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As the world awaits how US President-elect Donald Trump will weaponize trade, it is useful to understand how the US and China have wielded trade sanctions in the past to achieve their foreign and domestic policy goals. The US has often used trade sanctions to deal with issues such as nuclear proliferation, human rights abuses, or geopolitical aggression, and now under Trump, to reduce trade deficit and bring back jobs to the US. The US, for example, has imposed sanctions on Iran to curb its nuclear program and on Russia following its annexation of Crimea. During Trump’s first presidency, he imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods, targeting sectors like technology, steel, and consumer goods. These measures were designed not only to pressure Beijing on what the US claimed as intellectual property theft, human rights violations, and unfair trade practices but also to incentivize US companies to shift production to the US. Similarly, China has also wielded trade sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy. Since 2010, China has imposed sanctions against 15 countries including Australia, Japan, South Korea, Norway, the Philippines, Mongolia, Canada, Lithuania, and the United States. These sanctions vary in motivation, scope, target, and duration, but their strategies tend to be ambiguous and informal but also proportional, conditional, and ultimately pragmatic. If President Trump has the art of the deal, China has the art of the trade war. Historically, China tended to wield trade sanctions over what it claims as infringements of its core interests — territorial integrity, political stability, economic priorities, and national security. In 2012, for example, Beijing imposed trade sanctions — that lasted four years — on the Philippines after it filed a case against China over the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. When Norway awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, China blocked Norwegian salmon exports for six years. In 2016, China imposed sanctions on Mongolia after the Dalai Lama’s visit, targeting Mongolian mining exports with administrative delays. South Korea experienced a similar response when it deployed the THAAD missile defense system in 2016. China retaliated by restricting tourism, banning Korean cultural products, and increasing inspections on South Korean goods — a move that cost the South Korean economy an estimated $7.5 billion over six years. In 2020, after Australia called for an independent investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and banned Huawei from its 5G rollout, China imposed broad sanctions on Australian coal, barley, beef, and wine estimated at over $20 billion worth of exports. In all of these cases, trade sanctions were eventually eased as a result of policy shifts or changes in political leadership in sanctioned countries. These examples illustrate the range and conditional nature of China’s trade sanctions. Economic pressure is applied strategically, and sanctions are often lifted when target countries adjust policies, offer diplomatic concessions, or prioritize economic cooperation with Beijing. While China’s motivations are predictable — to protect its core interests — its sanctions strategy is often ambiguous and informal. Unlike Western powers, which publicly announce and justify sanctions — even with Trump’s trade deficit reduction project — China often attributes trade disruptions to technical or regulatory issues. When Mongolia hosted the Dalai Lama in 2016, Chinese authorities cited vague “technical delays” to restrict Mongolian mining exports. Similarly, restrictions on Australian and Philippines agricultural goods were framed as regulatory inspections rather than retaliatory measures. Moreover, China often employs informal tools such as administrative delays, increased inspections, and unofficial pressures on businesses. In its 2021 dispute with Lithuania over the establishment of a Taiwanese representative office, China suspended trade flows without formal announcements and pressured multinational firms to sever ties with Lithuanian suppliers. This strategy — highly effective but difficult to contest through legal channels — highlights China’s ability to leverage its vast market informally. Notably, China’s trade sanctions also tend to be tit for tat but proportional, calibrated to maintain pressure while avoiding full-scale economic disruption. For example, during Trump’s first presidency, the 2018 trade war with China showcased a proportional use of tariffs to address perceived trade imbalances. Tariffs were imposed on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, targeting sectors such as technology, steel, and consumer goods, while China retaliated with tariffs on $110 billion worth of US goods, focusing on agriculture and automobiles, politically sensitive goods in the US. While China’s sanctions strategy tends to be ambiguous, informal, proportional, and conditional, it is ultimately pragmatic. For instance, China has maintained robust trade relations with countries despite ongoing territorial disputes. Bilateral trade with India, for instance, reached $135 billion in 2022 despite continued tensions along the border which have since been settled this year. Trade with the US remains robust despite trade rivalry. Similarly, China remains Vietnam’s largest trading partner, even as both countries vie for contested claims in the South China Sea. The same with the Philippines although China has already warned it is running out of patience. Trade with Taiwan further underscores this dynamic. Despite Beijing’s political stance that Taiwan is a breakaway province, economic