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Amid limited availability of di-ammonium phosphate (DAP), a traditionally popular fertiliser for rabi crops, Punjab has achieved 87% of the targeted 35 lakh hectares under wheat for the 2024-25 rabi season even as the recommended time to complete sowing passed 10 days ago. Experts at the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) said delayed sowing is not a cause for concern as the temperature at the onset of the winter season was comparatively warmer, and the current climatic conditions are becoming conducive for sowing. The wheat sowing trends suggest that the burning of paddy biomass is nearing culmination, the agricultural experts said. Official sources in the Punjab mandi board said that out of 2,980 mandis operational to procure key kharif crop of rice more than 950 have already been winded up operations. “Presently, about 2,000 mandis across the state are functional and most will be closed this month end as paddy season is almost over. Mandis will be operational in December to facilitate the purchase of basmati rice crop,” said a senior functionary of the board. Wheat sowing began on time from November 1 and wheat experts at PAU and field officials of the state agriculture department say this year the sowing of the main rabi crop was slower than the last season. The experts attribute the ongoing sluggish sowing trend to the delay in paddy harvesting due to tardy procurement and lifting of the rice crop. State agriculture secretary Ajit Balaji Joshi said that till November 25, wheat sowing has been completed on 30.24 lakh hectares. “We are expecting a good rabi season. There is sufficient availability of DAP in the state,” said Joshi while evading the query to furnish the latest data on stock available with Punjab. With 2.39 lakh hectares area under wheat, Bathinda district is leading among the 23 districts of the state till November 25 followed by Ludhiana (2.28 lakh hectares), Patiala (2.23 lakh hectares), Sangrur (2.22 lakh hectares) and Muktsar (1.96 lakh hectares). PAU wheat expert Virinder Singh Sohu said the climatic conditions during winters would determine yield and sowing is in the final stage. “In the last two rabi seasons, climatic conditions had also affected the sowing trend. Delayed sowing will solely not affect yield as favourable weather can compensate the six-month crop in the later stage,” said Sohu, head of the plant breeding and genetics department on Monday. DAP pangs persist District administrations and field officials of the state agriculture confirmed the shortage of DAP but added that recommended alternatives are available. DAP is used at the time of sowing of the crop. It cannot be used afterwards. Bathinda deputy commissioner Showkat Ahmad Parray said farmers should not panic and follow the instructions of the experts to use organic fertilisers to maintain soil productivity. Muktsar chief agriculture officer Gurnam Singh said farmers are being encouraged to consider alternative fertilisers like NPK (which contains 12% nitrogen, 32% phosphorus, and 16% potassium), Triple Super Phosphate (TSP) and Single Super Phosphate (SSP), which provides phosphorus, sulphur, calcium and traces of other micronutrients.ANNAPOLIS, Md. — No. 3 Nebraska finished with four individual champions and had finalists in seven of the 10 weight classes as the Huskers won the team title at the 12-team Navy Classic on Saturday. Nebraska finished with 150 points, while Oregon State was next with 130.5. Brock Hardy won a matchup of top-10 opponents at 141 pounds earned a 10-3 decision over ninth-ranked Joshua Koderhandt of Navy. NU’s other champions were Caleb Smith at 125, Antrell Taylor at 157 and Silas Allred at 184. Runners-up were Lenny Pinto at 174 and heavyweight Harley Andrews. At 165, Nebraska had both finalists in Bubba Wilson and Chris Minto. Nebraska is off until Dec. 6 when it competes in the Cliff Keen Invitational.

