Osoyoos fire remains a concern Monday with forecast calling for more wind | Globalnews.ca - Global News

With Monday’s forecast calling for more wind, crews will be keeping a close eye on a wildfire burning close to Osoyoos, B.C.

The BC Wildfire Service said 24-hour resourcing has been put in place to fight the Eagle Bluff fire, with two initial attack crews working overnight to create fire breaks.

About 700 properties in the area were evacuated Saturday evening as the wind drove the flames closer to town.

Another 2,000 homes remain under evacuation alert.

While conditions were extremely smoky and hazy late Sunday, crews say the blaze showed decreased activity on Sunday.

1:44 Eagle Bluff wildfire burning near Osoyoos

The fire is currently estimated to be around 885 hectares.

The Eagle Bluff fire has also prompted a travel advisory for a section of Highway 3.

According to Drive BC, travel is not recommended on Highway 3 between Keremeos and Osoyoos.

Drivers are advised to use a detour available on Highway 3A to Highway 97.

2:07 More tributes for fallen firefighter in B.C.

Meanwhile, a wildland firefighter from Ontario was fatally injured Friday fighting a fire in the Prince George fire region of the province.

According to police, the 25-year-old was working in a remote area, north of Fort St. John, when the UTV he was riding on rolled over a steep drop on a gravel road.

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“He was transported by helicopter to the Fort St. John airport,” RCMP said, “but sadly succumbed to his injuries while en route.”

Police said the events surrounding the man’s death are being investigated by several agencies, including WorkSafeBC and the BC Coroners Service. He was working for a private B.C. company.

2:19 Another wildfire firefighter death in B.C.

Wildfire officials are also keeping an eye on the Ross Moore Lake wildfire burning just south of Kamloops, which is showing increased fire behaviour.

Authorities say this fire has been causing a column of widespread smoke in the area, which is visible from Kamloops and highways 5 and 5A.

However, they say there is no threat to the city, structures or nearby highway corridors.

The BC Wildfire Service said the fire is primarily active on the west flank, in areas with dense trees.

Forecasted winds, increased temperatures and relatively low humidity are expected to increase fire behaviour.

There are currently 356 wildfires burning in the province, with 14 of them being highly visible or threatening communities.

More on BC

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Pro-Donald Trump group spends more than $40m on legal fees - BBC

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By Sam Cabral

BBC News

The primary fundraising and political spending group supporting Donald Trump has spent more than $40m (£31m) on legal fees so far this year.

That money, due to be confirmed in a financial filing on Monday, has been used to defend the former president and his allies across multiple cases.

It is a more than two-fold increase in Save America's spending on legal costs across 2021 and 2022 combined.

As Mr Trump's legal battles intensify, the bills will only keep rising.

He awaits federal trial over his alleged mishandling of classified documents, state trial over a hush-money probe in New York, and a defamation trial from writer E Jean Carroll.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and state prosecutors in Georgia are soon expected to charge Mr Trump, 77, over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Save America is a political action committee, or PAC, founded and controlled by Mr Trump. His campaign manager Susie Wiles decides whose legal bills should be funded, according to the Washington Post.

It is funding representation for Mr Trump and those drawn into the various investigations against him who have requested help from his team, the Post reported.

That includes Walt Nauta, his close personal aide, and Carlos de Oliveira, the property manager at his Mar-a-Lago resort, who both face charges in the classified documents case.

The campaign has called it protection from "unlawful harassment".

Spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement that the DOJ "has continued to go after innocent Americans because they worked for President Trump and they know they have no legitimate case".

Covering their legal fees, he said, will "protect these innocent people from financial ruin and prevent their lives from being completely destroyed".

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But the $40m sum far exceeds any other expense Save America has incurred during the 2024 presidential campaign.

And footing those legal bills, for the most part, are grassroots Trump supporters from around the country, whose small-dollar contributions make up the vast majority of Save America's fundraising.

After leaving office, Mr Trump claimed that the 2020 election was stolen and urged supporters for months to back him up by sending to Save America.

Last year, he amassed over $100m in donations, using more than $16m to cover legal fees and about $10m on personal fees. His campaign and its supporters never proved widespread election fraud.

DOJ prosecutors sought information last year about how the PAC was formed and is operated, as part of their criminal investigation into the 2020 election.

At the start of his 2024 campaign, Mr Trump devoted only one cent of every dollar raised online to Save America.

But earlier this year, he began diverting a larger percentage - 10 cents of every dollar - away from the campaign and toward the PAC.

