
10 Things That Could Get You Fired From Costco
Some companies operate in very specific industries, whether that's a supermarket business, a retailer, or something else in an exact sector. But, a few (ASX: XJO) shares have operations spread across a wide array of areas, providing . One of the great things about having diversification within a company is that it lowers the risk of any one segment going poorly, and it also means the company has multiple avenues to pursue growth. They can choose which area of their diverse operations they see as the best opportunity to invest for the biggest return. With that in mind, I think the below two stocks are two of the most diverse ASX 200 shares. Washington H. Soul Pattinson and Co. Ltd ( ) I think this company, commonly called Soul Patts, is the most diverse business because it already represents a wholly diversified portfolio. It started as a pharmacy business 120 years ago but has since made a number of investments in various other industries and assets. For example, it's invested and . This diversified portfolio provides to Soul Patts, which then enables a resilient, growing dividend. It has paid a dividend every year since it was listed 120 years ago, and it has grown its annual ordinary dividend every year since 2000, which is the best record on the ASX. Wesfarmers Ltd ( ) Wesfarmers is another of the oldest businesses on the ASX. The ASX 200 share can trace its history back to 1914 as a Western Australian farmers' cooperative. It's now one of the largest Australian companies. It has operations across home improvement, building supplies and outdoor living products (Bunnings), general merchandise and apparel (Kmart and Target), office and technology products (Officeworks), health, beauty and wellbeing products and services (Priceline), a retail subscription program, wholesale distribution of pharmaceutical goods, manufacturing and distribution of chemicals and fertilisers, a lithium project including mine, concentrator and refinery, industrial and safety product distribution, and gas processing and distribution (WesCEF). The ASX 200 share has made Kmart and Bunnings two of the country's most impressive retailers, with market-leading positions in their categories. Kmart is looking to grow its earnings by taking its Anko brand products to international markets, while Bunnings is looking to grow through bolt-on acquisitions (such as Beaumont Tiles) and growing in new product categories, such as auto care and pet care. I think there's more growth to come.CES 2025 Preview: TESSAN to Showcase Charging Solutions for Enhanced Connectivity and Convenience
Report alleges shrinking media space in ZambiaWhile you’re popping champagne and toasting the new year, hundreds of recently enacted bills will go into effect. Here are a few you should know about. The minimum wage for all employers in California will increase to $16.50. We currently have the second highest unemployment rate of any state behind only Nevada. This increase will only make it worse, particularly for California’s youth and others just starting to join the workforce. Paychecks will be hit by a tax increase. The State Disability Insurance rate is increasing from 1.1 to 1.2 percent. As KCRA in Sacramento noted, “That means a couple or individual with $100,000 in taxable annual wages will have $100 more total withheld from their pay this upcoming year, or about $8 a month because of the tax increase, for example.” For property owners, several attempts to destroy your rights to protest new and higher water rates go into effect. Under Proposition 218, water agencies must send notices to customers ahead of time with information on how to protest the rate hike. If a majority protest, the rate increase can’t go into effect. But Assembly Bill 2257 creates a protest procedure separate from the notice required by Prop. 218 and appears merely to layer on added – and superfluous – requirements for the sole purpose of hindering taxpayers’ constitutional ability to approve or reject taxes. Another assault on property owner rights is Senate Bill 1072 because it could leave taxpayers without proper compensation for overcharges on their water bills by offering only future credits instead of actual refunds. There is a huge difference between a “credit” for future charges and an actual refund. If a taxpayer moves, how will he or she be compensated for the violation of constitutional rights if the agency merely applies the overcharge to reduce rates paid by others in the future? AB 1827 is another concern because it tries to add potentially unconstitutional charges to your water bill based on speculative factors like “maximum potential water use” and “peaking” factors. This is in direct contravention of Prop. 218 which provides that, “No fee or charge may be imposed for a service unless that service is actually used by, or immediately available to, the owner of the property in question. Fees or charges based on potential or future use of a service are not permitted.” Basing a charge on “maximum potential water use” clearly then is not permitted under Prop. 218. Further, in the absence of time-of-use technology, peaking factors are generally make-believe. Legal challenges to AB 1827 are a near certainty. Related Articles Opinion