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gstar288 NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he won’t play Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s games by voting to bring down the government on an upcoming non-confidence motion. The Conservatives plan to introduce a motion that quotes Singh’s own criticism of the Liberals, and asks the House of Commons to declare that it agrees with Singh and has no confidence in the government. The motion is expected to be introduced on Thursday and the debate and vote are set for Monday. Singh says he is not going to vote non-confidence and trigger an election when he believes Poilievre would cut programs the NDP fought for, like dental care and pharmacare. The non-confidence vote was scheduled after Speaker Greg Fergus intervened to pause a filibuster on a privilege debate about a green technology fund. The Conservatives have said they would only end that debate if the NDP agree to topple the government or if the Liberals turn over unredacted documents at the centre of the parliamentary gridlock.The Matulich family delivered the news in a heartfelt note on their website. “It is with a mix of deep gratitude and heartfelt emotion that we share some bittersweet news: after 45 incredible years, Steamer’s The Grillhouse will be closing its doors. This decision was not made lightly, and while it marks the end of an era, we want to take this moment to celebrate everything Steamer’s has meant to our family and to this wonderful community.” The Los Gatos restaurant, which has been the town’s premier seafood destination and a downtown mainstay, will shut down after dinner service on Christmas Eve. Siblings Paul, Mark and Linda Matulich opened the restaurant on Aug, 17, 1979, and Steamer’s has remained under that family’s ownership and direction since then. The restaurant moved to its current University Avenue location in 1999. As longtime seafood experts, the Matulich family has steered the menu’s evolution over the years, supplementing the classic entrees of Seafood Linguine, Steamed Clams and Atlantic Lobster with dishes such as Asian BBQ Glazed Salmon and Roasted Mussels with a Thai Curry-Lime Butter. But never count out the classics. “I put two kids through college on that linguine,” a chuckling Paul told the Mercury News on the occasion of the restaurant’s 40th anniversary. Besides thanking customers, the family gave a social media shout-out to their loyal employees, some of whom have worked at Steamer’s for many years. “As we enter our final month, we are asking the Los Gatos community to show our amazing team some extra love and appreciation.” From now until the closing date, Steamer’s will maintain its Wednesday-Sunday hours of lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and dinner starting at 4:30 p.m. The last reservation accepted is at 8 p.m. “As we prepare to say goodbye, we invite you to join us in these final weeks to celebrate the legacy of Steamer’s,” the family wrote. “Together, let’s raise a toast to the memories, the milestones, and the incredible journey we’ve shared.” Details: 31 University Ave., Los Gatos; www.steamerslg.comKolpack: A major league meltdown for Bison in Vermillion

University Of Utah's Course On Cannabis And Feminism Explores Assumptions Around Marijuana And More

I am an unabashed admirer of President Joe Biden. He has done a remarkably good job for the American people. But I am deeply disappointed by . I respect and admire the president’s devotion to his son and feel great sympathy for the Shakespearian dilemma he faced ahead of Hunter’s sentencing. This is a president who has made devotion to duty and . Thus, pardoning Hunter can be viewed as the understandable act of a loving father, especially one worried about a . But I still think it was the wrong decision. Biden’s choice gives credence to that justice under his predecessor was tainted by favoritism toward his friends and animus toward his political opponents. Trump’s spokesperson, Steven Cheung, . “The failed witch hunts against President Trump,” he said in a statement, “have proven that the Democrat-controlled DOJ and other radical prosecutors are guilty of weaponizing the justice system. That system of justice must be fixed... which is exactly what President Trump will do as he returns to the White House with an overwhelming mandate from the American people.” Trump followed suit on Truth Social: “Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” This should be seen for what it is: an effort to tee up to grant clemency to the people who tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. Nothing Hunter was accused of doing compares to that. And I also believe there is credence to the president’s claim — echoed by legal analysts like Joyce Vance — that Hunter was singled out because of his family. Indeed, it looked for a time that serious punishment, as others in his situation typically do. That plea deal fell apart, however, and Hunter was ultimately convicted on three felony charges related and for the lie he told “on a mandatory gun-purchase form by saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.” That trial featured, what the AP called, “deeply personal testimony from former romantic partners and embarrassing evidence such as text messages and photos of Hunter Biden with drug paraphernalia or partially clothed.” Still, the president stood by his son. A few hours after the verdict in the Delaware case, the president . It was a courageous and admirable thing for a father to do. At the time, Biden made clear that he was torn between his role as president and as Hunter’s father. “I am the President, but I am also a Dad,” . But it seemed he had resolved that tension by leaning into his presidential duties and putting the interests of the nation first. Even before the verdict, the president had volunteered that “he would not pardon his son Hunter.” When ABC’s David Muir asked him if he “would rule out a pardon for Hunter,” Biden said “yes.” One week later, that “I will not pardon him,” and Jill Biden also . Then, in September, Hunter appeared in a federal court in Los Angeles to face charges of three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanor tax offenses. He pled guilty. Hunter was due to be sentenced in Delaware on Dec. 12. He could have faced up to 25 years in prison, “though as a first-time offender he likely would not have gotten anything like that or even been sentenced to prison.” Three days later he was to return to Los Angeles where faced a maximum penalty of 17 years in prison. Meanwhile, the White House continued to insist that the president would not pardon him. Fox News notes that between July and November, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre . All the while, , Biden had “discussed pardoning his son with some of his closest aides at least since Hunter Biden’s conviction in June.” Those reports indicate that “it was decided at the time that he would publicly say he would not pardon his son, even though doing so remained on the table.” This is hardly a reassuring note for the president’s supporters. Last night’s pre-emptive act of mercy covers any offenses Hunter Biden has “committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024.” Notably, the pardon only applies to federal charges; it does not preclude Trump’s allies at the state level from bringing charges. Still, this decision feels unprecedented. While other presidents , this is the first time any commander in chief has granted clemency to their child. In his statement about the pardon, the president that Americans “will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.” I do understand why Joe Biden, who so would do what he did. But understanding it does not make it right. In the end, this is a gift to Donald Trump, and a blow to whatever confidence Americans in our political and legal institutions. It risks feeding what I fear is a growing cynicism about politics and their . Democrats still have not recovered from Trump’s election, and this makes them look like hypocrites as they . Loyalty, it turns out, matters to Biden too.Subscribe to our newsletter Privacy Policy Success! Your account was created and you’re signed in. Please visit My Account to verify and manage your account. An account was already registered with this email. Please check your inbox for an authentication link. Support Hyperallergic We’re funded by readers like you! If you value our reviews and news reporting, we need your support more than ever. Please join us as a member today. Already a member? Sign in here. Support Hyperallergic’s independent arts journalism for as little as $8 per month. Become a Member An emaciated man stands alone. He’s naked and in an all-too-white room. The hair on his head has recently been shaved, though his beard is full. The handcuffs shackling his wrists appear oversized for his small frame. A yellow earplug is jammed in only one ear. This photograph is the public’s first, and so far only, look at a War on Terror detainee in a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) black site: a secret detention center set up to hold and interrogate prisoners who have not been charged with a crime. It’s a surprising image, stark and overexposed, both in terms of how bright the photograph is and how naked the man is. Someone employed by the CIA took this photograph, though we don’t know who. But we do know why it was taken, and who it is in the frame. His name is Ammar al-Baluchi, a detainee at Guantanamo Bay currently facing capital charges for the 9/11 attacks. This photograph, likely from 2004, is from the period before he was transported to the United States’s offshore penal colony in 2006. Baluchi was one of at least 119 Muslim men held incommunicado by the CIA for years in its global network of clandestine black sites, where he and at least 38 others were repeatedly subject to “enhanced interrogation techniques,” a US-government euphemism for torture. Get the latest art news, reviews and opinions from Hyperallergic. Daily Weekly Opportunities From May 2003 to September 2006, Baluchi was secretly shuffled between five black sites, including one in Romania, where this photo is believed to have been taken. (The photo, recently declassified, was provided to me by Baluchi’s lawyers, who added the black band across his midsection to preserve his dignity. I broke the story surrounding the photograph and Baluchi for the Guardian earlier this year.) Whenever any of these Muslim men were moved, CIA protocol dictated that field officers photograph each one, both naked and clothed, “to document his physical condition at the time of transfer.” The image before us isn’t just any photograph. It’s visual evidence of crimes authorized and committed by the United States government, an entry in the annals of