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A majority of the Texas State Board of Education gave final approval Friday to a state-authored curriculum under intense scrutiny in recent months for its heavy inclusion of biblical teachings. Eight of the 15 board members voted to approve Bluebonnet Learning, the elementary school curriculum proposed by the Texas Education Agency earlier this year. The curriculum was designed with a cross-disciplinary approach that uses reading and language arts lessons to advance or cement concepts in other disciplines, such as history and social studies. Critics, which included religious studies scholars, say the curriculum’s lessons allude to Christianity more than any other religion, which they say could lead to the bullying and isolation of non-Christian students, undermine church-state separation and grant the state far-reaching control over how children learn about religion. They also questioned the accuracy of some lessons. The curriculum’s defenders say that references to Christianity will provide students with a better understanding of the country’s history. Texas school districts have the freedom to choose their own lesson plans, so the choice to adopt the materials will remain with them. But the state will offer an incentive of $60 per student to districts that adopt the lessons, which could appeal to some as schools struggle financially after several years without a significant raise in state funding. Three Republicans — Evelyn Brooks, Patricia Hardy and Pam Little — joined the board’s four Democrats in opposition to the materials. Leslie Recine — a Republican whom Gov. Greg Abbott appointed to temporarily fill the State Board of Education’s District 13 seat vacated by former member Aicha Davis, a Democrat who ran successfully for a Texas House seat earlier this year — voted for the curriculum. Abbott handpicked Recine, who was the deciding vote on the materials, to fill the seat through the end of the year days before the general election, bypassing Democrat Tiffany Clark. A majority of District 13 residents voted this election for Clark to represent them on the board next year. She ran unopposed. Board members who expressed support for the curriculum said during the week they believed the materials would help students improve their reading and understanding of the world. Members also said politics in no way influenced their vote and that they supported the materials because they believed it would best serve Texas children. “In my view, these stories are on the education side and are establishing cultural literacy,” Houston Republican Will Hickman said. “And there’s religious concepts like the Good Samaritan and the Golden Rule and Moses that all students should be exposed to.” The proposed curriculum prompts teachers to relay the story of The Good Samaritan — a parable about loving everyone, including your enemies — to kindergarteners as an example of what it means to follow the Golden Rule. The story comes from the Bible, the lesson explains, and “was told by a man named Jesus” as part of his Sermon on the Mount, which included the phrase, “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.” Many other religions have their own version of the Golden Rule. Brooks, one of the Republicans who opposed the materials, noted this week that the Texas Education Agency is not a textbook publishing company and said treating it like such has created an uneven playing field for companies in the textbook industry. Brooks also said she has yet to see evidence showing the curriculum would improve student learning and that she was opposed to the state using Texas schoolchildren as “experiments.” Hardy, a Fort Worth Republican who also opposed the materials, said she did so without regard for the religious references. She expressed concern about the curriculum’s age appropriateness and her belief that it does not align with state standards on reading and other subjects. Little, a Fairview Republican, expressed concern on Friday that the state would have no way to see its “return on investment” with the materials, considering schools have wide latitude to adopt lessons as they see fit — meaning districts could pair Bluebonnet Learning with other learning materials, making the effectiveness of Bluebonnet as a standalone curriculum unclear. Little said on social media earlier in the week that she supports “the teaching of biblical values in education” but criticized the curriculum for some of its teaching methods, which she said leave “little time for students to practice reading and develop critical skills like fluency and comprehension.” Meanwhile, some of the Democrats who voted against the curriculum said they worried the materials would inappropriately force Christianity on public school children. Others cited concerns about Texas violating the Establishment Clause, which prohibits states from endorsing a particular religion. “If this is the standard for students in Texas, then it needs to be exactly that,” said Staci Childs, a Houston Democrat. “It needs to be high quality, and it needs to be the standard, free of any establishment clause issues, free of any