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Xcel Wealth Management LLC Sells 529 Shares of NVIDIA Co. (NASDAQ:NVDA)Education policy received little to no attention during much of the presidential campaign. But, in the final phase, Donald Trump was asked during a “Fox & Friends” interview how he would fix schools. His reply: “No transgender, no operations ...There are some places, your boy leaves the school, comes back a girl.” That was a lie. But it was far from the first time Trump, the Republican Party and a wide-range of conservative activists leveraged fears related to schooling for partisan gain. Over the last three years, there has been a coordinated and intentional political strategy targeting public schools. Our team of university researchers spent the past months surveying and interviewing hundreds of school superintendents about the costs of dealing with culturally divisive conflict, such as battles over LGBTQ+ rights, teaching about race and racism, and efforts to ban books. Their answers are troubling. One in 10 were physically threatened. Many were barraged by false rumors and accusations. Two-thirds of the 467 school superintendents in our national survey reported experiencing moderate to high levels of culturally divisive conflict. School districts bear significant financial costs as a result. Security, communications, legal work and heightened staff turnover related to conflict all come with price tags and can involve redeployment of staff time. We found that the costs incurred by U.S. public schools’ responses to culturally divisive conflict totaled $3.2 billion during the 2023-24 school year alone. On average, a school district serving 10,000 students is spending nearly $500,000 a year if it is experiencing moderate levels of conflict, and more than $800,000 if conflict levels are high. The money public schools are spending on these clashes could be better spent elsewhere. With an additional $3.2 billion, it would be possible to expand the national School Breakfast Program budget by more than half — ensuring more quality and nutritious meals for students in need. Or, such funds could be used to hire an additional counselor or psychologist for every public high school in the country. After-school programs in the arts or STEM might be expanded. The possibilities are nearly endless. Aside from the sizable financial costs of conflict, there are the broader educational and societal costs. Our survey found chilling effects that are undermining education. Many educators are choosing to not engage students in discussion of issues deemed controversial. A superintendent from a rural district reported, “We are starting to get pushback when we ask kids to form their opinion,” adding that parents have told him, “I will teach my kid what to think.” But schools are a place where young people can learn how to engage in conversation with people who think differently, an important skill in our divisive society. A suburban superintendent commented: “The undermining of public trust and government operations is being intentionally inflicted on our population and many people do not realize the long-term effects this will have on our nation.” Elections don’t just have consequences; they have costs. Given the political success of fomenting cultural division, we should expect conflict campaigns aimed at our schools to continue, perhaps especially with the aid of Trump’s bully pulpit. He has said he would eliminate the Department of Education altogether. So what can be done? In our interviews with superintendents and in our work with educators broadly, we hear that they want to create schools that are welcoming and foster a sense of belonging for all students. They want young people to be able to engage with the full history of the country and with controversial issues in ways that center evidence, reflection, discussion and civility. To feature such programs in their schools, they will need broad public support. Educators need the public to be engaged and to have their backs. Parents and community members should talk regularly about what they appreciate about educators’ work and the importance of treating all students with dignity and respect. And if politicians, school board members, parents or others enact conflict campaigns to disrupt and undermine trust, it’s vital that the public speaks out against them. If local communities can help put the conflict entrepreneurs out of business, educators can focus on improving learning. Young people will feel safer and more supported. And schools might just save millions.
Politicians from the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is polling in second place before a general election next February, have adopted the Nazi practice of referring to Germany’s fallen soldiers as heroes to mark Germany’s Remembrance Day. Benjamin Nolte, a Bavarian state MP, invited people to join a “Heroes’ Remembrance” ceremony in the town of Weilheim last Sunday to mark Germany’s Volkstrauertag(People’s Day of Mourning). There were similar initiatives and social media posts from other AfD MPs and regional organisations as well as its youth arm, Young Alternative, which said it was commemorating the “brave heroes of our people”. The party, which is being monitored by intelligence services as a suspected right-wing extremist organisation, has seen a surge in support over immigration, the costKingsview Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in CION Investment Co. ( NYSE:CION – Free Report ) by 19.8% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 27,910 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 4,615 shares during the quarter. Kingsview Wealth Management LLC owned 0.05% of CION Investment worth $332,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Acadian Asset Management LLC increased its stake in CION Investment by 32.5% during the 2nd quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 695,609 shares of the company’s stock worth $8,427,000 after acquiring an additional 170,635 shares during the period. Cetera Investment Advisers increased its holdings in CION Investment by 2,340.1% in the 1st quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 524,131 shares of the company’s stock valued at $5,765,000 after buying an additional 502,651 shares during the period. Diversify Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of CION Investment in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $2,250,000. International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its position in CION Investment by 1,090.0% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 871,080 shares of the company’s stock valued at $103,660,000 after purchasing an additional 797,880 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Van ECK Associates Corp boosted its holdings in shares of CION Investment by 15.7% in the 2nd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 1,237,366 shares of the company’s stock valued at $14,996,000 after purchasing an additional 167,567 shares in the last quarter. 32.01% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Analyst Ratings Changes A number of research firms have recently commented on CION. Oppenheimer began coverage on CION Investment in a report on Tuesday, October 8th. They set a “market perform” rating and a $13.00 price target for the company. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on shares of CION Investment from $12.00 to $11.50 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. CION Investment Trading Up 0.2 % Shares of CION stock opened at $11.75 on Friday. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $11.75 and its 200-day moving average price is $12.02. CION Investment Co. has a 12 month low of $10.52 and a 12 month high of $12.69. The firm has a market capitalization of $626.16 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.99 and a beta of 1.18. CION Investment Dividend Announcement The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 16th. Investors of record on Monday, December 2nd will be given a dividend of $0.36 per share. This represents a $1.44 annualized dividend and a yield of 12.26%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 2nd. CION Investment’s dividend payout ratio is currently 97.96%. CION Investment Company Profile ( Free Report ) CION Investment Corporation is a business development company. It specializes in investments in senior secured loans, including unitranche loans, First Lien, second lien loans, long-term subordinated loans, and mezzanine loans; equity interests such as warrants or options; and corporate bonds; and other debt securities in middle-market companies. Read More Receive News & Ratings for CION Investment Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for CION Investment and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .
Greenville’s 2023-24 season, the last under co-coaches Steve Gipprich and Kevin Smith, saw the Spartans go 19-2 overall and 13-1 in the Patroon Conference to win their first league title in five years. This year’s Spartans will have just three players from that roster. Bryn Fitzmaurice, this season’s lone senior on the team, is confident the team will still have a presence in the Patroon Conference even if it looks different. “I think we're gonna be pretty strong,” she said. “We lost a lot last year, but I still think we're gonna be strong and we'll win a good amount of games.” Greenville will adapt to plenty of change in 2024-25, something well understood by new head coach Bob Shields. Shields, a Bethlehem High School graduate who played basketball there for two years, has coached the sport across the past decade, having been a varsity assistant at Albany Academy for Boys for the last four years after being head coach for Mohonasen’s junior varsity team. He thinks his basketball experience across several places in Section 2 has been an important experience. “You get to experience different things and different players, so I think I'm prepared enough to run my own program now,” he said. He’s going into his tenth year as the president of Cap City Scrappers, a 24-team AAU organization which he founded after attending Hudson Valley Community College for a year. Shields says he’s “always been around basketball,” something which has shaped his philosophy. “I know [about] the politics and everything that goes into it. I never like to favor kids, it's always whoever works for it is going to play over the other kids,” he said. “I've experienced it, so that's part of the reason I started the program [Cap City Scrappers].” Shields is inheriting a varsity roster with only three returning players, including Fitzmaurice as well as sophomore Charlotte Dawson, athletes he expects to carry significant responsibility as team leaders and producers on offense. “I think we all just need to play defense and stick to the script and really execute all of our plays on offense and be together as a team,” Shields said. Fitzmaurice, who is entering her fourth year on varsity, has enjoyed Shields’ leadership style so far. “He sets a good culture,” she said. “He's very motivating, and every day we come in and we work hard.” Dawson, who is heading into her third year on varsity, finds the strongest points of her skillset to be her driving and rebounding, but is excited to take on a possibly different role this season as an athlete experienced at several different positions. “I’m looking forward to working on my shooting and playing more of a guard position this year, and working on ball handling, playing point [guard], [being a] playmaker for my team, and then defensively just working on my position and getting more steals, tips, that kind of thing, to kind of push forward our momentum in the season,” she said. Both players are expected to lead the team’s championship defense through roster turnover against teams like Coxsackie-Athens, who finished right behind the Spartans last year with an 11-2 league record, stakes Dawson is well aware of. “It's definitely a little bit of pressure to keep the reputation of our school and our girls’ team up through my leadership role and Bryn,” she said. “It’s definitely a little bit of pressure to keep it up, but I think we got it.” Shields doesn’t think Greenville will be going away in 2024-25 either. “Be ready for the Greenville Spartans to make some noise,” he said. “[It’s a] rebuild year, we’re a young group, but we're going to play hard.”Old Dominion Freight Line Inc. stock underperforms Wednesday when compared to competitors
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The president of South Korea early Wednesday lifted the martial law he imposed on the country hours earlier, bending to political pressure after a tense night in which troops surrounded parliament and lawmakers voted to reject military rule. President Yoon Suk Yeol, who appeared likely to be impeached over his actions, imposed martial law late Tuesday out of frustration with the opposition, vowing to eliminate “anti-state” forces as he struggles against opponents who control parliament and that he accuses of sympathizing with communist North Korea. Police and military personnel were seen leaving the grounds of parliament following the bipartisan vote to overrule the president, and the declaration was formally lifted around 4:30 a.m. during a Cabinet meeting. Parliament acted swiftly after martial law was imposed, with National Assembly Speaker Woo Won Shik declaring that the law was “invalid” and that lawmakers would “protect democracy with the people.” In all, martial law was in effect for about six hours. The president’s surprising move harkened back to an era of authoritarian leaders that the country has not seen since the 1980s, and it was immediately denounced by the opposition and the leader of Yoon’s own conservative party. Lee Jae-myung , leader of the liberal Democratic Party, which holds the majority in the 300-seat parliament, said the party’s lawmakers would remain in the Assembly’s main hall until Yoon formally lifted his order. Woo applauded how troops quickly left the Assembly after the vote. “Even with our unfortunate memories of military coups, our citizens have surely observed the events of today and saw the maturity of our military,” Woo said. While announcing his plan to lift martial law, Yoon continued to criticize parliament’s attempts to impeach key government officials and senior prosecutors. He said lawmakers had engaged in “unscrupulous acts of legislative and budgetary manipulation that are paralyzing the functions of the state.” Jo Seung-lae, a Democratic lawmaker, claimed that security camera footage following Yoon’s declaration showed that troops moved in a way that suggested they were trying to