Australia's House of Representatives passes bill that would ban young children from social mediaGophers QB Max Brosmer commits to play in bowl gameSmall-cap stocks are positioned for significant upside in 2025, driven by recovering earnings, potential corporate tax cuts, and favorable valuations, according to Brian Manby, investment strategy analyst at WisdomTree. In an exclusive interview with Benzinga, Manby shared his optimism for the Russell 2000 Index – as tracked by the iShares Russell 2000 ETF IWM – which has already surged 23% year-to-date and achieved record highs on Monday , surpassing its previous peak from November 2021. Manby said their domestic focus positions them as key beneficiaries of U.S.-centered policies, such as tax cuts and tariffs, while their relatively lower valuations create a compelling investment case for investors unwilling to excessively concentrate their portfolio on large caps. Small Caps, Regional Banks: Positioned For Growth In 2025 The small-cap rally in 2024 has been particularly strong in the regional banking sector, with the SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF KRE soaring 35% this year. This outperformance was driven by combination of factors, including Federal Reserve rate cuts, U.S. economic resilience, and the anticipation of deregulation under a Republican-controlled Congress. The expert stressed that regional banks could continue to benefit in the coming year as policy tailwinds strengthen their earnings potential. "We think there’s a potential opportunity for a catch-up rally, hopefully bolstered by the deregulatory agenda of the incoming administration. We are pretty optimistic on small cap financials and regional banks in particular." he said. “Any sort of pressure that the incoming administration can take off of the small cap financials operations would be really, really welcomed by the sector,” he added. According to the house view, small-cap earnings projections for 2025 are optimistic, with potential upside tied to fiscal stimulus and economic expansion. Additionally, small-cap companies, with their U.S.-centric operations, stand to benefit significantly from proposed corporate tax rate reductions, such as a potential 15% tax rate championed by Republicans. Manby also addressed the potential impact of tariffs under a Republican administration. "We think that the prospect of tariffs would be a bit of a greater headwind for large caps. Since small caps are more tied to the domestic economy, we think they would probably benefit," Manby said. Also Read: Thanksgiving Dinner Gobbles Up 19% More Cash This Year, Many Holiday Hosts ‘Already Regret Their Decision’ Small Caps Are Still Sharply Undervalued Compared To Large Caps Discussing the valuation picture, Manby highlighted that small caps remain discounted relative to large caps, and that creates a strong opportunity for investors. “The Russell 2000 is still very discounted relative to the S&P 500. It basically trades at about 2 standard deviations below its long term multiple versus the S&P 500 and that gives us a lot of confidence in the valuation opportunity as well,” Manby stated. Looking ahead to 2025, WisdomTree remains optimistic about the potential for small caps to outperform. "This is a great opportunity for U.S.-based investors seeking returns without paying lofty multiples," Manby said. Furthermore, he highlighted that “ongoing potential rate cuts would certainly be beneficial within the broader small cap universe.” Read Next: ‘It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year’ For The Stock Market, History Says Photo: Shutterstock © 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Rockets aren't the only thing Elon Musk is sending into the stratosphere. After a three-year plummet, dogecoin , jumping 250% since the election of Donald Trump—part of a broader wave of optimism in the industry, due to Trump's courting of crypto advocates during his campaign. Trump's informal appointment of Musk to what he calls the —D.O.G.E for short—also helped pump the dog-themed . This isn't the first time Musk, who styles himself as " ," has fueled interest in dogecoin. In May 2021, its price shot up in anticipation of on "Saturday Night Live." During one skit, Musk played a in conversation with a host, who repeatedly asked him, "What is dogecoin?" After some obfuscation, Musk's character finally admitted that it was a hustle. The price of the coin went . Just over a year later, it had . The losses hit small investors hard. In 2022, one of them against Musk for market manipulation and insider trading, though the case was dismissed in August 2024. Why has dogecoin—a meme coin that was never meant to be taken seriously as an investment—seen such extreme swings in value? We're all in this together Dogecoin was launched in 2013 to spoof bitcoin and a slew of other cryptocurrencies that were claiming to disrupt the traditional world of finance. , copied the code of an existing coin, and branded it with the already popular Doge —a picture of a Shiba Inu dog surrounded by fragments of broken English: "wow much coin." Although pointless and undesirable, it became one of the most popular and enduring cryptocurrencies on the market. Following dogecoin's previous surge in 2021, its fervent network of influencers and everyday investors worked together to draw tremendous attention—and capital—to the joke currency. To understand the appeal of these absurd investments, you have to look at the time and energy that users invest into these networks and the rewards, both financial and social, they get in