Jason Torchinsky, a campaign finance expert at the Holtzman Vogel Law Firm, said the candidate may be violating federal election laws by accepting donations that directly cover his legal expenses.

"It is not unprecedented for a campaign committee to pay legal fees," Mr Torchinsky told BBC News.

"But the issue is that Trump is a federal candidate, with a third party to pay his legal bills, that really do amount to a gift to the candidate that exceeds federal contribution limits."

National opinion polls show Mr Trump firmly in the lead to win the Republican nomination despite his mounting legal troubles, but some of his 2024 opponents have criticised the expenditures.

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A spokesman for Mr Trump's chief rival, Ron DeSantis, accused him of spending this year "on two things: falsely attacking Ron DeSantis and paying his own legal fees, not a cent on defeating Joe Biden".

"He's going to middle class men and women in this country and they're donating $15, $25, $50, $100 because they believe in Donald Trump and they want him to be president again," Chris Christie, another candidate, said in a June interview on CNN.

"They're not giving that money so he can pay his personal legal fees."

But Ohio Senator JD Vance, a Republican who has endorsed Mr Trump's latest White House bid, defended the move on Saturday.

"I have good friends who did nothing wrong who had their legal fees paid by Save America PAC," he said. "Would you rather they throw all of their employees under a bus?"

• How big are Donald Trump's legal problems?
• What charges could Trump face in January 6 probe?
• Rivals' silence shows Trump's dominance in 2024 race

There is some evidence the escalating fees are putting a strain on Mr Trump's political operation.

According to the New York Times, Save America has requested a refund on a $60m contribution it made to another group supporting Mr Trump. It is unclear how much of, or even if, the money was refunded.

Trump advisors are set to create a separate legal defence fund to handle legal costs for those entangled in probes of the former president, US media reported.

But Mr Torchinsky, the campaign finance expert, pointed out that, unlike in the case of Save America, such a fund will not require public disclosure of what is raised and where the money is going.

And with more indictments expected and preparation for trials imminent, he said: "I would expect the fees to go up exponentially."

"It was $40m in the first half of the year. It wouldn't shock me if the next six months rack up $60m."

Related Topics

• US election 2024
• Donald Trump
• United States

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Mari Ruti, Scholar of Gender, Sexuality and More, Dies at 59 - The New York Times

Her books explored psychoanalytic theories and a range of other topics, including the enduring popularity of a Julia Roberts movie.

Mari Ruti, who in wide-ranging writings on gender and sexuality found food for thought not only in psychoanalysts like Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan but also in online pornography, self-help books and a Julia Roberts movie, died on June 8 at a hospital near her home in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. She was 59.

Heather Jessup, a friend, said the cause was complications of cancer.

Dr. Ruti, a longtime professor at the University of Toronto, was known for tackling, both in the classroom and in more than a dozen books, subjects like how to lead a meaningful life and the effects of rigid gender roles.

“Bringing together psychoanalysis, feminism and queer theory, Mari focused on the fissures in society and considered how we might most authentically respond to them,” Hilary Neroni, a professor at the University of Vermont and Dr. Ruti’s literary executor, said by email. “For her, this meant not trying to cover them over but rather working to engage them.”

She did that in books like “Feminist Film Theory and ‘Pretty Woman’” (2016), in which she took a fresh look at the 1990 movie starring Ms. Roberts as a beautiful prostitute and Richard Gere as the businessman who falls for her, and at other romantic comedies — a genre that is often derided by critics as fluff yet has proved popular among women. “Pretty Women,” she concluded, was more complex than it seemed.

“It dexterously navigates the desire for a combination of female independence and girly femininity that characterizes the post-feminist world,” she wrote. “In giving us a sexually assertive, outspoken and autonomous heroine who also happens to look stunning in an opera gown, it covers a lot of bases.”

In “Penis Envy & Other Bad Feelings: The Emotional Costs of Everyday Life” (2018) and other books, Dr. Ruti took a lively look at the illusive promises of the self-help genre, and at a culture built on unfulfilled desire, whether sexual or consumerist.

The hit romantic comedy “Pretty Woman,” Dr. Ruti concluded, was more complex than it seemed.

“Consumer culture guarantees its vitality by creating an endless loop of dissatisfaction: It keeps us in thrall by offering us the prospect of satisfaction — essentially, the fantasy of a better future — without ever entirely satisfying us, with the result that we keep going back to its offerings in the hope that we’ll eventually find what we’re looking for,” she wrote in “Penis Envy.” “Existentially, the consequence of this is that we’re constantly oriented toward the future, living in a state of anticipation (in a state of cruel optimism) that keeps us from being fully present in the moment.”