arrest Lee, Woo and even Han Dong-hoon, the leader of Yoon’s People Power Party. Officials from Yoon’s office and the Defense Ministry did not respond to requests for comment early Wednesday. Seemingly hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the Assembly, waving banners and calling for Yoon’s impeachment. Some protesters scuffled with troops ahead of the lawmakers’ vote, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or major property damage. At least one window was broken as troops attempted to enter the Assembly building. One woman tried unsuccessfully to pull a rifle away from one of the soldiers, while shouting “Aren’t you embarrassed?” Under South Korea’s constitution, the president can declare martial law during “wartime, war-like situations or other comparable national emergency states” that require the use of military force to maintain peace and order. It was questionable whether South Korea is currently in such a state. When martial law is declared, “special measures” can be employed to restrict freedom of press, freedom of assembly and other rights, as well as the power of courts. The constitution also states that the president must oblige when the National Assembly demands the lifting of martial law with a majority vote. Following Yoon’s announcement of martial law, South Korea’s military proclaimed that parliament and other political gatherings that could cause “social confusion” would be suspended, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said. The military said anyone who violated the decree could be arrested without a warrant. In Washington, the White House said the U.S. was “seriously concerned” by the events in Seoul. A spokesperson for the National Security Council said President Joe Biden’s administration was not notified in advance of the martial law announcement and was in contact with the South Korean government. Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said there was no effect on the more than 27,000 U.S. service members based in South Korea. The South Korean military also said that the country’s striking doctors should return to work within 48 hours, Yonhap said. Thousands of doctors have been striking for months over government plans to expand the number of students at medical schools. Soon after martial law was declared, the parliament speaker called on his YouTube channel for all lawmakers to gather at the National Assembly. He urged military and law enforcement personnel to “remain calm and hold their positions. All 190 lawmakers who participated in the vote supported the lifting of martial law. At one point, television footage showed police officers blocking the entrance of the National Assembly and helmeted soldiers carrying rifles in front of the building. An Associated Press photographer saw at least three helicopters, likely from the military, that landed inside the Assembly grounds, while two or three helicopters circled above the site. The leader of Yoon’s conservative party called the decision to impose martial law “wrong.” Lee, who narrowly lost to Yoon in the 2022 presidential election, said Yoon’s announcement was “illegal and unconstitutional.” Yoon said during a televised speech that martial law would help “rebuild and protect” the country from “falling into the depths of national ruin.” He said he would “eradicate pro-North Korean forces and protect the constitutional democratic order.” “I will eliminate anti-state forces as quickly as possible and normalize the country,” he said, while asking the people to believe in him and tolerate “some inconveniences.” Yoon — whose approval rating dipped in recent months — has struggled to push his agenda against an opposition-controlled parliament since taking office in 2022. His party has been locked in an impasse with the liberal opposition over next year’s budget bill. The opposition has also attempted to impeach three top prosecutors, including the chief of the central Seoul prosecutors’ office, in what the conservatives have called a vendetta against their criminal investigations of Lee, who has been seen as the favorite for the next presidential election in 2027 in opinion polls. During his televised announcement, Yoon also described the opposition as “shameless pro-North Korean anti-state forces who are plundering the freedom and happiness of our citizens.” He did not elaborate. Yoon has taken a hard line on North Korea over its nuclear ambitions, departing from the policies of his liberal predecessor, Moon Jae-in, who pursued inter-Korean engagement. Yoon has also dismissed calls for independent investigations into scandals involving his wife and top officials, drawing quick, strong rebukes from his political rivals. Yoon’s move was the first declaration of martial law since the country’s democratization in 1987. The country’s last previous martial law was in October 1979, following the assassination of former military dictator Park Chung-hee. Sydney Seiler, Korean chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, argued that the move was symbolic for Yoon to express his frustration with the opposition-controlled parliament. “He has nothing to lose,” said Seiler, comparing Yoon’s move to the Hail Mary pass in American football, with a slim chance of success. Now Yoon faces likely impeachment, a scenario that was also possible before he made the bold move, Seiler said. Natalia Slavney, research analyst at the Stimson Center’s 38 North website that focuses on Korean affairs, said Yoon’s imposition of martial law was “a serious backslide of democracy" that followed a “worrying trend of abuse” since he took office in 2022. South Korea “has a robust history of political pluralism and is no stranger to mass protests and swift impeachments,” Slavney said, citing the example of former President Park Geun-hye, the country’s first female president, who was ousted from office and imprisoned for bribery and other crimes in 2017 . ___ Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, and Matt Lee, Didi Tang and Tara Copp in Washington contributed to this report. Kim Tong-hyung, The Associated Press