ties remain significant. In 2022, Taiwan’s exports to China accounted for 40% of its total exports, dominated by semiconductors vital to China’s technology ambitions. These cases point to the complexities of China’s trade relationships and China’s pragmatic balancing act between strategic competition and economic interdependence. The economic impact of China’s sanctions often depends on the targeted country’s reliance on Chinese markets. Smaller economies, or those with concentrated export dependencies, are more vulnerable. South Korea’s deployment of the THAAD missile defense system in 2016 led to restrictions on tourism, entertainment, and consumer goods, costing South Korea an estimated $7.5 billion over six years. However, countries capable of diversifying their trade relationships can mitigate the effects. Australia’s experience with China illustrates this point. After facing sweeping trade restrictions, Australia redirected coal exports to India and barley to the Middle East, demonstrating that sanctions can sometimes accelerate trade diversification rather than achieving their intended outcome. China’s trade sanctions must be seen within its broader foreign policy strategy, which balances punitive measures with economic incentives. Alongside sanctions, China uses tools such as favorable trade agreements, foreign direct investment (FDI), and development aid to strengthen ties with friendly states and win over rivals. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) exemplifies Beijing’s efforts to expand geopolitical influence through economic engagement. China’s vast outbound tourism sector has also emerged as a lever of economic diplomacy, rewarding or penalizing countries based on bilateral ties. While China’s sanctions strategy offers flexibility, it also raises concerns about international trade norms. The World Trade Organization (WTO) provides mechanisms for resolving formal trade disputes, but China’s informal measures often fall outside its regulatory framework. Japan’s 2012 WTO victory against China’s rare earth export restrictions highlighted these limitations. Although China complied with the ruling, the case underscored the challenges of addressing politically motivated trade disruptions through existing global mechanisms. This is not to say that China has completely abandoned the WTO. In fact, it recently filed in the WTO several cases against the US and EU over the imposition of tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. In short, China’s art of the trade war seems to be a combination of discretion, informality, ambiguity, proportional escalation, conditionality, pragmatism, and reliance on global institutions as it suits its purpose. This strategy allows Beijing to exert economic pressure, provide flexibility while avoiding overt escalation. Its effectiveness will depend on the economic resilience of targeted countries, their ability to diversify trade relationships, and the broader geopolitical context. While sanctions impose costs, they also carry risks for China, including disruptions to its own supply chains and the potential for countries to deepen ties with alternative partners. On my next op-ed, I will speculate on the possible economic impacts if China imposes sweeping trade sanctions on the Philippines and when it might do so. Eduardo Araral is an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. This op-ed is written in his personal capacity.337 jili 。

XRP Bull that Held From 2017 Now Switches To Next Big Ecosystem: Is Ripple Momentum Switching?

Amid the rampant speculation about what’s next for Matt Gaetz after the MAGA firebrand abruptly and dramatically withdrew his nomination for attorney general, one right-wing cable channel is making it abundantly clear they’d like him to join their lineup. Hours after the former Florida congressman pulled his name from consideration to be the nation’s top prosecutor amid sexual misconduct allegations, Newsmax host Greg Kelly told his viewers that there was a job waiting for Gaetz at the network if he wanted it. “Hey, he’s got a couple of fallback plans,” the Trump-boosting host declared. “He could always come and work here at Newsmax, as he has done quite a bit over the past couple of years, like filling in as an anchor on this program.” Airing a clip of Gaetz guest-anchoring his primetime program in May 2023, which occurred while Gaetz was a sitting U.S. congressman, Kelly went on to praise the ex-lawmaker as a “great guy with a big future.” Besides Kelly’s show, Gaetz has also sat in the anchor’s chair to spell Newsmax star Rob Schmitt in the past. “Greg is a great friend,” Gaetz told The Independent of Kelly’s offer. “I really look up to him. It’s very kind that he said something to lift my spirits.” According to multiple Newsmax insiders and staffers who spoke with The Independent , Kelly’s segment was part of a concerted effort to both appeal to Gaetz directly while also planting the idea in viewers’ minds that the former congressman may bring his services to the network’s airwaves. One source familiar with the situation told The Independent that Newsmax vice president of programming Chris Knowles mandated Kelly’s monologue alongside the clip of Gaetz’s past hosting performances on the network. The source added that the appeal to Gaetz was similar to when Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy pressed the network’s lineup to run multiple segments a day on Fox News firing its top-rated host Tucker Carlson last year. With conservatives furious at Fox for terminating Carlson, the source added, Ruddy hoped to convince the former Fox News star to come to Newsmax. Even before Gaetz dropped his bid to become attorney general, multiple