Mois : décembre 2024

The Internet Archive is still under attack two weeks after suffering a data breach and DDoS attacks that took the website down.
How do we know? 
Because the hacker just responded to Mashable’s email that we went to the Internet Archive to find out more about the hack. The hacker was able to respond via Internet Archive’s Zendesk, an online service that helps companies respond to users’ support queries.
Earlier this month, Internet Archive suffered multiple cyberattacks that ended up taking the entire platform, including The Wayback Machine which archives websites throughout the years, offline.
While a group known as SN-Blackmeta took responsibility for the DDoS attacks, the attacker behind the data breach has remained anonymous. It’s unconfirmed whether that anonymous hacker is also behind the latest Internet Archive breach. 
The attacker claims that they have access to all of the more than 800,000 support tickets sent to Internet Archive since 2018.
“It’s dispiriting to see that even after being made aware of the breach 2 weeks ago, IA has still not done the due diligence of rotating many of the API keys that were exposed in their gitlab secrets,” the hacker wrote on Sunday through Zendesk to our email that we sent to Internet Archive on October 10.
“As demonstrated by this message, this includes a Zendesk token with perms to access 800K+ support tickets sent to [email protected] since 2018,” they continued.
Chief Security Officer Chris Hickman of the cybersecurity company Keyfactor explained to Mashable why the rotating API key issue played such an important role here.
“This is a security oversight as tokens that are not rotated regularly have longer lifespans, increasing the window of opportunity for attackers to steal and misuse them,” Hickman said. “If a malicious actor obtains an unrotated token, they could use it to gain unauthorized access to systems or services.”
And it appears that’s what happened.
In the initial attack earlier this month, the hacker shared that they had accessed emails, screen names, and encrypted passwords for 31 million Internet Archive users. However, in this most recent attack, the attacker now shared that they have more than 800,000 support tickets shared between Internet Archive users and the non-profit group. These support tickets could contain even further sensitive information as users who requested that their content be removed from the Internet Archive had to oftentimes provide identification.
In an age where everyone seems to disagree about everything on the internet, there’s one thing that most people seem to agree with: The Internet Archive is an amazing tool that provides online library services at no-cost to users. Many were shocked when their site was attacked earlier this month.
The Internet Archive was able to get parts of its website back up and running last week. However, it seems like significant damage has been done.
“Whether you were trying to ask a general question, or requesting the removal of your site from the Wayback Machine—your data is now in the hands of some random guy. If not me, it’d be someone else,” the hacker said in its reply to Mashable’s contact. “Here’s hoping that they’ll get their shit together now.”
Topics Cybersecurity