This video may be the most memorable moment ever at a drive-thru in Alberta! Meet Magnum, the sweet-toothed steer who pulled into one Tim Hortons drive-thru Saturday morning in Sylvan Lake in central Alberta to pick up his favourite Timbits. Kelly Landry is originally from Quebec. She moved to Alberta last April. She tells CityNews she’s been riding the eight-year-old steer since he was 10-months-old. “I just strap and go. When I know there’s something that could be dangerous I just talk and prepare myself and try to just distract him,” she explained. Landry says she used to take Magnum on adventures to local businesses and drive-thru’s when she lived in Quebec, and she’ll continue to do the same now in Alberta. “I just rode him two times in town. He’s been here since the end of October. I can take him to the grocery. I’ll try to go to the beach.” And whether Magnum is a local celebrity, she says, “I think he will.” The video of Magnum at Tim Hortons is going viral on social media. Landry says the reactions she received online and from locals were priceless. “Many were surprised and took pictures of him. Sometimes I let people go on him, more kids.”
Extreme cold front closes key Gulf Coast ports, as winter weather blows in from the north
South Korea lifts president's martial law decree after lawmakers reject military ruleTwo concurrent developments are impacting China in opposite ways. A policy shift is underway in Beijing that is driving fiscal support to the economy in an effort to stem the downturn and prevent deflation. From the other direction, a newly elected President Trump has vowed to dramatically increase tariffs on China and engage in a new trade war. In this note, we assess the potential paths of both developments and how their intersection could impact China’s outlook for 2025. Stimulus plans: what was announced and what do we expect next? The recent National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee meeting announced a comprehensive debt restructuring plan that we think could have a modestly positive impact on growth. The Committee’s forward guidance for 2025 was also pretty consistent, reiterating that there is room for more fiscal expansion. Our expectation is for more policies to stabilize the property market, increase investment, and perhaps some measures to boost consumption. A comprehensive debt restructuring plan was put forward to resolve RMB 14.3tn of local government hidden debt. The plan consists of a RMB 6tn one-off resolution, RMB 4tn to be accounted for by future-year budgets, and a RMB 2tn deferred payment – with only RMB 2.3tn left for local governments themselves to resolve. The headline amount (RMB 14.3tn) is at the top end of market expectations, signaling a serious effort to resolve the debt issue. Some investors have asked whether a debt restructuring means anything more than a large series of accounting changes. The reality is that not all debt is created equal. Off balance sheet debt is like private sector debt – it needs to be repaid fully at a point. Sovereign debt, on the other hand, is almost always refinanced. The duration extension and interest cost savings are additional benefits. Local governments were previously struggling to repay maturing debt, leading to salary cuts for civil servants, deferred payments for corporate suppliers and draconian tax collection measures. These were a significant drag on business sentiment. The restructuring takes this problem off the table. Local government bond issuance quotas will likely see a further increase as part of the upcoming 2025 budget, which means the green-lighting of more investment spending. The debt restructuring is the first step to reverse deflation, and to allow local governments to play a bigger role in counter-cyclical fiscal policies. As we wrote in earlier reports, since September, China’s policy focus has shifted back to the economy with the goal of ending deflation and turning around economic sentiment. The message from the NPC is still consistent with this direction. There is contention as to why the MoF couldn’t provide further details on the 2025 fiscal plan beyond the broad direction. In short, we don’t know. But given that the guidance hasn’t changed, we don’t view the lack of details as a dealbreaker. Our expectation is that policymakers will likely follow through on the announced state bank recapitalization plan and raise local government debt quotas further to support the housing market. The latter could see quotas being raised to around RMB 5tn for 2025. The official budget deficit will likely expand to around 4%, with expanded urbanization investments and targeted consumption support. There are opportunities for further policies during the year if and when tariffs go up. While tariffs are likely, the major uncertainty is over the magnitude of the growth challenges posed by tariffs, and the full policy response may only follow the specific tariff announcements. The known unknowns As Trump builds out his cabinet and coterie of advisers, investors are turning their attention to the prospect of tariffs and a “Trade War 2.0”. There are currently a wide range of estimates on the impact of tariffs and the growth outlook. This highlights both the fluidity and the uncertainty of the situation especially around the magnitude, timing and format of the tariffs — Will they go to 30% or 60%? Will that happen in 2025 or 2026? Will it be in phases or in one go, and do they start with certain categories of goods? Will there be tariffs on other economies? Analysts are also split on the degree of total impact on GDP growth, for a few reasons. One is the global trade environment. During the first