Day: December 25, 2024

In Pictures
Pope Francis calls for “arms to be silenced” around the world, appealing for peace in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan in his Christmas address as he denounces the “extremely grave” humanitarian situation in Gaza.
He used his traditional message to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics on Wednesday to call for talks for a just peace in Ukraine as the country was pummelled by 170 Russian missiles and drones in a Christmas morning barrage that Kyiv described as “inhumane”.
His voice breathless, the 88-year-old pontiff also appealed for a ceasefire in Gaza and for the freeing of Israeli hostages held there by Hamas.
In Sednaya, Syria, a large crowd gathered near a historic monastery on Christmas Eve to witness the lighting of a towering tree adorned with glowing green lights.
The celebration offered a rare moment of joy in a city scarred by more than a decade of war and its infamous prison, where tens of thousands of people were held and tortured. Families and friends stood by the illuminated tree – some wearing Santa hats, others watching from rooftops – while a band played festive music and fireworks lit up the sky.
Meanwhile, a snowstorm in the Balkans stranded drivers and downed power lines on Tuesday, but some saw the beauty in it.
“I’m actually glad it’s falling,” driver Mirsad Jasarevic said in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. “We did not have snow for Christmas for 17 years here, and now is the time for a wonderful, white Christmas.”
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Rachel Rodgers is a self-made millionaire — and she has a system to help you become one, too.
In her book, “We Should All Be Millionaires,” Rodgers discusses misconceptions about money and money management that keep us from realizing financial freedom. She says it’s important to slam the shame wall and get rid of fear when it comes to taking control of your money.
Here’s how her “million-dollar system” works, in five steps:
This may be a sobering number at first, but knowing your net worth (total financial assets minus total financial liabilities) and tracking it frequently is important if you want to build wealth.
Even if you aren’t starting with much, checking it consistently and understanding the basis for your net worth — especially your liabilities — will influence how you make your financial decisions. Your net worth goes beyond your budget, and by tracking it, you will start to see how your decisions affect your bottom line.
Your credit score is important. A good credit score gives you more options for everything from credit cards and personal loans to apartment rentals to insurance. The better your credit, the more access to capital you have to start a business, buy a home, get a business loan, or apply for a credit card.
Take the first step right now by going to freecreditreport.com to get the latest copy of your credit report and sign up for a monthly credit monitoring account through Equifax or Experian. “What gets measured gets managed,” writes Rodgers, so the more you keep track of your credit and how your choices affect it, the more you will make better financial decisions. 
I have always heard this quote: “You will rarely get rich working for someone else.”
While that doesn’t have to be true, it is the case that the vast majority of millionaires are self-employed — including Rodgers.
The first step toward starting a business of your own is to research creating a business entity and what business would be right for you. A great way to do this is starting a side hustle. I always say that everyone should have a side hustle for multiple streams of income. With incorporation and business income, you can open a free business checking account. There is nothing like a new business bank account to motivate you to grow your business.
Create a habit of checking your bank account balances and recent transactions every morning. The daily check-in is important to notice potential issues before they arise and see your spending and earning in black and white. Recognizing these patterns will give you ideas on how to improve your money management. 
Consider a budgeting app for personal finances and bookkeeping software like QuickBooks for your small business. You may even want to hire a professional to help you keep track of your finances, especially if you manage a small business. 
Don’t worry, you can attend in your pajamas.
“Money Church” is time carved out every week to sit down with your finances. Review your accounts and latest financial statements. Write down and highlight any patterns you notice after looking at the numbers.
Also, take this time to shut down any limiting beliefs. Tell yourself you are good with money, you are seeing progress toward your financial goals, all debt is not bad, and that your credit score is improving. Then brainstorm new money-generating ideas and more ways to save money and set future financial goals. 
It’s in everyone’s best interest to get good with money. The more money you have, along with good money management skills, the more options and possibilities there are for you and your life. 
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Claudia Ng
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I’ll never forget the first time I got a PagerDuty alert telling me that model scores weren’t being returned properly in production.
Panic set in — I had just done a deploy, and my mind started racing with questions:
Debugging live systems is stressful, and I learned a critical lesson: writing production-ready code is a completely different beast from writing code that works in a Jupyter Notebook.
In 2020, I made the leap from data analyst to machine learning engineer (MLE). While I was already proficient in SQL and Python, working with production systems forced me to level up my skills.
As an analyst, I mostly cared that my code ran and produced the correct output. This mindset no longer translated well to being an MLE.
As an MLE, I quickly realized I had to focus on writing efficient, clean, and maintainable code that worked in a shared codebase.
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A Christmas Day lottery win would be the perfect gift
What better day to be in with the chance of winning the lottery than Christmas Day. This year, the big day has landed on the same day the National Lottery draw will take place and an impressive jackpot of £15 million is up for grabs.
Imagine how lifechanging that sort of money could be, you could pay of debts, go on your dream holiday, treat loved ones and not have to worry about financial pressures for you or the family.
Alongside the huge Lotto jackpot up for the taking this evening, players will have a chance to scoop the £500K jackpot available on the Thunderball Draw. This is the first chance this week to win the Lotto as draws take place every Wednesday and Saturday.
To play the game, you choose six numbers from one to 59 or choose a lucky dip. It costs £2 per play. As well as being in with a chance of winning serious cash, playing the Lotto also helps raise around £30m each week for UK good causes.
When the winning numbers for both draws have been announced we will update this article.