The Palomar Hotel had just opened in 1929, ready to celebrate the 1930 new year. (Ross Eric Gibson collection) The Town Clock had to stop its tolling so visitors to the new Palomar Hotel could sleep through the night. (Ross Eric Gibson collection). New Year’s parties, dancing and toasting took on different features throughout Santa Cruz County. (Public domain) With the large Scottish population, Ben Lomond celebrated “Hogmanay” for New Year’s. (Ross Eric Gibson collection). Did an angel ring the dead bell in the clock tower on New Year’s, 1930? (Ross Eric Gibson collection) The Palomar Hotel had just opened in 1929, ready to celebrate the 1930 new year. (Ross Eric Gibson collection) New Year’s Eve traditions have been long popular in Santa Cruz, from dancing and feasting, toasting the new year with a drink, a kiss for good luck, and making a racket to ward off evil spirits and bad luck. The Town Clock now stands at Clock Tower Plaza, which has become a focus for our New Year’s traditions. But when the Town Clock was at a different location, it seemed to have had a life of its own on the eve of the Great Depression. Andy Balich wanted the most beautiful hotel in Santa Cruz, back when beauty was an important part of architecture. Groundbreaking for the Palomar Hotel was Dec. 6, 1928, then nine months later, on Sept. 7, 1929, the Palomar Hotel opened to the public. The elegant Spanish art deco masterpiece was designed by Watsonville architect William Weeks, a seven-story building that the Santa Cruz News called “Santa Cruz’s first skyscraper.” The hotel became a hive of events, with a new program every Saturday. Yet visitors who spent the night complained that the Town Clock on the neighboring Odd Fellows Building, tolled round the clock. The Odd Fellows club agreed to let the tolling mechanism run down so it would still tell the time but made it impossible to sound the hour. The Palomar hosted a New Year’s dinner-dance for 300 in its mezzanine ballroom, to a popular jazz band. When midnight came, 1930 was ushered-in with squeaky horns, the clack of spinning noise makers and shouts of “Happy New Year!” Then people heard an odd sound over the din. To the disbelief of many, the dead bell in the town clock tower began to toll, which was bizarre enough in itself, but it tolled 13 times. The question in the local papers was “Who Rang the Bell?” When a woman repeated this question to her friend, her 4-year-old daughter chimed in, “I know, mommy! An angel rang that bell!” “Why do you think that?,” the mother asked. And with a sense of the obvious, the little girl replied, “Well, only an angel could reach so high!” My aunt Gloria Kaas recalled this story. And in fact, an angel did make sense. For after the hotel opened in September, the stock market crashed the economy on Oct. 29, 1929, plunging America into the Great Depression. It would take an angel’s intervention to keep the hotel afloat. In 1933, the $360,000 hotel was sold at auction from the steps of the courthouse for $90,000 to its bondholders. Four months later the leaseholder closed the hotel to sell off its fixtures, but Balich stopped him and became the new 10-year lease holder, eventually becoming the sole owner of his hotel in 1941. Thanks to Balich, his dream survived a rocky start. Over the years, Santa Cruz held special New Year’s Eve parties in its finest buildings. In 1861-62, from the rooftop of the Otto-Trust Brick Building on Front Street, came music from a modern all-saxophone band. This included alto, tenor, baritone and bass saxophone, but also a deep contrabass, and the higher soprano and sopranino saxes without a bent bell. People were used to brass bands but not to reed instruments with a loud voice. The Germania was a German-language hotel, first on Front Street, then in a new building called the Santa Cruz Hotel. It featured brass oom-pah bands and beer served from barrels. The Arian Singing Society on the other hand, brought the German classics to life at Arian Hall on Front Street above Soquel Avenue. These became features of German New Year celebrations. The Vienna Beer Gardens was a family friendly venue at the corner of Ocean Street and Soquel Avenue. It had an open-air dancing pavilion, playground equipment in a park setting beside