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Vivek Ramaswamy blames 90s sitcoms for tech companies hiring smarter immigrant workers
Meet Alijah Johnson: Firefighter, paramedic, filmmaker, model, and social influencerGlobal stocks mostly fall ahead of ECB, US inflation data
The House is set to re-elect Speaker Mike Johnson. But could Tom Emmer emerge as 2nd contender?Author and former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson announced Thursday she’s running to lead the Democratic National Committee. “I’m proud to announce I’m running for Chair of the DNC. In order to respond to the challenge of this moment, the Democratic Party needs transformation,” she posted on social media, with a link to a lengthy letter addressed to DNC members outlining her ambitions for the office. Williamson ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and 2024. In 2020, she dropped out in January before the Iowa caucus after failing to meet the polling qualifications for several debates. In 2024, her best performance was 4% in the New Hampshire primary, behind Joe Biden, who received 63.8% of the vote despite not officially competing in the primary, and outgoing Rep. Dean Phillips, who received nearly 20%. She ended her candidacy and reentered the 2024 race twice before ending her campaign for a third and final time in July. She joins a growing field to replace outgoing chair Jaime Harrison that includes former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who ran for president in 2016; Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair Ken Martin; Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler; and New York state Sen. James Skoufis.The Reform UK leader pushed back against reports suggesting that legal action would be the next step, saying he would make a decision in the next couple of days about his response if there is no apology for the “crazy conspiracy theory”. Mr Farage also said the party has “opened up our systems” to media outlets, including The Daily Telegraph and The Financial Times, in the interests of “full transparency to verify that our numbers are correct”. His remarks came after Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch accused Mr Farage of “fakery” in response to Reform claiming they had surpassed the Tories in signed-up members. Mrs Badenoch said Reform’s counter was “coded to tick up automatically”. A digital counter on the Reform website showed a membership tally before lunchtime on Boxing Day ticking past the 131,680 figure declared by the Conservative Party during its leadership election earlier this year. Mr Farage, on whether he was threatening legal action or not, told the PA news agency: “I haven’t threatened anything. I’ve just said that unless I get an apology, I will take some action. “I haven’t said whether it’s legal or anything.” He added: “All I’ve said is I want an apology. If I don’t get an apology, I will take action. “I will decide in the next couple of days what that is. So I’ve not specified what it is.” Mr Farage, on the move to make membership data available to media organisations, said: “We feel our arguments are fully validated. “She (Mrs Badenoch) has put out this crazy conspiracy theory and she needs to apologise.” The accusations of fraud and dishonesty made against me yesterday were disgraceful. Today we opened up our systems to The Telegraph, Spectator, Sky News & FT in the interests of full transparency to verify that our data is correct. I am now demanding @KemiBadenoch apologises. — Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) December 27, 2024 On why Mrs Badenoch had reacted as she did, Mr Farage said: “I would imagine she was at home without anybody advising her and was just angry.” Mr Farage, in a statement issued on social media site X, also said: “The accusations of fraud and dishonesty made against me yesterday were disgraceful. “Today we opened up our systems to The Telegraph, Spectator, Sky News and FT in the interests of full transparency to verify that our data is correct. “I am now demanding Kemi Badenoch apologises.” A Conservative Party source claimed Mr Farage was “rattled” that his Boxing Day “publicity stunt is facing serious questions”. They added: “Like most normal people around the UK, Kemi is enjoying Christmas with her family and looking forward to taking on the challenges of renewing the Conservative Party in the New Year.” Mrs Badenoch, in a series of messages posted on X on Thursday, said: “Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled.” There were 131,680 Conservative members eligible to vote during the party’s leadership election to replace Rishi Sunak in the autumn. Mrs Badenoch claimed in her thread that “the Conservative Party has gained thousands of new members since the leadership election”. Elsewhere, Mr Farage described Elon Musk as a “bloody hero” and said he believes the US billionaire can help attract younger voters to Reform. Tech entrepreneur Mr Musk met Mr Farage earlier this month at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, amid rumours of a possible donation to either Mr Farage or Reform. Mr Farage told The Daily Telegraph newspaper: “The shades, the bomber jacket, the whole vibe. Elon makes us cool – Elon is a huge help to us with the young generation, and that will be the case going on and, frankly, that’s only just starting. “Reform only wins the next election if it gets the youth vote. The youth vote is the key. Of course, you need voters of all ages, but if you get a wave of youth enthusiasm you can change everything. “And I think we’re beginning to get into that zone – we were anyway, but Elon makes the whole task much, much easier. And the idea that politics can be cool, politics can be fun, politics can be real – Elon helps us with that mission enormously.”A crypto expert has shortlisted five