NEW YORK (AP) — What a wonderful year 2024 has been for investors. U.S. stocks ripped higher and carried the S&P 500 to records as the economy kept growing and the Federal Reserve began cutting interest rates. The year featured many familiar winners, such as Big Tech, which got even bigger as their stock prices kept growing . But it wasn't just Apple, Nvidia and the like. Bitcoin , gold and other investments also drove higher. Here's a look at some of the numbers that defined the year. All are as of Dec. 20. Remember when President Bill Clinton got impeached or when baseball's Mark McGwire hit his 70th home run against the Montreal Expos? That was the last time the U.S. stock market closed out a second straight year with a leap of at least 20%, something the S&P 500 is on track to do again this year. The index has climbed 24.3% so far this year, not including dividends, following last year's spurt of 24.2%. The number of all-time highs the S&P 500 has set so far this year. The first came early, on Jan. 19, when the index capped a two-year comeback from the swoon caused by high inflation and worries that high interest rates instituted by the Federal Reserve to combat it would create a recession. But the index was methodical through the rest of the year, setting a record in every month outside of April and August, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. The latest came on Dec. 6. The number of times the Federal Reserve has cut its main interest rate this year from a two-decade high, offering some relief to the economy. Expectations for those cuts, along with hopes for more in 2025, were a big reason the U.S. stock market has been so successful this year. The 1 percentage point of cuts, though, is still short of the 1.5 percentage points that many traders were forecasting for 2024 at the start of the year. The Fed disappointed investors in December when it said it may cut rates just two more times in 2025, fewer than it had earlier expected. That’s how many points the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by the day after Election Day, as investors made bets on what Donald Trump’s return to the White House will mean for the economy and the world . The more widely followed S&P 500 soared 2.5% for its best day in nearly two years. Aside from bitcoin, stocks of banks and smaller winners were also perceived to be big winners. The bump has since diminished amid worries that Trump’s policies could also send inflation higher. The level that bitcoin topped to set a record above $108,000 this past month. It's been climbing as interest rates come down, and it got a particularly big boost following Trump's election. He's turned around and become a fan of crypto, and he's named a former regulator who’s seen as friendly to digital currencies as the next chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, replacing someone who critics said was overly aggressive in his oversight. Bitcoin was below $17,000 just two years ago following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. Gold's rise for the year, as it also hit records and had as strong a run as U.S. stocks. Wars around the world have helped drive demand for investments seen as safe, such as gold. It's also benefited from the Fed's cut to interest rates. When bonds are paying less in interest, they pull away fewer potential buyers from gold, which pays investors nothing. It's a favorite number of Elon Musk, and it's also a threshold that Tesla's stock price passed in December as it set a record. The number has a long history among marijuana devotees, and Musk famously said in 2018 that he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 per share . Tesla soared this year, up from less than $250 at the start, in part because of expectations that Musk's close relationship with Trump could benefit the company. That's how much revenue Nvidia made in the nine months through Oct. 27, showing how the artificial-intelligence frenzy is creating mountains of cash. Nvidia's chips are driving much of the move into AI, and its revenue through the last nine months catapulted from less than $39 billion the year before. Such growth has boosted Nvidia's worth to more than $3 trillion in total. GameStop’s gain on May 13 after Keith Gill, better known as “Roaring Kitty,” appeared online for the first time in three years to support the video game retailer’s stock, which he helped rocket to unimaginable heights during the “ meme stock craze ” in 2021. Several other meme stocks also jumped following his post in May on the social platform X, including AMC Entertainment. Gill later disclosed a sizeable stake in the online pet products retailer Chewy, but he sold all of his holdings by late October . That's how much the U.S. economy grew, at annualized seasonally adjusted rates, in each of the three first quarters of this year. Such growth blew past what many pessimists were expecting when inflation was topping 9% in the summer of 2022. The fear was that the medicine prescribed by the Fed to beat high inflation — high interest rates — would create a recession. Households at the lower end of the income spectrum in particular are feeling pain now, as they contend with still-high prices. But the overall economy has remained remarkably resilient. This is the vacancy rate for U.S. office buildings — an all-time high — through the first three quarters of 2024, according to data from Moody's. The fact the rate held steady for most of the year was something of a win for office building owners, given that it had marched up steadily from 16.8% in the fourth quarter of 2019. Demand for office space weakened as the pandemic led to the popularization of remote work. That's the total number of previously occupied homes sold nationally through the first 11 months of 2024. Sales would have to surge 20% year-over-year in December for 2024's home sales to match the 4.09 million existing homes sold in 2023, a nearly 30-year low. The U.S. housing market has been in a sales slump dating back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. A shortage of homes for sale and elevated mortgage rates have discouraged many would-be homebuyers.PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Get ready for the ultimate fan experience! The Flyers are preparing to host the 46th annual Flyers Charities Carnival. The event turns the Wells Fargo Center into an all-out amusement park. Fans will get a chance to interact with players while enjoying rides, games, and other attractions. That is happening on February 26th. Ahead of the big event, the first wave of player "Sign & Snaps" go on sale today. They include a picture and two autographs with the Flyers player of your choice. Ordering them ahead ensures fans that they will be able to meet their favorite team member at the carnival. Also on sale today, people can take home a piece of everyone's favorite monster, Gritty. The Gritty Calendar is back, with proceeds benefitting Flyers Charities. The orange fluff-ball is here to tell us all about it.