staffers said Knowles had long made it clear behind the scenes that he wanted to make Gaetz a permanent fixture at the network. Knowles “has wanted Matt Gaetz to bring his firebrand personality to the network full-time for a long time,” one current Newsmax employee stated. “Knowles has said several times in the past he wants Gaetz on the air with a show one day, and he has recently said there’s a spot for him on the network if he isn’t confirmed,” another staffer stated prior to Gaetz’s withdrawing his nomination. Network executives also felt that Fox News growing increasingly squeamish over Gaetz’s nomination amid the drip-drip of more sexual misconduct allegations would only help Newsmax in building trust with the MAGA base, one source added. Newsmax gave Gaetz nothing but positive coverage throughout the nomination while repeatedly brushing off the allegations, noting that the Justice Department has not charged Gaetz with a crime. In a statement, a Newsmax spokesperson said the network “is not planning any lineup changes and has no plans to offer Rep. Gaetz a position at the network.” Gaetz did not immediately respond to a request for comment. While the network is denying there have been any discussions between the two parties, Gaetz did acknowledge in 2021 that he held numerous conversations with several conservative media outlets about potential post-Congress gigs — including Newsmax. Gaetz’s initial exploration for a “soft landing in right-wing media” took place shortly before it was announced he was under federal investigation for possible sex trafficking. Gaetz, meanwhile, has remained vague about what his plans are now that his dreams of being attorney general have flamed out. In a Friday interview with conservative pundit Charlie Kirk, Gaetz confirmed that he won’t return to Congress while pledging to keep fighting for the president-elect in other ways. He also slammed the allegations against him as a “smear” campaign. The former congressman took to social media on Friday morning, claiming he’d soon tell the “stories of corruption, treason and betrayal” regarding members of Congress trading stocks. So will Gaetz do that as a member of Trump’s White House — or within the world of right-wing media? Stay tuned.Making It Like Malaysia

Music Don't miss out on the headlines from Music. Followed categories will be added to My News. Global streaming giant Spotify has released its annual results to users which give them a personalised wrap list of who they listened to the most in the past year – and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was roasted online after he shared his. The end-of-year campaign known as Spotify Wrapped is a big hit with users looking to reflect on what dominated their playlists in the 12-month period, typically divided into categories such as the Top Tracks, Top Artists and Top Genres. Albanese shared his list on X on Thursday morning, showing his Top Songs as Australia by G Flip, Letting Go by Angie McMahon, Still Have Room by Hockey Dad, Pedestal by Lime Cordiale and Get Me Out by Stingray – and the internet had thoughts. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was roasted online after he shared his Spotify Wrapped Top Songs for 2024. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman G Flip’s Australia topped the PM’s list. “No one gives a frig what’s on your Spotify list. What they want to hear is what you are actually doing to bring the cost of living issues down and what you are doing with the housing affordability crisis,” read one brutal comment under his post. And on they went: “Your taste in music is almost as trashy as your leadership.” “No one cares. Do your job.” “The country is f***ed & your tweeting about Spotify #priorities.” “WTF? my electricity bill just went up 20% this morning and you’re show me this !!” Spotify Wrapped 2024 is out now. Spotify also released an insight into what the rest of the country and the world tuned into in 2024. No surprises Taylor Swift was the Most-Streamed Artist both is Australia and globally, amassing a whopping 26.6 billion streams worldwide this year. Her album The Tortured Department: The Anthology also took out the number one spot for Australia’s most-streamed album, followed by Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet , and Billie Eilish’ s Hit Me Hard and Soft . Spotify Wrapped 2024 is out now. US artist Benson Boone’s hit Beautiful Things was the Most Streamed Track across the country, while The Wiggles was announced as Australia’s Most-Streamed Local Artists, followed by The Kid LAROI. Here is what dominated Spotify Wrapped’s 2024 global and local top lists: Most-Streamed Artists Globally: 1. Taylor Swift 2. The Weeknd 3. Bad Bunny 4. Drake 5. Billie Eilish 6. Travis Scott 7. Peso Pluma 8. Kanye West 9. Ariana Grande 10. Feid Taylor Swift was 2024’s Most Streamed Artist with 26.6 billion streams worldwide. Picture: ANDRE DIAS NOBRE / AFP Most-Streamed Songs Globally: 1. Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter 2. Beautiful Things by Benson Boone 3. Bird of a Feather by Billie Eilish 4. Gata Only by FloyyMenor, Cris Mj 5. Lose Control by Teddy Swims Most-Streamed Albums Globally: 1. The Tortured Department: The Anthology by Taylor Swift 2. Hit Me Hard and Soft by Billie Eilish 3. Short n’ Sweet by Sabrina Carpenter 4. Mañana Será Bonito by Karol G 5. Eternal Sunshine by Ariana Grande Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology was the Most Streamed Album both locally and globally. Most Viral Songs Globally: 1. Die With A Smile by Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga 2. Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish 3. Beautiful Things by Benson Boone 4. Lose Control by Teddy Swims 5. Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan Top Podcasts Globally: 1. The Joe Rogan Experience 2. Call Her Daddy 3. Huberman Lab 4.This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von 5. The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett 6. Serial Killers 7. Relatos de la Noche 8. Crime Junkie 9. Café Com Deus Pai | Podcast oficial 10. El Podcast de Marian Rojas Estapé The Joe Rogan Experience was the top podcast both in Australia and around the world. Illustration: Cindy Ord/Getty Images Top Audiobooks in Premium Globally: 1. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas 2. The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien 3. I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy 4. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas 5. It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover 6. The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene 7. A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas 8. A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book One by George R. R. Martin 9. Icebreaker: A Novel by Hannah Grace 10. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros Here’s what dominated Spotify Wrapped Australia top lists: Australia Most-Streamed Artists: 1. Taylor Swift 2. Drake 3. Zach Bryan 4. Billie Eilish 5. The Weekend Australia Top Local Artists: 1. The Wiggles 2. The Kid LAROI 3. AC/DC 4. Vance Joy 5. RÜFÜS DU SOL The Kid LAROI was among the top Australian artists in 2024. Picture: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images Australia Most-Streamed Songs: 1. Beautiful Things by Benson Boone 2. Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter 3. Stick Season by Noah Kahan 4. A Bar Song (Tipsy) by Shaboozey 5. Lose Control by Teddy Swims Australia Top Local Songs: 1. Riptide by Vance Joy 2. Stumblin’ In by CYRIL 3. Saving Up by Dom Dolla 4. Nights Like This by The Kid LAROI 5. You Shook Me All Night Long by AC/DC Australia Most-Streamed Albums: 1. The Tortured Department: The Anthology by Taylor Swift 2. Short n’ Sweet by Sabrina Carpenter 3. Hit Me Hard and Soft by Billie Eilish 4. Stick Season by Noah Hakan 5. One Thing At A Time by Morgan Wallen 'Short N' Sweet by Sabrina Carpenter was one of Australia’s Most Streamed Albums in 2024. Australia Top Podcasts: 1. The Joe Rogan Experience 2. The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett 3. Huberman Lab 4. Casefile True Crime 5. Call Her Daddy Australia Top Audiobooks in Premium: 1. Spare by Prince Harry The Duke of Sussex 2. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas 3. Atomic Habits by James Clear 4. It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover 5. The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien Australia top local audiobooks in Premium: 1. Lola in the Mirror by Trent Dalton 2. Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty 3. Showing Up by Nedd Brockmann, Hamish Blake 4. Strong Money Australia by Dave Gow 5. Rebel Rising by Rebel Wilson More Coverage ‘Hatred’: Brutal post after Eminem tragedy Sabrina Picou – Page Six Brand’s ‘Freak Off’ antics while married Joshua Haigh Originally published as Spotify Wrapped reveals Australia’s most favourite artists and music for 2024 Read related topics: Anthony Albanese Join the conversation Add your comment to this story To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout More related stories Music Tours 90s rock legend’s sad news from hospital bed The frontman of 90s rock legends Goo Goo Dolls has delivered some crushing news to fans from his hospital bed. Read more Celebrity Life Taylor Swift tops Spotify charts as Christmas plans revealed Taylor Swift has dominated the Spotify streaming charts, as she takes her relationship with NFL star Travis Kelce to the next stage for the festive season. Read more

The unfolding drama related to the TikTok ban has taken a new turn . President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to delay a ruling and postpone a decision about whether to allow TikTok to remain on app stores or if it must be sold early next year. The saga has been developing now for several months. Here’s a quick rundown of where it all stands, along with a few thoughts about how this might all end. How the TikTok ban discussion started I first wrote about a potential TikTok ban way back in 2022 when Congress floated the idea of banning the app on government-owned devices. That law actually went into effect in 2023 , but then in April of this year, the House approved a bill that would ban TikTok entirely. ByteDance, which owns TikTok, would have until January 19 to sell the app. App stores would face hefty fines if they let users download the app. The Senate approved that measure, and then President Biden signed the bill that included a provision to extend the ruling. Just recently, an appeals court confirmed the measure once again, saying that the Chinese company should start looking for a new buyer and even suggested that users should start looking for alternatives. How the TikTok ban saga might finally end I’m calling this a saga because the TikTok ban is really about free speech versus foreign interference, especially during election seasons. There are two distinct sides, and it’s looking like the Supreme Court will determine what happens next. On the one hand, users should be able to decide which apps they use. A free speech advocacy group has challenged the Supreme Court to consider revoking the ban . They argue that the federal government should not be in a position to make apps illegal, saying that is what a dictatorship would do. Yet, on the other hand, concerns about interference are legitimate. The TikTok algorithm is controlled