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by Brian Major Last updated: 11:45 AM ET, Tue September 16, 2025 Martinique has hosted nearly 465,000 cruise ship passenger arrivals during the 2024-2025 season, representing an 11 percent increase over the 421,000 arrivals recorded during the previous year. The passengers arrived on more than 200 ship calls, according to the Martinique Tourism Authority. During this upcoming cruise season, Martinique will host ships from more than 30 cruise lines across its eight active ports. The island will host vessels of every size and segment, including boutique, contemporary, premium. ultra-luxury and mega-class ships.Martinique’s 2026-2027 cruise season will be marked by the…

Gemini’s mobile adoption has been soaring since the August launch of its Nano Banana image editor model, which has received positive reviews, particularly from users who say they can now more easily perform complex edits and create realistic images. The app has climbed to the top of global app stores’ charts and has seen a 45% month-over-month increase in downloads in the month of September so far, according to new data provided by app intelligence firm Appfigures. Though the month is only half over, Gemini’s app has already gained 12.6 million downloads in September, up from 8.7 million in August.…

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) — Marshall University President Brad Smith and his wife, Alys Smith, have made a $50 million gift to the university to promote a program aimed at eliminating student debt, the school said Tuesday.The gift is the largest ever given to the public research university and the largest given by any sitting university president to their own institution, the school said.The money will go toward Marshall For All, a program that allows students to combine scholarships, grants, family contributions and work opportunities to obtain a bachelor’s degree without having to apply for student loans. Nico Karagosian, president and…

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Marilyn Hagerty, a North Dakota newspaper columnist whose earnest review of her local Olive Garden restaurant became a social media sensation, died Tuesday. She was 99.Hagerty died at a hospital in Grand Forks of complications related to a stroke she had suffered, her daughter Gail Hagerty said. She was always a journalist at heart who took the effort to get to know people and the community, her daughter said.“When she wanted to talk about restaurants, she wanted to write not some kind of critical review, but instead tell people what they would expect if they went…

NEW YORK (AP) — Born during the Great Depression with sun-kissed California looks, Robert Redford never failed to epitomize something quintessential and hopeful about the American character.Redford, who died Tuesday at the age of 89, left a movie trail etched into land. He seemed to reside as much across the American landscape as he did on movie screens. He was in the Rocky Mountains of “Jeremiah Johnson,” the Wyoming grasslands of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” the Washington, D.C., alleyways of “All the President’s Men” and the Montana streams of “A River Runs Through It.” “From the time I…

A completed planned development is seen in Ashburn, Virginia, on Aug. 14, 2024.Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty ImagesMortgage rates dropped sharply Tuesday, as investors in mortgage-backed bonds seemed to buy in ahead of a widely expected rate cut by the Federal Reserve.The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage dropped 12 basis points from Monday to 6.13%, according to Mortgage News Daily. That is the lowest level since late 2022.”The overall set-up is reminiscent of September 2024 when rates were doing the same thing for the same reasons ahead of Fed meeting with a virtual 100% chance of a…

Google announced on Tuesday that it’s launching a new experimental app for Windows that’s designed to help people find what they need faster. The app will allow people to use an Alt + Space shortcut to instantly search for information from their computer files, installed apps, Google Drive files, and the web. The search bar works similar to Mac’s Spotlight search, which lets users quickly find anything on their device and on the web. The new app is available via Search Labs, Google’s experimental program that lets people test early-stage features and provide feedback before they are broadly released. Google…

by Sarah Kuta Last updated: 4:20 PM ET, Mon September 15, 2025 Carnival Cruise Line is making changes to its newly announced Carnival Rewards loyalty program for Diamond and Platinum guests.The new rewards program is slated to launch next year on June 1, 2026. For the new offering, Carnival drew inspiration from airline and hotel loyalty programs that allow guests to earn status and rewards that are tied to travel activities and spending, as well as a co-branded credit card.  Under the new Carnival Rewards program, guests will be able to accumulate points that can be put toward cruise fares,…

For years, Big Tech CEOs have touted visions of AI agents that can autonomously use software applications to complete tasks for people. But take today’s consumer AI agents out for a spin, whether it’s OpenAI’s ChatGPT Agent or Perplexity’s Comet, and you’ll quickly realize how limited the technology still is. Making AI agents more robust may take a new set of techniques that the industry is still discovering. One of those techniques is carefully simulating workspaces where agents can be trained on multi-step tasks — known as reinforcement learning (RL) environments. Much like labeled datasets powered the last wave of…

Hollywood figures and fans of the movies mourned the death of Robert Redford, expressing affection and admiration for the actor, Oscar-winning director and Sundance Film Festival founder.Actor Colman Domingo said Redford had an “everlasting impact” on movies and director Ron Howard called his Sundance Film Festival a “game changer.” “Reservation Dogs” director Sterlin Harjo said Redford empowered filmmakers. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump said they admired his work.Redford died Tuesday “at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah — the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved,” publicist Cindi Berger said. Here’s a roundup of some…