lies, and it needs to be accurate.” The state had until late Wednesday to submit revisions in response to concerns raised by board members and the general public before the official vote took place Friday. Democratic members said Friday, however, that their concerns still remained. Childs, who is also an attorney, said she believes if someone were to sue the state for a violation of the Establishment Clause, they would likely succeed. San Antonio Democrat Marisa B. Pérez-Diaz said she found value in the materials but that the Christian bias kept her from supporting it. Rebecca Bell-Metereau, a San Marcos Democrat, said that although the curriculum attempts to reference faith traditions other than Christianity, she doesn’t feel the state did so in a meaningful way. “It seems to me like it is trying to place a Band-Aid on a gaping wound,” Bell-Metereau said. The State Board of Education’s approval of the materials drew immediate criticism from both national and local organizations. Americans United for Separation of Church and State said in a statement that “Texas’ new Bible-infused elementary curriculum is part of the nationwide effort by Christian Nationalists to impose their religious beliefs on public school students.” The Texas American Federation of Teachers blasted the state for infusing school lessons with “Bible-based references more appropriate for Sunday Schools than public schools.” “We can anticipate what will come next, whether that’s the erasure of contributions of marginalized populations in social studies or the minimization of climate change in science,” the union said. Meanwhile, conservative organizations like the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which helped develop the materials, applauded education officials for taking “the next big step toward dramatically improving the quality of education in Texas.” “Teachers will be able to spend more of their time doing the critical job of teaching and evaluating students, rather than spending their nights and weekends searching for lesson plans,” said Greg Sindelar, the organization’s CEO. “And parents will get to follow along as their children learn thanks to the online resources that come with the lessons.” More than 100 Texans signed up Monday to speak for and against the state-authored curriculum. Courtnie Bagley, education director for the Texas Public Policy Foundation told board members that the Texas Education Agency has made every effort to respond to concerns from the public. She said rejecting the lessons would give other materials not owned by the state an unfair advantage. More than 100 Texans signed up Monday to speak for and against the state-authored curriculum. Courtnie Bagley, education director for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank that helped develop the curriculum, told board members that the Texas Education Agency has made every effort to respond to concerns from the public. She said rejecting the lessons would give other materials not owned by the state an unfair advantage. “It would create a double standard, as Bluebonnet Learning has been held to a different and more stringent review process than other materials under consideration,” Bagley said. Opponents argued that revisions did not go far enough, and some questioned whether the state’s intentions with crafting a curriculum that leans heavily on Christianity are political. “I am a Christian, and I do believe that religion is a part of our culture, but our nation does not have a religion. We’re unique in that,” said Mary Lowe, co-founder of Families Engaged for an Effective Education. “So I do not think that our school districts should imply or try to overtly impress to young impressionable children that the state does have a state religion.” Education officials say references to Christianity will provide students with a better understanding of the country’s history, while other supporters have stated their belief that the use of religious references does not violate the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause. Legal experts note that recent rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority have eroded decades of precedent and made it unclear what state actions constitute a violation of the Establishment Clause. State leaders also say the materials cover a broad range of faiths and only make references to religion when appropriate. Education Commissioner Mike Morath has said the materials are based on extensive cognitive science research and will help improve student outcomes. Of 10 people appointed to an advisory panel by the Texas Education Agency to ensure the materials are accurate, age-appropriate and free from bias, at least half of the members have a history of faith-based advocacy. The Texas Tribune recently reported how parents, historians and educators have criticized the ways the materials address America’s history of racism, slavery and civil rights. In public input submitted in response to the curriculum and in interviews with the Tribune, they have said the materials strip key historical figures of their complexities and flaws while omitting certain context they say would offer children a more