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PUBLISHED : 24 Dec 2024 at 09:23
WRITER: Bloomberg
Singapore forged ahead with efforts to formulate a digital-assets hub in 2024, while rival financial centre Hong Kong has struggled to gain traction. 
Singapore doled out 13 crypto licenses in 2024 to a range of crypto operators including top exchanges OKX and Upbit, as well as global heavyweights Anchorage, BitGo and GSR. That’s more than double the licenses awarded by the city-state the previous year. A similar licensing regime in Hong Kong has been slow to progress. 
Both cities are bidding to entice digital-asset firms to their shores with dedicated regimes, tokenization projects and regulatory sandboxes. Local authorities see in crypto the potential to boost the allure of their respective jurisdictions as global business hubs, but progress has been uneven. 
“Hong Kong’s regulatory regime for exchanges is more restrictive in a number of ways that matter — such as custody of customer assets and token listing and delisting policies,” said Angela Ang, senior policy adviser at consultancy TRM Labs. “This may have tipped the balance in Singapore’s favour.”
Approvals in Hong Kong have come slower than expected and regulators had signalled their intent to authorise more exchanges by year-end. The city has now fully licensed seven platforms in total, with four of those given the green light — with some restrictions — on Wednesday. A further seven hold provisional permits. Prominent exchanges such as OKX and Bybit withdrew their applications for Hong Kong licenses. 
The city allows trading in only the most liquid cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether, barring investors from punting on smaller and more volatile tokens, known as altcoins. 
“It’s quite a high standard to meet and be profitable,” said Roger Li, co-founder of One Satoshi, a chain of stores in Hong Kong offering over-the-counter conversions between cash and crypto.
Another factor for digital-asset executives mulling expansion in Asia is the influence of China, where crypto trading is banned. Hong Kong’s special administrative regime has a different risk profile compared to other countries, said David Rogers, regional chief executive at market maker B2C2 Ltd, which has applied for a license in Singapore. 
Singapore’s supportive digital-asset environment makes it a “safe, long-term choice” for a regional hub, Rogers said. “It is a risk-adjusted approach we’re taking here.”
On the wholesale side, both cities can point to progress getting regulated financial institutions to experiment with blockchain software. 
The Monetary Authority of Singapore in November announced plans to support the commercialisation of asset tokenization through Project Guardian and Global Layer 1, two state-backed initiatives. Hong Kong oversaw the sale of HK$6 billion ($770 million) of digital green bonds using HSBC Holdings Plc’s tokenization platform. 
Hong Kong also notably rolled out spot-Bitcoin and Ether ETFs in April, but they have failed to stoke the kind of enthusiasm displayed by buyers of equivalent products in the United States. The city’s Bitcoin and Ether ETFs combined have amassed about $500 million, a fraction of the more than $120 billion held by US issuers. 
“Singapore’s framework encourages interaction between new entrants and established institutions,” said Ben Charoenwong, associate professor of finance at INSEAD. Hong Kong’s focus on established financial institutions “creates fewer opportunities for new entrants and limits the scope of innovation.” 
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This article includes references to self-harm, which some readers might find distressing. If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of self-harm, help is available at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 1-800-273-TALK(8255). More resources from the National Alliance on Mental Illness can be found at https://www.nami.org/suicide.
This story was produced by Chalkbeat and reprinted with permission. Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter.
Lucian O’Donnell sat curled up in the lower bunk in a friend’s house, a two-story clapboard in a neighborhood crowded with other faded homes in Southwest Detroit.
Spring was sprucing up the trees lining the narrow one-way street. But on that day in March 2023, in the bedroom where Lucian was crashing, the blinds were drawn, draining the color from the pale blue walls.
In the previous years, he had hustled at long shifts in two restaurants and taken night classes after dropping out of high school. He had brainstormed life goals with his “success coach” at a neighborhood nonprofit working with teens and tried to better manage the diabetic kidney disease that had claimed his mom during the pandemic. He had seen a therapist.
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Now, the 18-year-old had surrendered to the screens.
He toggled between “Minecraft” on his laptop — endlessly stacking blocks on a virtual grid — and social media on his phone. He knew the algorithms steered him toward negativity and conspiracy theories. He went along anyway.
The moment felt like a flashback to COVID-era isolation, except even lonelier: America had moved on from the pandemic. A resurgent Detroit was getting its swagger back, its population and median income inching up a decade after a bruising bankruptcy. But Lucian felt shut out from that sense of possibility.
At one point, he told his success coach that he thought of harming himself. They made a plan: He’d get in touch immediately if these thoughts escalated. They put together a list of good reasons to be alive.
That day, he glanced at the list. It was short: High school friends. Music. His goal of managing a restaurant.
He sank back into stacking blocks.
Youth advocates call young people like Lucian — 16- to 24-year-olds who are not in school, college, or the workforce — “opportunity youth,” focusing on untapped potential, not failure. Many are high school dropouts. As many as half earn a diploma or GED but flounder after graduation.
If the 4.2 million opportunity youth in the U.S. all lived in one city, it would be the second largest in the country.
They have long been “the kids everyone forgot,” as one nonprofit leader put it. But roughly a decade ago, with youth employment ravaged by the Great Recession, the Obama White House made reconnecting these young people a signature issue. Experts decried the lasting toll of even relatively brief stints of disconnection: lower incomes, but also poorer health and personal relationships. Congress passed the Workforce Opportunity and Innovation Act in 2014, tapping hundreds of millions for youth employment efforts.
But the programs that sprang up were often small-scale and insular, with modest, short-lived results. After COVID emerged in early 2020, advocates worried its upheaval could turn Lucian’s generation into the most deeply disconnected yet. So they pushed to rethink reengagement programs. They argued these efforts had focused too much on quickly steering youth toward a job — any job — often low-skill, unstable work vulnerable to economic downturns. Meanwhile, trauma and mental health issues kept young people from gaining a foothold in the workforce.
Related: Widen your perspective. Our free weekly newsletter consults critical voices on innovation in K-12 education.
In Detroit, the city’s Employment Solutions Corporation, an agency reporting to the mayor’s workforce development board, enlisted six nonprofits that vowed to bring a more holistic approach to connecting with youth. It’s a crucial mission. As Detroit clamors for skilled young workers to power its growth, more than a quarter of Detroiters age 16 to 24 are not going to school or working, the country’s second-highest youth disconnection rate, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data released last month.
Among the nonprofits that signed contracts worth a collective $3.4 million in federal money to tackle the issue were two groups with different backgrounds.
One, Urban Neighborhood Initiatives, known as UNI, had offered programs to steer students to high school graduation and college for years. But amid the pandemic, it ramped up efforts to help teens who had dropped out of school or had graduated with no clue what to do next. A UNI success coach set out to triage Lucian’s complex needs through a turmoil-filled stretch.
Another nonprofit, SER Metro Detroit, has long been the largest local player in working with disengaged youth, offering job training programs and an alternative high school. Here, GED teacher Anthony Tejada — who brought his own backstory of youth disconnection — set out to help a homeless teen named Seth get back on track.
Studies have suggested the empathetic approach is showing some promise. But efforts are running up against perennial hurdles: fragmented programs, fickle funding — and the lack of opportunities in ZIP codes with long histories of disinvestment where many opportunity youth live.
In a highly polarized country preoccupied with the economy, reengaging these young people and forging non-college pathways to good jobs has drawn some bipartisan agreement. After years of deadlock, a lame-duck Congress is on the verge of reauthorizing the sprawling Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, potentially beefing up funding for youth programs.
But in a moment ripe with uncertainty, will Detroit and other cities around the country be able to help young people like Lucian and Seth forge a path to stability? Or will they remain the kids everyone forgot?
In the spring of 2021, Lucian walked from the home where he was staying at the time to a community garden in Southwest Detroit run by Urban Neighborhood Initiatives.
A group of teens wearing facemasks stood in a circle in the middle of a grassy expanse with just a few raised boxes with tomatoes. Lucian resisted the urge to turn and flee.
