Apple’s investment in the UK over the last five years has now surpassed £18 billion, with the technology giant’s engineering teams in the country doubling in that time, the iPhone maker has said. The US tech giant said it now supported 550,000 jobs in the UK through direct employment, its supply chain and the economy around its App Store – with app developers having earned nearly £9 billion since it launched in 2008. Apple said its engineering teams were carrying out critical work on the firm’s biggest services, including key technology within Apple Intelligence, the iPhone maker’s suite of generative AI-powered tools which are expected to launch in the UK for the first time this week. Elsewhere, the firm said its growing TV empire, spearheaded by its Apple TV+ streaming service and production arm, had also helped boost its investment in the UK with Apple TV+ production in this country tripling in the last two years, the company said. “We’re thrilled to be growing our Apple teams here, and to keep supporting the extraordinary innovators, creators, and entrepreneurs who are pushing the boundaries of technology in so many ways.” The Chancellor Rachel Reeves said companies such as Apple were “intrinsic” to the UK’s prosperity by boosting jobs. “This government is laser focused on creating the right conditions for growth to help put more money in people’s pockets. “That’s what underpins the Plan for Change and is what has driven £63 billion worth of inward investment in the UK through our first international investment summit. “Companies like Apple are intrinsic to the success of our nation’s prosperity – helping deliver jobs, innovative technology, and boost infrastructure.”Withdrawal from Syria: Introspection time for Iran
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has died. He was 100 years old and had spent more than a year in hospice care. The Georgia peanut farmer served one turbulent term in the White House before building a reputation as a global humanitarian and champion of democracy. He defeated President Gerald Ford in 1976 promising to restore trust in government but lost to Ronald Reagan four years later amid soaring inflation, gas station lines and the Iran hostage crisis. He and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, then formed The Carter Center, and he earned a Nobel Peace Prize while making himself the most active and internationally engaged of former presidents. The Carter Center said the former president died Sunday afternoon in Plains, Georgia.Stock market today: Wall Street drifts lower as it waits for inflation dataAndrew Callahan: It’s time to forget about Jerod Mayo getting fired
Q&A: ‘People want cars that are more rewarding’S Africa to use G20 Presidency to further push shared goals: Minister
US, Asia Foundation launch P16.8M initiative for cyber securityPopular Aberdeen sandwich shop goes on the market
Shares of Formidable ETF ( NYSEARCA:FORH – Get Free Report ) traded down 0.3% during mid-day trading on Friday . The company traded as low as $21.05 and last traded at $21.16. 274 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 90% from the average session volume of 2,646 shares. The stock had previously closed at $21.23. Formidable ETF Stock Performance The firm has a market cap of $24.97 million, a P/E ratio of 14.51 and a beta of 0.64. The company’s 50 day moving average is $22.37 and its 200 day moving average is $22.52. Formidable ETF Company Profile ( Get Free Report ) The Formidable ETF (FORH) is an exchange-traded fund that mostly invests in target outcome asset allocation. The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation by actively managing a multi-strategy approach to providing alternative exposure, include tail hedge. FORH was launched on Apr 28, 2021 and is managed by Formidable. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Formidable ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Formidable ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Makes its Record-Breaking Closest Approach to the SunRALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina election officials won't order another recount in a close state Supreme Court race after a partial hand recount failed to suggest the trailing Republican candidate could overtake the Democratic incumbent. Following the completion of a machine recount of over 5.5 million ballots last week, Democratic Associate Justice Allison Riggs maintained a 734-vote lead over Republican Jefferson Griffin, who is currently a state Court of Appeals judge. Griffin then requested a partial hand recount in which randomly chosen ballots from 3% of the voting sites in all 100 counties were reexamined. The law says a statewide hand recount would have been required if the sample results differed enough so that the result would be reversed if the difference were extrapolated to all ballots. But the sample tabulations, which finished Tuesday, showed Riggs actually picking up more votes than Griffin. As a result, the State Board