return. Meme coins are collaborative enterprises. Members of these online communities have an economic incentive to become outspoken boosters: The more the value of dogecoin rises, the more their investments grow. But they also receive social validation from other meme coin investors when they pump up the coin. In other words, behind every meme coin is a collective of strangers on a communal mission to make more money. Dogecoin and its imitators have been described by their leadership as , and projects. Beyond branding the assets with culturally resonant images, whether it's a or , successful crypto ventures are characterized by complex webs of trust. Trust in the technology. Trust in its potential for future appreciation. And trust that those holding power in the networks won't exploit the rest. This loyalty is woven among a global network of users who collaborate around the clock to promote their coin and demonstrate their unwavering commitment to its success. In times of price appreciation, the collective . During price dips, community members mutually reinforce their comrades'—and their own—beliefs that this is just a bump in the road and that their collective efforts will eventually lead to a handsome payoff. Even in the coldest of , this ritualistic behavior helps these speculative communities endure. Community serves as a substitute for financial loss. The investment strategies in these communities—and the conviction in their payoff—involve repeating and reposting what others have said, like any traditional internet meme. Trolling traditional valuation The real value of meme coins cannot be understood in the same way as traditional assets, such as stocks and physical commodities. These types of assets have fundamentals, such as a company's financial statements, or public demand for basic goods, from coffee to oil. Conversely, the fundamentals of meme coins are reflected in their network activity, such as daily active users, and less concrete metrics, such as social sentiment and —how much public awareness a coin has generated compared with its rivals. Of course, the valuations of traditional assets are also affected by these social factors. The difference is that meme coins offer little by way of productive activity. They add nothing to the economy. Occasionally, their leadership will , but these are generally added as afterthoughts, especially as a way to drum up more speculative excitement. Meme coins troll the traditional conventions of valuation and mock the edicts and dogmas of mainstream investors. And that's exactly the point. Participation in meme coin communities—or any crypto community, for that matter—entails embracing an alternative economic experience. They are speculative sandboxes for playing outside of the conventional rules of investment. Who let the Doge out? Musk is the quintessential meme influencer. As the richest man in the world, he's viewed by many as a paragon of savvy investing. extends far beyond dogecoin's social network. And his promotional efforts are playful—so playful that the judge in his class-action case as mere "puffery" and that "no reasonable investor could rely upon them." Dogecoin previously reached the peak of its memetic momentum when Musk appeared on "Saturday Night Live." Now, instead of sitting at the Weekend Update news desk cracking jokes, he's sitting in Trump's office advising the president-elect. In other words, dogecoin's memetic resonance has ascended from pop culture to politics, helping it capture a bigger slice of the public's mindshare. While dogecoin has specifically benefited from Musk's proximity to Trump, the broader crypto market is leaping with optimism for a crypto-friendly administration. Speaking at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in July, the GOP candidate ensured he'd make the United States " ." After pouring , the crypto industry can now claim 274 pro-crypto members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 20 pro-crypto U.S. senators. Between Musk buddying up with Trump and a shifting regulatory environment, the dog can once again run free. This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .Braves surprisingly could be a top landing spot for 23-year-old phenom | Sporting News
Liberals’ holiday tax break and cash giveaway has winners and losersCEC's Generation of Environmental Leaders Program Now Open to North American Youth!November 25, 2024 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlightedthe following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: fact-checked trusted source written by researcher(s) proofread by Alex Lipp, The Conversation For the first time, anyone in England can now access real-time information of where combined sewer overflows (CSOs) are discharging untreated wastewater into our waterways. This week, all water companies published details of how anyone can access the status of thousands of "event duration monitors" , devices that are placed on CSO outlets to record whether they are discharging sewage. This recent data release is not, however, driven by some inspired act of transparency by water companies. An impending new law is forcing them to. Section 81 of The Environment Act comes into force in January, obligating them to make event duration monitor data "readily accessible to the public." As a scientist studying river pollution, this data release is incredibly welcome. Since early 2024, water companies have been sharing maps of where sewage spills are happening but restricting access to the underlying data. As a result, members of the public have had to rely