UNI had long worked with middle and high school students in the Springwells neighborhood: a 1.3-square-mile, densely populated, and predominantly Latino area. But during the pandemic, Los HQ, the nonprofit’s hangar-like space down the street from the garden, welcomed more youth like Lucian — members of the COVID shutdown generation, who bore the brunt of the pandemic’s learning disruption and mental health toll.
The nonprofit set out to help them with funding cobbled together from philanthropy, the Workplace Innovation and Opportunity Act, and federal COVID relief. It started offering short-term counseling and referrals to therapists with normally yearslong waits for new patients. It kicked off the gardening and cooking program to expose youth to culinary and green careers — and bring them back together outside.
A friend told Lucian about the culinary program, and he’d come to interview for the last spot left. The teen, who’d dreamt of designing video games, had never considered working with food. But the small stipend the program offered was a big draw.
Lucian had tuned out of high school during remote learning, which dragged on his entire sophomore year at Western High. He returned in 2021 when school buildings reopened, only to find he’d fallen too far behind. So he stopped going.
Related: How four middle schoolers are making it through the pandemic?
For most of his childhood, his single mom had been sick and rarely held on to a job or an apartment. Then, around the time COVID hit, her kidneys failed and other ailments reared up, confining her to the hospital for most of 2020. She died in early 2021. Lucian decided he wouldn’t let himself mourn her. He was on his own; he couldn’t afford to fall apart emotionally.
As he approached the group in the garden, his social anxiety spiked. He had forgotten how to talk to people in person.
Danielle Dillard, the program lead and a trained social worker, stepped aside to talk with Lucian, who stared at his beat-up sneakers and dribbled one-word answers. He felt he was blowing the interview.
Dillard offered the last open spot to Lucian.
SER Metro’s Youth Reengagement Center sits on a treeless commercial stretch in southwest Detroit, with a shuttered strip club and boarded-up adult bookstore across the street. The building was unveiled in 2023, remodeled and expanded with $4 million in state and philanthropic dollars.
Earlier that year, Anthony Tejada started working with 19-year-old Seth in the center’s GED classroom. The teen — who Chalkbeat is not identifying by his full name to protect his privacy — was coming off a rough couple of years. After dropping out of high school, he faltered in night school and another reconnection program in Flint, where a staffer urged him to give finishing high school one more try at SER. He was jobless and staying with his brother.
Tejada met Seth at a time when efforts to reconnect youth like him were in a new spotlight.
In the years leading up to COVID, youth disconnection rates across the country had been steadily declining. Some advocates and practitioners saw it as evidence that their efforts were paying off.
But experts credited a recovering economy, noting that most of the relatively few reengagement programs studied rigorously have shown modest gains — a single-digit increase in high school completion, say, or several hundred dollars more in annual earnings. And even as the overall rate improved, the disconnection rate for Native American youth such as Lucian and Black youth such as Seth remained double or even triple that for Asian American and white youth.
Meanwhile, scientists had been rethinking the very definition of adolescence. The prefrontal cortex is developing well into the mid-20s, they noted, offering a make-or-break window to do the social-emotional repair many young people need to navigate the workplace — and life.
Then COVID hit. The national disconnection rate rose from 10.7 percent to 12.6 percent, or about 716,200 more youth, bringing new urgency to building better reconnection programs.
At SER Metro, staff embraced trauma-informed case management and got restorative practices and “healing-centered” training, rooted in the idea that trauma and disconnection feed each other in a vicious cycle.
Tejada wants the young people he works with to take the lead. He lets students, who increasingly come in reading at an early elementary level, do the GED prep class at their own pace and tackle the tests in their chosen order.
In late 2023, Tejada felt Seth had momentum. He’d been coming to class consistently and had passed the science exam. He’d found a social circle in the GED classroom, even dating another student, his first real relationship.
It was easy for Tejada to root for Seth. In high school, Tejada — like Seth — had struggled with ADHD. Tejada graduated and went to college, but in his freshman year, crippling depression set in. He stopped going to classes and dropped out.
But Tejada was a middle-class kid from the Detroit suburbs whose close-knit family rallied around him. Society is much harder on kids like Seth — poor, family scattered — when they take the same detours.
As Seth geared up to take the social studies exam, Tejada told him about his years pulling shifts in his family’s Mexican restaurant. Eventually, he made his way back to college. Look at his life now, he told Seth: a home, a family, a job he loved. Stability.
Tejada told Seth he didn’t need to stay in lockstep with an arbitrary timeline or a predetermined path: “A lot of us have many twists and turns along the way.”
For Lucian, the two years after he turned up at UNI’s community garden were full of twists and turns. He slept on a series of couches and beds, then rented a small apartment — only to get evicted a few months later. He worked several jobs, sometimes with pay under the table, which he often spent on expensive gifts for his friends in a bid to cobble together the family he never had.
Related: Communities hit hardest by the pandemic, already struggling, face a dropout cliff
There was one constant: Danielle Dillard, Lucian’s UNI supervisor and “success coach.” Dillard sat him down to make a “success plan” with goals for the year and beyond. She pushed him to go back to school — a top goal on his list, but one for which he didn’t feel ready. She pushed him to see UNI’s new in-house therapist and to address health issues.
After Lucian completed UNI’s culinary program in 2021, the nonprofit helped him find a job as a server’s assistant at a high-end Detroit restaurant. The shifts were long and fast-paced, but he was learning a lot.
Then the restaurant closed abruptly, a pandemic casualty. He eventually found a job at Family Treat, a Springwells neighborhood fast food fixture. But it was only open in the warmer months. It was after the restaurant closed for the season that Lucian found himself isolated — and sliding downward — in that friend’s bedroom in the spring of 2023.
When Family Treat reopened a month later, for a brief moment Lucian felt freed from his entrapment. He loved the bustle and camaraderie of restaurant kitchens. He just wanted a restaurant job with more stability, benefits, room to grow.
For now, he picked up all the shifts he could, working up to 60 hours a week.
After work, his mind descended to the same dark place it had staked out during his jobless stretch. Exhaustion made things worse.
The grief over his mom’s death that he’d suppressed two years earlier reared up. By May 2023, that despondency turned to despair.
On Mother’s Day, in a park not far from the cemetery where his mom was buried, Lucian slashed his wrists.
Tejada’s work day was drawing to a close at the SER Metro reengagement center when a distraught Seth burst through the door. A few weeks earlier, the teen had failed the social studies GED test by just a few points. He had righted himself for a bit, turning his attention to the language arts exam.
For almost a year, he had chipped away at the GED at his own pace as Tejada, his instructor, had urged. But his momentum was fizzling out. He had been wondering if it might be time to get a job — any job.
What sent him pushing through the door minutes after he’d left the center was dropping his phone and cracking it while he was running to catch a bus. Suddenly, Seth found himself beset by all the complications in his life. His girlfriend, a classmate at SER, was pregnant. He was panicking that his baby would have two jobless parents slogging through a GED class.
“Nothing good’s ever coming to me,” he railed as Tejada and two other staffers sought to calm him down in the lobby. “Every little good thing I get is taken away.”
As Seth tried to slam his phone against the floor, Tejada enveloped him in a hug that was part comfort, part restraint.
“You’ve been through worse things than breaking a phone and missing a bus,” he reminded him.
Recent studies suggest that adding social-emotional support to reconnection programs can work. A 2021 report of the Opportunity Reboot model in Minnesota, which layers mentoring and social-emotional guidance onto existing reengagement programs, found it increased the odds of youth getting and keeping jobs. A study of One Summer Chicago Plus, a summer jobs program that paired minimum-wage jobs with cognitive behavioral therapy and mentorship, showed it significantly reduced teens’ involvement in violent crime — a goal that has often fueled efforts to reengage disconnected youth in that city and others.
The results so far in Detroit illustrate the challenges that persist. Ericka Page, point person for youth programs at the Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation, the agency contracting with the six nonprofits running programs, said data on these programs’ outcomes shows many young people bouncing in and out of reengagement programs and from job to job. Often, these are minimum-wage, part-time, or gig jobs.
The programs are connecting with youth and getting some of them employed. But sustaining their momentum over the extended time it takes to remake their lives is hard, Page said.
“The biggest challenge with opportunity youth is retention,” says Ann Leen, who heads the SER Metro center. “It could be a $15 an hour job. It could be the streets calling. It could be, ‘Mom needs help.’ It could be, ‘It’s just too hard.’ We have to be louder than those other voices.”