Branciforte Creek, and beer with picnic-style lunches. Our first true luxury hotel was the 1866 Pacific Ocean House at the corner of Pacific Avenue and Plaza Lane. It hosted a ball for 150 of the most respectable people in high fashion finery, dancing to a ballroom orchestra. Meanwhile the castle-like Armory building at Front and Soquel Avenue, was known for years for its New Year’s Masquerade Ball, where one didn’t unmask until midnight. In the 1890s, the Sea Beach Hotel on Beach Hill hosted grand balls to popular dance bands, and the new St. George Hotel hosted a dinner dance in its dining room. The Boardwalk Casino became the largest ballroom and banquet hall in town for New Year’s parties. Fraternal organizations held their own dinner dances for members in their club rooms. Watch Night parties were at homes or in social halls. Historian Ernest Otto recalled from his 1870s childhood, that the parties included popping corn, pulling taffy and playing card games or board games. The Christmas tree would be cut into small branches because for safety reasons, you wouldn’t want a piece sticking out of the fireplace. One by one, people were solicited to toss a branch into the fire to represent something they didn’t want to bring into the new year. They could announce what it was or say it was private. The purpose was to keep the fire burning from sunset to midnight. Some played a memorization game where people sat in a circle and said “I went to Grandmother’s house and gave her ...” and would mention a gift, either practical or fantastical. The next person repeated the line, a new gift and the previous one. Each person had to remember all the previous gifts and was eliminated for forgetting a gift or its order, until there was only one person left who remembered all the gifts. The song “The 12 Days of Christmas” is suspected to have started as a memorization song, once including random absurd gifts invented on the spot to defy memorization. At midnight, all the doors were opened to usher the old year out and the new year in. Everyone went on their porches and sounded horns and cow bells to drive away misfortune. In the distance one could hear the revelry from many different quarters. Factory whistles blared from the town’s three tanneries and mills near Cathcart, plus the depot and Beach Hill. A great clanging came from the 12 churches clustered around Churchside (the junction of Lincoln and Center streets). Some churches held special New Year’s services. Then they would toll their bells, which sometimes took 15 or 20 minutes, as the kids lined up to get their turn ringing the big bell. Up on Mission Hill were heard the bells of Temperance Hall, Holy Cross School, Mission Hill Public School, the Leslie Building firebell, the Catholic boy’s school and Holy Cross Church. Many had a church banquet or potluck after midnight. If you didn’t want to get dressed up to celebrate, you went to the local saloons. Downtown Santa Cruz had its “Famous 55” saloons in a three-block area. These were a sign of prosperity, not for their quality (some were dives, others were gentlemen’s clubs). But the success of the lumber, leather, lime and gunpowder industries meant more workingmen employed, coming to town on weekends to spend their paychecks on provisions, whiskey, gambling and women. Temperance Hall on Mission Hill Grade provided non-alcoholic, family friendly New Year’s entertainment. Soquel had the first Temperance Society in California, founded in 1848, and Santa Cruz developed nearly 10 clubs by the time Temperance Hall was constructed in 1861. Some of the San Lorenzo Valley’s large Scottish population celebrated “Hogmanay.” When the Scotch Presbyterians banned Christmas in Scotland in the 1600s, the Scotts simply moved their Christmas traditions to New Year’s Eve, some of which became American New Year’s traditions. Below Ben Lomond was a 300-acre resort called “Rowardennan” (“Enchanted Forest”). It was one of the last to keep the area’s “Hogmanay” celebration, reminiscent of the Christmas Bracebridge Dinner held at Yosemite’s Ahwahnee Lodge. Rowardennan’s rustic ballroom had the look of a Highland’s hunting lodge, with deer and elk heads watching from the walls, and evergreen bunting. A large riverstone fireplace dominated one