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mnl168 online casino register download AP Trending SummaryBrief at 5:34 p.m. ESTMartin Marietta Materials ( NYSE:MLM – Get Free Report ) was upgraded by equities researchers at StockNews.com from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report released on Thursday. A number of other equities analysts also recently issued reports on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price target on shares of Martin Marietta Materials from $560.00 to $515.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their target price on Martin Marietta Materials from $650.00 to $635.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. BNP Paribas upgraded Martin Marietta Materials to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 19th. UBS Group began coverage on Martin Marietta Materials in a report on Thursday, November 7th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $730.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Citigroup dropped their target price on shares of Martin Marietta Materials from $658.00 to $646.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, August 12th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $634.85. Read Our Latest Analysis on MLM Martin Marietta Materials Stock Up 1.2 % Martin Marietta Materials ( NYSE:MLM – Get Free Report ) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The construction company reported $5.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $6.41 by ($0.50). The business had revenue of $1.89 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.94 billion. Martin Marietta Materials had a net margin of 30.47% and a return on equity of 12.53%. Martin Marietta Materials’s quarterly revenue was down 5.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm posted $6.94 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Martin Marietta Materials will post 17.84 EPS for the current year. Institutional Investors Weigh In On Martin Marietta Materials Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Virtu Financial LLC purchased a new position in shares of Martin Marietta Materials in the 3rd quarter worth $2,975,000. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Martin Marietta Materials by 10.7% during the 3rd quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. now owns 1,734 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $939,000 after purchasing an additional 168 shares during the period. Groupama Asset Managment increased its position in shares of Martin Marietta Materials by 39.8% during the 3rd quarter. Groupama Asset Managment now owns 2,038 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $1,097,000 after purchasing an additional 580 shares during the last quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its stake in shares of Martin Marietta Materials by 5.6% in the 3rd quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 18,266 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $9,832,000 after purchasing an additional 968 shares during the period. Finally, National Bank of Canada FI boosted its holdings in shares of Martin Marietta Materials by 158.2% in the third quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 43,952 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $23,657,000 after buying an additional 26,929 shares during the last quarter. 95.04% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. About Martin Marietta Materials ( Get Free Report ) Martin Marietta Materials, Inc, a natural resource-based building materials company, supplies aggregates and heavy-side building materials to the construction industry in the United States and internationally. It offers crushed stone, sand, and gravel products; ready mixed concrete and asphalt; paving products and services; and Portland and specialty cement for use in the infrastructure projects, and nonresidential and residential construction markets, as well as in the railroad, agricultural, utility, and environmental industries. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Martin Marietta Materials Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Martin Marietta Materials and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .Even More Drones in the Sky: Amazon Launches Aerial Delivery Service

12 Of The Best Portable Generators You Can Buy In 2024 (Ranked By Consumer Reports)GSA Capital Partners LLP acquired a new position in The Southern Company ( NYSE:SO – Free Report ) during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 3,345 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $302,000. Several other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Harbour Investments Inc. lifted its position in shares of Southern by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter. Harbour Investments Inc. now owns 32,249 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,908,000 after buying an additional 170 shares in the last quarter. Entropy Technologies LP purchased a new position in shares of Southern during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $674,000. Apollon Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Southern by 15.5% during the 3rd quarter. Apollon Wealth Management LLC now owns 56,667 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $5,110,000 after buying an additional 7,588 shares in the last quarter. United Capital Management of KS Inc. lifted its position in shares of Southern by 11.7% during the 3rd quarter. United Capital Management of KS Inc. now owns 5,597 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $505,000 after buying an additional 588 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Beam Wealth Advisors Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Southern during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $941,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 64.10% of the company’s stock. Insider Buying and Selling In related news, CEO James Y. Kerr II sold 30,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, October 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $89.64, for a total transaction of $2,689,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 145,088 shares in the company, valued at $13,005,688.32. This trade represents a 17.13 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link . Also, EVP Bryan D. Anderson sold 6,565 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $89.54, for a total value of $587,830.10. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 44,467 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,981,575.18. This trade represents a 12.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . Corporate insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock. Analysts Set New Price Targets Read Our Latest Research Report on SO Southern Stock Down 0.6 % Shares of SO opened at $87.60 on Friday. The Southern Company has a 52-week low of $65.80 and a 52-week high of $94.45. The company has a market capitalization of $95.98 billion, a PE ratio of 20.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.21 and a beta of 0.52. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $89.73 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $84.68. The company has a quick ratio of 0.66, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.66. Southern ( NYSE:SO – Get Free Report ) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The utilities provider reported $1.43 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.33 by $0.10. Southern had a return on equity of 12.78% and a net margin of 17.87%. The business had revenue of $7.27 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.14 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.42 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that The Southern Company will post 4.04 EPS for the current year. Southern Dividend Announcement The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 6th. Investors of record on Monday, November 18th will be given a dividend of $0.72 per share. This represents a $2.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.29%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, November 18th. Southern’s payout ratio is 66.98%. Southern Company Profile ( Free Report ) The Southern Company, through its subsidiaries, engages in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. The company also develops, constructs, acquires, owns, and manages power generation assets, including renewable energy projects and sells electricity in the wholesale market; and distributes natural gas in Illinois, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee, as well as provides gas marketing services, gas distribution operations, and gas pipeline investments operations. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding SO? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for The Southern Company ( NYSE:SO – Free Report ). Receive News & Ratings for Southern Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Southern and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .

HOUSTON (AP) — Addison Patterson's 25 points helped Northwestern State defeat Houston Christian 64-57 on Saturday night. Patterson also added five rebounds and three steals for the Demons (5-5, 2-0 Southland Conference). Jon Sanders shot 5 of 9 from the field, including 2 for 4 from 3-point range, and went 5 for 5 from the line to add 17 points. Willie Williams shot 5 of 6 from the field to finish with 10 points, while adding 11 rebounds. Bryson Dawkins finished with 13 points for the Huskies (3-7, 1-1). D'Aundre Samuels added nine points for Houston Christian. Julian Mackey also had nine points. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar . For copyright information, check with the distributor of this item, Data Skrive.Party City to close its stores as company files for bankruptcy LOS ANGELES (AP) — Party City announced that it's going to “wind down” its retail and wholesale operations as it prepares to shutter nearly 700 stores nationwide. The company said Saturday it has also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection "to maximize value for the benefit of the company’s stakeholders.” The New Jersey-based retailer said it will keep more than 95% of its 12,000 employees to help with the process of closing down. Customers have flocked to Party City for Halloween costumes, favors for children’s birthday parties and decorations for New Year’s Eve celebrations for nearly 40 years. It has faced growing competition from Walmart and Target and from occasion-based pop-up stores such as Spirit Halloween. A million taxpayers will soon receive up to $1,400 from the IRS. Who are they and why now? Approximately 1 million taxpayers will automatically receive special payments of up to $1,400 from the IRS in the coming weeks. The money will be directly deposited into eligible people’s bank accounts or sent in the mail by a paper check. Most people shouldn't get their hopes up about receiving the cash. The IRS says it’s distributing about $2.4 billion to taxpayers who failed to claim a Recovery Rebate Credit on their 2021 tax returns after missing one of the COVID stimulus payments or receiving less than the full amount. The IRS says most taxpayers eligible for the federal stimulus payments received them. Bluesky finds with growth comes growing pains — and bots Bluesky has seen its user base soar since the U.S. presidential election, boosted by people seeking refuge from Elon Musk’s X, or wanting an alternative to Meta’s Threads and its algorithms. The platform grew out of the company then known as Twitter and was eventually intended to replace it. While this is still very much a pie in the sky, Bluesky’s growth trajectory could make it a serious competitor to other social platforms. With growth, though, comes growing pains. It’s not just human users who’ve been flocking to Bluesky but also bots, including those designed to create partisan division or direct users to junk websites. 