A GSC Game World developer admitted the team nerfed Stalker 2’s A-Life 2.0 simulation system due to performance-related concerns. The A-Life system in the original Stalker governed virtually every aspect of the world’s simulation. It proved integral to the AI behaviors of NPCs and creatures in the Zone , ensuring the world kept turning independent of the player. For the sequel, A-Life 2.0 was explained as a tool that guaranteed gameplay would feel even more emergent. Hopeful players were surprised, then, when mention of the system vanished from Stalker 2’s Steam page before launch. The shock increased post-release, as many became convinced A-Life’s presence had either been removed or heavily diminished. Developers have since confessed that it’s not working as intended, but the extent of the issue is just starting to surface. Stalker 2 dev explains A-Life 2.0’s shortcomings Speaking with IGN , GSC Game World CEO and Creative Director Ievgen Grygorovych Maria Grygorovych broke down what went awry with A-Life’s updated version during development. Performance issues sit at the heart of the matter, Ievgen explained, noting that the team had to reduce A-Life 2.0’s area of influence around the player because of optimization concerns on PC and console. A properly functioning A-Life should impact a wider range of the virtual world, all while “requiring much more memory resources.” Attempts at improving optimization resulted in GSC “cut[ing] things from different directions,” leading to the game’s buggy lunch . However, the developer has promised the crew is hard at work improving Stalker 2’s performance to boost A-Life 2.0 functionality. “We are now continuing working on the optimization part to bring more resources for the A-Life system, to increase the range where A-Life is actually visualized,” Ievgen said. Related: As for why A-Life suddenly disappeared from the Steam description, Maria said the decision came from a marketing representative who told them that most players weren’t aware of the feature. To simplify information on the store page, marketing removed A-Life 2.0 details without GSC’s knowledge or permission. Maria only learned about the missing particulars because of Reddit. IGN said she showed screenshots of internal communications to prove her claims. Mentions of the feature won’t return to Steam until it’s fixed in-game. For now, there’s no timeline on when exactly players can expect that to happen.

NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump’s lawyers formally asked a judge Monday to throw out his hush money criminal conviction, arguing continuing the case would present unconstitutional “disruptions to the institution of the Presidency.“ In a filing made public Tuesday, Trump’s lawyers told Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan that dismissal is warranted because of the extraordinary circumstances of his impending return to the White House. “Wrongly continuing proceedings in this failed lawfare case disrupts President Trump’s transition efforts,” the attorneys continued, before citing the “overwhelming national mandate granted to him by the American people on November 5, 2024.” Prosecutors will have until Dec. 9 to respond. They have said they will fight any efforts to dismiss the case but have indicated openness to delaying sentencing until after Trump’s second term ends in 2029. Following Trump’s election victory last month, Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed his sentencing, previously scheduled for late November, to allow the defense and prosecution to weigh in on the future of the case. He also delayed a decision on Trump’s prior bid to dismiss the case on immunity grounds. Trump has been fighting for months to reverse the conviction, which involved efforts to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels, whose affair allegations threatened to disrupt his 2016 campaign. He has denied any wrongdoing. Trump takes office Jan. 20. Merchan hasn’t set a timetable for a decision. A dismissal would erase Trump’s historic conviction, sparing him the cloud of a criminal record and possible prison sentence. Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime and the first convicted criminal to be elected to the office. Merchan could also decide to uphold the verdict and proceed to sentencing, delay the case until Trump leaves office, wait until a federal appeals court rules on Trump’s parallel effort to get the case moved out of state court or choose some other option.Within days of Donald Trump’s election victory, health care entrepreneur Calley Means turned to social media to crowdsource advice. “First 100 days,” said Means, a former consultant to Big Pharma who uses the social platform X to focus attention on chronic disease. “What should be done to reform the FDA?” The question was more than rhetorical. Means is among a cadre of health business leaders and nonmainstream doctors who are influencing President Donald Trump’s focus on health policy. Trump’s return to the White House has given Means and others in this space significant clout in shaping the nascent health policies of the new administration and its federal agencies. It’s also giving newfound momentum to “Make America Healthy Again,” or MAHA, a controversial movement that challenges prevailing thinking on public health and chronic disease. Its followers couch their ideals in phrases like “health freedom” and “true health.” Their stated causes are as diverse as revamping certain agricultural subsidies, firing National Institutes of Health employees, rethinking childhood vaccination schedules, and banning marketing of ultra-processed foods to children on TV. Public health leaders say the emerging Trump administration’s interest in elevating the sometimes unorthodox concepts could be catastrophic, eroding decades of scientific progress while spurring a rise in preventable disease. They worry the administration’s support could weaken trust in public health agencies. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said he welcomes broad intellectual scientific discussion but is concerned that Trump will parrot untested and unproven public health ideas he hears as if they are fact. Experience has shown that people with unproven ideas will have his ear and his “very large bully pulpit,” he said. “Because he’s president, people will believe he won’t say things that aren’t true. This president, he will.” But those in the MAHA camp have a very different take. They say they have been maligned as dangerous for questioning the status quo. The election has given them an enormous opportunity to shape politics and policies, and they say they won’t undermine public health. Instead, they say, they will restore trust in federal health agencies that lost public support during the pandemic. “It may be a brilliant strategy by the right,” said Peter McCullough, a cardiologist who has come under fire for saying COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe. He was describing some of the election-season messaging that mainstreamed their perspectives. “The right was saying we care about medical and environmental issues. The left was pursuing abortion rights and a negative campaign on Trump. But everyone should care about health. Health should be apolitical.” The movement is largely anti-regulatory and anti-big government, whether concerning raw milk or drug approvals, although implementing changes would require more regulation. Many of its concepts cross over to include ideas that have also been championed by some on the far left. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist Trump has nominated to run the Department of Health and Human Services, has called for firing hundreds of people at the National Institutes of Health, removing fluoride from water, boosting federal support for psychedelic therapy, and loosening restrictions on raw milk, consumption of which can expose consumers to foodborne illness. Its sale has prompted federal raids on farms for not complying with food safety regulations. Means has called for top-down changes at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which he says has been co-opted by the food industry. Though he himself is not trained in science or medicine, he has said people had almost no chance of dying of COVID-19 if they were “metabolically healthy,” referring to eating, sleeping, exercise and stress management habits, and has said that about 85 percent of deaths and health care costs in the U.S. are tied to preventable foodborne metabolic conditions. A co-founder of Truemed, a company that helps consumers use pretax savings and reimbursement programs on supplements, sleep aids, and exercise equipment, Means says he has had conversations behind closed doors with dozens of members of Congress. He said he also helped bring RFK Jr. and Trump together. RFK Jr. endorsed Trump in August after ending his independent presidential campaign. “I had this vision for a year, actually. It sounds very woo-woo, but I was in a sweat tent with him in Austin at a campaign event six months before, and I just had this strong vision of him standing with Trump,” Means said recently on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. The former self-described never-Trumper said that, after Trump’s first assassination attempt, he felt it was a powerful moment. Means called RFK Jr. and worked with conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson to connect him to the former president. Trump and RFK Jr. then had weeks of conversations about topics such as child obesity and causes of infertility, Means said. “I really felt, and he felt, like this could be a realignment of American politics,” Means said. He is joined in the effort by his sister, Casey Means, a Stanford University-trained doctor and co-author with her brother of “Good Energy,” a book about improving metabolic health. The duo has blamed Big Pharma and the agriculture industry for increasing rates of obesity, depression and chronic health conditions in the country. They have also raised questions about vaccines. “Yeah, I bet that one vaccine probably isn’t causing autism, but what about the 20 that they are getting before 18 months,” Casey Means said in the Joe Rogan podcast episode with her brother. The movement, which challenges what its adherents call “the cult of science,” gained significant traction during the pandemic, fueled by a backlash against vaccine and mask mandates that flourished during the Biden administration. Many of its supporters say they gained followers who believed they had been misled on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. In July 2022, Deborah Birx, COVID-19 response coordinator in Trump’s first administration, said on Fox News that “we overplayed the vaccines,” although she noted that they do work. Anthony Fauci, who advised Trump during the pandemic, in December 2020 called the vaccines a game changer that could diminish COVID-19 the way the polio vaccine did for that disease. Eventually, though, it became evident that the shots don’t necessarily prevent transmission and the effectiveness of the booster wanes with time, which some conservatives say led to disillusionment that has driven interest in the health freedom movement. Federal health officials say the rollout of the COVID vaccine was a turning point in the pandemic and that the shots lessen the severity of the disease by teaching the immune system to recognize and fight the virus that causes it. Postelection, some Trump allies such as Elon Musk have called for Fauci to be prosecuted. Fauci declined to comment. Joe Grogan, a former director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council and assistant to Trump, said conservatives have been trying to articulate why government control of health care is troublesome. “Two things have happened. The government went totally overboard and lied about many things during COVID and showed no compassion about people’s needs outside of COVID,” he said. “RFK Jr. came along and articulated very simply that government control of health care can’t be trusted, and we’re spending money, and it isn’t making anyone healthier. In some instances, it may be making people sicker.” The MAHA movement capitalizes on many of the nonconventional health concepts that have been darlings of the left, such as promoting organic foods and food as medicine. But in an environment of polarized politics, the growing prominence of leaders who challenge what they call the cult of science could lead to more public confusion and division, some health analysts say. Jeffrey Singer, a surgeon and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian public policy research group, said in a statement that he agrees with RFK Jr.’s focus on reevaluating the public health system. But he said it comes with risks. “I am concerned that many of RFK Jr.’s claims about vaccine safety, environmental toxins and food additives lack evidence, have stoked public fears and contributed to a decline in childhood vaccination rates,” he said. Measles vaccination among kindergartners in the U.S. dropped to 92.7 percent in the 2023-24 school year from 95.2 percent in the 2019-20 school year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency said that has left about 280,000 kindergartners at risk.

