dragon slot machine
Cyber Investment Firm, Option3, Names Longtime Bloomberg Executive Karl P. Kilb III as Operating Partner, and First Chief Strategy Officer at its Zero Trust PlatformNEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are climbing Thursday after market superstar Nvidia and another round of companies said they’re making even fatter profits than expected. The S&P 500 was pulling 0.7% higher, as of 2:45 p.m. Eastern time, after flipping between modest gains and losses several times in the morning. Banks, smaller companies and other areas of the stock market that tend do best when the economy is strong helped lead the way, while bitcoin briefly broke above $99,000. Crude oil, meanwhile, continued to rise. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 532 points, or 1.2%, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.2%. Nvidia's rise of 1.4% was the strongest force pushing the S&P 500 upward after yet again beating analysts’ estimates for profit and revenue. It also gave a forecast for revenue in the current quarter that topped most analysts’ expectations thanks to voracious demand for its chips used in artificial-intelligence technology. Its stock initially sank in afterhours trading Wednesday following the release of the results. Some investors said the market might have been looking for Nvidia's revenue forecast to surpass expectations by even more. But its stock recovered in premarket trading Thursday, and Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said it was another “flawless” profit report provided by Nvidia and CEO Jensen Huang, whom Ives calls “the Godfather of AI.” How Nvidia’s stock performs has tremendous impact because it’s quickly grown into Wall Street’s most valuable company at roughly $3.6 trillion. Its meandering up and down through the day dragged the S&P 500 and other indexes back and forth. The frenzy around AI is sweeping up other stocks, and Snowflake jumped 32.3% after reporting stronger results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The company, whose platform helps customers get a better view of all their silos of data and use AI, also reported stronger revenue growth than expected. BJ’S Wholesale Club rose 9.1% after likewise delivering a bigger profit than expected. That may help calm worries about how resilient U.S. shoppers can remain, given high prices across the economy and still-high interest rates. A day earlier, Target tumbled after reporting sluggish sales in the latest quarter and giving a dour forecast for the holiday shopping season. It followed Walmart , which gave a much more encouraging outlook. Nearly 90% of the stocks in the S&P 500 were also rising, and the gains were even bigger among smaller companies. The Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks jumped a market-leading 1.9%. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, helped keep indexes in check. It fell 5.5% after U.S. regulators asked a judge to break up the tech giant by forcing it to sell its industry-leading Chrome web browser. In a 23-page document filed late Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice called for sweeping punishments that would include restrictions preventing Android from favoring its own search engine. Regulators stopped short of demanding Google sell Android but left the door open to it if the company’s oversight committee continues to see evidence of misconduct. Drops for other Big Tech stocks also weighed on the market, including a 2.4% slide for Amazon. In stock markets abroad, shares of India’s Adani Enterprises plunged 22.6% Thursday after the U.S. charged founder Gautam Adani, 62, in a federal indictment with securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud. The businessman and one of the world’s richest people is accused of duping investors by concealing that his company’s huge solar energy project on the subcontinent was being facilitated by an alleged bribery scheme. Indexes elsewhere in Asia and Europe were mixed. In the crypto market, bitcoin eclipsed $99,000 for the first time before easing back to roughly $98,250, according to CoinDesk. It’s more than doubled so far this year, and its climb has accelerated since Election Day. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to make the country “the crypto capital of the planet” and create a “strategic reserve” of bitcoin. Bitcoin also got a boost after Gary Gensler, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission who has pushed for more protection for crypto investors, said he would step down in January . Bitcoin and related investments, of course, have a notorious history of big price swings in both directions. MicroStrategy, a company that's been raising cash expressly to buy bitcoin, saw an early gain of 14.6% for its stock on Thursday quickly disappear. It was most recently down 10.7%. In the oil market, a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 2% to bring its gain for the week to 4.8%. Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 1.8%. Oil has been rising amid escalations in the Russia-Ukraine war. In the bond market, Treasury yields edged higher following some mixed reports on the U.S. economy. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.43% from 4.41% late Wednesday. One report said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week in the latest signal that the job market remains solid. Another report, though, said manufacturing in the mid-Atlantic region unexpectedly shrank. Sales of previously occupied homes, meanwhile, strengthened last month by more than expected. AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Yuri Kageyama contributed.Dubai : All private schools, universities, and nurseries in Dubai will be closed for two days to celebrate the UAE’s 53rd National Day, also known as Eid Al Etihad. Taking to X , the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) announced that all the educational institutions will be closed on Monday, December 2, and Tuesday, December 3. Regular classes will resume on Wednesday, December 4. #عيد_الاتحاد53 #EidAlEtihad53 pic.twitter.com/ni27Ae7qF1 Earlier , employees in the public and private sectors have been granted paid holidays for December 2 and 3. This means that students and employees will have a four-day weekend, from Saturday to Tuesday. Eid Al Etihad is held every year on December 2 to commemorate the foundation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 1971. Every year, the country holds nationwide events to commemorate the occasion, with fireworks, automobile parades, air shows, and the UAE flag flying in most places.