accurate understanding of the country’s past and present. Bell-Metereau and other Texans referenced the Tribune’s reporting during public testimony on Monday. In response to those concerns, the Texas Education Agency has said the lessons will provide students with “a strong foundation” to understand more complex concepts as they reach later grades. State officials have also said those materials are written in an age-appropriate manner.It’s a daunting reality for Democrats: Republican Donald Trump's support has grown broadly since he last sought the presidency. In his defeat of Democrat Kamala Harris , Trump won a bigger percentage of the vote in each one of the 50 states, and Washington, D.C., than he did four years ago. He won more actual votes than in 2020 in 40 states, according to an Associated Press analysis. Certainly, Harris’ more than 7 million vote decline from President Joe Biden’s 2020 total was a factor in her loss, especially in swing-state metropolitan areas that have been the party’s winning electoral strongholds. But, despite national turnout that was lower than in the high-enthusiasm 2020 election, Trump received 2.5 million more votes than he did four years ago. He swept the seven most competitive states to win a convincing Electoral College victory, becoming the first Republican nominee in 20 years to win a majority of the popular vote. Trump cut into places where Harris needed to overperform to win a close election. Now Democrats are weighing how to regain traction ahead of the midterm elections in two years, when control of Congress will again be up for grabs and dozens of governors elected. There were some notable pieces to how Trump's victory came together: Though Trump improved across the map, his gains were particularly noteworthy in urban counties home to the cities of Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, electoral engines that stalled for Harris in industrial swing states Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Harris fell more than 50,000 votes — and 5 percentage points — short of Biden's total in Wayne County, Michigan, which makes up the lion's share of the Detroit metro area. She was almost 36,000 votes off Biden's mark in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, and about 1,000 short in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. It wasn't only Harris' shortfall that helped Trump carry the states, a trio that Democrats had collectively carried in six of the seven previous elections before Nov. 5. Trump added to his 2020 totals in all three metro counties, netting more than 24,000 votes in Wayne County, more than 11,000 in Philadelphia County and almost 4,000 in Milwaukee County. It’s not yet possible to determine whether Harris fell short of Biden’s performance because Biden voters stayed home or switched their vote to Trump — or how some combination of the two produced the rightward drift evident in each of these states. Harris advertised heavily and campaigned regularly in each, and made Milwaukee County her first stop as a candidate with a rally in July. These swings alone were not the difference in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but her weaker performance than Biden across the three metros helped Trump, who held on to big 2020 margins in the three states' broad rural areas and improved or held steady in populous suburbs. Trump's team and outside groups supporting him knew from their data that he was making inroads with Black voters, particularly Black men younger than 50, more concentrated in these urban areas that have been key to Democratic victories. When James Blair, Trump's political director, saw results coming in from Philadelphia on election night, he knew Trump had cut into the more predominantly Black precincts, a gain that would echo in Wayne and Milwaukee counties. “The data made clear there was an opportunity there,” Blair said. AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 120,000 voters, found Trump won a larger share of Black and Latino voters than he did in 2020, and most notably among men under age 45. Democrats won Senate races in Michigan and Wisconsin but lost in Pennsylvania. In 2026, they will be defending governorships in all three states and a Senate seat in Michigan. Despite the burst of enthusiasm Harris' candidacy created among the Democratic base when she entered the race in July, she ended up receiving fewer votes than Biden in three of the seven states where she campaigned almost exclusively. In Arizona, she received about 90,000 fewer votes than Biden. She received about 67,000 fewer in Michigan and 39,000 fewer in Pennsylvania. In four others — Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin — Harris won more votes than Biden did. But Trump's support grew by more — in some states, significantly more. That dynamic is glaring in Georgia, where Harris received almost 73,000 more votes than Biden did when he very narrowly carried the state. But Trump added more than 200,000 to his 2020 total, en route to winning Georgia by roughly 2 percentage points. In Wisconsin, Trump's team reacted to slippage it saw in GOP-leaning counties in suburban Milwaukee