casino game kivabe khele In this article APP MSTR PLTR HOOD NVDA Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia Corp., holds up the company's AI accelerator chips for data centers as he speaks during the Nvidia AI Summit Japan in Tokyo on Nov. 13, 2024. Akio Kon | Bloomberg | Getty Images Artificial intelligence is still an abstract concept for many everyday consumers unsure about how it will change their lives. But there's no question about whether businesses are finding value in it. Some of the biggest winners in this year's stock market rally that's seen the Nasdaq jump 33% and other U.S. indexes notch double-digit gains have direct ties to the rapid advancements in AI. Chipmaker Nvidia is among them, but it's not alone. The other standout theme that's driven this year's outperformers is crypto. Starting with the launch of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds in January, cryptocurrencies had a big 2024, punctuated by Donald Trump's election victory, which was funded heavily by the crypto industry. A number of stocks tied to crypto got a big boost. With four trading days left in the year, here are the five best-performing U.S. tech stocks of 2024 among companies valued at $5 billion or more. AppLovin Adam Foroughi, CEO of AppLovin. CNBC AppLovin entered the year with a market cap of about $13 billion and was best known for investing in a collection of mobile gaming studios that had produced titles like "Woody Block Puzzle," "Clockmaker" and "Bingo Story." As it exits the year, AppLovin's valuation has soared past $110 billion, making it worth more than Starbucks , Intel and Airbnb . At Tuesday's close, AppLovin shares are up 758% this year, far surpassing all other tech companies. While AppLovin went public in 2021, riding a Covid-era wave of excitement in online games, the business is now centered around online ads and booming profits from advancements in AI. Last year, AppLovin released the updated 2.0 version of its ad search engine called AXON, which helps put more targeted ads on the gaming apps the company owns and is also used by studios that license the technology. Software platform revenue in the third quarter increased 66% to $835 million, outpacing total growth of 39%. Net income in the quarter soared 300%, lifting the company's profit margin to 36.3% from 12.6% in the course of a year. AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi, whose net worth has swelled past $10 billion, is even more excited about what's coming. On the company's earnings call in November, Foroughi raved about a test e-commerce project that allows businesses to offer targeted ads in games. "In all my years, It's the best product I've ever seen released by us, fastest growing, but it's still in pilot," he said. MicroStrategy CostFoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images After climbing 346% in 2023, it was hard to imagine MicroStrategy's stock finding another gear. But it did. The company's share price has jumped 467% this year on the back of a bitcoin-buying strategy that's made founder Michael Saylor a crypto cult hero. In mid-2020, the company announced a plan to start buying bitcoin. Up to that point, MicroStrategy had been a middling business intelligence software vendor, but since then, its purchased over 444,000 bitcoins, using its ever-increasing share price as a way to sell stock, raise debt and buy more coin. It's now the world's fourth-largest holder of bitcoin, behind only creator Satoshi Nakamoto, BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust and crypto exchange Binance, with a stockpile valued at close to $44 billion. MicroStrategy's market cap has swelled from about $1.1 billion when it was just a software company to $80 billion today. While the rally was long underway prior to November, Trump's election victory last month added fuel. The stock is up 57% since then while bitcoin has gained about 44%. Trump once called bitcoin a "scam," but he was the industry's preferred choice in this election and was backed heavily by some of the leading players, including Coinbase . "With the red sweep, Bitcoin is surging up with tailwinds, and the rest of the digital assets will also begin to surge," Saylor told CNBC soon after the election. He said bitcoin remains the "safe trade" in the crypto space, but as a "digital assets framework" is put into place for the broader crypto market, "there'll be a surge in the entire digital assets industry." Palantir Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies, walks to the morning session at the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 10, 2024. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images Palantir had a lot of big runs in 2024 on its way to a 380% gain in its stock price. One of its best stretches came last month, when the software company boosted its revenue outlook a day ahead of the presidential election. The company, which sells data analytics tools to defense agencies, bumped up its target for 2024, with fourth-quarter guidance that blew away analysts' estimates. Palantir also topped results for the third quarter, leading CEO Alex Karp to declare in the earnings release , "We absolutely eviscerated this quarter, driven by unrelenting AI demand that won't slow down." The stock jumped 23% on the earnings report and then another 8.6% the next day after Trump's win. Palantir co-founder and board member Peter Thiel was a big Trump booster in the 2016 campaign and helped organize a meeting with tech execs at Trump Tower soon after that election. Karp was one of the attendees. Karp, however, openly backed Vice President