Christmas updates: Bethlehem hosts subdued celebrations
Mass. Legislature brushes aside Diana DiZoglio’s audit attempt until ballot question takes effect
Zuora Reports Third Quarter Fiscal 2025 ResultsNASHVILLE, Tenn. — It was during the pandemic when the Rev. Kira Austin-Young and her puppet-maker husband, Michael Schupbach, were going a little stir-crazy that they came up with the idea. Instead of a star or some stylized humanoid angel to top their Christmas tree, why not create a biblically accurate angel? The result was a pink, blue and gold-feathered creature with six wings and dozens of eyes that went a little bit viral. "I think in, particularly, the times of the world that we're in, where things seem kind of scary and weird, having a scary and weird angel sort of speaks to people," she said. There are a number of different kinds of angels that show up in the Bible, said Austin-Young, associate rector of the Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin in San Francisco. For the most part, we don't get a lot of description of them, but both Revelations at the end of the Bible and some of the books of the prophets in the Old Testament describe strange creatures around the throne of God. "Some of them have six wings with eyes covering the wings," she said. Others have multiple animal heads. "I think one of the delightful things about the Bible and the Scripture is just kind of how bizarre it can be and just how kind of out there it can be." About 7 in 10 U.S. adults say they believe in angels, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted last year. Still, there's no agreement about what they look like or even exactly what they are. Social media is full of various interpretations of "biblically accurate angels" imagined not just in tree toppers but also drawings, tattoos, even makeup tutorials. The many-eyed creatures reject traditional portrayals of angels in Western art, where they often look like humans with wings, usually white and often blonde or very fair. Esther Hamori, a professor of Hebrew Bible at Union Theological Seminary, makes a distinction between angels and other "supernatural species" in the Bible like seraphim and cherubim, but she said she loves the biblically accurate angel trend, even if it conflates them. "It shows that people are thinking about ways in which the Bible contains far stranger things than what's often taught," the author of "God's Monsters: Vengeful Spirits, Deadly Angels, Hybrid Creatures, and Divine Hitmen of the Bible" wrote in an email. "The biblical heavens are filled with weird, frightening figures. In the Bible, God has an entourage of monsters." One of Austin-Young's favorite portrayals of the annunciation — a favorite theme of Christian art depicting the archangel Gabriel's appearance to Mary to announce that she is going to bear the son of God — is by Henry Ossawa Tanner. It conceives of Gabriel as a vaguely humanoid shaft of light. "It kind of makes you rethink, 'What would that be like to be approached by an angel?'" she said. "If it's somebody you don't know, or if it's a strange creature, or if it's just this kind of manifestation of God's message to you. ... That could be anything." ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
lertsakwiman– stock.adobe.com Treatment with afamitresgene autoleucel (afami-cel; Tecelra) was associated with long-term persistence in the periphery that led to clinical benefit in patients with synovial sarcoma, according to findings from translational analyses of the phase 2 SPEARHEAD-1 trial (NCT04044768) presented at the 2024 CTOS Annual Meeting. 1 SPEARHEAD-1 investigators found that afami-cel accumulated after infusion and reached peak concentration at a median of 7 days post-infusion. Furthermore, afami-cel was detected in patients at over 3 years post-infusion. The median terminal half-life of the product was 152 days; this value was 263 days in responders and 84 days in non-responders. Investigators noted that afami-cel persistence tended to plateau over time in several patients, which was consistent with the durable persistence findings. Notably, 1 patient had an afami-cel level below quantification limits at any time point. Afami-cel is an engineered high-affinity TCR T-cell product that expresses an exogenous T-cell receptor and targets a peptide from HLA-presented MAGE-A4—a cancer antigen that is upregulated in certain tumors. Patient eligibility for afami-cel is restricted to patients with tumors that express MAGE-A4 and have HLA molecules that will react with the afami-cel T-cell receptor. Cohort 1 of the open-label, international SPEARHEAD-1 trial evaluated the efficacy and safety of afami-cel in 44 patients with HLA-A*02–positive, MAGE-A4–expressing, advanced or metastatic synovial sarcoma.1,2 Patients received 1 infusion of afami-cel following lymphodepleting chemotherapy. In this trial, afami-cel elicited an overall response rate of 39% (95% CI, 24%-55%).2 The median duration of response was 11.6 months (95% CI, 4.4-18.0). 1 Regarding safety, cytopenias were the most common grade 3 or higher adverse effect. 