digital currencies that may attain a tremendous growth until 2025. That may promise an extraordinary 15,650% returns. Here, the most promising assets will be considered by the things that set them apart and how they could alter the future investment strategy in the coming future. XYZVerse: The Best New Meme Project You Can't Afford to Bench! XYZ is your exclusive VIP pass to a sports-driven, meme-fueled revolution. Think of it as the MVP of the XYZVerse ecosystem, where degens can score big off the growing demand for meme coins Picture this: Polymarket hitting $1 billion in trading volume during the US presidential election – now throw in the hype of meme coins and the thrill of sports betting. With millions of sports fans ready to hit the field and cash in the XYZVerse ecosystem is set to keep expanding – and your rewards will slam dunk through the roof! And here’s a highlight reel moment : XYZVerse has been officially recognized as the Best NEW Meme Project – a title that underscores its explosive potential in the meme coin arena. >>>XYZ presale is your first-quarter chance to get in before the mind-blowing explosion!>Don’t be left on the bench – grab your XYZ tokens now and be part of the next massive crypto championship!> Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, vowed to go to “war” to defend the H-1B visa program for foreign tech workers late on Friday amid a dispute between President-elect Donald Trump’s longtime supporters and his most recently acquired backers from the tech industry. In a post on social media platform X, Musk said “The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B.” “I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend,” he added. Musk, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in South Africa, has held an H-1B visa, and his electric-car company Tesla obtained 724 of the visas this year. H-1B visas are typically for three-year periods, though holders can extend them or apply for green cards. Musk’s tweet was directed at Trump’s supporters and immigration hardliners, who have increasingly pushed for the H-1B visa program to be scrapped amid a heated debate over immigration and the place of skilled immigrants and foreign workers brought into the country on work visas. Trump has so far remained silent on the issue. The Trump transition did not respond to a request for comment on Musk’s tweets and the H-1B visa debate. In the past, Trump has expressed a willingness to provide more work visas to skilled workers. He has also promised to deport all immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, deploy tariffs to help create more jobs for American citizens and severely restrict immigration. The issue highlights how tech leaders like Musk — who has taken an important role in the presidential transition, advising on key personnel and policy areas — are now drawing scrutiny from his base. The U.S. tech industry relies on the government’s H-1B visa program to hire foreign skilled workers to help run its companies, a labor force that critics say undercuts wages for American citizens. The altercation was set off earlier this week by far-right activists who criticized Trump’s selection of Sriram Krishnan, an Indian American venture capitalist, to be an adviser on artificial intelligence, saying he would have influence on the Trump administration’s immigration policies. On Friday, Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump confidante, critiqued “big tech oligarchs” for supporting the H-1B program and cast immigration as a threat to Western civilization. In response, Musk and many other tech billionaires drew a line between what they view as legal immigration and illegal immigration. Musk has spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars helping Trump get elected president in November. He has posted regularly this week about the lack of homegrown talent to fill all the needed positions within American tech companies.
The Reform UK leader pushed back against reports suggesting that legal action would be the next step, saying he would make a decision in the next couple of days about his response if there is no apology for the “crazy conspiracy theory”. Mr Farage also said the party has “opened up our systems” to media outlets, including The Daily Telegraph and The Financial Times, in the interests of “full transparency to verify that our numbers are correct”. His remarks came after Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch accused Mr Farage of “fakery” in response to Reform claiming they had surpassed the Tories in signed-up members. Mrs Badenoch said Reform’s counter was “coded to tick up automatically”. A digital counter on the Reform website showed a membership tally before lunchtime on Boxing Day ticking past the 131,680 figure declared by the Conservative Party during its leadership election earlier this year. Mr Farage, on whether he was threatening legal action or not, told the PA news agency: “I haven’t threatened anything. I’ve just said that unless I get an apology, I will take some action. “I haven’t said whether it’s legal or anything.” He added: “All I’ve said is I want an apology. If I don’t get an apology, I will take action. “I will decide in the next couple of days what that is. So I’ve not specified what it is.” Mr Farage, on the move to make membership data available to media organisations, said: “We feel our arguments are fully validated. “She (Mrs Badenoch) has put out this crazy conspiracy theory and she needs to apologise.” The accusations of fraud and dishonesty made against me yesterday were disgraceful. Today we opened up our systems to The Telegraph, Spectator, Sky News & FT in the interests of full transparency to verify that our data is correct. I am now demanding @KemiBadenoch apologises. — Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) December 