by ByteDance, and that’s the one piece of the technology they do not want to hand over to someone else. With social media, the algorithm is the heart of the app, determining what we see in our feeds based on our preferences. The algorithm is where the real interference can happen. If a foreign entity wanted to influence Americans, they could tweak the algorithm to show specific content (for example, more posts from one specific candidate or one viewpoint). That is what has caused most of the stir in recent months and pushed this debate all the way to the Supreme Court. That said, President Trump has strong opinions. One report by CNN argues that Trump is a trailblazer on social media apps like TikTok; he has said that his campaign had “billions” of views prior to the election . Trump was once a TikTok naysayer when it comes to interference and tends to view everything through an America first lens. I suspect his change of heart is related to those billions of views which, in part, helped him get elected. I’m not sure Trump will be able to influence the outcome of the TikTok ban as much as he thinks he can. For starters, this is the Supreme Court—we’re not talking about elected officials or a federal agency he controls. I’ll be curious if the Supreme Court even responds to Trump about the TikTok ban. Usually, they tend to have their day in court, especially since it’s their court.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court seemed likely Wednesday to uphold Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors. The justices' decision, not expected for several months, could affect similar laws enacted by another 25 states and a range of other efforts to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which restrooms they can use. The case is being weighed by a conservative-dominated court after a presidential election in which Donald Trump and his allies promised to roll back protections for transgender people. The Biden administration's top Supreme Court lawyer warned a decision favorable to Tennessee also could be used to justify nationwide restrictions on transgender health care for minors. Supporters of transgender rights rally Wednesday outside the Supreme Court in Washington. In arguments that lasted more than two hours, five of the six conservative justices voiced varying degrees of skepticism over arguments made by the administration and Chase Strangio, the ACLU lawyer for Tennessee families challenging the ban. Chief Justice John Roberts, who voted in the majority in a 2020 case in favor of transgender rights, questioned whether judges, rather than lawmakers, should weigh in on a question of regulating medical procedures, an area usually left to the states. "The Constitution leaves that question to the people's representatives, rather than to nine people, none of whom is a doctor," Roberts said in an exchange with Strangio. Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion in 2020, said nothing during the arguments. The court's three liberal justices seemed firmly on the side of the challengers, but it's not clear that any conservatives will go along. People attend a rally March 31, 2023, as part of a Transgender Day of Visibility, near the Capitol in Washington. Justice Sonia Sotomayor pushed back against the assertion that the democratic process would be the best way to address objections to the law. She cited a history of laws discriminating against others, noting that transgender people make up less than 1% of the U.S. population, according to studies. There are an estimated 1.3 million adults and 300,000 adolescents ages 13 to 17 who identify as transgender, according the UCLA law school's Williams Institute. "Blacks were a much larger part of the population and it didn't protect them. It didn't protect women for whole centuries," Sotomayor said in an exchange with Tennessee Solicitor General Matt Rice. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she saw some troubling parallels between arguments made by Tennessee and those advanced by Virginia and rejected by a unanimous court, in the 1967 Loving decision that legalized interracial marriage nationwide. Quoting from that decision, Jackson noted that Virginia argued then that "the scientific evidence is substantially in doubt and, consequently, the court should defer to the wisdom of the state legislature." ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio, left, and plaintiff Joaquin Carcano address reporters after a June 25, 2018, hearing in Winston-Salem, N.C., on their lawsuit challenging the law that replaced North Carolina's "bathroom bill." Justice Samuel Alito repeatedly pressed Strangio, the first openly transgender lawyer to argue at the nation's highest court, about whether transgender people should be legally designated as a group that's susceptible to discrimination. Strangio answered that being transgender does fit that legal definition, though he acknowledged under Alito's questioning there are a small number of people who de-transition. "So it's not an immutable characteristic, is it?" Alito said. Strangio did not retreat from his view, though he said the court did not have to decide the issue to resolve the case in his clients' favor. There were dueling rallies outside the court in the hours before the arguments. Speeches and music filled the air on the sidewalk below the court's marble steps. Advocates of the ban bore signs like "Champion God's Design" and "Kids Health Matters," while the other side proclaimed "Fight like a Mother for Trans Rights" and "Freedom to be Ourselves." Four years ago, the court ruled in favor of Aimee Stephens, who was fired by a Michigan funeral home after she informed its owner she was a transgender