Baidu ( BIDU -5.90% ) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Nov 21, 2024 , 7:30 a.m. ET Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks: Operator Hello and thank you for standing by for Baidu's third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's conference, Juan Lin, Baidu's director of investor relations. Juan Lin -- Director, Investor Relations Hello, everyone, and welcome to Baidu's third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Baidu's earnings release was distributed earlier today, and you can find a copy on our website, as well as on newswire services. On the call today, we have Robin Li, our co-founder and CEO; Rong Luo; our EVP in charge of Baidu Mobile Ecosystem Group, MEG; Dou Shen, our EVP in charge of Baidu AI Cloud Group, ACG; and Junjie He, our interim CFO. After our prepared remarks, we will hold a Q&A session. Please note that the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. For detailed discussions of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our latest annual report and other documents filed with the SEC and Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Baidu does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable law. Our earnings press release and this call include discussions of certain unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. Our press release contains a reconciliation of the unaudited non-GAAP measures to the unaudited most directly comparable GAAP measures and is available on our IR website at ir.baidu.com. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. In addition, a webcast of this conference call will be available on Baidu's IR website. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Robin. Robin Li -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Hello, everyone. Baidu Core total revenue was RMB 26.5 billion. That's roughly flat for the third quarter on a year-over-year basis. Revenue growth from AI Cloud was 11%, continuing its double-digit growth trajectory, thanks to the sustained momentum in gen AI-related revenue. Our non-GAAP operating profit and non-GAAP operating margin remained stable, which demonstrates the resilience of our business. While navigating the ongoing macroeconomic weakness, we remain patient on our strategic focus of AI-driven innovation, with a particular emphasis on transforming our existing products and businesses, as well as fostering a new ecosystem for ERNIE. Despite near-term headwinds, we are deeply convinced that this AI-focused strategy will position us well to capture significant growth opportunities in the long run. Underpinning our long-term strategic focus is the advancement of our AI capabilities, which serves as the cornerstone of our AI-driven transformation. In the third quarter, we continued to improve ERNIE through pre- and post-training, optimizing model efficiency while tailoring to the needs of our diverse application scenarios. Our flagship model, ERNIE 4.0 Turbo, has achieved notable improvements in inference efficiency, with throughput increasing by 48% compared to its debut in June. The efficiency gains were driven by the optimization of our self-developed four-layer AI infrastructure, and we expect such improvements to further reduce model inference costs going forward. We have also expanded our lightweight model offerings with the introduction of Speed Pro and Lite Pro in the third quarter. As enhanced versions of their predecessors, Speed Pro and Lite Pro feature lower latency, higher throughput, improved stability, and superior accuracy. Over the past 24 months, we have focused on resolving LLM hallucinations through RAG, retrieval-augmented generation. However, we observed that image generation still faces widespread hallucination issues, leading to inaccurate and logically inconsistent outputs, particularly in e-commerce and marketing scenarios where sellers need to generate images that precisely match their text descriptions. Aiming at mitigating hallucinations in text-to-image generation, we launched ERNIE iRAG at Baidu World 2024 to revolutionize image generation, delivering more precise and demand-driven results with system -- with substantially enhanced accuracy. These additions have made our offerings more comprehensive, extending the reach and effectiveness of ERNIE across diverse scenarios. Thanks to ERNIE's enhanced capabilities, wide-ranging applications, and improved cost efficiencies, we've seen a substantial increase in API calls. In November, ERNIE handled approximately 1.5 billion API calls daily, a significant jump from 600 million in August. Meanwhile, over 1.7 trillion tokens were generated on a daily basis. The surging API call volume and token generation demonstrate strong market adoption of ERNIE, validating its value in real-world applications. Powered by the enhanced ERNIE models, we are achieving comprehensive penetration of AI capabilities across our entire product line, from consumer-facing products to enterprise solutions. Our continuous efforts to transform search have yielded promising progress that is encouraging user-centric outcomes emerging this quarter. Currently, over 20% of all search result pages contain AI-generated content, increasing from 18% in August. On Baidu App, where the majority of our search queries were conducted, an increasing number of users are engaging with generative content, reaching nearly 70% of its monthly active users. Users exposed to AI-generated search results spend longer time on Baidu, used more complicated queries, and were more likely to return the next day. These positive changes become increasingly pronounced from quarter to quarter, indicating that our gen AI-enabled search is better serving users' needs and enhancing user satisfaction. We have also observed changes in user behavior patterns, suggesting Baidu is evolving beyond the traditional search in users' minds, serving as a more comprehensive destination for their needs. Users are staying longer to interact with our AI features after initial queries. They are proactively engaging in more complex multiround conversations with growing interaction frequency, reaching tens of millions of daily interactions. Users are also moving beyond pure search to content creation on Baidu. For example, during this year's Mid-Autumn Festival, we saw a surge in both image creation and text generation, indicating changes in how users interact with our platform and their growing exploration of ERNIE-powered functions. These changes inspired us with new ideas for future enhancements. Going forward, we will enrich our content diversity, explore more comprehensive and unified ways of content presentation, and promote chat-based interaction. We envision agents as the most prominent form of AI-native application and a transformative force in driving meaningful innovation. This quarter, we continued to enhance ERNIE agents' capabilities and expand their applications across various scenarios. We have witnessed significant growth in the conversation rounds with ERNIE agents, reaching an average volume of 15 million daily. The recently released top 100 agent list at Baidu World covers a wide array of scenarios and industries, showcasing the breadth and variety of our agents. The ERNIE agent we created for BYD demonstrates how agents can enhance brand engagement and create significant value. Rather than navigating through traditional websites, users can now discover BYD through dynamic conversations with its agent on Baidu. This innovative approach has naturally inspired users to explore the brand more proactively, leading to higher engagement and stronger purchase intent. The effectiveness of the agent is further validated by the fact that around 70% of users who engaged with the BYD agent returned to Baidu within seven days for BYD-related searches, highlighting how the agent's compelling content sparked genuine interest and motivated further brand exploration. Beyond BYD, we also partnered with leading enterprises such as Samsung and Yanghe to build their own agents on Baidu. While these examples demonstrate the versatility of ERNIE agents, we believe their transformative potential is just beginning to unfold. We envision agents redefining information in the AI era, much like how websites shifted the internet age or apps and social media accounts transformed the mobile internet era. We believe agents are emerging as the fundamental carrier of content, information, and services. What sets agents apart is their human-like capabilities. They can serve as your sales representative, customer service agent, or personal assistant, delivering content and services in a more intelligent and interactive way. As we continue to advance our AI technology, we expect agents to unlock unprecedented value for our users. Another standout in our product transformation journey is Baidu Wenku, our one-stop shop for document creation. Since the official ramp-up of Wenku's AI renovation late last year, the MAU of AI-enabled features has grown rapidly, exceeding 50 million in September, representing a year-over-year increase of over 300%. Users of AI-enabled features demonstrated a stronger willingness to pay, contributing to accelerated growth in our paying user base. In the third quarter, Wenku's subscription revenue continued its robust growth trajectory, reaching a year-over-year growth of 23%. We continue to roll out new AI-powered features to facilitate users in their thinking, learning, and creative process. After enabling natural language instructions for PowerPoint slide building and editing last quarter, we introduced a new feature to transform even the most basic text slides into visually stunning, sophisticated, and professional presentations, making presentation creation easier than ever and significantly boosting productivity. With a 14-year-long history at massive user base, Wenku is now experiencing a remarkable transformation as AI technology rejuvenates this product and with unprecedented capabilities. Building on this momentum, we expect such revolution to ripple through our entire product ecosystem, unleashing extraordinary potential and creating breakthrough innovations. Our vision extends beyond our consumer-facing products. By collaborating with our clients across businesses and public sectors, we can unlock greater potential of our advanced AI technologies. This quarter, we partnered with Yum China, a leading Chinese restaurant company, to deploy Keyue, our ready-to-use customer service product, powered by ERNIE. Keyue's key advantage lies in its superior intelligence and ability to significantly reduce the need for human intervention in customer service as its AI capabilities can resolve most user inquiries independently. This simplified solution has enhanced customer service efficiency and reduced operational costs, driving substantial growth in Keyue's API call volume, with peak API calls reaching several millions a day. The partnership serves as a strong testament to the reliability and excellence of our product. Another example that highlights the expanding use scenarios of ERNIE is [Inaudible] an online exam preparation platform that leverages ERNIE 4.0 Turbo and ERNIE Speed Pro through public cloud API calls. Initially, [Inaudible] question bank was limited by missing answers and explanations. ERNIE tackled this by automatically generating answers and explanations for existing questions while also creating new answer-explanation pairs, making the question bank far more effective. This resulted in a 150% increase in effective questions in [Inaudible] question bank. By replacing manual explanation writing, the cost of creating explanations dropped by 99.8%. Additionally, ERNIE powers real-time tutoring services, where users receive instant explanations from AI tutors by simply uploading their