27, 2024 On why Mrs Badenoch had reacted as she did, Mr Farage said: “I would imagine she was at home without anybody advising her and was just angry.” Mr Farage, in a statement issued on social media site X, also said: “The accusations of fraud and dishonesty made against me yesterday were disgraceful. “Today we opened up our systems to The Telegraph, Spectator, Sky News and FT in the interests of full transparency to verify that our data is correct. “I am now demanding Kemi Badenoch apologises.” A Conservative Party source claimed Mr Farage was “rattled” that his Boxing Day “publicity stunt is facing serious questions”. They added: “Like most normal people around the UK, Kemi is enjoying Christmas with her family and looking forward to taking on the challenges of renewing the Conservative Party in the New Year.” Mrs Badenoch, in a series of messages posted on X on Thursday, said: “Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled.” There were 131,680 Conservative members eligible to vote during the party’s leadership election to replace Rishi Sunak in the autumn. Mrs Badenoch claimed in her thread that “the Conservative Party has gained thousands of new members since the leadership election”. Elsewhere, Mr Farage described Elon Musk as a “bloody hero” and said he believes the US billionaire can help attract younger voters to Reform. Tech entrepreneur Mr Musk met Mr Farage earlier this month at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, amid rumours of a possible donation to either Mr Farage or Reform. Mr Farage told The Daily Telegraph newspaper: “The shades, the bomber jacket, the whole vibe. Elon makes us cool – Elon is a huge help to us with the young generation, and that will be the case going on and, frankly, that’s only just starting. “Reform only wins the next election if it gets the youth vote. The youth vote is the key. Of course, you need voters of all ages, but if you get a wave of youth enthusiasm you can change everything. “And I think we’re beginning to get into that zone – we were anyway, but Elon makes the whole task much, much easier. And the idea that politics can be cool, politics can be fun, politics can be real – Elon helps us with that mission enormously.”
DOJ Leak Probe Under Trump Targeted His FBI Pick: ReportGame and Fish announces closure of North Dakota otter trapping season
Trump “takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute”, according to the submission. “Instead, he respectfully requests that the court consider staying the act’s deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case.” This would permit permit the “incoming administration the opportunity to pursue a political resolution of the questions at issue in the case”, it added. Trump’s brief noted that he officially returns to the White House a day after the law banning TikTok takes effect, calling it “unfortunate timing” that “interferes” with the president-elect’s “ability to manage the United States’ foreign policy and to pursue a resolution to both protect national security and save a social-media platform that provides a popular vehicle for 170 million Americans to exercise their core First Amendment rights”. The filing further stated that Trump “has a particularly powerful interest in and responsibility for those national-security and foreign-policy questions” and that “he is the right constitutional actor to resolve the dispute through political means”. It asserted Trump “alone possesses the consummate deal-making expertise, the electoral mandate and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national-security concerns”.
Two people face charges and third was cited in connection to vehicle thefts in Wymore and in Lincoln. Oskar Lundberg, 19, of Lincoln was arrested for individual counts of theft by unlawful taking (more than $5,000), attempted theft by unlawful taking ($1,500-$5,000) and criminal mischief. Lochlyn Hansen, 19, of Blue Springs received criminal citations on those counts plus theft by receiving stolen property (more than $5,000). According to a statement from the Gage County Sheriff's Office, deputies responded to a report of a stolen vehicle and a report of an attempted vehicle theft on Jan. 6, 2024, in Wymore. The stolen vehicle was later found crashed and abandoned in Lancaster County outside Lincoln. The vehicle was deemed a total loss. On Jan. 23, deputies helped the Wymore Police Department recover a vehicle that had been stolen in Lincoln about a month before. People are also reading... Beatrice house suffers severe damage from Christmas fire Is John Dutton real? Meet the powerful rancher seemingly inspiring the 'Yellowstone' legend At the courthouse, Dec. 21, 2024 Former Beatrice man sentenced for sex assault of runaway Beatrice church starts construction on fellowship hall Beatrice man pleads guilty to receiving child sex abuse images Gage County supervisors vote down FOP contract offer Downtown Beatrice festive for the holidays What’s open and closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2024? Main Street welcomes new director Gage County says board had authority to deny permit for broadband provider Nebraska volleyball libero Lexi Rodriguez signs with LOVB's Omaha team Matt Rhule and Nebraska football plan Pinstripe Bowl practice in Central Park As Brenda Lee turns 80, the Christmas song she sang as a teen is a holiday staple Beatrice Humane Society: Keeping your pet merry this season The statement said the investigators learned the incidents were related. All the vehicles were Hyundais, which led investigators to believe the incidents were part of a nationwide trend spread on TikTok and social media in which thieves target Hyundai or Kia vehicles. A juvenile received a citation for aiding and abetting in some of the incidents. Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email.