self-reported atrocity photography. In all, the CIA took some 14,000 photographs of the agency’s black sites around the world, but we, the public, have never been able to see any of them until now. There are plenty of examples of this macabre genre. Israel produces it . So does Syria’s Bashar al-Assad . As did the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The Nazis . The Soviets . The French . Governments of different political leanings have contributed to this dark archive, uniting the magical technology of the camera with the awesome power of detention and even death. They take pictures of their own crimes and immediately file them away, in an acrobatic technocratic act of simultaneous remembering and forgetting. The question is why. A photograph, presumably, is meant to be seen. These images, on the other hand, were intended to record but almost never to be viewed. They were certainly never meant to be seen by the public. Of course, anyone who has used their phone camera to take a picture of a receipt knows that a photograph doesn’t have only a public function. It can also operate as a trace of memory and documentation of a transaction. Self-reported atrocity photographs, indeed, fulfill the record-keeping needs of a government bureaucracy. The fact that the CIA was using black sites was revealed to the public in 2005, but it was not until 2015 that the photo archive documenting them was exposed. In response to that revelation, a US government official described the photographs as having been “taken for budgetary reasons to document how money was being spent.” Behold the banality of bureaucratic evil. Photography, since its inception, has subjected Muslim men to coercive violence. In 1850, barely a decade after the invention of photography in 1839, French travel writer Maxime Du Camp sojourned with the novelist Gustave Flaubert through Egypt, Nubia, Palestine, and Syria, taking pictures along the way. On the Nile, Du Camp routinely photographed one of the sailors on his steamer, Hajj Ishmael, usually with the latter draped in just a loin cloth. “He was an extremely handsome Nubian,” Du Camp writes in his travelogue . “I sent him climbing up onto the ruins which I wanted to photograph, and that way, I was able to obtain an exact scale of proportions.” The challenge in early photography, with its long exposure times, was to get your subjects to sit still. Du Camp came up with a solution that he proudly described to his friend, the French poet Théophile Gautier. “I finally arrived at the idea of a rather baroque deception that will make you, dear Théophile, understand something about the gullible naiveté of these poor Arabs,” he wrote. “I told him that the copper pipe of my lens jutting out of the camera was a cannon that would burst into shrapnel if he had the misfortune to move while I was pointing it in his direction, a story which immobilized him completely. Persuaded, Hajj Ishmael did not move for more than a minute.” I suppose there’s a reason why we talk about a “photo shoot.” “To photograph people is to violate them,” Susan Sontag writes in On Photography (1977), “by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed. Just as the camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is sublimated murder — a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time.” More than any other subgenre, it is self-reported atrocity photography that most closely approximates the murder Sontag describes. During the first two years of Bashar al-Assad’s violent repression of a popular uprising in Syria, a photographer who worked for the military police was assigned the duty of taking pictures of the corpses of civilians the regime killed. The bodies were mostly in military hospitals, often in a severely mutilated state. Initially, each corpse had the person’s name written on it. Eventually, names were replaced with three sets of numbers, the first indicating who the person was, the second pointing to the branch of the intelligence service responsible for the imprisonment, and the third referring to the person’s medical report, stripping them of the final remnants of their humanity. It became immediately clear to the photographer, who is now known by the pseudonym “Caesar,” that these people were being tortured to death. Government higher-ups required his photos as proof that their orders to punish and kill dissidents were being carried out. For two years, he did his work while smuggling copies of over 52,000 of those photos out of the country, before defecting in 2013. His photos have since been displayed around Europe and North America and have been instrumental in proving Assad’s ruthlessness. In Caesar’s photographs, mostly captured with a Nikon Coolpix P50 , the people photographed are already dead. The camera operates as an apparatus of confirmation, the final stage of the government’s killing machine. The Khmer Rouge also systematically documented the atrocities they committed. More than a fifth of the Cambodian population died during its genocidal rule between 1975 and 1979. The Khmer Rouge’s most notorious political prison and torture center Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21, was a converted high school in the middle of Phnom Penh, through which more than 14,000 people were shuttled. Fewer than a dozen survived. Each person was photographed upon entry, many by Nhem En, S-21’s chief photographer, who was only 15 years old when the Khmer Rouge sent him to China to study photography. He returned six months later with a Chinese box camera and began working at S-21. What we see in the photographs of S-21 is the sober reality that those brought and photographed here are marked for death, even though, unlike Caesar’s photos, they are still alive when photographed. By capturing the imminence of their demise, the photographer closes in on killing them, not by knife or bullet but by immortalizing them. Death pervades the frame of the living, which makes a photo of Kong Saman , for example, all the more stunning. A child’s tiny, bony arm and hand extend upward, grabbing the woman’s sleeve. We can’t see the child’s face, but the gesture is enough to remind us of the horrifying fact that young life coexists with mechanized death. In both the Syrian and Khmer Rouge examples, the photographers themselves have been identified. That knowledge, along with the change of venue (from hidden government files to art museum or US Congress) and the political purpose of their display, which serves to prove the brutality of the exhibiting state’s enemies, has radically changed our perception and reception of these images. What was once meant as evidence of efficiency has transformed into proof of brutality. If the photographs previously functioned to label enemies who had been exterminated, they now serve as mementos to identify and remember specific victims. The Tuol Sleng photographs gained particular fame after a 1997 exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art featuring about 20 images from the archive. The Caesar photos have been exhibited widely, from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to the European Union Parliament and beyond. But exhibiting the photos in a museum or public hall desensitizes the viewer by making the images feel as if they are fully understood objects, either as historical artifacts or works of art, quite unlike the Baluchi photograph, which remains opaque. None of this extra knowledge is brought to this now 20-year-old photograph of Ammar al-Baluchi. We don’t know who took the picture, and it hasn’t been exhibited in any galleries or political halls of power. All we know is that this is but one of 14,000 photos, that Baluchi was tortured by the CIA, and that no one in the US government has ever been held accountable for the torture program it put into place following the 9/11 attacks. Self-reported atrocity photography, however, transcends government bureaucracy, in the same way that photography is more than simply a visual record. Like all images of its kind, the Baluchi photo records a massive imbalance of power: He is naked before the photographer’s lens and helpless before the machine of the state. Despite this disparity, Baluchi looks straight through the lens with a defiant, wounded, and all-too-human expression. With that gaze, he manages to resist his own soft murder. Despite his shrunken size and condition, he fills the photograph with life and presence. While his body appears defeated, his face looks ready to free himself of the photograph by force of will alone. And that may be the greatest surprise of all. The irony behind this image is that, while it is Baluchi in the frame, it is the nameless photographer, and the apparatus of power behind him, who remain in hiding. We hope you enjoyed this article! Before you keep reading, please consider supporting Hyperallergic ’s journalism during a time when independent, critical reporting is increasingly scarce. Unlike many in the art world, we are not beholden to large corporations or billionaires. Our journalism is funded by readers like you , ensuring integrity and independence in our coverage. We strive to offer trustworthy perspectives on everything from art history to contemporary art. We spotlight artist-led social movements, uncover overlooked stories, and challenge established norms to make art more inclusive and accessible. With your support, we can continue to provide global coverage without the elitism often found in art journalism. If you can, please join us as a member today . Millions rely on Hyperallergic for free, reliable information. By becoming a member, you help keep our journalism free, independent, and accessible to all. Thank you for reading. Share Copied to clipboard Mail Bluesky Threads LinkedIn Facebook