Columnists | Trump’s claim that we need ‘extreme vetting’ is extremely baseless Opinion Columnists | Year in review: From a republic to a ‘kakistocracy’ Opinion Columnists | Will Democrats fix their brand problem ahead of California’s gubernatorial election? Opinion Columnists | Susan Shelley: Too many so-called emergencies in the Golden State Opinion Columnists | Larry Wilson: The lost art of college students talking to each other Regarding your rights as a voter, there were attacks this year on direct democracy. Fortunately, many of those got left on the cutting room floor, but one that did pass and goes into effect this year, Senate Bill 1441, is very concerning. If a citizen-initiated recall, initiative or referendum is determined to have an insufficient number of valid signatures, the proponents have the right to review rejected signatures and the reason for the rejection. But SB 1441 sets an unreasonable 60-day time limit on the review process and adds a new requirement for proponents to pay the costs of the review, which could be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nothing in the bill prevents a county from running out the clock by providing inadequate access. But that’s probably the intent. Was it all bad news from your California government this year? No, of course not. For everyone who has been waiting for Sacramento to finally address the pressing concerns of state residents, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation giving the state three new official state symbols: the banana slug (state slug), Dungeness crab (state crustacean), and black abalone (state seashell). Don’t say they never did anything for you. Happy New Year! Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.Johnson's 18 help Akron knock off Omaha 92-84
While you’re popping champagne and toasting the new year, hundreds of recently enacted bills will go into effect. Here are a few you should know about. The minimum wage for all employers in California will increase to $16.50. We currently have the second highest unemployment rate of any state behind only Nevada. This increase will only make it worse, particularly for California’s youth and others just starting to join the workforce. Paychecks will be hit by a tax increase. The State Disability Insurance rate is increasing from 1.1 to 1.2 percent. As KCRA in Sacramento noted, “That means a couple or individual with $100,000 in taxable annual wages will have $100 more total withheld from their pay this upcoming year, or about $8 a month because of the tax increase, for example.” For property owners, several attempts to destroy your rights to protest new and higher water rates go into effect. Under Proposition 218, water agencies must send notices to customers ahead of time with information on how to protest the rate hike. If a majority protest, the rate increase can’t go into effect. But Assembly Bill 2257 creates a protest procedure separate from the notice required by Prop. 218 and appears merely to layer on added – and superfluous – requirements for the sole purpose of hindering taxpayers’ constitutional ability to approve or reject taxes. Another assault on property owner rights is Senate Bill 1072 because it could leave taxpayers without proper compensation for overcharges on their water bills by offering only future credits instead of actual refunds. There is a huge difference between a “credit” for future charges and an actual refund. If a taxpayer moves, how will he or she be compensated for the violation of constitutional rights if the agency merely applies the overcharge to reduce rates paid by others in the future? AB 1827 is another concern because it tries to add potentially unconstitutional charges to your water bill based on speculative factors like “maximum potential water use” and “peaking” factors. This is in direct contravention of Prop. 218 which provides that, “No fee or charge may be imposed for a service unless that service is actually used by, or immediately available to, the owner of the property in question. Fees or charges based on potential or future use of a service are not permitted.” Basing a charge on “maximum potential water use” clearly then is not permitted under Prop. 218. Further, in the absence of time-of-use technology, peaking factors are generally make-believe. Legal challenges to AB 1827 are a near certainty. Related Articles Opinion Columnists | Trump’s claim that we need ‘extreme vetting’ is extremely baseless Opinion Columnists | Year in review: From a republic to a ‘kakistocracy’ Opinion Columnists | Will Democrats fix their brand problem ahead of California’s gubernatorial election? Opinion Columnists | Susan Shelley: Too many so-called emergencies in the Golden State Opinion Columnists | Larry Wilson: The lost art of college students talking to each other Regarding your rights as a voter, there were attacks this year on direct democracy. Fortunately, many of those got left on the cutting room floor, but one that did pass and goes into effect this year, Senate Bill 1441, is very concerning. If a citizen-initiated recall, initiative or referendum is determined to have an insufficient number of valid signatures, the proponents have the right to review rejected signatures and the reason for the