Over 200 vehicles missing, three recovered — Edo govtShoppers bemused as Easter eggs hit shop shelves before New Year’s EveSharks take on the Sabres after Wennberg's 2-goal game
Bill Plaschke: Most Valuable Ever! Shohei Ohtani wins MVP with best season in LA sports history.Csb bancorp CEO Eddie Steiner acquires $58,375 in common stock
To say that Amazon.com ( AMZN -1.45% ) has been a successful investment over the years would be a major understatement. Since it went public in 1997, Amazon has delivered a 233,100% gain for investors. It isn't just the earliest investors who have been big winners here. Even if you had been "late to the party" and bought Amazon shares a decade ago, the value of your investment would have multiplied by more than 15. So, while there's no way to know exactly how many investors have built life-changing wealth with Amazon stock, it's fair to say that Amazon has made many long-term investors millionaires over the years. However, I don't necessarily think it's too late to buy Amazon, even today. There's a lot to like about the company's future potential, even with a $2.4 trillion market cap. Lots of growth potential on both sides There are two main components of Amazon's business : the e-commerce platform and the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud-infrastructure side. And both have lots of room to grow. The bulk of Amazon's revenue (at least for now) comes from e-commerce. Sales grew by 9% year over year in North America and 12% internationally to a total of about $131.5 billion in the latest quarter. However, it's important to know that e-commerce still represents just about 16% of all U.S. retail sales, and this continues to steadily climb. In some of the international markets where Amazon operates, the e-commerce penetration rate is even lower. Speaking of international business, it is worth mentioning that more than 70% of Amazon's e-commerce business still comes from North America. So, there's far more potential to grow internationally than you might expect. When it comes to AWS, the sky is the limit. AWS currently accounts for about 17% of the company's revenue but is the fastest growing and most profitable part of the business. It grew by 19% year over year in the third quarter, and although it only made up 17% of the sales, it contributed 60% of Amazon's operating income. Even this could be just a starting point. According to Fortune Business Insights, the cloud-computing market is expected to more than triple in size by 2032 compared with 2024. If AWS can even maintain its current market share, it could become a much larger profit driver in the years ahead. A focus on profitability When Andy Jassy took over as CEO in mid-2021, he made it a priority to focus on the efficiency of Amazon's business , and investors have been rewarded with growing margins. Over the past five years alone, Amazon's operating margin has nearly doubled. In the most recent quarter, Amazon's net income per share increased by 44% year over year, and trailing-12-month free cash flow grew by a staggering 123%. In short, profitability continues to improve, and there's no reason to believe it will level off just yet. So, while 39 times forward earnings might seem like an expensive price to pay, the combination of growth potential and margin expansion could make the stock a better value than you might think. The bottom line Amazon is a great example of a stock that many investors don't consider a "growth story" anymore simply because of how large the business has become. And to be fair, it's easy to see why some see limited upside potential given Amazon's massive presence in the daily lives of millions of people. However, Amazon has more room to grow than you might think. It isn't exactly a cheap stock, but when you consider where things might stand in a decade or so, it could be well worth the cost.
