Zhang Men's prenatal check-up encounter with Xiaowu is a story of friendship, support, and joy. It is a reminder that in life's most precious moments, what truly matters is the love and connection we share with those closest to us. May Zhang Men's pregnancy be filled with continued happiness and may her journey inspire others to embrace the beauty of every moment.Former Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Mianyang Commercial Bank, He Miao, Expelled from Party and Public Office
Prior to announcing his Senate candidacy in April 2023, Bernie Moreno was a political no name. A former car salesman in the Cleveland area, his only prior experience in politics was a losing bid for Ohio’s other Senate seat in 2022. Moreno has since accomplished the once unthinkable. On Nov. 5, as part of the election that swept Donald Trump back into the White House, Moreno defeated Democratic incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown, who was first elected to the House in 1992, before winning his Senate seat in 2006 and chairing the powerful Banking Committee since 2021. Moreno’s rise from unsung Ohio businessman to prominent political leader was no accident. His campaign was backed by $40 million from the cryptocurrency industry as part of a highly targeted effort to get friendly candidates elected and, perhaps more importantly, its critics removed. Moreno’s victory was one of the Senate seats Republicans flipped to take control of the chamber. In total, crypto-related PACs and other groups tied to the industry reeled in over $245 million, according to Federal Election Commission data. Crypto accounted for nearly half of all corporate dollars that flowed into the election, according to nonprofit watchdog Public Citizen. Advocacy group Stand With Crypto Alliance, which Coinbase launched last year, developed a grading system for House and Senate races across the country as a way to help determine where money should be spent. Crypto execs, investors and evangelists saw the election as existential to an industry that spent the past four years simultaneously trying to grow up while being repeatedly beaten down. Nearly 300 pro-crypto lawmakers will take seats in the House and Senate, according to Stand With Crypto, giving the sector unprecedented influence over the legislative agenda. The crypto political lobby worked so well this cycle because it made something complicated, like campaign finance, simple: Raise a ton of cash from a handful of donors and buy ad space in battleground states to either support candidates who back crypto or smear the candidates who don’t. It also required thinking of candidates as a bit of a binary: They were either with the industry or against it. Crypto companies and their executives mobilized rapidly, and they successfully figured out how to deploy their cash through a sophisticated ad machine across the country. They also took cues from what big tech got wrong. Rather than spending hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying legislators post-election, the crypto industry invested in targeting their opponents ahead of the election so they wouldn’t have to deal with them at all the next few years. For over a year, Moreno was grilled by Silicon Valley heavy hitters like Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and David Sacks about blockchain technology, digital asset policy and the shifting terrain of global finance. “They didn’t just jump in head first,” Moreno said, describing the scores of meetings that stretched back to his run in the primary. “We had to build a lot of trust.” Moreno also met with Coinbase co-founders Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam as well as policy chief Faryar Shirzad. Armstrong and Ehrsam did not respond to CNBC’s request, through Coinbase, for comment about the meetings. Coinbase is the largest digital asset exchange in the U.S. and has been battling the Securities and Exchange Commission in court for over a year. The company was the crypto kingmaker in the 2024 cycle, giving more than $75 million to a super PAC called Fairshake. It was one of the top spending committees of any industry this cycle and exclusively gave to pro-crypto candidates running for Congress. Fairshake’s candidates won virtually every race that it funded in the general election. “Being anti-crypto is simply bad politics,” Coinbase’s Armstrong wrote on X following Moreno’s victory. As the price of bitcoin has multiplied by about sixfold in the past four years, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has taken major crypto players like Coinbase and Ripple to court for allegedly selling unregistered securities and has avoided working with companies to develop new specialized regulations. Meanwhile, Sen. Brown sided with the expressly anti-crypto Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in targeting crypto for allegedly funding terrorist organizations, including Hamas. Brown became more vocal in calling for crackdowns of the industry after the failure of crypto exchange FTX in late 2022. As FTX was spiraling into bankruptcy, Brown on Nov. 10 retweeted a post from the Senate Banking Committee calling the event “a loud warning bell that cryptocurrencies can fail” and can “have a ripple effect on consumers and other parts of our financial system.” The bipartisan Fairshake won all but three races in the general election, spending big on Republicans and Democrats gunning for key seats. Protect Progress, a