Google Tests An AI-Only Version Of Its Search Engine– www.ndtv.com
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Excerpt:Alphabet’s Google launched an experimental version of its search engine on Wednesday that completely eliminates its classic 10 blue links in favor of an AI-generated summary.The new feature, available to subscribers of Google One AI Premium, can be accessed via the results page for any search query by clicking on a tab labeled “AI Mode” to the side of existing options like Images and Maps.
“We’ve heard from power users that they want AI responses for even more of their searches,” Robby Stein, a vice president of product, said in a blog post.
Google One AI Premium is a $19.99 per month plan that provides extra cloud storage and special access to some AI features.
Google currently displays AI Overviews, summaries that are increasingly appearing atop the traditional hyperlinks to relevant webpages, for users in more than 100 countries. It began adding advertisements to AI Overviews last May.
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President Donald Trump announced a 30-day pause on newly enacted tariffs on Canada and Mexico but was met with mixed signals from Canada. On one hand, Canada appeared ready to move more aggressively on cutting down fentanyl traffic across the border, but on the other, Canada has not ended all its recently enacted tariffs, only the ones in response to Trump’s latest round of tariffs.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford offered the most bellicose response, announcing plans to increase their electricity fee by 25 percent for Americans in Minnesota, New York, and Michigan. Ford said of Trump’s announced tariff pause, “The only thing that’s certain today is more uncertainty. A pause on some tariffs means nothing. Until President Trump removes the threat of tariffs for good, we will be relentless.”
Trump agrees to pause tariffs on Canada and Mexico after they pledge to boost border enforcement – AP News
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Excerpt:
President Donald Trump on Monday agreed to a 30-day pause on his tariff threats against Mexico and Canada as America’s two largest trading partners took steps to appease his concerns about border security and drug trafficking.
The pauses provide a cool-down period after a tumultuous few days that put North America on the cusp of a trade war that risked crushing economic growth, causing prices to soar and ending two of the United States’ most critical partnerships.
“I am very pleased with this initial outcome, and the Tariffs announced on Saturday will be paused for a 30 day period to see whether or not a final Economic deal with Canada can be structured,” Trump posted on social media. “FAIRNESS FOR ALL!”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted Monday afternoon on X that the pause would occur “while we work together,” saying that his government would name a fentanyl czar, list Mexican cartels as terrorist groups and launch a “Canada-U.S. Joint Strike Force to combat organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering.”
Pope Francis suffers new respiratory crises, back on ventilation: Vatican – National– globalnews.ca
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Excerpt:
Pope Francis suffered two new acute respiratory crises Monday and was put back on noninvasive mechanical ventilation, in another setback to his battle to fight pneumonia, the Vatican said.
Doctors extracted “copious” amounts of mucus from his lungs during two bronchoscopies, in which a camera-tipped tube was sent down into the airways with a sucker at the tip to suction out fluid. The Vatican said the mucus was the body’s reaction to the original pneumonia infection and not a new infection, given laboratory tests don’t indicate any new bacteria.
Francis remained alert, oriented and cooperated with medical personnel. The prognosis remained guarded. Doctors didn’t say if he remained in stable condition, though they referred to the crises in the past tense, suggesting they were over.
The crises were a new setback in what has become a more than two-week battle by the 88-year-old pope, who has chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed, to overcome a complex respiratory infection.
In a late update, the Vatican said the episodes were caused by a “significant accumulation” of mucus in his lungs and bronchial spasms. “Copious secretions,” were extracted during the bronchoscopies and the pope was put back on noninvasive mechanical ventilation, a mask that covers his nose and mouth and pumps oxygen into the lungs, the Vatican said.
Pope calls meeting with cardinals as health remains critical
The Vatican hasn’t released any photos or videos of Francis since before he entered the hospital on Feb. 14 with a complex lung infection. This has become the longest absence of his 12-year papacy.
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The Vatican has defended Francis’ decision to recover in peace and out of the public eye. But on Monday one of Francis’ closest friends at the Vatican, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, urged him to let his voice be heard, saying the world needs to hear it.
“We need men like him who are truly universal and not only one-sided,” Paglia said, speaking after a press conference to launch the annual assembly of his Pontifical Academy for Life, the Vatican’s bioethics academy, which has as this year’s theme “The End of the World?”
Pope Francis Making Slow Recovery from Double Pneumonia
Francis wrote a message to the assembly in which he lamented that international organizations are increasingly ineffective to combat the threats facing the world and are being undermined by “short-sighted attitudes concerned with protecting particular and national interests.” It was dated Feb. 26 and signed “from Gemelli Polyclinic.”
Doctors often use noninvasive ventilation to stave off an intubation, or the use of invasive mechanical ventilation. Francis has not been intubated during this hospitalization. It’s not clear if he has provided any advance directives about the limits of his care if he declines or loses consciousness.
Catholic teaching holds that life must be defended from conception until natural death. It insists that chronically ill patients, including those in vegetative states, must receive “ordinary” care such as hydration and nutrition, but “extraordinary” or disproportionate care can be suspended if it is no longer beneficial or is only prolonging a precarious and painful life.
Pope Francis’ health brings ‘anxiety and concern’ about Catholic Church’s future
Francis articulated that to a meeting of Paglia’s bioethics body in 2017, saying there was “no obligation to have recourse in all circumstances to every possible remedy.” He added: “It thus makes possible a decision that is morally qualified as withdrawal of ‘overzealous treatment.’”
Paglia, whose office helps articulate the Catholic Church’s position on end-of-life care, said Francis is like any other Catholic and would follow church teaching if it came to that.
“Today the pope is giving us an extraordinary teaching on fragility,” he added. “Today the pope, not through words but with his body, is reminding all of us, we elderly people to begin with, that we are all fragile and therefore we need to take care of each other.”
Francis’ 17-night hospitalization is by no means reaching the papal record that was set during St. John Paul II’s numerous lengthy hospitalizations over a quarter century.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
North Korea warns of ‘renewing records’ in strategic deterrence over US aircraft carrier’s entry to South – Morung Express
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Excerpt:
The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Tuesday warned of “renewing” the country’s records in strategic deterrence, denouncing the recent arrival of a US aircraft carrier in South Korea as an attempt to “threaten and pressurise” its regime.
Kim Yo-jong made the condemnation as the USS Carl Vinson, a Nimitz-class US aircraft carrier, entered a key naval base in the southeastern city of Busan on Sunday, as part of the US commitment to providing extended deterrence against North Korean threats, Yonhap news agency reported.
She accused the US of deploying its strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula at the “constant” level, denouncing the USS Carl Vinson’s South Korea entry as Washington’s expression of its “most hostile and confrontational will” against the North, according to her statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.
“As indicated by the regional military situation, the US and its stooges’ heinous ambition to threaten, pressurise and bring the DPRK to its knees by force of arms is developing into a more reckless phase,” Kim argued, referring to her country by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.