2 Additionally, most patients developed cytokine release syndrome (CRS), 1 of whom had grade 3 CRS. On August 2, 2024, the FDA granted accelerated approval to afami-cel for the treatment of adult patients with unresectable or metastatic synovial sarcoma who have received prior chemotherapy; have HLA-A*02:01P–, HLA-A*02:02P–, HLA-A*02:03P–, or HLA-A*02:026P–positive disease; and whose tumors express MAGE-A4 as determined by FDA-approved diagnostics or cleared companion diagnostic devices.3 The decision was supported by data from SPEARHEAD-1, and afami-cel is the first engineered cell therapy to be approved by the FDA for the treatment of patients with solid tumors. Investigators conducted translational analyses to determine how the mechanism of action of afami-cel induced the clinical responses seen in SPEARHEAD-1.1 Blood samples from the periphery of afami-cel–treated patients were assessed, along with tumor biopsies taken before and after treatment. The objectives of these analyses were to identify how afami-cel induces long-term responses and to collect other findings to support the product’s intended mechanism of action. At a data cutoff of March 29, 2023, additional data from the translational research showed that patients who achieved an objective response experienced greater long-term pharmacokinetic exposure to afami-cel at an area under the curve (AUC) of 0 to 12 months vs non-responders ( P < .001). Greater long-term pharmacokinetic exposure also correlated with significantly longer progression-free survival (PFS). Patients with an AUC of 0 to 12 months at or above the median (n = 17) were associated with longer PFS compared with patients with an AUC of 0 to 12 months below the median (n = 16; P < .05). After infusion, both CD4- and CD8-positive afami-cel T cells developed phenotypes of memory T cells, defined as T cells that can persist long term, which express unique phenotypic markers. Flow cytometry showed that expression of memory markers increased on afami-cel after infusion, indicating that conversion to memory phenotypes was consistent with long-term afami-cel persistence. Flow cytometry also found that afami-cel demonstrated consistently low expression of T-cell exhaustion phenotypic markers beyond 2 years post-infusion; this finding was consistent with the product’s cytolytic functionality retention and long-term persistence. A case study showed that 1 patient who received afami-cel achieved a sustained response, including tumor cell killing, lasting longer than 3.7 years post-infusion. Two of this patient’s 3 target lesions completely resolved, and 1 lesion had a partial response (PR). Lesion 2 shrank more than 3 years post-infusion. Investigators noted that this delayed tumor shrinkage indicates that afami-cel retains a long-term ability to kill tumor cells. Through flow-based sorting, investigators detected and isolated afami-cel from this patient and used an ex vivo killing assay, which showed that the isolated afami-cel retained its killing ability 3.3 years post-infusion. Investigators noted that similar long-term afami-cel potency was also seen in other patients. Using RNA in situ hybridization, investigators detected afami-cel’s infiltration of tumoral and stromal regions in 30 out of 32 tested post-infusion biopsies. This analysis demonstrated that afami-cel can infiltrate solid tumors, which is consistent with its intended mechanism of action. Afami-cel was also shown to activate endogenous immune responses through T-cell infiltration in 23 synovial sarcoma tumors, including 4 that had a PR, 15 that had stable disease, and 4 that had progressive disease. Investigators saw a significant increase in the densities of all CD3-positive T cells in the tumor beyond afami-cel cells ( P < .001) that was attributed to an influx of afami-cel transgene–negative endogenous T cells in the tumors after treatment. Levels of Ki67-positive CD8-positive T-cells (which are indicative of proliferation) and Grb-positive CD8-positive T cells (which are indicative of killing ability) also increased following afami-cel infusion. Investigators explained that these findings show that beyond directly killing tumor cells, afami-cel activates a patient-driven antitumor response by inflaming the tumor microenvironment and recruiting endogenous T cells that can proliferate and kill tumor cells. Disclosures : Dr Druta reported receiving consultancy fees and advisory board fees from Aadi Bioscience, Adaptimmune, Daiichi Sankyo, and Deciphera Pharmaceuticals. All other study authors are employees of, and may hold stock/options in, Adaptimmune. The study was sponsored by Adaptimmune.The New York Giants , at 2-8, don’t have much to hang their hat on. The defense’s efforts have largely been wasted by an inept offense. Quarterback Tommy DeVito will be the third passer to see the field this season. Things have gone from bad to worse, and the bye week’s changes aren’t guaranteed to make Sunday go any better. New York will return from the break to host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday. It will do so as touchdown underdogs, hoping to leave a mark on the NFC playoff picture from the outside. At the very least, the Giants are almost entirely healthy heading into Week 12. © Lucas Boland-USA TODAY Sports The team released the following injury report on Thursday. LIMITED FULL Notably, Thibodeaux was a full participant, an upgrade from his limited status on Wednesday. He was eligible to return from injured reserve and the team opened his practice window as it emerged from the bye. Getting a starter back in a full capacity should be meaningful for a Giants squad that needs all the help it can get. No team has averaged more sacks per game, but the pass rush could take another step forward with Thibodeaux’s return, which now seems inevitable. Related: WATCH: Daniel Jones Says Goodbye Further, Slayton should get the green light for Sunday, too. A concussion forced him to stay home while the team traveled to Munich in Week 10. The rest, along with the bye