Daily News Pakistan

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Monday that he will step down as leader of the ruling Liberals after nine years in office but will stay on in his post until the party chooses a replacement. Trudeau, under heavy pressure from Liberal legislators to quit amid polls showing the party will be crushed at the next election, said at a news conference that parliament would be suspended until March 24. That means an election is unlikely to be held before May and Trudeau will still be prime minister when US President-elect Donald Trump — who has threatened tariffs that would cripple Canada’s economy — takes office on January 20. “This country deserves a real choice in the next election, and it has become clear to me that if I’m having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election,” Trudeau said. Trudeau, 53, took office in November 2015 and won reelection twice, becoming one of Canada’s longest-serving prime ministers. But his popularity start...

Creating AI-created images on WhatsApp has emerged as an enjoyable and innovative method for articulating concepts. However, what if I informed you that it is possible to produce these images directly within WhatsApp? Indeed, you read that correctly. WhatsApp, a leading messaging application, offers a feature that enables users to create AI-enhanced images without exiting the app. The process of generating an AI image is straightforward and involves simply providing a description. Here is a step-by-step guide: Open the chat : In a conversation with Meta AI, type “@Meta AI imagine me” followed by your desired description. For instance, you might say, “@Meta AI imagine me a sunset over a mountain with vibrant colors.” Allow the AI to Analyze : The AI employs sophisticated algorithms to interpret your prompt and produce an image. This analysis occurs in real time, resulting in prompt outputs. Examine the Created Image : After the AI has finished processing, the image will be displ...

The world’s oldest person, Japanese woman Tomiko Itooka, has died aged 116, the city where she lived, Ashiya. Itooka, who had four children and five grandchildren, died on December 29 at a nursing home where she resided since 2019, the southern city’s mayor said in a statement. She was born on May 23, 1908 in the commercial hub of Osaka, near Ashiya — four months before the Ford Model T was launched in the United States. Itooka was recognised as the oldest person in the world after the August 2024 death of Spain’s Maria Branyas Morera at age 117. “Ms Itooka gave us courage and hope through her long life,” Ashiya’s 27-year-old mayor Ryosuke Takashima said in the statement; “We thank her for it.” Itooka, who was one of three siblings, lived through world wars and pandemics as well as technological breakthroughs. As a student, she played volleyball. In her older age, Itooka enjoyed bananas and Calpis, a milky soft drink popular in Japan, according to the mayor’s statement. Wo...

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is increasingly likely to announce he intends to step down, though he has not made a final decision, a source familiar with Trudeau's thinking said on Sunday. The source — while requesting anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly — spoke to Reuters after the Globe and Mail reported that Trudeau was expected to announce as early as Monday that he would quit as leader of Canada's ruling Liberal Party after nine years in office. Trudeau's departure would leave the party without a permanent head at a time when polls show the Liberals will badly lose to the official opposition Conservatives in an election that must be held by late October. Sources told the Globe and Mail that they did not know definitely when Trudeau would announce his plans to leave but said they expect it would happen before an emergency meeting of Liberal legislators on Wednesday. An increasing number of Liberal parliamentarians, alarmed by a se...

Palestinian group Hamas has approved a list of 34 hostages presented by Israel to be exchanged in a possible ceasefire deal, a group official told Reuters. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, also reiterated that any deal is contingent upon reaching an agreement on an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a permanent ceasefire. On the other hand, Relief International says al-Awda Hospital in North Gaza has become the last partially functioning medical facility in North Gaza after heavy bombardment of the nearby Indonesian Hospital rendered services there “impossible”. Al-Awda, however, is also under an Israeli evacuation order and the hospital has come under attack in the past two days, including attacks that destroyed its fuel tank and its last generator, the aid group said. Three Palestinians have been killed by Israeli bombing in the Khirbet al-Adas area near the southern city of Rafah, as per reports. Another baby in Gaza ha...

WASHINGTON: A powerful winter storm began hammering the central United States on Saturday, with meteorologists warning that millions in the east of the country would face blizzard conditions, treacherous ice, frigid temperatures and severe travel disruptions. Over 60 million people are in the path of the dangerous storm, which is set to plunge the eastern half of the US into a deep freeze of Arctic air through Monday. The National Weather Service (NWS) has warned of ferocious weather and severe travel delays, with ice, snow and gale-force winds in states…

Microsoft plans to spend nearly $100 billion on AI-enabled data centers in fiscal 2025, the company said Friday. "In FY 2025, Microsoft is on track to invest approximately $80 billion to build out AI-enabled datacenters to train AI models and deploy AI and cloud-based applications around the world," Vice Chair and President Brad Smith wrote in a blog post. Stressing that AI promises to drive innovation and boost productivity in every sector of the economy, Smith said the US is poised to stand at the forefront of the technology wave, especially if it doubles down on its strengths and effectively partners internationally. "Today, the United States leads the global AI race thanks to the investment of private capital and innovations by American companies of all sizes, from dynamic start-ups to well-established enterprises," he said. "At Microsoft, we’ve seen this firsthand through our partnership with OpenAI, from rising firms such as Anthropic and xAI, and ou...

