The US tech billionaire dismissed the narrative of Germany's AfD's being right-wing extremists as "clearly false." The populist party is polling second as Germany prepares for a parliamentary vote in February. Tech billionaire Elon Musk on Saturday restated his backing for Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD ), calling the party the "last spark of hope" for the country, in an op-ed published by the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. His remarks triggered anger among German politicians, with the country six weeks away from a snap federal election . Shortly after the piece went online, the editor of the opinion section, Eva Marie Kogel, wrote on X that she had submitted her resignation, with a link to the commentary. What did Elon Musk say? Musk used his commentary to expand on his post on X last week claiming that "only [the] AfD can save Germany." In the editorial, he said the far-right party was the "last spark of hope" for the country. "The portrayal of the AfD as right-wing extremist is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel , the party's leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!" Musk said in the piece. Calls for EU to sanction Elon Musk for 'interference' To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video In 2021, Germany's domestic intelligence agency classified the AfD at the national level as a suspected extremist organization. Musk went on to claim that the AfD adopts strong positions on issues relating to economic recovery, energy supply and migration control. "The AfD, even though it is described as far-right, represents a political realism that resonates with many Germans who feel that their concerns are ignored by the establishment. It addresses the problems of the moment — without the political correctness that often obscures the truth," the tech billionaire continued. Musk also said the AfD was "committed to a controlled immigration policy that gives priority to integration and the preservation of German culture and security. This is not about xenophobia, but about ensuring that Germany does not lose its identity in the pursuit of globalization." Welt am Sonntag reporters shoot back at Musk op-ed The future editor-in-chief of the Welt group, Jan Philipp Burgard, contradicted the billionaire's statements in his own op-ed, posted next to Musk's. Burgard said: "Musk's diagnosis is correct, but his therapeutic approach, that only the AfD can save Germany, is fatally wrong." Other Welt journalists also posted their disapproval publicly on X. German far-right AfD rallies after Christmas market attack To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Musk's comments seen as timed for snap election Musk's backing of the AfD has sent shockwaves through Berlin, with some lawmakers this week accusing the SpaceX chief of interfering in German politics . On Saturday, former health minister and a lawmaker for the center-right CDU party, Jens Spahn, wrote on X: "Elon Musk says, look beyond the labels of the AfD. Now, let's do it then: The AfD wants to leave NATO, reactivate Nord Stream 2, and is anti-US, pro-Putin and pro-Russia. Is that what the USA wants? A Germany that turns towards Russia and away from the USA? The AfD wants to leave the Eurozone , our by far largest trading partner. We conduct ~40% of our trade within Eurozone. Without the Euro and the EU, the German economy would completely collapse." Spahn said the AfD had also been against the construction of the Tesla factory in Grünheide. Break-up of ruling coalition triggers early elections Germany is set for a snap election on February 23 after the coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz collapsed last month. The three parties in the coalition had disagreed for more than a year on major policy issues, including the 2025 budget. The AfD is now running second in opinion polls with around 19% support, behind the conservative CDU/CSU alliance with more than 30%. However, Germany's mainstream parties have all ruled out working with AfD at the national level. mm/dj (AFP, DPA)Is AMD Stock a Buy Now?

Trudeau told Trump Americans would also suffer if tariffs are imposed, a Canadian minister says

How could Walmart change the Smart TV market with the acquisition of Vizio?

