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TSX inches up on technology shares boost, BoC meeting in focus

TSX inches up on technology shares boost, BoC meeting in focus

Jan 22 (Reuters) – Canada’s main stock index edged higher on Monday, bolstered by gains in technology shares and U.S. benchmark S&P 500 hitting a fresh record high, while investors maintained caution ahead of the Bank of Canada’s monetary policy meeting later in the week.

At 10:37 a.m. ET (15:37 GMT), the Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index (.GSPTSE), opens new tab was up 17.41 points, or 0.08%, at 20,923.93.

Rate-sensitive technology stocks (.SPTTTK), opens new tab led the gains among sectors, rising 0.6%, followed by consumer discretionary stocks (.GSPTTCS), opens new tab that added 0.3%.

The materials sector (.GSPTTMT), opens new tab, which houses Canadian miners, slid 0.5% on lower prices of copper and gold as hopes of a March interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve faded, and poor demand prospects weighed.

Energy shares (.SPTTEN), opens new tab extended losses from last week, falling 0.2% even as oil

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AI Alliance Launches as an International Community of Leading Technology Developers, Researchers, and Adopters Collaborating Together to Advance Open, Safe,

AI Alliance Launches as an International Community of Leading Technology Developers, Researchers, and Adopters Collaborating Together to Advance Open, Safe,

AI advancements are leading to new opportunities that can improve how we work, live, learn and interact with one another. Open and transparent innovation is essential to empower a broad spectrum of AI researchers, builders, and adopters with the information and tools needed to harness these advancements in ways that prioritize safety, diversity, economic opportunity and benefits to all.

While there are many individual companies, start-ups, researchers, governments, and others who are committed to open science and open technologies and want to participate in the new wave of AI innovation, more collaboration and information sharing will help the community innovate faster and more inclusively, and identify specific risks and mitigate those risks before putting a product into the world.

That is why today, we’re launching the AI Alliance – a group of leading organizations across industry, startup, academia, research and government coming together to support open innovation and open science

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Technology makes it easy for lawyers to work across borders: regulations should too

Technology makes it easy for lawyers to work across borders: regulations should too

The rules of legal practice are highly localised. Every country sets rules that determine how lawyers qualify professionally and what they are allowed to do.

When a lawyer who is licensed to practise in one country provides legal services in another country, it is known as cross-border or transnational legal practice. Many countries have regulations that restrict the services that foreign lawyers may provide.

The restrictions vary from country to country. For example, in Nigeria, foreign lawyers aren’t allowed to practise any form of law – Nigerian law, their home country’s law, or international law – unless they are licensed as a local lawyer.

A recent study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development found that restriction on cross-border legal practice was the most common form of trade restriction among 50 countries surveyed. The most restrictive barrier was nationality or residency requirements.

These restrictions tend to be justified

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EU climate policy is dangerously reliant on untested carbon-capture technology

EU climate policy is dangerously reliant on untested carbon-capture technology

Carbon-capture technology, such as this plant in the Irish Sea, is at the research, development and demonstration stage.Credit: Dominic Lipinski/Bloomberg/Getty

Last week, the European Commission published its long-awaited recommendations for climate targets for 2040. The commission, which is the executive arm of the European Union, is recommending that EU member states cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 90% by 2040, compared with 1990 levels. If countries agree, this would be an interim milestone, ahead of the European Climate Law, which sets out a legally binding target for net-zero emissions by 2050.

A target cut of 90% is not as ambitious as some headlines suggest. The EU’s existing policies could reduce emissions by 88% by 2040, according to its own projections. This would be achieved mainly through phasing out coal, converting most fossil-fuel power to renewable sources such as solar, wind and tidal energy, and electrifying transport. There will still be emissions

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The dark side of ocean cleanup technology.

The dark side of ocean cleanup technology.

Rebecca Helm despises the phrase “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”

This moniker is used to describe the vast stretch of ocean from the west coast of North America to Japan that is crammed with an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of trash, most of which are plastic.

“I think it’s a really awful practice to name a part of the world after something bad that’s happened to it,” says Helm, a marine biologist at Georgetown University’s Earth Commons Institute.

Moreover, she thinks that this term misleadingly implies that this area is a barren wasteland, when in fact there is a trove of marine life living alongside the floating plastic bottles, dirty fishing nets, and discarded Styrofoam cups. Along with the occasional shark or sea turtle passerby, this region—which is actually called “the North Pacific High”—hosts a unique array of tiny species that live at the sea surface, from electric-blue seadragons to minuscule

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