Former President Jimmy Carter, the God-fearing Georgia peanut farmer who survived a disastrous one-term White House stay to launch a second career as a Nobel Prize-winning advocate for global human rights, died Sunday at 100. Carter went into at home on Feb. 18 after a short series of hospital stays, the Carter Center charity organization said at the time. The ex-commander-in-chief opted to spend his final days with family rather than seek any additional medical intervention. His son Chip confirmed , to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. His wife of 74 years, Rosalynn Carter, preceded him in death on Nov. 19, 2023. The 39th president was in attendance at her memorial service Nov. 28, where, seated in a wheelchair with a blanket over his lap, he appeared frail and was unable to speak, according to family. His daughter Amy delivered remarks on his behalf at the service. Carter, a Democrat, than any other U.S. president, in 2019 when he reached 94 years and 172 days old. Relegated to the historical sidelines after a four-year presidency mired in malaise, Carter rebounded to write 32 books, build houses for the poor, stand up to tyranny abroad and capture the coveted Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Carter took office in 1977. With his victory over incumbent Gerald Ford, he aimed to restore faith in America and its government after the nightmare of Watergate forced President Nixon to resign in disgrace. But his own term was plagued by rampant inflation, long gas lines, wars in Afghanistan and Nicaragua, and a 444-day hostage crisis in Iran — the latter low-lighted by an embarrassingly failed rescue attempt. Carter’s bid for reelection was crushed by Republican Ronald Reagan, sending the former commander in chief back to Georgia a beaten man, deeply unpopular and seemingly destined for obscurity. Carter instead grabbed a hammer, climbed a ladder and built houses for the poor with Habitat for Humanity. He boarded planes to monitor elections abroad and broker peace deals. And he returned to his church in Plains, Ga., to teach Sunday school. “I have one life and one chance to make it count for something,” Carter told his biographer, Jim Wooten, in 1995. “My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have, to try to make a difference. “Most of the time, believe it or not, I enjoy myself.” James Earl Carter, Jr. was the first American president born in a hospital — Wise Sanitarium in tiny Plains, Ga., where his mother worked as a nurse. He was raised without electricity or plumbing on his family’s nearby peanut farm. The backwoods town of 600 residents would remain Carter’s beloved and modest home for the rest of his life. His father Earl was an enthusiastic segregationist. But his mother, known to all as Miss Lillian, made a point of caring for poor Black women while cheering on Black boxer Joe Louis and baseball’s color-line defying Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Carter joined the Navy in 1943 to see the world and did so well at Annapolis that he earned a place in the new, elite nuclear submarine program. Nine years later, Carter helped build the reactor for the first nuclear sub and did graduate work in nuclear physics at Union College. The following year, he went home to save the ailing family farm, and with new bride Rosalynn, welcomed three sons and a daughter. He became a deacon at Plains Baptist Church, served on civic boards and in the Georgia state senate. Carter won the Georgia governorship in 1970, at least in part by cozying up to segregationists, who were then furious when he declared the time for racial discrimination was over. Carter soon began outlining the remarkable national campaign that propelled “Jimmy Who?” past a half-dozen high-profile Democrats to the party’s presidential nomination. He stressed his honesty, sincerity, Christianity and outsider status — the perfect panacea for voters in the aftermath of Watergate and Vietnam. Despite some gaffes — he nearly blew a 30-point lead after infamously confessing to Playboy that he had “lusted in my heart” after other women — Carter vanquished Ford in the bicentennial year of 1976. He tried from the start to return humility to the White House. Carter walked the inaugural parade route rather than ride in a limo, banned the playing of “Hail to the Chief,” carried his own luggage and personally kept the schedule for the White House tennis court. But his outsider status didn’t play well on Capitol Hill, where Democratic party leaders regarded him as sanctimonious and balked at his agenda. His younger brother, Billy, who hawked Billy Beer and got drunk in public, didn’t help when he cozied up to Libyan officials and collected $220,000 from the nation’s government. A bizarre attack by a rabid swimming rabbit during a fishing trip added to Carter’s hapless image. His big foreign policy achievement — personally brokering the 1978 Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt — failed to save him. Though he never actually said the word, a malaise settled over his White House. In 1980, voters overwhelmingly chose Reagan’s sunny optimism over Carter’s gloomy warnings about cutting back and conserving. He lost 44 states in the general election. The undaunted political has-been went on to found The Carter Center, which pioneered election monitoring and sent watchdogs to 81 elections in 33 countries. Carter personally traveled on peace missions to Haiti, Bosnia, Ethiopia, North Korea, Sudan, Nepal and Colombia. Though criticized for talking to despots, dictators and tyrants, his rebuttal was always simple: “I’ll talk with anybody who wants to talk about peace.” Carter insisted his presidency was more successful than people remember, noting recently that the United States military never launched a missile or dropped a bomb under his watch. Carter announced in August 2015 that he had cancer after having surgery to remove a small mass from his liver. Though the cancer spread to his liver and brain, the battled-toughened old politician pulled through. He was survived by his three sons, Jack, Chip and Jeff; a daughter, Amy; and 11 grandchildren, including one who captured grandfather’s old seat in the Georgia state senate. _____

Stock market today: Rising tech stocks pull Wall Street to another recordAustralian sailor Matt Wearn will ponder his Olympic future during a 12-month spell from his dual gold-medal winning class. Wearn was Australia’s joint flag bearer at the closing ceremony of this year’s Paris Games after becoming the first man to successfully defend an Olympic dinghy title. But the 29-year-old is taking time away from the dinghy while deciding if he has motivation to return to the class for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. Wearn will pursue professional opportunities and other aspects of the sport in a plan supported by his coach Rafa Trujillo. “Rafa and I discussed the plan before the (Paris) Games as we felt it was critical to the lead-in,” Wearn said. “We decided it was important to take at least 12 months away from the ILCA (dinghy). “This time will allow me to explore different aspects of sailing, delve into the professional side of the sport and figure out if the drive and hunger for LA are still there.” Wearn’s Paris Olympic triumph in the dinghy, previously known as the laser class, followed recovery from a bad bout of long COVID-19 two years ago. The illness was combined with the shorter three-year turnaround between his gold medal win at the Tokyo Olympics of 2021 and the Paris Games. “With everything compressed into the three years between Tokyo and Paris, I haven’t had proper time off in a while,” he said. “It has been tough but having a holiday with my wife Emma and just stepping away to let everything sink in has been super nice. “At times it still hits me, especially when people introduce me at events now as a two-time Olympic gold medallist. “It sort of gives me goosebumps and makes me realise what I’ve achieved.” Wearn, who recently was inducted into the Australian sailing Hall of Fame and also nominated for the world sailor of the year, will dabble with other sailing disciplines. “I’m getting into foiling ... and continuing to get out on the wing foil, I can stay out for half an hour or three hours, that’s the nice bit at the moment, just enjoying it and learning something new,” he said. “Obviously, coming from the ILCA I don’t have too much exposure to foiling and that’s the way the sport is going. It has been that steep learning curve and I’m enjoying that challenge. “I’m also teaming up with John Bertrand for the Etchell Worlds in January (in Melbourne) which could be a stepping stone into professional sailing overseas such as TP52 or RC44 racing. “Enjoying being a normal person over the Christmas period with family, not having a jet off to events. “(I am) going to take it easy and enjoy being at home for once in summer, which will be a refreshing change from the usual hectic schedule.”

Cheers and beers for Ruud van Nistelrooy as Leicester reign starts with winMind Medicine (MindMed) Inc. ( NASDAQ:MNMD – Get Free Report ) insider Dan Karlin sold 6,643 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $7.43, for a total transaction of $49,357.49. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 338,013 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,511,436.59. This represents a 1.93 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link . Mind Medicine (MindMed) Stock Down 10.4 % MNMD opened at $6.84 on Friday. The company has a fifty day moving average of $7.25 and a two-hundred day moving average of $6.98. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a quick ratio of 9.00 and a current ratio of 9.00. Mind Medicine has a fifty-two week low of $3.49 and a fifty-two week high of $12.22. The stock has a market capitalization of $501.59 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -3.03 and a beta of 2.58. Hedge Funds Weigh In On Mind Medicine (MindMed) A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of MNMD. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its position in shares of Mind Medicine (MindMed) by 8.2% in the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 36,995 shares of the company’s stock valued at $211,000 after buying an additional 2,797 shares in the last quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Mind Medicine (MindMed) in the 3rd quarter worth $91,000. Barclays PLC raised its position in Mind Medicine (MindMed) by 203.6% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 136,098 shares of the company’s stock worth $775,000 after acquiring an additional 91,271 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in Mind Medicine (MindMed) by 10.8% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,677,702 shares of the company’s stock valued at $9,548,000 after purchasing an additional 162,933 shares in the last quarter. Finally, XTX Topco Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Mind Medicine (MindMed) in the third quarter valued at about $337,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 27.91% of the company’s stock. Analysts Set New Price Targets Get Our Latest Report on Mind Medicine (MindMed) Mind Medicine (MindMed) Company Profile ( Get Free Report ) Mind Medicine (MindMed) Inc, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, develops novel products to treat brain health disorders. The company’s lead product candidates include MM-120, which is in phase 2 for the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; and MM-402, a R-enantiomer of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, which is in phase I clinical trials for the treatment of core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Mind Medicine (MindMed) Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Mind Medicine (MindMed) and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .

By LARRY NEUMEISTER NEW YORK (AP) — The founder and former CEO of the failed cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius Network could face decades in prison after pleading guilty Tuesday to federal fraud charges, admitting that he misled customers about the business. Alexander Mashinsky , 58, of Manhattan, entered the plea in New York federal court to commodities and securities fraud. He admitted illegally manipulating the price of Celsius’s proprietary crypto token while secretly selling his own tokens at inflated prices to pocket about $48 million before Celsius collapsed into bankruptcy in 2022. In court, he admitted that in 2021 he publicly suggested there was regulatory consent for the company’s moves because he knew that customers “would find false comfort” with that. And he said that in 2019, he was selling the crypto tokens even though he told the public that he was not. He said he knew customers would draw false comfort from that too. “I accept full responsibility for my actions,” Mashinsky said of crimes that stretched from 2018 to 2022 as the company pitched itself to customers as a modern-day bank where they could safely deposit crypto assets and earn interest. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a release that Mashinsky “orchestrated one of the biggest frauds in the crypto industry” as his company’s assets purportedly grew to about $25 billion at its peak, making it one of the largest crypto platforms in the world. He said Mashinsky used catchy slogans like “Unbank Yourself” to entice prospective customers with a pledge that their money would be as safe in crypto accounts as money would be in a bank. Meanwhile, prosecutors said, Mashinsky and co-conspirators used customer deposits to fund market purchases of the Celsius token to prop up its value. Machinsky made tens of millions of dollars selling his own CEL tokens at artificially high prices, leaving his customers “holding the bag when the company went bankrupt,” Williams said. An indictment alleged that Mashinsky promoted Celsius through media interviews, his social media accounts and Celsius’ website, along with a weekly “Ask Mashinsky Anything” session broadcast that was posted to Celsius’ website and a YouTube channel. Celsius employees from multiple departments who noticed false and misleading statements in the sessions warned Mashinsky, but they were ignored, the indictment said. A plea agreement Mashinsky made with prosecutors calls for him to be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison and to forfeit over $48 million, which is the amount of money he allegedly made by selling his company’s token. Sentencing was scheduled for April 8.

Alexander Mashinsky, 58, of Manhattan, entered the plea in New York federal court to commodities and securities fraud.Extreme H Tests The Limits Of Fuel Cells, Green HydrogenCanada again supports UN motion critical of Israel, citing two-state solution

PHOENIX — Devin Booker scored 29 points and the Phoenix Suns weathered the loss of Kevin Durant to an ankle injury to beat the San Antonio Spurs 104-93 on Tuesday night. Durant left the game with 3:51 to play in the second quarter and did not return. He headed to the locker room under his own power, and the Suns later said he hurt an ankle without providing any specifics. He finished with 13 points. Though Oklahoma City won West Group B in the NBA Cup, the Suns were hoping to earn a wild-card berth into the quarterfinals. But they were eliminated when Dallas beat Memphis. Booker surpassed 15,000 career points with his first basket of the night. He trails only Walter Davis (15,666) on Phoenix’s scoring list. San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama scored 15 points, all in the second half, and had 13 rebounds. He missed all seven shots in the first half, six from 3-point range. Devin Vassell led the Spurs with 25 points off the bench. Stephon Castle scored 16. Tyus Jones scored 16 points, and Royce O’Neale and Bradley Beal had 10 each for Phoenix. Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant reacts after falling to the floor against the San Antonio Spurs during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024, in Phoenix. Credit: AP/Rick Scuteri Takeaways Spurs: Jeremy Sochan returned after missing 13 games with a left thumb injury that required surgery. He came off the bench and contributed 14 points and 12 rebounds. Suns: Oso Ighodaro started at center for Phoenix in place of Jusuf Nurkic, who's sidelined for at least a week with a right thigh contusion. Key moment The Suns began the game with an 11-0 spurt before Castle scored for San Antonio. Key stat The Spurs were 8 of 44 (18%) from 3-point range. San Antonio Spurs forward Julian Champagnie shoots over Phoenix Suns center Oso Ighodaro (4) during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024, in Phoenix. Phoenix won 104-93. Credit: AP/Rick Scuteri Up next The Spurs host Chicago on Friday. The Suns visit New Orleans on Friday.In this podcast, Motley Fool analyst Kirsten Guerra and host Mary Long discuss: How experiential shopping has lifted Dick's Sporting Goods . Two paths forward for Kohl's . Why Lemonade deserves a spot in a Thanksgiving parade. Then, Motley Fool retirement expert Robert Brokamp and Christine Benz, the author of How to Retire: 20 Lessons for a Happy, Successful, and Wealthy Retirement , continue their discussion on how to prepare for a healthy, wealthy retirement. Go to breakfast.fool.com to sign up to wake up daily to the latest market news, company insights, and a bit of Foolish fun -- all wrapped up in one quick, easy-to-read email called Breakfast News. To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center . To get started investing, check out our beginner's guide to investing in stocks . A full transcript follows the video. This video was recorded on Nov. 26, 2024. Mary Long: Which stocks float your boat? Motley Fool Money starts right now. I'm Mary Long joined today by Kirsten Guerra. Kirsten, thanks for joining us on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. This week slows down in the corporate world. You could be doing a lot of stuff. You could be doing turkey prep, you could be trying to catch a plane somewhere, and instead, you're here with us. Really appreciate the time. Kirsten Guerra: Yeah, thanks, Mary. This is actually my only invitation. Really happy to be here. Mary Long: We, again, are very glad to have you. We're going to kick things off today with a look at some different retail companies because we got results from a handful of different retailers this morning. Best Buy , DICK'S Sporting Goods, Kohl's, just to name a few. DICK'S proving to be the exception of that particular lot, whereas Best Buy and Kohl's both slashed full year guidance. DICK'S raised its own expectations for sales and earnings for the full year. What do you make of this? What do those results tell you about how Americans are spending right now? Kirsten Guerra: Well, my first thought was, "This makes sense." There is a big and growing trend in consumer behavior toward more experiential purchases and away from material purchases. You can make the argument that each of these plays some role in selling goods that feed into experiences, but I think DICK'S certainly stands out in this regard. Another thing that I think is really true across this lineup and really beyond into other retailers at large, maybe less so, Best Buy from this list, is this push into private label products. DICK'S is really seeing strong performance from its private label business. They set a goal a couple of years ago to reach two billion in annual sales. They reached 1.6 billion in 2023, so they'll likely meet that goal this year. Kohl's also has quite a few private label brands, some of which I've even heard of despite not shopping there, which feels like good reach and they just introduced a new line called FLX, which I have to imagine is pronounced Flex. That's an Athleta brand, probably smart area to enter if a little late. But yeah, Best Buy doesn't really have a lot of private-label products. They are into it, but leadership doesn't emphasize it as a strategy a lot on earnings calls. It doesn't seem to be a high priority. I think maybe it should be a higher priority. Because ultimately, why does this matter for any of these businesses? For one, cost conscious consumers are going to be looking for these cheaper but comparable quality off-brand items. So you want to capture that slice of the market. But also retailers often have a lot of insight into what sells and what matters most to consumers and different products. If they do it right, they often have a real data advantage and can take market share there. Ultimately, what it all comes back to for these retailers is that these private label products tend to be higher margin, and so they can also substantially improve a retailer's gross margins at scale. Yeah, a lot going on with retailers right now. Mary Long: I'm going to back you up on the FLX pronunciation. I got to imagine it's Flex, as well. The only other thing that came to my mind was Flex, but knowing that it's not a DVD brand and instead, Athleta, I'm thinking that Flex is probably right on the money. Let's spotlight DICK'S in particular for a moment. This stock has returned over 80% in the past three years. If you zoom out a little bit more over the past five, that number is closer to 540%. It's vastly outperformed the sector and the likes of Target , also Kohl's, which we're talking about a bit, as well. Their current CEO Lauren Hobart took the helm in 2021. What is she getting right? What is DICK'S more broadly getting right to have amassed these impressive returns over the past several years? Kirsten Guerra: Yeah, like I said, DICK'S offerings are considerably more experiential than others. The products themselves, of course, but they're really leaning into that with their store concepts as well. They are scaling a store concept called House of Sport, which includes experience features in the store, like a rock climbing wall, golf simulators, indoor tracks, things like that. That takes a really big swing at attracting in more regular visits, especially from kids and teens. I would think, when I was a kid in Houston, there