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Intel (INTC) Replaced by NVIDIA on Dow Jones, Marking Shift in Semiconductor Industry LeadershipWASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill rallied around Pete Hegseth , Trump’s Pentagon pick, on Thursday even as new details surfaced about allegations that he had sexually assaulted a woman in 2017. The GOP embrace of Hegseth came as another controversial Trump nominee, Matt Gaetz, withdrew from consideration for attorney general. Gaetz said it was clear he had become a “distraction" amid pressure on the House to release an ethics report about allegations of his own sexual misconduct. An attorney for two women has said that his clients told House Ethics Committee investigators that Gaetz paid them for sex on multiple occasions beginning in 2017, when Gaetz was a Florida congressman. Fresh questions over the two nominees' pasts, and their treatment of women, arose with Republicans under pressure from Trump and his allies to quickly confirm his Cabinet. At the same time, his transition has so far balked at the vetting and background checks that have traditionally been required. While few Republican senators have publicly criticized any of Trump's nominees, it became clear after Gaetz's withdrawal that many had been harboring private concerns about him. Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, who served with Gaetz in the House, said it was a “positive move.” Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker said it was a “positive development.” Maine Sen. Susan Collins said Gaetz “put country first and I am pleased with his decision.” After meeting with Hegseth, though, Republicans rallied around him. “I think he’s going to be in pretty good shape,” said Wicker, who is expected to chair the Senate Armed Services Committee in the next Congress. Republican senators' careful words, and their early reluctance to publicly question Trump's picks, illustrated not only their fear of retribution from the incoming president but also some of their hopes that the confirmation process can proceed normally, with proper vetting and background checks that could potentially disqualify problematic nominees earlier. Gaetz withdrew after meeting with senators on Wednesday. Sen. Thom Tillis said Gaetz was “in a pressure cooker” when he decided to withdraw, but suggested that it would have little bearing on Trump’s other nominees. “Transactions — one at a time,” he said. As the Hegseth nomination proceeds, Republicans also appear to be betting that they won't face much backlash for publicly setting aside the allegations of sexual misconduct — especially after Trump won election after being found liable for sexual abuse last year. Hegseth held a round of private meetings alongside incoming Vice President JD Vance on Thursday in an attempt to shore up support and told reporters afterward: “The matter was fully investigated and I was completely cleared, and that’s where I’m gonna leave it.” A 22-page police report report made public late Wednesday offered the first detailed account of the allegations against him. A woman told police that she was sexually assaulted in 2017 by Hegseth after he took her phone, blocked the door to a California hotel room and refused to let her leave. The report cited police interviews with the alleged victim, a nurse who treated her, a hotel staffer, another woman at the event and Hegseth. Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Palatore, said the incident was “fully investigated and police found the allegations to be false.” Hegseth paid the woman in 2023 as part of a confidential settlement to head off the threat of what he described as a baseless lawsuit, Palatore has said. Wicker played down the allegations against Hegseth, a former Fox News host, saying that “since no charges were brought from the authorities, we only have press reports.” Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., said after his meeting with Hegseth that he "shared with him the fact that I was saddened by the attacks that are coming his way.” Hagerty dismissed the allegations as “a he-said, she-said thing” and called it a “shame” that they were being raised at all. The senator said attention should instead be focused on the Defense Department that Hegseth would head. It's one of the most complex parts of the federal government with more than 3 million employees, including military service members and civilians. Sexual assault has been a persistent problem in the military, though Pentagon officials have been cautiously optimistic they are seeing a decline in reported sexual assaults among active-duty service members and the military academies. Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, who will be the No. 2 Republican in the Senate next year, said after his meeting with Hegseth that the nominee is a strong candidate who “pledged that the Pentagon will focus on strength and hard power – not the current administration’s woke political agenda.” Senate Republicans are under pressure to hold hearings once they take office in January and confirm nominees as soon as Trump is inaugurated, despite questions about whether Trump’s choices will be properly screened or if some, like Hegseth, have enough experience for the job. Senate Armed Services Chairman Jack Reed, who will be the top Democrat on the panel next year, said the reports on Hegseth “emphasized the need for a thorough investigation by the FBI on the background of all the nominees.” It takes a simple majority to approve Cabinet nominations, meaning that if Democrats all opposed a nominee, four Republican senators would also have to defect for any Trump choice to be defeated. Trump has made clear he’s willing to put maximum pressure on Senate Republicans to give him the nominees he wants – even suggesting at one point that they allow him to just appoint his nominees with no Senate votes. But senators insist, for now, that they are not giving up their constitutional power to have a say. “The president has the right to make the nominations that he sees fit, but the Senate also has a responsibility for advice and consent,” said Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota. In the case of Gaetz, he said, “I think there was advice offered rather than consent.” Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter.Lil Wayne Seemingly Reacts to Kendrick Lamar Call Out ‘Man Wtf I Do?!’ - Vulture
Update: Biden calls ex-President Jimmy Carter “extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian”When Emily Sanchez first visited her husband’s unconventional tomb, lush green ferns and moss created an oasis there amid the gray limestone debris and the brown patches of scraggly broom snakeweed that dominate the parched hills west of Utah Lake. The verdant plants thrived on the humid air flowing up from the black depths of the cave, where minerals, deposited by hydrothermal water, had created deep pockets and tunnels. There, at the mouth of Nutty Putty Cave, Sanchez found peace and pain. John Jones remains inside, entombed in the cave where he died on Nov. 25, 2009. But he isn’t the only one still ensnared by it. (Ron Johnson | Special to The Tribune) Emily Sanchez poses for a photograph with a book containing images of her former husband, John Jones, in her Peoria, Ill., home on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. Family and friends remain tethered to the horror that unfolded in its dank, sinuous passages. Dispirited rescuers pay their respects at the mouth, searching for some scrap of closure. And that’s not to mention the millions of people worldwide who, from behind the safety of their TV and laptop screens, journey to the cave on a daily basis and revisit the chill-inducing details behind John’s death. Read more: ‘I really, really want to get out’: The story of Nutty Putty Cave and John Jones Fifteen years later, this is what they’ve found, and what they’re still searching for. No unicorns It was Josh Jones’ idea to go to Nutty Putty. He’d been exploring more technical caves with his Utah State University roommate, Joey Stocking. But Nutty Putty Cave, which opened into a big room before stretching into increasingly narrow fingers, was something the whole family could experience. The two youngest of the seven Jones kids from Stansbury Park, John, 26, and Josh, 23, split off to seek out more remote areas. When John didn’t return, Josh went looking for him. Immediately upon finding his brother, his 6-foot, 200-pound frame squeezed through a window the size of a medium flower pot, one arm trapped behind him and the other pinned to his side, Josh felt his stomach turn. He grabbed hold of his brother’s ankles and yanked. John didn’t move. Josh’s hands began to shake. “There was this, ‘I’m not getting him out,’” he said. “‘I don’t know how anyone is getting him out.’” As they waited for rescuers to arrive, they prayed together — John had always been a devout Latter-day Saint, and Josh had always idolized John. At the end of the prayers, though, Josh could hear his own voice waiver and crack. To his dismay, John began to comfort him, telling Josh it would be OK and to be good to his girlfriend. “The way we spoke,” Josh said, “it felt like John knew what the score was.” (Al Hartmann | The Salt Lake Tribune) Josh Jones, the younger brother of John Jones, waits on Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009, near the mouth of Nutty Putty Cave. Still, after John’s death, Josh was racked with guilt. Searching for penance, he committed himself to becoming more like John. That meant, in his mind, dedicating himself unwaveringly to the church and to his studies, just as John, a premed student, had done. The problem with that plan was that he wasn’t John. And soon every decision he considered unpious, or a lapse in judgment, every contrary thought brought him even more guilt, more shame, more depression. Night terrors crept in, as did other signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Sometimes, when he was driving alone, he would uncontrollably blurt out “I’m sorry” over and over and over again. He was spiraling. “I’ve got these two major sources of shame. And one has got to go,” he said he realized. “... I saw myself plunging and it felt like life or death. It’s either make a decision or you’re going to ... this is it.” Unable to shake his shame over John’s death, he left the church. He moved to San Diego, got a PTSD diagnosis and began seeing a psychiatrist. About five