questions. With this improvement, users showed a stronger willingness to pay as the paying user ratio increased dramatically by over 100%, leading to a 246% increase in revenue. Our strategic focus on AI innovation continues to drive transformation in consumer-facing applications, as well as industrywide solutions. And we are seeing great results. Now, let me review the key highlights for each business for the third quarter. AI Cloud revenue reached RMB 4.9 billion in the third quarter, maintaining double-digit year-over-year increase at 11% while sustaining non-GAAP operating profitability. Gen AI-related revenue maintained strong growth momentum and remained a key growth driver, accounting for about 11% of our total AI Cloud revenue in the third quarter, up from 9% in the previous quarter. This trend reflected increasing recognition of ERNIE's value among enterprise customers. Our strong technological advantages in AI infrastructure served as a key enabler for this momentum. During the quarter, we advanced our AI infrastructure management across our GPU cluster that is composed of tens of thousands of GPUs, achieving 99.5% valid LLM training time. Also, we further improved our capabilities in combining GPUs from different vendors for training and hosting models by minimizing throughput loss to within 5%. With this advancement, we further reinforced our position as a leading provider of the most powerful and cost-effective AI infrastructure. Our MaaS platform continued to evolve, with a strong focus on developing comprehensive toolkits that enhance the model and app development experience for our customers and partners. In Q3, we improved ModelBuilder to make lightweight model fine-tuning easier. With ModelBuilder, lightweight models can be fine-tuned into purpose-specific models, achieving performance comparable to ERNIE 4.0 while offering faster inference speed at lower costs. We are leveraging our AI capabilities to improve internal R&D efficiency and facilitate enterprise application development. Internally, we have widely adopted AI coding through Comate, our coding assistant for developers. AI now contributes to generating over one-third of our new code, with our developers providing oversight and approval. We are also lowering the barrier for enterprise in AI-native application development. Enterprises can build sophisticated applications through simpler approaches on our MaaS platform, for example, using natural language instructions with minimal coding efforts to develop the most part of a business application. We introduced Miaoda at Baidu World 2024, marking our first step in delivering null code capabilities. We are excited about its potential to democratize AI as we believe expanding AI accessibility beyond developers will drive innovation at a speed we've never seen before. Meanwhile, the growing recognition of ERNIE's capabilities continues to attract new clients, with notable partnerships established this quarter with FlashEx [Inaudible] These partnerships with leading enterprises reflect the strength and credibility of Baidu AI Cloud. We have also seen significant growth in adoption from mid-tier enterprise customers as reflected in their increasing investments in GPU public cloud services. In Q3, the incremental revenue from the mid-tier enterprise customers on our public cloud increased by 170% year -- quarter over quarter. With these positive trends and developments, we reinforce our long-term optimism about the growth trajectory of our AI Cloud revenue stream. For our mobile ecosystem, Baidu Core's online marketing revenue declined by 4% year over year in the third quarter due to challenging macroeconomic conditions, our ongoing AI-driven search renovation, and an evolving internet content ecosystem. In the third quarter, we saw continued growth in incremental ad revenue from gen AI and LLM enhancements to our advertising system. This reflects our ongoing efforts to refine our monetization system and marketing platform, particularly in improving ad-targeting capabilities and scaling up real-time ad generation. We believe agents opened up a lot of new possibilities for our advertising business. This quarter has seen significant improvements in ERNIE agents for advertisers in terms of response accuracy and intent recognition capabilities. As these agents become increasingly sophisticated and effective, we've observed growing recognition of their value among advertisers. As of September, approximately 20,000 advertisers have been generating ad spending through our ERNIE agents on a daily basis. A case in point is one of our healthcare clients. After building its own agent, the client was impressed with its performance. They then proactively contributed their proprietary medical insights to further enhance the agent's capabilities. Through continuous fine-tuning, the agent demonstrated good intelligence and service quality, particularly in terms of dialogue accuracy and content -- and context comprehension. This enables the agent to deliver more professional and accurate responses to customer inquiries around the clock. Through extended conversations, the agent can better identify customers' underlying needs and provide tailored service recommendations, significantly enhancing the customer experience. As a result, the client has seen a notable increase in customer engagement, with customers' willingness to initiate the conversations rising by 13.6% and lead conversion rate increasing by 50% from July to September. Overall, while our online marketing business is going through a transitional period, we remain steadfast to aggressively drive forward our AI transformation. We are confident this will deliver long-term value for our users, customers, and shareholders. Turning now to intelligent driving. We've reached another significant milestone, the sixth generation of our autonomous vehicle, RT6, is now operating on public roads in multiple cities in China. This not only expands our vehicle lineup but also reaffirms our commitment to scaling operations and providing users with safer, more affordable, and comfortable mobility experiences. Following our achievements of 100% fully driverless operations in Wuhan last quarter, the proportion of fully driverless operations nationwide surpassed 70% in the third quarter and 80% in October. Recently, we have taken another step forward in expanding fully driverless operations. We are delighted to share that in October, we achieved 100% fully driverless operations in Chongqing, where we currently operate a growing fleet of autonomous vehicles. We continue to scale up our services in third quarter with Apollo Go providing about 988,000 rides to the public nationwide, representing year-over-year increase of 20%. The cumulative rides provided to the public surpassed 8 million in October, further solidifying our leadership in smart mobility. We're fully confident that our autonomous driving technology has achieved technical maturity with proven safety and reliability through extensive testing and real-world operations. While our technology is ready for wider deployment, safe and responsible autonomous driving requires a solid foundation of a harmonized regulatory framework. We remain patient as we continue to work alongside the evolving regulatory framework, standing ready to rapidly scale up our operations when the time is right. Meanwhile, we are also actively exploring expansion into additional cities and new operational models such as asset-light strategies to enhance operational resilience and unlock new growth potential. In summary, while our overall revenue growth remains measured in the near term, we have strong conviction in our strategic direction, supported by encouraging progress across multiple fronts, from increased user metrics in search to the growing adoption of our large language models and cloud solutions. Looking ahead, we're confident that our strategic focus and execution will yield meaningful returns. Before I hand over the call, I'm pleased to welcome our interim CFO, Junjie He or Jackson. With that, let me turn the call over to Jackson to go through the financial results. Junjie He -- Interim Chief Financial Officer Thank you, Robin. Hi, everyone. I'm honored to step into the role of interim CFO. Following my initial conference call, I look forward to engaging with analysts and shareholders in the coming period. Now, let me walk through the details of our third quarter financial results. Total revenues were RMB 33.6 billion, decreasing 3% year over year. Revenue from Baidu Core was RMB 26.5 billion, which was basically flat from last year. Baidu Core's online marketing revenue was RMB 18.8 billion, decreasing 4% year over year. Baidu Core's non-online marketing revenue was RMB 7.7 billion, up 12% year over year, mainly driven by AI Cloud business. Revenue from iQIYI was RMB 7.2 billion, decreasing 10% year over year. Cost of revenues were RMB 16.4 billion, increasing 1% year over year, primarily due to an increase in traffic acquisition costs and costs related to AI Cloud business, partially offset by a decrease in personnel-related expenses and cost of goods sold. Operating expenses were RMB 11.2 billion, decreasing 5% year over year, primarily due to a decrease in personnel-related expenses and partially offset by an increase in channel spending and promotional marketing expenses. Baidu Core's operating expenses were RMB 9.9 billion, decreasing 5% year over year. Baidu Core SG&A expenses were RMB 5 billion, increasing 4% year over year. SG&A accounted for 19% of Baidu Core's revenue in the quarter, compared to 18% in the same period last year. Baidu Core R&D expenses were RMB 4.9 billion, decreasing 13% year over year. R&D accounted for 19% of Baidu Core's revenue in the quarter, compared to 21% in the same period last year. Operating income was RMB 5.9 billion. Baidu Core's operating income was RMB 5.7 billion, and Baidu Core's operating margin was 21%. Non-GAAP operating income was RMB 7 billion. Non-GAAP Baidu Core operating income was RMB 6.7 billion, and non-GAAP Baidu Core operating margin was 25%. Total other income, net was RMB 2.7 billion, increasing 40% year over year, primarily due to an increase in fair value gain from long-term investments and disposal gain, partially offset by an increase in net foreign exchange loss arising from exchange rate fluctuations between renminbi and the U.S. dollar. Income tax expense was RMB 814 million, compared to RMB 1.3 billion in the same period last year. Net income attributable to Baidu was RMB 7.6 billion, and diluted earnings per ADS was RMB 21.6. Net income attributable to Baidu Core was RMB 7.5 billion, and net margin for Baidu Core was 28%. Non-GAAP net income attributable to Baidu was RMB 5.9 billion. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per ADS was RMB 16.6. Non-GAAP net income attributable to Baidu Core was RMB 5.7 billion, and non-GAAP net margin for Baidu Core was 21%. As of September 30, 2024, cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, and short-term investments were RMB 144.5 billion and cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, and short-term investments excluding iQIYI were RMB 140.3 billion. Free cash flow was RMB 2.6 billion, and free cash flow excluding iQIYI was RMB 2.4 billion. Finally, Baidu Core had approximately 31,000 employees as of September 30, 2024. With that, operator, let's now open the call to questions. Questions & Answers: Operator Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator instructions] Your first question comes from Alicia Yap with Citigroup. Alicia Yap -- Analyst Hi. Thank you. Good evening, management. Thanks for taking my questions. My question is related to AI and search. So, how should we think about the ramp-up pace for the generative AI results penetration rate and what does management think of the optimal level, and how long do you plan for the search product transformation period to last? And could management also give more color on the recent developments in the monetization of the AI search? So, when does management expect to commercialize the AI search results? Thank you. Rong Luo -- Chief Financial Officer Hi, Alicia. This is Julius. Let me take your question. We have been continuously transforming our core search with AI technology. And same as what Robin has said just now, today, over 20% of pages and over 70% of the monthly active users, they have engaged with gen AI contents already. However, I think the number merely represents our initial progress in one aspect of our AI-driven transformation of search. It should not be taken as a comprehensive indicator of our AI-generated content, nor should it be used as the only benchmark for our progress. What really matters goes beyond it. In fact, we aimed to revolutionize the search through ERNIE and transform every aspect of search experiences, providing the users with unlimited, on-demand, and personalized content through the combination of various formats whenever they need. Leveraging ERNIE, we gain deeper insights into the user intent behind increasingly complicated queries, which can enable us to customize the content generation to better fulfill their needs. While continuously enhancing the AI-generating content quality, we're also trying to diversify our content formats such as AI summaries, as you can see in the top page, and images and videos, agents, posts, and even digital humans. All of these different formats can be dynamically combined to create some personalized search experiences. With ERNIE, we can tailor both the gen AI content and its presentation format, which can best match what users want to see and how they prefer to consume this kind of information. This can allow us to optimize the user experiences and drive higher engagement. The AI-driven transformation of our search has already shown initial progress across certain user metrics, which gives us some kind of confidence to keep pushing forward with our efforts. Through ongoing explorations, we are charting the new frontiers of possibility, unlocking unprecedented potentials with the power of AI. And quarter by quarter, we will continue to see an update of achievement across various aspects of AI-driven search transformations. Specific about your question in the monetization side, we are seeing some encouraging early results in certain verticals, including legal, education, and B2B services. For example, our ERNIE agents for advertisers today have demonstrated increase in effective sales leads, which can bring the value to advertisers, while enhancing the overall user experience. As our ERNIE foundation models continue to evolve, we expect agents to unlock greater revenue opportunities in the future. That said, we are still in the early stages of exploring monetization opportunities for AI search and we are taking a measured approach at our own pace. In the near term, we will prioritize the user experience enhancement instead of rushing into monetization. In fact, our product transformation journey strongly reflects our strategy direction, which is we are making deliberate choices to prioritize the long-term value creation over short-term gains. It's true that we experience some short-term pressures, but these near-term trade-offs are something we are willing to accept as we work toward our long-term vision. Beyond such, we'll -- we also have cultivate a comprehensive mobile ecosystem with multiple consumer-facing products that serve the massive user bases such as Speed, Wenku, and [Inaudible] And we also are leveraging ERNIE to revolutionize the entire product lines across our mobile ecosystem, enhancing the content production and try to optimize the distribution mechanism and try to strengthen the monetization capabilities. We remain fully committed to this transformation and focusing primarily on enhancing the user experiences and engagement. With this kind of encouraging early results have reinforced our confidence in the strategic direction, and we believe that following this period of adjustment, we expect to start seeing improvements in our advertising business next year. Thank you for your question. Operator Your next question comes from Alex Yao with J.P. Morgan. Alex Yao -- Analyst Thank you, management, for taking my question. My question is about the ERNIE's API. I think the API calls have been growing fairly rapidly in the recent months. Could you guys share more details on the key drivers behind this growth? In addition, has any potential killer app emerged in the 2B or 2C markets? Finally, what is management's outlook of ERNIE adoption over the medium to longer term? Thank you. Robin Li -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Hi, Alex. This is Robin. Yes, we've seen remarkable growth in API calls. I think a number of factors are driving this growth. First, ERNIE gets smarter every day and hallucinations have been reduced significantly. So, more and more applications can use it to add value to the users. And second is the inference cost. It gets lower and lower, so more customers can afford it. And third, it's the toolchain we provide to our customers. They can tailor the model to address their own specific needs easily in each application scenario. The substantial volume of ERNIE API calls is driven by both internal and external demand. We began our product transformation in Q2 of last year. We first upgraded our monetization system, delivering higher advertiser ROI and generating hundreds of millions of incremental revenues each quarter. And then we extended the AI transformation across our major consumer-facing products that includes those products over, you know, 100 million MAUs: Baidu Search, Wenku, Baidu Drive, Baidu Keyboard, and Baidu Map. We are encouraged by how AI could thoroughly revolutionize and rejuvenate these long-standing products with massive user bases. And this year, we accelerated the renovation of search, showing more and more generated content on our search result page. We believe the new Baidu Search has the potential and is well-positioned to become a killer app in the age of gen AI. This is because search is, by nature, deeply rooted in language and text understanding, which aligns perfectly with our LLM capabilities. We are fortunate to have hundreds of millions of search users every day and the most advanced foundation models. And along this line, millions of agents are being built to answer users' and customers' questions. This also contributed to the growth of ERNIE API calls. While most API calls currently come from the renovation of our 2C products, ERNIE has gained strong recognition in helping businesses tackle challenges effectively. An external API calls have grown quite quickly, roughly, like, 240% year -- quarter over quarter in the last week of Q3. We see strong adoption across sectors, including online education, social media, restaurant and food services, healthcare, legal consultation, and recruiting. The widespread adoption shows that enterprises recognize the value of our powerful models and are willing to invest in them. We are thrilled with our progress and committed to accelerating ERNIE's adoption across all our product lines as we transform from an internet-centric business to an AI-first business. With gen AI becoming central to our entire product lineup, we are confident it will unlock new revenue streams and strengthen our market leadership. Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from Gary Yu with Morgan Stanley. Yuko Oku -- Analyst Hi. Thank you for the opportunity to ask question. I have a macro-related question. Can management comment on the underlying app demand trend? And also, have you seen any ad spend sentiment improvement, especially after the latest stimulus policy? And what's management view on the macro outlook heading into 2025? Thank you. Rong Luo -- Chief Financial Officer Hi, Gary. Let me take your question. I think our advertising business is highly correlated to the macro environment, especially with the offline small and medium enterprises across a wide range of industries, which make up the majority of our advertising spaces. As these small and medium enterprises are both deeply connected to the domestic consumption and highly sensitive to macro conditions, their vitality and recovery pace serves as more relevant indicators for our business. In Q3, we have seen that continued weakness across the verticals such as the real estate, franchising, and healthcare. And so far, in Q4, we have not observed the notable improvement in advertiser spending patterns, and consumer spending remains subdued. And having said that, we are particularly encouraged by the strength and the timeliness of the recent stimulus policies, which continue to be rolled out, as well as the constructive initiatives we are seeing across the market. And while we think it will still take some time for these measures to reach offline small and medium enterprises and boost their confidence in advertising spending, so we remain conservatively optimistic about the recovery trend ahead. We believe that once the macro environment improves and domestic consumption can pick up, small and medium enterprises' confidence will quickly rebound. And Baidu has long been the primary platform of choice for these advertisers. With proven effectiveness in driving their customer acquisition and growth, we expect them to return for advertisement spending, which can help us to drive a meaningful recovery in the advertising business. With our extensive reach and unique value propositions to offline small and medium enterprises, we believe that our advertising business will resume with strong recovery momentum once the market confidence comes back. Thank you, Gary. Operator Your next question comes from Lincoln Kong with Goldman Sachs. Lincoln Kong -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst Thank you, management, for taking my question. So, we -- given that ongoing ad pricing pressure and our plan to accelerate and broaden our AI transformation, so could management share more color around our business focus at the moment, our priority in terms of our investment, resources spending, and capital allocation, and how should we think about the margin trend in 4Q as well? Thank you. Junjie He -- Interim Chief Financial Officer Hi, Lincoln. This is Jackson. I will take your call. Yeah, currently, we will remain committed to our AI-focused strategy, as opposed to our near-term priority and the long-term strategic emphasis. Given our ongoing AI-driven renovation of search and the fact that we are not heavily monetized AI-generated search results soon, we expect the circumstances will remain under pressure for our online marketing business in the near term. However, we remain steadfast in this strategic direction as we see strong long-term value ahead. In line with this strategy, we are going through a period of continued initiatives where we further intensify our product renovations, with a strong emphasis on AI search, and continue to invest in advancing ERNIE's capabilities while enhancing our AI Cloud offerings to maintain a healthy margin and expanding our autonomous driving initiatives, where we view has a viable path to profitability. We believe these initiatives are essential to sustain our position as a leading technology innovator in China. As a result, the near-term margins will be in a period of adjustment. While looking to 2025, we will focus on optimal resource allocation to high-growth opportunities while staying aligned with our long-term strategy. Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from James Lee with Mizuho. James Lee -- Analyst Great. Thanks for taking my questions. I have several follow-up questions on cloud. In terms of revenue growth, it has moderated maybe compared to the last couple of quarters, and maybe can you unpack the performance of both personal and enterprise cloud? And in addition, you know, can you give us an update in terms of competitive landscape in the market? And lastly, can you share the outlook for cloud business, particularly contribution from gen AI, and how should we think about the long-term margin assumptions? Thank you. Dou Shen -- Executive Vice President and Head, AI Cloud Thank you, James, for your question. This is Dou. Since last year, we have observed an accelerating shift in China's cloud industry toward AI computing, driven by the development of gen AI and foundation models. We have seen more customers choosing Baidu's AI Cloud infrastructure and foundation models. The growing adoption is evidenced by our gen AI-related revenue. It started at about 5% of our total AI Cloud revenue when we first reported it in Q4 last year, and has now more than doubled, reaching 11% in the third quarter. So, we are confident that this upward trend will continue. And so, as you know, our AI Cloud business consists of two main parts: personal cloud and cloud service for enterprise and public sector. This quarter, total AI Cloud revenue growth slightly moderated, primarily due to a temporary impact on personal cloud revenue brought by our short-term business adjustment. However, we believe ERNIE's ongoing renovation of the personal cloud will help mitigate this short-term impact and position it well for greater long-term growth opportunities. Meanwhile, our cloud service for enterprise and public sector, which makes up the majority of our AI Cloud revenue, actually maintained a strong momentum this quarter, continuing to outpace our overall AI Cloud business. So, the growth in enterprise cloud revenue has been driven by strong demand for model training and inference across various sectors, including internet education, finance, and so on. This reflects our customers' strong recognition of our AI infrastructure and MaaS platform capabilities. In particular, the major customers in industries like internet, tech, and automotive increased their spending on our GPU public cloud. So, we are also seeing a rise in both the number and spending of mid-tier enterprises, especially in sectors like marketing software and other growing industries. In today's cloud market, foundation model capabilities have become more and more essential. Given the significant requirement for powerful AI infrastructure, specialized AI expertise, and substantial capital investments, only a select few foundation models will survive, both in China and overseas. And for sure, we will be one of them standing as the front-runner. So, we are proud that ERNIE has already demonstrated its market leadership through widespread adoption and advanced technology. So, these [Inaudible] position ERNIE to stay at the forefront, attracting more cloud customers and satisfying our market leadership. So, on the profit side, our AI Cloud is healthier than ever, with non-GAAP operating profit margin expanding year over year. So, this improvement is driven by a continued margin enhancement from our gen AI-related revenue and our commitment to achieving high-quality revenue growth. So, looking forward, we are confident that our AI Cloud business will maintain strong revenue growth momentum over time while continuing to deliver a healthy operating profit. Thank you, James. Operator Your next question comes from Thomas Chong with Jefferies. Thomas Chong -- Analyst Hi. Good evening. Thanks, management, for taking my question. My question is related to robotaxi. Given the recent IPO wave of autonomous driving-related companies that have partnerships with big automakers and ride-hailing platforms, what are your thoughts about how the competitive dynamic going forward? Looking ahead, how do you see the Apollo Go robotaxi fleet and business strategy development? Can management share any details about the future plans for expanding and growing Apollo Go? Thank you. Robin Li -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Yeah. Autonomous driving has a high bar. It requires best-in-class technical expertise, top talent, as well as strong commitment to long-term investment and significant capital reserve. We have built an unparalleled foundation in all these areas, giving us a strong competitive edge and setting a high bar for others to follow. As one of the earliest players in the market, we've consistently demonstrated our unwavering commitment through over a decade of investment. This long-term dedication has fueled our technological advancements, positioning us as the global leader in autonomous driving technology. As mentioned earlier, Apollo Go hit a significant milestone of 8 million total rides, making us the world's top autonomous ride-hailing service provider. In addition to our cutting-edge technology and strong operational capabilities, we've achieved significant cost-effectiveness in hardware. RT6 stands out with a competitive price of under $30,000 for mass production, making it the most competitive option in the market. All the strengths mentioned above are driving us forward, paving the way to validate our business model. The overall market is still in its infancy, so competition should help accelerate the growth of the market and foster a more friendly, pro-innovation regulatory environment. We believe such regulatory environment is essential for the healthy growth of this industry, and we remain prepared for expansion when the time is right. Meanwhile, we are actively seeking new opportunities for international expansion. We see significant potential in cities that enable large-scale, fully driverless operations, similar to Wuhan and Chongqing. Additionally, we are open to exploring different business model options, focusing on asset-light strategy to keep our operations flexible and efficient as we grow. Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from Xiong Wei with UBS. Wei Xiong -- Analyst Good evening, management. Thank you for taking my question. My question is regarding capital allocation. I was wondering, could management provide any updates on capital return plans for shareholders such as share buybacks and dividend? Thank you. Junjie He -- Interim Chief Financial Officer Hi, Wei. I will take a question. So, since becoming a public company in 2005, we have made consistent efforts to generate long-term value to our shareholders through our growth as a leading technology company in China, complemented by share buyback programs. So, over the past few years, we have maintained a steady pace of share repurchases, averaging about $1 billion annually. So, I'm pleased to share that through our consistent share repurchases efforts, we have seen a decline in our total number of shares outstanding this year. While the pace of share buybacks may vary from quarter to quarter according to our established execution rhythm, we remain firmly committed to our share buyback programs as a key component of delivering value to our shareholders. While we are currently focused on executing our sustainable and recurrent share buyback programs, we remain open to evaluating various options for returning value to shareholders. As always, we firmly believe in Baidu's long-term and sustainable growth potential, and we'll ensure that our shareholders will be rewarded for their trust in us. The ultimate way of serving shareholders' interests is to have a solid business foundation and capitalize on growth opportunities. We are in the midst of a paradigm-shifting technology transformation based on gen AI and foundation models. At Baidu, we have the AI infrastructure, technical expertise, as well as financial and human resources, to execute on our plans. So, we want to have the flexibility to invest, as needed, to propel our new business forward and, with that, bring long-term value to our shareholders. Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from Miranda Zhuang with Bank of America Securities. Miranda Zhuang -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst Thank you, management, for taking my questions. So, can management provide us an overview of ERNIE technology road map for the future development? And what are the upcoming milestones for the company's AI model? And then when can we expect to achieve them? Thank you for my question about ERNIE. Thank you. Robin Li -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Well, we launched ERNIE Bot in March of last year. Since then, we've been continuously enhancing our foundation model capabilities, particularly our flagship models. In October last year, we introduced the ERNIE 4.0, China's first GPT-4-type model, with world-leading capabilities. And then we launched ERNIE 4.0 Turbo in June of this year and delivering even greater performance. Building on these milestones, we are committed to continuously advancing our flagship models to deliver better performance, accuracy, and broader support for diverse user needs. We expect to launch a new version of ERNIE early next year to further strengthen our leadership position in foundation models. Compared to overseas companies, we distinctly take an application-driven approach. We believe foundation models hold real value only when they are widely used practical applications that meet user needs. Over the past 18 months, our model development has centered on addressing real-world problems according to market demand. With this approach, we've made significant progress in resolving hallucinations and improving accuracy while also introducing a series of models tailored to diverse needs. To make learning models more accessible and affordable, we boosted the performance, lowered inference costs, and enhanced response speed. What sets us apart is that we really have a clear sense of our strengths and where we are heading. We prioritize those technologies that align most closely with our business and create the most value. Earlier this year, I mentioned that we have expanded our visual foundation model capabilities to our autonomous driving business, aiming to further enhance our leading position in this space. Now, we are also proactively exploring multimodal capabilities and applications based on our strengths in language models, speaking to create more synergistic value and unlock new possibilities. Throughout all areas, we are very thoughtful about how we allocate our resources, optimizing our foundation models in directions that maximize impact across our business and help maintain our market leadership. Thank you. Operator [Operator signoff] Duration: 0 minutes Call participants: Juan Lin -- Director, Investor Relations Robin Li -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Junjie He -- Interim Chief Financial Officer Alicia Yap -- Analyst Rong Luo -- Chief Financial Officer Alex Yao -- Analyst Yuko Oku -- Analyst Lincoln Kong -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst James Lee -- Analyst Dou Shen -- Executive Vice President and Head, AI Cloud Thomas Chong -- Analyst Wei Xiong -- Analyst Miranda Zhuang -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst More BIDU analysis All earnings call transcripts"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum." Section 1.10.32 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum", written by Cicero in 45 BC "Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?" 1914 translation by H. Rackham "But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?" 1914 translation by H. Rackham "But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?" To keep reading, please log in to your account, create a free account, or simply fill out the form below.