on the data visualization choices made by the water companies. Unfortunately, the resulting maps may not be showing exactly what people want to see. It seems obvious that people concerned about the safety of bathing water would want a map that highlights active sewage spills. Several water companies, however, seemed to disagree with this logic, producing maps where spills were obscured by non-spill icons unless you zoomed in , making it challenging for the public to quickly identify discharges. But now, with raw data publicly available, it will be possible for other organizations to generate visualizations more centered on the public interest. With geospatial developer Jonathan Dawe, I created such a tool, SewageMap —an open-source , free website which shows where spills are occurring in the Thames basin and, crucially, highlights which rivers are downstream of an active discharge. While the limited information provided by current overflow monitors means this map cannot provide risk information, it still provides useful, clear insights to swimmers, academics and citizen scientists. Open data has been essential to its success. Thames Water, to its credit, opted to release its CSO data in January 2023, almost two years before other water companies and the legal deadline to do so (January 2025). This open data enabled us to build our visualization for the Thames, and the data was rapidly and widely used by other people too. The volunteer-led site Top of the Poops rapidly incorporated live information into its data dashboards. Environmental charities such as the Rivers Trust and Surfers Against Sewage , as well as journalists , now routinely use this data to communicate with the public. Academics have also benefitted from access to overflow monitoring data. Nick Voulvoulis, a professor of environmental technology, and collaborators used this data to diagnose capacity limitations with the UK's sewerage network . This clear demand and capacity for open environmental data stands in stark contrast to the view of a senior lawyer for South West Water's parent company, who claimed that "it is the regulators and not the press or the public" which should have access to data on sewage spills. We have a long way to go to change this attitude. Notably, most companies are now only releasing the current status of CSO monitors which the Environment Act requires them to do, and no more. Take information about historical sewage spills. Let's imagine there is a CSO in your local river—if you'd like to know if it is discharging today, you can, now, easily find out. However, if you'd like to know when it discharged in the last year, it is harder, if not impossible, to find out. This seems surprising as this historical data is automatically gathered by the same monitors used for the recent release. It would be trivially easy to make this historical data public at the same time. Indeed, Thames and Southern Water have voluntarily opted to do so (again, to their credit). If they can do it, why can't other water companies? Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100,000 subscribers who rely on Phys.org for daily insights. Sign up for our free newsletter and get updates on breakthroughs, innovations, and research that matter— daily or weekly . A trickle of transparency Equally as important as open data is transparency over the scientific models used to make decisions off the back of it. Unfortunately, many models used by the water industry are "closed source," meaning that the underlying code and data cannot be publicly accessed or scrutinized. This means that from the public's perspective, the models operate as a "black box" where it is unclear how they reach decisions. For instance, Southern Water operates an online tool, Rivers and Seas Watch (previously known as BeachBuoy), that uses a model to determine if a spill alert is "genuine" and "impacts" bathing water. In an independent review of this tool, lack of transparency of how the model made decisions was cited as a key reason users didn't trust its outputs. And in a recent study , Alex Ford, professor of biology at the University of Portsmouth, and his citizen scientist collaborators queried the validity of some of the outputs. Southern Water has now taken steps to improve the model's transparency, including publishing the independent review in full. However, the tool still relies on a proprietary closed-source hydrodynamic model to make decisions. Worryingly, government regulators are also using closed-source software to make decisions about our rivers. Sagis is a model used to predict the sources of pollution into rivers, and self-describes as "the regulatory agencies' (Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency) primary catchment planning tool until at least 2027." However, a colleague and I recently raised concerns that Sagis , which was developed by the water industry, is proprietary, closed source, and challenging to scrutinize. Notably, this seems to be againstw the government's own guidance to use open-source software. The growing availability of overflow monitoring data is positive, and I am excited to see what great things citizen scientists, academics and environmental charities can do with it. However, there is still so much environmental data about our rivers that is far too hard to access, and proprietary, closed-source models are the norm. We need to rebuild public trust in our river—and sewer—networks. Greater transparency would be a good place to start. Provided by The Conversation This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .
With the holiday season upon us, it’s hard to avoid the constant barrage of seasonal decor ideas. Social media pages are constantly promoting the latest trends, while store aisles are covered in ornaments, wreaths and other products. But how much decor do you really need? We called on design experts to share their thoughts on the mistakes to avoid when getting ready for the year’s festivities. Here’s what they have to say. “Burying the holiday spirit in too many things can be counterproductive at the end of the day,” says Vy Truong, co-founder of Very Handsome Studio. Too many focal points can overwhelm a space, and even your favorite decorations will ultimately end up getting lost in the sea of decor. Instead of giving in to the temptation to go over the top with holiday decor in order to achieve a festive look, go for a “less is more” approach. There’s a practical benefit to a more minimalist approach to holiday decorating, too — you’ll have fewer pieces to put away once the festivities are over. When in doubt, always add more twinkle lights. Interior designer Bianca Ecklund stresses the importance of lights when it comes to holiday decor. “An under-lit tree can be dull,” she says. To avoid this common mistake, make sure you have plenty of strands of both indoor and outdoor lights for a festive feel and to brighten the dark, dreary days of winter. “Light it up for all to see — you can never have too many lights,” Ecklund says. Adding new pieces to your Christmas collection every year is part of what makes holiday decorating fun, but don’t feel pressured to incorporate every new holiday trend. “Don’t fall for every trendy wreath that you see,” Truong says. She suggests you start by picking a color palette and adds, “Try desperately to stick with the design parameters you’ve set out for yourself.” “Don’t buy something just because every store you go in is screaming at you to do so,” says Annie Oberman, principal designer at Forge & Bow. Instead, be intentional about your purchases, and make thoughtful choices that make sense for your overall collection of Christmas decorations. “Make sure your purchases really enhance your overall home for the holidays,” Oberman says. She points out the importance of opting for timeless pieces instead of overly commercialized decor. “I think it is a gift to allow your house to evolve over time, finding the classics that you love and building on that year over year,” she says. “Avoid purchasing chintzy decor that will end up in a landfill,” suggests interior designer Amy Youngblood. She recommends choosing pieces that will last, are meaningful and can be passed down as a special holiday heirloom. “Not only will it elevate your space and look nice, it is much better for the environment,” she adds. Investing in timeless and high-quality holiday decor also saves money in the long run, since you’re not forced to add to or replace decorations every year. While it can be tempting to put up all the holiday decorations you’ve ever purchased, this typically just makes a space look cluttered. “Keep it simple — just because you have it all doesn’t mean it should all be out,” Ecklund says. She recommends a more intentional approach to Christmas decorating. “Pick a theme or color scheme and stick with it, and keep everything else tucked away for next year,” she says. Better Homes and Gardens is a magazine and website devoted to ideas and improvement projects for your home and garden, plus recipes and entertaining ideas. Online at www.bhg.com . Get local news delivered to your inbox!The Baltimore Ravens picked up a nice bounce-back win in Week 12, defeating the Los Angeles Chargers 30-23. Lamar Jackson and the Ravens offense looked to get back on the same page and they did just that. Jackson threw for 177 yards and two touchdowns. Mark Andrews was the first recipient, making an acrobatic catch in the back of the endzone. The second one was a ridiculous catch by Rashod Bateman, who was fouled during the play but still came down with the ball from 40 yards away. Jackson ended up rushing for a touchdown of his own, while Derrick Henry rushed for 140 yards. The biggest run play didn't come from either of those two however, as Justice Hill broke off for a 51 yard touchdown. A performance like this should've gotten them back into the top 5 in power rankings, right? Wrong, according to Bleacher Report , who put the Ravens at No.7. Baltimore got back to winning on Monday night and did so by dominating in the running game. For as explosive as Lamar Jackson and the passing game can be, leading with the run needs to be the Ravens' plan moving forward. Controlling the clock is the best way for Baltimore to allow its defense to rest, and Baltimore's secondary is still a liability—eschewing the punt multiple times on Monday night also helped with the task of extending drives.If the Ravens can keep things rolling with Jackson, Derrick Henry and the ground game, they'll be a tough out in January. If they can't, poor pass defense could cause them to