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President-elect Donald Trump’s economic advisers and congressional Republicans have begun preliminary discussions about making significant changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other federal safety net programs to offset the enormous cost of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts next year.

Among the options under discussion by GOP lawmakers and aides are new work requirements and spending caps for the programs, according to seven people familiar with the talks, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Those conversations have included some economic officials on Trump’s transition team, the people said.

However, concern is high among some Republicans about the political downsides of such cuts, which would affect programs that provide support for at least 70 million low-income Americans, and some people familiar with the talks stressed that discussions are preliminary.

“I don’t think that passing just an extension of tax cuts that shows on paper an increase in the deficit [is] going to be challenging,” said one GOP tax adviser. “But the other side of the coin is, you start to add things to reduce the deficit, and that gets politically more challenging.”

As cold temperatures are once again upon us, it's unlikely many Canadians are thinking about heat waves. But Canadians increasingly have to deal with them, and it's virtually certain next year won't be any different.

In 2021, a heat wave stifled parts of B.C., killing roughly 600 people. As a result, many people rushed out to buy air conditioners, and the government even created a program to provide free AC to low-income families.

The effort to stay cool in a warming world is a challenge. Our air conditioners are not only hooked up to energy grids that may be fossil fuel-intensive, but they often leak, emitting harmful greenhouse gases — the most concerning being hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HFCs) — into the atmosphere.

They also emit a lot of heat themselves.

So how do countries keep their citizens cool and safe as heat waves become more frequent and intense without increasing their carbon footprint?

The answer is called sustainable cooling.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she agrees with Ontario Premier Doug Ford's suggestion that Canada and the U.S. look at cutting Mexico out of the North American trade agreement.

Smith was asked by Power & Politics host David Cochrane if she agrees with Ford's suggestion that Mexico be dropped from the agreement if it doesn't tighten up restrictions on Chinese products.

"A thousand per cent," she replied. "I'm very much in sync with what he has to say.

"The real issue we have is that Mexico has not been that equal partner with the United States. In addition to that, they're inviting China to engage in investment in Mexico."

On Tuesday, Ford floated the idea of returning to a Canada-U.S. bilateral trade pact like the one that predated the enactment of NAFTA in 1994.

US Muslim leaders who supported Republican Donald Trump to protest against the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza and attacks on Lebanon have been deeply disappointed by his cabinet picks, they tell Reuters.

“Trump won because of us and we’re not happy with his Secretary of State pick and others,” says Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump. Muslim support for Trump helped him win Michigan and may have factored into other swing state wins, strategists believe.

China's Baidu Inc (9888.HK), opens new tab unveiled a slew of new applications for its artificial intelligence technology on Tuesday, including a text-to-image generator and a tool that enables users to develop software applications without coding expertise.

The country's leading search engine company is among tech firms shifting their focus to the commercialization of large language model (LLM) applications after nearly two years of heavy investment in research and development in models that they tout as alternatives to OpenAI's GPT.

Former President Donald Trump has revealed that Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein may be one of his "favorite politicians."

Trump, the Republican nominee, lavished unlikely praise on Stein, who is far to the left of him politically, during one of his final campaign rallies of the year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Monday.

The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have new marching orders — to more quickly embrace and deploy artificial intelligence as a matter of national security.

U.S. President Joe Biden signed the directive, part of a new national security memorandum, on Thursday. The goal is to make sure the United States remains a leader in AI technology while also aiming to prevent the country from falling victim to AI tools wielded by adversaries like China.

The memo, which calls AI “an era-defining technology,” also lays out guidelines that the White House says are designed to prevent the use of AI to harm civil liberties or human rights.

Bluesky has revealed how it plans to start making money without necessarily having to rely on ads. The platform will remain free to use for everyone, though it’s working on a premium subscription that will provide access to profile customization tools (remember when Myspace offered that for free?) and higher quality video uploads.

One thing that you won't get as a paid user, though, is any preferential treatment. Unlike certain other social platforms, Bluesky won’t boost the visibility of premium members’ posts. Nor will they get any kind of blue check, according to chief operating officer Rose Wang.

Russia's Federal Security Service on Friday accused six British diplomats of spying and said a decision has been made to withdraw their accreditation.

Russian state TV quoted an official from the security service known as the FSB as saying that they will be expelled. The expulsions come as Prime Minister Keir Starmer visits Washington for talks with U.S. President Joe Biden that will include Ukraine's request to use Western-supplied weapons against targets inside Russia.

Starmer said on his way to the U.S. that Britain does not "seek any conflict with Russia."

"Russia started this conflict. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. Russia could end this conflict straight away," he told reporters.

The reason Kamala Harris keeps visiting North Carolina is made evident in an eye-popping pattern her campaign volunteers have noticed while knocking on doors.

What they see are signs of a state growing so rapidly that Asheville's airport is a giant construction site and almost six per cent of the city's residents have moved here from another state in just one year.

Campaign volunteer Susan Thomas only got here two months ago, and she's already canvassing on behalf of the Democratic presidential candidate.

She hears a familiar story: one person, after another, after another, tells her they've just moved from somewhere else.

In the span of just a few minutes last Sunday, Thomas encountered South Carolina Democrats who moved here this year for cooler weather and bluer politics, beside another family of South Carolina Democrats who just moved in next door. She then came across a block party hosted by recently arrived California Democrats, where a Democrat from New Orleans was standing beside the host.