trade war, despite Chinese exports to the U.S. falling, they rose elsewhere, keeping overall Chinese exports relatively unimpacted (see chart below). The U.S. is only 15% of China’s overall exports, making the remaining 85% important for determining the trade outlook. Second, how much impact will there be on business and household sentiment? This is partly a function of policy calibration – will policymakers act to prevent a de-anchoring of business expectations or will a delay cause weak sentiment to become entrenched? Third, what will policymakers do to offset the tariff impact – and by how much? Lastly, the actual implementation and path of retaliation creates a slew of unknowns – for example: how much could currency depreciation offset the tariff rate; will there be retaliation and escalation; how much will be trans-shipped through other jurisdictions; and will tariffs be applied broadly to prevent transshipments? The known knowns Despite the many unknowns, a certainty is that a trade war with the U.S. would have a considerably negative impact on China’s economy, for a few reasons. First, except for a spike during Covid, China is currently more reliant on exports to drive its economy than at any point since the 2000s. Given the weakness in domestic consumption and investment, exports have become a key driver of growth. This is evident in both GDP and trade data, where a surging gap between imports and exports highlights how extreme this imbalance has become. Second, despite the U.S. only accounting for 15% of China’s exports, it is still the single largest trading partner and over 3x larger than the next largest export destination. Exports to the U.S. account for approximately 4% of China’s GDP. If the U.S. dramatically reduces demand for China-produced goods, and cuts off paths for transshipment, it would undeniably have a meaningful impact. A key reason Chinese exports stayed resilient during the first trade war was that transshipments were occurring through other countries, with the U.S. as a final destination, and not because rest-of-world demand dramatically increased and offset the U.S. For this reason, the potential for transshipment will be a key factor to watch. To illustrate the impact, let’s start with the assumption that the tariff rate goes up to 60% on all goods in the first half of 2025. Based on the experience of the last trade war, this could significantly reduce bilateral trade between the U.S. and China. We estimate there will likely be a negative shock to economic growth, through exports, investment, employment, and broader confidence. Putting aside the possibility for transshipment for now, we estimate a 60% tariff could lead to a 1-1.5ppt drag on economic growth over a twelve-month period. How do we get to this number? Every 1ppt increase in the tariff rate roughly translates into a -0.9ppt drag on China’s exports to the United States. So assuming an increase to 60%, that’s around a 40ppt drag on exports to the U.S. This should translate into a 6ppt hit to overall exports, and about 1ppt hit to real GDP growth, purely through the trade channel. Because the export sector is a big employer and source of investment, there are knock-on effects throughout the economy. We think the impact could be near the lower end of the range if transshipments are strong, but at the high end or possibly above the range if transshipment routes are shut off. Transshipments offset most of the tariff impact in the last trade war. Since then, overall exports have grown despite a slowdown in bilateral trade with the United States. We think it’s prudent to bake in some degree of impact to sentiment, as uncertainty is likely to be high. That said, our assumption is that policymakers will likely act to arrest a meaningful decline in business confidence. We also assume they will likely launch more stimulus to offset the growth impact. All policy tools are on the table, but the exact split between fiscal, monetary and FX will likely depend on the situation at that point in time. For this reason, our overall growth outlook is not as bearish as some of the estimates on the street. The next big question: Deal or no deal? Are tariffs just a negotiating tool? Another question is whether the incoming U.S. administration will follow through with tariffs or if they will be used as a negotiating tool to achieve a deal. This is currently an open debate, but market pricing (and sentiment across Asia) appears to lean towards a belief that tariffs are merely a negotiating tool, given that many tariff-sensitive assets have yet to fully “price in” the potential impact. While it’s impossible to know exactly what the next administration will do, it can be helpful to analyze their goals and constraints, and walk back the policy options that can achieve those goals within their constraints. Why tariffs? What’s the point? What are the U.S. intentions around trade policy? What are they trying to achieve? This is important to analyze with regards to the U.S.-China trade relationship as it could point to very different outcomes. If the goal is to reduce the trade deficit with China, redirect trade to other countries, or simply provide less foreign currency revenue to China, then tariffs to block trade would be the desired tool. If the goal is to further open China’s markets to U.S. firms, have China buy more U.S. exports and become a larger market for U.S. producers, or to drive structural reforms, then using tariffs as a negotiating tool could help achieve these outcomes. In short – if the goal is decoupling, then tariffs could be used to block trade. If the goal is further integration of the U.S. and Chinese economies through a deal, then tariffs could be used to achieve some grand bargain. Most indications from Washington are that a deal is not achievable, nor politically palatable. There is a belief in Washington that the structural reforms proposed in the first trade deal (but ultimately rejected) are unachievable, and a further deepening of the U.S.