online casino online Wisconsin faces its first losing season in 23 years and the end of a bowl streak when the Badgers host arch-rival Minnesota on Friday in the annual Big Ten battle for Paul Bunyan's Axe. Minnesota (6-5, 4-4) lost to No. 4 Penn State 26-25. Wisconsin (5-6, 3-5 Big Ten) lost its fourth straight, 44-25, at Nebraska in a game that was not as close as the score. "Well 1890 is the first time we played this football team coming up and this is what it's all about," Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck said of the rivalry. "And you wouldn't want to have it any other way, being able to end the season with one of your biggest rivals. I know our guys will be ready to go, ready to play." Wisconsin has 22 consecutive winning seasons since going 5-7 under Barry Alvarez in 2001, the longest active streak among Power 4 teams. The Badgers also have played in a bowl game in each of the last 22 seasons, the longest active streak in the Big Ten and third-longest in FBS. Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell is more concerned with the rivalry game than the winning season and bowl streaks. "I'm not downplaying it, I'm not saying it's not important, I'm not saying it's another thing that's on our plate," Fickell said Monday. "But when it gets down to this last week, it's about one thing, it's about the rivalry. It's about preparing to play in the most important game of the year." The Gophers have dropped their last two games after winning four in a row. Minnesota averages 26.6 points per game, while allowing 18.5, 15th-best in the country. Max Brosmer has completed 67 percent of his passes for 221 per game with 15 touchdowns and five interceptions. Daniel Jackson is the top target with 69 catches for 802 yards and three scores, and Darius Taylor is the top rusher with 730 yards at 4.8 per carry with nine touchdowns. One week after leading Oregon after three quarters, the Wisconsin defense was shredded for 473 yards and five touchdowns by Nebraska. Braedyn Locke, who took over at quarterback when Tyler Van Dyke suffered an early season-ending knee injury, has thrown at least one interception in eight consecutive games. Locke has completed 56.4 percent of his passes for 180.6 yards per game, with 12 touchdowns and 10 picks. Tawee Walker is the leading rusher with 828 yards at 4.7 per carry with 10 touchdowns. He has failed to reach 60 yards in three of the last four games. Former Wisconsin and NFL standout JJ Watt posted on social media his assessment - and frustration - with the Badgers after the Nebraska game. "Losing happens, it's part of the game. Hearing announcers talk about how much tougher and more physical Nebraska & Iowa are while getting blown out ... that's the issue," Watt wrote on X. "We are Wisconsin. Physicality, running game, great O-Line and great defense. That is our identity." Wisconsin defeated the Gophers 28-14 last after Minnesota had won the previous two meetings. The Badgers have won 7 of the last 10 and lead the storied series 63-62-8. --Field Level MediaBy Ja'han Jones Happy Tuesday. Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, a curated list of the past week’s top stories from the intersection of politics and the all-inclusive world of technology. Rapper Drake — who once dismissed artists who take legal action with the lyric, “a cease-and-desist is for hoes” — seems to have had a change of heart after taking a lyrical drubbing from Pulitzer-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar this summer. In a petition filed Monday in New York, Drake launched a legal attack against his own record label, Universal Music Group, and Spotify, which he accuses of harming him by allegedly boosting Lamar’s song “They Not Like Us,” a scathing diss track aimed at Drake and his associates. (Lamar is also signed to UMG.) Drake’s petition, which seeks information to support a potential lawsuit, claims that UMG and Spotify engaged in a high-tech “scheme” using bots, reduced licensing fees and paid influencers to boost the song illegally. A second petition , filed in Texas, alleges UMG engaged in a pay-for-play scheme with iHeartMedia to help boost the song, which the petition also claims defamed Drake. UMG provided NBC News with a pretty scathing response to the first suit: The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue. We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.” Spotify declined to comment Tuesday to NBC News, but its website says the platform has practices in place to prevent artificial streaming. As you might imagine, Drake resorting to the courts for help in the midst of a rap beef has been met with some pretty savage mockery . After all, Drake himself has put baseless claims about other artists, including Lamar , in his tracks, and he’s used social media influencers to hype his music . And he’s also taken advantage of shifts in the infrastructure of the music industry throughout his career, so in some ways, it seems Drake is raging against the machine that made him. Now it looks like a messy legal battle is on the horizon, which could shake loose all sorts of details about the inner workings of the music industry. One thing is for certain: Drake has made history as the first rapper to take legal action against Big Tech for the L he took during a beef. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has a plan to counter President-elect Donald Trump’s threats to undermine investment in electric vehicles . But the plan could exclude Elon Musk, and Musk is outraged. Read more at The Daily Beast . Axios reports Trump is searching for someone to serve as his “AI czar” and lead his administration’s efforts around artificial intelligence. Musk, who seems to have his hand in every aspect of the incoming Trump administration, is reportedly involved in this decision, as well. Remember last week when Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy wrote that their “department” of “government efficiency” would rely on “advanced technology” to root out government waste? Axios suggests the AI czar is going to help with that. Read more at Axios . CNBC dropped a report on the hundreds of millions of dollars the cryptocurrency industry plunged into this year’s elections, and its success in “buying” the most pro-crypto Congress in history. Read more at CNBC . Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Communications Committee won’t stop issuing threats. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has spent his first couple of weeks in the spotlight threatening media companies’ broadcast licenses and has vowed to end what he portrayed as governmental “lawfare” against Musk. Read more at Mediaite . Sunday night’s episode of “60 Minutes” featured a story on the disturbingly exploitative gigs, outsourced to countries across the globe, that involve employees training artificial intelligence tools to recognize items. Watch the segment below: Ja'han Jones is The ReidOut Blog writer. He's a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include "Black Hair Defined" and the "Black Obituary Project."

By Ja'han Jones Happy Tuesday. Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, a curated list of the past week’s top stories from the intersection of politics and the all-inclusive world of technology. Rapper Drake — who once dismissed artists who take legal action with the lyric, “a cease-and-desist is for hoes” — seems to have had a change of heart after taking a lyrical drubbing from Pulitzer-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar this summer. In a petition filed Monday in New York, Drake launched a legal attack against his own record label, Universal Music Group, and Spotify, which he accuses of harming him by allegedly boosting Lamar’s song “They Not Like Us,” a scathing diss track aimed at Drake and his associates. (Lamar is also signed to UMG.) Drake’s petition, which seeks information to support a potential lawsuit, claims that UMG and Spotify engaged in a high-tech “scheme” using bots, reduced licensing fees and paid influencers to boost the song illegally. A second petition , filed in Texas, alleges UMG engaged in a pay-for-play scheme with iHeartMedia to help boost the song, which the petition also claims defamed Drake. UMG provided NBC News with a pretty scathing response to the first suit: The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue. We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.” Spotify declined to comment Tuesday to NBC News, but its website says the platform has practices in place to prevent artificial streaming. As you might imagine, Drake resorting to the courts for help in the midst of a rap beef has been met with some pretty savage mockery . After all, Drake himself has put baseless claims about other artists, including Lamar , in his tracks, and he’s used social media influencers to hype his music . And he’s also taken advantage of shifts in the infrastructure of the music industry throughout his career, so in some ways, it seems Drake is raging against the machine that made him. Now it looks like a messy legal battle is on the horizon, which could shake loose all sorts of details about the inner workings of the music industry. One thing is for certain: Drake has made history as the first rapper to take legal action against Big Tech for the L he took during a beef. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has a plan to counter President-elect Donald Trump’s threats to undermine investment in electric vehicles . But the plan could exclude Elon Musk, and Musk is outraged. Read more at The Daily Beast . Axios reports Trump is searching for someone to serve as his “AI czar” and lead his administration’s efforts around artificial intelligence. Musk, who seems to have his hand in every aspect of the incoming Trump administration, is reportedly involved in this decision, as well. Remember last week when Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy wrote that their “department” of “government efficiency” would rely on “advanced technology” to root out government waste? Axios suggests the AI czar is going to help with that. Read more at Axios . CNBC dropped a report on the hundreds of millions of dollars the cryptocurrency industry plunged into this year’s elections, and its success in “buying” the most pro-crypto Congress in history. Read more at CNBC . Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Communications Committee won’t stop issuing threats. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has spent his first couple of weeks in the spotlight threatening media companies’ broadcast licenses and has vowed to end what he portrayed as governmental “lawfare” against Musk. Read more at Mediaite . Sunday night’s episode of “60 Minutes” featured a story on the disturbingly exploitative gigs, outsourced to countries across the globe, that involve employees training artificial intelligence tools to recognize items. Watch the segment below: Ja'han Jones is The ReidOut Blog writer. He's a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include "Black Hair Defined" and the "Black Obituary Project."Trump selects longtime adviser Keith Kellogg as special envoy for Ukraine and Russia

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Scientists have raised concerns about hospitality staff coming into contact with second-hand smoke at work after the Government rowed back on plans to make it illegal to smoke in pub beer gardens. Concerns have also been raised about the “renormalisation” of smoking. Dr Rachel O’Donnell, senior research fellow at the University of Stirling’s Institute for Social Marketing and Health, said restrictions on smoking in outdoor places can “reinforce” a message that smoking “isn’t a socially acceptable thing to do” and could also help smokers to kick the habit. In November, it emerged that the UK Government is to scrap plans to ban smoking in the gardens of pubs and restaurants in England. Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the hospitality industry has “taken a real battering in recent years” and it is not “the right time” to ban smoking outside pubs. But smoking and vaping could be banned in other public places in England – such as in playgrounds or outside of schools – under the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. According to the World Health Organisation, there is no safe level of second-hand smoke exposure. In a briefing for journalists, Dr O’Donnell said decision-making “should be on the basis of all the evidence that’s available”. She added: “Any debate about legislation on smoking in outdoor settings shouldn’t only focus on air quality and second-hand smoke exposure levels, because the impacts of restrictions in outdoor settings are also evident on our social norms.” Smoke-free outdoor environments “reinforce smoke-free as the acceptable norm”, she said. “This, I think, is a critically important point at a time where in the media, over the last year, we’ve seen various reports and questions as to whether we might be on the cusp of renormalisation of smoking for various reasons, and so smoke-free public environments still have a critically important role to play. “If you reduce opportunities to smoke, it can also help individuals who smoke themselves to reduce the amount they smoke or to make a quit attempt.” Dr O’Donnell said visibility of tobacco products and smoking is a “form of marketing for tobacco companies” as she pointed to studies highlighting the increasing number of tobacco depictions on screen. She went on: “The more often young adults observe smoking around them, the more likely they are to believe that smoking is socially acceptable, which feeds back into this idea of renormalisation of smoking. “So, restrictions on smoking in outdoor public places have other positive knock-on effects, potentially for young people as well, just sending out that clear message that this isn’t a socially acceptable thing to do and see, and this could help to discourage smoking initiation among young people at quite a critical time.” On being exposed to second-hand smoke at work, she added: “I think sometimes when we think about exposure to second-hand smoke in outdoor settings, in pubs, in restaurants, we think about that sort of occasional customer exposure, the nuisance element of it when people are out enjoying a meal with friends, but we also need to be reminded that this is a repeated occupational exposure for those who are working in hospitality and serving drinks and food. “Now, as we’ve already seen, concentrations of second-hand smoke in these settings are generally low, and they’re likely to present a low risk to health for most healthy people. “But ... there’s no safe level of exposure to second-hand smoke, and so any individual with pre-existing heart, lung or respiratory conditions may be particularly vulnerable even to low levels of exposure. “We know that second-hand smoke is its known carcinogen, and on that basis those exposed in the hospitality sector have a right to be protected. “On that basis, there’s a need to protect them, as there is anybody in any workplace setting from second-hand smoke exposure in all areas of workplaces and spaces.” Sean Semple, professor of exposure science at the University of Stirling’s Institute for Social Marketing and Health, said: “I think that if I were a policy-maker, which I am not, then I would be looking at those occupational exposures as well. “I