was a store like this that had a racquetball court inside even though I think it was a mattress store. But I always, as a kid was pestering family to go there. I think that's one of the things that attracts from a younger audience. Then back in 2016, they acquired a company called GameChanger, which is a tech app for streaming youth sports live. On its own, the expect that to add about 100 million in sales in 2024, and it's been growing in a range of 30-40% annually. Youth sports is massive, and this tech is a relatively untapped area for that field. On top of the actual revenue that's layered on there, I think the complimentary nature of that business in connecting with kids and kids sports is a nice addition to what they're doing in stores. Ahead of dropping its results this morning, Kohl's announced just the other day that it's going through a bit of a CEO change. So it's hired Ashley Buchanan as their incoming CEO. He used to run the art store, Michael's, and he'll be stepping up to the helm in early 2025. Buchanan will be the third CEO at this company since 2018. The picture at Kohl's is not particularly rosy. Again, mentioned that the company reported earnings this morning. As a part of that, they announced revenues down about 9% year over year. It's 11th consecutive quarter of comparable sales declining. They've got about 6.5 billion dollar in long term debt. akes sense to me why leadership's passing the buck to somebody else over here. If you were tasked to come on in and help out Mr. Buchanan in writing Cole's ship, where would you start? What are the problems that they're facing, and what might management actually do to turn this company around? Kirsten Guerra: There are some financial levers that come to mind, but to be honest, they all sound like moves to have a more graceful end of life to a brand and protect cash flow for as long as possible for shareholders. Classic moves like really focusing attention for operational efficiency so shutting down underperforming stores, really reassessing skew count how many products are offered within the store, the variety, and maybe cutting the bottom third or so really, however many products are consistently underperforming and simply don't deserve shelf space. Then I think there's a little bit of a treasure hunt capacity to cause as well, but maybe introducing that in different way that doesn't rely on so many these different products. I don't know. Maybe that's unfair. That doesn't have to necessarily be the path of coals from here, but it is what comes to mind. Not every brand can go on to do a turnaround. That's one option ahead of it. To be clear, it's not necessarily always the worst thing in the world. If you can gracefully bow out over time and provide steady, slightly dwindling cash flows, again, at the right value, that's fine. It could be a good investment. But to go the other direction completely and say, "Hey, we're still here. We can be a brand with staying power, I think the company needs to make a big move toward attracting a younger audience, which they have also identified as a goal for themselves." Get on TikTok. Kohl's is already on TikTok, but not very successfully. Kohl's Cash was a huge deal when first introduced many years ago. Reintroduce that to a younger audience in a new way, maybe connect it to the idea of girl math that people on TikTok love. I don't know. This is just another example of me, Mary coming on the podcast and giving basic advice. Like it's easy to pull off. Just connect with the younger generation. It's definitely not easy, but reenergizing the brand with the rising generation of consumers is probably the best path to grow again if they can achieve that. Mary Long: Kirsten, do not sell yourself short. I think that the girl math Kohl's Cash pipeline connection is an awesome one. That's really clever. Hopefully, someone from Kohl's is listening, and they take that idea and put that into practice. Kirsten Guerra: There you go. That one's for free. [laughs] Mary Long: Let's turn all of this retail talk into a Black Friday story, since that is right around the corner. As the listener is going to be bombarded with sales and flashy offers over the next few days and into the weekend, is there a way to evaluate those sales through the eyes of an investor rather than purely a consumer? Are there any companies or products in particular that you'll be keeping an eye on to see? How is X company going to push this off the shelf, or what does pushing this product mean for Y company? Kirsten Guerra: No. Honestly, I don't know which way to look anymore around this time of year. What was once Black Friday a concentrated day of sales that actually mattered, if a little dangerous that gave rise to the idea of Cyber Monday to the point that we now call the whole weekend from Thanksgiving Thursday to Cyber Monday the Cyber 5. This year, a lot of sales actually began on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, leading to the name the Cyber Dozen, and I just feel like if I'm a proxy for the average consumer, which maybe I'm not, it's all too much. I think at this point, offering a sale on the business perspective is just table stakes. It's not a marketing move to get more attention than another company. You just have to. It's the time of year where you capture the purchasers who are always going to just hold out for a deal for your product. As an investor, if I'm watching for anything, it's really broad trends in the kinds of products or services rising in popularity like where AI infused things big this year? I don't expect that they will be. Did smart glasses really pick up an interest? I think they might. Did the beauty industry see its biggest shift yet toward skincare and less from cosmetics? Who knows? But if that happened, it would be an important, broad trend. I would steer investors toward thinking about really bigger picture questions about categories themselves and starting there, rather than over inflating the meaning of any one day for individual retailers or products. Mary Long: Let's pivot stories. Yesterday, Macy's dropped preliminary results to get a little bit ahead of a pretty big blunder. Somebody somewhere at the company lost track of about $150 million. We're not going to dive into this. Ricky and Jamo covered this on yesterday's show, but mentioning it here because even without this accounting, misstep is probably an understatement, but we'll go with misstep. Macy's still would have been in the news this week because it's the company behind the Thanksgiving Day Parade, which will take place on Thursday. Kirsten, you and I were talking about this episode beforehand, and you brought up the great idea what if we had our own version of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade about stocks that deserve a float in a Thanksgiving Day Parade? You can take this in any direction you want. I'll kick it to you first. What company do you think deserves its own float in a Thanksgiving Day Parade? Kirsten Guerra: Oh, well, I think top of mind for me is Lemonade, the AI powered insurance company. What's wild to me is that if we did this show a month ago, end of October, Lemonade was mostly flat at that time. This is Ticker, LMND, by the way. It was mostly flat at that time. It is now in the month of November and year to date, more than 200% as we record this. That is so that's basically all in November. Lemonade really making a last minute plea to make it into this Thanksgiving Day imaginary float lineup. But here's what happened with the company recently. It started with Lemonade reporting third-quarter earnings, October 31st, and they reported revenue 8% ahead of forecast. Wall Street generally likes a surprise beat, and that comes from an increase in both total customers and premium per customer. It's always nice to see a company growing in multiple dimensions. Maybe, most importantly, we have to talk about the company's gross loss ratio, which is down 10% year over year to 73%. This ratio defines how much of all of the premiums it collects as an insurance company, it then has to pay out to policyholders. The lower the better. It's a bit like the inverse of gross margin, if it's easier to think of it that way. For context, this 73% gross loss ratio is suddenly within Lemonade's ideal target range. That has all been boosted a little bit further by Lemonade's Investor Day, which happened on November 19th, and leadership raised its guidance at that event to a 30% annually compounding revenue up from 20%. In particular, I think what this stems from is that they framed their growth going forward as how they will 10X their enforced premiums, and investors love the idea of a 10X. Here we are up 200% in a month. Mary Long: Let's take off the investing analyst hat and put on the creative director hat. Congrats Lemonade has a spot in this parade of stocks. What's the float itself going to look like? Kirsten Guerra: Well, Mary, it's a glass of Lemonade. Did you expect anything else? [laughs] But to further encapsulate the business a little more, I think it's a glass of Lemonade that at the start of the parade, it's going to be full of theatrics. At the start of the parade, it is fully shrouded by fog machines. You barely even know what it is, except that there's this big pink and yellow sign that says it's Lemonade, and that's it. That's really all you have to go on. But as the parade progresses, the fog slowly lets up and you start to see a little more detail. What do you know? With more time to scale the business or to skill the parade route. You see less fog, less uncertainty, and it really does start to look like the Lemonade you were told to expect all along. Potentially, by the end of the parade, you can see the full glass of Lemonade as a float, unobscured by any fog, and you see shareholders are actually swimming in it. But that's if the float makes it to the end, of course. I'd say you and I are maybe like a third of the way down the parade route where we are seeing it now. It's still fairly obscured what this float might be. But there's definitely a clear outline, at this point, a clearer outline that this could indeed be Lemonade as leadership has been telling us all along. Beyonce is the performer on this float naturally. Mary Long: There's a really beautiful metaphor in there that we could pull on about seeing the glass half empty, going to seeing that. Kirsten Guerra: How did I miss that? Mary Long: I think that was woven in to everything that you described. You were just being far more subtle about it, and I had to draw that out. Kirsten Guerra: That was absolutely intended. Thank you for making that so clear. Mary Long: I promised you that I would bring a stock to our parade as well. This one I don't own, but it's gotten on my radar just even within the past few days. I was in Phoenix this past weekend staying with some friends who work at Dutch Bros Coffee. They began as Bro-Ristas like, when they were 15 and worked their way up and now are in the corporate side of this company. This friend mentioned that she couldn't imagine a better company to work for. That made my attention. Perk up real fast. Not only was she raving about the coffee and the actual products, but just corporate culture and how they care about their employees. That got my attention, put the stock on my radar, and then a quick look into the business itself also got me pretty excited. They've got strong unit economics and store level performance. They're cranking out about $2 millions per location in average unit volumes. If you're listening and thinking, "What the heck does that mean?" We can explain it a bit by comparing it to Chipotle , which is often widely regarded as one of the most efficient players in the fast casual business. As a point of comparison, Chipotle has average unit volumes of just over $3 million. For a much smaller operation, Dutch Bros has pretty good numbers there. They're mostly on the West Coast, but they're expanding. My whole argument would be that a spot in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Stock Parade would be a great play in their national expansion plan. You've got Beyonce performing on the Lemonade Float. I would be hiring Sabrina Carpenter to sing no other than Espresso on the Dutch Bros float. I don't know. Sounds like we've got a pretty exciting parade ahead of us, Kirsten. Kirsten Guerra: That's going to be a great day. Mary Long: It's going to be a great day. With that, we'll wrap it up. Kirsten Guerra, thanks so much for joining us on Motley Fool Money. Happy Thanksgiving to you. I look forward to seeing the rest of our stock parade take place. Kirsten Guerra: Yeah, maybe it will grow next year. Happy Thanksgiving to you, Mary, and to all of our listeners. Mary Long: What stocks would you want to see in a Thanksgiving Day parade? What would your float for those stocks look like? Let us know at [email protected] . That's podcasts with s @fool.com. Up next, Robert Brokamp wraps up his conversation with Christine Benz. She's Morningstar 's director of Personal Finance and the author of How to Retire: 20 Lessons for a Happy, Successful, and Wealthy Retirement. We played Part 1 of their conversation on last Tuesday's show. Today, we'll plan the rest, where Bro and Christine discuss some of the non-financial ingredients for a successful retirement. Ricky Mulvey: Today's show is brought to you by public.com. Heads up, folks, interest rates are falling, but you can still lock in a 6% or higher yield with a bond account at public.com. That's a pretty big deal because when rates drop, so can the interest you earn on your investment. A bond account allows you to lock in a 6% or higher yield with a diversified portfolio of high-yield and investment-grade corporate bonds. While other people are watching their returns shrink, you can sit back with regular interest payments, but you might want to act fast because your yield is not locked in until you invest. The good news, it only takes a couple of minutes to sign up at public.com. Log in a 6% or higher yield with a bond account. Only at public.com/motleyfool brought to you by public investing member FINRA and SIPC, as of 92624, the average annualized yield to worst across the bond account is greater than 6%. Yield to worst is not guaranteed, not an investment recommendation. All investing involves risk, visit public.com/disclosures/bonds-account for more info. Robert Brokamp: You mentioned Roth conversions, contributing to Roths. It's one of the big decisions. Are you going to go with a Traditional account? Are you going to go with Roth? If you have traditional money, do you convert to Roth? How do you think through that decision, particularly now when tax rates are historically on the lower side? Christine Benz: If you talk to Ed Slott, who's a tax expert, he would be like, all worth all the time, basically, because of the secularly low tax rates that we have today. I do think it's pretty individual-specific. I often talk to groups of new employees at Morningstar, really smart people from good colleges. My guess is that we probably aren't paying them as much as they will eventually earn in their careers and their tax rate in retirement may in fact be higher than it is today. For them, it's an easy answer. Go Roth. For the late career saver who perhaps has not yet saved that much for retirement, the Roth contributions aren't necessarily a slam dunk that you may be in a higher tax bracket today than you will be in retirement, so you're better off taking that tax break, making the traditional tax-deferred contributions, receiving that deduction on your pre-tax contributions. It's individual-specific, but one thing I would say for a lot of people in my age cohort, many of us started our careers where the traditional tax-deferred accounts were the only game in town and so until very recently, all of our matching contributions were going into traditional tax-deferred accounts. That was the only option for company retirement plans. Many of us have built very substantial traditional tax-deferred balances, and even if we are in our peak earnings years where that tax break on our contributions might be valuable, tax diversification is a valuable tool, too. In retirement, if you have some assets that are Roth that can come out tax-free, there's something to be said for that. I've actually probably running counter to what might make sense from a math standpoint. I've actually been fully funding Roth contributions to my company retirement plan and also doing after-tax contributions, which I won't bore you with the details of that, but I just want that tax diversification and the opportunity to have some tax-free withdrawals in retirement, and you get that with Roth accounts. Robert Brokamp: Part of the math is, if you think you're going to be in a higher tax bracket in the future, the Roth makes sense. That's partially just making an estimate of how much money you'll have in retirement. It's partially also trying to look to the future and say where tax rates will be. Again, talking about what I would write in the early 2000 after the Bush tax cuts, and then we had some wars and the recession, and Social Security is underfunded. I would write back then, enjoy these tax rates now taxes have to go up in the future. Here we are. We're probably going to get another tax cut here soon. Do you even try to project that anymore? Like do you think we should just assume tax rates are going to stay low forever, even though I don't know as a country how that math works out? Christine Benz: I think we have to work with the tax rules that we have. We do have tax rates set to expire at the end of 2025. The Trump tax package was set to sunset. I think there's a general perception that it will be renewed for 2026 and beyond. I think we have to deal with the tax laws that we have today rather than thinking too much about how things might change. You're absolutely right, Robert, that it seems like the general mood in Washington for the past couple of decades has been to keep tax rates nice and low. This seems true, really for both parties, as far as I can tell. Robert Brokamp: In your book, you cover a lot of non-financial aspects of retirement planning. In fact, you wrote, the more I've learned about retirement planning, the more I've come to understand that whether when and how to retire is less than 50% related to money. What else should people be thinking about when it comes to retirement planning? Christine Benz: I have to say I was guilty of this. I toil on a lot of retirement income research, and my articles are talking about the financial aspects of retirement and that when I thought about some of my favorite conversations that I've had for the podcasts that I work on, which is called The Long View, I realized that many of them were actually non-financial conversations. I think I had been underrating the importance of things like identity, that many of us have some sense of identity conferred by our jobs. When we walk away from that, we lose a little bit of that. This is particularly true for people in high-status professions doctors and attorneys and so forth. But even for regular folks like me, I think, if I retire fully when I retire, I'll be walking around, like, don't you know who I was there's a sense that what you do for your job is who you are and so there's that. There is the relationships that we get through our colleagues, real friendships that we have with colleagues, if we haven't built out a social network apart from that's a risk. You might overrate the extent to which you will stay in touch with those colleagues when you're no longer there sitting alongside them or seeing them on Zoom meetings or whatever. Identity relationships, and then perhaps most important is a purpose that work gives us a sense of the fact that we're contributing to the conversation, we're adding value to the world that we live in. If you haven't taken steps to replace that purpose in retirement, you may feel a sense of loss there as well. I love the idea of people in the 10-year runway leading up to retirement, taking a step back and thinking about the whole picture. Certainly, run the financial calculators, do your spreadsheets on what your budget will look like in retirement, do all that stuff, but also give due weight to the non-financial side of the ledger. Robert Brokamp: I'm one of those people who will often say, I don't know if I'll ever retire, but there are days when, like, work is so busy, and then I come home and then there's