'Sonic 3' bests 'Mufasa: The Lion King' at the box office NEW YORK (AP) — In the holiday season battle of big-budget family movies, Paramount Pictures’ “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” sped past the Walt Disney Co.’s “Mufasa: The Lion King” to take the top spot at the box office. The results came just ahead of the lucrative Christmas corridor in theaters. According to studio estimates, “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” debuted with $62 million in ticket sales over the weekend. “Mufasa,” however, was humbled in its opening weekend, coming in notably shy of expectations. It returned just $35 million in domestic ticket sales. Amazon and Starbucks workers are on strike. Trump might have something to do with it Amazon delivery drivers and Starbucks baristas are on strike in a handful of U.S. cities as they seek to exert pressure on the two major companies to recognize them as unionized employees or to meet demands for an inaugural labor contract. Strikes during busy periods like the holidays can help unions exercise leverage during negotiations or garner support from sympathetic consumers. One expert says he thinks workers at both companies are “desperate” to make progress before President-elect Donald Trump can appoint a Republican majority to the National Labor Relations Board. Workers at Starbucks, Amazon and some other prominent consumer brands are fighting for their first contracts after several locations voted to unionize. Farmers are still reeling months after Hurricane Helene ravaged crops across the South LYONS, Ga. (AP) — Farmers in Georgia are still reeling more than two months after Hurricane Helene blew away cotton, destroyed ripened squash and cucumbers and uprooted pecan trees and timber. Agribusinesses in other Southern states saw costly damage as well. The University of Georgia estimates the September storm inflicted $5.5 billion in direct losses and indirect costs in Georgia alone. In rural Toombs County, Chris Hopkins just finished harvesting his ravaged cotton crop and figures he lost half of it, costing him about $430,000. Poultry grower Jeffrey Pridgen in Georgia's Coffee County had four of his 12 chicken houses destroyed and others badly damaged. Farmers say more government disaster assistance is needed. Ex-OpenAI engineer who raised legal concerns about the technology he helped build has died Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT and later said he believed those practices violated copyright law, has died, according to his parents and San Francisco officials. He was 26. He was well-regarded by colleagues at the San Francisco company, where a co-founder this week called him one of OpenAI’s strongest contributors who was essential to developing some of its products. But he grew disillusioned with the company and told The Associated Press this fall he would “try to testify” in copyright infringement cases against it. Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge shows price pressures eased last month WASHINGTON (AP) — An inflation gauge that is closely watched by the Federal Reserve barely rose last month in a sign that price pressures cooled after two months of sharp gains. Prices rose just 0.1% from October to November. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, prices also ticked up just 0.1%, after two months of outsize 0.3% gains. The milder inflation figures arrived two days after Federal Reserve officials, led by Chair Jerome Powell, rocked financial markets by revealing that they now expect to cut their key interest rate just two times in 2025, down from four in their previous estimate. Albania to close TikTok for a year blaming it for promoting violence among children TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albania’s prime minister says the government will shut down video service TikTok for one year, blaming it for inciting violence and bullying, especially among children. Albanian authorities held 1,300 meetings with teachers and parents following the stabbing death of a teenager in mid-November by another teenager following a quarrel that started on TikTok. Prime Minister Edi Rama, speaking at a meeting with teachers and parents, said TikTok “would be fully closed for all. ... There will be no TikTok in the Republic of Albania.” Rama says the ban will begin sometime next year. Albanian children comprise the largest group of TikTok users in the country, according to domestic researchers. Stock market today: Wall Street rises to turn a dismal week into just a bad one NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks rose to turn what would have been one of the market’s worst weeks of the year into just a pretty bad one. The S&P 500 rallied 1.1% Friday to shave its loss for the week down to 2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped nearly 500 points, and the Nasdaq composite gained 1%. A report said a measure of inflation the Federal Reserve likes to use was slightly lower last month than expected. It’s an encouraging signal after the Fed shocked markets Wednesday by saying worries about inflation could keep it from cutting interest rates in 2025 as much as earlier thought.Taxpayer friendly Inland Revenue Dept. urgent need

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) — Garry Clark scored 15 points as Texas A&M-Corpus Christi beat Stephen F. Austin 67-48 on Saturday night. Clark had 12 rebounds for the Islanders (6-4, 1-1 Southland Conference). Owen Dease went 3 of 3 from the field to add 10 points. Jordan Roberts had 10 points and shot 4 for 9. Nana Antwi-Boasiako led the Lumberjacks (5-5, 0-2) in scoring, finishing with 13 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks. Clayton Southwick added 10 points and two steals. Myles Jenkins had five points. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .

(Continuing Himal Southasian article by Tisaranee Gunasekera) On September 21, 2024, Sri Lanka will hold (Note: this was written before the election) its ninth presidential election. Unlike all previous such polls, which were in effect two-way battles between the governing party and the main opposition party, this is a three-way contest between Wickremesinghe, Premadasa of the SJB and Dissanayake of the JVP – the latter heading a coalition dubbed National People’s Power (NPP). But the election is taking place on a battleground largely of Wickremesinghe’s making. The 21st Amendment he pushed through gave birth to an independent Election Commission. He also enacted a campaign finance law that enables the commission to decide the amounts candidates can spend and to enforce these limits. The commission is conducting this election with unprecedented even-handedness and applying long-ignored election laws – including against Wickremesinghe’s own campaign. Wickremesinghe’s deal with the IMF earlier came under severe opposition criticism; Wickremesinghe’s campaign theme, “Sri Lanka Can”, is a spin on the decades-old “Ranil Can’t”. He claims credit, rightly, for saving Sri Lanka from going the way of Lebanon or Greece, and for achieving an economic turnaround less than two years after the country went bankrupt. It is due to his machinations that the Rajapaksa candidate is vying for third position in this election rather than first. And despite his authoritarian tendencies, he has contributed to the strengthening of Sri Lankan democracy. The 2024 presidential election promises to be Sri Lanka’s most free, fair and non-violent poll in living memory, thanks in the main to the constitutional and legal changes Wickremesinghe effected. And, II. RANIL WICKREMESINGHE got his start in national politics in 1977, when the UNP won a landslide victory in a parliamentary election. He was one of the Young Turks surrounding the new prime minister, J R Jayewardene, though not a front-ranker. After a brief stint as the deputy minister of foreign affairs, he became, at the age of 28, Sri Lanka’s youngest ever cabinet minister to that point, in charge of youth affairs and employment. In this capacity he set up the National Youth Services Council, which provided many talented young men and women with a springboard into prominence and success, especially in the cultural fields. In 1980, Wickremesinghe became the minister of education. By then Jayewardene had introduced two systemic changes which remain in place today. He opened up the economy, doing away with a model of protectionism and state control that had resulted in major shortages and queues in the preceding years. He also replaced the parliamentary form of governance with a particularly authoritarian executive presidency – which, unsurprisingly, he assumed himself. In 1945, Ceylon – still a British colony – introduced free primary and secondary education. Free tertiary education soon followed. But by the late 1960s and early 1970s, free and universal education had given rise to an “inflationary” situation in the labour market, with too many graduates – mostly from the arts stream and largely mono-lingual – chasing too few jobs, mainly in the public sector. In 1971, the JVP launched an insurgency that exposed this contradiction and its political consequences, with educated but unemployed youth forming the main force of a bloody attempt at armed socialist revolution. Wickremesinghe proposed a set of education reforms as a solution to this problem. The main aim of his proposal – known simply as the White Paper – was to reduce unemployment by making future graduates more employable in the private sector. University admissions were to be streamlined based on the needs of the economy, producing fewer graduates in the arts and more in fields like science and technology. Arts students would be taught at least one science subject. Students would be exposed to industry, schools would have career-guidance units, and students would have to choose between academic and vocational or technical education when they reached the eighth grade, leaving the school system if they picked the latter. But the proposals failed to contend with a fundamental fact: an absolute majority of graduates did not want to be employed in the private sector. Most students belonged to the Sinhala rural middle class, and this class had long regarded government jobs, with their permanence and pensions, as the acme of success. More than that, these students regarded government jobs as a right – particularly after the Sinhala Only Act and other reforms in the preceding decades had tilted the balance of public education and employment in the favour of the Sinhala community, while shutting out the country’s Tamil minority. They regarded Wickremesinghe’s reforms as a class-based conspiracy to deprive them of upward social mobility. The White Paper failed to withstand the opposition to it, which crossed party lines, and Wickremesinghe was forced to withdraw it. University student unions played a leading role in securing this outcome. Then, in 1983, democratically-elected student councils were abolished – a decision commonly blamed on Wickremesinghe. This would soon backfire. For as long as they were elected bodies, student councils had to maintain a balance between political and