woman. The court held that transgender people, as well as gay and lesbian people, are protected by a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace. The Biden administration and the families and health care providers who challenged the Tennessee law urged the justices to apply the same sort of analysis that the majority, made up of liberal and conservative justices, embraced in the case four years ago when it found that "sex plays an unmistakable role" in employers' decisions to punish transgender people for traits and behavior they otherwise tolerate. Demonstrators against transgender rights protest Wednesday during a rally outside of the Supreme Court in Washington. The issue in the Tennessee case is whether the law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, which requires the government to treat similarly situated people the same. Tennessee's law bans puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors, but allows the same drugs to be used for other purposes. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, called the law sex-based line drawing to ban the use of drugs that have been safely prescribed for decades and said the state "decided to completely override the views of the patients, the parents, the doctors." She contrasted the Tennessee law with one enacted by West Virginia, which set conditions for the health care for transgender minors, but stopped short of an outright ban. Gender-affirming care for youth is supported by every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association. Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter.WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court seemed likely Wednesday to uphold Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors. The justices' decision, not expected for several months, could affect similar laws enacted by another 25 states and a range of other efforts to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which restrooms they can use. The case is being weighed by a conservative-dominated court after a presidential election in which Donald Trump and his allies promised to roll back protections for transgender people. The Biden administration's top Supreme Court lawyer warned a decision favorable to Tennessee also could be used to justify nationwide restrictions on transgender health care for minors. In arguments that lasted more than two hours, five of the six conservative justices voiced varying degrees of skepticism over arguments made by the administration and Chase Strangio, the ACLU lawyer for Tennessee families challenging the ban. Chief Justice John Roberts, who voted in the majority in a 2020 case in favor of transgender rights, questioned whether judges, rather than lawmakers, should weigh in on a question of regulating medical procedures, an area usually left to the states. "The Constitution leaves that question to the people's representatives, rather than to nine people, none of whom is a doctor," Roberts said in an exchange with Strangio. Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion in 2020, said nothing during the arguments. The court's three liberal justices seemed firmly on the side of the challengers, but it's not clear that any conservatives will go along. Justice Sonia Sotomayor pushed back against the assertion that the democratic process would be the best way to address objections to the law. She cited a history of laws discriminating against others, noting that transgender people make up less than 1% of the U.S. population, according to studies. There are an estimated 1.3 million adults and 300,000 adolescents ages 13 to 17 who identify as transgender, according the UCLA law school's Williams Institute. "Blacks were a much larger part of the population and it didn't protect them. It didn't protect women for whole centuries," Sotomayor said in an exchange with Tennessee Solicitor General Matt Rice. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she saw some troubling parallels between arguments made by Tennessee and those advanced by Virginia and rejected by a unanimous court, in the 1967 Loving decision that legalized interracial marriage nationwide. Quoting from that decision, Jackson noted that Virginia argued then that "the scientific evidence is substantially in doubt and, consequently, the court should defer to the wisdom of the state legislature." Justice Samuel Alito repeatedly pressed Strangio, the first openly transgender lawyer to argue at the nation's highest court, about whether transgender people should be legally designated as a group that's susceptible to discrimination. Strangio answered that being transgender does fit that legal definition, though he acknowledged under Alito's questioning there are a small number of people who de-transition. "So it's not an immutable characteristic, is it?" Alito said. Strangio did not retreat from his view, though he said the court did not have to decide the issue to resolve the case in his clients' favor. There were dueling rallies outside the court in the hours before the arguments. Speeches and music filled the air on the sidewalk below the court's marble steps. Advocates of the ban bore signs like "Champion God's Design" and "Kids Health Matters," while the other side proclaimed "Fight like a Mother for Trans Rights" and "Freedom to be Ourselves." Four years ago, the court ruled in favor of Aimee Stephens, who was fired by a Michigan funeral home after she informed its owner she was a transgender woman. The court held that transgender people, as well as gay and lesbian people, are protected by a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace. The Biden administration and the families and health care providers who challenged the Tennessee law urged the justices to apply the same sort of analysis that the majority, made up of liberal and conservative justices, embraced in the case four years ago when it found that "sex plays an unmistakable role" in employers' decisions to punish transgender people for traits and behavior they otherwise tolerate. The issue in the Tennessee case is whether the law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, which requires the government to treat similarly situated people the same. Tennessee's law bans puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors, but allows the same drugs to be used for other purposes. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, called the law sex-based line drawing to ban the use of drugs that have been safely prescribed for decades and said the state "decided to completely override the views of the patients, the parents, the doctors." She contrasted the Tennessee law with one enacted by West Virginia, which set conditions for the health care for transgender minors, but stopped short of an outright ban. Gender-affirming care for youth is supported by every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association.

NoneShares of technology company Rumble ( RUM -6.39% ) are at 52-week highs as of this writing, having jumped roughly 300% in value since lows set back in January. And much of its leap is thanks to a massive $775 million investment from the investment arm of Tether Limited, the company behind the cryptocurrency stablecoin Tether ( USDT -0.03% ) . Tether is the third-largest cryptocurrency in the world by market capitalization . As of this writing, the market cap is almost $140 billion, which trails only Bitcoin and Ethereum . But Tether isn't like these other two cryptocurrencies; it's a stablecoin. A stablecoin intends to have a 1-to-1 price correlation with something else. For example, a U.S. dollar stablecoin should always be worth $1. It's for people who want to explore the world of cryptocurrency without the volatility. Simply explained, they deposit $1 and Tether issues one new stablecoin worth $1. According to Tether, it had about $125 billion in reserves as of Sept. 30 (its market cap was $119 billion at the time). Most of these reserves are in U.S. Treasury bills . It needs to hold these reserves in case people want to redeem their stablecoins for dollars. But Tether is able to make money for itself with these massive reserves in the meantime. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino recently said it's on pace to earn $10 billion in net profit in 2024, which is an astounding amount for any company, let alone a cryptocurrency company. And the company doesn't simply rake in these profits, but rather it invests its money from time to time, which is what it's doing with Rumble. Why the market is excited about Tether's investment in Rumble Rumble turned heads when it went public in 2022 because this little company has big ambitions. The company intends to build internet infrastructure that's free from censorship and it hopes to compete with Alphabet 's video streaming platform, YouTube; Amazon 's cloud computing service, AWS; social media platforms; and more. The problem is that Rumble can't simply wish all of this into existence -- it takes money. And when ambitions are this high, it costs a lot of money to build. Unsurprisingly, the company had a net loss of $116 million in 2023 and has already lost another $102 million in the first three quarters of 2024. But give Rumble some credit. The chart below shows its outstanding share count with the orange line. Ignore the brief spike shortly after it went public (the accounting of these things can get temporarily distorted upon going public). The chart shows that, to date, management hasn't been raising money by diluting shareholders with stock offerings. It also hasn't been taking on debt. RUM Total Long Term Debt (Quarterly) data by YCharts To the contrary, Rumble has been funding its growth with cash on hand. And I believe that's the right move. After all, the company got its cash from its shareholders in the first place. These shareholders expect it to achieve its long-term vision by actually using this cash. However, Rumble is still burning cash at a fast pace and investors were getting worried about liquidity . The stock consequently skyrocketed when Tether announced its massive investment because the fears regarding liquidity were alleviated. There are reasons for optimism with Rumble. In the third quarter of 2024, the company had 67 million monthly active users -- that's nothing to sneeze at. Granted, that's down from its user base of 71 million in the third quarter of 2022. But it's a large, engaged user base nonetheless. The challenge has been growing revenue by getting advertisers to buy into Rumble's potential. As CEO Chris Pavlovski lamented on the Q3 earnings call , "How much longer can brand advertisers ignore more than half the country?" Rumble does have a premium subscription service that makes up for lack of interest from advertisers. But ad revenue is still important to the company and Pavlovski's question is an admission that this is an ongoing headwind for the business. And, unfortunately, it's impossible to know how much longer it will be before advertising demand picks up. The good news for Rumble's shareholders is that however long it is, it now has a longer runway than it had before thanks to the infusion of cash from Tether. While there are still a lot of moving pieces here and more details with the transaction that are worth knowing, the main takeaway is that Rumble has more time than it had before. And when it comes to investing, more time is almost always a good thing.