sessions in, Josh had a breakthrough. He had never really cried over his brother’s death in the years since Nutty Putty. In this session he sobbed. Then, he declared himself healed. “It’s that pioneer, suck-it-up mindset,” he said. “‘OK, we cried once. Let’s move on.” Now, however, Josh realizes his grief and depression were like their own cave, with fingers stretching deep into his psyche. He’d barely stepped inside the first room. (Josh Jones) Brothers Mike Jones, left, and Josh Jones during a hiking trip in California in September. More than a decade later he would be diagnosed with Pots, a disease associated with chronic fatigue that, according to the National Institute of Health, is typically found in people with elevated levels of anxiety. Josh felt like he was headed for “another reckoning.” Then, during the annual Jones brothers retreat in 2022, he and his brother Mike — who had also been in Nutty Putty Cave with John and Josh that fateful day — hiked to the top of a plateau outside of Sedona, Ariz. Mike led Josh through a breathwork session. Josh felt, he said, “split wide open.” “It felt violent. It felt like an explosion,” he said. “And I sobbed just uncontrollably for about an hour with Mike. We sobbed together, and it was really cool. It was really a special moment. “I felt really close to John. I felt like all this shame that I had been packing deep, deep, deep down started to come up. And it started to get replaced with actually being able to feel into that love that I had for John.” Josh does not consider himself healed, but he’s working on it. “I refuse to pretend that this all happened for a reason and that there’s a silver lining and there’s unicorns and rainbows at the end of the journey,” he said. “But it’s been, very honestly, really exciting for me to be able to start healing from this thing.” Interestingly, a key step in his healing process has been for Josh to center less of his identity on being John’s brother. For years, he relished the attention he got from the public narrative around the events at Nutty Putty Cave. That external validation of his victimhood gave him comfort, he said. It didn’t, however, allow him to move on. “Looking inward instead of outward,” he wrote in an email, “has been the only source of real relief.” Rescuing the rescuer (Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune) Before Nutty Putty, Joey Stocking didn’t know John. They met that day at the cave. Josh, Stocking’s roommate at USU, had invited him to join the Jones family outing. After John became stuck, Stocking took a shift keeping him company while Josh went to call for help. Both were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and they sang church hymns and made small talk. John told him his “big secret:” that he came home to Utah from Virginia for Thanksgiving to tell his family Emily was pregnant. “The whole time I was with him,” Stocking recalled, “I remember just feeling like, you know, rescuers will get here, and they’ll get him out.” At exactly midnight the next night, long after he had returned home, Stocking got a text from Josh. John wasn’t getting out. “No!” Stocking screamed. With every ounce of life in his body, he screamed. (Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Nutty Putty Cave near Elberta on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. The week went by in a daze. At the funeral, he stayed in the back of the church, unable to convince himself this was reality. A few others took refuge there as well. Some he recognized as cavers and search-and-rescue volunteers, and he went up to thank them. “You could just kind of see it in their eyes,” Stocking said, “that they needed to talk about it for their own healing.” For more than an hour they talked about the rescue effort. Stocking found the conversation cathartic — and inspiring. “I remember getting in the car afterward,” Stocking said, “and driving away and telling my wife that those are the coolest, most impressive people I’ve ever met.” Someday, he told her, he was going to do that. When Stocking moved to Garden City on the shore of Bear Lake two years later, he made good on his promise and volunteered for the local search-and-rescue squad. Within a decade, he’d gotten involved with every first responder agency in Rich County: fire, paramedics, Coast Guard auxiliary, dispatch for 911 and the secondary response group Bear Lake Responds. Stocking went out on so many emergency calls that his wife had to remind him he had a real, paying job to attend to. Each call took him, in its own way, back to Nutty Putty Cave. Now, though, he could take action and make a difference. Helping was healing. Except when it wasn’t. Some of the horrors Stocking encountered while out on some of those rescues resulted in what he deems “microtraumas.” Over time, they began to break open the hairline crack in his mental health that Nutty Putty had first wrought. He couldn’t sleep. He was angry and on edge, constantly checking his pager and worrying that if he let his guard down, he would be late to a call and something terrible would happen. Something he could prevent. “It just got to the point I just couldn’t cope very well,” Stocking said, “and it was starting to affect my family.” Four