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LAHORE: The six-member Coaching Affairs Committee formed by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) last month to interview and recommend new coaches has seen little involvement from its designated members, with only one actively carrying out the task alongside officials not part of the committee. The committee — announced on July 16 — includes Director High Performance Aqib Javed, Director Domestic Abdullah Khurram Niazi, Director HR and Administration Abdul Faisal Malik, Pakistan men’s head coach Mike Hesson, Head of Coaching Education Shahid Aslam, and GM Academies Imran Abbas. However, sources told Dawn that only Shahid Aslam has been conducting interviews, joined…

DUBAI: Pakistan pace spearhead Shaheen Shah Afridi has expressed confidence in the country’s emerging talent, backing youngsters to step up in the absence of former mainstays Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan. Babar and Rizwan, once Pakistan’s revered T20I opening pair, have been sidelined from the format as the team pursues a more aggressive approach under new leadership. The transition follows the appointments of Mike Hesson as Pakistan’s white-ball head coach and Salman Ali Agha as T20I captain earlier this year. Hesson has publicly stated that Babar and Rizwan need to refine their T20I skills to reclaim their spots in the…

LAHORE: On the sidelines of the Pakistan Open MMA Championship on Friday, Omar Ahmed, the president of the Pakistan Mixed Martial Arts Federation, outlined an ambitious vision to establish Mixed Martial Arts as a premier sports property in the country, while detailing the significant systemic hurdles that stand in its way. A former kickboxer, Omar spoke candidly about the challenge of attracting advertisers in a market dominated primarily by the game of cricket. “Our purpose is to create a sport property in Pakistan,” Omar told Dawn. “At the moment, Pakistan Super League [PSL] is the only sports property of Pakistan.…

Phil Leo/Michael Denota/PM Images/GettyImages Selecting a low-cost fund with a certain kind of portfolio—such as U.S. stocks or taxable bonds—can be a time-consuming task. We make it easy in this fund-buying guide. Say you need a fund for your 401(k) or for the loose cash in your brokerage account. Morningstar offers 25,800 choices. Pawing through those is a daunting task. Use our shortcut. The Fund Finder cuts the menu down to 199 of what we call Best Buys. These funds have low annual expense ratios. The ones organized as mutuals have no sales loads. The ones that are exchange-traded have…

Artificial intelligence — are we in a bubble?getty One should be just as cautious about predicting the imminent burst of an AI bubble as skeptical of the exaggerated hype currently surrounding artificial intelligence. There are concerning signs. The “Magnificent Seven” stocks (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla) make up more than a third of the S&P 500, with recent growth driven by an AI story. Investors are becoming uneasy with this level of concentration. At the peak of the dot-com bubble in 2000, the top technology stocks from the late 1990s (Cisco, Dell, Intel, Lucent and Microsoft) accounted…

Pakistani teams on Thursday displayed their prowess at the Amerigol Latam Cup ice hockey tournament in Coral Springs, Florida in the United States with the men’s team clinching the Division III championship and the women’s team claiming the Division II bronze medal in their debut appearance. The tournament is designed to showcase talent from regions where ice hockey is a growing sport and “break barriers and unite non-traditional hockey markets in a thrilling display of skill, passion, and camaraderie”, according to the organisers’ website. A press release from the National Hockey League (NHL), stated that this year’s Latam Cup features…

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Friday that, “the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance.”Getty Images Markets move on gaps between reality and expectations. I expect the gap that could emerge after Nvidia reports second-quarter earnings next Wednesday will move markets more than what Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Friday in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. How so? Investors are growing worried about how much companies are investing in artificial intelligence and how few of them are getting a payoff. Unless Nvidia beats investor expectations and raises guidance, its stock could plunge.…

Matthew Breetzke slammed a superb 88 and speedster Lungi Ngidi claimed five wickets as South Africa crushed Australia by 84 runs to win the second one-day international (ODI) and the series in Mackay on Friday. The Proteas took out the opening game by a thumping 98 runs, making the third and final match on Sunday a dead rubber. World champions Australia have now lost the past five ODI series against South Africa, with their batsmen again failing to fire. After skipper Aiden Markram won the toss and opted to bat, Breetzke crunched eight fours and two sixes to continue his…

Chair of the US Federal Reserve Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference following the July 29-30 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in Washington, DC on July 30, 2025. Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty ImagesFederal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hinted at possible interest rate cuts in the near future during a speech on Friday at the central bank’s annual event in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “The shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance,” Powell said.That may bode well for homeowners who have been hoping to refinance mortgages with high rates, experts say.The central bank’s benchmark rate influences…

A student studies in the Perry-Castaneda Library at the University of Texas at Austin on February 22, 2024 in Austin, Texas. Brandon Bell | Getty ImagesWhen the Trump administration first announced in April that it would soon resume student loan collection efforts, it said notices for wage garnishment would resume “later this summer.” It’s still a timeframe the Education Department has cited in comments, as recently as earlier this month.But with Labor Day coming up, it has yet to reveal a specific date.The department did not respond to a request for comment on the timeline of wage garnishments.”Getting these programs set…