Emerging anti-US axis worrisome but 'not acting as a bloc'
Sportscaster Greg Gumbel dies from cancer at age 78
BEIRUT — Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the militant leader whose stunning insurgency has spent years working to , renouncing longtime ties to al-Qaida and depicting himself as a champion of pluralism and tolerance. As he entered Damascus behind his victorious fighters Sunday, he even dropped his nom de guerre and referred to himself with his real name, Ahmad al-Sharaa. The extent of that transformation from jihadi extremist to would-be state builder is now put to the test. Insurgents control Damascus, and for the first time after 50 years of his family’s iron hand, it is an open question how Syria will be governed. Syria is home to multiple ethnic and religious communities, often pitted against each other by Assad’s state and years of war. Many of them fear the possibility that Sunni Islamist extremists will take over. The country is also fragmented among disparate armed factions, and foreign powers from Russia and Iran to the United States, and Israel all have their hands in the mix. Hours after Damascus’ capture, the 42-year-old al-Sharaa made his first appearance in the city’s landmark Umayyad Mosque, declaring Assad’s fall “a victory for the Islamic nation.” A senior rebel commander, Anas Salkhadi, appeared on state TV to declare, “Our message to all the sects of Syria, is that we tell them that Syria is for everyone,” Al-Sharaa, who has been labeled a terrorist by the United States, and his insurgent force, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS – many of whose fighters are jihadis — now stand to be a major player. For years, al-Sharaa worked to consolidate power, while bottled up in the province of Idlib in Syria’s northwest corner as Assad’s Iranian- and Russian-backed rule over much of the country appeared solid. He maneuvered among extremist organizations while eliminating competitors and former allies. He sought to polish the image of his de-facto “salvation government” that has been running Idlib to win over international governments and reassure Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities. And he built ties with various tribes and other groups. Along the way, he shed his garb as a hard-line Islamist guerrilla and put on suits for press interviews, talking of building state institutions and decentralizing power to reflect Syria’s diversity. “Syria deserves a governing system that is institutional, no one where a single ruler makes arbitrary decisions,” he said in an interview with CNN last week, offering the possibility HTS would eventually be dissolved after Assad falls. “Don’t judge by words, but by actions,” he said. Throughout his rise through extremist ranks, al-Sharaa was only known by the jihadi nickname he adopted, Abu Mohammed al-Golani. His ties to al-Qaida stretch back to 2003, when he joined insurgents battling U.S. troops in Iraq. The Syrian native was detained by the U.S. military but remained in Iraq. During that time, al-Qaida usurped like-minded groups and formed the extremist Islamic State of Iraq, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In 2011, a popular uprising in Syria against Assad triggered a brutal government crackdown and led to all-out war. Al-Golani’s prominence grew when al-Baghdadi sent him to Syria to establish a branch of al-Qaida called the Nusra Front. The United States labeled the new group as a terrorist organization. That designation still remains in place and the U.S. government has put a $10 million bounty on him. As Syria’s civil war intensified in 2013, so did al-Golani’s ambitions. He defied al-Baghdadi’s calls to dissolve the Nusra Front and merge it with al-Qaida’s operation in Iraq, to form the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. Al-Golani nonetheless pledged his allegiance to al-Qaida, which later disassociated itself from ISIS. The Nusra Front battled ISIS and eliminated much of its competition among the Syrian armed opposition to Assad. In his first interview in 2014, al-Golani kept his face covered, telling a reporter for Qatari network Al-Jazeera that he rejected political talks in Geneva to end the conflict. He said his goal was to see Syria ruled under Islamic law and made clear that there was no room for the country’s Alawite, Shiite, Druze and Christian minorities. In 2016, al-Golani revealed his face to the public for the first time in a video message that announced his group was renaming itself Jabhat