On the afternoon Seth burst into the SER lobby, the staff helped him calm down. But after that day, he started showing up less and less. By last spring, he had stopped coming. By fall, he returned, on and off. By winter, Tejada worried he was losing him again.
Lucian was not alone at the park when he harmed himself on Mother’s Day 2023. A friend who was with him called an ambulance that rushed him to the emergency room. He spent a week at a psychiatric hospital.
When he left, staffers from Urban Neighborhood Initiatives kicked into high gear. They set him up with an outside therapist and gave him rides to appointments. When he stopped going, they pushed him to go back. They found him a bed at a small shelter all the way across the city.
Lucian was eager to get back to work. He needed the money, but he also missed the steadying rhythms of working full-time. He walked the drab commercial stretch with boarded-up storefronts near the shelter and found the few businesses left were not hiring. For occasional shifts at a fried chicken place in his old neighborhood, he sometimes commuted as much as two-and-half hours one way.
Then in early 2024, a friend invited Lucian to move in with him, his mom, and his eight siblings in a house not far from Los HQ. The move back to the Springwells neighborhood was a game-changer, bringing him closer to jobs and friends.
By this spring, he was on full-time grill duty at Family Treat. He had picked up more shifts at the fried chicken place. And UNI brought him on to help out with the culinary program two evenings a week and soon promoted him to program lead. At that rate, he felt, he might be able to afford to rent his own place with a friend by summer’s end.
Across the country, young people like Lucian had been getting back to work, pushing post-pandemic disconnection rates down as the labor market ramped up. But some experts and advocates worry there’s a catch to that good news.
Kristen Lewis, director of the think tank Measure of America, says she worries that many young people are choosing unstable jobs that can breed more disconnection in the longer run over opportunities to finish high school and get training that could actually open up a path out of poverty. The post-pandemic data has reaffirmed something experts knew before COVID: The fates of vulnerable young people like Lucian are chained to their ZIP codes and the whims of the economy.
“We’ve been searching for silver bullets: Summer jobs will solve everything! Mental health care will solve everything!” she said. “But look at the deep structural problems and profound inequities some neighborhoods face. It’s the story of what’s wrong with America.”
Related: Why are kids still struggling in school four years after the pandemic?
Lucian, too, felt keenly the precariousness of his situation last spring. His worries came to a head when a diabetic seizure struck near the end of his shift at Family Treat one April afternoon.
He had just started on an order of five footlongs in the narrow kitchen when a buzzing in his ears muffled the sizzle of the fryers and his vision faded to white. As he convulsed on the floor, his manager kneeling beside him, one thought cut through Lucian’s brain fog: He had to get back to making hot dogs.
He couldn’t lose that $11.50-an-hour job — and the fragile stability he’d just started regaining.
Lucian staggered up to his feet. His vision still swam, and arms stung as though jabbed by needles. But he dashed back to his work station, where the hot dogs he had set on the grill still rotated.
“You still need five of these, right?” Lucian called to the young woman working the front register.
This November, with Family Treat closed for the season, Lucian, now almost 20, walked into a GED prep classroom in Southwest Detroit.
UNI had referred him to the program, which would pay him $200 a week and introduce him to a career in carpentry. Lucian felt it would be good insurance against the fickleness of restaurant work — and a chance to finally tackle his longtime goal of getting a high school credential.
But uncertainty still plagued Lucian. He and his roommate were both unemployed, and the bills kept coming. The staff at UNI collected almost $400 for Lucian’s November rent and got him a free Thanksgiving turkey. He was quickly learning that it was tough to find a job while tied up in a carpentry and GED program for most of the day.
Related: OPINION: Post-pandemic, our bored and disconnected youth need a whole lot more than high dosage tutoring
Some advocates worry that the COVID-era sense of urgency around opportunity youth might be fading even as many young people like Seth and Lucian haven’t yet regained their footing. But boosting funding for re-engaging and training disconnected youth has been a key area of bipartisan consensus in the federal push to reauthorize the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which expired in 2020.
Lawmakers launched a bipartisan Opportunity Youth caucus this summer. And a bipartisan agreement on the law in late December could steer more money to youth programs, including a new $65 million apprenticeship program.
On the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance at times appeared to speak directly to young men like Lucian and Seth, promising a return to an era of robust manufacturing and access to good jobs that don’t require college. But practitioners worry about what the incoming administration’s appetite for federal spending cuts might mean.
In Detroit, the Ballmer Group, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s foundation, has been pushing the city for a big-picture vision for attacking youth disconnection. Here and nationally, the focus is shifting back to the training and credentials young people need to access high-demand jobs employers are trying to fill.
It’s impossible to know where Lucian and Seth would be now if their lives had not intersected with the agencies and people helping them. But their experiences these last few years affirm that young people who become disconnected from school and work need more than jobs that pay the bills. They need social-emotional backing – and also a way to see a clear path to more stable, fulfilling lives.
Their stories show that rebuilding after a stint of disconnection takes time. And programs often aren’t set up to serve young people in the long run, so the years ahead could bring more uncertainty.
It’s easy, Lucian realizes, to miss the growth he’d made amid the rollercoaster of the last three years. He is taking better care of his physical and mental health. Time spent “jotting and rambling” in his journal about his long-term goals grounds him.
Dillard moved to the West Coast earlier this year, but they’ve stayed in touch, catching up on Zoom. She told him she was proud of him. He told her he was anxious, but also determined.
“I think a lot about the future,” Lucian said this month. “I am always thinking about when I am going to reach my goals — not if.”
Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org. This article was reported with support from the Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
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“Superhero Workplace Comedy” Starring Aaron Paul Already Deserves To Be On Your Wishlist  Screen Rant
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Macau intends to launch a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) and connect it to mainland China’s digital yuan and Hong Kong’s e-HKD.
The Macau government is working with the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) to advance the e-pataca, local outlets report. It intends to launch a prototype that features basic functions during the celebration of the 25th anniversary of Macau’s handover, set for December 20.
Macau is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. Similar to Hong Kong, it operates under the ‘one country, two systems’ principle, and as such, it has its own economic and legal system independent of mainland China. This includes having its own currency, the pataca, although the Hong Kong dollar (HKD) is also widely used. Uniquely, the pataca isn’t issued by a central bank but by two commercial banks—the Bank of China (BOC) and Banco Nacional Ultramarino (BNU).
According to local reports, the BOC’s Macau branch will oversee the initial stage of the e-pataca, developing, issuing, and redeeming the CBDC. It will also operate the customer portal and digital wallets. BNU is expected to join in at a later stage.
Announcing the project, Lei Wai Nong, the Secretary for Economy and Finance, noted that the CBDC is important for Macau since digital payments “have become a vital transaction method in daily life, providing convenient payment options for both domestic and international travelers.”
Indeed, electronic payments have surged in recent years. In Q3 2024, Macau’s 700,000 residents transacted MOP$7.6 billion ($948 million) in 88 million transactions, a steep rise from the MOP$825 million (US$102 million) and 8 million transactions in Q1 2020. Advanced technologies like Tencent’s (NASDAQ: TCTZF) Weixin Palm Pay service, which allows users to make a payment by simply placing their palms on a scanner, have advanced digital payments.
For now, the payments will focus on local payments, but Nong revealed that the integration with the digital yuan and the e-HKD will lay the foundation for international payments.
“Looking ahead, we hope to connect different legal digital currencies, especially the digital pataca, renminbi, and Hong Kong dollar. This will make cross-border payments easier and create more opportunities, helping to bring the Greater Bay Area closer together economically.”
Macau heavily relies on its gambling industry, which contributes around 40% of its gross domestic product (GDP). The government estimates that bets totaling MOP$8 trillion ($998 billion) will be placed next year. It’s unclear how the e-pataca will impact this massive industry, which has traditionally relied on privacy for gamblers.
Watch: The state of play and what’s to come with CBDC