therapists later, Stocking stumbled upon a treatment called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR. Proponents say it helps with PTSD by simulating REM sleep while a person is thinking about a traumatic event. During one session, Stocking focused on the trauma he found inside Nutty Putty Cave. It flipped his perspective. “It’s somehow a step above healing from the trauma,” Stocking said. “It’s almost like I’ve been emboldened or something. It’s changed me in a way that I feel able to deal with other things.” For instance, he said, he sees the good that came out of the ordeal. He knows people are alive today who wouldn’t be if he hadn’t become a search and rescue volunteer. “I know that there’s a good handful of people that I truly helped,” he said, “and I guess that feels good.” Searching for closure (Al Hartmann | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah County Sheriff's department Sgt. Tom Hodgson works during rescue operations for John Jones at Nutty Putty Cave near Elberta on Nov. 25, 2009. Tom Hodgson thinks about Nutty Putty Cave more often than he would like, especially in retirement. The former Utah County Sheriff’s lieutenant headed up Utah County Search and Rescue for more than 30 years before retiring in 2022. Yet he finds himself turning over the events of that Thanksgiving like a smooth stone in his pocket. He looks for cracks, things his team of 137 rescuers and cavers could have done differently. “This,” he said, “was a very, very difficult call from the onset.” Rescuers knew all along that they would likely fail. In almost any other circumstance, they could pipe in food and water and keep John alive until they could work out a way to extract him. But the body isn’t meant to be upside down for long. “Being upside down, your body has to pump the blood out of the brain all the time,” Doug Murdock, the trauma physician on site, told The Salt Lake Tribune in 2010. “Your body isn’t set up to do that. ... The entire system starts to fail.” Still, for 27 hours, they worked to get John free. Rescuers tried everything they could imagine: digging, chipping, lubricating with peanut oil. They squeezed a ball between his forehead and the cave wall so he could push with his head while they pulled with their hands and ropes on John’s ankles, the only part of him reachable through the narrow window. (Utah Cave Rescue) Rescue efforts on Thursday, Nov. 25, 2009, to free John Jones from deep in the Nutty Putty Cave. Late in the effort, they’d rigged a cable through a set of 15 pulleys drilled into the limestone. It appeared to be John’s best chance at escape, and it moved him slightly. But then one of the holds broke loose under the tension. A carabiner slammed into the face of one of the cavers, who later had to undergo reconstructive surgery Ultimately, they couldn’t extract John , nor bring out his body. That’s why this rescue attempt, of at least five he oversaw at Nutty Putty Cave and the hundreds of others he coordinated across Utah County, gnaws at Hodgson. It’s still, he said, “at the top of my memories.” He remembers that, in their time of greatest distress, the Jones family, like John, comforted the volunteers rather than the other way around. That’s something so rare, multiple rescuers said, that it’s not easily forgotten. “Many of us felt like we didn’t give the family the closure that it obviously wanted,” Hodgson said. “We just felt like we left something unfinished.” But there was one thing Hodgson felt he could do. He advocated, controversially, to permanently close the cave and allow John to rest in peace. It wasn’t his decision alone, but on Dec. 9, 2009, authorities collapsed the entrance to the cave with explosives and sealed it with concrete. “I know I didn’t want to go through that again,” he said, “or have a family go through that again.” Hodgson said he still goes out to the Nutty Putty Cave entrance on occasion. The family mounted a plaque memorializing John on what’s left of the cave entrance. Another honors the search-and-rescue workers who tried to save him. A rock ring, placed by rescuers and members of the Jones family, encircles the cave mouth. (Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A gravestone to John Jones at the entrance to Nutty Putty Cave. (Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A memorial to rescuers who aided in the attempt. “There’s definitely a heavy heart,” Hodgson said of visiting the cave, “but ... there’s a sense of peace as well. Because I know John’s there. And when we were out there before, it was hectic and fast-paced and a lot of things going on at once and a lot of things unresolved. “Now, when you go out there, it’s just you and John and the mountain.” ‘Everybody’s worst nightmare’ Brandon Kowallis was the last man to see John alive. Kowallis, a caver who daylights as Salt Lake Community College’s concurrent enrollment director, got called out to Nutty Putty Cave at the 20th hour. The other cavers were injured or exhausted, and Kowallis, who helped map the cave, knew it better than almost anyone. (Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Brandon Kowallis, one of the rescuers who attempted to free John Jones from Nutty Putty Cave, speaks about the rescue attempts