Fateh al-Sham -– the Syria Conquest Front — and cutting its ties to al-Qaida. “This new organization has no affiliation to any external entity,” he said in the video, filmed wearing military garb and a turban. The move paved the way for al-Golani to assert full control over fracturing militant groups. A year later, his alliance rebranded again as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham -– meaning Organization for Liberating Syria — as the groups merged, consolidating al-Golani’s power in northwest Syria’s Idlib province. HTS later clashed with independent Islamist militants who opposed the merger, further emboldening al-Golani and his group as the leading power in northwestern Syria, able to rule with an iron fist. With his power consolidated, al-Golani set in motion a transformation that few could have imagined. Replacing his military garb with shirt and trousers, he began calling for religious tolerance and pluralism. He appealed to the Druze community in Idlib, which the Nusra Front had , and visited the families of Kurds who were killed by Turkish-backed militias. Related Articles In 2021, he had his first interview with an American journalist on PBS. Wearing a blazer, with his short hair gelled back, the now more soft-spoken HTS leader said that his group posed no threat to the West and that sanctions imposed against it were unjust. “Yes, we have criticized Western policies,” he said. “But to wage a war against the United States or Europe from Syria, that’s not true. We didn’t say we wanted to fight.”The suspect in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on December 4 may have been motivated by personal struggles with chronic pain. Luigi Mangione, 26, was named as a person of interest in the investigation by the authorities. Mangione was caught at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, which is around 275 miles from New York City. He has not been officially charged in relation to Thompson's death as of Monday afternoon. A national discussion about the American healthcare system and its relationship to the public has been triggered by Thompson's shooting outside a Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan. According to early accounts, the phrases "deny, defend, depose," which are frequently employed by those who criticize the insurance sector, were etched on the bullet casings discovered at the crime site. Even though the inquiry is still underway, more issues have been raised by an examination of Mangione's internet activity. A number of books about chronic back pain were listed on his Goodreads page, indicating a personal connection to the problem. The books were added between May 2022 and February 2023, and some of the titles are about understanding and managing chronic pain. Among the books listed on Mangione's profile are: Becoming a Supple Leopard: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic PerformanceBack in Control: A Spine Surgeon's Roadmap Out of Chronic PainHealing Back Pain: The Mind-Body ConnectionWhy We Get Sick: The Hidden Epidemic at the Root of Most Chronic Disease—And How to Fight ItCrooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery A sizable percentage of Americans suffer from chronic discomfort. A 2023 National Institutes of Health (NIH) research estimates that 51.6 million Americans, or around 21% of all adults, suffer from chronic pain. Pain that is felt most or every day for three months or longer is considered chronic pain. A significant percentage of this population is also impacted by high-impact chronic pain that restricts their ability to do daily or professional tasks. The relationship between the nation's opioid crisis and chronic pain has sparked questions about the way pain is managed. The NIH emphasized how urgent it is to address these problems, citing the substantial healthcare and social impact that chronic pain causes. Mangione’s Goodreads profile has also drawn attention for a review he left on the manifesto of Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber. In the review, Mangione called Kaczynski an “extreme political revolutionary,” acknowledging the discomfort in confronting the manifesto's criticisms of modern society. Mangione wrote, “It’s easy to quickly and thoughtlessly write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies. But it’s simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out.” Get Latest News Live on Times Now along with Breaking News and Top Headlines from US News, World and around the world.