-China relationship – thereby making U.S. producers even more reliant on Chinese demand – is not the desired outcome. While trying to understand the path of future policy, investors have to ask if U.S. policymakers want a deal that deepens the economic relationship and makes the U.S. more reliant on China, or do they simply want to buy less goods from China? What could stop the U.S.? Is it too risky to reignite inflation? If the path is tariffs and no deal, would the U.S. economy be too constrained by inflation to raise tariffs? It is important to understand what constraints could limit the use of tariffs as trade policy. Starting with inflation: core goods inflation accounts for 20% of core PCE, and 35% of core goods are imported. In the scenario where tariffs are increased on imports from China, the headline tariff rate could increase by around 35-40% points. Given that imports from China account for 13.5% of all imports, in a rough estimation this would all translate to 33bps upside for core PCE inflation (20% x 35% x 13.5% x 35pp = 33bps) – not zero, but not a meaningful increase. Using elasticities from the first trade war, the estimated increase would be 40bps. It’s important to make a distinction between tariffs on just China and a blanket 10-20% tariffs on all imports. By the same calculation, a 10% tariff on all core goods could result in an initial upside of 70bps for core inflation (20% x 35% x 10pp). Ten percent on everything would be much more impactful than tariffs just on China, from an inflation perspective. It’s also worth noting that the final effect on inflation will likely depend on a number of factors, and some of these can play a bigger role in influencing inflation than just the direct effects of tariffs. For example, over the 2018-19 trade war period, core goods PCE inflation actually remained in negative territory and in a range between -0.9% and -0.1%. The other factors to watch are: 1) How much of an offset could there be from USD appreciation? In 2018-19, CNH depreciated by 11.6%, which offset 65% of the increase in the effective tariff rate. 2) Whether the U.S. will be able to divert and secure alternative sources to replace imports from China and at what price. Much of the textiles, apparel, and toys can be sourced elsewhere. Some electronics and other goods are more challenging. 3) Global goods demand. It’s important to focus on the growth implications and not just the inflationary implications. The rise of trade tensions in 2018-19 slowed global demand as financial conditions tightened and corporate confidence suffered. The weaker demand outlook led to lower global goods prices and even weighed on commodity and intermediate product prices. In other words, there are many factors that could influence the final inflationary impact that makes modeling it extremely difficult. Source: J.P. MorganThe Holly Jolly Holiday Bar serves specialty cocktails such as the Rum Rudolph Rum, Drummer Boy, Rockin' Around, and more.
A common pitfall for novice bettors is to assume repeat performances, often ignoring the potential variances of a particular game. For example, not many anticipated the Dallas Cowboys would compete with the Washington Commanders on Sunday, let alone win as a 10.5-point underdog. But Dallas snapped its five-game losing streak and looked much better than its back-to-back blowouts suggested. However, sometimes previous games provide a window into how teams might specifically match up with one another. The Toronto Raptors visit the Detroit Pistons on Monday in a rematch of a 99-95 Detroit win from 10 days prior. The over/under is 220.5, and I anticipate another low-scoring performance and thus am betting the under. While I do expect the teams to shoot a little better than their combined 38.5% from the previous meeting, I still think the total is too high. The main reason is Pistons star Cade Cunningham listed as doubtful and unlikely to play. He leads the team in scoring and assists, and they lack the depth to replace his production. Jaden Ivey will now serve as the main point guard but he is more of a shoot-first guard. Thus, I also am betting under 5.5 assists for Ivey. On Saturday, Ivey only mustered four assists in Cunningham’s absence while finishing with a team-high 16 field goal attempts and six free throws. He has elite speed and athleticism and prioritizes attacking the rim over distribution. He’s also a ball hawk without Cunningham and grabbed seven rebounds so I also played over 4.5 rebounds at +115 odds. Another prop also has my attention: Raptors center Jakob Poeltl has grabbed at least 12 rebounds in five straight games, including 18 in the previous meeting with Detroit. I like over 11.5 rebounds at +110 odds with the rationale of my expecting the Pistons likely struggling to generate quality shot attempts and enabling the seven-footer numerous defensive rebounding opportunities. Betting on the NBA? The few times Poeltl has finished with less than 12 rebounds is when he opposes an elite rebounder or dominant big man. The last five times this occurred, Toronto faced Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Davis, Domantas Sabonis (twice) and Nikola Jokic. Detroit’s Jalen Duren simply does not measure up to this All-Stars. PICKS: Under 220.5 (-110, ESPN BET ) | Jaden Ivey under 5.5 assists (-140, Bet365 ) | Jakob Poeltl over 11.5 rebounds (+110, Caesars ) Why Trust New York Post Betting Doug Kezirian is a New York Post contributor who currently serves as the Chief Content Officer for Only Players, a sports betting media company. Doug has over two decades of experience in the sports betting space, including spending 11 years at ESPN as a host, columnist and betting analyst. He also grabbed headlines with a $297K win on the 2021 NFL Draft.