jilimacao legit
。
Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024: MahaYuti's Landslide Win Raises Questions On Muslim Cleric's MVA Endorsement And Hindu PolarisationPrince Harry praised for 'restoring his image' after 'smart' move with Meghan MarkleIran is poised to “quite dramatically” increase its stockpile of near weapons-grade uranium as it has started cascades of advanced centrifuges, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency warned Friday. The comments from Rafael Mariano Grossi came just hours after Iran said it conducted a successful space launch with its heaviest payload ever, the latest for its program that the West alleges improves Tehran’s ballistic missile program. The launch of the Simorgh rocket comes as Iran’s nuclear program now enriches uranium at 60%, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%. While Iran maintains its program is peaceful, officials in the Islamic Republic increasingly threaten to potentially seek the bomb and an intercontinental ballistic missile that would allow Tehran to use the weapon against distant foes like the United States. The moves are likely to further raise tensions gripping the wider Middle East over Israel’s continued war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and as an uneasy ceasefire holds in Lebanon. However, Iran may as well be preparing the ground for possible talks with the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump , who in his first term unilaterally withdrew America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers. The U.S. intelligence community in a report released Thursday said that while “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon” it has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce one, if it so chooses.” The Iranian debate over seeking the bomb “risks emboldening nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decision-making apparatus and shifting the thinking of current and future Iranian elites about the utility of nuclear weapons,” the report added. Grossi, speaking to journalists in Bahrain, on the sidelines of the International Institute of Strategic Studies’ Manama Dialogue, said his inspectors planned to see just how many centrifuges Iran would be spinning after Tehran informed his agency of its plans. “I think it is very concerning,” Grossi said. “They were preparing and they have all of these facilities sort of in abeyance and now they are activating that. So we are going to see.” He added: “If they really make them turn — all of them — it's going to be a huge jump.” An IAEA statement issued shortly after Grossi's remarks said Iran had begun feeding two cascades of advanced IR-6 centrifuges with uranium previously enriched up to 20% at its underground Fordo facility. That site is located under a mountain, protecting it from airstrikes. Cascades are a group of centrifuges that spin uranium gas together to more quickly enrich the uranium. The IR-6 centrifuges enrich uranium faster than Iran’s baseline IR-1 centrifuges, which have been the workhorse of the country’s atomic program. Adding 20% uranium, as opposed to 5% uranium previously planned, further speeds up that process. “The facility’s updated design information showed that the effect of this change would be to significantly increase the rate of production,” the IAEA statement said. Iran separately will start feeding natural uranium into eight other IR-6 cascades at Fordo as well to produce 5%-enriched uranium, it added. The IAEA warned in late November that Iran was preparing to begin enriching uranium with thousands of advanced centrifuges. That came as a response to the Board of Governors at the IAEA condemning Iran for failing to cooperate fully with the agency. Iran did not acknowledge the preparations. The Iranian mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment. Meanwhile, the launch Friday took place at Iran’s Imam Khomeini Spaceport in rural Semnan province, some 220 kilometers (135 miles) east of Tehran. That’s the site of Iran’s civilian space program, which has suffered a series of failed Simorgh launches in the past. The Simorgh carried what Iran described as an “orbital propulsion system,” as well as two research systems to a 400-kilometer (250-mile) orbit above the Earth. A system that could change the orbit of a spacecraft would allow Iran to geo-synchronize the orbits of its satellites, a capability Tehran has long sought. It also carried the Fakhr-1 satellite for Iran’s military, the first time Iran’s civilian program is known to have carried a military payload. Iran also put the payload of the Simorgh at 300 kilograms (660 pounds), heavier than all its previous successful launches within the country. State television carried footage of a correspondent discussing the payload just as the Simorgh lifted off into the sky, as people called out: “God is the greatest!” The U.S. military referred questions about the launch to the country’s Space Command, which did not respond. Space experts said tracking data appeared to show the launch successfully put objects in orbit. The United States has previously said Iran’s satellite launches defy a U.N. Security Council resolution and called on Tehran to undertake no activity involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. U.N. sanctions related to Iran’s ballistic missile program expired in October 2023. “Iran’s work on space-launch vehicles — including its Simorgh — probably would shorten the timeline to produce an intercontinental ballistic missile, if it decided to develop one, because the systems use similar technologies,” a U.S. intelligence community report released in July said. Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons and says its space program, like its nuclear activities, is for purely civilian purposes. However, U.S. intelligence agencies and the IAEA say Iran had an organized military nuclear program up until 2003. Under Iran’s relatively moderate former President Hassan Rouhani, the Islamic Republic slowed its space program for fear of raising tensions with the West. The late hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, a protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who came to power in 2021, pushed the program forward. Raisi died in a helicopter crash in May. Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, who has been signaling he wants to negotiate with the West over sanctions, has yet to offer a strategy when it comes to Iran’s ambitions in space. The Simorgh launch represented the first for his administration from the country’s civil space program. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard conducted a successful launch of its parallel program in September. ___ Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, and Stephanie Liechtenstein in Vienna contributed to this report.
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum." Section 1.10.32 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum", written by Cicero in 45 BC "Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?" 1914 translation by H. Rackham "But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?" 1914 translation by H. Rackham "But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?" Thanks for your interest in Kalkine Media's content! To continue reading, please log in to your account or create your free account with us.