by targeting once-Democratic-leaning, working-class areas, where Trump made notable gains. In the three largest suburban Milwaukee counties — Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha — which have formed the backbone of GOP victories for decades, Harris performed better than Biden did in 2020. She also gained more votes than Trump gained over 2020, though he still won the counties. That made Trump's focus on Rock County, a blue-collar area in south central Wisconsin, critical. Trump received 3,084 more votes in Rock County, home of the former automotive manufacturing city of Janesville, than he did in 2020, while Harris underperformed Biden's 2020 total by seven votes. That helped Trump offset Harris' improvement in Milwaukee's suburbs. The focus speaks to the strength Trump has had and continued to grow with middle-income, non-college educated voters, the Trump campaign's senior data analyst Tim Saler said. “If you're going to have to lean into working-class voters, they are particularly strong in Wisconsin,” Saler said. “We saw huge shifts from 2020 to 2024 in our favor.” Of the seven most competitive states, Arizona saw the smallest increase in the number of votes cast in the presidential contest — slightly more than 4,000 votes, in a state with more than 3.3 million ballots cast. That was despite nearly 30 campaign visits to Arizona by Trump, Harris and their running mates and more than $432 million spent on advertising by the campaigns and allied outside groups, according to the ad-monitoring firm AdImpact. Arizona, alone of the seven swing states, saw Harris fall short of Biden across small, midsize and large counties. In the other six states, she was able to hold on in at least one of these categories. Even more telling, it is also the only swing state where Trump improved his margin in every single county. While turnout in Maricopa County, Arizona's most populous as the home to Phoenix, dipped slightly from 2020 — by 14,199 votes, a tiny change in a county where more than 2 million people voted — Trump gained almost 56,000 more votes than four years ago. Meanwhile, Harris fell more than 60,000 votes short of Biden's total, contributing to a shift significant enough to swing the county and state to Trump, who lost Arizona by fewer than 11,000 votes in 2020. The biggest leaps to the right weren't taking place exclusively among Republican-leaning counties, but also among the most Democratic-leaning counties in the states. Michigan's Wayne County swung 9 points toward Trump, tying the more Republican-leaning Antrim County for the largest movement in the state. AP VoteCast found that voters were most likely to say the economy was the most important issue facing the country in 2024, followed by immigration. Trump supporters were more motivated by economic issues and immigration than Harris', the survey showed. “It’s still all about the economy," said North Carolina Democratic strategist Morgan Jackson, a senior adviser to Democrat Josh Stein, who won North Carolina’s governorship on Nov. 5 as Trump also carried the state. “Democrats have to embrace an economic message that actually works for real people and talk about it in the kind of terms that people get, rather than giving them a dissertation of economic policy,” he said. Governor’s elections in 2026 give Democrats a chance to test their understanding and messaging on the issue, said Democratic pollster Margie Omero, whose firm has advised Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in the past and winning Arizona Senate candidate Ruben Gallego this year. “So there’s an opportunity to really make sure people, who governors have a connection to, are feeling some specificity and clarity with the Democratic economic message,” Omero said.Two California prosecutors promised a different kind of justice. Voters turned on themNASSAU, Bahamas — Scottie Scheffler birdied every hole but the par 3s on the front nine at Albany Golf Club on Friday and finished his bogey-free round with an 8-under 64 that gave him a two-shot lead in the Hero World Challenge. Two months off did nothing to slow the world's No. 1 player. Scheffler already has eight victories this year and is in position to get another before the end of the year. Scheffler was at 13-under 131, two ahead of Akshay Bhatia (66) and Justin Thomas (67), both of whom had to save par on the 18th hole to stay in range going into the weekend. Scheffler started with a lob wedge to 2 feet for birdie and never slowed until after he went out in 29 to seize control of the holiday tournament against a 20-man field. Scheffler cooled slightly on the back nine, except it didn't feel that way to him. "Front nine, just things were going my way. Back nine, maybe not as much," Scheffler said. "A couple shots could end up closer to the hole, a couple putts go in, just little things." Asked if he felt any frustration he didn't take it lower — he once shot 59 at the TPC Boston during the FedEx Cup playoffs — Scheffler sounded bemused. "I think in this game I think a lot of all y'all are looking for perfection out of us," he said. "Today I shot 8 under on the golf course, not something I hang my head about. A