The Biden-Harris White House has wished Americans a “Happy Kwanzaa” — a holiday invented in 1966 by a racist extremist who served prison time for torturing a woman. Vice President Kamala Harris — who was born just two years before the holiday’s inception — claimed in 2020 that she and her family used to gather around, “across multiple generations,” and discuss Kwanzaa’s “seven principles” — which are identical to the principles of left-wing terrorist organization Symbionese Liberation Army. Harris wrote on X in 2020 that her family’s “Kwanzaa celebrations are one of my favorite childhood memories,” garnering thousands of critical comments pointing out that the holiday’s founder, Maulana Karenga (born Ronald McKinley Everett, pictured above), was a violent radical: Despite the backlash, the White House has once again posted a “Happy Kwanzaa” message on social media: Happy Kwanzaa from the Biden-Harris Administration! Posted by The White House on Thursday, December 26, 2024 A 1971 Los Angeles Times article detailed the testimony of a victim of Karenga: Deborah Jones, who once was given the Swahili title of an African queen, said she and Gail Davis were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes. She testified that a hot soldering iron was placed in Miss Davis’ mouth and placed against Miss Davis’ face and that one of her own big toes was tightened in a vise. Karenga, head of “US” [which purportedly stands for United Slaves, though that is disputed], also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths, she said. They also were hit on the heads with toasters. According to a 2019 survey by AP-NORC, just 3 percent of Americans celebrate Kwanzaa — though the study has a 4-point margin of error. Theoretically, it could be less than a single percentage point, and definitely far fewer than those who celebrate traditional religious holidays like Christmas and Hanukkah around the same time of the year. Karenga set the date for Kwanzaa as December 26 to be an alternative to Christmas, declaring Christianity a “white religion” with a “white God” that black people should not celebrate. As conservative writer Ann Coulter put it, “Kwanzaa is a fake holiday invented in 1966 by black radical/FBI stooge Ron Karenga — aka Dr. Maulana Karenga, founder of United Slaves, the violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers.” She compared Karenga to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, saying it is as if he “invented a holiday called ‘Anglika,’ which he based on the philosophy of ‘Mein Kampf.'” “The United Slaves were proto-fascists, walking around in dashikis, gunning down Black Panthers,” Coulter added. To be fair, President-elect Donald Trump also wished Kwanzaa celebrators a happy holiday during his time in office — but never claimed that he celebrated it himself.
Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More The recent release of OpenAI o1 has brought great attention to large reasoning models (LRMs), and is inspiring new models aimed at solving complex problems classic language models often struggle with. Building on the success of o1 and the concept of LRMs, researchers at Alibaba have introduced Marco-o1 , which enhances reasoning capabilities and tackles problems with open-ended solutions where clear standards and quantifiable rewards are absent. OpenAI o1 uses “inference-time scaling” to improve the model’s reasoning ability by giving it “time to think.” Basically, the model uses more compute cycles during inference to generate more tokens and review its responses, which improves its performance on tasks that require reasoning. o1 is renowned for its impressive reasoning capabilities, especially in tasks with standard answers such as mathematics, physics and coding. However, many applications involve open-ended problems that lack clear solutions and quantifiable rewards. “We aimed to push the boundaries of LLMs even further, enhancing their reasoning abilities to tackle complex, real-world challenges,” Alibaba researchers write. Marco-o1 is a fine-tuned version of Alibaba’s Qwen2-7B-Instruct that integrates advanced techniques such as chain-of-thought (CoT) fine-tuning, Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) and reasoning action strategies. The researchers trained Marco-o1 on a combination of datasets, including the Open-O1 CoT dataset; the Marco-o1 CoT dataset, a synthetic dataset generated using MCTS; and the Marco-o1 Instruction dataset, a collection of custom instruction-following data for reasoning tasks. MCTS is a search algorithm that has proven to be effective in complex problem-solving scenarios. It intelligently explores different solution paths by repeatedly sampling possibilities, simulating outcomes and gradually building a decision tree. It has proven to be very effective in complex AI problems, such as beating the game Go. Marco-o1 leverages MCTS to explore multiple reasoning paths as it generates response tokens. The model uses the confidence scores of candidate response tokens to build its decision tree and explore different branches. This enables the model to consider a wider range of possibilities and arrive at more informed and nuanced conclusions, especially in scenarios with open-ended solutions. The researchers also introduced a flexible reasoning action strategy that allows them to adjust the granularity of MCTS steps by defining the number of tokens generated at each node in the tree. This provides a tradeoff between accuracy and computational cost, giving users the flexibility to balance performance and efficiency. Another key innovation in Marco-o1 is the introduction of a