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If you watch a lot of Hallmark holiday movies (and believe us, it’s scary easy to get hooked on them from October to December once you get started), you’ll notice faces that reappear over and over again. Hallmark is nothing if not reliant on safe, predictable storytelling, and this tendency extends to the people they hire to act in their made-for-TV films — once you’ve proven that you can provide a stable, likable presence in a lead role, they’ll keep on booking you. 
But while Hallmark male stars need to personify whatever romantic fantasy Hallmark is selling — whether that’s sensitive, or caring, or supporting, or rugged, or good at fighting fires — their actresses have an altogether different responsibility. Since a large portion of the Hallmark viewership is made up of women, these actresses need to be aspirational and, above all else, relatable. We need to be able to see ourselves in them, which isn’t as easy a task as it sounds. So when they find a performer who can do it well, they get their candy cane hooks in them and never let them go. Here are some of the best of the best that the Hallmark network has to offer.

Like many of our Hallmark stars to be, Bethany Joy Lenz got her start in the world of soaps — her very first television role was on “Guiding Light,” which she appeared in from 1998 to 2000. But she’s better known for her work on The CW’s “One Tree Hill,” where she played Haley, Lucas Scott’s best friend and future wife. (Apparently the “One Tree Hill” to Hallmark pipeline is real, since Chad Michael Murray has also starred in a few holiday films for the network.)
For Hallmark, Lenz has been a regular feature. She first appeared with the network back in 2014, when she starred in “The Christmas Secret.” From there, they were off to the races. Lenz went on to star in “Royal Matchmaker,” “Five Star Christmas,” “An Unexpected Christmas,” and most recently, “A Biltmore Christmas,” in which a modern-day screenwriter on a movie set is transported into the film universe of a 1940s holiday classic.