lot of good things out there — clean card, bogey-free, eight birdies. Overall, I think I'm pretty pleased." Thomas felt his 67 was stress-free, particularly the way he was driving the ball. The wind laid down again, rare for the Bahamas, though it is expected to pick up on the weekend. Thomas wasn't concerned to see Scheffler get off to a hot start, especially with three par 5s on the front nine and a short par 4 that at worst leaves a flip wedge to the green. "You literally can birdie every hole as soft as the greens are," Thomas said. "He's a great player, a great wedge player, and you have a lot of birdie holes to start. I'm honestly surprised he only shot 8 under. It's a sneaky course because if you fall asleep on some shots, you can get out of position. But if you're on and focused and really in control of everything — like these last two days with no wind — you can just make so many birdies." Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley had a 67 and was four shots behind. No matter how benign the conditions, it wasn't always easy. Cameron Young, who opened with a 64 for a two-shot lead, followed with a 75 despite making five birdies. That included a double bogey on the final hole when his approach tumbled down the bank into the rocks framing the lake that goes all the way down the 18th hole. Patrick Cantlay was trying to keep pace playing alongside Scheffler, but he had three bogeys over the final seven holes and fell seven shots behind with a 71. The tournament, hosted by Tiger Woods, is unofficial but offers world ranking points to all but the bottom three players because of the small field. It's the weakest field in 25 years, but Scheffler at No. 1 gives it enough cachet. He is the first player since Woods in 2009 to start and finish a year at No. 1 in the world. And even after a layoff — giving him time to tinker with a new putting stroke — it looks like it might be a while before anyone changes that. 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Hong Kong, Nov. 22, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Click Holdings Limited ("Click Holdings” or "we” or "us”, NASDAQ: CLIK) and its subsidiaries (collectively, the "Company”) , a human resources solutions provider based in Hong Kong, announced its unaudited financial results for the six months ended June 30, 2024. In the first half of 2024, total revenue increased by approximately 14.3% We achieved steady growth over the past six months and continued to consolidate its market position in the human resources solutions sector. In the first half of 2024, the Company achieved total revenue of approximately $3.2 million. In the first half of 2024, net income increased by approximately 25.0% We have realized an improvement in our gross profit margin within our business. During the first half of 2024, the Company reported a net income of approximately $0.5 million, marking a notable increase of approximately 25.0% compared to that of approximately $0.4 million for the same period in 2023. Updates on principal sectors Professional solution services: This sector contributed approximately 31.7% of the Company's total revenue, amounting to approximately $1.0 million. The services provided by us include (i) the secondment of senior executives such as chief financial officers and company secretaries to perform compliance, financial reporting and financial management functions for customers; (ii) the provision of accounting and audit professionals to perform audit work under the instruction of Certified Public Accountant firms; and (iii) the provision of corporate finance experts to assist in drafting of documents including circulars, announcements and others for Hong Kong listed companies and listing documents for private companies planning to go public. Nursing solution services : This sector generated approximately $0.7 million in revenue, representing approximately 21.3% of the Company's total revenue. We provide human resources solutions to social service organizations and nursing homes by matching both temporary and permanent vacancies with candidates in our extensive talent pool. Logistics and other solution services : This sector brought in approximately $1.5 million in revenue, representing approximately 47.0% of the Company's total revenue. We provide human resources solutions by matching workers such as packaging staff and movers from our talent pool with both temporary and permanent vacancies offered by our customers. The strong growth in revenue from this sector of approximately 72.6% reflected the rapid expansion of this sector during the six months ended June 30, 2024 in particular the additional demand for placement of works from a major customer starting in April 2024. Outlook Amid a challenging but promising market environment in Hong Kong, we will continue to focus on enhancing service quality and fulfillment capabilities to meet the ever-changing needs of our customers. Furthermore, we will actively pursue fresh business prospects to extend its market presence. Moving forward, our management holds a positive outlook on the long-term potential of the Company. About Click Holdings Limited We are a human