week, allowed Slayton to return to practice as a full participant. Receiver Jalin Hyatt was encouraging in his absence, potentially pushing for more playing time as the season rolls along. There isn’t yet reason to be concerned about Lawrence nor Nubin, the two defensive starters listed as limited on Thursday. Lawrence has been getting veteran courtesies for much of the season, while Nubin has played virtually every snap as a rookie. Phillips is a name to watch as he was a late addition to the injury report, having not been listed on Wednesday. Still, as a full participant, he’s expected to go against a strong Buccaneers offense. With nobody held entirely out of practice, New York looks to be at full strength on Sunday. That bodes well for a team in desperate need of a win. Related: Giants' Tommy DeVito Must Improve One SkillNoneStents Market Size: Strong Growth Ahead (2024-2032)
NoneElon Musk’s preschool is the next step in his anti-woke education dreamsWomen leaders and activists, who actively participated in the July uprising, yesterday said despite their contributions at every level, they have been systematically sidelined in the post-movement period. They pointed out that equal representation of women was not ensured in the reform commissions or other state institutions. They added that the longstanding culture of denying women their rightful roles and excluding them from various sectors continues unabated. They made these remarks at a discussion titled "Dialogue on Women of the Mass Uprising: Where Did the Women Go?" held at the Jatiya Press Club, where injured participants and female activists shared their experiences. The event was jointly organised by two volunteer organisations, Loraku 24 and Empowering Our Fighters. Umama Fatema, spokesperson for the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, said it has become evident that there was a deliberate and successful attempt to sideline women in the aftermath of the uprising. "When male leaders were arrested, women stepped up to lead and continued until August 5. But after that, I was completely sidelined. Attempts were made to portray men as the heroes of the movement, and I began experiencing an identity crisis," she said. "Women leaders were harassed on social media, and those in power took no action. This further marginalised the women who participated in the movement," she added. Nazifa Jannat, a student of East West University and coordinator during the movement, said, "It is deeply unfortunate that we are now compelled to assert that we, too, were part of the movement." "People are asking, 'Where are the women now?' This question should be directed at the political parties that, despite their capacity, failed to include women," she said, calling on the media to raise such questions. She emphasised the importance of increasing women's representation in positions of power. "Women should not have to demand recognition for their roles; it is the state's responsibility to acknowledge them. We protested against discrimination in the past, and we did so to eradicate all forms of inequity," she said. Dr Worthy Jukhrif, who provided medical aid alongside Dr Hritisha Aktar Mitheen to over 100 injured persons during the uprising, said, "We believe women should be equally represented in every sector of the state, including the Reform Commission, to eliminate all forms of discrimination." Jannatul Ferdous Nitu, a second-year student at Barisal Government College, said, "No female students were included in the advisory council. Even though one woman was named spokesperson for the main committee, she has been noticeably absent in press releases and other activities," she said. Samia Akhter Jannat, a tenth-grade student who was injured multiple times during the movement, said not only are women's contributions unacknowledged, but they are also being deliberately excluded. Sabina Yasmin, a protester and female labourer from Ashulia, observed, "Many labelled the uprising as a student movement. In reality, labourers, including female workers, participated spontaneously. Many women were injured or killed, yet their sacrifices remain unrecognised." Sumaiya Nishu, a student from Noakhali, pointed out, "While women in Dhaka have some visibility in state affairs, women from outside Dhaka are completely overlooked." Sabrina Akhter, a student from Begum Rokeya University, said, "Despite our active participation, the media continues to focus primarily on men, perpetuating past inequalities against women." Shamima Sultana Lavu, a senior journalist from Channel 24 who was injured during the movement, explained, "During the movement, press secretaries monitored media houses, and we were even temporarily taken off-air. Yet, we persisted. The footage we couldn't air domestically, we shared with international media." She added that while a small number of media personnel were compromised, the entire journalist community often bears the brunt of public anger. The event was inaugurated by Ainun Nahar, the mother of Naima Sultana, a student killed during the uprising. Recalling her daughter's aspirations to become a doctor, Ainun said, "We moved to the city for her education, but her death shattered all our dreams. My daughter even argued with me when I discouraged her participation in the movement." She urged the inclusion of the uprising and its martyrs in textbooks and demanded punishment for those responsible for the killings. The event also featured speeches from women who played significant roles in rehabilitating injured and bereaved families from abroad.