welfare work. The unofficial and unelected action committees which replaced them could focus on politics alone. The ban led to the rapid radicalization of the student movement and its eventual takeover by the JVP. This movement played a key role in a second insurgency, in the latter half of the 1980s, that was even bloodier than the first. Wickremesinghe’s botched attempt at educational reform bestowed on him a lifelong reputation for being inorganic, a socio-political and cultural alien. The UNP, despite commanding a rural support base, was commonly regarded as less of a pro-people party than its main competitor, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which called for socialist economic policies (in reality, state capitalism) and championed Sinhala nationalism. Some UNP leaders were able to transcend this to an extent with popular programmes and a populist demeanour – the future president Ranasinghe Premadasa, for example, whose signature scheme was a massive housing programme. Wickremesinghe may have meant his reforms to be a popular platform for his own ambitions, but they achieved the very opposite effect. His stiff public manner, his manifest inability to connect with an audience – already in evidence in his failure to sell his reforms to the populace – further cemented his image as being disconnected and withdrawn. It would come to haunt him at critical points in his career. If Wickremesinghe lacked the gifts of a natural politician, he was amply blessed in social and political pedigree. Born in Colombo in 1949, he was a nephew of J R Jayewardene and the grandson of D R Wijewardene, the country’s pioneering press baron. His father, Esmond Wickremesinghe, was a prominent UNP leader and managing director of the Lake House publications until they were nationalized by an SLFP government in 1973. By then Wickremesinghe had passed through Royal College, one of the country’s most distinguished schools, and then the University of Ceylon, where he studied law and became involved with the UNP’s youth wing. Wickremesinghe got his most important break under Jayewardene’s successor, Ranasinghe Premadasa. Premadasa appointed Wickremesinghe as the leader of the house in 1989, soon after he took over the presidency, bypassing Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake. Athulathmudali and Dissanayake had been Premadasa’s competitors for the UNP leadership. He did not trust them and felt they would try to undermine his leadership at the first opportunity. Wickremesinghe, by contrast, was younger and thus not a threat. A joint attempt in 1991 by Dissanayake, Athulathmudali and the opposition to impeach Premadasa proved his instincts correct. When Sirisena Cooray, Premadasa’s long-standing companion and UNP general secretary, organized a round of top-secret meetings between the UNP and the rebels, Wickremesinghe was asked to join – a sign of the trust Premadasa reposed in him. The talks failed, as did the impeachment, and Athulathmudali and Dissanayake were expelled from the UNP. Wickremesinghe became, by default, a frontline leader of the UNP. Wickremesinghe remained steadfastly loyal to Premadasa before, during and after the impeachment attempt, defending the president within and outside parliament. And, over the years, he built up a reputation for understated competence. He did not dazzle, but did the job he was given without making unwanted waves. If Wickremesinghe had leadership ambitions, he did not wear them on his sleeve. Instead, he built a close relationship with important Premadasa loyalists – especially Cooray. By inches, he cemented an image of himself, based largely on fact, as a true party-man, a loyal UNP-er who never let the side or the leader down. The seeds of Wickremesinghe’s reputation as a protector of the minorities were also sown during this time. In July 1983, Sri Lanka’s ethnic tensions erupted in a barbaric anti-Tamil pogrom. Militancy escalated in the North and East, and the Sri Lankan state entered a decades-long war against Tamil separatist groups. Premadasa took office while the LTTE was locked in a brutal war with the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), which had come to Sri Lanka, at Jayewardene’s invitation, to monitor the implementation of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. Premadasa invited the LTTE for talks, much to India’s chagrin, and the Tigers accepted. In 1989, he publicly asked the IPKF to leave. The move was aimed at neutralising the JVP, which had cast its second insurgency as a national liberation struggle against occupying Indian forces. In mid-1990, the peace talks with the LTTE collapsed and the war resumed. Yet Premadasa kept the door open for negotiations and said so. He also became a proponent of the 13th Amendment, which addressed Tamil demands for self-government to a degree via the devolution of some government powers to provincial councils. On May 1, 1993, Premadasa was killed by an LTTE suicide bomber. D B Wijetunga, Premadasa’s hand-picked prime minister, became the acting president and was soon confirmed by parliament. Wijetunga, at the request of Sirisena Cooray, appointed Wickremesinghe as prime minister. Wickremesinghe was also generally credited with the smooth transfer of power following the assassination, thereby gaining a reputation for a cool head