resources solutions provider, specializing in offering comprehensive human resources solutions in three principal sectors, namely (i) professional solution services, (ii) nursing solution services, and (iii) logistics and other solution services. We are primarily focused on talent sourcing and the provision of temporary and permanent personnel to customers. Our primary market is in Hong Kong and our diverse clientele includes accounting and professional firms, Hong Kong listed companies, nursing homes, individual patients, logistics companies and warehouses. For more information on the Company and its filings, which are available for review at www.sec.gov . Safe Harbor Statement Certain statements in this announcement are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on the Company's current expectations and projections about future events that the Company believes may affect its financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. Investors can identify these forward-looking statements by words or phrases such as "may,” "will,” "expect,” "anticipate,” "aim,” "estimate,” "intend,” "plan,” "believe,” "is/are likely to,” "potential,” "continue” or other similar expressions. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent occurring events or circumstances, or changes in its expectations, except as may be required by law. Although the Company believes that the expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot assure you that such expectations will turn out to be correct, and the Company cautions investors that actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results and encourages investors to review other factors that may affect its future results in the Company's registration statement and other filings with the SEC, which are available for review at www.sec.gov . For enquiry, please contact: Click Holdings Limited Unit 709, 7/F., Ocean Centre 5 Canton Road Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon Hong Kong Email: [email protected] Phone: +852 2691 8200
Justin Baldoni Sued by Former Publicist Over Breach of Contract By Amidst an ongoing complaint levied , has been sued by his former publicist, who alleges he breached his contract earlier this year. What is Justin Baldoni being sued for? Steph Jones, who owns the public relations firm Jonesworks, accused Baldoni of breaching their contract earlier this year. The contract, which says Baldoni must pay her $25,000 a month, was allegedly breached after Baldoni dropped the firm in August, and joined a firm started by Jennifer Abel, who also worked at Jonesworks and left to start her own firm. Alongside the lawsuit against Baldoni, Jones is also suing Abel and Baldoni’s publicist Melissa Nathan, joining Blake Lively in accusing the pair of coordinating a . Jones’ lawsuit alleges that the pair are attempting to blame her for the campaign. “To this day, Abel and Nathan continue to point the finger falsely at Jones now that their own misconduct is coming to light, and to defame and attack Jones in the industry,” the lawsuit states (via ). In the case of Lively and Baldoni, this past week, Lively alleging him of sexual harassment and of coordinating an effort to destroy her reputation. In Lively’s claims, she states that things got so bad during filming that an all-hands-on-deck meeting was called due to her claims of a hostile work environment. During the meeting, Lively asked that Baldoni stop showing her nude videos or images of women, that he stop mentioning his pornography addiction to her, that Baldoni stop discussing sexual experiences in front of her, and that he also stop mentioning Lively’s weight. The complaint also claims that an agreement was made between production company Wayfarer Studios and the cast, in which the promotion of the movie would focus “more on [Lively’s character’s] strength and resilience as opposed to describing the film as a story about domestic violence.” However, Lively claims that Baldoni would renege on that and instead spoke in interviews about the film’s serious story. Lively also claimed that Baldoni and his PR manager, Melissa Nathan, discussed ways in which to start a social media campaign to harm her reputation. The filing by Lively includes 22 pages of texts between Baldoni’s publicist and Nathan, in which they discuss wanting to have Lively “buried.” Anthony Nash has been writing about games and the gaming industry for nearly a decade. When he’s not writing about games, he’s usually playing them. You can find him on Twitter talking about games or sports at @_anthonynash. Share articleBy JUAN A. LOZANO, Associated Press HOUSTON (AP) — An elaborate parody appears to be behind an effort to resurrect Enron, the Houston-based energy company that exemplified the worst in American corporate fraud and greed after it went bankrupt in 2001. If its return is comedic, some former employees who lost everything in Enron’s collapse aren’t laughing. “It’s a pretty sick joke and it disparages the people that did work there. And why would you want to even bring it back up again?” said former Enron employee Diana Peters, who represented workers in the company’s bankruptcy proceedings. Here’s what