PAC affiliated with Fairshake, gave more than $10 million apiece to Democratic candidates for the Senate in Arizona and Michigan. Both won. Defend American Jobs, another one of Fairshake’s affiliated PACs, spent more than $3 million to support Republican Jim Justice in West Virginia, who will take the former seat of Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin when the new session gets underway in 2025. In California, Democratic Rep. Katie Porter lost a Senate primary after Fairshake spent more than $10 million on ads against her. “I was, like, ‘What the heck is Fairshake?’” Porter told The New Yorker . How tech bros made their pick Those vetting Moreno wanted to understand what he would do differently than the current administration and regulatory regime, the senator-elect told CNBC in an interview. “These are people who know how to vet investments, know how to vet people and they took that same discipline” with me, Moreno said. It helped that he’d built a blockchain startup, a company called Champ Titles that digitizes automobile ticketing and registration. “What they didn’t want was to put time, effort and energy behind somebody who, at the end, would be a disappointment,” Moreno said. A spokesperson for Andreessen and Horowitz, who are co-founders of a venture firm bearing their names, declined to comment. Sacks, founder of Craft Ventures, didn’t respond to CNBC’s request for an interview. Coinbase’s Shirzad met Moreno over breakfast in Washington in the spring. Moreno wasn’t an expert on the details of the policy issues he’d be pursuing but had a clear understanding of crypto technology and how it could be applied, Shirzad told CNBC in an interview. “It was a really great meeting of minds between me as a policy guy and him as kind of a business guy that saw the potential of the technology,” Shirzad said. Moreno was out of cash after spending all he had on a tough and expensive primary, said David McIntosh, an early backer of Moreno’s Senate bid and president of the Club for Growth, a conservative organization that focuses on American economic issues. Fairshake played a crucial role for Moreno’s campaign starting in the summer, McIntosh said. Moreno’s victory over Brown “sent a really strong signal to Washington that the voters are going to support candidates who are pro-blockchain,” McIntosh said. McIntosh noted that the Club for Growth spent $6.5 million to help Moreno with advertising in the primary through its different super PACs, including the Bitcoin Freedom Fund. Brown’s office didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. Brown told Politico he hasn’t ruled out running for Vice President-elect JD Vance’s open Senate seat in Ohio, which will be filled by special election in 2026. Moreno benefited from branding himself as the “change” candidate while Brown “became a defender of the status quo,” Shirzad said. “Crypto thematically is a change issue,” Shirzad said. “It appeals to not only a younger demographic, but it also appeals to voters who want to change.” Fairshake declined to comment on whether it would spend to block another Brown Senate run, but the super PAC has already raised $78 million for the 2026 midterms. “We stuck to our core strategy from Day 1, supported pro-crypto candidates and opposed those who played politics with jobs and innovation, and won,” Fairshake told CNBC in a statement. ‘Most pro-crypto Congress ever’ The past two election cycles featured spending from the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and its founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in March for stealing more than $8 billion worth of customer money through FTX. This year’s contributor list was more robust but saw large sums of funding come from companies that have been at odds with SEC Chair Gensler for years. That includes Coinbase and blockchain giant Ripple Labs. Prominent venture fund Andreessen Horowitz, which has a large portfolio of crypto companies, was one of the other primary contributors. A lot of crypto’s big names also gave significantly in 2024. FEC filings show Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss were among the largest individual crypto donors this election cycle, giving a combined $10.1 million. Top executives from Ripple contributed millions, led by billionaire founder Chris Larsen, who gave around $12 million this cycle. Coinbase CEO Armstrong gave over $1.3 million to a mix of PACs including Fairshake and JD Vance for Senate Inc. He also gave directly to Democrats and Republicans running for House and Senate seats. Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal attended at least two Trump fundraisers, including one in Nashville , Tennessee, on the sidelines of the biggest bitcoin event of the year. Kraken Chairman Jesse Powell donated over $1 million to the Trump campaign. Other individual crypto contributors include ex-Bitfinex strategy chief Phil Potter (over $1.6 million), Multicoin Capital’s Kyle Samani ($878,600), Paradigm co-founder Fred Ehrsam ($735,400), Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson ($1,4 million), Paxos CEO Charles Cascarilla ($198,500), BitGo CEO Mike Belshe ($119,825), Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko ($67,100), and Xapo Bank founder Wences Casares ($374,899). This week, Armstrong reportedly met with the president-elect to discuss appointments. Within a day, conversations swirled about the potential for the White House’s first crypto czar . By the end of the week, SEC Chair and longtime crypto foe Gensler, whose term doesn’t expire until June 2026, announced he was retiring on inauguration day. One of Trump’s promises to his crypto fans on the campaign was that he would fire the SEC head and choose crypto-friendly regulators if elected. Gensler may have taken a look at the pressure that faces him across Washington and decided it just wasn’t worth trying to stick it out. “Welcome to America’s most pro-crypto Congress ever,” Armstrong wrote on X on Nov. 5.2. **Performance and Speed**: Enterprise SSDs offer blazing-fast performance, significantly reducing data access times and improving overall system responsiveness. With faster read and write speeds, enterprises can process large datasets, run complex applications, and deliver real-time services more efficiently. 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In the vast landscape of social media influencers, standing out and gaining a loyal following can be a challenging task. However, for Wu Liufang, her journey has been nothing short of remarkable. With over 1.91 million likes and 250,000 comments on her latest video, her rise to fame has been meteoric, with her fan base skyrocketing to new heights.The decision to compensate Barcelona for Araujo's injury sets a positive precedent for other clubs facing similar situations. In the world of football, injuries are an inevitable part of the game, and the financial consequences can be severe for clubs, especially those with limited resources. FIFA's proactive approach in providing financial support to affected clubs reinforces the notion of solidarity and collaboration within the football community.Jury deliberates in Arm, Qualcomm trial after closing arguments wrap
Salah started off the month in spectacular fashion with a brilliant performance against Newcastle United, where he scored a crucial goal to help Liverpool secure a 3-1 victory. His quick footwork, agility, and clinical finishing were on full display as he constantly troubled the opposition defense and created scoring opportunities for his teammates.Juan Soto buttoned up his Mets threads for the first time on Thursday afternoon and explained his reasons for changing sides of New York went beyond the 15-year, $765 million contract. "What they had done the last couple of years, they have shown all of the ability to keep winning, to keep growing a team to try to grow a dynasty," Soto said Thursday. "What you were seeing from the other side was unbelievable. The vibes and everything, the feel and future this team has had a lot to do with my decision." Seated at a table with agent Scott Boras at his left and Mets general manager David Stearns to his right between Soto and franchise owner Steve Cohen, the coveted free agent said he enjoyed the courtship of multiple teams but opted against returning to the Yankees or joining one of their American League East rivals. The Blue Jays and Red Sox also met with Soto. Since the free agency process started, Soto all but tuned out the Yankees. Asked if he talked to anyone with his former team on Thursday, Soto said "I haven't talked to any of those guys. We talked to them through the playoffs, at the end of the playoffs. After that, I made this process, I haven't talked to any of those (guys)." Cohen, a billionaire who made his riches in hedge funds, felt the Mets would lure Soto away from the Yankees if they were able to make the pitch more personal. He said he was persistent and made sure Soto knew the Mets meant business all the way to the finish line. A second meeting with Soto, when the Mets said they learned about the slugger as a person and family man, Cohen felt the Mets sealed the deal. "We want to show them we're not just an executive, show them who we were -- have a personal touch and act like you care about the person, which I do," he said. Soto, 26, joins the Mets -- his fourth team since breaking into MLB with the Nationals in 2018 -- after spending one season with the crosstown rival Yankees, who gave the outfielder a one-year, $21.05 million qualifying offer that was turned down back on Nov. 19. The New York Post reported that the Yankees were willing to fork out $760 million over 16 years to bring back Soto, but the Mets ended up outbidding them. Soto helped the Yankees reach the World Series in 2024 after hitting .288 with a career-high 41 home runs along with 109 RBIs in 157 regular-season games. In the Fall Classic, Soto posted a .313 average and blasted a solo shot to account for his only RBI of the series, a five-game set that the Los Angeles Dodgers took 4-1. The Dodgers made baseball's biggest splash last offseason, signing free agent Shohei Ohtani to a 10-year, $700 million contract. Shortly after the signing, however, reports surfaced that Ohtani was deferring $68 million of the $70 million he is due each season, with Los Angeles paying the two-way star through 2043. In 936 career games across seven major league seasons with the Nationals (2018-22), San Diego Padres (2022-23) and Yankees (2024), Soto has clubbed 201 homers, racked up 592 RBIs and is a .285 hitter. --Field Level MediaThe couple arrived at the designated meeting point early in the morning, full of excitement and anticipation. They were greeted by a charismatic tour guide who ushered them onto a rundown minivan that seemed to be falling apart at the seams. Ignoring the warning signs, the couple boarded the vehicle, eager to begin their adventure.