Hail Flutie: BC celebrates 40th anniversary of Miracle in MiamiCroatia’s incumbent president wins most votes at polls but still faces runoffOTTAWA — Donald Trump ’s comment to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about Canada becoming “a 51st state” was a “joke” made in a good-humoured social context and not a serious comment, says Dominic LeBlanc, the only cabinet minister at a Mar-a-Lago dinner Friday night. Citing two unnamed sources, Fox News reported Monday night that Trump said he would levy his threatened 25 per cent tariffs against Canadian products if his concern about border security and trade deficits isn’t resolved. Fox News further reported that when Trudeau replied it would kill the Canadian economy, Trump said if Canada can’t survive unless it is ripping off the U.S. to the tune of $100 billion, it could become “the 51st state” and Trudeau could become governor. Fox News also reported that so-called nervous laughter ensued with someone at the table saying Canada would be a very liberal state, and Trump suggesting it could become two — one conservative and one liberal. The details reported by Fox News report were not confirmed by the Canadian government, but nor was the statement attributed to Trump denied. Before a cabinet meeting Tuesday, LeBlanc was asked if it shows Trump thinks Canada is a joke. He responded defensively, saying, “Not at all, not at all. That was not the context at all. In a three-hour social evening at the president’s residence in Florida on a long weekend of American Thanksgiving, the conversation was going to be lighthearted. The President was telling jokes. The President was teasing us. It was, of course, on that issue, in no way a serious comment we had.” LeBlanc repeated the government’s lines since Saturday that the two leaders and a handful of advisers had a wide-ranging conversation about trade and border security issues “that was very productive.” “But the fact that there’s a warm, cordial relationship between the two leaders and the President is able to joke like that for us was a — we don’t have a transcript. Nobody, if you look carefully at the picture, nobody had pads that were taking notes. It was a social evening,” LeBlanc insisted. “It wasn’t a meeting in a boardroom with 10 bureaucrats keeping notes ... And there were moments where it was entertaining and funny, and there were moments where we were able to do, we think, some good work for Canada.” On Tuesday, Trump posted a photoshopped image on his Truth Social platform, of him standing next to a large Canadian flag overlooking a mountain range, dominated by what looked to be (and Google Lens said was) the Matterhorn in Switzerland, with the message: “Oh Canada!” It was not clear what Trump’s intention was. On Tuesday, Trump posted a photoshopped image on his Truth Social platform, of him standing next to a large Canadian flag overlooking a mountain range, dominated by what looked to be (and Google Lens said was) the Matterhorn in Switzerland, with the message: “Oh Canada!” Neither Trudeau nor Chrystia Freeland, his deputy and finance minister who was not on the trip, commented to reporters Tuesday about the so-called joke about the 51st state. Former Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose in an interview with the CBC said while it’s not clear exactly what was said, she didn’t take it as a joke. “It’s not funny, and it’s not funny to be threatened with a 25 per cent tariff across the board for a country that is so dependent on trade with the U.S.,” said Ambrose. Ambrose previously sat on Trudeau’s outside advisory council during the renegotiation of NAFTA, and doesn’t believe that Trudeau and Trump have the kind of rapport that will exempt Canada from tariffs. “I don’t think that there’s a special relationship between the two leaders, and that’s unfortunate, because I think relationships do make a difference.” But she said the “saving grace” may be that many premiers and U.S. governors, and business leaders do have the ability to “bring to bear some pressure on President Trump.” No Canadian media were at Mar-a-Lago or even aware of the trip before internet flight trackers published the prime minister’s plane was en route to Florida. The prime minister’s team said Trump’s advisers had insisted the meeting remain confidential until the dinner started. Canadian accounts of what was said after their meeting, including the Star’s, relied on brief comments by LeBlanc over the weekend, and on confidential sources — who spoke on condition they not be identified in order to talk about the private discussions. The Star reported Saturday on what Trump and Trudeau discussed, and on Monday, the Star reported Trudeau’s team believes it may be possible for Canada to get a reprieve on the threatened tariffs if it addresses the border concerns of the incoming Trump Administration. A senior Canadian official said Trump was clear his focus is on stopping illegal immigration, any flow of illegal drugs — especially fentanyl — and also that he likes tariffs and dislikes trade deficits. But sources did not reveal Trump’s 51st-state comment before Fox News published it. Several Canadian cabinet ministers declined comment Tuesday. “I’ll pass, thank you,” said Jenna Sudds, the minister of families, children and social development. “I think he was trying to joke, but I