Shoppers bemused as Easter eggs hit shop shelves before New Year’s Eve
SINGAPORE: Festive gift-giving is getting a digital transformation in China and becoming the new battleground for Chinese social media apps as e-commerce competition heats up. Tencent’s WeChat has been testing out a new feature allowing users to browse, buy and send presents to friends and relatives, while Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, rolled out a similar gifting function back in January. WeChat, a multi-functional platform that offers services from messaging to mobile payment and gaming, has more than 1.3 billion monthly active users, making it one of the most widely used apps in the world. Its new “Send Gift” feature, added to its app store on Dec 19, allows users to “show appreciation” for their loved ones by searching for products priced at 10,000 yuan and below. The feature is “being rolled out gradually”, WeChat said in a statement, and for now, is only available to a selected number of users in mainland China. “We are still working hard to gradually improve the relevant functions,” the company said. Those able to use the function bought gifts like cosmetics and snacks and sent them on to their friends. One user who went by the name Diana, shared her experience of sending makeup foundation worth 480 yuan to a friend, praising the “practicality” of the new service and saying it was useful for holidays like Christmas and birthdays. She recalled her friend reacting with confusion upon receiving her WeChat gift. “(She thought) she was sent a meme, but it was actually a Christmas gift,” Diana said. The novelty of the new WeChat function also sparked discussion on the Xiaohongshu social media app, with some expressing excitement of being able to send gifts to friends and relatives quickly, with others commenting that they were eager for it to be rolled out on their accounts. Some Xiaohongshu bloggers also shared step by step tutorials showing users how to send and receive gifts. One user who went by the handle Momozi, expressed doubts, saying more improvements were needed and she did not see older app users trying out the gift giving function. “Firstly, a gift should be a surprise. If not I’ll simply send a red packet,” she said. “Why not simply just send money?” Irate users also left one star reviews on WeChat shop’s customer service platform, describing unfavourable experiences they had in dealing with unresponsive sellers and merchants who did not send out orders once placed, as well as the lack of refundable options. The feature allows users to purchase products from WeChat stores and send them to other users through a virtual gift format. Gifts are capped at 10,000 yuan, excluding jewellery and tutoring classes, with the option to hide prices from the recipient. After selecting a product, users would then click on “send to friend” and complete payment. There is also no need to include a recipient’s delivery address, WeChat said and gift orders will not contain buyer information or payment details. Gifts are non-transferrable and users will not be allowed to cancel orders. But if gifts are not accepted by the recipient within 24 hours, the order would then be cancelled and the money refunded to the sender’s accounts. RESHAPING THE GIFT-GIVING CULTURE China’s e-commerce market is the largest in the world, generating billions in revenue and outpacing the United States. Giving money and gifts is a huge part of Chinese culture and in 2014, WeChat introduced virtual red packets linked to its digital payment service. The virtual red packets were a hit with users who received amounts of money in the form of transactions quickly and conveniently through their apps, and digitised a deeply-rooted Chinese tradition ahead of the new year. It also gave Tencent the edge in the digital payment battle against e-commerce rival Alibaba’s Alipay system, industry experts said. In 2017 alone, WeChat users exchanged around 46 billion digital red packets over the new year period in January. Just as WeChat changed the way people gave out traditional red packets, can it do the same with its new “gift-giving” feature? “Gifting is something deeply rooted in Chinese culture, just like red packets are,” said Li Jianggan, CEO of Singapore-based venture firm Momentum Works, adding that spending habits and gifting behaviour of younger Chinese differed substantially from elders. Analyst Dave Xie from the Oliver Wyman global management consulting firm, called the new feature “a strategic move” on Tencent’s part. “China's e-commerce landscape has undergone significant transformations in recent years, driven by emerging platforms, evolving consumer behaviors and strategic adaptations by established players,” Xie told CNA. WeChat’s “extensive” user base and established social connections could provide a unique advantage in driving e-commerce engagement, he added. With more than 1.3 billion active monthly users, WeChat is a “powerful tool” and has something “none of the Chinese e-commerce platforms have”, Li said, a huge user network and trusted social map. “As WeChat gradually gets deeper into social commerce and live commerce, there is a good possibility that the e-commerce competitive landscape (in China) will be reshaped.” But it is still “hard to predict” if the new gift-giving function will be as popular and widely used among WeChat users as digital red packets, Li said, adding that it was “safe to assume” it would have a smaller use as compared to payment. “That said, we believe that gifting is just one of the many attempts to effectively embed social commerce into the WeChat ecosystem.” In line with government internet restrictions, app-associated services like Facebook marketplace and Instagram Shopping aren’t made available to Chinese users. WeChat's new gift-giving function is also not the first in the Chinese market. Earlier this year, Douyin released a similar gifting function called “sui xin song” or “Gift as you wish” – allowing its users to send out gift vouchers. It also ran a special Chinese New Year campaign allowing users to send gifts to their loved ones, with gifts worth over 40 million yuan sent. Social gift giving “naturally” aligns with WeChat’s social DNA, Xie said, with the potential to “create unique social shopping experiences” for users on the platform. But success will depend on being able to convert “social engagement” into sustainable sales growth. One of the biggest challenges for the new gift-giving function would be how it functions and operates, Li said. “What is the selection of products available... and how do you manage the user experiences and expectations? How (can WeChat) regulate the system so that it doesn’t get abused by illicit merchants and scammers?” “This is something that Wechat can tap into if they find the right magic formula.”