Kamala Harris , the Democratic nominee, in the 2024 campaign. He told The New York Times in a story published in August that Thiel's earlier support of Trump and the backlash that followed made it "actually harder to get things done." Still, Wall Street has rallied behind Palantir following the election on optimism that more military spending will flow to the company. Karp's comments in the earnings report ahead of the election suggest the company would be fine either way. "The growth of our business is accelerating, and our financial performance is exceeding expectations as we meet an unwavering demand for the most advanced artificial intelligence technologies from our U.S. government and commercial customers," Karp said in a letter to shareholders . Analysts expect revenue growth in 2025 of about 24% to $3.5 billion, according to LSEG. Robinhood Dado Ruvic | Reuters Robinhood shares more than tripled in value this year, despite a 17% drop on Oct. 31, following disappointing earnings . Investors looked past those numbers a few days later, driving the stock up 20% after Trump's election win, as all things tied to crypto rallied. One of Robinhood's biggest growth engines is crypto, which retail investors can easily purchase on the app, alongside their stocks. Revenue from crypto transactions jumped 165% in the third quarter from a year earlier to $61 million, accounting for 10% of total net revenue. In addition to bitcoin, Robinhood users can easily buy about 20 other cryptocurrencies, ranging from popular digital assets like etherium to alt-coins such as dogecoin, Shiba Inu and Bonk. At the company's investor day in November, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said that crypto is more than just an investment but also a "disruptive technology that will change the underlying infrastructure beneath payments, loans and a wide variety of tradable assets." For the fourth quarter, analysts are expecting Robinhood to report revenue growth of over 70% to $805.7 million, according to LSEG, which would be the fastest rate of growth for any quarter since 2021, the year the company went public . Robinhood's rally this year has exceeded that of Coinbase, which has jumped 61%. But with a market cap of $70 billion, Coinbase is still twice as valuable. Nvidia watch now VIDEO 1:40 01:40 Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang makes surprise apperance on Squawk Box set Squawk Box Nvidia's astounding run has continued. Following last year's 239% gain, powered by excitement around generative AI, Nvidia soared another 183% this year, adding a whopping $2.2 trillion in market cap. Twice this year Nvidia grabbed the title of world's most valuable publicly traded company. Apple has jumped back ahead and is approaching $4 trillion, with Nvidia at $3.4 trillion and Microsoft at $3.3 trillion. Nvidia remains the biggest beneficiary of the AI boom, as the largest cloud vendors and internet companies snap up all the graphics processing units they can find. Annual revenue has increased by at least 94% in each of the past six quarters, with growth exceeding 200% three times in that stretch. CEO Jensen Huang said in the company's latest earnings report that the next-generation AI chip called Blackwell is in "full production." Finance chief Colette Kress said the company is on track for "several billion dollars" of Blackwell revenue in its fourth quarter. "Every customer is racing to be the first to market," Kress said. "Blackwell is now in the hands of all of our major partners, and they are working to bring up their data centers." While growth is expected to remain robust for a company of Nvidia's size, the inevitable slowdown is coming. Analysts are projecting year-over-year deceleration over the next several quarters with growth dipping into the mid-40s by the second half of next year. Nvidia counts on an outsized amount of revenue from a handful of tech giants, so any economic swings present significant risk to investors. That helps explain why Nvidia likes to tell Wall Street about the extensive roster of companies that are building new AI services and "are racing to accelerate development of these applications with the potential for billions of agents to be deployed in the coming years," Kress said on the earnings call. WATCH: Next year is a 'stock-picker's market' watch now VIDEO 7:49 07:49 This next year is a 'stock-picker's market,' says Hightower Advisors' Michael Farr Power Lunch

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump has identified what he sees as an all-purpose fix for what ails America: Slap huge new tariffs on foreign goods entering the United States. On Monday, Trump sent shockwaves across the nation's northern and southern borders, vowing sweeping new tariffs on Mexico, Canada , as well as China, as soon as he takes office as part of his effort to crack down on illegal immigration and drugs. In a pair of posts on his Truth Social site Trump railed against an influx of immigrants lacking permanent legal status, even though southern border apprehensions have been hovering near four-year lows. He said he would impose a 25% tax on all products entering the country from Canada and Mexico, and an additional 10% tariff on goods from China, as one of his first executive orders. He said the new tariffs would remain in place “until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” The president-elect asserts that tariffs — basically import taxes — will create more factory jobs, shrink the federal deficit, lower food prices and allow the government to subsidize childcare. Economists are generally skeptical, considering