wasn’t there,” said International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen. J Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne insisted the meeting itself is important. “The one thing that you should take note is that Prime Minister Trudeau was the first leader of the G7 to be hosted by President Trump. I think that is really significant. That is a testament to the strategic nature of our relationship.” With a file from Ryan TumiltyCHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 6, 2024-- The board of directors of Morningstar, Inc. (Nasdaq: MORN), a leading provider of independent investment research, today declared a quarterly dividend of 45.5 cents per share, payable Jan. 31, 2025, to shareholders of record as of Jan. 3, 2025. The five-cent, or 12.3%, increase from the prior quarterly rate of 40.5 cents per share results in an expected annualized dividend of $1.82 per share compared with the prior annualized rate of $1.62 per share. While subsequent dividends will be subject to board approval, the company expects to pay three additional dividends in 2025: About Morningstar, Inc. Morningstar, Inc. is a leading provider of independent investment insights in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The Company offers an extensive line of products and solutions that serve a wide range of market participants, including individual and institutional investors in public and private capital markets, financial advisors and wealth managers, asset managers, retirement plan providers and sponsors, and issuers of fixed-income securities. 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For us, these risks and uncertainties include, among others, failing to maintain and protect our brand, independence, and reputation; failure to prevent and/or mitigate cybersecurity events and the failure to protect confidential information, including personal information about individuals; compliance failures, regulatory action, or changes in laws applicable to our credit ratings operations, investment advisory, environmental, social, and governance, and index businesses; failing to innovate our product and service offerings, or anticipate our clients’ changing needs; the impact of artificial intelligence and related technologies on our business, legal, and regulatory exposure profile and reputation; failing to detect errors in our products or the failure of our products to perform properly due to defects, malfunctions, or similar problems; failing to recruit, develop, and retain qualified employees; prolonged volatility or downturns affecting the financial sector, global financial markets, and the global economy and its effect on our revenue from asset-based fees and our credit ratings business; failing to scale our operations and increase productivity in order to implement our business plans and strategies; liability for any losses that result from errors in our automated advisory tools or errors in the use of the information and data we collect; inadequacy of our operational risk management, business continuity programs and insurance coverage in the event of a material disruptive event; failing to close, or achieve the anticipated economic or other benefits of, a strategic transaction on a timely basis or at all; failing to efficiently integrate and leverage acquisitions and other investments, which may not realize the expected business or financial benefits, to produce the results we anticipate; failing to maintain growth across our businesses in today's fragmented geopolitical, regulatory, and cultural world; liability relating to the information and data we collect, store, use, create, and distribute or the reports that we publish or are produced by our software products; the potential adverse effect of our indebtedness on our cash flows and financial and operational flexibility; challenges in accounting for tax complexities in the global jurisdictions which we operate in and their effect on our tax obligations and tax rates; and failing to protect our intellectual property rights or claims of intellectual property infringement against us. A more complete description of these risks and uncertainties, among others, can be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including our most recent Reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q. If any of these risks and uncertainties materialize, our actual future results and other future events may vary significantly from what we expect. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by law. You are, however, advised to review any further disclosures we make on related subjects, and about new or additional risks, uncertainties and assumptions in our filings with the SEC on Forms 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K. ©2024 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. MORN-C View source version on businesswire.com : https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241205277268/en/ Landon Hudson, +1 312 696-6037 ornewsroom@morningstar.com KEYWORD: ILLINOIS UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: BANKING ASSET MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FINANCE SOURCE: Morningstar, Inc. Copyright Business Wire 2024. PUB: 12/06/2024 04:15 PM/DISC: 12/06/2024 04:13 PM http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241205277268/en