Biden's announcement came after Israel's Cabinet approved the cease-fire agreement. Before the deal was struck Israel launched waves of attacks in Lebanon. DW has the latest. What you need to know Israel’s security cabinet greenlights truce agreement with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group Israeli warplanes struck Beirut’s southern suburbs ahead of the cabinet’s truce decision Evacuation warnings issued in central Beirut for the first time Israel says will act 'forcefully' if Lebanon deal breached Here are the latest developments in the crisis in Israel, Lebanon, Gaza and other parts of the Middle East on Tuesday, November 26: Biden announces cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah US President Joe Biden announced that a cease-fire has been reached between Israel and Hezbollah militants. He said fighting across the border will end at 4 a.m. Lebanon time (2 a.m. GMT). Biden said the 60-day deal, if fully implemented, is "designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities." The US and France brokered the truce that aims to end to the fighting triggered by Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Hezbollah and Hamas are both backed by Iran. Biden spoke after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted the truce. "The length of the cease-fire will depend on what happens in Lebanon," Netanyahu said. The Lebanese Cabinet, that includes members of Hezbollah's political wing, will reportedly meet on Wednesday to formally approve it. Biden also said the US will make another push "in coming days" to achieve a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Israelis divided over truce, poll finds The Times of Israel reports a snap poll by Israel's Channel 12 indicates that Israelis are split on the proposed cease-fire with Hezbollah. When asked about their stance on the arrangement, 37% expressed support, 32% opposed it, and 31% were undecided. The poll further reveals a stark contrast in opinions among political lines. Among supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's coalition, only 20% back the deal, while 45% oppose it and 35% remain uncertain. In contrast, 50% of opposition voters support the cease-fire agreement. Israel's national security minister opposes the truce Israel 's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he opposed the cease-fire deal with Hezbollah , describing it as a "historic mistake." The agreement does not ensure the return of Israelis to their homes in the country's north, he said on social media. "In order to leave Lebanon, we must have our own security belt," Ben-Gvir added. The comments come after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was ready to implement the deal and would present it to his full Cabinet later in the evening. Netanyahu says cease-fire with Hezbollah would isolate Hamas Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated that a cease-fire in Lebanon is unlikely to facilitate a truce or hostage-release agreement in Gaza , where Israeli forces continue their war with Hamas . Speaking after Israel's security cabinet approved a cease-fire deal with Hezbollah , Netanyahu said the truce would allow Israel to "intensify" pressure on Hamas and focus on the "Iranian threat." "When Hezbollah is out of the picture, Hamas is left alone in the fight. Our pressure on it will intensify," Netanyahu said. Netanyahu to present Hezbollah cease-fire deal to Israeli Cabinet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is asking Israel's cabinet to approve a cease-fire deal to stop fighting against Hezbollah militants in Lebanon . He made the announcement on Tuesday after meeting with his security cabinet. It could end the current fighting that has dragged on for over a year and intensified in September. It led to thousands of deaths in Lebanon and nearly 100 Israeli civilians and soldiers killed. Nearly 60,000 people in Israel and 1 million in Lebanon have had to flee their homes. Netanyahu said a Lebanon truce will allow Israel to "focus on Iranian threat" but warned tough action will be taken against Hezbollah in the event of violations. Iran-backed Hezbollah, considered a terror group by some countries, including the US and Germany, began attacking Israel on October 8, 2023, a day after the Hamas-led terror attack on southern Israel. Israel stepped up its bombing campaign in September and mounted a ground operation. Blinken says Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire deal 'in the final stages' US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said efforts to secure a cease-fire between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah were "in the final stages." "We are tracking this very closely. I hope and believe we can get this over the finish line," he said at a G7 foreign ministers meeting in Italy. Blinken said he hoped that "by de-escalating tensions in the region, it can also help us to end the conflict in Gaza." Israel pounds Lebanon ahead of truce decision Israeli warplanes have hit Beirut 's southern suburbs with a wave of airstrikes just before Israel's cabinet was set to discuss a ceasefire deal with Iran-backed Hezbollah. A senior Israeli official and Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib appeared optimistic a deal could be reached. But despite the possibility of an imminent diplomatic breakthrough, hostilities were still raging on Tuesday. Israeli strikes hit parts of Beirut's densely-populated southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold. The Israeli military said one barrage of strikes had hit 20 targets in the city in just 120 seconds. Israel had issued its biggest evacuation warning yet, ordering civilians to leave 20 locations. Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said his country's air force was conducting a "widespread attack" on Hezbollah targets across the city. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has kept up rocket fire into Israel. Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization by the US, Germany and several Sunni Arab countries, while the EU lists its armed wing as a terrorist group. German foreign minister sees hope for Israel-Hezbollah truce German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has said that — after more than a year of violence — a ceasefire between Israel and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon is "within reach." At the meeting of the G7 foreign ministers in Italy, Baerbock spoke of progress towards a political solution, crediting the direct mediation of the United States and France. The German government had worked intensively on this with "closely coordinated shuttle diplomacy." "We are at a critical moment right now — perhaps a moment that also gives us hope," said Baerbock at the meeting, which is being held in the small town of Fiuggi in central Italy. The minister added: "Giving up, despite setbacks, is simply not an option." UN rights chief 'gravely concerned' about Lebanon violence The United Nations human rights chief has voiced concern about the escalation of hostilities in Lebanon , where his office said nearly 100 people had been reported killed by Israeli airstrikes in recent days. While Israel has been locked in fighting with Lebanese armed group Hezbollah since October last year, fighting has escalated dramatically in recent months. "UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk is gravely concerned by the escalation in Lebanon with at least 97 people reportedly killed in Israeli airstrikes between the 22nd and 24th of November," Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, told a Geneva press briefing. The comments come as Israel's security Cabinet prepares to meet on Tuesday afternoon to discuss a proposed cease-fire deal in its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Lebanon truce deal to be decided soon, says deputy foreign minister Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel says the country's security Cabinet is set to meet later in the day to discuss a cease-fire deal. However, she declined "to go into details about it because of the sensitivity of the issue." Haskel also gave no exact time for the meeting. "There needs to be a decision, a discussion," she said. "There might be a vote as well." She added: "The members of the Cabinet know some of the details and are going to go into more details this afternoon." An anonymous Israeli official previously said the security Cabinet would make its decision on Tuesday evening. A senior Israeli official and Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib appeared optimistic that a deal could be agreed on. An agreement between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon could clear the way for an end to the conflict that has killed thousands since last year's October 7 attacks and Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza and subsequent air strikes and ground operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel to act 'forcefully' if Lebanon cease-fire breached Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has told the UN's Lebanon envoy that any breach of a cease-fire deal that the security Cabinet is set to vote on would result in Israel acting directly. "If you do not act, we will do it, forcefully," Katz told envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert when meeting her in Tel Aviv. Katz added that Israel would have "zero tolerance" when defending its security interests in the future, according to a statement from his office. "Any house rebuilt in south Lebanon and used as a terrorist base will be destroyed, any rearming or terrorist organization will be attacked, any attempt at transferring arms will be foiled, and any threat against our forces or our citizens will be immediately eliminated," said Katz in the statement. What could an Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire deal look like? To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video IDF calls for evacuation of parts of southern Beirut Israel's military has issued a new evacuation message for the southern suburbs of Lebanon's capital, Beirut. In a post on the platform X, the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) Arabic language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, published maps showing several buildings and called on civilians nearby to evacuate. Adraee told residents to maintain a distance of 500 meters (1,640 feet) from the sites, saying that they were "near Hezbollah facilities and interests." Israel has 'no excuse' not to implement Lebanon cease-fire — Borrell EU top diplomat Josep Borrell has urged Israel to approve a US-mediated proposal for a cease-fire deal with Hezbollah in Lebanon. "There is not an excuse for not implementing a cease-fire ... No more excuses. No more additional requests. Stop this fighting. Stop killing people," Borrell said. The EU's foreign policy chief stressed that the deal "gives Israel all the security commitments they were asking for." Borrell said that Lebanon had asked for France to be included in the deal's implementation committee, but Israel expressed misgivings about the idea. Referring to the International Criminal Court's (ICC) arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Borrell called for European countries to fulfill their obligations under international law . "You cannot approve of the court when it goes against [Russian President Vladimir Putin] and oppose it when it goes against Netanyahu," he said. Last week, the ICC issued warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant , as well as the Hamas leader Mohammed Deif , for alleged war crimes in Gaza. In March 2023, the court issued warrants against Putin and children's rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova over allegations of unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children. Israeli Cabinet to discuss Lebanon cease-fire proposal Israel's wartime Cabinet was due to meet on Tuesday to vote on a proposed cease-fire deal with Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group. US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said talks were progressing. "We believe we've reached this point where we're close," he said, adding "we're not there yet." Meanwhile, the Reuters news agency cited Lebanon's deputy parliament speaker, Elias Bou Saab, as saying that the agreement had already been approved by Lebanon's government and that there were "no serious obstacles" towards its implementation. Hezbollah's political wing is part of Lebanon's governing coalition , and the group has endorsed parliament speaker Nabih Berri to negotiate with Israel. US news outlet Axios reported that Israeli forces would withdraw from Lebanon under the draft agreement, with Lebanese forces deploying near the border and Hezbollah moving heavy weapons north of the Litani River. The proposal includes a provision under which Israel would reserve the right to act should Hezbollah violate its obligations. EU top diplomat urges immediate halt to Israel-Hezbollah war To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The Litani River lies around 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) to the north of the Israeli-Lebanese border. Israel has repeatedly called for Hezbollah to withdraw from areas south of the waterway, citing the terms of a UN resolution that put an end to the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. News of the planned cabinet meeting came as Israel's military carried out a wave of airstrikes on Monday . Lebanon's Health Ministry said that at least 31 people were killed in the attacks. Meanwhile, months of negotiations between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar, have failed to produce a deal for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. Earlier this month, Qatar said it had suspended its mediation efforts and that they would only resume once "the parties show their willingness and seriousness to end the brutal war." sdi/nm (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)Sharon picks up first win, Farrell takes first loss of the season