of Elections said a total recount won't be ordered. The election, however, has not been fully resolved. The five-member state board was scheduled to hear arguments Wednesday on protests previously filed by Griffin and three GOP legislative candidates who also are in very close elections. Riggs, one of two Democrats on the seven-member court, declared victory again on Tuesday, and her campaign renewed calls for Griffin to concede. Griffin didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The protests going before the state board, which question if well over 60,000 ballots should have been counted, cover three categories of voting. They include votes cast by people with voter registration records that lack driver’s licenses or partial Social Security numbers; overseas voters who have never lived in North Carolina but whose parents were deemed state residents; and military or overseas voters who did not provide copies of photo identification with their ballots. Separately Tuesday, a Court of Appeals panel unanimously declined Griffin's request to order the state board to rule on the protests before Wednesday's meeting to accelerate the process. The board could dismiss the protests or — if problems are found — order corrected ballot tallies, more recounts or new elections. Decisions by the board — with a 3-2 Democratic majority — can be appealed to state courts. Other protests filed by Griffin and the legislative candidates are being first considered by county boards. The state Democratic Party filed a federal lawsuit last week seeking to block the State Board of Elections from ruling in any way to throw out the disputed ballots. The Democrats' lawyers say federal law prohibits such systematic challenges to voter eligibility for an election that has already passed. Some of the protests focus on activities that Republicans already sued over before the November election. Democratic officials and their allies held a news conference early Tuesday outside the state Supreme Court building and strongly criticized Griffin and other Republicans for initiating claims they say would disenfranchise legal voters. North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton said she fears the state Supreme Court could ultimately side with Republicans and remove the challenged ballots. “We are trying to make sure that people are raising their voices, that we are filing lawsuits where we can,” Clayton said. “And we are also trusting the process of our board of elections officials to do their job and to count every single vote.” Griffin led Riggs by about 10,000 votes on election night, but that lead dwindled and flipped to Riggs as qualifying provisional and absentee ballots were added to the totals. Other types of protests filed by Griffin and the legislators are being considered by county boards. The Associated Press has not called the Supreme Court race and two of the three legislative races highlighted in the protests. In one of the two, Republican state Rep. Frank Sossamon trails Democratic challenger Bryan Cohn. A Cohn victory would mean Republicans fall one seat short of retaining their current veto-proof majority starting next month.
Apple’s UK engineering teams have ‘doubled in size in five years’
Former President Jimmy Carter has died at the age of 100. The 39th president of the United States was a Georgia peanut farmer who sought to restore trust in government when he assumed the presidency in 1977 and then built a reputation for tireless work as a humanitarian. He earned a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He died Sunday, more than a year after entering hospice care, at his home in Plains, Georgia. At age 52, Carter was sworn in as president on Jan. 20, 1977, after defeating President Gerald R. Ford in the 1976 general election. Carter left office on Jan. 20, 1981, following his 1980 general election loss to Ronald Reagan. Here's the latest: The longest-lived American president died Sunday, more than a year after entering hospice care , at his home in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died at 96 in November 2023 , spent most of their lives. “Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia,” The Carter Center said in posting about his death on the social media platform X. It added in a statement that he died peacefully, surrounded by his family. In his 1975 book “Why Not The Best,” Carter said of himself: “I am a Southerner and an American, I am a farmer, an engineer, a father and husband, a Christian, a politician and former governor, a planner, a businessman, a nuclear physicist, a naval officer, a canoeist, and among other things a lover of Bob Dylan’s songs and Dylan Thomas’s poetry.” A moderate Democrat, Carter entered the 1976 presidential race as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad smile, outspoken Baptist mores and technocratic plans reflecting his education as an engineer. After he left office and returned home to his tiny hometown of Plains in southwest Georgia, Carter