have asthma, if I was being occupationally exposed to SHS (second-hand smoke), and knowing that I was one of a very small number of workers now being legally exposed to SHS in the workplace, then I might not be very happy about that.” A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “As part of our 10 Year Health Plan we are shifting focus from sickness to prevention, including tackling the harms of smoking and passive smoking. “The landmark Tobacco and Vapes Bill is the biggest public health intervention in a generation and will put us on track towards a smoke-free UK.”TOKYO, Dec. 02, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MEDIROM Healthcare Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: MRM) (“MEDIROM”) announces that M3, Inc. (TOKYO PRIME: 2413), or an affiliate within the M3 group, is participating in the Series A equity financing round of MEDIROM MOTHER Labs Inc., a subsidiary of MEDIROM. NFES Technologies Inc. is the lead investor of the Series A financing round at a pre-money valuation of JPY9 billion. Additional information is available here: https://medirom.co.jp/en/ir/20240824/6148%09 Forward-Looking Statements Regarding MEDIROM Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may include estimates or expectations about MEDIROM’s possible or assumed operational results, financial condition, business strategies and plans, market opportunities, competitive position, industry environment, and potential growth opportunities. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terms such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “design,” “target,” “aim,” “hope,” “expect,” “could,” “intend,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “believe,” “continue,” “predict,” “project,” “potential,” “goal,” or other words that convey the uncertainty of future events or outcomes. These statements relate to future events or to MEDIROM’s future financial performance, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause MEDIROM’s actual results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements to be different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements because they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond MEDIROM’s control and which could, and likely will, affect actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Any forward-looking statement reflects MEDIROM’s current views with respect to future events and is subject to these and other risks, uncertainties and assumptions relating to MEDIROM’s operations, results of operations, growth strategy and liquidity. More information on these risks and other potential factors that could affect MEDIROM’s business, reputation, results of operations, financial condition, and stock price is included in MEDIROM’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), including in the “Risk Factors” and “Operating and Financial Review and Prospects” sections of MEDIROM’s most recently filed periodic report on Form 20-F and subsequent filings, which are available on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. MEDIROM assumes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. ABOUT M3, Inc. M3 is a one of a kind venture company that operates a multitude of global services centred around its physician platform such as m3.com. M3 is the first company incorporated after the year 2000 to be included in the Nikkei 225 Index. Its 330,000+ Japanese and 6,500,000+ global physician member panel serves as a central platform in advancing innovation and reform across healthcare worldwide. Tokyo Stock Exchange Prime Market (Securities code 2413) 1-11-44 Akasaka Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0052 JAPAN Web https://corporate.m3.com/en ABOUT MEDIROM MOTHER Labs Inc. A subsidiary of MEDIROM Healthcare Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: MRM), focuses on the health-tech sector. The company’s core activities include the "Specific Health Guidance Program" offered through the "Lav" health application and development and sales of the 24/7 recharge-free MOTHER Bracelet smart tracker. By leveraging the features of the recharge-free MOTHER Bracelet, MOTHER Labs offers customizable health management solutions across diverse sectors, including caregiving, logistics, manufacturing, etc. MEDIROM Healthcare Technologies Inc. NASDAQ Symbol: MRM Tradepia Odaiba, 2-3-1 Daiba, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan Web https://medirom.co.jp/en Contact: ir@medirom.co.jp MEDIROM MOTHER Labs Inc. Tradepia Odaiba, 2-3-1 Daiba, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan MOTHER Bracelet is the world's first* 24/7 recharge-free smart tracker. It uses innovative technology from a Silicon Valley tech company that allows for power generation based on temperature differences between body and surrounding air. The recharge-free feature eliminates the risk of data loss when a device is taken off for recharge. MOTHER Bracelet records five basic metrics: heart rate, calories burned, body surface temperature, step count, and sleep. Official Website: https://mother-bracelet.com

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