tariffs to be a mostly inefficient way for governments to raise money. They are especially alarmed by Trump’s latest proposed tariffs. Carl B. Weinberg and Rubeela Farooqi, economists with High Frequency Economics said Tuesday that energy, automobiles and food supplies will be particularly hit hard. “Imposing tariffs on trade flows into the United States without first preparing alternative sources for the goods and services affected will raise the price of imported items at once," Weinberg and Farooqi wrote. "Since many of these goods are consumer goods, households will be made poorer.” High Frequency Economics believes the threats are not meant to support new trade policy and are instead a tool to elicit some changes along the borders and for imports from Canada, Mexico and China. Though Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Trump’s tariff threats as unserious during her failed bid for the presidency, the Biden-Harris administration retained the taxes the Trump administration imposed on $360 billion in Chinese goods. And it imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles. Indeed, the United States in recent years has gradually retreated from its post-World War II role of promoting global free trade and lower tariffs. That shift has been a response to the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs, widely attributed to unfettered trade and an increasingly aggressive China. They are typically charged as a percentage of the price a buyer pays a foreign seller. In the United States, tariffs are collected by Customs and Border Protection agents at 328 ports of entry across the country. The tariff rates range from passenger cars (2.5%) to golf shoes (6%). Tariffs can be lower for countries with which the United States has trade agreements. For example, most goods can move among the United States, Mexico and Canada tariff-free because of Trump’s US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. Trump insists that tariffs are paid for by foreign countries. In fact, its is importers — American companies — that pay tariffs, and the money goes to U.S. Treasury. Those companies, in turn, typically pass their higher costs on to their customers in the form of higher prices. That's why economists say consumers usually end up footing the bill for tariffs. Still, tariffs can hurt foreign countries by making their products pricier and harder to sell abroad. Yang Zhou, an economist at Shanghai’s Fudan University, concluded in a study that Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods inflicted more than three times as much damage to the Chinese economy as they did to the U.S. economy By raising the price of imports, tariffs can protect home-grown manufacturers. They may also serve to punish foreign countries for committing unfair trade practices, like subsidizing their exporters or dumping products at unfairly low prices. Before the federal income tax was established in 1913, tariffs were a major revenue driver for the government. From 1790 to 1860, tariffs accounted for 90% of federal revenue, according to Douglas Irwin, a Dartmouth College economist who has studied the history of trade policy. Tariffs fell out of favor as global trade grew after World War II. The government needed vastly bigger revenue streams to finance its operations. In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the government is expected to collect $81.4 billion in tariffs and fees. That's a trifle next to the $2.5 trillion that's expected to come from individual income taxes and the $1.7 trillion from Social Security and Medicare taxes. Still, Trump wants to enact a budget policy that resembles what was in place in the 19th century. He has argued that tariffs on farm imports could lower food prices by aiding America’s farmers. In fact, tariffs on imported food products would almost certainly send grocery prices up by reducing choices for consumers and competition for American producers. Tariffs can also be used to pressure other countries on issues that may or may not be related to trade. In 2019, for example, Trump used the threat of tariffs as leverage to persuade Mexico to crack down on waves of Central American migrants crossing Mexican territory on their way to the United States. Trump even sees tariffs as a way to prevent wars. “I can do it with a phone call,’’ he said at an August rally in North Carolina. If another country tries to start a war, he said he’d issue a threat: “We’re going to charge you 100% tariffs. And all of a sudden, the president or prime minister or dictator or whoever the hell is running the country says to me, ‘Sir, we won’t go to war.’ ” Tariffs raise costs for companies and consumers that rely on imports. They're also likely to provoke retaliation. The European Union, for example, punched back against Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum by taxing U.S. products, from bourbon to Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Likewise, China responded to Trump’s trade war by slapping tariffs on American goods, including soybeans and pork in a calculated drive to hurt his supporters in farm country. A study by economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Zurich, Harvard and the World Bank concluded that Trump’s tariffs failed to restore jobs to the American heartland. The tariffs “neither raised nor lowered U.S. employment’’ where they were supposed to protect jobs, the study found. Despite Trump’s 2018 taxes on imported steel, for example, the number of jobs at U.S. steel plants barely budged: They remained right around 140,000. By comparison, Walmart alone employs 1.6 million people in the United States. Worse, the retaliatory taxes imposed by China and other nations on U.S. goods had “negative employment impacts,’’ especially for farmers, the study found. These retaliatory tariffs were only partly offset by billions in government aid that Trump doled out to farmers. The Trump tariffs also damaged companies that relied on targeted imports. If Trump’s trade war fizzled as policy, though, it succeeded as politics. The study found that support for Trump and Republican congressional candidates rose in areas most exposed to the import tariffs — the industrial Midwest and manufacturing-heavy Southern states like North Carolina and Tennessee.Amazon Canada's epic Boxing Day sale is here — 75+ of the best deals on Apple, Dyson, Yeti and more | LIVE UPDATES