A chapter of that book explored the effects of online pornography, including, as she put it in a 2018 interview with The Los Angeles Review of Books, “the ways in which straight women are pressured to put up with their partners’ online porn consumption.”

“Not only does it make many women feel terrible about themselves when their partner prefers online porn to sex with them; women are also deprived of sex,” she said. “The idea that women don’t need sex as much as men is a heteropatriarchal myth. And now that so many men are getting their sexual needs met online, women are left in the painful position of not knowing what to do with their sexuality.”

Whatever subject she was writing about, Dr. Ruti was known for making advanced ideas accessible.

“She has that rare gift of being able to communicate great complexities with compelling clarity — all in a way that is at times mesmerizing to read,” Alice A. Jardine, a Harvard professor who once served as a mentor to Dr. Ruti, wrote in a 2019 letter to the University of Toronto supporting Dr. Ruti’s designation as “university professor,” a title recognizing particular distinction in her field.

Dr. Neroni has seen that in her classrooms.

“I have taught her books many times, and students often come up to me to say that Mari’s book completely changed their life,” she said. “This rarely happens with other books, even ones the students find fascinating.”

In books like “Penis Envy & Other Bad Feelings: The Emotional Costs of Everyday Life,” Dr. Ruti took a lively look at the illusive promises of the self-help genre.

Dr. Ruti was born on March 31, 1964, in Nuijamaa, Finland, a rural area near the Soviet border, to Jukka and Ritva Ruti. Her parents were laborers and money was scarce, but she made her way to the United States as a high school exchange student. She then earned a scholarship to Brown University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in 1988.

“I grew up poor, in a house without running water, with parents who worked in low-paying and soul-slaying jobs, yet somehow I made my way to my current blessed life,” she said in 2018. “There’s a lot of guilt I carry about this, because I know that I was given the kinds of opportunities — such as a scholarship to Brown University — that my parents never had.”

At Harvard, she earned two master’s degrees and then, in 2000, a Ph.D. in comparative literature, staying on for a time as a lecturer. Dr. Jessup, now an assistant professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, was among her students.

“She never taught from a place of mastery,” Dr. Jessup said in a phone interview. “She was always including her students in the figuring out of the text. We were just all a part of a conversation.”

A few years later Dr. Ruti moved to the University of Toronto, where her courses were popular. Her first book, “Reinventing the Soul: Posthumanist Theory and Psychic Life,” was published in 2006.

Dr. Ruti is survived by her mother and a brother, Marko.

In 2018 Dr. Ruti received a breast cancer diagnosis. One doctor gave her a year to live, but she aggressively pursued treatments.

Dr. Neroni shared a manuscript of a book by Dr. Ruti expected to be published posthumously, “The Brokenness of Being: Lacanian Theory and Benchmark Traumas.” In it, she juxtaposed society’s expectations against experiences with trauma, including her own battle against cancer.

“Our society does not possess the resources for dealing with irreparable damage,” she wrote. “It expects a high degree of performance and efficiency even from those who have experienced an irredeemable loss. The notion that an individual may never be able to return to their earlier level of productivity is, from the perspective of positive thinking, unfathomable. The idea that all barriers are surmountable is so deeply ingrained that there is little space for the finality of defeat.”

Yet against that bleak assessment, she floated the idea that creative activity could be a buoy.

“For me,” she wrote, “the satisfaction that I still obtain from writing — my version of creative activity — gives me enough reason to keep living.”

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West Africa threatens force on Niger coup leaders, French embassy attacked - Reuters

• Summary

• ECOWAS bloc gives ultimatum to Niger's new military leaders
• Pro-coup protesters burn French flags in Niamey
• Military takeover was Sahel region's seventh since 2020
• From Paris, Niger's PM says sanctions would be disastrous

NIAMEY/ABUJA, July 30 (Reuters) - West African nations imposed sanctions and threatened force on Sunday if Niger's coup leaders fail to reinstate ousted President Mohammed Bazoum within a week, while supporters of the junta attacked the French embassy in Niamey.

The 15-nation ECOWAS bloc's response to the Sahel region's seventh coup of recent years came as crowds in Niger's capital Niamey burned French flags and stoned the former colonial power's mission, drawing tear gas from police.

Images showed fires at the embassy walls and people being loaded into ambulances with bloodied legs.

At an emergency summit in Nigeria to discuss last week's coup, leaders of the Economic Community of West African States called for constitutional order to be restored, warning of reprisals if not.

"Such measures may include the use of force," their communique said, adding that defence officials would meet immediately to that effect.