to know about the history of Enron and the purported effort to bring it back. Once the nation’s seventh-largest company, Enron filed for bankruptcy protection on Dec. 2, 2001, after years of accounting tricks could no longer hide billions of dollars in debt or make failing ventures appear profitable. The energy company’s collapse put more than 5,000 people out of work, wiped out more than $2 billion in employee pensions and rendered $60 billion in Enron stock worthless. Its aftershocks were felt throughout the energy sector. Twenty-four Enron executives , including former CEO Jeffrey Skilling , were eventually convicted for their roles in the fraud. Enron founder Ken Lay’s convictions were vacated after he died of heart disease following his 2006 trial. On Monday — the 23rd anniversary of the bankruptcy filing — a company representing itself as Enron announced in a news release that it was relaunching as a “company dedicated to solving the global energy crisis.” It also posted a video on social media, advertised on at least one Houston billboard and a took out a full-page ad in the Houston Chronicle In the minute-long video that was full of generic corporate jargon, the company talks about “growth” and “rebirth.” It ends with the words, “We’re back. Can we talk?” Related Articles Enron’s new website features a company store, where various items featuring the brand’s tilted “E” logo are for sale, including a $118 hoodie. In an email, company spokesperson Will Chabot said the new Enron was not doing any interviews yet, but that “We’ll have more to share soon.” Signs point to the comeback being a joke. In the “terms of use and conditions of sale” on the company’s website, it says “the information on the website about Enron is First Amendment protected parody, represents performance art, and is for entertainment purposes only.” Documents filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office show that College Company, an Arkansas-based LLC, owns the Enron trademark. The co-founder of College Company is Connor Gaydos, who helped create a joke conspiracy theory that claims all birds are actually surveillance drones for the government. Peters said that since learning about the “relaunch” of Enron, she has spoken with several other former employees and they are also upset by it. She said the apparent stunt was “in poor taste.” “If it’s a joke, it’s rude, extremely rude. And I hope that they realize it and apologize to all of the Enron employees,” Peters said. Peters, who is 74 years old, said she is still working in information technology because “I lost everything in Enron, and so my Social Security doesn’t always take care of things I need done.” “Enron’s downfall taught us critical lessons about corporate ethics, accountability, and the consequences of unchecked ambition. Enron’s legacy was the employees in the trenches. Leave Enron buried,” she said. Follow Juan A. Lozano on X at https://x.com/juanlozano70Broadcom Inc. AVGO surged over 5% on Friday, marking its strongest one-day rally in three months and significantly outperforming the broader semiconductor sector as the iShares Semiconductor ETF SOXX posted a modest gain of 0.6%. The semiconductor giant announced on Thursday its cutting-edge 3.5D eXtreme Dimension System in Package (XDSiP) platform technology. This breakthrough positions Broadcom as a leader in enabling next-generation custom accelerators (XPUs) for artificial intelligence applications. By integrating over 6,000 mm2 of silicon and up to 12 high-bandwidth memory (HBM) stacks into a single device, the 3.5D XDSiP achieves high-efficiency, low-power computing designed to meet the demands of large-scale AI systems. The technology also marks the industry debut of Face-to-Face (F2F) 3.5D XPU, a significant milestone in semiconductor packaging. “3.5D integration, which combines 3D silicon stacking with 2.5D packaging, is poised to become the technology of choice for next-generation XPUs in the coming decade,” the company stated. Yet, other than investor enthusiasm driven by both technological innovation, Broadcom's sharp rally also stands out as a sign of favorable seasonal trends. Beyond the innovation buzz, historical data suggests Broadcom could be gearing up for a strong finish to the year. Over the past 15 years, the period between Dec. 6 and Dec. 31 has proven highly favorable for the stock. Broadcom delivered positive returns in 12 of those 15 years, with an average gain of 8.4% during this stretch, as data from Seasonax platform shows. The most remarkable performance occurred in 2020 when the stock skyrocketed 20.7% in the same timeframe. Only three times — 2011, 2012, and 2015 — did Broadcom post losses in this period. Investors appear to be eyeing a repeat of Broadcom's historical outperformance, particularly as AI-driven innovation and seasonal tailwinds build a compelling narrative for further gains. With December already off to a strong start, momentum could carry Broadcom higher as the year-end rally takes shape. Read Next: TikTok Loses Court Appeal Against Ban, Meta, Reddit Stocks Hit All-Time High Photo: Shutterstock © 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.