News
2022 World Cup Fans Put Off By High Prices and Beer Limits
Tens of thousands of 2022 World Cup fans are taking shuttle flights between Qatar and neighbouring Dubai for various reasons, including high hotel prices, a lack of available accommodations, and alcohol restrictions.
Although it may appear extreme, expensive, and environmentally questionable, daily flights have become popular for fans who prefer to sleep somewhere other than Qatar.
Outside of Doha, the region’s top destination is Dubai, the freewheeling capital of the United Arab Emirates. State airlines, such as FlyDubai, the emirate’s budget carrier, are mobilizing resources and operating ten times the usual number of flights to Doha.
Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia have also organized flights to capitalize on the 2022 World Cup tourism boom. Planes rumble overhead Doha’s old airport every few minutes.
Air shuttles are not a new concept in the Gulf, where many people who reside and work in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait travel to Dubai city for the weekend to drink alcohol and have fun in the glittering metropolis.
Unlike fans who had to fly long distances during the World Cups in South Africa (2010), Brazil (2014), and Russia (2018), the Dubai-Doha route is, in most cases, shorter.
However, because of how much fuel is used for takeoff and landing, short flights, often defined as trips shorter than 500 kilometres (311 miles), are more polluting than long flights per person for every kilometre travelled.
More than a dozen World Cup fans who chose to stay in neighbouring countries said it was due to cost.
World Cup Tent Villages
Many people were unable to find an affordable place to stay in Doha or any place at all. As hotel prices rose in the months leading up to the tournament, budget-conscious fans scrambled for spots in Qatar’s remote fan villages, which were made of canvas tents or shipping containers.
“We planned to stay in Doha for five days.” But it was prohibitively expensive. “We didn’t want those weird fan zones,” said Ana Santos, a Brazilian fan who arrived at Doha’s airport with her husband on Thursday.
“In Dubai, we found a nice hotel for a reasonable price.” Because the flights are so full, we’re not the only ones.”
Doha’s former airport has reopened after eight years of inactivity, with thousands of shuttle flight passengers cramming through its halls. On Thursday, Qataris dressed in traditional attire distributed juicy dates and Arabic coffee to arriving fans, who cheered and took photos while draped in their national flags.
Qatar’s alcohol restrictions turned off other shuttle passengers. After a last-minute ban on beer in stadiums, the city’s few hotels are almost the only places that can serve it. The only liquor store in Doha is open to Qatari residents with an official permit.

Beer Costs at World Cup
Meanwhile, spirits abound in Dubai’s pulsing nightclubs, pubs, bars, and other tourist hotspots — and at lower prices than in Doha, where a single beer costs $14 at the official fan festival. Even in Abu Dhabi, the more conservative capital of the United Arab Emirates, tourists can purchase alcohol from liquor stores without a license.
“We want to have an experience in Dubai.” “That’s more appealing to us,” said Bernard Boatengh Duah, a doctor from western Ghana who purchased an all-inclusive Dubai hotel package that includes match-day flights and unlimited food and alcohol. “We desired more liberty.”
Many fans described the shuttles as a relatively smooth process, with the shuttles arriving at the Dubai airport less than an hour before departure, zipping through lines without luggage, and flying for about 50 minutes before landing in Doha just in time for their game.
Others, on the other hand, found it stressful and draining.
“These have been long days.” “It’s exhausting,” said Steven Carroll, a lab technician from Wales, whose flight back to Dubai was delayed an hour, leaving him exhausted at 4 a.m. in his Dubai hotel after a 24-hour day.
“The issue is that you must arrive in Qatar long before the game and allow even more time to go through the airport.”

Packed Airport and Overwhelmed Immigration
Fernando Moya, a 65-year-old Ecuador supporter from New York, expressed regret about flying in from Abu Dhabi. A technical issue with his friends’ Hayya cards, which serve as entry visas to Qatar, stranding them in the UAE capital.
Moya spent his Thursday in the Doha airport speaking with customer service and paying nearly $2,000 to fly them over on a new flight. “The logistics of this entire system are extremely complicated for people,” he explained.
On Thursday, the airport was packed with Saudi Arabian fans, whose citizens had purchased the most World Cup tickets after Qatar and the United States. The Saudi team’s shocking victory over Argentina this week heightened the anticipation.
Riyadh, an aspiring tourism destination, has sought to capitalize on the regional boost by offering two-month visas to those with Hayya cards. Nawaf Mohammed, a Saudi student, said World Cup fever is palpable in Riyadh, with more Westerners visible at the capital’s airport and carnivals.
Shuttle flights from the UAE or Saudi Arabia would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. In 2017, the Gulf Arab states and Bahrain and Egypt imposed a trade and travel boycott on energy-rich Qatar due to the emirate’s support for political Islam and ties with Iran. Qatar refused to budge, and the embargo was lifted last year.
Even so, tensions remain. Bahrain, only a 45-minute flight from Doha, is still at odds with Qatar over politics and maritime borders. Fans sleeping in the island kingdom need more easy access.
On Thursday, Eyad Mohammed, who chose to stay at a beach in Bahrain, had a layover in eastern Saudi Arabia.
“This area isn’t always convenient,” he admitted.
Source: The Associated Press
News
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue
Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
News
2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
Washington — Trump Media, The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.
The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.
The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.
The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.
Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.
The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.
The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.
SOURCE | AP
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.
(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
SEE ALSO:
Could Last-Minute Surprises Derail Kamala Harris’ Campaign? “Nostradamus” Explains the US Poll.
-
News4 years agoLet’s Know About Ultra High Net Worth Individual
-
Entertainment3 years ago
Mabelle Prior: The Voice of Hope, Resilience, and Diversity Inspiring Generations
-
News11 years ago
Enviromental Groups Tell Mekong Leaders Lao Dam Evaluation Process Flawed
-
Health4 years agoHow Much Ivermectin Should You Take?
-
Tech3 years agoTop Forex Brokers of 2023: Reviews and Analysis for Successful Trading
-
Lifestyles3 years agoAries Soulmate Signs
-
Entertainment3 years agoWhat Should I Do If Disney Plus Keeps Logging Me Out of TV?
-
Health3 years agoCan I Buy Ivermectin Without A Prescription in the USA?