regularly taught Sunday School lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church until his mobility declined. Those sessions drew visitors from around the world.For all their moral superiority, it turns out Democrats are every bit as willing to sacrifice democracy to their personal interests as are Republicans. President Joe Biden stood on high ground for the past year as his son, Hunter, moved his way through the courts on felony gun and tax-evasion charges. Asked repeatedly whether he’d pardon his son to spare him from prison, the president was adamant. He wouldn’t do it, he pledged. His allegiance was to the rule of law, he said, and the idea that no one is above it. He respected the legal process and would let the courts do their jobs, he vowed. But as the hour approached for Hunter to be sentenced and packed off to a prison cell, Biden changed his tune. Hunter is a victim of politics, he declared, prosecuted at the behest of the president’s political enemies. Hunter is a good guy, he claimed, who did bad things because of his past addiction to drugs. And so, Biden did what he promised not to do and signed a sweeping pardon sparing Hunter the legal consequences of his crimes. In putting his name on his son’s pardon, Biden laid waste to the foundational principle of our democracy that all Americans are equal under the law. Try to get the mother of a son rotting in prison because his love of crack led him astray to believe the justice her boy received was equal to that meted out to Hunter. The president’s son is now free to resume partying without paying off any of his debt to society. The pardon is the final smackdown to Democrats’ puffed-up claim to be all that stands between democracy and tyranny. That’s never been true, and certainly wasn’t in 2024, a year in which the Democratic Party abandoned democracy wholesale in its quest to hold onto power. Ironically, Biden was one of the main victims. Having won the primary votes necessary to claim the party’s nomination, the president was ousted from his reelection race in an intra-party coup orchestrated by the Democratic elite. The party politburo then abandoned the democratic nominating process and bestowed its nomination on Vice President Kamala Harris, who didn’t win a single primary vote. When it comes to assaults on democracy, however, that usurping of the electoral process pales in comparison with what Democrats did to the centrist No Labels movement. In a year in which a majority of Americans were unhappy with the major-party ballot choices, No Labels sought to offer a third choice selected from the political middle. Democrats declared war. Documents recently unsealed in a No Labels lawsuit against Democratic operatives reveal the length to which the party went to deny voters that option. Allegations raised in the lawsuit accuse party strategists of deploying an all-fronts offensive to intimidate both donors and potential candidates. They launched a false website that presented itself as the official No Labels site, espousing all sorts of extreme positions. Democrats also attempted to use the courts to block ballot access for No Labels and other third-party campaigns, including those of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Black activist Cornel West. Democrats will fight hard for your right to vote, as long as you vote for them. So spare us the smug Democratic claim to being the defenders of democracy. It’s a lie. But this is true: There are no righteous political parties. Finley writes for The Detroit News: detroitnews.com . Get local news delivered to your inbox!Coastal Financial Corporation Announces Proposed Public Offering of Common Stock
After Soto's megadeal, could MLB see a $1 billion contract? Probably not soon
Marvell Announces Breakthrough Custom HBM Compute Architecture to Optimize Cloud AI AcceleratorsHail Flutie: BC celebrates 40th anniversary of Miracle in MiamiNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un held a key policy-setting meeting of the country's ruling party a week ago ahead of the new year, state media KCNA reported on Sunday. The meeting of party and government officials decided that North Korea would launch the "toughest" strategy to counteract the United States less than a month before Donald Trump takes office as the next American president, the report said, Reuters reported. The alliance between South Korea, the U.S. and Japan has expanded to a "nuclear military bloc" and South Korea has become an "anti-communist outpost" for the U.S., the KCNA report added. "This reality clearly shows to which direction we should advance and what we should do and how." The Dec. 23-27 meeting also reviewed the handling of floods earlier this year, including the plan that brought those affected to Pyongyang, the capital, according to the report. North Korea also vowed to promote relations with "friendly" countries during the meeting. Kim also called for progress in defense science and technology to bolster the country's war deterrence.