O n the edge of a new year, the Readers’ Editor column goes both backward and forward – no, don’t worry, it isn’t your regular `this-was-the-year-that-was’ and `what to expect in 2025’ kind of article. Instead, it will focus on two very different aspects of ThePrint’s news content in 2024: first, it will look back at the value of good old-fashioned reporting in coverage of the Manipur crisis. Then, it will turn to what the future may look like as you see more and more visually interactive storytelling on the platform – a graphic representation of the news, the kind that brought to life a river in spate and the subsequent landslides in Wayanad , which left at least 250 people dead. These stories represent the blend of solid ground reporting and newer technological tools, which help ThePrint to offer journalism that is accurate, credible, and as engaging as possible. ThePrint’s reporting on Manipur, a state torn apart by ethnic violence since May 2023, has been recently recognised by the International Press Institute (IPI). The jury commended “...the media’s collective effort to bring out various facets of the human tragedy caused by the civil strife.” The IPI appreciation is well-deserved. I say this, not just as Readers’ Editor at ThePrint, but as a journalist and writer who has been dismayed by the indifference of most news media platforms—especially broadcast news—toward the civil unrest in the northeastern state. It is unconscionable. At least eight journalists from ThePrint have been to Manipur since the Meitei-Kuki conflict flared up in May 2023. That’s a lot of journalists for a small news website. The art of visual storytelling is a recent introduction. Over the past few months, ThePrint has been using the Shorthand platform to build stories with multi-media tools. Just go through the Wayanad story: you see the rain, the water cascading down the hills to the inhabited area. Or, see the gold being smuggled into India. At the tap of the finger, you discover how the yellow metal makes its way in baby diapers or as gold dust in sanitary pads. You can track its journey from country to country before arriving in India with colour coding. It’s wow. “We are leveraging visuals for storytelling...it has moving graphics, videos, sound – normally text and photograph stories are static. Viewers respond to this format,” said Nisheeth Upadhyay, Editor (Operations). “We will try to do this for more and more ground reporting.” Exciting times ahead—welcome to 2025 at ThePrint. Many other news organisations, across the world, use Shorthand such as BBC , Financial Times , and NBC . This report from a Spanish website shows you how you can tell a visualised story – and we can understand it without knowing the language. The format is ideally suited to ThePrint’s in-depth reporting. “We don’t do superficial journalism,” said Soham Sen, who led the graphics team. “We want to give it the treatment and presentation it deserves. This shows you things you don’t otherwise get to see.” Nisheeth Upadhyay said it lends “flexibility” to telling stories. Personally, I found the format to be a revelation – the visualisation makes it easier for the readers to absorb the information. Also, it directs your attention to specific aspects, one by one. The photographs in the ground report on dancing women jump out at you and tell you so much about the women’s lives. In the investigation into spam calls , the diagrams allow you to see the modus operandi . Senior Associate Editor, Ananya Bhardwaj’s ‘I witness’ report on her travels through Dhaka is tracked in maps and photographs. Praveen Jain, Editor (Photography), is “very excited” by the possibilities of the format. “I like it, the style of presentation is very good—and it surprises the reader,” he said. Obviously, this process of creating and presenting a story takes time and cannot be used for all stories. “You don’t use it for a regular news report,” said Upadhyay, “We have begun thinking Shorthand, now it will pick up.” Also read: In Manipur, Army seizes Starlink device made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX Manipur has fallen off the map of mainstream news