wall. A boy on a Yule log was ceremoniously carried in to bagpipe music. While drinking a toast, a cup of spirits was poured on the log, which was lit with a piece of the previous year’s log. This fire was not allowed to go out before the new year. The evening began with a banquet. Desert was “New Year’s cakes”: scones (oat cakes), nut and caraway shortbread and black buns. After dinner was a concert of Highland songs and dances, followed by a square dance. The first guest of the new year was a bachelor called the “First Footer,” who arrived at midnight. He brought “wisemen gifts” of a coin, bread and a log, symbolizing prosperity, food and warmth. Some combined these gifts into a log shaped cake with a coin hidden in it. Toasting was usually reserved for Champagne, wine, or brandy. The term “toasting” came from Wassail, an ale-and-sherry punch with cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, plus pieces of toast floating in the bowl to keep the spice sediments down. It was a popular drink for Christmas, New Year’s and Epiphany (12th Night). Stephen and Luigi Martinelli started a Watsonville soda water business in 1861 and in 1865 created non-alcoholic Orange Champagne. Their Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider has become the universal non-alcoholic holiday drink. The longtime mystery of the angel who rang the clock tower bell in 1930 wasn’t solved until about 1970. Whitney Hardware store was in the Odd Fellows Building in 1929, and Rolla, the owner’s son, persuaded the elderly night watchman Thompson to leave the trap door to the tower unlocked on New Year’s Eve. Rolla and Barbara Clay made their way into the belfry and triggered the hammer mechanism by hand which rang the bell, although they lost count and the bell struck 13. So the angels were a couple of kids driving off misfortune with their own clocktower noisemaker, as an excuse to steal a New Year’s kiss.Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton has laid into Sebastian Gorka, the president-elect’s pick for counter-terrorism chief, as a “conman” whose selection is not “going to bode well for counter-terrorism efforts when the [national security council’s] senior director is somebody like that”. Trump praised Gorka, an immigrant from Hungary, as a “tireless advocate for the America First Agenda and the MAGA Movement”. But Bolton came out swinging at Gorka on Friday. The neocon, who served in the Reagan, George W Bush and first Trump administrations, has set out his stall against many of Trump’s picks, including former Democrat and Iraq veteran Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, that he “wouldn’t have him in any US government”. Earlier this week, Bolton, told NewsNation’s The Hill that up until Gorka was nominated by Trump as a deputy assistant to the president and the senior director for counter-terrorism, he would have said that Gabbard’s nomination “was the worst cabinet appointment in recent American history”. Bolton’s not alone in his criticism. Democratic National Committee spokesperson Alex Floyd called Gorka “a far-right extremist who is as dangerous as he is unqualified to lead America’s counter-terrorism strategy”. Gorka is outspokenly pro-Israel and supportive of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and has faced allegations of Islamophobia for supporting Trump’s 2017 Muslim travel ban that barred travel to the US for 90 days for visitors from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Gorka also claimed that Islam is “not a religion of peace”. He’s come under fire for showing up at Trump’s 2017 inaugural ball wearing an honorary medal of Hungarian nationalist organization Vitézi Rend and for a previous position serving as an adviser to the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán. Bolton said Gorka “needs a full FBI field background investigation” and his “education claims” need to be probed. “I think he is a perfect example of somebody who owes his position purely to Donald Trump,” Bolton told the outlet. “He doesn’t display loyalty. He displays fealty. And that’s what Trump wants.” “He doesn’t want Gorka’s opinions, he wants Gorka to say ‘yes, sir’, and I’m fully confident that’s exactly what will happen no matter what it is Trump says.”