Chad's President Mahamat Idriss Deby, who came to power in 2021 after a coup, met his Nigerian counterpart Bola Tinubu on the sidelines of the summit and volunteered to speak to the military leaders in Niger, two presidential aides told Reuters, asking not to be identified.

Niger's state TV showed Deby arriving and meeting them.

ECOWAS and the eight-member West African Economic and Monetary Union said that with immediate effect borders with Niger would be closed, commercial flights banned, financial transactions halted, national assets frozen and aid ended.

Military officials involved in the coup would be banned from travelling and have their assets frozen, it added.

Niger's prime minister under Bazoum's government, Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou, said ECOWAS sanctions would be disastrous because the country relies heavily on international partners to cover its budgetary needs.

"I know the fragility of Niger, I know the economic and financial context of Niger having been the finance minister and now prime minister," Mahamadou, who was abroad when the coup occurred, told France24 television from Paris.

"This is a country that will not be able to resist these kinds of sanctions. It will be catastrophic."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomed ECOWAS's action on Sunday.

"We join ECOWAS and regional leaders in calling for the immediate release of President Mohamed Bazoum and his family and the restoration of all state functions to the legitimate, democratically-elected government," said Blinken in a statement.

CAN SANCTIONS WORK?

Similar sanctions were imposed by ECOWAS on Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea following coups in those countries in the past three years.

Although the financial sanctions led to defaults on debt - in Mali in particular - such measures have tended to hurt civilians more than the military leaders who seized power in some of the world's poorest countries, political analysts say. Timelines to restore civilian rule have been agreed in all three countries, but there has been little progress implementing them.

The military coup in Niger, which began unfolding on Wednesday, has been widely condemned by neighbours and international partners including the United States, the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union and former colonial power France.

They have all refused to recognise the new leaders led by General Abdourahamane Tiani.

Niger has been a key ally in Western campaigns against insurgents linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State in the Sahel, and there are concerns that the coup could open the door to greater Russian influence there. Thousands of French troops were forced to withdraw from neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso following coups there.

Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world, receiving close to $2 billion a year in official development assistance, according to the World Bank.

The United States, France, Italy and Germany have troops there on military training and missions to fight Islamist insurgents. Niger is also the world's seventh-biggest producer of uranium, the radioactive metal widely used for nuclear energy and in nuclear weapons, as well as for treating cancer.

Ahead of the summit, Niger's junta had warned that ECOWAS was considering an imminent military intervention in collaboration with other African and some Western nations.

"We want to once more remind ECOWAS or any other adventurer, of our firm determination to defend our homeland," junta spokesperson Colonel Amadou Abdramane said.

'COUP ERA MUST STOP'

At their invitation, thousands of people rallied in the capital on Sunday, some heading to France's embassy.

"We are here to express our discontent against France's interference in Niger's affairs. Niger is an independent and sovereign country, so France's decisions have no influence on us," said protester Sani Idrissa.

Similar to events in neighbouring Burkina Faso in September last year following a coup, some protesters tried to climb the embassy walls, while others stomped on burning French flags.

They were dispersed by Niger national guard.

France condemned the violence and said anyone attacking its nationals or interests would face a swift and stern response.

"The era of coups d'etat in Africa must stop. They are not acceptable," French foreign minister Catherine Colonna Catherine Colonna told RTL radio, adding that the situation had calmed by the afternoon and no evacuation of French citizens was planned.

The European Union and France have cut off financial support to Niger and the United States has threatened to do the same.

Sunday's ECOWAS communique thanked nations in line with the bloc's stance but "condemned the pronouncement of support by foreign governments and foreign private military contractors."

Russia's Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who remains active despite leading a failed mutiny against the Russian army's top brass last month, has hailed the coup as good news and offered his fighters' services to bring order.

Reporting by Boureima Balima and Moussa Aksar in Niamey, Felix Onuah in Abuja, Elizabeth Pineau and Layli Foroudi in Paris; Writing by Bate Felix and Alexandra Zavis; Editing by Frances Kerry, Andrew Cawthorne, Don Durfee and Diane Craft

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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More caffeinated drinks recalled in Canada - CTV News

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has issued a recall for six more energy drinks.

"The affected products are being recalled from the marketplace due to various non-compliances related to caffeine content and labelling requirements," the recall notice published Friday said.

The recall includes "Bang: Potent Brain and Body Fuel," "C4" energy drink, "Cocaine" energy supplement, "Fast Twitch" energy drink, "Ghost" energy drink and "Ryse Fuel" energy drink.

The notice says the recall affects all flavours of those particular brands and products, which contain caffeine and do not have bilingual English and French labelling.