Kate Middleton shortlisted for Time's Person of the Year 2024 (Picture credit: AP) Kate Middleton , the Princess of Wales, has made it to the shortlist for Time’s prestigious "Person of the Year" 2024. The 42-year-old royal is in the running alongside high-profile figures such as US President-elect Donald Trump, tech mogul Elon Musk, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Her nomination remarks her pivotal role in sparking a global conversation about privacy and health for public figures , especially following her personal health challenges this year. In January, Middleton underwent abdominal surgery , followed by a cancer diagnosis, which she revealed in March after rumours circulated about her absence. The princess took a break from public duties to focus on her treatment, announcing in September that she had completed chemotherapy . Her openness about her health journey has resonated deeply with the public, elevating the discourse around the struggles faced by public figures when it comes to privacy and medical challenges. According to The Mirror, Middleton’s candidness in sharing her story has been praised for breaking down stigmas and inspiring others. Her journey to recovery and her return to public engagements, including the recent "Together at Christmas" carol service at Westminster Abbey, where she spoke about her difficult year, have further cemented her influence. T The service, which Middleton planned herself, emphasized themes of love and empathy, chosen after her personal health struggles. As per The New York Post, Middleton’s efforts to continue her royal duties amid personal adversity have been lauded as a symbol of resilience . This year’s shortlist also includes other notable figures such as Vice President Kamala Harris, who launched an impressive 107-day presidential campaign, and Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, praised for handling government scrutiny of his social media empire. The winner of Time’s Person of the Year 2024 will be revealed in the coming days, following in the footsteps of 2023's honoree, Taylor Swift.U.S. President-elect Donald Trump attends a meeting with Britain's Prince William (not pictured) at the residence of the British ambassador to France, on the day of the reopening ceremonies of the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral following the 2019 fire, in Paris, France, December 7, 2024. Aaron Chown | Via Reuters In an exclusive interview with Donald Trump on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, the president-elect told NBC News' Kristen Welker that Ukraine will "possibly" receive less military aid once he takes office. "We're in for $350 billion, and Europe is in for $100 billion. Why isn't Europe in for the same as us?" Trump told Welker of support that has gone to Ukraine since the war began in February 2022. "The one thing that should happen is that Europe...should equalize," he added. On Saturday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced a $988 million aid package of new arms and equipment to Ukraine to help in the ongoing conflict following Russia's invasion. All told, the U.S. has committed more than $62 billion in assistance to Ukraine since the conflict started nearly three years ago. "I think [Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy] is maybe the greatest salesman of any politician that's ever lived," Trump previously said of the Ukrainian leader in June. The comments suggest that Zelenskyy's diplomatic skills were to credit for the tens of billions of dollars in U.S. military aid packages, rather than the country's actual needs. Like his stance during his first term in the White House, Trump said that NATO needs to "pay their bills" as a condition of the U.S. remaining part of the military coalition. The incoming president has previously threatened multiple times to withdraw the country from NATO — an alliance that has been in place since World War II, with a primary mission of protecting against the growing power of Russia. "Europe is in for a fraction, and war with Russia is more important for Europe than it is for us," Trump told Welker. "We have a little thing called an ocean in between us." When asked whether he had been in touch with Putin since winning office, Trump would not deny that he had spoken to the Russian president. France's President Emmanuel Macron (C) walks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (R) and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (L) after a meeting at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on Dec. 7, 2024. Julien De Rosa | Afp | Getty Images The incoming president met with Ukraine's Zelenskyy during a 35-minute meeting hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Saturday. The three were in Paris for a ceremony to reopen the Notre Dame Cathedral, which has been under repairs since a fire in 2019. Following Trump's conversation with Zelenskyy in France, the incoming president took to social media to call for an end to the conflict in Ukraine. "There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin," Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. He added that the "war that should never have started, and could go on forever." Trump has said before that within a day of taking office, he would broker an end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, crediting his strong ties with Putin. "I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act. China can help. The World is waiting!" Trump added in his social media post . Trump also highlighted his "good relationship" with Chinese President Xi Jinping , noting they have been communicating with one another since he was elected and as recently as three days before his interview with NBC's Welker. When asked whether he would defend Taiwan if China invades the island nation-state, Trump