WASHINGTON (AP) — The chair of the Democratic National Committee informed party leaders on Monday that the DNC will choose his successor in February, an election that will speak volumes about how the party wants to present itself during four more years of Donald Trump in the White House. Jaime Harrison, in a letter to members of the party’s powerful Rules & Bylaws Committee, outlined the process of how the party will elect its new chair. Harrison said in the letter that the committee will host four candidate forums — some in person and some virtually — in January, with the final election on Feb. 1 during the party’s winter meeting in National Harbor, Maryland. The race to become the next chair of the Democratic National Committee, while an insular party affair, will come days after Trump is inaugurated for a second term. Democrats' selection of a leader after Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 loss will be a key starting point as the party starts to move forward, including addressing any structural problems and determining how to oppose Trump. Members of the Rules & Bylaws Committee will meet on Dec. 12 to establish the rules for these elections, which beyond the chair position will include top party roles like vice chairs, treasurer, secretary and national finance chair. The committee will also use that meeting to decide the requirements for gaining access to the ballot for those top party roles. In 2021, candidates were required to submit a nominating statement that included signatures from 40 DNC members and that will likely be the same standard for the 2025 campaigns. “The DNC is committed to running a transparent, equitable, and impartial election for the next generation of leadership to guide the party forward,” Harrison said in a statement. “Electing the Chair and DNC officers is one of the most important responsibilities of the DNC Membership, and our staff will run an inclusive and transparent process that gives members the opportunity to get to know the candidates as they prepare to cast their votes.” Two Democrats have announced campaigns for chair: Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and a vice chair of the national party, and Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor and current commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Other top Democrats are either considering a run to succeed Harrison or are being pushed by party insiders, including former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke; Michael Blake, a former vice chair of the party; Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin; Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan and a former Chicago mayor; Sen. Mallory McMorrow, majority whip of the Michigan Senate, and Chuck Rocha, a longtime Democratic strategist. The next chair of the committee will be tasked with rebuilding a party demoralized by a second Trump victory. They will also oversee the party’s 2028 nominating process, a complex and contentious exercise that will make the chair central to the next presidential election. Harrison, of South Carolina, made clear in his letter to the rules committee that the four forums hosted by the party would be live streamed and the party would give grassroots Democrats across the country the ability to engage with the process through those events. He also said he intends to remain neutral during the chair election. ___ This story has been corrected to show that McMorrow is a senator, not a representative. Dan Merica, The Associated Press
NASSAU, Bahamas — Scottie Scheffler birdied every hole but the par 3s on the front nine at Albany Golf Club on Friday and finished his bogey-free round with an 8-under 64 that gave him a two-shot lead in the Hero World Challenge. Two months off did nothing to slow the world's No. 1 player. Scheffler already has eight victories this year and is in position to get another before the end of the year. Scheffler was at 13-under 131, two ahead of Akshay Bhatia (66) and Justin Thomas (67), both of whom had to save par on the 18th hole to stay in range going into the weekend. Scheffler started with a lob wedge to 2 feet for birdie and never slowed until after he went out in 29 to seize control of the holiday tournament against a 20-man field. Scheffler cooled slightly on the back nine, except it didn't feel that way to him. "Front nine, just things were going my way. Back nine, maybe not as much," Scheffler said. "A couple shots could end up closer to the hole, a couple putts go in, just little things." Asked if he felt any frustration he didn't take it lower — he once shot 59 at the TPC Boston during the FedEx Cup playoffs — Scheffler sounded bemused. "I think in this game I think a lot of all y'all are looking for perfection out of us," he said. "Today I shot 8 under on the golf course, not something I hang my head about. A lot of good things out there — clean card, bogey-free, eight birdies. Overall, I think I'm pretty pleased." Thomas felt his 67 was stress-free, particularly the way he was driving the ball. The wind laid down again, rare for the Bahamas, though it is expected to pick up on the weekend. Thomas wasn't concerned to see Scheffler get off to a hot start, especially with three par 5s on the front nine and a short par 4 that at worst leaves a flip wedge to the green. "You literally can birdie every hole as soft as the greens are," Thomas said. "He's a great player, a great wedge player, and you have a lot of birdie holes to start. I'm honestly surprised he only shot 8 under. It's a sneaky course because if you fall asleep on some shots, you can get out of position. But if you're on and focused and really in control of everything — like these last two days with no wind — you can just make so many birdies." Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley had a 67 and was four shots behind. No matter how benign the conditions, it wasn't always easy. Cameron Young, who opened with a 64 for a two-shot lead, followed with a 75 despite making five birdies. That included a double bogey on the final hole when his approach tumbled down the bank into the rocks framing the lake that goes all the way down the 18th hole. Patrick Cantlay was trying to keep pace playing alongside Scheffler, but he had three bogeys over the final seven holes and fell seven shots behind with a 71. The tournament, hosted by Tiger Woods, is unofficial but offers world ranking points to all but the bottom three players because of the small field. It's the weakest field in 25 years, but Scheffler at No. 1 gives it enough cachet. He is the first player since Woods in 2009 to start and finish a year at No. 1 in the world. And even after a layoff — giving him time to tinker with a new putting stroke — it looks like it might be a while before anyone changes that. Get local news delivered to your inbox!
Company's first ultra-low power AI module will be commercially available for wearables and various other battery-powered on-device AI applications starting Q1 2025 SANTA CLARA, Calif. , Dec. 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Ambient Scientific, The AI Processor Company, announced today its first coin cell battery powered AI module, named the Sparsh-board, targeted for a variety of on-device AI applications such as human activity recognition, voice control, acoustic event detection and more capable of running on a coin cell battery for months of always-on AI operation. Equipped with motion sensors, a digital microphone, BLE module and several other components, the Sparsh module is an extremely powerful and versatile module to enable rapid prototyping of a vast array of battery-powered AI applications. "While traditional MCUs force an undesirable tradeoff between AI performance and power consumption, our ultra-low power AI processor GPX10 ushers a paradigm shift with our groundbreaking analog in-memory computing technology," said GP Singh, Founder and CEO of Ambient Scientific. Product makers can now enable highly accurate and diverse AI applications without compromising on AI performance, battery life, form factor, flexibility and more. Ambient Scientific's exhaustive software stack makes the development of AI applications easier than ever before with support for industry standard AI frameworks such as Tensorflow and keras and a continuously evolving homegrown compiler, capable of supporting essentially all the major types of neural networks. With various sample AI applications and algorithms included, developers can get begin developing AI applications within minutes of downloading our AmbiSense SDK . Current applications being worked on cut across industries, including predictive maintenance, AI-enabled medical devices, wearables, voice controlled toys and more. With increasing demand from product makers, enthusiasts, students and researchers alike, Ambient Scientific plans to launch several reference designs for battery-powered AI applications and similar form factor modules to enable rapid prototyping and fulfill its mission to make AI computing efficient, accessible and affordable for all. Meet Ambient Scientific at CES 2025 Ambient Scientific is excited to unveil its Sparsh AI module at CES 2025 with live demostrations of AI applications running on coin cell batteries such as Fall Detection, voice recognition and more. To explore potential synergies, attendees can schedule meetings CES 2025 with Ambient Scientific at. To learn more about Ambient Scientific, visit our booth at CES 2025 or download our press kit . About Ambient Scientific Ambient Scientific is a fabless semiconductor company pioneering AI hardware and software design to create next-generation low-power processors for edge and on-device AI applications. With a team comprised of Ex-Sun Microsystems, Intel, Broadcom and Google professionals, Ambient Scientific is committed to bringing the power of AI to all, through cutting edge hardware and software products. To learn more about its products, visit www.ambientscientific.ai and follow Ambient Scientific on LinkedIn . Click here for more details about our booth at: https://ces25.mapyourshow.com/8_0/exhibitor/exhibitor-details.cfm?exhid=0013A00001egpuFQAQ . View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ambient-scientific-unveils-first-ever-ai-module-powered-by-a-coin-cell-battery-302332996.html SOURCE Ambient Scientific, Inc.WASHINGTON (AP) — The chair of the Democratic National Committee informed party leaders on Monday that the DNC will choose his successor in February, an election that will speak volumes about how the party wants to present itself during four more years of Donald Trump in the White House. Jaime Harrison, in a letter to members of the party’s powerful Rules & Bylaws Committee, outlined the process of how the party will elect its new chair. Harrison said in the letter that the committee will host four candidate forums — some in person and some virtually — in January, with the final