Trump brings back government by social media

KYIV, Ukraine — NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks Tuesday after Russia attacked a central city with an experimental, hypersonic ballistic missile. escalating the nearly 33-month-old war. The conflict is “entering a decisive phase,” Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday, and “taking on very dramatic dimensions.” Ukraine’s parliament canceled a session as security was tightened following Thursday’s Russian strike on a military facility in the city of Dnipro. In a stark warning to the West, President Vladimir Putin said in a nationally televised speech the attack with the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was in retaliation for Kyiv’s use of U.S. and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory. Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks Friday during a meeting with the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense, representatives of the military-industrial complex and developers of missile systems at the Kremlin in Moscow. Vyacheslav Prokofyev, Sputnik Putin said Western air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile. Ukrainian military officials said the missile that hit Dnipro reached a speed of Mach 11 and carried six nonnuclear warheads, each releasing six submunitions. Speaking Friday to military and weapons industries officials, Putin said Russia will launch production of the Oreshnik. “No one in the world has such weapons,” he said. “Sooner or later, other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development. “We have this system now,” he added. “And this is important.” Putin said that while it isn’t an intercontinental missile, it’s so powerful that the use of several of them fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with strategic — or nuclear — weapons. Gen. Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with nuclear or conventional warheads, echoing Putin’s claim that even with conventional warheads, “the massive use of the weapon would be comparable in effect to the use of nuclear weapons.” In this photo taken from a video released Friday, a Russian serviceman operates at an undisclosed location in Ukraine. Russian Defense Ministry Press Service Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov kept up Russia's bellicose tone on Friday, blaming “the reckless decisions and actions of Western countries” in supplying weapons to Ukraine to strike Russia. Listen now and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed | SoundStack | All Of Our Podcasts "The Russian side has clearly demonstrated its capabilities, and the contours of further retaliatory actions in the event that our concerns were not taken into account have also been quite clearly outlined," he said. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, widely seen as having the warmest relations with the Kremlin in the European Union, echoed Moscow’s talking points, suggesting the use of U.S.-supplied weapons in Ukraine likely requires direct American involvement. “These are rockets that are fired and then guided to a target via an electronic system, which requires the world’s most advanced technology and satellite communications capability,” Orbán said on state radio. “There is a strong assumption ... that these missiles cannot be guided without the assistance of American personnel.” Orbán cautioned against underestimating Russia’s responses, emphasizing that the country’s recent modifications to its nuclear deployment doctrine should not be dismissed as a “bluff.” “It’s not a trick ... there will be consequences,” he said. Czech Republic's Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky speaks to journalists Friday during a joint news conference with Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andriiy Sybiha in Kyiv, Ukraine. Evgeniy Maloletka, Associated Press Separately in Kyiv, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský called Thursday’s missile strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe.” At a news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Lipavský also expressed his full support for delivering the necessary additional air defense systems to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks.” He said the Czech Republic will impose no limits on the use of its weapons and equipment given to Ukraine. Three lawmakers from Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, confirmed that Friday's previously scheduled session was called off due to the ongoing threat of Russian missiles targeting government buildings in central Kyiv. In addition, there also was a recommendation to limit the work of all commercial offices and nongovernmental organizations "in that perimeter, and local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, who said it's not the first time such a threat has been received. Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate said the Oreshnik missile was fired from the Kapustin Yar 4th Missile Test Range in Russia’s Astrakhan region and flew 15 minutes before striking Dnipro. Test launches of a similar missile were conducted in October 2023 and June 2024, the directorate said. The Pentagon confirmed the missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate-range missile based on its RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile. Thursday's attack struck the Pivdenmash plant that built ICBMs when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. The military facility is located about 4 miles southwest of the center of Dnipro, a city of about 1 million that is Ukraine’s fourth-largest and a key hub for military supplies and humanitarian aid, and is home to one of the country’s largest hospitals for treating wounded soldiers from the front before their transfer to Kyiv or abroad. We're all going to die someday. Still, how it happens—and when—can point to a historical moment defined by the scientific advancements and public health programs available at the time to contain disease and prevent accidents. In the early 1900s, America's efforts to improve sanitation, hygiene, and routine vaccinations were still in their infancy. Maternal and infant mortality rates were high, as were contagious diseases that spread between people and animals. Combined with the devastation of two World Wars—and the Spanish Flu pandemic in between—the leading causes of death changed significantly after this period. So, too, did the way we diagnose and control the spread of disease. Starting with reforms as part of Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s, massive-scale, federal interventions in the U.S. eventually helped stave off disease transmission. It took comprehensive government programs and the establishment of state and local health agencies to educate the public on preventing disease transmission. Seemingly simple behavioral shifts, such as handwashing, were critical in thwarting the spread of germs, much like discoveries in medicine, such as vaccines, and increased access to deliver them across geographies. Over the course of the 20th century, life expectancy increased by 56% and is estimated to keep increasing slightly, according to an annual summary of vital statistics published by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2000. Death Records examined data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to see how the leading causes of death in America have evolved over time and to pinpoint how some major mortality trends have dropped off. Smith Collection/Gado // Getty Images According to a report published in the journal Annual Review of Public Health in 2000, pneumonia was the leading cause of death in the early 1900s, accounting for nearly 1 in 4 deaths. By the time World War I ended in 1918, during which people and animals were housed together for long periods, a new virus emerged: the Spanish Flu. Originating in a bird before spreading to humans, the virus killed 10 times as many Americans as the war. Many died of secondary pneumonia after the initial infection. Pneumonia deaths eventually plummeted throughout the century, partly prevented by increased flu vaccine uptake rates in high-risk groups, particularly older people. Per the CDC, tuberculosis was a close second leading cause of death, killing 194 of every 10,000 people in 1900, mainly concentrated in dense urban areas where the infection could more easily spread. Eventually, public health interventions led to drastic declines in mortality from the disease, such as public education, reducing crowded housing, quarantining people with active disease, improving hygiene, and using antibiotics. Once the death rates lagged, so did the public health infrastructure built to control the disease, leading to a resurgence in the mid-1980s. Diarrhea was the third leading cause of death in 1900, surging every summer among children before the impacts of the pathogen died out in 1930. Adopting water filtration, better nutrition, and improved refrigeration were all associated with its decline. In the 1940s and 1950s, polio outbreaks killed or paralyzed upward of half a million people worldwide every year. Even at its peak, polio wasn't a leading cause of death, it was a much-feared one, particularly among parents of young children, some of whom kept them from crowded public places and interacting with other children. By 1955, when Jonah Salk discovered the polio vaccine, the U.S. had ended the "golden age of medicine." During this period, the causes of mortality shifted dramatically as scientists worldwide began to collaborate on infectious disease control, surgical techniques, vaccines, and other drugs. Death Records From the 1950s onward, once quick-spreading deadly contagions weren't prematurely killing American residents en masse, scientists also began to understand better how to diagnose and treat these diseases. As a result, Americans were living longer lives and instead succumbing to noncommunicable diseases, or NCDs. The risk of chronic diseases increased with age and, in some cases, was exacerbated by unhealthy lifestyles. Cancer and heart disease shot up across the century, increasing 90-fold from 1900 to 1998, according to CDC data. Following the post-Spanish Flu years, heart disease killed more Americans than any other cause, peaking in the 1960s and contributing to 1 in 3 deaths. Cigarette smoking rates peaked at the same time, a major risk factor for