said that while he prefers China not to do it, he refused to say whether he would have the U.S. intervene, noting that he has to "negotiate things." During his recent call with President Xi, Trump said that the topic of Taiwan "didn't come up." The U.S. president-elect also spoke about Russia's role in the Syrian conflict. Following a 13-year civil war, Syrian rebels took control of the capital city of Damascus on Sunday and said they had successfully ousted President Bashar al-Assad. There are reports that the plane Assad took out of the country is missing. "Assad is gone. He has fled his country. His protector, Russia, Russia, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer. There was no reason for Russia to be there in the first place. They lost all interest in Syria because of Ukraine," Trump added on Truth Social. watch now VIDEO 7:43 07:43 Pete Hegseth would be a great secretary of defense, says former Pentagon official Elbridge Colby Squawk Box
Gemini Daily Horoscope Today, December 06, 2024 advices major investmentsTexas weighs social media bans for minors as schools and police face challengesThe musician Grimes claims that her ex-boyfriend Elon Musk, the “love of my life,” has become “unrecognizable” to her — and not because he became Donald Trump’s leading cheerleader in the final months of his campaign. Grimes’ concerns have to do with Musk’s apparent unwillingness to cooperatively co-parent the three children they share together, . The singer dated Musk from 2018 to 2022, and they share two sons, X Æ A-Xii and Techno Mechanicus, and a daughter, Exa Dark Sideræl. On Wednesday, Grimes , the platform that Musk owns, to explain how their custody battle adversely affected her creative output and family life, the Daily Beast said. The custody issue was reportedly was resolved on Wednesday, but the details are unclear. The singer, whose real name is Claire Boucher, said she had “spent a year locked in battle in a state with terrible mothers rights.” She presumably was referring to Texas, where Musk, the world’s richest man, now lives and operates his SpaceX, Tesla and other companies. Grimes said she only had “a fraction of his resources” to fight for access to her children, while her Instagram posts and modeling were “used as reasons I shouldn’t have my kids.” Grimes added that she has been “fighting and detaching from the love of my life as he becomes unrecognizable to me ... all the while I didn’t see one of my babies for 5 months.” “Having babies rips you apart and puts you back together,” Grimes said. “Babies are ten thousand philosophy classes of (expletive) you can only learn from that experience.” In another post Grimes wrote that she was “going bankrupt” from the custody suit. “I just slept and cried every minute I wasn’t explicitly fighting for my kids during that year,” she said. Grimes teased that she could say a lot more, but said she’s limited in what she discloses publicly. She said that most of her experiences in recent years “should remain behind closed doors.” that the clerk’s office in Travis County, Texas, where Musk filed suit, confirmed on Wednesday that a judge issued a final order, back in August. The office said the status was listed as “closed” but declined to provide further details. As the Daily Beast said, Musk has not responded to Grimes’ X posts, even though he seems to spend much of his time on X. Certainly, he’s been busy, holding court at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and hatching plans to drastically reduce federal government spending as the co-lead of the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency. Then again, Musk also has been ripping off posts almost hourly, many about his SpaceX rockets but also about his plans to cut hundreds of thousands of government jobs on Trump’s behalf and his belief that he’s America’s free-speech prophet. Musk also regularly expresses his concerns about plummeting birth rates around the world, one of the reasons he has become almost evangelistic about fathering as many children as possible. He’s currently known to have fathered at least 11 children with three different women, including Grimes. Musk was reported to be building in an upscale residential area of Austin, Texas. The New York Times reported in October that Musk hopes one day that all 11 of his children and their mothers can live there or at least stop by. The property appears to reflect Musk’s pronatalist ambitions, the New York Times reported. Pronatalists, from both the Christian right and Silicon Valley, believe that people should have as many children as possible, although they differ on the means of reproduction. Given Musk’s custody battle with Grimes, it’s hard to imagine that she’d want to be part of the compound, though her three children probably spend a lot of time there. The ex-couple’s oldest son, 4-year-old X, also has been seen in his father’s company quite a bit. after he was photographed posing with the boy in a celebratory Trump family photo on election night.
Former Akron mayor Dennis Horrigan nominated for Cleveland Heights city administratorIt has been a busy year in the world of celebrity in Ireland. In the same month Paralympian Jason Smyth and his pro partner Karen Byrne won Dancing With the Stars and Leo Varadkar stepped down as Taoiseach. In May, Bambie Thug came sixth in the Eurovision Song Contest and Jennifer Zamparelli, Doireann Garrihy and The 2 Johnnies left 2FM . The summer was a busy one too as Ireland triumphed on the global stage at the Olympics in Paris and Clare won the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship. There were weddings for Mayo GAA star Aidan O'Shea and Erin McGregor and sadly we lost Charlie Bird and Michéal O'Muircheartaigh. See all the pictures below for yourselfChargers’ RB room gets thin: Gus Edwards out, J.K. Dobbins questionable