Amanda Hernández | (TNS) Stateline.org CHICAGO — Shoplifting rates in the three largest U.S. cities — New York, Los Angeles and Chicago — remain higher than they were before the pandemic, according to a report last month from the nonpartisan research group Council on Criminal Justice. Related Articles National News | Bill Clinton is out of the hospital after being treated for the flu National News | NORAD’s Santa tracker was a Cold War morale boost. Now it attracts millions of kids National News | Heavy travel day off to a rough start after American Airlines briefly grounds all flights National News | Prosecutors withdraw appeal of dismissed case against Alec Baldwin in fatal movie set shooting National News | Judge rules Arkansas law allowing criminal charges against librarians is unconstitutional The sharp rise in retail theft in recent years has made shoplifting a hot-button issue, especially for politicians looking to address public safety concerns in their communities. Since 2020, when viral videos of smash-and-grab robberies flooded social media during the COVID-19 pandemic, many Americans have expressed fears that crime is out of control. Polls show that perceptions have improved recently, but a majority of Americans still say crime is worse than in previous years. “There is this sense of brazenness that people have — they can just walk in and steal stuff. ... That hurts the consumer, and it hurts the company,” said Alex Piquero, a criminology professor at the University of Miami and former director of the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, in an interview. “That’s just the world we live in,” he said. “We need to get people to realize that you have to obey the law.” At least eight states — Arizona, California, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, New York and Vermont — passed a total of 14 bills in 2024 aimed at tackling retail theft, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The measures range from redefining retail crimes and adjusting penalties to allowing cross-county aggregation of theft charges and protecting retail workers. Major retailers have responded to rising theft since 2020 by locking up merchandise, upgrading security cameras, hiring private security firms and even closing stores. Still, the report indicates that shoplifting remains a stubborn problem. In Chicago, the rate of reported shoplifting incidents remained below pre-pandemic levels throughout 2023 — but surged by 46% from January to October 2024 compared with the same period a year ago. Shoplifting in Los Angeles was 87% higher in 2023 than in 2019. Police reports of shoplifting from January to October 2024 were lower than in 2023. Los Angeles adopted a new crime reporting system in March 2024, which has likely led to an undercount, according to the report. In New York, shoplifting rose 48% from 2021 to 2022, then dipped slightly last year. Still, the shoplifting rate was 55% higher in 2023 than in 2019. This year, the shoplifting rate increased by 3% from January to September compared with the same period last year. While shoplifting rates tend to rise in November and December, which coincides with in-person holiday shopping, data from the Council on Criminal Justice’s sample of 23 U.S. cities shows higher rates in the first half of 2024 compared with 2023. Researchers found it surprising that rates went up despite retailers doing more to fight shoplifting. Experts say the spike might reflect improved reporting efforts rather than a spike in theft. “As retailers have been paying more attention to shoplifting, we would not expect the numbers to increase,” said Ernesto Lopez, the report’s author and a senior research specialist with the council. “It makes it a challenge to understand the trends of shoplifting.” In downtown Chicago on a recent early afternoon, potential shoppers shuffled through the streets and nearby malls, browsing for gifts ahead of the holidays. Edward Johnson, a guard at The Shops at North Bridge, said that malls have become quieter in the dozen or so years he has worked in mall security, with the rise of online retailers. As for shoplifters, Johnson said there isn’t a single type of person to look out for — they can come from any background. “I think good-hearted people see something they can’t afford and figure nothing is lost if they take something from the store,” Johnson said as he patrolled the mall, keeping an eye out for lost or suspicious items. Between 2018 and 2023, most shoplifting in Chicago was reported in the downtown area, as well as in the Old Town, River North and Lincoln Park neighborhoods, according to a separate analysis by the Council on Criminal Justice. Newly sworn-in Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke this month lowered the threshold for charging retail theft as a felony in the county, which includes Chicago, from $1,000 to $300, aligning it with state law. “It sends a signal that she’s taking it seriously,” Rob Karr, the president and CEO of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, told Stateline. Nationally, retailers are worried about organized theft. The National Retail Federation’s latest report attributed 36% of the $112.1 billion in lost merchandise in 2022 to “external theft,” which includes organized retail crime. Organized retail crime typically involves coordinated efforts by groups to steal items with the intent to resell them for a profit. Commonly targeted