TCAT enrollment up 18 percent in 2023-24A stroke changed a teacher’s life. How a new electrical device is helping her moveIt's now been two and a half years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and opened the door for states to implement bans. The policies and their impact have been in flux ever since the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. Here's a look at data on where things stand: Abortions are slightly more common now than before Dobbs Overturning Roe and enforcing abortion bans has changed how woman obtain abortions in the U.S. But one thing it hasn't done is put a dent in the number of abortions being obtained. There have been slightly more monthly abortions across the country recently than there were in the months leading up to the June 2022 ruling, even as the number in states with bans dropped to near zero. “Abortion bans don’t actually prevent abortions from happening,” said Ushma Upadhyay, a public health social scientist at the University of California San Francisco. But, she said, they do change care. For women in some states, there are major obstacles to getting abortions — and advocates say that low-income, minority and immigrant women are least likely to be able to get them when they want. For those living in states with bans, the ways to access abortion are through travel or abortion pills. Pills become a bigger part of equation — and the legal questions As the bans swept in, abortion pills became a bigger part of the equation. They were involved in about half the abortions before Dobbs. More recently, it’s been closer to two-thirds of them, according to research by the Guttmacher Institute. The uptick of that kind of abortion, usually involving a combination of two drugs, was underway before the ruling. But now, it's become more common for pill prescriptions to be made by telehealth. By the summer of 2024, about 1 in 10 abortions was via pills prescribed via telehealth to patients in states where abortion is banned. As a result, the pills are now at the center of battles over abortion access. This month, Texas sued a New York doctor for prescribing pills to a Texas woman via telemedicine. There's also an effort by Idaho, Kansas and Missouri to roll back their federal approvals and treat them as “controlled dangerous substances,” and a push for the federal government to start enforcing a 19th-century federal law to ban mailing them. Travel for abortion has increased Clinics have closed or halted abortions in states with bans. But a network of efforts to get women seeking abortions to places where they're legal has strengthened and travel for abortion is now common. The Guttmacher Institute found that more than twice as many Texas residents obtained abortion in 2023 in New Mexico as New Mexico residents did. And as many Texans received them in Kansas as Kansans. Abortion funds, which benefitted from “rage giving” in 2022, have helped pay the costs for many abortion-seekers. But some funds have had to cap how much they can give . The abortion map has been in flux Since the downfall of Roe, the actions of lawmakers and courts have kept shifting where abortion is legal and under what conditions. Here's where it stands now: The ban that took eff ect in Florida this year has been a game-changer Florida, the nation’s third most-populous state, began enforcing a ban on abortions after the first six weeks of pregnancy on May 1. That immediately changed the state from one that was a refuge for other Southerners seeking abortion to an exporter of people looking for them. There were about 30% fewer abortions there in May compared with the average for the first three months of the year. And in June, there were 35% fewer. While the ban is not unique, the impact is especially large. The average driving time from Florida to a facility in North Carolina where abortion is available for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is more than nine hours, according to data maintained by Caitlin Myers, a Middlebury College economics professor. Clinics have opened or expanded in some places The bans have meant clinics closed or stopped offering abortions in some states. But some states where abortion remains legal until viability – generally considered to be sometime past 21 weeks of pregnancy , though there’s no fixed time for it – have seen clinics open and expand . Illinois, Kansas and New Mexico are among the states with new clinics. There were 799 publicly identifiable abortion providers in the U.S. in May 2022, the month before the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade. And by this November, it was 792, according to a tally by Myers, who is collecting data on abortion providers. But Myers says some hospitals that always provided some abortions have begun advertising it. So they’re now in the count of clinics – even though they might provide few of them. Lack of access to abortions during emergencies is threatening some patients' lives How hospitals handle pregnancy complications , especially those that threaten the lives of the women, has emerged as a major issue since Roe was overturned. President Joe Biden's administration says hospitals must offer abortions when they're needed to prevent organ loss, hemorrhage or deadly infections, even in states with bans. Texas is challenging the administration’s policy and the U.S. Supreme Court this year declined to take it up after the Biden administration sued Idaho. More than 100 pregnant women seeking help in emergency rooms and were turned away or left unstable since 2022, The Associated Press found in an analysis of federal hospital investigative records. Among the complaints were a woman who miscarried in the lobby restroom of Texas emergency room after staff refused to see her and a woman who gave birth in a car after a North Carolina hospital couldn't offer an ultrasound. The baby later died. “It is increasingly less safe to be pregnant and seeking emergency care in an emergency department,” Dara Kass, an emergency medicine doctor and former U.S. Health and Human Services official told the AP earlier this year. Abortion rights are popular with voters Since Roe was overturned, there have been 18 reproductive rights-related statewide ballot questions. Abortion rights advocates have prevailed on 14 of them and lost on four. In the 2024 election , they amended the constitutions in five states to add the right to abortion. Such measures failed in three states: In Florida, where it required 60% support; in Nebraska, which had competing abortion ballot measures; and in South Dakota, where most national abortion rights groups did support the measure. AP VoteCast data found that more than three-fifths of voters in 2024 supported abortion being legal in all or most cases – a slight uptick from 2020. The support came even as voters supported Republicans to control the White House and both houses of Congress. Associated Press writers Linley Sanders, Amanda Seitz and Laura Ungar contributed to this article.

