his sister-in-law, 62, and her son, 27, were found lying on the floor and bleeding from their heads, the Hyogo Prefectural Police said. The three were all confirmed dead at around 6:15 p.m., police said. The 64-year-old man had been living there alone. Police found the three after receiving an emergency call from the resident’s older brother at about 5:25 p.m. the same day, who said he could not reach his wife and his son after they visited the man to talk. According to police, the two who were found bleeding had sustained wounds like they had been beaten. A bloodied hammer and an awl were found nearby. Also, there were signs in the house that the three had been involved in a physical fight, leading investigators to suspect that there was some kind of trouble between them. The house is located about 600 meters southwest of Seishin-Chuo Station on the Kobe Municipal Subway. Translated by The Japan Times Source link

Manchester City’s Premier League title hopes are all but over with the defending champion having left itself too much ground to make up as it trails first-place Liverpool by 14 points, midfielder Bernardo Silva said. City lifted a record fourth straight English top-flight title last season, but has struggled in this campaign and is sixth in the standings after winning only two of its last 10 league matches. Pep Guardiola’s team has been hit hard by injuries this season, with Ballon d’Or winner Rodri out for the rest of the campaign and several players spending lengthy spells on the sidelines. “Right now, it’s about accepting reality,” Silva told Sky Sports in an interview published on Thursday. “I’m not looking at Liverpool. I’m sixth in the league, I cannot be looking at Liverpool or Arsenal. “I’m looking at the next game to try and win three points … I wouldn’t say it’s impossible because in football there are no impossibles, but right now Manchester City is completely out of the title race, no question about that, it’s too late for us. “People say you cannot win the league until January, but you can lose it. This season the reality is that we have lost it.” City hosts 13th-placed West Ham United in a league match on Saturday, before taking on fourth-tier side Salford City in the FA Cup on Jan. 11. Source link

London – Teen sensation Luke “The Nuke” Littler blasted past Stephen Bunting 6-1 on Thursday to set up a compelling PDC World Darts Championship title showdown with Dutch seven-time finalist Michael van Gerwen. The 17-year-old Englishman, who took the darts world by storm last year when he reached his first final, surged to a 4-0 lead before “The Bullet” fired back to take the fifth set and prevent a whitewash. Bunting, 39, had a golden chance to secure back-to-back sets but failed to seize it as his opponent, with an ice-cool gaze as steady as his hand, fired back and went 5-1 up with a brutal bullseye checkout. Source link

Sydney – Poland returned to the semifinals of the United Cup mixed team tournament for the third straight year after hard-fought singles victories handed it an unassailable 2-0 lead over Britain in Sydney on Thursday. Iga Swiatek settled the tie after an almighty battle with Katie Boulter, prevailing 6-7 (4-7), 6-1, 6-4 as last year’s runner-up booked a last-four clash with Kazakhstan in the $10 million tournament. “I’m just exhausted,” Swiatek said after the nearly three-hour marathon at Ken Rosewall Arena. “I’m happy that I won, so that I don’t need to play mixed doubles. This match was crazy, so many changes of momentum.” Source link

LONDON – With almost half the world’s population going to the polls, 2024 was dubbed a super election year, leading many experts to warn of a coming flood of political disinformation. After all, generative artificial intelligence has made it possible for anyone, anywhere, to produce lifelike “deepfake” images and video. Never have anti-democratic bad actors had such powerful tools for undermining free and fair elections. Yet while AI-augmented disinformation has clearly proliferated online, it did not have a substantial destabilizing impact on democracy in 2024. The reason is not entirely clear. Perhaps social media users have become more discerning, while fact-checkers and digital platforms have done a better job of curtailing the spread of falsehoods — with Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) being an obvious exception. To be sure, in the U.S. presidential election, both sides accused the other of trying to suppress free speech and democracy. According to the leading U.S. fact-checking site Politifact, both campaigns issued misleading or false statements, though the overwhelming majority came from Donald Trump. Nonetheless, the worst predictions about AI disrupting the democratic process were not borne out. More broadly, the results of the year’s elections around the world were a mixed bag, but liberal and pluralist parties and candidates generally exceeded expectations. Source link

The Japan Transport Safety Board, which last month released an interim report on a deadly collision between a Japan Airlines passenger plane and a Japan Coast Guard aircraft that occurred on a runway at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport a year ago, will continue its analysis. It will compile a final report that includes measures to prevent any recurrence of similar accidents. The board’s Dec. 25 report attributed the collision to a series of human errors. It said the coast guard aircraft had mistakenly believed that it had been cleared to enter the runway, the air traffic controller did not see the aircraft’s approach, and the JAL plane did not notice the coast guard aircraft until just before the collision. Source link

A venture capital fund headed by former national soccer team member Keisuke Honda has raised about ¥15.3 billion ($98 million), according to a document seen by Bloomberg. Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., Nomura Holdings and SBI Holdings are among at least 20 companies that have invested in Honda’s X&KSK Fund, according to the document. SBI Holdings and SBI Shinsei Bank have parked a combined ¥2 billion in the fund, making them the biggest shareholders. Honda, who scored goals in three World Cups in a row and played for CSKA Moscow and AC Milan, is also active in investing, founding Dreamers VC with American actor Will Smith. His goal is to help create a so-called decacorn in Japan — a closely held company with a market value of more than $10 billion — and he’s eyeing firms involved in artificial intelligence and those that have developed cutting-edge technology or innovative business strategies. Source link

In 1903, Mark Twain wrote that “It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing.” This observation still mostly holds true. The invention of artificial intelligence required decades of work by thousands of scientists, engineers, and industry leaders. It will require many more men and women to develop the technology in the years ahead. As the march of AI accelerates, a new requirement has become apparent: the next breakthroughs will consume colossal quantities of energy. AI guzzles electricity — a single ChatGPT query requires 10 times as much as a conventional web search. As AI usage increases, its energy requirements will rise, and if demand outstrips supply, the technology’s development will be strangled. The data centers that underpin AI development at scale — powering GPT-4, Gemini and other frontier models — need around-the-clock access to power. They already account for roughly 3% of annual U.S. electricity consumption, and this share is expected to more than double in the next five to 10 years. More broadly, AI’s electricity usage is projected to increase from four terawatt-hours in 2023 to 93 TWh in 2030 — more than Washington State used in 2022. And that’s a conservative estimate; AI could consume this much power as early as 2025. Source link