go home early. The Ravens came in one spot lower than the week before, a little head-scratching considering they shredded the league's best scoring defense in the Chargers on primetime.SAN FRANCISCO – Even in the face of their otherwise excellent start, the Warriors on Monday night endured the same lesson they’ve been enduring so often this season. Can’t say they’ve learned that lesson, as failures still are too frequent. Watch NBC Bay Area News 📺 Streaming free 24/7 The recipe to Golden State’s 128-120 loss to the Brooklyn Nets included one part of their typically poor free-throw shooting, one part unusually indifferent defense and – what surely is the most maddening – four parts of voluntary charity. The surest way to compromise any defense is by giving the opponent live-ball turnovers. “It’s impossible to defend it,” said Stephen Curry, who committed three turnovers. “And that can decide a game. We won the possession game, got 10 more shots than they did. Almost the same amount of threes (19 to Brooklyn’s 20). They got 15 more free-throw makes. But that 14 points on easy buckets or easy possessions, whether it’s them knocking down transition threes or getting to the basket, there’s no defense for it.” The Warriors handed out 13 turnovers, not a horrible number. What was damaging is that those turnovers gave Brooklyn 26 points and essentially paved a path to Golden State’s first back-to-back defeats this season – both of which came after coughing up large third-quarter leads. They led by 17 inside the final two minutes of the third quarter at San Antonio on Saturday and lost by 10 . They led by 18 with less than seven minutes remaining in the third quarter Monday and lost by eight before a sellout crowd (18,064) at Chase Center. The Nets began their surge over those final seven minutes and continued until the final buzzer. They outscored the Warriors 60-34 over the final 19 minutes. “We’ve generally done a better job of taking care of the ball, for the most part,” coach Steve Kerr said. “Thirteen turnovers [are] not a bad number, but they scored every time off them. There were some bad ones that really hurt; they were kind of automatic conversations. The ones that we had really took our momentum away, so we’ve just got to keep getting better.” The Warriors are averaging 14.6 turnovers per game, roughly the same as last season (14.3). The league has changed such that they were 23rd in turnovers last season yet have climbed to 15th-best this season. This is, however, the fifth game this season in which their donations have given opponents at least 20 points. The Nets scored 10 points off turnovers in the third quarter, which they closed with a 21-6 run. Much of what fueled their comeback can be attributed to Golden State’s live-ball turnovers. “We can’t set up our defense,” Gary Payton II explained. “At that point, we’re scrambling around. And if we’re scrambling, somebody is going to be open at some point and they get a good look. And teams are hitting them. “If we take away the live turnovers and get back on defense, I’d like our chances with our set defense.” By the time the Warriors reduced their live-ball turnovers, the energy had gone to the Nets, who scored five more gift points while finishing the Warriors in the fourth quarter. Brooklyn after halftime shot 56.1 percent from the field, including 45.5 percent from distance. That’s successive games in which the Warriors staggered toward the finish. The Warriors sit in second place in the Western Conference. They have an impressive 12-5 record. Yet even with their revamped roster, they’re displaying disturbing shades of last season, which ended with them trudging into an offseason without playoffs. “You don’t want to overreact, right?” Kerr said. “Two games ago, everyone was feeling great. We were 12-3. We’ve had big leads in late third in both games. We have to address what’s happened in these last two games. I don’t think it’s a fatigue thing. I think it’s an execution thing. “We need to execute better, and that’s on me as the coach,” he added. “We’ll get them in here tomorrow for a practice, which we need, and we’ll get back to executing better. Giving up 41 in the fourth, that’s tough to overcome.” Practice will, without a doubt, focus on execution. There also will be sufficient time to practice free throws. Either the Warriors will curb their tendency to give free money to opponents, or their impressive first month will be a distant memory – or a wistful game of “If Only” – when confronting the final weeks of the regular season. Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast
Will the Price of Gold Keep Hitting Record Highs?Michigan’s defense of national title fell short, aims to cap lost season with win against Ohio StateAn incoming Missouri Republican lawmaker introduced a bill this week that would offer $1,000 bounties to residents who turn in undocumented immigrants to the state highway patrol. The bill, filed by Sen.-elect David Gregory, a St. Louis-area Republican, would require the Missouri Department of Public Safety to create phone and email hotlines as well as an online portal where Missourians would be able to report alleged undocumented immigrants. The bill is among several pieces of legislation that deal with illegal immigration ahead of next month’s legislative session. They come as President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans across the country have made frustrations with immigration, and the U.S.-Mexico border, a hot-button issue . In addition to the payouts, Gregory’s bill would require the Department of Public Safety to create a “Missouri Illegal Alien Certified Bounty Hunter Program.” The program would certify people to become bounty hunters to find and detain undocumented immigrants. Individuals who are licensed as bail bond agents or surety recovery agents would be able to apply to become bounty hunters under Gregory’s bill. Undocumented immigrants who are caught by the bounty hunters would be considered guilty of “trespass by an illegal alien.” Those found guilty of the offense could face jail time and would be prohibited from voting and other rights. Gregory, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, had made illegal immigration one of the central focuses of his Senate campaign. He filmed a campaign ad at the southern border with Mexico and has promoted media coverage of his bill on social media. Edgar Palacios, executive director of Revolución Educativa , a Kansas City group focused on education issues in the Latino community, said Gregory’s bill was “horrendous.” “Immigrants are human and humans aren’t meant to be hunted,” Palacios said in an interview. “This idea of having a bounty hunter for immigrants is wild and I think it displays a narrative that, again, people see, not everybody, but certain people see immigrants as inhuman.” Nimrod Chapel, president of the Missouri NAACP State Conference, drew parallels between Gregory’s bill and legislation historically aimed at marginalized groups such as the 1820 Missouri Compromise which admitted Missouri as a slave state. “This bill by our new senator has returned exactly to those roots,” Chapel said. “You’re going to create a system that is not only going to differentiate people based on how God made them, which, in my spiritual belief, is just fundamentally wrong, but then you’re going to try to create in a system...that seeks to differentiate people in much the same way that some of the Jim Crow laws did.” Chapel referred to the bill as “a really draconian and racist piece of legislation.” “It scares the hell out of me,” he said. “And the reason it does is because I already know that Black and brown people have been catching hell in the state of Missouri for a very long time.” Impact on Kansas City While Gregory faces blowback for his bill, it comes as Missouri politics have been awash in rhetoric about migrants . The focus on immigration would have an outsized impact on the Kansas City region, which has become a center of migrant arrivals over the last decade, according to U.S. immigration court data analyzed by The Washington Post. Since 2014, roughly 8,300 migrants have settled in Jackson County since 2014 and 37% came from Honduras. Earlier this year, Republican Gov. Mike Parson sent Missouri National Guard troops to aid Texas , which has promoted a plan dubbed “Operation Lone Star” that uses Texas state resources to combat illegal border crossings. Parson, who will term out of office next month, heavily promoted the deployment, even though he later vetoed funding to continue it. Candidates for office in both major parties emphasized illegal immigration on the campaign trail, including Democrat Lucas Kunce. But the issue was perhaps the most prevalent in the race to succeed Parson as governor, with all three major GOP candidates touting immigration frustrations in campaign ads and public statements. Each of the three candidates, including Gov.-elect Mike Kehoe, also seized on comments Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas made in April welcoming migrant workers who are in the United States legally. Amid the campaign rhetoric, outgoing House Speaker Dean Plocher, a Des Peres Republican, also created a committee that focused on “Illegal Immigrant Crimes.” The committee held hearings across the state, including in Kansas City, to maximize public attention on the issue. For Palacios, with Revolución Educativa, immigrants are coming to the U.S. in search of a better life and to pursue “the American dream.” He said politicians should be focused on ensuring everyone has access to education and opportunities. “I think the narrative is harmful. I think it’s designed to create fear amongst certain members of our community,” Palacios said. “It riles up a base that may not fully appreciate, again, the value that immigrants and folks from the migrant community bring, not to our state, but to our country.”
BMW praises Tesla's Full Self-Driving technology on social media
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