By RANDALL CHASE, Associated Press DOVER, Del. (AP) — A Delaware judge has reaffirmed her ruling that Tesla must revoke Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar pay package Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick on Monday denied a request by attorneys for Musk and Tesla’s corporate directors to vacate her ruling earlier this year requiring the company to rescind the unprecedented pay package. McCormick also rejected an equally unprecedented and massive fee request by plaintiff attorneys , who argued that they were entitled to legal fees in the form of Tesla stock valued at more than $5 billion. The judge said the attorneys were entitled to a fee award of $345 million. The rulings came in a lawsuit filed by a Tesla stockholder who challenged Musk’s 2018 compensation package. McCormick concluded in January that Musk engineered the landmark pay package in sham negotiations with directors who were not independent. The compensation package initially carried a potential maximum value of about $56 billion, but that sum has fluctuated over the years based on Tesla’s stock price.NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes got back to climbing on Wednesday after the latest update on inflation appeared to clear the way for more help for the economy from the Federal Reserve. The S&P 500 rose 0.8% to break its first two-day losing streak in nearly a month and finished just short of its all-time high. Big Tech stocks led the way, which drove the Nasdaq composite up 1.8% to top the 20,000 level for the first time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, meanwhile, lagged the market with a dip of 99 points, or 0.2%. Stocks got a boost as expectations built that Wednesday's inflation data will allow the Fed to deliver another cut to interest rates at its meeting next week. Traders are betting on a nearly 99% probability of that, according to data from CME Group, up from 89% a day before. If they're correct, it would be a third straight cut by the Fed after it began lowering rates in September from a two-decade high. It's hoping to support a slowing job market after getting inflation nearly all the way down to its 2% target. Lower rates would give a boost to the economy and to prices for investments, but they could also provide more fuel for inflation. "The data have given the Fed the 'all clear' for next week, and today's inflation data keep a January cut in active discussion," according to Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. Expectations for a series of cuts to rates by the Fed have been one of the main reasons the S&P 500 has set an all-time high 57 times this year, with the latest coming last week. The biggest boosts for the index on Wednesday came from Nvidia and other Big Tech stocks. Their massive growth has made them Wall Street's biggest stars for years, though other kinds of stocks have recently been catching up somewhat amid hopes for the broader U.S. economy. Tesla jumped 5.9% to finish above $420 at $424.77. It's a level that Elon Musk made famous in a 2018 tweet when he said he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 per share. Stitch Fix soared 44.3% after the company that sends clothes to your door reported a smaller loss for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also gave financial forecasts for the current quarter that were better than expected, including for revenue. GE Vernova rallied 5% for one of the biggest gains in the S&P 500. The energy company that spun out of General Electric said it would pay a 25 cent dividend every three months, and it approved a plan to send up to another $6 billion to its shareholders by buying back its own stock. On the losing end of Wall Street, Dave & Buster's Entertainment tumbled 20.1% after reporting a worse loss for the latest quarter than expected. It also said CEO Chris Morris has resigned, and the board has been working with an executive-search firm for the last few months to find its next permanent leader. Albertsons fell 1.5% after filing a lawsuit against Kroger, saying it didn't do enough for their proposed $24.6 billion merger agreement to win regulatory clearance. Albertsons said it's seeking billions of dollars in damages from Kroger, whose stock rose 1%. A day earlier, judges in separate cases in Oregon and Washington nixed the supermarket giants' merger. The grocers contended a combination could have helped them compete with big retailers like Walmart, Costco and Amazon, but critics said it would hurt competition. After terminating the merger agreement with Kroger, Albertsons said it plans to boost its dividend 25% and increased the size of its program to buy back its own stock. Macy's slipped 0.8% after cutting some of its financial forecasts for the full year of 2024, including for how much profit it expects to make off each $1 of revenue. All told, the S&P 500 rose 49.28 points to 6,084.19. The Dow dipped 99.27 to 44,148.56, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 347.65 to 20,034.89. In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.27% from 4.23% late Tuesday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed, edged up to 4.15% from 4.14%. In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was an outlier and slipped 0.8% as Chinese leaders convened an annual planning meeting in Beijing that is expected to set economic policies and growth targets for the coming year. South Korea's Kospi rose 1%, up for a second straight day as it climbs back following last week's political turmoil where its president briefly declared martial law.

Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA) awarded the premier airport’s exclusive advertising concession to marketing powerhouse United Neon Media Group (UNMG) in a move that is seen to revolutionize and unlock the power of airport advertising. “Our partnership with United Neon Media Group is a testament to our vision to provide the best services here at the Mactan Cebu International Airport. We are pushing for greater heights to sustain our world class status. We look to the award-winning creativity and innovative advertising executions of United Neon to support and complement our efforts and to provide an enjoyable and enriching experience for all our travelers and airport guests,” Nabil Rasheed, Deputy Chief Commercial Officer of MCIA, said. Benjamin Ernest Lim, Deputy Chief Operations Officer of United Neon Advertising, Inc. said that the advertising concession with MCIA builds towards UNMG’s vision of being a one-stop shop that can effectively connect brands to audiences across a variety of backgrounds and locations. “Airport advertising is very powerful and it has a global reach that would allow for brands to gain international exposure, reach a bigger audience and seize the opportunity to possibly penetrate new markets. This is especially true in the case of MCIA which is the second largest and busiest airport in the Philippines and has been globally recognized for its sustainability initiatives,” Lim said. A global Airport Advertising Market study showed that the market is projected to grow from US$ million in 2023 to US$ million by 2032. A separate Nielsen research supports this forecast showing that over 90% of travelers notice airport ads, and 80% of them take time to read or engage with them, showing how powerful airport advertisements are. Known for their innovation and world-class advertising executions, Lim said UNMG is set to push on what’s possible in airport advertising and hopes to deliver world-class advertising executions befitting MCIA as a world-class airport. “Over the coming years, UNMG will be investing in new digital display technology in the airport and focus on coming up with unique experiences that truly connect brands with their audiences, Lim said. He explained that for brands, UNMG would continuously create more ways to reach their target audience, from campaigns focusing on increasing brand awareness to campaigns with a goal of driving business growth. For travelers, Lim adds, UNMG’s goal is to create unique branding experiences that would make their journeys more enjoyable. Lim underscored that airport ads are not only powerful but also strategic to brands because travelers see airports as premium places and brand presence in airport advertisements boost their credibility. He adds that travelers in the airport, especially those with longer waiting times, would normally be in a good mood to pay more attention to airport ads and remember them better. As MCIA’s exclusive advertising concessionaire, all branding activities would go through UNMG starting November 1, 2024 and for the 5-year duration of the contract. “We are very optimistic about this partnership with MCIA and we are confident in growing the airport’s advertising revenue in the coming years. There are strong indications, too, that air travel will recover and even exceed the pre-pandemic levels and with that momentum behind us, we hope to achieve great things with MCIA,” Lim said. Being business-savvy should be fun, attainable and A+. BMPlus is BusinessMirror's digital arm with practical tips & success stories for aspiring and thriving millennial entrepreneurs.

Published 4:48 pm Wednesday, December 11, 2024 By Data Skrive There is one game on the college basketball schedule on Thursday that feature a ranked squad. That matchup is the UConn Huskies versus the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Watch women’s college basketball, other live sports and more on Fubo. What is Fubo? Fubo is a streaming service that gives you access to your favorite live sports and shows on demand. Use our link to sign up. Catch tons of live women’s college basketball , plus original programming, with ESPN+ or the Disney Bundle.During the Kansas City Chiefs’ Christmas Day game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, it was rumored that Taylor Swift made a low-key appearance in the crowd. During the Wednesday, December 25, game in Pennsylvania, several attendees claimed via social media that they saw Swift, 35, sitting in a private box wearing a white cardigan and her signature red lip . Swift, however, was not present at Acrisure Stadium on Wednesday. The attendee in question, a TikToker named Olivia , has since addressed the comparisons. “Today, I was at the Steelers [versus] Kansas City game for Christmas and I was sitting in a box seat with my best friend,” Olivia said in a video posted later on Wednesday. “We were having a really, really nice time. ... I would see a lot of people take pictures of me or wave to me. I would wave back, like, I didn’t want to be mean or rude. I was like, ‘Maybe they think I’m Taylor Swift?’ I can see it from far away.” Olivia said that a “staff member came up” to her when the game ended, stating that she was going viral on social media for presumably being Swift. “I’m sorry to the people that thought I was Taylor Swift, but yeah, everyone was like, ‘Is that Taylor Swift in the white sweater?’ It was me,” Olivia quipped. “There were a bunch of videos of me standing up or me sitting down or, like, talking to my friend. It was a whole thing.” #steelergame #taylorswift #cheifsvssteelers ♬ original sound – olivias.version13 She concluded, “I hope you had a really nice time otherwise, but very sorry about that one.” Swift has been a staple at Kansas City Chiefs football games since fall 2023 when she started dating tight end Travis Kelce . “When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care,” the Grammy winner told TIME in December 2023 . “The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other.” You have successfully subscribed. By signing up, I agree to the Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive emails from Us Weekly Check our latest news in Google News Check our latest news in Apple News This season, however, Swift has only made it to home games at Missouri’s Arrowhead Stadium. After Kelce, 35, and the Chiefs won 29-10 on Wednesday, Swift shared her support from afar. Swift dropped “likes” on several Instagram posts highlighting Kelce’s latest team milestone. He is now the team’s receiver with the most touchdowns, surpassing retired athlete Tony Gonzalez . “It’s everything to me. Tony’s been a mentor to me, he’s been there right there for me [with] any questions I’ve ever had,” Kelce said in a postgame interview. “I feel like I’m still trying to fill that guy’s shoes . He’s such an unbelievable competitor and I’ve got so much love for him. It’s an honor to be in conversations with him.”