goods include high-demand items such as baby formula, laundry detergent and electronics. The same report found that retailers’ fear of violence associated with theft also is on the rise, with more retailers taking a “hands-off approach.” More than 41% of respondents to the organization’s 2023 survey, up from 38% in 2022, reported that no employee is authorized to try and stop a shoplifter. (The federation’s reporting has come under criticism. It retracted a claim last year that attributed nearly half of lost merchandise in 2021 to organized retail crime; such theft accounted for only about 5%. The group announced this fall it will no longer publish its reports on lost merchandise.) Policy experts say shoplifting and organized retail theft can significantly harm critical industries, drive up costs for consumers and reduce sales tax revenue for states. Those worries have driven recent state-level action to boost penalties for shoplifting. California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of 10 bills into law in August aimed at addressing retail theft. These measures make repeated theft convictions a felony, allow aggregation of crimes across multiple counties to be charged as a single felony, and permit police to arrest suspects for retail theft even if the crime wasn’t witnessed directly by an officer. In September, Newsom signed an additional bill that imposes steeper felony penalties for large-scale theft offenses. California voters also overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure in November that increases penalties for specific drug-related and theft crimes. Under the new law, people who are convicted of theft at least twice may face felony charges on their third offense, regardless of the stolen item’s value. “With these changes in the law, really it comes down to making sure that law enforcement is showing up to our stores in a timely manner, and that the prosecutors and the [district attorneys] are prosecuting,” Rachel Michelin, the president and CEO of the California Retailers Association, told Stateline. “That’s the only way we’re going to deter retail theft in our communities.” In New Jersey, a bipartisan bill making its way through the legislature would increase penalties for leading a shoplifting ring and allow extended sentences for repeat offenders. “This bill is going after a formally organized band of criminals that deliver such destruction to a critical business in our community. We have to act. We have to create a deterrence,” Democratic Assemblymember Joseph Danielsen, one of the bill’s prime sponsors, said in an interview with Stateline. The legislation would allow extended sentences for people convicted of shoplifting three times within 10 years or within 10 years of their release from prison, and would increase penalties to 10 to 20 years in prison for leading a retail crime ring. The bill also would allow law enforcement to aggregate the value of stolen goods over the course of a year to charge serial shoplifters with more serious offenses. Additionally, the bill would increase penalties for assaults committed against retail workers, and would require retailers to train employees on detecting gift card scams. Maryland legislators considered a similar bill during this year’s legislative session that would have defined organized retail theft and made it a felony. The bill didn’t make it out of committee, but Cailey Locklair, president of the Maryland Retailers Alliance, said the group plans to propose a bill during next year’s legislative session that would target gift card fraud. Better, more thorough reporting from retailers is essential to truly understanding shoplifting trends and its full impact, in part because some retail-related crimes, such as gift card fraud, are frequently underreported, according to Lopez, of the Council on Criminal Justice. Measuring crime across jurisdictions is notoriously difficult , and the council does not track organized retail theft specifically because law enforcement typically doesn’t identify it as such at the time of arrest — if an arrest even occurs — requiring further investigation, Lopez said. The council’s latest report found conflicting trends in the FBI’s national crime reporting systems. The FBI’s older system, the Summary Reporting System, known as SRS, suggests that reported shoplifting hadn’t gone up through 2023, remaining on par with 2019 levels. In contrast, the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS, shows a 93% increase in shoplifting over the same period. The discrepancy may stem from the type of law enforcement agencies that have adopted the latter system, Lopez said. Some of those communities may have higher levels of shoplifting or other types of property crime, which could be what is driving the spike, Lopez said. Despite the discrepancies and varying levels of shoplifting across the country, Lopez said, it’s important for retailers to report these incidents, as doing so could help allocate law enforcement resources more effectively. “All law enforcement agencies have limited resources, and having the most accurate information allows for not just better policy, but also better implementation — better use of strategic resources,” Lopez said. Stateline staff writer Robbie Sequeira contributed to this report. ©2024 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.Bruce Willis ' family is praying for a miracle amid his battle with dementia