election on Feb. 1 during the party’s winter meeting in National Harbor, Maryland. The race to become the next chair of the Democratic National Committee, while an insular party affair, will come days after Trump is inaugurated for a second term. Democrats' selection of a leader after Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 loss will be a key starting point as the party starts to move forward, including addressing any structural problems and determining how to oppose Trump. Members of the Rules & Bylaws Committee will meet on Dec. 12 to establish the rules for these elections, which beyond the chair position will include top party roles like vice chairs, treasurer, secretary and national finance chair. The committee will also use that meeting to decide the requirements for gaining access to the ballot for those top party roles. In 2021, candidates were required to submit a nominating statement that included signatures from 40 DNC members and that will likely be the same standard for the 2025 campaigns. “The DNC is committed to running a transparent, equitable, and impartial election for the next generation of leadership to guide the party forward,” Harrison said in a statement. “Electing the Chair and DNC officers is one of the most important responsibilities of the DNC Membership, and our staff will run an inclusive and transparent process that gives members the opportunity to get to know the candidates as they prepare to cast their votes.” Two Democrats have announced campaigns for chair: Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and a vice chair of the national party, and Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor and current commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Other top Democrats are either considering a run to succeed Harrison or are being pushed by party insiders, including former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke; Michael Blake, a former vice chair of the party; Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin; Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan and a former Chicago mayor; Sen. Mallory McMorrow, majority whip of the Michigan Senate, and Chuck Rocha, a longtime Democratic strategist. The next chair of the committee will be tasked with rebuilding a party demoralized by a second Trump victory. They will also oversee the party’s 2028 nominating process, a complex and contentious exercise that will make the chair central to the next presidential election. Harrison, of South Carolina, made clear in his letter to the rules committee that the four forums hosted by the party would be live streamed and the party would give grassroots Democrats across the country the ability to engage with the process through those events. He also said he intends to remain neutral during the chair election. ___ This story has been corrected to show that McMorrow is a senator, not a representative. Dan Merica, The Associated Press
Member of Fox 43 news team announces departure: ‘Let’s make it a great one'JERUSALEM — Israel approved a ceasefire agreement with Lebanon's Hezbollah militants on Tuesday that would end nearly 14 months of fighting linked to the war in the Gaza Strip. The ceasefire, starting at 4 a.m. local time Wednesday, would mark the first major step toward ending the regionwide unrest triggered by Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. But it does not address the devastating war in Gaza , where Hamas is still holding dozens of hostages and the conflict is more intractable. Hours before the ceasefire with Hezbollah was to take effect, Israel carried out the most intense wave of strikes in Beirut and its southern suburbs since the start of the conflict and issued a record number of evacuation warnings. At least 42 people were killed in strikes across the country, according to local authorities. Another huge airstrike shook Beirut shortly after the ceasefire was announced. Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. There appeared to be lingering disagreement over whether Israel would have the right to strike Hezbollah if it believed the militants had violated the agreement, something Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted was part of the deal but which Lebanese and Hezbollah officials have rejected. Israel's security Cabinet approved the U.S.-France-brokered ceasefire agreement after Netanyahu presented it, his office said. U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking in Washington, called the agreement “good news” and said his administration would make a renewed push for a ceasefire in Gaza. The Biden administration spent much of this year trying to broker a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza but the talks repeatedly sputtered to a halt . President-elect Donald Trump vowed to bring peace to the Middle East without saying how. Still, any halt to the fighting in Lebanon is expected to reduce the likelihood of war between Israel and Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas and exchanged direct fire with Israel on two occasions earlier this year. In this screen grab image from video provide by the Israeli Government Press Office, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes a televised statement Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024, in Jerusalem, Israel. Netanyahu presented the ceasefire proposal to Cabinet ministers after a televised address in which he listed accomplishments against Israel’s enemies across the region. He said a ceasefire with Hezbollah would further isolate Hamas in Gaza and allow Israel to focus on its main enemy, Iran. “If Hezbollah breaks the agreement and tries to rearm, we will attack,” he said. “For every violation, we will attack with might.” The ceasefire deal calls for a two-month initial halt in fighting and would require Hezbollah to end its armed presence in a broad swath of southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops would return to their side of the border. Thousands of additional Lebanese troops and U.N. peacekeepers would deploy in the south, and an international panel headed by the United States would monitor compliance. Biden said Israel reserved the right to quickly resume operations in Lebanon if Hezbollah breaks the terms of the truce, but that the deal "was designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities.” A police bomb squad officer inspects the site where a rocket fired from Lebanon landed in a backyard in Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel, Tuesday Nov. 26, 2024. Netanyahu’s office said Israel appreciated the U.S. efforts in securing the deal but “reserves the right to act against every threat to its security.” Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati welcomed the ceasefire and described it as a crucial step toward stability and the return of displaced people. Hezbollah has said it accepts the proposal, but a senior official with the group said Tuesday it had not seen the agreement in its final form. “After reviewing the agreement signed by the enemy government, we will see if there is a match between what we stated and what was agreed upon by the Lebanese officials,” Mahmoud Qamati, deputy chair of Hezbollah’s political council, told the Al Jazeera news network. “We want an end to the aggression, of course, but not at the expense of the sovereignty of the state," he said, referring to Israel's demand for freedom of action. “Any violation of sovereignty is refused.” Rescuers and residents search for victims Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024, at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a building in Beirut, Lebanon. Even as ceasefire efforts gained momentum in recent days, Israel continued to strike what it called Hezbollah targets across Lebanon while the militants fired rockets, missiles and drones across the border. An Israeli strike on Tuesday leveled a residential building in central Beirut — the second time in recent days warplanes have hit the crowded area near downtown. At least seven people were killed and 37 wounded, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. Israel also struck a building in Beirut's bustling commercial district of Hamra for the first time, hitting a site around 400 meters (yards) from Lebanon’s Central Bank. There were no reports of casualties. The Israeli military said it struck targets linked to Hezbollah's financial arm. The evacuation warnings covered many areas, including parts of Beirut that previously were not targeted. The warnings sent residents fleeing. Traffic was gridlocked, with mattresses tied to some cars. Dozens of people, some wearing pajamas, gathered in a central square, huddling under blankets or standing around fires as Israeli drones buzzed overhead. Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee issued evacuation warnings for 20 buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a major presence, as well as a warning for the southern town of Naqoura where the U.N. peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL, is headquartered. UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said peacekeepers will not evacuate. Israeli soldiers inspect the site Tuesday Nov. 26, 2024, where a rocket fired from Lebanon landed in a backyard in Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel. The Israeli military also said its ground troops clashed with Hezbollah forces and destroyed rocket launchers in the Slouqi area on the eastern end of the Litani River, a few miles from the Israeli border. Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah would be required to move its forces north of the Litani, which in some places is about 20 miles north of the border. Hezbollah began firing into northern Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, saying it was showing support for the Palestinians, a day after Hamas carried out its attack on southern Israel, triggering the Gaza war. Israel returned fire on Hezbollah, and the two sides have exchanged barrages ever since. Israeli security officers and army soldiers inspect the site Tuesday Nov. 26, 2024, where a rocket fired from Lebanon landed in a backyard in Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel. Israel escalated its bombardment in mid-September and later sent troops into Lebanon, vowing to put an end to Hezbollah fire so tens of thousands of evacuated Israelis could return to their homes. More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon the past 13 months, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The bombardment has driven 1.2 million people from their homes. Israel says it has killed more than 2,000 Hezbollah members. Hezbollah fire has forced some 50,000 Israelis to evacuate in the country’s north, and its rockets have reached as far south in Israel as Tel Aviv. At least 75 people have been killed, more than half of them civilians. More than 50 Israeli soldiers have died in the ground offensive in Lebanon. Chehayeb and Mroue reported from Beirut and Federman from Jerusalem. Associated Press reporters Lujain Jo and Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter.
Scheffler goes on a run of birdies in the Bahamas and leads by 2Best Bets, Odds for the Vikings vs. Falcons Game – Week 14Australia news live: heatwaves forecast for Victoria and NSW; coal 'protestival' to go ahead in Newcastle port
Best Buy CEO on potential Trump tariffs: Consumers will bear the brunt
Flag football scours nation with talent camps to uncover next wave of stars
jilimacao apps download
The road to peace and stability in Syria is long and challenging, but Turkey's commitment to supporting the reconstruction efforts and facilitating the return of refugees is a significant step in the right direction. By investing in the future of Syria and creating opportunities for its people to rebuild their lives, Turkey is not only fostering stability in the region but also demonstrating its leadership and compassion in the global community.As the news of Xiang Zuo's kind gesture spread, fans and netizens alike were quick to praise both him and Xiaohua for their humility and grace. The act of kindness resonated with many, serving as a poignant reminder that in a world that often values superficiality and material success, it is the simple acts of kindness and compassion that truly define our humanity. The outpouring of support and praise for Xiang Zuo and Xiaohua served as a shining example of the positive impact that a genuine gesture of kindness can have on others.
jili 80
jili71