media. It is remembered only when there are violent protests or incidents. Watch television news channels or YouTube news channels and you will note the absence of the state from their content. It’s as if Manipur doesn’t exist. In the words of Moushumi Das Gupta, Deputy Editor, who reported from the state several times for ThePrint, “Manipur is forgotten”. In June 2023, I wrote a Readers’ Editor column about ThePrint’s efforts to convey the enormity of the events that divided the state and their impact on its people. Karishma Hasnat, Special Correspondent in Guwahati, had warned of tensions in Manipur from early 2023. Even before the violence began, Hasnat noted the increasing uneasiness between the communities and how government actions had aggravated the situation. Besides Hasnat, ThePrint has sent reporters and photojournalists to Manipur from Delhi. In the last 18 months, we have continued to track events there. Have things changed on the ground for reporters? Moushumi Das Gupta had visited in November 2024, soon after the homes of MPs and MLAs were attacked. She went to Manipur in May 2023 soon after the first clashes broke out there. “It’s been a challenging assignment, throughout. Now, it’s more complicated because people don’t want to speak. They’re cagey.” She found the divide between the communities had grown and there was “a hopelessness” among the people. Frustration has increased and they’re not as welcoming of the news media. “They see it as conflict tourism,” explained Gupta. Here are some of her reports on the current situation in the state— BJP is a divided house , trade hub turns ghost town , Sangh workers live in fear . Another ThePrint editor who has been to Manipur several times, Ananya Bhardwaj, said that while sources are more accessible because she now knows the civil and security officials, what’s difficult is that different agencies tell different versions of the same incident. “They’re not on the same page,” said Bhardwaj. “So which agency are you to believe?” The other obstacle reporters face is misinformation, especially through social media. Both sides, the Meiteis and Kukis, have their own sources of information, which they use to promote their version of events. Bhardwaj said they show you videos from their own “intelligence sources”. She agreed with Gupta that the people are disillusioned: “They have accepted the fact that it will be like this,” she said. Had the national media kept Manipur in the headlines in the last 18 months, perhaps the authorities would have worked harder to find a settlement and restore peace. I believe the news media has by and large failed to highlight the faultlines in Manipur and demand accountability. That’s what makes ThePrint’s efforts all the more important. That’s it for this year. Before I leave you, a big thank-you to all our readers—especially to those who took the trouble to write to The Print with their valuable feedback. We hope you will continue to engage with us in 2025. Shailaja Bajpai is ThePrint’s Readers’ Editor. Please write in with your views, complaints to readers.editor@theprint.in (Edited by Ratan Priya) var ytflag = 0;var myListener = function() {document.removeEventListener('mousemove', myListener, false);lazyloadmyframes();};document.addEventListener('mousemove', myListener, false);window.addEventListener('scroll', function() {if (ytflag == 0) {lazyloadmyframes();ytflag = 1;}});function lazyloadmyframes() {var ytv = document.getElementsByClassName("klazyiframe");for (var i = 0; i < ytv.length; i++) {ytv[i].src = ytv[i].getAttribute('data-src');}} Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() );
Penn State's polarizing QB Drew Allar puts critics on mute and keeps winning gamesDespite these challenges, there is still hope that Mbappe can rediscover his best form and lead France to future success on the international stage. The young forward has proven time and again that he has the talent and the temperament to thrive under pressure, and with the right guidance and support from his teammates and coaching staff, he can overcome his current struggles and fulfill his potential as one of the world's best players.