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41 Easy Appetizers for Less Stressing, More Snacking

For an easy appetizer that looks and tastes caterer-made, mix pre-cooked shrimp with spicy mayo and serve in little endive canoes. See recipe. Once you have tangy tomato powder—made from dehydrated and pulverized tomatoes—in your arsenal, you’ll never run out of ways to use it. See recipe. Frozen artichokes make easy work of this game day, holiday, movie night, slumber party, and all-around good-time favorite.

Oilers Make Major Changes To Defense

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“Home Alone”'s Daniel Stern Says 'Stepping Away' from Hollywood Led to 'Living My Real Life' Creating Art on His Ranch (Exclusive)

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A Christmas family holiday was the final straw that ended my marriage

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Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett Join Anne Hathaway in Colleen Hoover’s ‘Verity’ Movie Adaptation

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Kevin Costner Breaks His Silence on the 'Yellowstone' Finale

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Shutdown looms as Trump-backed spending deal fails in House

STORY: A spending bill backed by Donald Trump failed in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, with dozens of Republicans defying the president-elect and voting it down.Trump had pressured lawmakers to tie up loose ends before he takes office on January 20. Without it, the government faces a shutdown at midnight on Friday.But members of the party's right flank refused to support a package that would increase spending and clear the way for a plan that would add trillions more to the federal government's $36 trillion in debt.Chip Roy, one of 38 Republicans who voted against the bill, said he was “sickened by the party that campaigns on fiscal responsibility." If lawmakers fail to extend the Friday deadline, the government would begin a partial shutdown that would cut off pay checks for more than 2 million federal workers, as well as disrupt a wide range of services in the days leading up to the Christmas holiday.A prior bipartisan deal was scuttled after Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk blasted it on Wednesday as a wasteful giveaway to Democrats. The bill that failed on Thursday largely resembled the earlier version, however Republicans dropped some elements, including a pay raise for lawmakers. At Trump's urging, the new version also would have suspended limits on the national debt for two years. That would make it easier for Trump to pass the dramatic tax cuts he has promised.

A Canada Post letter carrier delivers mail in Toronto on Tuesday. Selling off or privatizing the postal service is just one of many significant and potentially drastic remedies tossed around by analysts who say the Crown corporation cannot continue in its present form.

The solution to Canada Post's financial woes and murky future, according to one observer, is just two words: Sell it."I'm not sure you can do any tweaks," said Vincent Geloso, an assistant professor of economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "The best you can do is make them suck not as bad. That's essentially it. There's no way around that," Geloso, who is also a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, told CBC News. "It's better if we just go down the route of selling it off."Canada Post's recent labour strife has renewed focus on what changes might have to be made to adapt to the future. Suggestions have included less frequent mail delivery, limiting home delivery and beefing up its parcel mail business.The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has also offered its own solutions of "expanded, innovative services." Those new services would include low-fee postal banking and adapting Canada Post offices to house broadband internet servers for rural and remote areas.But some argue more drastic action is needed, such as selling off or privatizing the Crown corporation.WATCH | Should Canada Post be privatized?Even before the month-long strike by more than 55,000 postal workers, the national mail service had been under the spotlight for its grim financial situation. Back in May, Canada Post said it could run out of operating funds in less than a year.Yet taxpayers are not on the hook for its losses; Canada Post is funded by the sale of postal products and services. Still, it has been losing money since 2018. In the last six years, its losses have totalled $3 billion, including $748 million in 2023.The corporation has blamed this on declining revenue from delivery of letters and parcels, despite an increase in the volume of package deliveries. Meanwhile, the cost of delivering mail and parcels is increasing.Canada Post has also struggled to compete with more privately owned delivery companies.Any other company — facing such losses and declining demand — would be forced to innovate and reduce costs, or would otherwise be bought out or go bankrupt, Geloso said in a recent article in The Globe and Mail.Because of its monopoly over most of the letter market, Canada Post "lacks this incentive," he wrote, and can "simply pass the burden onto consumers by raising prices."Instead, he says that the federal government should look to how some European countries have adapted their postal services.The recent labour strife has renewed focus on the future Canada Post and what changes may have to be made. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press)End postal monopoliesFor example, the European Commission, which is responsible for proposing and monitoring new EU laws and policies, said in 2013 that the delivery of all letters, regardless of weight, was open to competition. (In Canada, only Canada Post can deliver letters.)Such open competition would end monopolies and do more to control costs, Geloso says.But, he says, Ottawa could go further by following the lead of Austria, the Netherlands and Germany, which have privatized their postal operations. Because of the pressures of competition, those national postal services have focused on controlling their costs, he says, the sort of focus "Canada Post will never have as long as it's a Crown corporation with a monopoly."Geloso, however, doesn't mention the U.K.'s Royal Mail, which was privatized in 2013 and has struggled to adapt as the number of people using it continues to decline steeply. (Earlier this week, the U.K. government approved the sale of Royal Mail's parent company to a Czech billionaire.)Despite privatization, the Royal Mail has lost millions of dollars annually and been repeatedly fined by U.K. regulator Ofcom for failing to achieve its delivery targets.The U.K.'s Royal Mail, which was privatized in 2013, has struggled to adapt as the number of people using it continues to decline steeply. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/The Associated Press)Those shortfalls are related to the British government requiring Royal Mail to deliver to more than 30 million U.K. premises, six days a week, says Paul Simmonds, former assistant professor at the Warwick Business School. "This requirement … has long been a major and expensive thorn in Royal Mail's side," Simmonds wrote last year for The Conversation website. Marvin Ryder, an associate professor at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University in Hamilton, says privatization of a postal service brings legislation and an oversight group to make sure "your mission as a country is still being accomplished by the post office."The regulations and stream of orders from that group have a significant effect on profit, meaning these privatized postal services make little money, he said.WATCH | What is the future of Canada Post? "Even though these models are tried, it's not clear to me at all that there's one shining example of something that's really brilliant," Ryder said.Ian Lee, an associate professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, who wrote his PhD thesis on the future of Canada Post, says it's difficult to compare Canada with European countries because of the latters' high population density."That changes the economics... that changes everything," he said. "And that's why using European examples doesn't work. It doesn't work because they've got phenomenal densities.""[Those] analogies aren't legitimate because the cost structure of Europe is so radically different because of their densities."Privatization of Canada Post is certainly feasible but it raises questions, including who would want to buy it, Ryder says. The private sector has so far only shown interest in parcel delivery — not letters."So if you want to sell it lock, stock and barrel, who wants to come in and do the other?"

Florida Man in Trouble for Shooting Walmart Drone With 9mm Handgun

Buzz Off Lest we forget that going insane about suspicious unmanned aircraft was an American tradition before this current spate of drone hysteria, a Florida man has been ordered to pay $5,000 to Walmart after shooting one of the retail giant's drones that he thought was spying on him, First Coast News reports. Spoiler alert: it wasn't. According to the Lake County Sheriff's Office, the saga played out like this: on June 26, police responded to a call made at a Walmart. Two employees with a dron

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Winter weather: Fast-moving snowstorm causes treacherous travel in upper Midwest; ground stop issued at Chicago’s O’Hare airport

A fast-moving snowstorm that brought high winds and heavy snow to the northern Plains, Upper Midwest and Great Lakes is causing treacherous conditions for travelers across the region.

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Kelly Clarkson Seemingly Shades Ex-Husband Brandon Blackstock in Christmas Video After Tense Divorce Battle

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