Mike Lauer, an engineer who works for the Aerojet Rocketdyne segment of L3Harris Technologies, found his career inspiration in science fiction, but for the perspective it takes to execute complex space programs, he draws on real-world experience. Growing up, Lauer spent many cold winter nights in the basement of his Sioux Falls, South Dakota, home, creating pictures of iconic space hardware from Hollywood space movies. “That really is what got me into it,” he says. Fast forward to today, and he’s managing production of the RS-25 main engines for NASA’s heavy-lift SLS (Space Launch System), which will launch U.S. astronauts back to the Moon as part of the agency’s Artemis campaign. When the scale and complexity of the undertaking appear daunting, Lauer thinks back to early in his career, when he designed hardware for the International Space Station, now in its third decade on orbit. “It just seemed to me that there’s no way this was going to work, but we just kept building and solving problems and the next thing you know, we’re launching space station parts,” Lauer says. “Having that experience of seeing a program that seemed too big, too complex, and it worked, gives me great hope and confidence that we can do it again with Artemis.” Lauer has family ties to space. His father, Don Lauer, ran the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earth Resources Observation and Science Center in Sioux Falls, a repository for data collected by NASA’s long-running Landsat series of land imaging satellites. Lauer’ father even spent time at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, home to the Agency’s human spaceflight program, exploring the role of astronauts in Earth observation from space. But it was an artist’s fascination with fictional hardware –– that ultimately led Mike Lauer to earn his bachelor and master’s degrees in Aeronautical & Astronautical engineering from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. “With engineering in general, there’s a connection with art,” Lauer says. “We create these things that have an artistic aesthetic to them, which is really cool.” Cool is a word Lauer, a licensed pilot, deploys frequently in describing his career journey, understandably so. For example, he once participated in a space station assembly rehearsal with veteran astronaut Jerry Ross at Johnson’s Neutral Buoyancy Facility, a giant pool used to help train astronauts for spacewalks. “I’m in this spacesuit and Jerry Ross is in this spacesuit and we’re plugging in elements of the space station,” Lauer says, almost in disbelief. “Oh my gosh!” While serving as Aerojet Rocketdyne’s lead engineer on the Multi Mission Radioisotope Thermo-electric Generator program, Lauer visited the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory to observe the loading of Plutonium 238 nuclear fuel into the device, which continues to power NASA’s car-sized Curiosity rover on the Martian surface. “Super cool,” he says. For his next move, Lauer figured that, being at Aerojet Rocketdyne (now L3Harris), builder of the engines on NASA’s legendary Saturn V Moon rocket, he should get into the propulsion side of the business. He began on the J-2X, a modified version of the Saturn V’s second stage engine that NASA had planned at one point to use on the SLS. Working from 1960s era drawings, Lauer and his team created a modern, easier-to-produce design with more power that had a successful series of hot-fire tests before being replaced in favor of a different upper stage design. Now, as RS-25 program director, Lauer works on another engine, this one originally designed for NASA’s now-retired Space Shuttle, updating and redesigning key components to meet new requirements and reduce production costs. The SLS flew its first mission without a crew, but upcoming flights will have astronauts aboard, which gives Lauer a huge sense of pride and responsibility. “I’m awed and inspired by what we’re doing,” he says. “Really cool.” Also really cool: Lauer serves as a volunteer pilot for the Civil Air Patrol, supporting the U.S. Air Force on search and rescue, disaster relief, and fire damage assessment missions. That keeps him busy on many weekends when he’s not refereeing youth soccer. Aside from that, Lauer most looks forward to the day four NASA astronauts are safely aboard their recovery ship at the successful conclusion of the first human moon landing in more than five decades. Read other I am Artemis features.Kuala Lumpur New Theory Emerges on the Disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, Suggesting Deliberate Crash in Remote Oceanic Terrain

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