the kids and everyone wants something from you. I'm like, maybe retire would be nice. But then I think the only thing worse than everyone wanting something from you is no one wanting anything from you. I think that's the whole point you're getting to. Like, you don't want to feel irrelevant. You don't want to feel like there aren't people who are looking forward to spending time with you and working on you. You want to have some project intellectual stimulation. I thought one of the interesting points made by someone in your book Jordan Grum. I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name correctly. Christine Benz: Yes, you are. Robert Brokamp: He's a hospice doctor. He wrote a book about what people tell him toward the end of their lives. He made the distinction between the Big P purpose and the Small P purpose. If you think of the Big P purpose, it's often like, I need to change the world, and that actually causes a lot of anxiety. Where it's the small p purpose that we should be looking for because it's really we're doing it for our own satisfaction. There is still consequence for people, but it's really what brings us happiness. Christine Benz: Yeah, I love that section. I remember I told my husband, I'm going to make Jordan's chapter the last, and my husband knows Jordan. He was like, a hospice doctor? Seriously, the last chapter. But I find it really uplifting, in part because he's reassuring about that, that he calls it purpose anxiety, that people think. Oh, I need to write a novel or start a foundation or something really dramatic. That's big P purpose. But his point is, a set of small p purposes, whether it's like gardening or being a terrific parent or grandparent or pursuing some hobby that you've been a little bit interested in cultivating a suite of those things is just fine, too. When we think about older individuals in our lives, probably our parents, we probably call upon those things like. Oh, Dad loved to garden and go to the opera and played the Opera for us and all that stuff. Those are beautiful memories and very much a part of legacy as much as some of those big P purpose achievements might be. Robert Brokamp: Of course, we get some of that from work. I'm going to read a line from your book here. You wrote, the more I've worked on retirement, the more I've concluded that many people should continue working in some capacity if they can and not just for financial reasons. In your opinion, is retirement good for people? Christine Benz: Laura Carstensen, who's a researcher at Stanford, head of the Stanford Center on Longevity, actually makes the provocative point in the book that maybe it's not that provocative that work is good for people. It doesn't need to be paid work, but getting back to this idea of purpose, she just thinks that the way we work in this country is all wrong. That people show up in retirement. They're so burned out. They haven't been able to visualize anything about what retirement might look like beyond like Netflix and just leisure activities, which is great. We all look forward to having more of that stuff. But the point is that if you have some pursuits, and again, they may be paid, maybe unpaid, those are the things that will give you something to relax from. It's all about balance that ideally you would want some things that can for a purpose, get you out in the world, get you mixing and mingling with other people. Then you would just have that pure relaxation stuff, whether it's called for travel or reading or whatever is in that category for you. Robert Brokamp: Now, Jordan made this point, and it's a point often made by Carl Richards, too, another financial writer about it can be just like what you subtract from your life, getting rid of the things that drain you so that you could focus on the things that you really derive value from. Christine Benz: Yeah, I love that idea. I've been encouraging people to use what I call the Sunday night calendar test, where you take a look at what's coming up for the week ahead and make some mental notes on that. For me, one thing I love is when I see that wide open day, actually, where I know that's going to be a writing, researching day, not a lot of meetings and so take mental notes of those things that you would perhaps like to continue doing longer and those things that you want to pull back from. If you're in good standing with your employer in the years leading up to retirement, I think this can be an active process, an active discussion/negotiation where you are saying. Well, I want to keep doing this set of things and I want to do less of x, y, and z. I think that's a valuable exercise. The challenging part is that some of the things that we've gotten good at probably are the things that our employers most want us to continue doing, but they may not be the things that we love. It's not always going to line up perfectly where your employers like, go, go, go and letting you shed all of the things that you don't love as much. But I think it's a way to ease into retirement so that by the time you hit retirement age, you're doing a more agreeable set of tasks. Some people might listen to this and be like. You're nuts. I hate everything I'm doing, and I know people like this. In which case, the healthiest best thing is. Okay, so let's think about what you will do instead of that because encouraging you to keep doing something that you are not enjoying in any way, shape, or form isn't good for anyone. Robert Brokamp: Now, the evidence on whether retirement is good for us is very mixed. There are plenty of studies that find that people who retired die sooner, suffer some cognitive and physical decline sooner, become depressed. But there are other studies that find actually no people are happier. I think it does depend on what you're tiring from and what you're retiring too because there are some jobs that are very arduous, physically demanding, or frankly just boring, and certainly being able to retire from those is pretty good. Christine Benz: 100% and the data on happiness in retirement, it's hopelessly polluted by wealth and health that we do see a tight connection. The healthier and wealthier in our population tend to be able to work longer. They're the ones who are expressing a lot of life satisfaction. They have more longevity on their side, too, so it's really hard to disentangle. Healthier people are able to work longer, and so they're able to stay healthier longer. It's really hard to disentangle. Mary Long: As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and are not approved by advertisers. Motley Fool only picks products that it would personally recommend to friends like you. I'm Mary Long. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow, Fools.

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NoneHead coach Richie Murphy believes Ulster's 17-7 win over Connacht in Galway can be a "big moment" in the careers of some of his young squad. The northern province ended a five-game losing streak with the interpro victory and lifted themselves from 13th to eighth in the United Rugby Championship [URC] table. With Irish internationals Jacob Stockdale, Rob Baloucoune, James Hume and Stuart McCloskey all missing through injury, Ulster arguably had just one of their preferred outside backs available, and Mike Lowry played the game despite suffering from a dead leg. Up front, Alan O'Connor and Rob Herring were late scratches from a pack already without skipper Iain Henderson. "We're delighted to get the win," Murphy said. "Before travelling up during the week we lost a few boys and even in the warm-up we lost Rob Herring. "We're missing a lot of experience out on the pitch. For the boys to come in and do as well as they done, and for those backs to come in and play the likes of Bundee [Aki] and Mack [Hansen], is massively exciting for us." Ulster had been without a win of any kind since beating Ospreys on 18 October with Murphy now wanting to see those young players who performed so well in Galway go on to drive greater competition in the squad once the injury issues ease. "Every win is worth the same amount of points, so it's just another win," he added. "But off the back of five losses, off the back of the players that we're missing, that's a huge moment in the careers of some of the younger guys. "The challenge for them will be getting better every week and trying to become more comfortable at this level. Competition within the squad is what we need and that's the challenge from now on." With no game next weekend - Ulster are next in action away to Leicester Tigers in the Champions Cup on 11 January - there will be some time to get injured players back, although Murphy said it was likely only Ethan McIlroy, Stewart Moore and Henderson would be in the frame to return at Welford Road.Developed countries made a final offer of $300 billion annually by 2035 to help developing countries tackle climate change, hours after two groups of the world's most climate-vulnerable countries stormed out of the negotiating room at COP29. The $300 billion figure, however, is a far cry from the $1.3 trillion the Global South has been demanding in the three years of talks. The offer is part of the draft deal on a new climate finance package for developing nations, or the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), which will be put before countries for approval in a plenary session shortly. The new amount will replace the $100 billion figure pledged in 2009. The draft deal also introduces the Baku to Belem Roadmap, an important request for Africa and other developing country groups to lay out a meaningful process towards aligning the global finance system with achieving the USD 1.3 trillion goal by 2035. Also Read: Paying ‘huge costs’ for climate action: India at COP29 Issued after tiring, mind-numbing negotiations that continued for an extra day, it said countries would marshal a total of $300 billion per year by 2035 from a wide variety of sources -- public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources. There are references to Article 9 of the Paris Agreement explicitly, which makes clear that leadership in finance should be taken by developed countries. The previous draft referred to Article 9.3, under which developed