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NASA’s Parker Solar Space Probe is making history. It’s gotten closer to the sun’s atmosphere than any other humanmade object.
The mission launched back in 2018, and it has been making its way closer and closer to the sun using the planet Venus by losing some of its orbital energy, according to Georgia de Nolfo, NASA acting deputy director of heliophysics.
>24/7 San Diego news stream: Watch NBC 7 free wherever you are
On Tuesday, even at 3.8 million miles from the sun, researchers and scientists from NASA say this accomplishment will lead to a better understanding of the sun and could even tell us how other stars in our galaxy are working and how that could relate to habitability on other planets.
De Nolfo says the probe is making its approach during a period of solar maximum, which is the phase of highest activity for our sun.
You’ll recall the solar eclipse in April and the solar storms that resulted in Aurora Borealis that could be seen from as far south as Southern California. NASA researchers say this mission can provide more insight into those solar events, too.
“I think it’s exciting because we have an opportunity to use our sun and our solar system as a local observatory or laboratory if you will, so we’ll be able to actually go right where all those processes are getting started and really figure out what’s going on so that we can better understand our local star,” de Nolfo said. “But that also helps us to inform us about how other stars in our galaxy are working and how that maybe even connects to habitability and other planets.”

You might be wondering how the probe withstands the heat from the sun.
“We have a heat shield that’s kind of a carbon composite that actually takes the temperature on the one side closer to the sun. It’s 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. On the other side, it’s 85 degrees Fahrenheit,” de Nolfo said. “It’s kind of an amazing feat to have that heat shield there, and there’s even more engineering because all of those instruments in the spacecraft have to be behind the heat shield to get that protection. So as the spacecraft is orbiting the sun, it has to pivot to make sure that all of that stuff is in the shade, and both those things have really enabled this mission to happen.”
De Nolfo explained that the probe will continue to orbit the sun, and while it’s doing that, there is a whole fleet of other spacecraft looking at the sun in different ways. The next one to be launched in April is the Punch Mission, which de Nolfo says will look at the sun in 3D.

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By Katie Clark 
More than one-third of college students report symptoms of moderate to severe anxiety or depression. 
Students struggling with their mental health miss out on many of the social and academic experiences college offers. In some cases, students abandon college altogether. 
Over 20% of students drop out after their freshman year. Six in 10 complete a degree within six years. Students cite mental health issues and stress as the top reasons they consider leaving school. 
Leaving college has many downsides for students, from diminished job opportunities to the prospect of debt with no degree. It’s also a problem for colleges, which need consistent enrollment to stay afloat. 
Focusing on student well-being can help institutions keep students in school.
I’ve worked with college students for more than a decade. I’ve seen firsthand that creating a sense of belonging on campus can directly impact a student’s sense of self and improve their mental health. More than half of undergraduates report feeling lonely. Roughly 30% have shown suicidal thoughts or behavior. 
These metrics are warning signs to institutions that something needs to change.
In too many cases, universities haven’t responded adequately to students’ mental health needs. A student might be able to secure an introductory appointment with a counselor — and then not get another for three months. 
Some schools put students on involuntary leave if they report a mental health issue. The decision isn’t easy for schools to make, even when done on the advice of medical professionals. But since it can be hard to return after such an absence, these policies make students less likely to seek help — especially if they’re feeling pressure to continue their education.
A first step for making students feel more welcome is to expand and restructure mental health services. At one campus of the University of South Florida, students who need help get “wrap-around care,” which includes therapy, as well as consultations with behavioral, psychiatric, and nutritional specialists. 
Schools can also foster a sense of belonging by encouraging mentorships and trust-based student-faculty relationships. Studies have found that students who believed an educator or staff member cared about their well-being had fewer depressive symptoms. 

Professors need more purposeful training on how to extend mentorship to students. Faculty and staff are not trained mental health professionals. Often, people of color, women, and members of the LGBTQ+ community are disproportionately sought out by students for emotional support.
Finally, administrators should consider building more places on campus based on the principles of trauma-informed design, which can lower stress. This would help students who have had all kinds of distressing experiences — whether a sports injury, a family member’s illness, or a tough transition to a new culture. 
Trauma-informed design includes features like sound-absorbing panels, natural light, and open lines of sight. One example of this approach in action is Princeton University’s new health center, which was designed with student input to include open air, private waiting rooms, and lots of plants.
To college administrators, attracting and keeping undergraduates may seem like a question of outspending the competition or building flashier facilities. But campuses that really want to retain students should focus on mental health and belonging. Students need to know that they don’t have to quit school if they’re struggling.
Katie Clark is the higher education market manager at KI, a global furniture manufacturer in Green Bay, Wis. Previously, she spent eight years at Swarthmore College as the assistant dean of Integrated Learning and Leadership and founding director of the Center for Innovation and Leadership. This piece originally ran in the Boston Herald.
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