The recall comes more than two weeks after the agency issued a recall for six caffeinated drinks including Prime Energy, founded by American social media personality and professional wrestler Logan Paul and British YouTube star KSI.

Although many of the recalled products, including Prime Energy, are not officially distributed in Canada, they have made their way onto some Canadian store shelves after being illicitly imported from the U.S.

The CFIA also cited non-compliance with caffeine content and labelling as reasons for that recall. It said then that its investigation could lead to more products being recalled.

The latest notice says there have been "no reported reactions associated with the consumption of these products," but warns that large amounts of caffeine "may have adverse health effects for children, pregnant individuals, breastfeeding individuals, and those sensitive to caffeine."

Prime Energy, which has come under scrutiny in other countries, contains 200 milligrams of caffeine per can or the equivalent of six cans of Coke or two Red Bulls.

The Canadian Press reported previously, citing Health Canada, that Prime energy drink exceeds the regulated acceptable caffeine limit of 180 mg per serving and should not be sold.

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Global warming likely to cause more multi-year La Niña events: study - CTV News

The world will likely see more multi-year La Niña events due to global warming, contributing to a higher risk of extreme weather events, according to a recent study published in the scientific journal Nature.

La Niña refers to a period of cooler than normal waters in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean. This weather phenomenon typically occurs approximately every three to five years and lasts one to two years, Environment and Climate Change Canada notes. 

La Niña is the colder counterpart of El Niño, as part of the broader El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern, which is characterized by the shifts in ocean temperatures and atmospheric conditions in the Pacific. The ENSO pattern alternates irregularly between warm El Niño and cold La Niña events, impacting global weather patterns, agriculture and ecosystems.

Based on multiple climate models collected by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6), researchers from China, Australia and the U.S. reported a “significant increase" in the projected frequency of multi-year La Niña events over a 100-year period.

They projected an increase in frequency ranging from 19 per cent, plus or minus 11 per cent, in a low greenhouse gas emissions scenario to 33 per cent, plus or minus 13 per cent, in a high emissions scenario.

The study also explains the conditions underlying the projected increase.

"Under present-day climate conditions, a strong El Niño in the boreal winter induces a negative North Pacific Meridional Mode (NPMM)-like response in the subtropical North Pacific, producing a La Niña in the ensuing winter with meridionally extensive sea surface temperature (SST) and easterly wind anomalies," said Jia Fan, a co-author of the study from the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in a news release.

These easterly wind anomalies are further intensified by faster warming in the equatorial eastern Pacific. The study suggests that the slower heat recharge associated with the northward-broadened easterly wind anomalies are what ultimately enables the cold anomalies of a La Niña to persist for longer than a year.

Compared to single-year La Niña events, multi-year La Niña events such as the one that lasted from 2020 to 2022 create higher or cumulative risk of extreme weather events, the study notes, including droughts, wildfires, flooding and altered patterns of hurricanes, cyclones and monsoons across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

La Niña increases Atlantic hurricane activity and worsens western drought. In Canada, La Niña winters are also typically wetter and colder, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says. 

"These findings suggest that weather extremes as seen during the 2020–2022 La Niña will probably occur more frequently in the near future," said Geng Tao from Ocean University of China, co-author of the study, in a news release.

The results of this study strengthen calls to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions “to alleviate the adverse impacts” of increased multi-year La Niña events, Fan said.  

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A.I. is making some common side hustles more lucrative—these can pay up to $100 per hour - CNBC

Artificial intelligence still has a long way to go before completely taking over most human jobs. But it can already make some side hustles easier and more lucrative, primarily by saving people time.

"Automation, I think, is the key to reducing your workload," Sean Audet, a food photographer who uses generative AI tools like ChatGPT to write emails and business plans, told CNBC Make It earlier this month. "When a client first reaches out to me, I need to be able to quickly deliver a bunch of information about services and costs ... in a nice, succinct and personalized way."

Time is particularly valuable for side hustles, where your bandwidth is limited by definition. Some gigs that can benefit from current AI platforms are highly lucrative, too — paying up to $100 per hour.

Notably, few — if any — of today's AI tools are "set it and forget it" style programs. Chatbots tend to output robotic-sounding language, and can "hallucinate" sentences that are simply wrong. Image generators still struggle to nail small details within larger pictures.

Those errors can occur from even simple prompts. In March, researchers from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley asked ChatGPT 3.5 and 4 — OpenAI's free chatbot and an updated version available to paying subscribers, respectively — to identify prime numbers. In June, they did it again.