rejection. But SB 1441 sets an unreasonable 60-day time limit on the review process and adds a new requirement for proponents to pay the costs of the review, which could be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nothing in the bill prevents a county from running out the clock by providing inadequate access. But that’s probably the intent. Was it all bad news from your California government this year? No, of course not. For everyone who has been waiting for Sacramento to finally address the pressing concerns of state residents, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation giving the state three new official state symbols: the banana slug (state slug), Dungeness crab (state crustacean), and black abalone (state seashell). Don’t say they never did anything for you. Happy New Year! Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
OpenAI's legal battle with Elon Musk reveals internal turmoil over avoiding AI 'dictatorship'NEW YORK — The Giants may have to host the Saints on Sunday without their top offensive weapon, too. Rookie receiver Malik Nabers has a hip flexor, underwent an MRI on Friday morning and is in jeopardy of possibly missing the Week 14 home game, head coach Brian Daboll said. Nabers is officially listed as questionable and did not practice Friday at all. “They’re not ruling him out right now,” Daboll said. Nabers, 21, got hurt during the 1-on-1 portion of Thursday’s practice. He was listed as limited with a groin injury but then underwent further testing that revealed the new hip injury, according to the coach. Dexter Lawrence, the Giants’ top defensive player, is already out for the season with an elbow injury. Top left Andrew Thomas (foot) is done for the season. Top linebacker Bobby Okereke (back) is week-to-week. Daniel Jones is on the Vikings. And now Nabers may be joining the long list of Giants players unable to stay on the field during the stretch of this horrific season. “We wish we had Dexter and Andrew Thomas and those guys, but we don’t,” Daboll said. “That’s the reality of the NFL. So they’re looking forward to the opportunity, which will be a big challenge.” The Giants (2-10) have lost seven straight games and are 0-6 at MetLife Stadium. The Saints (4-8) already fired their coach Dennis Allen, and New Orleans is 0-3 in outdoor games, 1-4 on the road and 0-4 in their last four away games. But they’re still 4.5-point favorites. Interim Saints head coach Darren Rizzi, a native of Hillsdale, N.J., said this week that his team was flying to the area on Friday to do a walkthrough in the elements to prepare the players for the cold weather. New Orleans lost dual threat quarterback/tight end Taysom Hill (knee) for the season last Sunday, but otherwise, they’re down backup guard Nick Saldiveri (knee) and wideout Bub Means (ankle). And defensive lineman Tanoh Kpassagnon (Achilles) and running back Kendre Miller (hamstring) are questionable. The Giants’ injury report is comparably bleak. Top corner Deonte Banks (rib), Lawrence and defensive tackle Rakeem Nuñez-Roches (neck/shoulder) and Okereke (back) are all out. Defensive tackle D.J. Davidson (shoulder) and offensive tackle Jermaine Eluemunor (quad) are doubtful. And six players are questionable: Nabers, offensive tackles Evan Neal (hip) and Chris Hubbard (knee), defensive tackle Jordon Riley (knee), corner Dru Phillips (shoulder) and linebacker Dyontae Johnson (ankle). Hubbard and Phillips did not practice Friday, either. ©2024 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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Clara Strack and Georgia Amoore each scored 21 points on Saturday to help No. 16 Kentucky beat visiting Western Kentucky 88-70 in Lexington. Teonni Key netted 15 points, Amelia Hassett paired nine points with 12 rebounds and Saniah Tyler scored 11 off the bench for the Wildcats (11-1), who won their fourth straight game. The Lady Toppers (9-3) got 18 points from Alexis Mead, 14 from Acacia Hayes, 11 from Destiny Salary and 10 from Josie Gilvin. Western Kentucky has lost three of five following a 7-0 start. Kentucky used a 9-0 run in the second quarter to take a double-digit lead that it held for the rest of the game. Strack bookended the surge with a layup and a 3-pointer that pushed the hosts ahead 36-22 with 1:01 remaining in the first half. The Wildcats' lead peaked at 23 points after Amoore scored five straight late in the fourth quarter to make it 88-65. Saturday marked the final nonconference game for both teams this season. Kentucky hosts Mississippi State to begin Southeastern Conference play on Thursday, while Western Kentucky starts its Conference USA slate by hosting Liberty the same night. --Field Level MediaATI Inc executive chairman Robert S. Wetherbee sells $1.47 million in stockPittsburgh was truly the Steel City. Coke plants, tar plants, steel mills, glass manufacturers and other ancillary heavy industry lined the banks of the rivers, producing the raw products of the country’s industrial revolution. A remnant of these days are the current U.S. Steel facilities still occupying their locations in the Mon Valley. These facilities have been part of the area’s history in place for over a century — the early 1900 Clairton Coke Works and byproducts facility and the Edgar