heart disease. Obesity rates also rose, creating another risk factor for heart disease and many types of cancers. This coincides with the introduction of ultra-processed foods into diets, which plays a more significant role in larger waistlines than the increasing predominance of sedentary work and lifestyles. In the early 1970s, deaths from heart disease began to fall as more Americans prevented and managed their risk factors, like quitting smoking or taking blood pressure medicine. However, the disease remains the biggest killer of Americans. Cancer remains the second leading cause of death and rates still indicate an upward trajectory over time. Only a few types of cancer are detected early by screening, and some treatments for aggressive cancers like glioblastoma—the most common type of brain cancer—have also stalled, unable to improve prognosis much over time. In recent years, early-onset cancers, those diagnosed before age 50 or sometimes even earlier, have seen a drastic rise among younger Americans. While highly processed foods and sedentary lifestyles may contribute to rising rates, a spike in cancer rates among otherwise healthy young individuals has baffled some medical professionals. This follows the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020. At its peak, high transmission rates made the virus the third leading cause of death in America. It's often compared to the Spanish Flu of 1918, though COVID-19 had a far larger global impact, spurring international collaborations among scientists who developed a vaccine in an unprecedented time. Public policy around issues of safety and access also influences causes of death, particularly—and tragically—among young Americans. Gun control measures in the U.S. are far less stringent than in peer nations; compared to other nations, however, the U.S. leads in gun violence. Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens (around 2 in 3 are homicides, and 1 in 3 are suicides), and deaths from opioids remain a leading cause of death among younger people. Globally, the leading causes of death mirror differences in social and geographic factors. NCDs are primarily associated with socio-economic status and comprise 7 out of 10 leading causes of death, 85% of those occurring in low- and middle-income countries, according to the World Health Organization. However, one of the best health measures is life expectancy at birth. People in the U.S. have been living longer lives since 2000, except for a slight dip in longevity due to COVID-19. According to the most recent CDC estimates, Americans' life expectancy is 77.5 years on average and is expected to increase slightly in the coming decades. Story editing by Alizah Salario. Additional editing by Kelly Glass. Copy editing by Paris Close. Photo selection by Lacy Kerrick. This story originally appeared on Death Records and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio. Canva

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Logistical issues meant that thousands of Namibians were still waiting to vote in pivotal presidential and legislative elections late on Wednesday as the polling stations were scheduled to close. The vote could usher in the desert nation's first woman leader even as her party, the ruling South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) faces the strongest challenge yet to its 34-year grip on power. Some voters told AFP they queued all day, for up to 12 hours, blaming technical problems which included issues with voter identification tablets or insufficient ballot papers. According to Namibia's electoral law, those in the queue before the polls closed -- scheduled at 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) -- should be allowed to vote. "We have the obligation to make sure that they pass their vote," said Petrus Shaama, chief officer of the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN). The main opposition party, the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) has blamed the ECN for the long lines and cried foul play. "We have reason to believe that the ECN is deliberately suppressing voters and deliberately trying to frustrate voters from casting their vote," said Christine Aochamus of the IPC. She said the party had "started the process" of approaching a court "to order the ECN to extend the voting time". At one polling station inside Namibia's University of Science and Technology in the capital Windhoek, hundreds of people were still in line at 09:00 pm despite some having arrived at 6:00 am, an hour before polls opened. It was a similar situation at the Museum of Independence, according to an AFP reporter, where one voter said he arrived 12 hours earlier and was still in line with hundreds of others. SWAPO's candidate and current vice president, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, was one of the first to vote and called on Namibians "to come out in their numbers". An estimated 1.5 million people in the sparsely populated nation had registered to cast their ballot. SWAPO has governed since leading mineral-rich Namibia to independence from South Africa in 1990 but complaints about unemployment and enduring inequalities could force Nandi-Ndaitwah into an unprecedented second round. Leader of the IPC, Panduleni Itula, a former dentist and lawyer said he was optimistic he could "unseat the revolutionary movement". "We will all march from there and to a new dawn and a new era of how we conduct our public affairs in this country," the 67-year-old told reporters after voting. More from this section Itula took 29 percent of votes in the 2019 elections, losing