When Merritt Patterson was a teenager, she was cast in the ABC Family teen sci-fi drama “Kyle XY.” That was just the beginning for the young actress — she later starred in several different television series, including the “Pretty Little Liars” spinoff “Ravenswood,” “The Royals,” and “The Art of More.” But her most reliable work has been with the Hallmark Channel: Since her first appearance in 2017 with “A Royal Winter,” she’s done six more holiday films with them, including “Christmas at the Palace” and “Christmas Chateau.” 
Unfortunately for Hallmark, it seems as though Patterson has been poached by the Great American Family network, which is swiftly moving in on the traditional Hallmark and Lifetime territory — she’s done four films with them since 2022. But it speaks to her likability as a holiday film star that multiple different networks are vying for her when it comes time to make their annual Christmas films.

Kimberly Williams-Paisley has a long history in the romance department — she got her big break in “Father of the Bride” playing Annie, George Banks’ (Steve Martin) daughter who stuns the family by returning home from studying abroad in Italy with the announcement that she’s engaged to be married. She’s acted continually since then, largely in supporting roles in films like “We Are Marshall” and “The Christmas Chronicles.” But she’s also had a substantial career on television, both for the Hallmark network and beyond. 
Her largest role to date was as Dana, Jim’s sister-in-law, in “According to Jim,” in which she appeared for 165 episodes and even directed a few along the way. For Hallmark, she starred in “The Christmas Train” alongside Dermot Mulroney, as the two embark on a long-distance train ride from the east coast to Los Angeles. She followed this up with “A Nashville Christmas Carol” in 2020 as the Ghost of Christmas Present, and a year later, she appeared alongside her real-life sister, actress Ashley Williams, in two more Christmas-themed movies for Hallmark, “Sister Swap: A Hometown Holiday,” and “Sister Swap: Christmas in the City.”

If you were coming of age in the 1990s and 2000s, chances are you recognize Rachael Leigh Cook, who was having a pretty big moment as a star of teen movies at the time. Most famous for her role in “She’s All That” opposite Freddie Prinze Jr., she also starred in “The Babysitters Club” as Mary Anne (her on-screen debut), cult classic “Josie and the Pussycats,” and corporate thriller “Antitrust,” to name just a few. 
Although she was arguably most prominent during that period, she’s continued to act over the past few decades, and these days, she’s been taking on a lot of work with the Hallmark Channel. She starred in “Frozen in Love,” a sports-themed winter romance that paired up a hockey player with a mild-mannered bookstore owner, as well as “A Blue Ridge Mountain Christmas,” “Cross Country Christmas,” “Tis the Season to be Merry,” and “Rescuing Christmas.”

There may not be a huge amount of overlap between fans of the “Power Rangers” franchise and Hallmark aficionados, but the common ground in that venn diagram is certainly familiar with Erin Cahill. Her first television role was as the Pink Ranger on “Power Rangers Time Force,” joining the legacy of a cult classic action series. (She also reprised this role in the 2017 web series “Power Rangers Hyperforce.) In the years since, she’s been a popular day player on many well-known TV shows, making one-off appearances on shows like “Supernatural,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “How I Met Your Mother,” and “Monk.”
Her career with Hallmark has been equally illustrious, starring in “Sleigh Bells Ring,” “Last Vermont Christmas,” “Christmas on the Range,” “A Timeless Christmas,” and “Every Time a Bell Rings.” She’s so well-known with the holiday subgenre that she appeared as a guest judge on Hallmark’s “Finding Mr. Christmas,” a reality series that put a group of men through a series of Christmas-themed challenges, with the winner receiving a lead role in an upcoming Hallmark holiday film.