during a visit to the cave on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. When he arrived, though, John was unresponsive. Without John’s help, Kowallis knew they couldn’t contort his legs around an overhang, which had to happen to free him. Kowallis then heard what he thought might be a final gasp. Unsure, he and rescuer Susie Motola toiled for several more hours to widen the opening, contorting their bodies to get leverage in the tight quarters and scooping debris out in their helmets. In two hours, they advanced 2 inches. By then, John was dead. Kowallis spent part of Thanksgiving Day writing a report for the search and rescue team detailing his efforts. It remained unpublished until this February. Then, having grown tired of answering the same questions in email after email from people who had stumbled upon, and become obsessed with, Nutty Putty Cave, he posted it on his blog. The blog typically gets 80 to 100 hits a day, Kowallis said. After his Nutty Putty post, it began gaining thousands of clicks a day. And rather than satisfy the curiosity, it seemed to cultivate it. Every question he answered would be met with 10 more. Each sought more detail, more insight, as though the person on the other end was a detective trying to solve a mystery. Kowallis calls the events at Nutty Putty Cave “everybody’s worst nightmare.” One of the commenters on the blog said she moderates a subreddit dedicated to the cave rescue attempt. Another asked 11 detailed questions after noting, “I live in Europe, I dont [sic] do extreme sports, and I dont [sic] know anyone who takes up extreme sports, so I don’t have anyone else to ask.” (Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune) Kowallis says he has a knack for quickly processing trauma and has no emotional connection to what happened at Nutty Putty Cave. He doesn’t mind sharing his experience. “I totally get why people are interested in unusual, crazy, adventurous stories like that,” Kowallis said. “I understand how that can go viral.” The Nutty Putty tragedy didn’t just go viral, though. It has stayed that way for a decade and a half. Visitors to Kowallis’ blog are but a fraction of the people rooting around for more insight into John’s nightmare. The internet is rife with videos of people squirming into cave crevices as John may have done and of graphic diagrams depicting how his body was positioned. One YouTube clip posted by Zach D. Films on Oct. 21 featured a 47-second computer-generated reenactment. It drew 4.5 million views in a day. A month later, it has 16 million views and 1.2 million likes. The feature-length thriller “The Last Descent,” which focuses heavily on Emily and John’s relationship, was released in 2016. In 2017, PBS produced a documentary centered on the rescue workers. The TV series “Fascinating Horror” ran an episode titled “The Nutty Putty Caves” in 2019. The Jones family doesn’t discourage the interest. Josh said he appreciates that it keeps the memory of his brother alive. And, he understands the draw. “It was a supremely tragic thing that happened, and it happened on hours and it’s, like, the worst case scenario. I think that’s why people might be attracted to it,” he said. “[But] it doesn’t really bother me. I’m fascinated with stuff like that, too.” Life, but different (Ron Johnson | Special to The Tribune) Emily Sanchez poses for a photograph in her Peoria, Ill., home on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. Wherever Emily Sanchez goes, there Nutty Putty is. She has moved four times since her first husband, John, died in that cave in 2009. She remarried and changed her name. She gave birth to two more children. She aged. And yet, people still recognize her. They still, she said, on occasion approach her and tell her, “I know who you are.” Early on, Sanchez proactively sought out the attention. Six months after John’s death, when she was giving birth to their son, whom she would name John, she talked incessantly about him. She brought his picture to the hospital. It was her way of ensuring he wasn’t forgotten. (Jones family) Emily Sanchez, then Jones, brought a photo of her former husband John Jones to the hospital when she gave birth to their son on June 15, 2010. For the same reason, when a budding director approached her about making “The Last Descent, ” she gave him her blessing. She shared the stories of their courtship and met the actors when she flew out to Utah for the filming. But when they started reading lines from a script she’d looked over hundreds of times, the typically stoic Sanchez lost it. She excused herself, hid between two cars in the parking lot and just sobbed. “It was definitely hard to watch,” said Sanchez, who had stayed home with her 1-year-old daughter when the group went to Nutty Putty but went to the cave after the rescue was underway. “I think that even though I was there at the cave ... I never saw John suffering. And so to see that depicted on film, it was hard.” Moving on from identifying as John’s wife has also been hard. Part of the struggle is that some people who know their story don’t want her to move on. Three years after John’s death, Emily remarried. Donovan Sanchez, she said, was “a gift from God.” He helped her pick up the shards of her life and drew her out of her stupor of grief. He talks to their two oldest kids about their “Daddy John.” On their fifth anniversary, she posted a photo of the two of them on Facebook. (Ron Johnson | Special to The Tribune) Emily Sanchez poses for a photograph in Peoria, Ill., with children Lizzie, 16, and John, 14, on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. The backlash, crude and cruel, came in a torrent. “I got so many hateful comments on that,” Sanchez recalled. “People saw the movie and then they see on Facebook that I’m remarried, and they’re like, ‘This girl doesn’t deserve John.’ “‘This girl doesn’t deserve to live because she got remarried.’” John’s death isn’t the only obstacle Sanchez has had in life. She, like Josh, underwent a crisis of faith in the LDS church. She’s suffered through five miscarriages, three in the third trimester. And she was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a type of arthritis that can cause the bones in the spine to fuse together. “I don’t think I fully appreciated how lonely health issues can be,” Sanchez said. “When John passed away, I was lonely but I also had an outpouring of love, because everybody can imagine how terrible it would be to lose a spouse like that. Everybody can imagine that.” Finally, though, Sanchez feels as though she is in a place where she can shed that layer of grief. She will always have John in her life — she sees him in their two children and at least once a year they return to Utah to visit his parents. But Nutty Putty doesn’t need to be in her life, too. “More challenging than the story following me, the bigger challenge is for me to let go of that identity as John’s widow and just be like, I don’t need that attention,” she said. “... I don’t need to tell this story anymore.” Others will be happy to do that for her. The attention focused on Nutty Putty shows no sign of fading. But as it circulates the internet and in social circles, Sanchez does hope people can step back from the tragic aspects of John’s story and see the bigger picture: Life can be tragic and beautiful at the same time. (Ron Johnson | Special to The Tribune) Emily Sanchez and husband Donovan Sanchez pose for a photograph in Peoria, Ill., with children Lizzie, 16, Abbie Mae, 7, Emerson, 11, and John, 14, on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (Ron Johnson | Special to The Tribune) Photographs from a picture book of Emily Sanchez and her former husband, John Jones, in her home in Peoria, Ill., Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. After 15 years, Sanchez visits the cave less frequently than she once did. It has changed, too. The verdant green moss and ferns no longer grow at the mouth of Nutty Putty Cave. In the absence of the cave’s warm, humid exhalations, the hardy broom snakeweed has taken over. Tucked between some of the rocks, though, emerge clusters of white horehound, a delicate, dusty green relative of mint. It’s still life. Now it’s just a little different.John Fetterman Becomes First Senate Democrat On Truth Social
The cryptocurrency landscape is evolving rapidly, and as we step closer to 2025, the market is teeming with innovative projects that promise to redefine industries and create new opportunities for investors. With blockchain technologies becoming more practical and accessible, the focus has shifted to altcoins that offer real-world solutions and strong growth potential. If you’re looking for the best altcoins to join for 2025 , this list is a great place to start. Leading the charge is Qubetics ($TICS) , a game-changing project that’s already making waves with its decentralised VPN and practical blockchain applications. Alongside Qubetics, Avalanche, Polkadot, Near Protocol, XRP, Binance, and Tron are proving to be standout altcoins worth your attention. Let’s dive into what makes these projects so promising for the upcoming year. 1. Qubetics ($TICS): Setting the Standard for Decentralised Privacy Qubetics is currently in its 14th presale stage , and the momentum is undeniable. 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Avalanche is not just a blockchain—it’s a hub for innovation, offering robust tools for developers and businesses alike. Avalanche’s unmatched speed and adaptability make it one of the best altcoins to join for 2025. 3. Polkadot: Connecting the Blockchain Universe Polkadot continues to lead the way in blockchain interoperability. By enabling different blockchains to work together seamlessly, Polkadot has created a decentralised web that empowers developers to build interconnected applications. The introduction of Polkadot’s Parachain auctions has significantly boosted its ecosystem, attracting innovative projects across finance, healthcare, and gaming. This expanding network underscores its potential as a long-term investment. Polkadot’s focus on interoperability and its growing ecosystem cement its position among the best altcoins to join for 2025. 4. 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With its recent legal challenges resolved, XRP is poised for growth as it continues to expand its partnerships with banks and financial networks. Its focus on creating a global payments infrastructure ensures its relevance in 2025 and beyond. XRP’s efficiency in cross-border transactions and its resilience make it one of the best altcoins to join for 2025. 