Thomson Steel Works that has been active since the late 1800s in Braddock. Hulking dinosaurs of the past with almost unimaginable forces at work, the sheer volume of raw material input, energy use and generation, pressures, heat, size of the equipment, products and byproducts generated by these activities and harnessed by man are awe-inspiring. The ongoing debate regarding the sale of these symbols of American industrial might and Pittsburgh’s namesake to Japan’s Nippon Steel has shone a national spotlight on the Mon Valley. Missing from the debate are recent events that would likely have served to avoid the current Mon Valley saga. In early 2020, U.S. Steel announced that it would invest $1.2 billion in its Braddock and Clairton facilities. This investment not only would have created and/or retained thousands of jobs and made the company more competitive globally, but it would also introduce first-of-its-kind, innovative technology to address air emissions. U.S. Steel committed to collaborating with the regulating authority, the Allegheny County Health Department, to develop these state-of-the-art technologies and significantly reduce air emissions. Not only would these innovative technologies have benefited U.S. Steel, employment prospects and air quality in the Mon Valley, these same technologies could be adopted by the world’s developing and largest coal-burning countries to mitigate both local pollution in their countries and greenhouse gases which have no global boundary. Reflexively, in an apparent pique of myopia, the usual list of environmental zealots worked to shut this huge investment and benefit to all parties down. Congratulations on the pyrrhic victory over the “evil” American corporation. The rest of the world has and will happily pick up the slack with lesser technologies and continue to pollute unabated by the American environmental zealotry. Who would wonder why U.S. Steel desires to sell off these facilities when faced with the anti-industrial activists and diminished benefits of ownership? Is it the appropriate role of government to prohibit this sale? Alternatively, one must wonder why Nippon Steel does not see the same confrontation with the usual cast of characters on the eco-left as they contemplate taking over these allegedly evil, polluting facilities in the Mon Valley. Nippon Steel claims that it will invest $1 billion to upgrade the Mon Valley facilities. Where have we heard this before? The headwinds any ongoing operation of these heavy industrial facilities will face, whether it be a foreign or domestic operator, are not only the usual pedestrian types of criteria air emissions, but also the current world war on the very building block of life, carbon. We continue to expend more and more efforts to seek those last molecules of contamination to satisfy our environmental appetite for cleaner, with the add-on feature of now alleging carbon as a pollutant. If the past is prologue, the Mon Valley industrial saga is not coming to an inflexion point for future ongoing operations by any owner; it is only a matter of who will be holding ownership when these activities are brought down by the irrational lust for ever cleaner. Robert T. Smith is an environmental scientist and co-owner of a Pittsburgh-area environmental consulting company.
B.C. premier says feds and provinces plan right-left approach to Trump's tariff plans
NoneMumbai: Considering the "gravity of the offence" and looking at his "antecedents", the Bombay High Court on Tuesday denied bail to Rashtriya Samaj Paksha 's (RSP) Digambar Agawane , a state assembly candidates from Phaltan constituency, in an alleged attempt to murder and MCOCA case of June 2022. "Ensuring justice requires a nuanced approach that considers not only the rights of the accused, but also the broader implications for public safety and the integrity of the judicial process," said Justice R N Laddha. Special public prosecutor Harshad Nimbalkar argued that Agawane, booked under MCOCA, is leader of an organised crime syndicate and there was sufficient material to.establish it. In an alleged property dispute, Agawane was accused of pointing a revolver at the complainant, among other accusations, like allegedly coercing others to sign documents. A special MCOCA judge permitted him to fill poll nominations after his lawyer, S B Talekar, argued there was no case made out against him. The HC, however, said, that while personal liberty is significant, even for those accused of crimes, "it is equally crucial for courts to assess the potential risks if such individuals are granted bail. The liberty of the accused must be balanced against the fundamental rights and safety of victims and witnesses, whose lives and freedoms could be endangered by the accused's release." "The chargesheet corroborates the allegations at every point," said the HC. "Additionally, it is undisputed that the applicant is a political figure contesting the Maharashtra General Assembly Elections from the Phaltan Constituency. Given the locality's connection to the present case, there is a credible risk of the applicant's tampering with the evidence and exerting influence over witnesses." — Swati DeshpandeWhat is Twitter Wrapped 2024: How you can join this latest trend on X and what not to miss