Alicia Witt began her career as an actor with one of the most unnerving child performances we’ve ever seen — she played Alia in David Lynch’s perennially underrated “Dune” (and later appeared in “Twin Peaks” as well). Over the years, she successfully transitioned into an adult career, working in both film and television. As a young adult, she played Gertrude Lang in “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” whose clarinet lessons are one of the first signs that Mr. Holland (an Oscar-nominated Richard Dreyfuss) might actually be cut out for teaching after all. She also appeared in “The Sopranos,” and “Ally McBeal,” with recurring roles on “Law and Order: Criminal Intent,” “Friday Night Lights,” “Justified,” “Nashville,” and “Orange Is the New Black.” Witt has even taken steps into the world of horror, acting in 2024’s “Longlegs.”
As if all of that wasn’t enough, she’s been starring in Hallmark holiday films since 2013, with “A Very Merry Mix-Up” and “A Snow Globe Christmas.” Each year until 2020, it looks like she made time to do one Hallmark film — “Christmas at Cartwright’s” in 2014, “I’m Not Ready for Christmas” in 2015, then “Christmas List,” “The Mistletoe Inn,” “Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane,” “Our Christmas Love Song,” and “Christmas Tree Lane.”

Most science-fiction fans will likely recognize Tricia Helfer as the incredibly popular, slinky red dress-wearing Number Six from “Battlestar Galactica,” a Cylon who has been engaged in war against the remnants of humanity. But her career goes far beyond that iconic sci-fi role. Helfer had substantial roles on “Tron: Uprising,” “Burn Notice,” “Killer Women,” “Powers,” “Lucifer,” and, most recently, “Step Up: High Water.” On the big screen, she appeared in the Oscar-nominated drama “Bombshell” as broadcaster Alisyn Camerota. (And in between all of this, she found time while she was filming “Battlestar Galactica” to host the first season of “Canada’s Next Top Model” — a fitting role, considering that she began her career as a model.)
Unlike many Hallmark stars, who seem to have a specific window of their career when they do a ton of holiday films for the network, these roles are peppered throughout her filmography. In 2011, she starred in “Mistletoe Over Manhattan,” a film in which Mrs. Claus travels to the Big Apple to perform some miracles during the holiday season. Two years later, she was featured in “Finding Christmas,” which is essentially a gender-swapped version of “The Holiday.” In 2016, she returned again for “Operation Christmas,” and in 2019, she was seen in “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.”

If you, like us, logged more than a few hours watching the frothy teen drama “The O.C.,” you probably remember Autumn Reeser as Taylor Townsend, a high-achieving, Type A student who became a surprise love interest for Ryan after Marissa’s untimely death. But although that’s one of her most famous (or infamous, depending on who you ask — Taylor Townsend was not a universally beloved character) roles, it’s far from her only substantial credit. She also had key roles on “Entourage,” the “Incredibles”-esque superhero show “No Ordinary Family,” “Hawaii Five-0,” and “The Arrangement.”
As a Hallmark star, Reeser has been equally productive. In 2017, she starred in “A Bramble House Christmas,” which was followed by “Season for Love” in 2018 alongside Marc Blucas of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” fame, “Christmas Under the Stars” in 2019, and “A Glenbrooke Christmas” in 2020. She’s also worked with the network on “The Wedding Veil” franchise, which she did six films for over the course of 2022 and 2023.

To a not insignificant portion of mainstream audiences, Danica McKellar will always be known for the role she took on as a child actor in the 1980s — Winnie on “The Wonder Years.” But despite her early successes on the popular coming-of-age television series, she’s had a long and fulfilling career that has seen her thrive in higher education and seek out roles as an adult actress. After receiving a degree in mathematics, she published a series of books about math for kids and teens, each of which were positively received by critics. As an actress, she appeared on “The West Wing,” “How I Met Your Mother,” and “The Big Bang Theory,” among many other shows. 
And of course, she’s grown into one of the Hallmark Channel’s most charming and reliable leading ladies. Over the course of her time with the network, she has starred in “Crown for Christmas,” “My Christmas Dream,” “Coming Home for Christmas,” “Christmas She Wrote,” and “You, Me, and the Christmas Trees” — and that’s not counting the non-holiday films she’s worked on. In the past few years, she’s gravitated towards the more overtly-Christian Great American Family network, but her Hallmark fare still holds a special place in our hearts.

It’s pretty much official at this point. Lacey Chabert is the modern-day queen of made-for-TV Christmas movies, and although you’ll see her bouncing between different networks (she appeared, for example, in 2024’s absurdly popular “Hot Frosty” for Netflix), the lion’s share of her work has been for Hallmark. Before she became the network’s go-to female star, she worked as a child actress, acting in “All My Children” and “Party of Five.” Chabert was also a reknowned voice actress in her early years, often collaborating with Nickelodeon — she was featured on “Hey Arnold,” and “Aaahh!!! Real Monsters,” but her most famous voiceover role was Eliza Thornberry on “The Wild Thornberrys.” She was even the original Meg Griffin on “Family Guy,” before the role was taken over by Mila Kunis in Season 2. And of course, anyone growing up in the early 2000s will recognize her as Gretchen Wieners, one of the Plastics in “Mean Girls.”
But these days, she has both feet planted firmly in the world of Christmas. Since 2012, she’s done at least 17 holiday films with Hallmark (we honestly can’t discount the possibility that we’ve missed one or two) and dozens of other non-Christmas romances for the network. So basically, at this point, when you see Lacey Chabert, you think Hallmark — and honestly, we could think of no better brand representative.

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PiCoin Price Prediction  Analytics Insight
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The Tennessee Lottery offers several draw games for those aiming to win big. Here’s a look at Dec. 23, 2024, results for each game:
22-42-44-57-64, Powerball: 18, Power Play: 2
Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.
09-25-35-41-45, Cash Ball: 03
Check Cash4Life payouts and previous drawings here.
04-21-28-42-52, Star Ball: 01, ASB: 04
Check Lotto America payouts and previous drawings here.
Morning: 5-4-8, Wild: 6
Midday: 5-6-7, Wild: 7
Evening: 4-6-1, Wild: 3
Check Cash 3 payouts and previous drawings here.
Morning: 5-5-3-0, Wild: 7
Midday: 4-5-4-5, Wild: 3
Evening: 3-0-8-8, Wild: 0
Check Cash 4 payouts and previous drawings here.
12-22-23-24-29
Check Daily Tennessee Jackpot payouts and previous drawings here.
02-18-20-32-33, Bonus: 05
Check Tennessee Cash payouts and previous drawings here.
16-49-62-63-68, Powerball: 10
Check Powerball Double Play payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
All Tennessee Lottery retailers will redeem prizes up to $599.
For prizes over $599, winners can submit winning tickets through the mail or in person at Tennessee Lottery offices. By mail, send a winner claim form, winning lottery ticket, a copy of a government-issued ID and proof of social security number to P.O. Box 290636, Nashville, TN 37229. Prize claims less than $600 do not require a claim form. Please include contact information on prizes claimed by mail in the event we need to contact you.
To submit in person, sign the back of your ticket, fill out a winner claim form and deliver the form, along with the ticket and government-issued ID and proof of social security number to any of these locations:
Nashville Headquarters & Claim Center: 26 Century Blvd., Nashville, TN 37214, 615-254-4946 in the (615) and (629) area, 901-466-4946 in the (901) area, 865-512-4946 in the (865) area, 423-939-7529 in the (423) area or 1-877-786-7529 (all other areas in Tennessee). Outside Tennessee, dial 615-254-4946. Hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. This office can cash prizes of any amount.
Knoxville District Office: Cedar Springs Shopping Center, 9298 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37922, (865) 251-1900. Hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. This office can cash prizes up to $199,999.
Chattanooga District Office: 2020 Gunbarrel Rd., Suite 106, Chattanooga, TN 37421, (423) 308-3610. Hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. This office can cash prizes up to $199,999.
Memphis District Office: Chiles Plaza, 7424 U.S. Highway 64, Suite 104, Memphis, TN 38133, (901) 322-8520. Hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. This office can cash prizes up to $199,999.
Check previous winning numbers and payouts at https://tnlottery.com/.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Tennessean editor. You can send feedback using this form.

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Those who have known and loved the comedy of Heywood Banks will raise a “toast” to him this New Year’s Eve at YES Cinema’s Comedy Showcase Dec. 31.
Audience members will be able to sing along to some of his greatest hits, and perhaps some new material as well, in this 90-minute show that’s promised to be fun for the whole family.
A frequent guest on the BOB & TOM SHOW, Banks is well known for his comedy songs like “Toast,” “Wiper Blades,” “18 Wheels on a Big Rig” and many others. It is not his first time in the Columbus area, as he has performed at The Commons for many years as well as the Brown County Playhouse in Nashville. Banks promises the show to be a fun and family-friendly event featuring many of the popular songs he’s written throughout his career.
“It’s just a fun show. There’s… nothing offensive, no political stuff, it’s safe for all spectrums of human beings,” Banks said.
YES Cinema’s Comedy Showcases began more than 15 years ago as a way to provide unique entertainment opportunities to Columbus, Lincoln-Central Neighborhood Family Center’s Diane Doup said. Throughout the years, they have invited several well-known comedians such as Costaki Economopoulos, Mike Armstrong and Tim Cavanagh, Nick Griffin, Chick McGee, Josh Arnold and many more.
Like Banks, many of these comedians are also popular on the BOB & TOM SHOW, who Doup said helps YES Cinema in both attracting good talent and promoting their comedy showcases. Over the years, she said they have received great feedback from both the crowd and the comedians, with many comedians becoming repeat guests because of the enthusiastic audience as well as the venue.
“And then our guests are very supportive not only in supporting these wondeful comedians who do this for a living, but also supporting the mission of YES Cinema which is to fund programming through Lincoln-Central Neighborhood Family Center,” Doup said. “So not only are you enjoying a wonderful night of entertainment, but you’re also doing good for others in your own community, and I think the comedians feel the same way. They’ve always been very fair with us in their fees and part of that is is because they support our mission as well.”
Doup said they are excited to host Banks and knows audience members won’t be disappointed with the show. She said the show is not only a great way to spend time with family, but also provides a fun relief from the stress of the holidays and surrounding negativity, a sentiment Banks shares.
“Everybody needs to laugh and to do this is a privilege that I’ve had for a long time. It’s almost like therapy for people. I mean, people come up to me after the show and say, ‘oh, I haven’t laughed for so long.’…,” Banks said. “You know, they say you have to laugh a couple times a day for good health and there’s so much serious stuff in the world, to just be able to let go is just a real treat for people. And it’s a good way to start to the new year, we got a new year coming up and we’re going to need all the laughter we can.”
Tickets for the 9:30 p.m. show are still available on YES Cinema’s website. General admission costs $35 and VIP tickets cost $45. Questions may be directed to the Lincoln-Central Neighborhood Family Center at 812-379-1630.
Nobody covers Columbus, Indiana and the surrounding areas like The Republic.
2980 N. National Road, Suite A, Columbus, IN 47201
Main Switchboard: (812) 372-7811

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