in a crisis and a thorough grounding in constitutional nitty-gritty. Later that year, Wijetunga brought Gamini Dissanayake back into the UNP fold. Dissanayake made no secret about his leadership ambitions. Cooray responded with a highly symbolic gesture; he presented Wickremesinghe with Premadasa’s Colombo-Central constituency – which Premadasa had called his “other child” and had handed over to Cooray when he became president. A tussle for eventual party leadership was in the making, with Wickremesinghe pitted against Dissanayake. In 1994, Wijetunga called a sudden parliamentary election, taking even his own cabinet by surprise. The gambit did not work out well for him or the UNP. The party was roundly beaten by the People’s Alliance (PA), led by Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga of the SLFP. Dissanayake tried to form a minority government with the backing of smaller parties and possible crossovers, with himself as prime minister. Wickremesinghe forestalled him by resigning from his post as acting prime minister and leaving Temple Trees in a highly publicized and choreographed move – a harbinger of much more UNP infighting to come. Kumaratunga formed the government and took the prime minister’s seat. After 17 long and turbulent years in government, the UNP was back in the opposition. (To be continued next Sunday)California math educators this fall have been locked in a vigorous debate: Will the implementation of a new law help more community college STEM students by skipping prerequisites and placing them directly into calculus, or will it set up the state’s least-prepared students for failure? Critics recently scored something of a victory. In a move that already faces legal scrutiny, the chancellor’s office for the state’s community colleges issued a memo making clear that, when the law takes effect next fall, students in science, technology, engineering and math majors who haven’t passed courses like trigonometry in high school will still have the option to start college math with up to two semesters of courses that are considered preparation for calculus. Previous guidance instructed colleges to enroll those students directly into calculus — sometimes with a simultaneous 1- or 2-unit support class — or place them in new semester-long preparatory classes offered on a trial basis. The changes were made after some math faculty across the state criticized the original guidance, including during an EdSource roundtable on the topic hosted last month . They worried that students without a solid math foundation would struggle if forced to start right away in calculus and said the original guidance went beyond what is required by the law, Assembly Bill 1705. Other math faculty joined advocacy groups in defending the initial rollout plan, citing research that students perform better when they can go straight into calculus regardless of their high school math preparation. Critics, though, say some of that research is flawed. The chancellor’s office issued the Dec. 10 memo after gathering feedback from faculty, administrators and students about whether the state’s least experienced math students, such as those who didn’t take a class higher than geometry in high school, would be ready for calculus without taking prerequisites, said Melissa Villarin, a spokesperson for the office. “We’ve been listening to folks, examining the evidence that colleges are bringing to us, and we got to the point that we needed to make a decision,” added John Hetts, the college system’s executive vice chancellor for the Office of Innovation, Data, Evidence and Analytics. “If we didn’t make a decision now, it would not leave colleges enough time to prepare for fall 2025.” Calculus is often a required course for many science, technology and engineering majors. In the past, research has shown that some students never get to calculus because they fail to complete necessary prerequisite courses like trigonometry or precalculus, effectively blocking those students from pursuing their degrees. AB 1705, signed into law in 2022, requires the college system to evaluate the impact of enrolling students in prerequisites to calculus and, if they can’t prove students benefit from those classes, to stop requiring or even recommending them. Some backers of the law interpret it as mandating a shift as much as possible to enrolling all STEM students directly into calculus. They cite a section that states students “shall be directly placed into” the transfer-level class that satisfies the requirement for their degree. Chancellor’s office officials, however, maintain that the latest guidance is consistent with the law. “The guidance is fully within the parameters of AB 1705,” Paul Feist, a spokesperson for the system, said in an email. Under the new guidance, students who didn’t pass Algebra II or its equivalent in high school will be allowed to take two semesters worth of calculus prerequisites, which could include some combination of college algebra, trigonometry or precalculus. Students who did pass that course but not trigonometry or precalculus will be allowed to enroll in a one-semester prerequisite course, typically precalculus. The new guidance is a compromise, said Pamela Burdman, executive director of Just Equations, a nonprofit organization focused on the role of math in education