countries do not have a legal obligation to do so. The $1.3 trillion figure is in the document, but it calls on "all actors", including public and private, to "work together" to reach this level by 2035. It does not place the responsibility solely on developed countries. It encourages developing countries to make additional contributions, including through South-South cooperation, to the goal but doesn't mention any specific amounts for least developed countries and small island states or for loss and damage. The talks were thrown into turmoil after negotiators from the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) walked out of the meeting of the heads of delegation, saying they were being "ignored" during consultations. The LDCs said they were not consulted on the draft, which lacked a minimum financial allocation for them. "Small Island Developing States and LDCs are among the very worst impacted by this climate crisis that we did not cause. Yet we have found ourselves continuously insulted by the lack of inclusion; our calls are being ignored," the AOSIS said in a statement. Countries were required to reach an agreement on the new climate finance package for the developing world at the UN climate conference in Baku. Developing nations have repeatedly said they need at least $1.3 trillion annually — 13 times the $100 billion pledged in 2009 —starting from 2025 to meet their escalating climate challenges. Published - November 24, 2024 03:35 am IST Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit summit / environmental politics / environmental cleanup

A range of independent TDs are contemplating the prospect of entering Ireland’s next coalition government as Fianna Fail and Fine Gael consider ways to secure a solid majority. Three long days of counting in the General Election finished late on Monday night when the final two seats were declared in the constituency of Cavan-Monaghan. Fianna Fail was the clear winner of the election, securing 48 of the Dail parliament’s 174 seats. Sinn Fein took 39 and Fine Gael 38. Labour and the Social Democrats both won 11 seats; People Before Profit-Solidarity took three; Aontu secured two; and the Green Party retained only one of its 12 seats. Independents and others accounted for 21 seats. The return of a Fianna Fail/Fine Gael-led coalition is now highly likely. However, their combined seat total of 86 leaves them just short of the 88 needed for a majority in the Dail. While the two centrist parties that have dominated Irish politics for a century could look to strike a deal with one of the Dail’s smaller centre-left parties, such as the Social Democrats or Labour, a more straightforward route to a majority could be achieved by securing the support of several independent TDs. For Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin and current taoiseach and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris, wooing like-minded independents would be likely to involve fewer policy concessions, and financial commitments, than would be required to convince another party to join the government benches. Longford-Westmeath independent TD Kevin “Boxer” Moran, who served in a Fine Gael-led minority government between 2017 and 2020, expressed his willingness to listen to offers to join the new coalition in Dublin. “Look, my door’s open,” he told RTE. “Someone knocks, I’m always there to open it.” Marian Harkin, an independent TD for Sligo-Leitrim, expressed her desire to participate in government as she noted that Fianna Fail and Fine Gael were within “shouting distance” of an overall majority. “That means they will be looking for support, and I certainly will be one of those people who will be speaking to them and talking to them and negotiating with them, and I’m looking forward to doing that, because that was the reason that I ran in the first place,” she said. Meanwhile, the Social Democrats and Irish Labour Party both appear cautious about the prospect of an alliance with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. They will no doubt be mindful of the experience of the Green Party, the junior partner in the last mandate. The Greens experienced near wipeout in the election, retaining only one of their 12 seats. Sinn Fein appears to currently have no realistic route to government, given Fianna Fail and Fine Gael’s ongoing refusal to share power with the party. Despite the odds being stacked against her party, Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald contacted the leaders of the Social Democrats and Labour on Monday to discuss options. Earlier, Fianna Fail deputy leader and outgoing Finance Minister Jack Chambers predicted that a new coalition government would not be in place before Christmas. Mr Chambers said planned talks about forming an administration required “time and space” to ensure that any new government will be “coherent and stable”. After an inconclusive outcome to the 2020 election, it took five months for Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Greens to strike the last coalition deal. Mr Chambers said he did not believe it would take that long this time, as he noted the Covid-19 pandemic was a factor in 2020, but he also made clear it would not be a swift process. He said he agreed with analysis that there was no prospect of a deal before Christmas. “I don’t expect a government to be formed in mid-December, when the Dail is due to meet on December 18, probably a Ceann Comhairle (speaker) can be elected, and there’ll have to be time and space taken to make sure we can form a coherent, stable government,” he told RTE. “I don’t think it should take five months like it did the last time – Covid obviously complicated that. But I think all political parties need to take the time to see what’s possible and try and form a stable government for the Irish people.” Fine Gael minister of state Peter Burke said members of his parliamentary party would have to meet to consider their options before giving Mr Harris a mandate to negotiate a new programme for government with Fianna Fail. “It’s important that we have a strong, stable, viable government, whatever form that may be, to ensure that we can meet the challenges of our society, meet the challenges in terms of the economic changes that are potentially going to happen,” he told RTE. Despite being set to emerge with the most seats, it has not been all good news for Fianna Fail. The party’s outgoing Health Minister Stephen Donnelly became one of the biggest casualties of the election when he lost his seat in Wicklow in the early hours of Monday morning. Mr Donnelly was always predicted to face a fight in the constituency after boundary changes saw it reduced from five to four seats. If it is to be a reprise of the Fianna Fail/Fine Gael governing partnership of the last mandate, one of the major questions is around the position of taoiseach and whether the parties will once again take turns to hold the Irish premiership during the lifetime of the new government. The outcome in 2020 saw the parties enter a coalition on the basis that the holder of the premier position would be exchanged midway through the term. Fianna Fail leader Mr Martin took the role for the first half of the mandate, with Leo Varadkar taking over in December 2022. Current Fine Gael leader Mr Harris succeeded Mr Varadkar as taoiseach when he resigned from the role earlier this year. However, this time Fianna Fail has significantly increased its seat lead over Fine Gael, compared with the last election when there were only three seats between the parties. The size of the disparity in party numbers is likely to draw focus on the rotating taoiseach arrangement, raising questions as to whether it will be re-run in the next coalition and, if it is, on what terms. On Sunday, Simon Coveney, a former deputy leader of Fine Gael, said a coalition that did not repeat the rotating taoiseach arrangement in some fashion would be a “difficult proposition” for his party. Meanwhile, Fine Gael minister Paschal Donohoe said he would be making the case for Mr Harris to have another opportunity to serve as taoiseach. On Monday, Mr Chambers said while his party would expect to lead the government it would approach the issue of rotating the taoiseach’s role on the basis of “mutual respect” with Fine Gael. “I think the context of discussions and negotiations will be driven by mutual respect, and that’s the glue that will drive a programme for government and that’s the context in which we’ll engage,” he said. On Monday, Labour leader Ivana Bacik reiterated her party’s determination to forge an alliance with fellow centre-left parties with the intention of having a unified approach to the prospect of entering government. Asked if Labour was prepared to go into government with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael on its own, she told RTE: “No, not at this stage. We are absolutely not willing to do that. “We want to ensure there’s the largest number of TDs who share our vision and our values who want to deliver change on the same basis that we do.” The Social Democrats have been non-committal about any potential arrangement with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, and have restated a series of red lines they would need to achieve before considering taking a place in government. Leader Holly Cairns, who gave birth to a daughter on polling day on Friday, said in a statement: “The party is in a very strong position to play an important role in the next Dail. In what position, government or opposition, remains to be seen.” Fianna Fail secured the most first preference votes in Friday’s proportional representation election, taking 21.9% to Fine Gael’s 20.8%. Sinn Fein came in third on 19%. While Sinn Fein’s vote share represented a marked improvement on its disappointing showing in June’s local elections in Ireland, it is still significantly down on the 24.5% poll-topping share it secured in the 2020 general election. The final breakdown of first preferences also flipped the result of Friday night’s exit poll, which suggested Sinn Fein was in front on 21.1%, with Fine Gael on 21% and Fianna Fail on 19.5%.TRX Continues To Dominate SOL and ETH For Fees, While Lightchain AI Dominates All 3 For GainsSports on TV for Sunday, Dec. 29