this Christmas. In spite of his fight with frontotemporal dementia, Bruce Willis' family is getting ready for a meaningful Christmas celebration. ET Year-end Special Reads Top 10 equity mutual funds of the year. Do you have any? How India flexed its global power muscles in 2024 2024 was the year India became the talk of America According to reports, the family of the Hollywood star intends to document special moments with pictures and videos before the actor's 70th birthday in March. As they support the actor, Bruce Willis' family maintains hope despite obstacles in his fight with dementia. The 69-year-old celebrity, whose dementia diagnosis was revealed in 2023, will spend the holidays with his family's love and support. According to reports, his ex-wife Demi Moore and their daughters Rumer, 36; Scout, 33; and Tallulah, 30 will be joining his wife, Emma Heming Willis, and their daughters Mabel, 12, and Evelyn, 10 during the holiday season. The family is uniting to make this Christmas extra special as they continue to pray for a miracle and hope for a medical breakthrough, as quoted in a report by In Touch. The family is mostly focused on spending quality time with him while they still can, and every second of connection with him is special. The family intends to strengthen their bonds by listening to music and looking at old photos and videos. They love coming together as a family. 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FAQs How does Bruce Willis' family support him during his dementia battle? The family is focusing on spending quality time together, sharing photos, videos, and music to preserve memories and strengthen their bond. What plans do the family have for the holidays and Bruce's 70th birthday? They plan a special Christmas celebration and will commemorate Bruce's 70th birthday in March by sharing heartfelt memories and spreading joy. (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel )

New shoplifting data explains why they’re locking up the toothpaste

Cybersecurity experts from NordVPN have developed a straightforward four-step test to determine if your smartphone is eavesdropping on your conversations, reported Daily Mail. The test begins by selecting a unique topic that you have never searched for or discussed near your device. According to Daily Mail, after choosing the topic, you should have multiple conversations about it while avoiding any related searches or interactions on your phone. Over the following days, you will monitor your social media ads to see if any related content appears. In their own experiments, NordVPN found that participants received targeted ads shortly after discussing topics they had never previously searched for which actually suggested that their devices may have been listening, asserted Daily Mail. For instance, one participant who discussed Saudi Arabia began seeing hotel ads for the country just days later. While this does not definitively prove eavesdropping, the correlation raises concerns about privacy and data usage. Legally, many users unknowingly consent to such practices through app permissions and virtual assistants which are actually designed to listen for activation phrases. Daily Mail noted that to mitigate this, users can deactivate these assistants and review app permissions to protect their privacy. 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FAQs: Recently who has designed a test to determine if someone’s smartphone is eavesdropping their conversations? Cybersecurity experts from NordVPN have developed a straightforward four-step test to determine if your smartphone is eavesdropping on your conversations. During the experiment, what did NordVPN actually notice? In their own experiments, NordVPN found that participants received targeted ads shortly after discussing topics they had never previously searched for which actually suggested that their devices may have been listening. (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel )ATLANTA (AP) — Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who tried to restore virtue to the White House after the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, then rebounded from a landslide defeat to become a global advocate of human rights and democracy, has died. He was 100 years old . The Carter Center said the 39th president died Sunday afternoon, more than a year after entering hospice care , at his home in Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died in November 2023, lived most of their lives. The center said he died peacefully, surrounded by his family. As reaction poured in from around the world, President Joe Biden mourned Carter’s death, saying the world lost an “extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian” and he lost a dear friend. Biden cited Carter’s compassion and moral clarity, his work to eradicate disease, forge peace, advance civil and human rights, promote free and fair elections, house the homeless and advocacy for the disadvantaged as an example for others. “To all of the young people in this nation and for anyone in search of what it means to live a life of purpose and meaning – the good life – study Jimmy Carter, a man of principle, faith, and humility,” Biden said in a statement. “He showed that we are a great nation because we are a good people – decent and honorable, courageous and compassionate, humble and strong.” Biden said he is ordering a state funeral for Carter in