equity. “I think the chancellor’s office is trying to strike a balance here,” she added. “I do think there has been a tendency to place students in more prerequisites than they may need, but we don’t know enough from the research exactly what the optimal placement system is and how to identify which students need which levels of support.” The guidance won’t be the final word on the issue. It could face a future legal challenge. Jetaun Stevens, an attorney with the civil rights law firm Public Advocates, said the chancellor’s new directive urges colleges “to violate the law.” Stevens said the firm is still “assessing what we can do” and did not rule out a lawsuit. “This guidance gives colleges permission to completely ignore students’ rights to be placed in calculus. It creates exceptions in the law that don’t exist,” Stevens said. “This is illegal and beyond the chancellor’s office’s authority. They don’t get to pick what part of the law they want to enforce.” Faculty, meanwhile, still plan to pursue legislation next year that would permanently clarify that colleges can offer “standalone foundational pre-transfer courses,” according to a memo being circulated by the Faculty Association for California Community Colleges, a faculty advocacy organization. Wendy Brill-Wynkoop, president of the association, said the draft is being “shared widely with system partners and legislators.” In the meantime, starting next year, the chancellor’s office plans to collect data from each college and examine how students are accessing calculus. Colleges will have to prove that students are at least as likely to get to and complete calculus when they start in prerequisites as when they start right away in calculus. If the prerequisite path shows worse results, guidance says those prerequisites will need to be eliminated for STEM majors by 2027. The updated guidance is “simple and based in common sense,” said Tina Akers-Porter, a math professor at Modesto Junior College and one of the leading critics of the original guidance. “If you’ve taken the preparatory courses, then go into calculus. But if you haven’t, then still offer the preparatory courses. That’s what we wanted.” We have launched our year-end campaign. Our goal: Raise $50,000 by Dec. 31. Help us get there. Times of San Diego is devoted to producing timely, comprehensive news about San Diego County. Your donation helps keep our work free-to-read, funds reporters who cover local issues and allows us to write stories that hold public officials accountable. Join the growing list of donors investing in our community's long-term future. Tammi Marshall, dean of math, science and engineering at Cuyamaca College, was disappointed in the chancellor’s office’s new direction. She said the chancellor’s office has previously “done a great job of holding the colleges accountable” to evidence suggesting students perform better when placed directly into calculus with a companion support course than in longer sequences of preparatory courses. Her college has been highlighted as an early adopter of AB 1705 and has reported improved calculus completion rates across racial groups. “I felt like they were pressured into making a decision that isn’t completely based on the data,” she said of the new guidance. Some math faculty said the new guidance leaves departments little time to adapt and may sap energy from attempts to reimagine math courses ahead of next fall. Many departments have designed new classes to prepare students for calculus in anticipation of AB 1705, but it’s unclear whether colleges will choose to offer those courses next fall, as they initially planned, or fall back on older courses. “We just don’t know where to focus our energy right now,” said Rena Weiss, a math professor at Moorpark College, adding that she’s glad the chancellor’s office listened to faculty members’ concerns and is grateful for the option to place STEM students into courses like trigonometry. Other faculty are hoping for more information about exactly which students they can now place into precalculus courses. Forecasts of what the guidance means for access to STEM education varied. Marshall predicted greater inequity at colleges that opt to continue calculus prerequisite sequences with high attrition rates, which she said have a “disproportionate impact on our Black and brown STEM students.” On the other side, Southwestern College math professor Kimberly Eclar said the guidance gives more options to students whose high schools do not offer higher math classes. James Sullivan, a math professor at Sierra College, said the updated rules will benefit students who transition into a STEM career later in life but haven’t yet learned the concepts they’ll need for calculus. Hetts, the executive vice chancellor, said the current evidence is simply “not strong enough” to prohibit colleges from offering prerequisites next year. The chancellor’s office, in consultation with the RP Group, a nonprofit that conducts research on behalf of the college system, plans to conduct additional research starting in 2025 “to more thoroughly understand” how students access calculus. The RP Group is also deciding whether to conduct a follow-up study that would compare the longer-term outcomes of students who enroll directly in calculus to those who do not, according to Alyssa T. Nguyen, the organization’s senior director of research and evaluation. Such a study could examine how often each group of students completes associate degrees or transfers. Nguyen wrote in an email that RP Group will continue to draw from student records in its analysis and may also survey, interview or conduct focus groups with students. Amy DiPierro and Michael Burke cover higher education for EdSource . Get Our Free Daily Email Newsletter Get the latest local and California news from Times of San Diego delivered to your inbox at 8 a.m. daily. 