6. Binance: More Than Just an Exchange Binance, through its native token BNB, offers an ecosystem that goes far beyond traditional exchanges. From decentralised finance (DeFi) to NFTs, Binance has created a comprehensive blockchain platform that attracts millions of users. Recent innovations in Binance’s Smart Chain (BSC) have made it a powerhouse for dApp development. Its integration with popular DeFi platforms and games has expanded its utility, making it a versatile option for investors. Why did this coin make it to this list? Binance’s diverse ecosystem and strong market presence make it one of the best altcoins to join for 2025. 7. Tron: Decentralising Content and Media Tron has carved a niche in decentralised content creation, enabling creators to monetise their work directly without relying on intermediaries. Its blockchain supports fast transactions and high throughput, making it an excellent platform for dApps. Recent partnerships with entertainment companies have expanded Tron’s ecosystem, attracting more creators and users. Its growing influence in blockchain-based media solutions highlights its potential for 2025. Why did this coin make it to this list? Tron’s focus on empowering creators and its expanding ecosystem make it one of the best altcoins to join for 2025. Conclusion Based on our research and analysis, these seven projects represent the best altcoins to join for 2025 . Each altcoin offers unique solutions and immense growth potential, from Qubetics’ transformative decentralised VPN to XRP’s efficiency in cross-border payments. Qubetics leads the list with its stellar presale performance and practical blockchain applications, while Avalanche, Polkadot, and others continue to innovate and drive adoption. Whether you’re an experienced investor or just starting, these altcoins are worth serious consideration as you plan your 2025 portfolio. Invest smartly—2025 is shaping up to be a groundbreaking year for cryptocurrency. Don’t miss your chance to be part of the action. Qubetics: https://qubetics.com Telegram: https://t.me/qubetics Twitter: https://x.com/qubetics Join our WhatsApp Channel to get the latest news, exclusives and videos on WhatsApp _____________ Disclaimer: Analytics Insight does not provide financial advice or guidance. 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A community of fans have collectively voted on the duo’s music, deciding on the best and worst albums, most overrated and underrated works, best and worst songs, worst remixes and more. Some of the results are probably obvious, but others are a tad surprising. Users on the subreddit participated in the voting game over the past two weeks, following a grid template that would get a daily update based on fans’ most upvoted answers. Naturally, there was some passionate debate about each category — especially on the Worst Album, Worst Song, and Most Overrated Album categories — but the fans seem to be in full agreement on at least some of the results. Taking the crown of Best Album is 2001’s which was a pretty unanimous decision; the closest contender was 2013’s The former has gone down as one of the top albums of all time, most recently placing 23rd in , but the latter picked up four Grammy Awards in 2014. Perhaps that’s one reason Reddit voters placed it in the Most Overrated Album square. Contrastly, the Most Underrated Album spot was won by which received mixed reviews upon its 2005 release, but also picked up a Grammy nomination for Best Electronic/Dance Album. Meanwhile, the Worst Album by Daft Punk according to Reddit is . This remix album was released in 2011 to accompany the duo’s official soundtrack for Disney’s Although technically a Daft Punk album, Daft Punk’s manager (also the boss at French label Ed Banger Records) said of its release: “I am 100 per cent sure the Daft [Punk] boys were not involved in this side (sad) project.” Meanwhile, the title of Worst Song was given to the 2004 track by Franz Ferdinand, and the Best Song was awarded to a track from Other picks from include as Most Genius Song — likely thanks to the by Daft Punk and — and the dance anthem which fans claimed as the Best Chorus Song. The Best Lyrics Song was given to the slow, romantic cut, Todd Edwards, who also appeared on the track, , was voted as Daft Punk’s Best Collaborator. Two tracks from Random picked up some opposing awards in Most Underrated Song and Most Overrated Song. was voted as the Most Underrated, while was voted as Most Overrated. The latter is probably unsurprising, given the billions of collective streams it’s accrued across digital streaming platforms. In other Daft Punk news, of the duo’s feature-length film, which is soundtracked by One commenter wrote of the re-release: “Even watching this trailer on a small phone, you can immediately tell AI was used...The crowd scenes in particular are a dead giveaway. It looks so bad, there’s no way I’d spend money to see this in a theatre where the imperfections are going to be giant.” Another added: “I don’t see why this was needed. It seems like a lazy cash grab.”
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