The results varied wildly, from 2.4% accuracy (ChatGPT 4, in June) to 97.6% accuracy (ChatGPT 4, in March), the study reported.

Still, editing an AI's language can be faster than writing multiple paragraphs from scratch, Audet said. Here are three common side hustles where you can already save time — and make money — by using AI.

Travel agents

Nicole Cueto, a New York-based public relations consultant, makes money on the side by helping people plan their vacations — booking flights, making reservations and planning excursions. She also has a profile on travel agent platform Fora, where she earns commissions when clients book hotels and experiences through her recommendations.

In January, when Cueto started her side hustle, she spent five to seven hours planning one day of vacation. Using ChatGPT as a refined, filtered version of Google cuts her "research time in half," she says.

Cueto has visited 43 countries and all seven continents, she says. Late last year, she realized she could monetize her passion for travel.

Nicole Cueto

"I've been to Paris a thousand times, but if I have a client that wants to discover the depths of the city from an old school perspective, I don't really know how to do that [from personal experience]," she says. "So, I'll type in, 'Give me a budget-conscious guide to Paris that incorporates historical neighborhoods where politicians lived in the 1880s.'"

Following ChatGPT's proposed itinerary without further research would be risky, but Cueto says she doesn't mind doing the fact-checking. It's still more efficient than other search engines, she adds — and saving time means taking on more clients and making more money.

Today, Cueto makes an average of $670 per month from her side hustle, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. She works 10 to 20 hours per week on it, making her rates roughly $42 per hour, she says.

Content assistants

Even as AI may replace human jobs, it can create new ones: Some companies have started hiring part-time content assistants, whose job is to generate blog, newsletter and social media posts using chatbots — and then fact-check the results.

These jobs, which are also referred to as AI content editing, can pay anywhere from $20 to $100 per hour, experts say.

"You can literally copy and paste in a transcription and say, 'Turn this [speech] into a 700-word blog article that has five tips,'" Angelique Rewers, founder of small-business consulting firm BoldHaus, told CNBC Make It last month.

Rewers called AI content assistants "the biggest new side hustle," adding that assistants should proofread anything they aggregate from ChatGPT to "make sure that it's not gobbledygook."

The barrier to entry is low, Rewers said. ChatGPT is currently free to use, and aspiring side hustlers can learn to effectively generate prompts on YouTube.

The job is starting to take off on freelance platforms, too, Upwork vice president of talent solutions Margaret Lilani told CNBC Make It last month.

"We've seen a high demand for this category of work," Lilani said. Employers "are looking to build up the supply of freelancers who can support this demand."

Artists

In some cases, when AI saves you time, it's more useful to reinvest it in your future profits.

Audet, a trained fine dining chef, realized he had a knack for photography while substitute teaching a "Pastry Arts" class at Red River College in Winnipeg, Canada. He turned his side hustle into a full-time gig in 2020, and says he now regularly uses AI to craft emails and build business templates.

Trained fine dining chef Sean Audet was teaching in Winnipeg, Canada, when he was introduced to food photography. Now, it's his full-time job.

Sean Audet

In the short term, he's spent as much time practicing his AI prompts as he would've spent writing the emails and templates himself, he says: "It's almost like having an assistant that you have to be really, really, really specific with."

That means Audet isn't making more money due to AI yet. In the long term, those skills should pay off more lucratively, especially as the technology improves, he says.

Audet has also dabbled with generative AI on photos, through programs like Midjourney. The technology allows him to swap out backgrounds, fix small imperfections or change the color of objects — but not to a degree that he's ready to use it on professional projects.

"You'll sometimes get surprisingly good results ... but if the technology can do like 90% of the job, that's not good enough when you're working with clients paying a lot of money," Audet says. "So the impact of it on my business is still relatively low."

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Archaeological dig uncovers remnants of W̱SÁNEĆ village dating back more than 1,000 years - CBC.ca

An archaeological dig on southern Vancouver Island has uncovered remnants from an ancient W̱SÁNEĆ (wh-say-nutch) village, dating back centuries. 

The dig, happening in what is now known as Agate Park in Saanich, B.C.'s Cordova Bay, has taken place through the month of July, where several anthropology students have been on site learning proper techniques. 

What they've found is the remains of the ancestral village of ȾEL¸IȽĆE (pronounced Tel-eech), which the W̱SÁNEĆ people say is surrounded by burial sites and fishing grounds. It's estimated at least 250 people lived at the site in the past.

An archival photo shows the ancestral village of ȾEL¸IȽĆE. (W̱SÁNEĆ Leadership Council)

According to Brian Thom, an associate professor with the anthropology department at the University of Victoria, the site was at the centre of the South Saanich Treaty in 1852, which promised to set aside the village site and enclosed fields for the nation to use. 

"For whatever reasons, in colonial history, this particular village never did get set aside," Thom said. 

He said Spanish naval maps from the late 1700s show two longhouses at ȾEL¸IȽĆE. 

WATCH | Researchers describe what they've found at the ancestral village of ȾEL¸IȽĆE on Vancouver Island

W̱SÁNEĆ village remnants uncovered in B.C. archaeological dig

22 hours ago

Duration 2:35

Anthropologist Brian Thom explains what his team has found during a dig on southern Vancouver Island.

In 2008, 350 artifacts and the remains of 14 people dating back 1,000 years were uncovered during excavations to develop a waterfront home in the area. Those artifacts were taken to the Royal B.C. Museum.

At this most recent dig in Agate Park, researchers are uncovering things like hunting tools, remains from food and fire hearths. 

"We're finding all of these sort of classic elements of domestic life," Thom said. 

Archaeology student Kaia Carr-Meehan shows off a bone point tool, found at the W̱SÁNEĆ ancestral village of ȾEL¸IȽĆE during a dig in July 2023. (Mike McArthur/CBC)

As the dig wraps up, researchers will produce several reports on their findings, Thom said, which will be made publicly available. They also plan to do presentations to show people what they've found and learned about life in the area hundreds of years ago. 

"We want to really share the knowledge of this incredible village," Thom said. 

Artifacts will be handed over to the Royal B.C. Museum after being analyzed. Thom said the W̱SÁNEĆ are working to have all artifacts at the museum repatriated as a group, and are aware that those found during this dig will be part of that. 

Kaia Carr-Meehan, a third-year archaeology student says it's been a privilege to be part of the project. 

"We're getting to bear witness to a lot of really significant aspects of culture and the lives of human beings upwards of 1,000 years ago," she said. 

Roger Charlie, member and spiritual leader of the Tsartlip First Nation, says being at the dig site has felt like he "came home." (Mike McArthur/CBC)

For Roger Charlie, a member and spiritual leader of the Tsartlip First Nation who has been on site for the past six weeks, the dig has had even more meaning. 

"I've been learning about our people for years," Charlie said. He grew up hearing stories of canoes, ceremonies and feasts, and how his people traveled around the area. 

Traditionally there are four W̱SÁNEĆ Nations, including the Tsartlip, Tseycum, Tsawout, and Pauquachin.

Until now, he's never been able to visualize it. 

"I can feel that strength that our people had back then," Charlie said. 

"It feels like I came home."

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Archaeological dig uncovers remnants of W̱SÁNEĆ village dating back more than 1,000 years - CBC.ca
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10 ways to hit the center of the clubface with more consistency - Golf.com

See more improved shots by hitting the center of the clubface each time. Here's how.

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Every golfer’s goal is to hit the center of the clubface with each swing, which will lead to better impact and farther shot distances.

For those players who struggle with this, simply having a little better technique and an understanding of certain drills can go a long way in improving your ball-striking ability.

Since there’s nothing more fun than crushing a flush golf shot right down the middle of the fairway, here are 10 ways you can hit the center of the clubface with more consistency — so you can impress your playing partners with your newfound skills.

1. Square clubface at impact

Your grip has so much to do with hitting the ball in the center of the clubface.

This means you must allow your lead arm to hang facing your body. When you place your hand onto the club’s grip, be sure your thumb looks similar to your lead arm.

2. Posture

I often tell my students that “posture is contact.”

When you’re in good golf posture, you bend forward from the hips — which allows your hands to hang directly below your shoulders. By doing this, you’ll be able to get the club down to the ground, staying balanced throughout your swing.

It goes without saying that posture and balance go a long way to center-face contact.

3. Spacing

In order to make consistent contact, you absolutely need to create space between your body and your club.

Unfortunately, many amateur golfers confuse this with how far to stand from the ball — which will impact your shot result.

Standing too close to the the club at address will tend to produce heel contact. Standing too far from your club at address will tend to produce toe contact.

4. Trail arm extension – diameter

When you make a backswing, your trail elbow will bend and fold to create energy — which then gets released.

On your downswing, this trail arm needs to straighten and extend down towards the ground, which will help you make solid contact. This downward extension allows the diameter of your circle to be consistent, helping you hit the center of the clubface.

If you’re set up well and don’t extend your trail arm towards the ball, you’ll oftentimes hit the toe of the club, which keeps the ball flight low.

5. Balance

If you’re off balance, it can completely ruin a good swing, as unnecessary motions tend to make it difficult to hit the center of the clubface.

For players who often struggle with this, I have a great drill to help improve your swing balance — swing with your feet together!

If you can maintain your balance with this narrow stance, you’re likely able to do so when swinging with the ball beneath you.

6. Swing path

Proper swing path has a ton to do with being able to hit the center of the clubface.

A swing path that is extremely over-the-top (or, conversely, too inside-to-out) will struggle with contact, with the former often hitting the toe, and the latter hitting off the heel.

7. Short game – arms hanging

Don’t forget about how important it is to hit the center of the clubface with your putter, too!

It’s very common for me to see a golfer with great posture on their full swing, but resort to being very squatty-looking on the putting surface.

Fellow GOLF Top 100 Teacher Todd Sones is a fantastic short game instructor, and he often says that putting is best played underneath the shoulders where the arms can hang. I completely agree.

The same posture that will help you find the center of the face for the full swing also works in the short game.

8. Alignment sticks

Using alignment sticks can help guide you to a better setup and club path, assisting your efforts to hit more flush shots.

Whether you’re checking ball position or general alignment to see proper angles of your swing, they’re a useful training aid when struggling with finding the center of the clubface.

9. Two-tee drill

An all-time favorite drill of mine, the two-tee drill is a great way to center your clubface at impact.

Simply place a tee in the ground on both sides of the ball and have your clubhead pass through the middle without making contact with either tee.

If you’re unable to do this without hitting either tee, you will likely not hit the center of the face. But keep working on this drill to get the look and feel of a clean shot, and then apply that to your next round.

10. Clubs that fit

If you want to have any chance at making consistent ball contact, you must have clubs that fit you!

That are a lot of factors that go into this — including length, lie, and weight. This is also true of your wedges for short game, as a proper combination of lofts and different bounces will allow you to have a higher success rate.

High-end fitters, like TrueSpec, will allow you to test all manufacturers of heads and shafts, delivering data to help pinpoint the areas of your game that need the most practice.

All of our market picks are independently selected and curated by the editorial team. If you buy a linked product, GOLF.COM may earn a fee. Pricing may vary.

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Florida woman gets more than four years in prison for swindling Holocaust survivor out of millions - CNN

CNN  — 

A New York judge has sentenced a Florida woman to more than four years in prison for swindling a Holocaust survivor out of his life savings after meeting him on a dating website.

Peaches Stergo, 36, was sentenced Thursday, according to a news release from the US Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York. She had been charged six months earlier with one count of wire fraud for bilking the 87-year-old victim out of $2.8 million.

Prosecutors said Stergo and the victim met on the website about seven years ago. Over the next four and a half years, Stergo asked the victim to deposit money into her account for a variety of fraudulent reasons, such as paying lawyers to release a fake injury settlement.

PHOTO: THINKSTOCK; ILLUSTRATION: EMILY CARTER/CNNMONEY

Americans lost $201 million in online romance scams last year. Here's how to avoid the con artists

According to prosecutors, Stergo used the money to live a life of luxury. She purchased a home in a gated community in Florida, took vacations at hotels such as the Ritz Carlton, and bought tens of thousands of dollars worth of designer clothing, the release stated.

In a text message to her real-life significant other after the scam was over, Stergo said she was unwilling to earn money through lawful employment, writing, “I don’t want to work … it’s too hard,” the release stated.

The victim only learned of Stergo’s scam after he confided in his son that his life savings had gone to her after she promised she would pay him back, CNN reported this year. The victim then stopped writing checks.

As a result of Stergo’s scams, the victim lost his apartment, CNN previously reported.

Woman was ‘unspeakably cruel,’ judge says

US Attorney Damian Williams, who prosecuted the case, said in the release, “(Stergo) used the millions of dollars in fraud proceeds to live a life of luxury at the victim’s expense. But she did not get away with it.”

US District Judge Edgardo Ramos, who sentenced Stergo, noted her behavior was “unspeakably cruel’ and motivated by ‘greed,”’ the release stated.

Ann Marie Fitz, Stergo’s defense attorney, said in a statement to CNN, “The government sought a 96-month sentence in this case and, considering the circumstances, we think it was fair that the court imposed 51 months, which is the low-end of the applicable Guidelines range. Ms. Stergo has expressed remorse for her actions and will make every effort to repay the restitution in this case.”

In addition to her time in prison, Stergo is ordered to pay $2,830,775 in restitution and will forfeit the same amount, along with her Florida property and over 100 luxury items she purchased.

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Florida woman gets more than four years in prison for swindling Holocaust survivor out of millions - CNN
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