reflection mechanism. During the reasoning process, the model periodically prompts itself with the phrase, “Wait! Maybe I made some mistakes! I need to rethink from scratch.” This causes the model to re-evaluate its reasoning steps, identify potential errors and refine its thought process. “This approach allows the model to act as its own critic, identifying potential errors in its reasoning,” the researchers write. “By explicitly prompting the model to question its initial conclusions, we encourage it to re-express and refine its thought process.” To evaluate the performance of Marco-o1, the researchers conducted experiments on several tasks, including the MGSM benchmark, a dataset for multi-lingual grade school math problems. Marco-o1 significantly outperformed the base Qwen2-7B model, particularly when the MCTS component was adjusted for single-token granularity. However, the primary objective of Marco-o1 was to address the challenges of reasoning in open-ended scenarios. To this end, the researchers tested the model on translating colloquial and slang expressions, a task that requires understanding subtle nuances of language, culture and context. The experiments showed that Marco-o1 was able to capture and translate these expressions more effectively than traditional translation tools. For instance, the model correctly translated a colloquial expression in Chinese, which literally means, “This shoe offers a stepping-on-poop sensation”, into the English equivalent, “This shoe has a comfortable sole.” The reasoning chain of the model shows how it evaluates different potential meanings and arrives at the correct translation. This paradigm can prove to be useful for tasks such as product design and strategy, which require deep and contextual understanding and do not have well-defined benchmarks and metrics. A new wave of reasoning models Since the release of o1, AI labs are racing to release reasoning models. Last week, Chinese AI lab DeepSeek released R1-Lite-Preview , its o1 competitor, which is currently only available through the company’s online chat interface. R1-Lite-Preview reportedly beats o1 on several key benchmarks. The open source community is also catching up with the private model market, releasing models and datasets that take advantage of inference-time scaling laws. The Alibaba team released Marco-o1 on Hugging Face along with a partial reasoning dataset that researchers can use to train their own reasoning models. Another recently released model is LLaVA-o1 , developed by researchers from multiple universities in China, which brings the inference-time reasoning paradigm to open-source vision language models (VLMs). The release of these models comes amidst uncertainty about the future of model scaling laws. Various reports indicate that the returns on training larger models are diminishing and might be hitting a wall. But what’s for certain is that we are just beginning to explore the possibilities of inference-time scaling. Stay in the know! Get the latest news in your inbox daily By subscribing, you agree to VentureBeat's Terms of Service. Thanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here . An error occured.NEW DELHI: Manmohan Singh, the former Indian prime minister who governed the South Asian country for two terms and liberalised its economy in an earlier stint as finance minister, died at the age of 92, on Thursday. Singh, an economist-turned-politician who also served as the governor of the central bank, was ailing and admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. Described as a “reluctant king” in his first stint as prime minister, the quietly spoken Manmohan Singh was arguably one of India’s most successful leaders. The first Sikh in office, Singh, 92, was being treated for age-related medical conditions and died after he was brought to hospital after a sudden loss of consciousness. He is credited with steering India to unprecedented economic growth and lifting hundreds of millions out of dire poverty. He went on to serve a rare second term. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “India mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished leaders, Dr. Manmohan Singh Ji.” He applauded the economist-turned-politician’s body of work. Born into a poor family in a part of British-ruled India now in Pakistan, Singh studied by candlelight to win a place at Cambridge University before heading to Oxford, earning a doctorate with a thesis on the role of exports and free trade in India’s economy. He became a respected economist, then India’s central bank governor and a government advisor but had no apparent plans for a political career when he was suddenly tapped to become finance minister in 1991. During that tenure to 1996, Singh was the architect of reforms that saved India’s economy from a severe balance of payments crisis, and promoted deregulation and other measures that opened an insular country to the world. Read More: Pakistan to invite Manmohan Singh for Kartarpur corridor’s inauguration Famously quoting Victor Hugo in his maiden budget speech, he said: “No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come,” before adding: “The emergence of India as a major economic power in the world happens to be one such idea.” Singh’s ascension to prime minister in 2004 was even more unexpected. He was asked to take on the job by Sonia Gandhi, who led the centre-left Congress party to a surprise victory. Italian by birth, she feared her ancestry would be used by Hindu nationalist opponents to attack the government if she were to lead the country.
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