Myanmar’s military rulers will release 5,864 prisoners, including 180 foreigners, under an amnesty to mark the country’s 77 years of independence from British colonial rule, state media said. The military said on Saturday that it had ordered the release “on humanitarian and compassionate grounds” and would commute the life sentences of 144 people to 15 years, according to state-run MRTV television. Details were not provided of what the prisoners had been convicted of and the nationalities of the foreign detainees, who were set to be deported on release, were not known. The Associated Press news agency said the foreigners to be released could include four Thai fishermen who were arrested by Myanmar’s navy in late November after patrol boats opened fire on Thai fishing vessels in waters close to their maritime border in the Andaman Sea. Thailand’s prime minister has said she expects the four to be released on Independence Day. Myanmar regularly grants amnesty to thousands of peopl...

Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit accusing its digital assistant Siri of listening in on users' private conversations. The proposed settlement detailed in a court filing accessed on Thursday came with Apple holding firm that it did nothing wrong. "Apple has at all times denied and continues to deny any and all alleged wrongdoing and liability," the tech titan said in the proposed settlement, which requires a judge's approval to be finalised. A class action lawsuit filed five years ago accused Siri of listening in on private conversations of people with iPhones, iPads, HomePods or other Apple devices enhanced with the digital assistant. The California-based tech giant has made user privacy a big part of its brand image, and one of the reasons it tightly controls its "ecosystem" of hardware and software. Talk captured by "unintended Siri activation" were obtained by Apple and perhaps even shared with third parties, accord...

Twenty-seven migrants, including women and children, died after two boats capsized off central Tunisia, with 83 people rescued, a civil defence official told AFP on Thursday. The rescued and dead passengers, who were found off the Kerkennah Islands off central Tunisia, were aiming to reach Europe and were all from sub-Saharan African countries, said Zied Sdiri, head of civil defence in the city of Sfax. According to the Tunisian National Guard, which oversees the coastguard, searches were still underway for other possible missing passengers. Tunisia is a key departure point for irregular migrants seeking to reach Europe with Italy, whose island of Lampedusa is only 150 kilometres from Tunisia, often their first port of call. Each year, tens of thousands of people attempt the perilous Mediterranean crossing, which has seen a spate of recent shipwrecks, with the dangers exacerbated by bad weather. On December 18, at least 20 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa died in a shipwreck off...

A unique hotel in the Philippines has set a new Guinness World Record for being the world’s largest building shaped like a chicken. The 10-storey-high rooster hatched at the Campuestohan Highland Resort in Negros Occidental earlier this month. The giant chicken hotel has been built to withstand the mountainous municipality’s storms and typhoons.It's a 13 storey building which has eye-catching views. Guinness World Records officially declared the Campuestohan Highland Resort’s newest structure the “largest building in the shape of a chicken“ on 8 September.  

A driver crashed his pickup truck into a New Orleans crowd celebrating New Year’s Day and opened fire, killing at least 10 people and injuring more than 35, in an attack the FBI said it was investigating as an act of terrorism. “This man was trying to run over as many people as he could,” Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said at a televised press conference on Wednesday. “He was hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did.” The incident at 2:15pm PKT (9:15am GMT) occurred at the intersection of Canal and Bourbon Streets during New Year’s celebrations, the city said in a statement. Bourbon Street is a historic tourist destination in the city’s French Quarter, known for attracting large crowds with its music and bars. Kirkpatrick said the driver fired at police and struck two police officers from the vehicle after it crashed. The officers are in stable condition, she added. The driver died following the shootout with police, officials said. “We know the perpetrator ha...

At least 17 Palestinians were killed on Wednesday in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip on the first day of 2025, according reports. An Israeli drone hit a home in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, killing a woman and child and injuring several people, as per reports. Israeli artillery also shelled the eastern and northern parts of the Bureij and Nuseirat camps, but no information was yet available about casualties. Fifteen people also lost their lives and several others were injured, including children, in an airstrike on a house in the northern town of Jabalia, according to reports. Witnesses said Israeli forces continued to blow up homes and residential buildings in Beit Lahia and Jabalia in northern Gaza. In southern Gaza, several people were injured in an airstrike on a home in al-Fukhari area in eastern Khan Younis. The Israeli army has continued a genocidal war on Gaza that has killed over 45,500 victims, mostly women and children, since a Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2...

South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol will be arrested before a warrant issued over his short-lived declaration of martial law expires next week, the country’s chief anticorruption investigator has said. Oh Dong-woon, the head of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, told reporters on Wednesday that the arrest warrant against Yoon would be executed “within the valid period”, the last day of which is Monday. “We aim for a smooth process without major disturbances, but we are also coordinating to mobilise police and personnel in preparation,” Oh told reporters at the government complex in Gwacheon, south of Seoul. Oh warned that anyone seeking to block Yoon’s arrest could be prosecuted. “We consider actions such as setting up various barricades and locking iron gates to resist the execution of our arrest warrant as obstruction of official duties,” he said. Speculation about when and how authorities would take Yoon into custody has swirled since ...