Washington. A moderate Democrat, Carter ran for president in 1976 as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad grin, effusive Baptist faith and technocratic plans for efficient government. His promise to never deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and U.S. defeat in southeast Asia. “If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Carter said. Carter’s victory over Republican Gerald Ford, whose fortunes fell after pardoning Nixon, came amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets and social upheaval over race, women’s rights and America’s role in the world. His achievements included brokering Mideast peace by keeping Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Camp David for 13 days in 1978. But his coalition splintered under double-digit inflation and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His negotiations ultimately brought all the hostages home alive, but in a final insult, Iran didn’t release them until the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, who had trounced him in the 1980 election. Humbled and back home in Georgia, Carter said his faith demanded that he keep doing whatever he could, for as long as he could, to try to make a difference. He and Rosalynn co-founded The Carter Center in 1982 and spent the next 40 years traveling the world as peacemakers, human rights advocates and champions of democracy and public health. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, Carter helped ease nuclear tensions in North and South Korea, avert a U.S. invasion of Haiti and negotiate cease-fires in Bosnia and Sudan. By 2022, the center had monitored at least 113 elections around the world. Carter was determined to eradicate guinea worm infections as one of many health initiatives. Swinging hammers into their 90s, the Carters built homes with Habitat for Humanity. The common observation that he was better as an ex-president rankled Carter. His allies were pleased that he lived long enough to see biographers and historians revisit his presidency and declare it more impactful than many understood at the time. Propelled in 1976 by voters in Iowa and then across the South, Carter ran a no-frills campaign. Americans were captivated by the earnest engineer, and while an election-year Playboy interview drew snickers when he said he “had looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times,” voters tired of political cynicism found it endearing. The first family set an informal tone in the White House, carrying their own luggage, trying to silence the Marine Band’s traditional “Hail to the Chief" and enrolling daughter, Amy, in public schools. Carter was lampooned for wearing a cardigan and urging Americans to turn down their thermostats. But Carter set the stage for an economic revival and sharply reduced America's dependence on foreign oil by deregulating the energy industry along with airlines, trains and trucking. He established the departments of Energy and Education, appointed record numbers of women and nonwhites to federal posts, preserved millions of acres of Alaskan wilderness and pardoned most Vietnam draft evaders. Emphasizing human rights , he ended most support for military dictators and took on bribery by multinational corporations by signing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He persuaded the Senate to ratify the Panama Canal treaties and normalized relations with China, an outgrowth of Nixon’s outreach to Beijing. But crippling turns in foreign affairs took their toll. When OPEC hiked crude prices, making drivers line up for gasoline as inflation spiked to 11%, Carter tried to encourage Americans to overcome “a crisis of confidence.” Many voters lost confidence in Carter instead after the infamous address that media dubbed his “malaise" speech, even though he never used that word. After Carter reluctantly agreed to admit the exiled Shah of Iran to the U.S. for medical treatment, the American Embassy in Tehran was overrun in 1979. Negotiations to quickly free the hostages broke down, and then eight Americans died when a top-secret military rescue attempt failed. Carter also had to reverse course on the SALT II nuclear arms treaty after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Though historians would later credit Carter's diplomatic efforts for hastening the end of the Cold war, Republicans labeled his soft power weak. Reagan’s “make America great again” appeals resonated, and he beat Carter in all but six states. Born Oct. 1, 1924, James Earl Carter Jr. married fellow Plains native Rosalynn Smith in 1946, the year he graduated from the Naval Academy. He brought his young family back to Plains after his father died, abandoning his Navy career, and they soon turned their ambitions to politics . Carter reached the state Senate in 1962. After rural white and Black voters elected him governor in 1970, he drew national attention by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” Carter published more than 30 books and remained influential as his center turned its democracy advocacy onto U.S. politics, monitoring an audit of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results. After a 2015 cancer diagnosis, Carter said he felt “perfectly at ease with whatever comes.” “I’ve had a wonderful life,” he said. “I’ve had thousands of friends, I’ve had an exciting, adventurous and gratifying existence.” Sanz is a former Associated Press reporter.