to SWAPO leader Hage Geingob with 56 percent. It was a remarkable performance considering Geingob, who died in February, had won almost 87 percent five years before that. Namibia is a major uranium and diamond exporter but not many of its nearly three million people have benefitted from that wealth. "There's a lot of mining activity that goes on in the country, but it doesn't really translate into improved infrastructure, job opportunities," said independent political analyst Marisa Lourenco, based in Johannesburg. "That's where a lot of the frustration is coming from, (especially) the youth," she said. Unemployment among 15- to 34-year-olds is estimated at 46 percent, according to the latest figures from 2018, almost triple the national average. For the first time in Namibia's recent history, analysts say a second round is a somewhat realistic option. That would take place within 60 days of the announcement of the first round of results due by Saturday. "The outcome will be tight," said self-employed Hendry Amupanda, 32, who queued since 9:00 pm the night before to cast his ballot. "I want the country to get better and people to get jobs," said Amupanda, wearing slippers and equipped with a chair, blanket and snacks. Marvyn Pescha, a self-employed consultant, said his father was part of SWAPO's liberation struggle and he was not going to abandon the party. "But I want SWAPO to be challenged for better policies. Some opportunistic leaders have tarnished the reputation of the party, they misuse it for self-enrichment," the 50-year-old said. While lauded for leading Namibia to independence, SWAPO is nervous about its standing after other liberation-era movements in the region have lost favour with young voters. In the past six months, South Africa's African National Congress lost its parliamentary majority and the Botswana Democratic Party was ousted after almost six decades in power. clv/br/lhd/sbkFinance Column: Giving Tuesday

As part of efforts to ensure food security in Ondo State, the Ondo State government has trained over 40 Extension Agents and Livestock Community Service Providers on Good Animal Husbandry Practices (GAHP). Speaking during the capacity training, which was facilitated by the State Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support (L-PRES) Project, the State L-PRES Project Coordinator, Mr. Olufemi Adeogun, said the training was a vital aspect of the project’s implementation and aimed at enhancing livestock resilience and commercialisation in the state. Adeogun said the training would help to equip extension agents and community livestock service providers with modern knowledge and techniques essential to improving livestock rearing practices. He urged the trainees to apply and disseminate the knowledge acquired during the training to livestock farmers, as their role involves directly educating and supporting farmers. Adeogun, who expressed gratitude to the state governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, for embracing the L-PRES Project, said it would significantly enhance livestock production, resilience, and commercialisation in Ondo State. He said: “This training is crucial for keeping up with emerging technologies in animal husbandry practices, which lead to better productivity. ALSO READ: Bishop Kukah to FG: Tackle unemployment, religious extremism to curb insecurity “Our goal is for those we have trained to go out and train farmers, thereby improving food security and ensuring the production of high-quality, protein-rich meat,” he said. A Professor of Agricultural Extension from the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Olaniyi Okunlola, while speaking on livestock extension methodologies, marketing strategies, and the economics of production, said the topics would help improve farmers’ production levels and benefit the entire livestock value chain. Okunlola, who highlighted the importance of record-keeping and effective monitoring in livestock farming, said: “It is essential for trainees to understand various approaches to reaching everyone involved in the value chain. “This training is designed to prepare them to operate farmers’ field schools and business schools, manage farm records, and access financial assistance for better marketing strategies,” he said. He emphasised that livestock farming is not only about production but also about adopting sound business practices to achieve project objectives. “The trainees are now equipped with increased knowledge and are expected to disseminate appropriate information to farmers and groups to improve livestock production and promote social inclusion,” he added. Speaking on behalf of the participants, Prince Adelana Adesunloye commended the state government and the L-PRES Project for the training. He said, “We are now equipped with the necessary knowledge about good animal husbandry practices, and we are ready to replicate what we have learned among farmers.” Another participant, Mrs. Babatunde Bosede, said, “This training has expanded our knowledge, particularly on gender inclusion and effective animal handling. “We are now better prepared to assist farmers and encourage their involvement in livestock production.” She described the training as “an eye-opener” and a critical step in addressing challenges faced by farmers. “This training has equipped us to play a pivotal role in achieving the objectives of the project by improving livestock production and enhancing food security in the state.” The L-PRES Project is a six-year World Bank intervention, with Ondo State being one of the twenty implementing states in the federation.