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Jimmy Carter, Green-Energy VisionaryGSA Capital Partners LLP acquired a new position in The Southern Company ( NYSE:SO – Free Report ) during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 3,345 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $302,000. Several other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Harbour Investments Inc. lifted its position in shares of Southern by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter. Harbour Investments Inc. now owns 32,249 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,908,000 after buying an additional 170 shares in the last quarter. Entropy Technologies LP purchased a new position in shares of Southern during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $674,000. Apollon Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Southern by 15.5% during the 3rd quarter. Apollon Wealth Management LLC now owns 56,667 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $5,110,000 after buying an additional 7,588 shares in the last quarter. United Capital Management of KS Inc. lifted its position in shares of Southern by 11.7% during the 3rd quarter. United Capital Management of KS Inc. now owns 5,597 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $505,000 after buying an additional 588 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Beam Wealth Advisors Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Southern during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $941,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 64.10% of the company’s stock. Insider Buying and Selling In related news, CEO James Y. Kerr II sold 30,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, October 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $89.64, for a total transaction of $2,689,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 145,088 shares in the company, valued at $13,005,688.32. This trade represents a 17.13 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link . Also, EVP Bryan D. Anderson sold 6,565 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $89.54, for a total value of $587,830.10. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 44,467 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,981,575.18. This trade represents a 12.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . Corporate insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock. Analysts Set New Price Targets Read Our Latest Research Report on SO Southern Stock Down 0.6 % Shares of SO opened at $87.60 on Friday. The Southern Company has a 52-week low of $65.80 and a 52-week high of $94.45. The company has a market capitalization of $95.98 billion, a PE ratio of 20.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.21 and a beta of 0.52. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $89.73 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $84.68. The company has a quick ratio of 0.66, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.66. Southern ( NYSE:SO – Get Free Report ) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The utilities provider reported $1.43 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.33 by $0.10. Southern had a return on equity of 12.78% and a net margin of 17.87%. The business had revenue of $7.27 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.14 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.42 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that The Southern Company will post 4.04 EPS for the current year. Southern Dividend Announcement The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 6th. Investors of record on Monday, November 18th will be given a dividend of $0.72 per share. This represents a $2.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.29%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, November 18th. Southern’s payout ratio is 66.98%. Southern Company Profile ( Free Report ) The Southern Company, through its subsidiaries, engages in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. The company also develops, constructs, acquires, owns, and manages power generation assets, including renewable energy projects and sells electricity in the wholesale market; and distributes natural gas in Illinois, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee, as well as provides gas marketing services, gas distribution operations, and gas pipeline investments operations. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding SO? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for The Southern Company ( NYSE:SO – Free Report ). Receive News & Ratings for Southern Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Southern and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .