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"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum." Section 1.10.32 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum", written by Cicero in 45 BC "Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?" 1914 translation by H. Rackham "But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?" 1914 translation by H. Rackham "But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?" To keep reading, please log in to your account, create a free account, or simply fill out the form below.

Stunning Siena model home is among the final few homes available in this exclusive community CHATSWORTH, Calif., Nov. 22, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Toll Brothers, Inc. (NYSE:TOL), the nation's leading builder of luxury homes, today announced the final opportunity to own a new home at Verona Estates , an exclusive gated community in Chatsworth, California. Only a few homes remain available for sale in this prestigious community, including the professionally decorated Siena Modern Farmhouse model home. The intimate gated enclave of Verona Estates is a rare find showcasing award-winning architecture and innovative home designs. Nestled in an established Chatsworth neighborhood south of the Santa Susana Mountains and adjacent to the Vineyards at Porter Ranch, this exceptional community offers a serene and relaxed atmosphere with the convenience of nearby shopping and easy access to freeways, entertainment, and recreation. Toll Brothers residents in Verona Estates will enjoy distinctive architecture, quality craftsmanship, luxurious home designs with open floor plans, expansive home sites, and proximity to the future 50-acre Porter Ranch community park. Verona Estates offers generous two-story home designs ranging from 4,700 to 6,000+ square feet, with 5 to 6 bedrooms, 4.5 to 6.5 bathrooms, and 3-car garages. The homes also feature popular floor plan options including prep kitchens, guest suites, floating staircases, indoor and outdoor fireplaces, and more. Move-in ready homes in the community are priced from $1,979,995. "We are thrilled to offer the final opportunity to own a home in the exclusive Verona Estates community,” said Nick Norvilas, Division President of Toll Brothers in Los Angeles. "The Siena model home is a showcase of luxury and design, and we encourage interested home buyers to visit and experience this exceptional home along with the final few quick move-in homes remaining in the community firsthand.” The Siena Modern Farmhouse model home features designer upgrades throughout, including fully landscaped and furnished interiors, offering an unparalleled living experience. The professionally decorated model home is priced at $2,999,995. For more information, call 844-700-8655 or visit TollBrothers.com/LA . The Sales Center for Verona Estates is located at 20508 Edgewood Court in Chatsworth and is open by appointment only. About Toll Brothers Toll Brothers, Inc., a Fortune 500 Company, is the nation's leading builder of luxury homes. The Company was founded 57 years ago in 1967 and became a public company in 1986. Its common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "TOL.” The Company serves first-time, move-up, empty-nester, active-adult, and second-home buyers, as well as urban and suburban renters. Toll Brothers builds in over 60 markets in 24 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington, as well as in the District of Columbia. The Company operates its own architectural, engineering, mortgage, title, land development, smart home technology, and landscape subsidiaries. The Company also develops master-planned and golf course communities as well as operates its own lumber distribution, house component assembly, and manufacturing operations. In 2024, Toll Brothers marked 10 years in a row being named to the Fortune World's Most Admired CompaniesTM list and the Company's Chairman and CEO Douglas C. Yearley, Jr. was named one of 25 Top CEOs by Barron's magazine. Toll Brothers has also been named Builder of the Year by Builder magazine and is the first two-time recipient of Builder of the Year from Professional Builder magazine. For more information visit TollBrothers.com . From Fortune, ©2024 Fortune Media IP Limited. All rights reserved. Used under license. Contact: Andrea Meck | Toll Brothers, Director, Public Relations & Social Media | 215-938-8169 | [email protected] A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/cbb8cf4a-a018-4df0-955e-3cf4ab63edeb Sent by Toll Brothers via Regional Globe Newswire (TOLL-REG)

ECU CB Shavon Revel Jr. declares for NFL draftHis name has over the past few years in Cameroon become as familiar as the cause he leads. Or rather, crusades for. And so intricate is the connection those who have been keeping an eye on his activities easily make. Between him and what he expends his energy on. Toiling to ensure courteous discourse in social media use in Cameroon. Void of hate, misinformation, disinformation ...and all other deliberate attempts to distort the facts. Or create tensions, discord, threaten social cohesion and national unity . Ngala Desmond Ngala is the Country Project Manager of Defyhatenow Cameroon and the founder of Civic Watch Cameroon - both of them charities. On Friday, December 13, 2024, Ngala Desmond successfully defended a PhD thesis in Conflict Resolution in the University of Buea, Cameroon . On the topic, “New Media as Driver of Hate Speech in Pluralistic States within Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Cameroon.” His research focused on addressing hate speech and its role in fostering conflict in society. A skilled political and humanitarian analyst with over six years of professional experience in research, advocacy , and project management , Dr Ngala Desmond has a passion for peacebuilding and a commitment to combating hate speech . He has become a recognized leader in conflict resolution and humanitarian initiatives in Cameroon and beyond. Ngala holds a Master’s degree in Political Science with specialization in International Relations from the University of Yaounde II, Soa . And a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the same institution. Over the years, he has made significant contributions to various organizations, including Defyhatenow Cameroon, where he has been Country Project Manager since 2019. In this role, he has defined project goals, led initiatives to mitigate hate speech, and collaborated with UNESCO and other stakeholders to promote peace. Additionally, Ngala Desmond has served as a Project Manager for the Binka Development and Cultural Association , championing child protection and education initiatives. And as a Political Analyst for DPC SA, Cameroon, where he produced detailed analyses of Africa’s political landscape. His commitment to fostering dialogue and understanding extends to his work as a speaker and trainer. He has delivered insightful presentations at prominent events, such as META’s Online Approach to Curbing Violent Extremism, Elections Cameroon ’s workshop on hate speech during electoral periods, and UNESCO’s sessions on peacebuilding. Dr Ngala possesses advanced research and data analysis skills, strong advocacy and communication skills, tested expertise in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. As well as an in-depth knowledge of the African political landscape. In the following interview, Dr Ngala Desmond Ngala talks about his research interest in new media hate speech. Its findings, recommendations and who stands to benefit from the study: How do feel after successfully defending a PhD thesis in the University of Buea on December 13, 2024 on the topic, "New Media as Driver of Hate Speech in Pluralistic States within Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Cameroon"? I feel an immense sense of relief and accomplishment after years of very hard work and dedication, ending up in the successful defence of my thesis. Tackling the critical issue of hate speech in the context of new media in the specific case of Cameroon has been both challenging and rewarding. I am incredibly proud of the work I have done, and I am grateful for the invaluable support from my advisors, colleagues, family, and friends throughout this journey. Having renowned professors acknowledge my research has further deepened my pride, as it reinforces the belief that my work contributes to nation-building. This experience has enhanced my understanding of the role new media plays in shaping discourse within pluralistic societies. I hope my findings will foster meaningful discussions and solutions regarding hate speech in Cameroon and beyond. How long did it take you to defend the thesis? It took me less than five years to complete the research on hate speech, as gathering accurate data was often quite challenging. However, through patience and dedication, I was able to accomplish the important task. What, according to you, is the significance of the topic you chose to research on? The significance of the study lies in its profound exploration of hate speech regulations and mitigation within diverse societies, particularly in the context of Cameroon. At this specific point in time, there is a pressing need to prevent disagreements and conflicts that can arise due to hate speech. This will contribute to harmonious coexistence among various social groups. The research aimed to provide a comprehensive investigation into hate speech regulation and mitigation, addressing various aspects, ranging from scientific advancement to sociocultural insights and political implications. By so doing, it strove to foster more harmonious coexistence among diverse social groups and offered valuable insights for policymakers, academics, media organizations and the civil society. What did you set out to discover? And what were the key findings? Our primary focus was to explore the role of new media in promoting and influencing hate speech within the diverse societal landscape of Cameroon. Specifically, we aimed to understand the extent to which new media serves as a platform for hate speech, assess its impact on inter-communal relationships, and evaluate the effectiveness of existing legal and institutional mechanisms established by the Cameroonian government to regulate the issue. Our findings revealed a significant concern: a staggering 394 out of 401 respondents indicated that Cameroonian politicians actively utilize hate speech when addressing the public through various media channels, highlighting the pervasive nature of the phenomenon. This overwhelming consensus suggests that new media not only facilitates the spread of hate speech, but also plays a critical role in shaping public discourse in Cameroon. Furthermore, we found that the dissemination of hate speech through new media has a detrimental effect on inter-communal relationships, fostering division and mistrust among different ethnic groups. Lastly, our evaluation of existing regulatory frameworks indicated that they are largely ineffective in curbing hate speech, emphasizing the urgent need for more robust policies and enforcement mechanisms to address this pressing issue. What then did you recommend as the possible solutions to the problems identified? The major recommendations of the study include a call for the immediate implementation of Law N° 2019/020 of 24 December 2019, which amends provisions of Law No. 2016/7 of 12 July 2016, specifically addressing contempt and hate speech. Also, lawmakers should lobby for stronger regulations on hate speech and hold social media companies accountable. This is intended to ensure stricter enforcement against hate speech in Cameroon. The study also recommends the creation of a clear and comprehensive regulation to effectively address hate speech, particularly within the context of new media. The research lays emphasis on the need for educational initiatives that raise awareness on the risks of hate speech, focused on fostering mutual respect and understanding in a multicultural and pluralistic society like Cameroon. Similarly, it highlights the need for collaboration between the government, civil society, and the private sector to develop holistic strategies to combat hate speech. While highlighting the need to analyse hate speech in various languages to capture a comprehensive picture. What were the limitations of your study? I encountered a number of challenges in carrying out the research. While the study makes a valuable contribution to understanding the role of new media in the proliferation of hate speech, it is also important to acknowledge its limitations. The study is primarily focused on Cameroon. Though it provides valuable insights into the Cameroonian context, the findings may not be directly generalizable to other Sub-Saharan African c...

NEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump's lawyers urged a judge again Friday to throw out his hush money conviction, balking at the prosecution's suggestion of preserving the verdict by treating the case the way some courts do when a defendant dies. They called the idea "absurd." The Manhattan district attorney's office asked Judge Juan M. Merchan to "pretend as if one of the assassination attempts against President Trump had been successful," Trump's lawyers wrote in a 23-page response. In court papers made public Tuesday, District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office proposed an array of options for keeping the historic conviction on the books after Trump's lawyers filed paperwork this month asking for the case to be dismissed. They include freezing the case until Trump leaves office in 2029, agreeing that any future sentence won't include jail time, or closing the case by noting he was convicted but that he wasn't sentenced and his appeal wasn't resolved because of presidential immunity. People are also reading... Former President Donald Trump appears May 30 at Manhattan criminal court during jury deliberations in his criminal hush money trial in New York. Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove reiterated Friday their position that the only acceptable option is overturning his conviction and dismissing his indictment, writing that anything less will interfere with the transition process and his ability to lead the country. The Manhattan district attorney's office declined comment. It's unclear how soon Merchan will decide. He could grant Trump's request for dismissal, go with one of the prosecution's suggestions, wait until a federal appeals court rules on Trump's parallel effort to get the case moved out of state court, or choose some other option. In their response Friday, Blanche and Bove ripped each of the prosecution's suggestions. Halting the case until Trump leaves office would force the incoming president to govern while facing the "ongoing threat" that he'll be sentenced to imprisonment, fines or other punishment as soon as his term ends, Blanche and Bove wrote. Trump, a Republican, takes office Jan. 20. The prosecution's suggestion that Merchan could mitigate those concerns by promising not to sentence Trump to jail time on presidential immunity grounds is also a non-starter, Blanche and Bove wrote. The immunity statute requires dropping the case, not merely limiting sentencing options, they contend. Attorney Todd Blanche listens May 30 as his client Donald Trump speaks at Manhattan criminal court during jury deliberations in his criminal hush money trial in New York. Blanche and Bove, both of whom Trump tapped for high-ranking Justice Department positions, expressed outrage at the prosecution's novel suggestion that Merchan borrow from Alabama and other states and treat the case as if Trump died. Blanche and Bove accused prosecutors of ignoring New York precedent and attempting to "fabricate" a solution "based on an extremely troubling and irresponsible analogy between President Trump" who survived assassination attempts in Pennsylvania in July and Florida in September "and a hypothetical dead defendant." Such an option normally comes into play when a defendant dies after being convicted but before appeals are exhausted. It is unclear whether it is viable under New York law, but prosecutors suggested that Merchan could innovate in what's already a unique case. "This remedy would prevent defendant from being burdened during his presidency by an ongoing criminal proceeding," prosecutors wrote in their filing this week. But at the same time, it wouldn't "precipitously discard" the "meaningful fact that defendant was indicted and found guilty by a jury of his peers." Prosecutors acknowledged that "presidential immunity requires accommodation" during Trump's impending return to the White House but argued that his election to a second term should not upend the jury's verdict, which came when he was out of office. Longstanding Justice Department policy says sitting presidents cannot face criminal prosecution. Other world leaders don't enjoy the same protection. For example, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on trial on corruption charges even as he leads that nation's wars in Lebanon and Gaza. President-elect Donald Trump attends a Dec. 7 meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Trump has fought for months to reverse his May 30 conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors said he fudged the documents to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to suppress her claim that they had sex a decade earlier, which Trump denies. Trump's hush money conviction was in state court, meaning a presidential pardon — issued by Biden or himself when he takes office — would not apply to the case. Presidential pardons only apply to federal crimes. Since the election, special counsel Jack Smith ended his two federal cases, which pertained to Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and allegations that he hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. A separate state election interference case in Fulton County, Georgia, is largely on hold. Trump denies wrongdoing in each case. Trump was scheduled for sentencing in the hush money case in late November, but following Trump's Nov. 5 election win, Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed the former and future president's sentencing so the defense and prosecution could weigh in on the future of the case. Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime and the first convicted criminal to be elected to the office. Here are the people Trump picked for key positions so far President-elect Donald Trump Among President-elect Donald Trump's picks are Susie Wiles for chief of staff, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state, former Democratic House member Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general. Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, 67, was a senior adviser to Trump's 2024 presidential campaign and its de facto manager. Marco Rubio, Secretary of State Trump named Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to be secretary of state, making a former sharp critic his choice to be the new administration's top diplomat. Rubio, 53, is a noted hawk on China, Cuba and Iran, and was a finalist to be Trump's running mate on the Republican ticket last summer. Rubio is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries,” Trump said of Rubio in a statement. The announcement punctuates the hard pivot Rubio has made with Trump, whom the senator called a “con man" during his unsuccessful campaign for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. Their relationship improved dramatically while Trump was in the White House. And as Trump campaigned for the presidency a third time, Rubio cheered his proposals. For instance, Rubio, who more than a decade ago helped craft immigration legislation that included a path to citizenship for people in the U.S. illegally, now supports Trump's plan to use the U.S. military for mass deportations. Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, 44, is a co-host of Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend” and has been a contributor with the network since 2014, where he developed a friendship with Trump, who made regular appearances on the show. Hegseth lacks senior military or national security experience. If confirmed by the Senate, he would inherit the top job during a series of global crises — ranging from Russia’s war in Ukraine and the ongoing attacks in the Middle East by Iranian proxies to the push for a cease-fire between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah and escalating worries about the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea. Hegseth is also the author of “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” published earlier this year. Pam Bondi, Attorney General Trump tapped Pam Bondi, 59, to be attorney general after U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration. She was Florida's first female attorney general, serving between 2011 and 2019. She also was on Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment trial in 2020. Considered a loyalist, she served as part of a Trump-allied outside group that helped lay the groundwork for his future administration called the America First Policy Institute. Bondi was among a group of Republicans who showed up to support Trump at his hush money criminal trial in New York that ended in May with a conviction on 34 felony counts. A fierce defender of Trump, she also frequently appears on Fox News and has been a critic of the criminal cases against him. Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security Trump picked South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a well-known conservative who faced sharp criticism for telling a story in her memoir about shooting a rambunctious dog, to lead an agency crucial to the president-elect’s hardline immigration agenda. Noem used her two terms leading a tiny state to vault to a prominent position in Republican politics. South Dakota is usually a political afterthought. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, Noem did not order restrictions that other states had issued and instead declared her state “open for business.” Trump held a fireworks rally at Mount Rushmore in July 2020 in one of the first large gatherings of the pandemic. She takes over a department with a sprawling mission. In addition to key immigration agencies, the Department of Homeland Security oversees natural disaster response, the U.S. Secret Service, and Transportation Security Administration agents who work at airports. Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior The governor of North Dakota, who was once little-known outside his state, Burgum is a former Republican presidential primary contender who endorsed Trump, and spent months traveling to drum up support for him, after dropping out of the race. Burgum was a serious contender to be Trump’s vice presidential choice this summer. The two-term governor was seen as a possible pick because of his executive experience and business savvy. Burgum also has close ties to deep-pocketed energy industry CEOs. Trump made the announcement about Burgum joining his incoming administration while addressing a gala at his Mar-a-Lago club, and said a formal statement would be coming the following day. In comments to reporters before Trump took the stage, Burgum said that, in recent years, the power grid is deteriorating in many parts of the country, which he said could raise national security concerns but also drive up prices enough to increase inflation. “There's just a sense of urgency, and a sense of understanding in the Trump administration,” Burgum said. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ran for president as a Democrat, than as an independent, and then endorsed Trump . He's the son of Democratic icon Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated during his own presidential campaign. The nomination of Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services alarmed people who are concerned about his record of spreading unfounded fears about vaccines . For example, he has long advanced the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism. Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, 62, is a former George Soros money manager and an advocate for deficit reduction. He's the founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management, after having worked on-and-off for Soros Fund Management since 1991. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the nation’s first openly gay treasury secretary. He told Bloomberg in August that he decided to join Trump’s campaign in part to attack the mounting U.S. national debt. That would include slashing government programs and other spending. “This election cycle is the last chance for the U.S. to grow our way out of this mountain of debt without becoming a sort of European-style socialist democracy,” he said then. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Labor Secretary Oregon Republican U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer narrowly lost her reelection bid this month, but received strong backing from union members in her district. As a potential labor secretary, she would oversee the Labor Department’s workforce, its budget and put forth priorities that impact workers’ wages, health and safety, ability to unionize, and employer’s rights to fire employers, among other responsibilities. Chavez-DeRemer is one of few House Republicans to endorse the “Protecting the Right to Organize” or PRO Act would allow more workers to conduct organizing campaigns and would add penalties for companies that violate workers’ rights. The act would also weaken “right-to-work” laws that allow employees in more than half the states to avoid participating in or paying dues to unions that represent workers at their places of employment. Scott Turner, Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner is a former NFL player and White House aide. He ran the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council during Trump’s first term in office. Trump, in a statement, credited Turner, the highest-ranking Black person he’s yet selected for his administration, with “helping to lead an Unprecedented Effort that Transformed our Country’s most distressed communities.” Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is a former House member from Wisconsin who was one of Trump's most visible defenders on cable news. Duffy served in the House for nearly nine years, sitting on the Financial Services Committee and chairing the subcommittee on insurance and housing. He left Congress in 2019 for a TV career and has been the host of “The Bottom Line” on Fox Business. Before entering politics, Duffy was a reality TV star on MTV, where he met his wife, “Fox and Friends Weekend” co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy. They have nine children. Chris Wright, Secretary of Energy A campaign donor and CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, Write is a vocal advocate of oil and gas development, including fracking — a key pillar of Trump’s quest to achieve U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market. Wright also has been one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change. He said the climate movement around the world is “collapsing under its own weight.” The Energy Department is responsible for advancing energy, environmental and nuclear security of the United States. Wright also won support from influential conservatives, including oil and gas tycoon Harold Hamm. Hamm, executive chairman of Oklahoma-based Continental Resources, a major shale oil company, is a longtime Trump supporter and adviser who played a key role on energy issues in Trump’s first term. Linda McMahon, Secretary of Education President-elect Donald Trump tapped billionaire professional wrestling mogul Linda McMahon to be secretary of the Education Department, tasked with overseeing an agency Trump promised to dismantle. McMahon led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s initial term from 2017 to 2019 and twice ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut. She’s seen as a relative unknown in education circles, though she expressed support for charter schools and school choice. She served on the Connecticut Board of Education for a year starting in 2009 and has spent years on the board of trustees for Sacred Heart University in Connecticut. Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, who graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in agricultural development, is a longtime Trump associate who served as White House domestic policy chief during his first presidency. The 52-year-old is president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, a group helping to lay the groundwork for a second Trump administration. She previously served as an aide to former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and ran a think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce Trump chose Howard Lutnick, head of brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald and a cryptocurrency enthusiast, as his nominee for commerce secretary, a position in which he'd have a key role in carrying out Trump's plans to raise and enforce tariffs. Trump made the announcement Tuesday on his social media platform, Truth Social. Lutnick is a co-chair of Trump’s transition team, along with Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive who previously led Trump’s Small Business Administration. Both are tasked with putting forward candidates for key roles in the next administration. The nomination would put Lutnick in charge of a sprawling Cabinet agency that is involved in funding new computer chip factories, imposing trade restrictions, releasing economic data and monitoring the weather. It is also a position in which connections to CEOs and the wider business community are crucial. Trump Transition FILE - Former Rep. Doug Collins speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign event at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, Oct. 15, 2024, in Atlanta. Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, 27, was Trump's campaign press secretary and currently a spokesperson for his transition. She would be the youngest White House press secretary in history. The White House press secretary typically serves as the public face of the administration and historically has held daily briefings for the press corps. Leavitt, a New Hampshire native, was a spokesperson for MAGA Inc., a super PAC supporting Trump, before joining his 2024 campaign. In 2022, she ran for Congress in New Hampshire, winning a 10-way Republican primary before losing to Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas. Leavitt worked in the White House press office during Trump's first term before she became communications director for New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, Trump's choice for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Tulsi Gabbard, National Intelligence Director Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has been tapped by Trump to be director of national intelligence, keeping with the trend to stock his Cabinet with loyal personalities rather than veteran professionals in their requisite fields. Gabbard, 43, was a Democratic House member who unsuccessfully sought the party's 2020 presidential nomination before leaving the party in 2022. She endorsed Trump in August and campaigned often with him this fall. “I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community,” Trump said in a statement. Gabbard, who has served in the Army National Guard for more than two decades, deploying to Iraq and Kuwait, would come to the role as somewhat of an outsider compared to her predecessor. The current director, Avril Haines, was confirmed by the Senate in 2021 following several years in a number of top national security and intelligence positions. John Ratcliffe, Central Intelligence Agency Director Trump has picked John Ratcliffe, a former Texas congressman who served as director of national intelligence during his first administration, to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency in his next. Ratcliffe was director of national intelligence during the final year and a half of Trump's first term, leading the U.S. government's spy agencies during the coronavirus pandemic. “I look forward to John being the first person ever to serve in both of our Nation's highest Intelligence positions,” Trump said in a statement, calling him a “fearless fighter for the Constitutional Rights of all Americans” who would ensure “the Highest Levels of National Security, and PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.” Kash Patel, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel spent several years as a Justice Department prosecutor before catching the Trump administration’s attention as a staffer on Capitol Hill who helped investigate the Russia probe. Patel called for dramatically reducing the agency’s footprint, a perspective that sets him apart from earlier directors who sought additional resources for the bureau. Though the Justice Department in 2021 halted the practice of secretly seizing reporters’ phone records during leak investigations, Patel said he intends to aggressively hunt down government officials who leak information to reporters. Lee Zeldin, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Trump has chosen former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to serve as his pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency . Zeldin does not appear to have any experience in environmental issues, but is a longtime supporter of the former president. The 44-year-old former U.S. House member from New York wrote on X , “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI.” “We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water,” he added. During his campaign, Trump often attacked the Biden administration's promotion of electric vehicles, and incorrectly referring to a tax credit for EV purchases as a government mandate. Trump also often told his audiences during the campaign his administration would “Drill, baby, drill,” referring to his support for expanded petroleum exploration. In a statement, Trump said Zeldin “will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet.” Brendan Carr, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Trump has named Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, as the new chairman of the agency tasked with regulating broadcasting, telecommunications and broadband. Carr is a longtime member of the commission and served previously as the FCC’s general counsel. He has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate three times and was nominated by both Trump and President Joe Biden to the commission. Carr made past appearances on “Fox News Channel," including when he decried Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris' pre-Election Day appearance on “Saturday Night Live.” He wrote an op-ed last month defending a satellite company owned by Trump supporter Elon Musk. Paul Atkins, Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission Trump said Atkins, the CEO of Patomak Partners and a former SEC commissioner, was a “proven leader for common sense regulations.” In the years since leaving the SEC, Atkins has made the case against too much market regulation. “He believes in the promise of robust, innovative capital markets that are responsive to the needs of Investors, & that provide capital to make our Economy the best in the World. He also recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. The commission oversees U.S. securities markets and investments and is currently led by Gary Gensler, who has been leading the U.S. government’s crackdown on the crypto industry. Gensler, who was nominated by President Joe Biden, announced last month that he would be stepping down from his post on the day that Trump is inaugurated — Jan. 20, 2025. Atkins began his career as a lawyer and has a long history working in the financial markets sector, both in government and private practice. In the 1990s, he worked on the staffs of two former SEC chairmen, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt. Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, 41, is a tech billionaire who bought a series of spaceflights from Elon Musk’s SpaceX and conducted the first private spacewalk . He is the founder and CEO of a card-processing company and has collaborated closely with Musk ever since buying his first chartered SpaceX flight. He took contest winners on that 2021 trip and followed it in September with a mission where he briefly popped out the hatch to test SpaceX’s new spacewalking suits. Elise Stefanik, Ambassador to the United Nations Rep. Elise Stefanik is a representative from New York and one of Trump's staunchest defenders going back to his first impeachment. Elected to the House in 2014, Stefanik was selected by her GOP House colleagues as House Republican Conference chair in 2021, when former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney was removed from the post after publicly criticizing Trump for falsely claiming he won the 2020 election. Stefanik, 40, has served in that role ever since as the third-ranking member of House leadership. Stefanik’s questioning of university presidents over antisemitism on their campuses helped lead to two of those presidents resigning, further raising her national profile. If confirmed, she would represent American interests at the U.N. as Trump vows to end the war waged by Russia against Ukraine begun in 2022. He has also called for peace as Israel continues its offensive against Hamas in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon to target Hezbollah. Matt Whitaker, Ambassador to NATO President-elect Donald Trump says he's chosen former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker to serve as U.S. ambassador to NATO. Trump has expressed skepticism about the Western military alliance for years. Trump said in a statement Wednesday that Whitaker is “a strong warrior and loyal Patriot” who “will ensure the United States’ interests are advanced and defended” and “strengthen relationships with our NATO Allies, and stand firm in the face of threats to Peace and Stability.” The choice of Whitaker as the nation’s representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an unusual one, given his background is as a lawyer and not in foreign policy. David Perdue, Ambassador to China President-elect Donald Trump tapped former Sen. David Perdue of Georgia to be ambassador to China, saying in a social media post that the former CEO “brings valuable expertise to help build our relationship with China.” Perdue lost his Senate seat to Democrat Jon Ossoff four years ago and ran unsuccessfully in a primary against Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Perdue pushed Trump's debunked lies about electoral fraud during his failed bid for governor. Mike Huckabee, Ambassador to Israel Trump will nominate former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is a staunch defender of Israel and his intended nomination comes as Trump has promised to align U.S. foreign policy more closely with Israel's interests as it wages wars against the Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah. “He loves Israel, and likewise the people of Israel love him,” Trump said in a statement. “Mike will work tirelessly to bring about peace in the Middle East.” Huckabee, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and 2016, has been a popular figure among evangelical Christian conservatives, many of whom support Israel due to Old Testament writings that Jews are God’s chosen people and that Israel is their rightful homeland. Trump has been praised by some in this important Republican voting bloc for moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Kimberly Guilfoyle, Ambassador to Greece Guilfoyle is a former California prosecutor and television news personality who led the fundraising for Trump's 2020 campaign and became engaged to Don Jr. in 2020. Trump called her “a close friend and ally” and praised her “sharp intellect make her supremely qualified.” Guilfoyle was on stage with the family on election night. “I am so proud of Kimberly. She loves America and she always has wanted to serve the country as an Ambassador. She will be an amazing leader for America First,” Don Jr. posted. The ambassador positions must be approved by the U.S. Senate. Guilfoyle said in a social media post that she was “honored to accept President Trump’s nomination to serve as the next Ambassador to Greece and I look forward to earning the support of the U.S. Senate.” Steven Witkoff, Special Envoy to the Middle East Trump on Tuesday named real estate investor Steven Witkoff to be special envoy to the Middle East. The 67-year-old Witkoff is the president-elect's golf partner and was golfing with him at Trump's club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sept. 15, when the former president was the target of a second attempted assassination. Witkoff “is a Highly Respected Leader in Business and Philanthropy,” Trump said of Witkoff in a statement. “Steve will be an unrelenting Voice for PEACE, and make us all proud." Trump also named Witkoff co-chair, with former Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, of his inaugural committee. Keith Kellogg, Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Trump said Wednesday that he will nominate Gen. Keith Kellogg to serve as assistant to the president and special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. Kellogg, a retired Army lieutenant general who has long been Trump’s top adviser on defense issues, served as National Security Advisor to Trump's former Vice President Mike Pence. For the America First Policy Institute, one of several groups formed after Trump left office to help lay the groundwork for the next Republican administration, Kellogg in April wrote that “bringing the Russia-Ukraine war to a close will require strong, America First leadership to deliver a peace deal and immediately end the hostilities between the two warring parties.” (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib) Mike Waltz, National Security Adviser Trump asked Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., a retired Army National Guard officer and war veteran, to be his national security adviser, Trump announced in a statement Tuesday. The move puts Waltz in the middle of national security crises, ranging from efforts to provide weapons to Ukraine and worries about the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea to the persistent attacks in the Middle East by Iran proxies and the push for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah. “Mike has been a strong champion of my America First Foreign Policy agenda,” Trump's statement said, "and will be a tremendous champion of our pursuit of Peace through Strength!” Waltz is a three-term GOP congressman from east-central Florida. He served multiple tours in Afghanistan and also worked in the Pentagon as a policy adviser when Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates were defense chiefs. He is considered hawkish on China, and called for a U.S. boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing due to its involvement in the origin of COVID-19 and its mistreatment of the minority Muslim Uighur population. Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner , was a vocal spokesperson during the presidential campaign for Trump's priority of mass deportations. The 39-year-old was a senior adviser during Trump's first administration. Miller has been a central figure in some of Trump's policy decisions, notably his move to separate thousands of immigrant families. Trump argued throughout the campaign that the nation's economic, national security and social priorities could be met by deporting people who are in the United States illegally. Since Trump left office in 2021, Miller has served as the president of America First Legal, an organization made up of former Trump advisers aimed at challenging the Biden administration, media companies, universities and others over issues such as free speech and national security. Tom Homan, ‘Border Czar’ Thomas Homan, 62, has been tasked with Trump’s top priority of carrying out the largest deportation operation in the nation’s history. Homan, who served under Trump in his first administration leading U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was widely expected to be offered a position related to the border, an issue Trump made central to his campaign. Though Homan has insisted such a massive undertaking would be humane, he has long been a loyal supporter of Trump's policy proposals, suggesting at a July conference in Washington that he would be willing to "run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.” Democrats have criticized Homan for his defending Trump's “zero tolerance” policy on border crossings during his first administration, which led to the separation of thousands of parents and children seeking asylum at the border. Rodney Scott, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Customs and Border Protection, with its roughly 60,000 employees, falls under the Department of Homeland Security. It includes the Border Patrol, which Rodney Scott led during Trump's first term, and is essentially responsible for protecting the country's borders while facilitating trade and travel. Scott comes to the job firmly from the Border Patrol side of the house. He became an agent in 1992 and spent much of his career in San Diego. When he was appointed head of the border agency in January 2020, he enthusiastically embraced Trump's policies. After being forced out under the Biden administration, Scott has been a vocal supporter of Trump's hard-line immigration agenda. He appeared frequently on Fox News and testified in Congress. He's also a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Billy Long, Internal Revenue Service commissioner Former Rep. Billy Long represented Missouri in the U.S. House from 2011 to 2023. Since leaving Congress, Trump said, Long “has worked as a Business and Tax advisor, helping Small Businesses navigate the complexities of complying with the IRS Rules and Regulations.” Kelly Loeffler, Small Business Administration administrator Former Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler was appointed in January 2020 by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and then lost a runoff election a year later. She started a conservative voter registration organization and dived into GOP fundraising, becoming one of the top individual donors and bundlers to Trump’s 2024 comeback campaign. Even before nominating her for agriculture secretary, the president-elect already had tapped Loeffler as co-chair of his inaugural committee. Dr. Mehmet Oz, Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, 64, is a former heart surgeon who hosted “The Dr. Oz Show,” a long-running daytime television talk show. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as the Republican nominee in 2022 and is an outspoken supporter of Trump, who endorsed Oz's bid for elected office. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to advise White House on government efficiency Elon Musk, left, and Vivek Ramaswamy speak before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at an Oct. 27 campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. Trump on Tuesday said Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Ramaswamy will lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency" — which is not, despite the name, a government agency. The acronym “DOGE” is a nod to Musk's favorite cryptocurrency, dogecoin. Trump said Musk and Ramaswamy will work from outside the government to offer the White House “advice and guidance” and will partner with the Office of Management and Budget to “drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.” He added the move would shock government systems. It's not clear how the organization will operate. Musk, owner of X and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has been a constant presence at Mar-a-Lago since Trump won the presidential election. Ramaswamy suspended his campaign in January and threw his support behind Trump. Trump said the two will “pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.” Russell Vought, Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought held the position during Trump’s first presidency. After Trump’s initial term ended, Vought founded the Center for Renewing America, a think tank that describes its mission as “renew a consensus of America as a nation under God.” Vought was closely involved with Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for Trump’s second term that he tried to distance himself from during the campaign. Vought has also previously worked as the executive and budget director for the Republican Study Committee, a caucus for conservative House Republicans. He also worked at Heritage Action, the political group tied to The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Kari Lake, Voice of America Trump says he’s picking Kari Lake as director of Voice of America, installing a staunch loyalist who ran unsuccessfully for Arizona governor and a Senate seat to head the congressionally funded broadcaster that provides independent news reporting around the world. Lake endeared herself to Trump through her dogmatic commitment to the falsehood that both she and Trump were the victims of election fraud. She has never acknowledged losing the gubernatorial race and called herself the “lawful governor” in her 2023 book, “Unafraid: Just Getting Started.” Additional selections to the incoming White House Dan Scavino, deputy chief of staff Scavino, whom Trump's transition referred to in a statement as one of “Trump's longest serving and most trusted aides,” was a senior adviser to Trump's 2024 campaign, as well as his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. He will be deputy chief of staff and assistant to the president. Scavino had run Trump's social media profile in the White House during his first administration. He was also held in contempt of Congress in 2022 after a month-long refusal to comply with a subpoena from the House committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. James Blair, deputy chief of staff Blair was political director for Trump's 2024 campaign and for the Republican National Committee. He will be deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs and assistant to the president. Blair was key to Trump's economic messaging during his winning White House comeback campaign this year, a driving force behind the candidate's “Trump can fix it” slogan and his query to audiences this fall if they were better off than four years ago. Taylor Budowich, deputy chief of staff Budowich is a veteran Trump campaign aide who launched and directed Make America Great Again, Inc., a super PAC that supported Trump's 2024 campaign. He will be deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel and assistant to the president. Budowich also had served as a spokesman for Trump after his presidency. Jay Bhattacharya, National Institutes of Health Trump has chosen Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health. Bhattacharya is a physician and professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, and is a critic of pandemic lockdowns and vaccine mandates. He promoted the idea of herd immunity during the pandemic, arguing that people at low risk should live normally while building up immunity to COVID-19 through infection. The National Institutes of Health funds medical research through competitive grants to researchers at institutions throughout the nation. NIH also conducts its own research with thousands of scientists working at its labs in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Marty Makary, Food and Drug Administration Makary is a Johns Hopkins surgeon and author who argued against pandemic lockdowns. He routinely appeared on Fox News during the COVID-19 pandemic and wrote opinion articles questioning masks for children. He cast doubt on vaccine mandates but supported vaccines generally. Makary also cast doubt on whether booster shots worked, which was against federal recommendations on the vaccine. Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, Surgeon General Nesheiwat is a general practitioner who serves as medical director for CityMD, a network of urgent care centers in New York and New Jersey. She has been a contributor to Fox News. Dr. Dave Weldon, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Weldon is a former Florida congressman who recently ran for a Florida state legislative seat and lost; Trump backed Weldon’s opponent. In Congress, Weldon weighed in on one of the nation’s most heated debates of the 1990s over quality of life and a right-to-die and whether Terri Schiavo, who was in a persistent vegetative state after cardiac arrest, should have been allowed to have her feeding tube removed. He sided with the parents who did not want it removed. Jamieson Greer, U.S. trade representative Kevin Hassett, Director of the White House National Economic Council Trump is turning to two officials with experience navigating not only Washington but the key issues of income taxes and tariffs as he fills out his economic team. He announced he has chosen international trade attorney Jamieson Greer to be his U.S. trade representative and Kevin Hassett as director of the White House National Economic Council. While Trump has in several cases nominated outsiders to key posts, these picks reflect a recognition that his reputation will likely hinge on restoring the public’s confidence in the economy. Trump said in a statement that Greer was instrumental in his first term in imposing tariffs on China and others and replacing the trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, “therefore making it much better for American Workers.” Hassett, 62, served in the first Trump term as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. He has a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and worked at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute before joining the Trump White House in 2017. Ron Johnson, Ambassador to Mexico Johnson — not the Republican senator — served as ambassador to El Salvador during Trump's first administration. His nomination comes as the president-elect has been threatening tariffs on Mexican imports and the mass deportation of migrants who have arrived to the U.S.-Mexico border. Johnson is also a former U.S. Army veteran and was in the Central Intelligence Agency. Tom Barrack, Ambassador to Turkey Barrack, a wealthy financier, met Trump in the 1980s while helping negotiate Trump’s purchase of the renowned Plaza Hotel. He was charged with using his personal access to the former president to secretly promote the interests of the United Arab Emirates, but was acquitted of all counts at a federal trial in 2022. Trump called him a “well-respected and experienced voice of reason.” Andrew Ferguson, Federal Trade Commission Ferguson, who is already one of the FTC's five commissioners, will replace Lina Khan, who became a lightning rod for Wall Street and Silicon Valley by blocking billions of dollars worth of corporate acquisitions and suing Amazon and Meta while alleging anticompetitive behavior. “Andrew has a proven record of standing up to Big Tech censorship, and protecting Freedom of Speech in our Great Country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding, “Andrew will be the most America First, and pro-innovation FTC Chair in our Country’s History.” Jacob Helberg, undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment Dan Bishop, deputy director for budget at the Office of Budget and Management Leandro Rizzuto, Ambassador to the Washington-based Organization of American States Dan Newlin, Ambassador to Colombia Peter Lamelas, Ambassador to Argentina Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter.

HeartSciences Provides Business Update and Reports Second Quarter Fiscal 2025 Financial ResultsBitcoin is hovering near $100,000 as Trump considers a new crypto chief for his administration. Charles Schwab's incoming CEO said he has not personally invested in crypto and prefers stocks. Schwab plans to enter spot crypto trading, pending regulatory changes under Trump's policies. Feeling a tinge of regret for not investing in bitcoin as it approaches $100,000? Charles Schwab's incoming CEO is in the same boat. "Crypto has certainly caught many's attention, and they've made a lot of money doing it," Rick Wurster, the bank's current president, told Bloomberg in a Thursday interview. "I have not bought crypto, and now I feel silly." Wurster explained why he's been reluctant to invest in crypto. "Well, I think what's holding me back is just a question around the true value of crypto," he said. "I like to invest in stocks, and with stocks there's cash flows you can rely upon, there's dividends that accrue to you. With crypto, it's less certain what that will be and it's less certain how to value it." Wurster said that he supports clients who want to invest in crypto, which has soared to new highs following Donald Trump's reelection. Bitcoin was trading hundreds of dollars away from the $100,000 mark on Friday as Trump reportedly considers candidates for a new " crypto czar " in his administration. "I've talked to a lot of our investors who tell me I'm completely missing the boat and tell me all the great things about crypto, and you know what? They've been right, not me, because it keeps going up," Wurster said. Firms, including Andreessen Horowitz , are optimistic about another crypto boom with hopes of more lenient crypto policies under the Trump administration, as opposed to the stricter regulatory environment under Biden. Although Schwab already offers crypto-linked ETFs and crypto futures, Wurster said the company will move toward spot trading, which would help it compete directly in the sector with firms like Fidelity Investments and Robinhood Markets. "We will get into spot crypto when the regulatory environment changes, and we do anticipate that it will change, and we're getting ready for that eventuality," Wurster said.A gun with three bullets; one man dead on the pavement, one man in custody. From a distance, the death of Brian Thompson looks like any other in a uniquely violent America. But the circumstances surrounding his murder were unimaginable just two weeks ago: A reclusive gunman partially built a gun on the computer and assassinated the chairman of America’s most powerful health insurance company. As far as we can tell, the alleged shooter, Luigi Mangione , was radicalized neither by QAnon conspiracy theories nor by undercover federal agents , but by months of self-isolation following a spinal surgery that left him in chronic pain, against a health care system so fundamentally brutal that an unexpectedly large, atypically nonpartisan cohort of the population took to the internet to mock the victim . It was an impolite reaction, with unusual savagery — not even a moment for “thoughts and prayers” — which has been examined to death over the past few weeks. In a December 17 YouGov/The Economist poll , Mangione’s net approval among respondents, while negative overall, is 15 points higher than that of Congress. He comes out positive or even among respondents 44 and younger. A former federal prosecutor said he’s “never seen an alleged murderer receive such sympathy.” Even fellow Italian-Americans rallied to Luigi’s aid: A pizza place a couple miles from Mangione’s high school put up a Luigi poster . I can offer no new insight about how shocking the response to Thompson’s murder has been, or how thin the threshold is between the politesse of acceptable average American decorum and an ecstatic celebration of violence. I, personally, wish every family be spared the fate of the Thompsons. I also wish every family be spared the fate to which the bone-grinding machine that Brian Thompson sat atop condemns millions of others. So long as we tolerate the existence of health insurance for profit, no one will be spared. Fundamental to the experience of being an American is the constant suspicion that you’re being scammed. Some of those suspicions are internet-induced prodromal schizophrenia : Not every Home Depot parking lot is a human-trafficking PokéStop; tap water won’t turn your kids trans . But Americans are constant targets. We are bombarded day and night by emails, phone calls, and text messages from people who want money from us under false (or flimsy ) pretenses. The infrastructure of daily life has been ceded to Silicon Valley executives, who have mangled their indispensable products in order to make as much money for their shareholders as possible, even as this rot makes those products shittier . Throw on the TV to watch a basketball game with a friend and you’ll be Clockwork Orange ’d with dozens of advertisements for apps that exploit cutting-edge advancements in gambling psychology to create life-ruining addictions — with to-the-hilt support from sports leagues, lawmakers, and universities . Even the genocide in Gaza has become fodder for Twitter and Bluesky scammers running fraudulent fundraisers — possibly the most revolting con I’ve ever encountered, and one which I now barely notice as I tune it out three or four times a day. Nowhere is the scam woven more tightly into our cool national fabric than in health insurance. The arrangement of our health finance system is lethal and inordinately expensive . Here, alone among peer countries, sickness makes you poor, poverty makes you sick, and any fever, fall, or freak accident, nor matter how slight, can quickly become a ritual of humiliation, degradation, bankruptcy, or death. Few are spared and none are distant. Over 20 million Americans have started a GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign to address medical costs; one in five American adults have donated to one. Only 12 percent of these campaigns reach their goals . We all know what happens to the losers: debt, if they’re lucky; death, if they’re not. Related Content 'SNL' Weekend Update: Colin Jost, Michael Che Get Personal With Annual Joke Swap Luigi Mangione Faces Federal Murder, Stalking Charges Over CEO Killing Luigi Mangione Waives Extradition to Face Murder Charges in New York How to Watch the Luigi Mangione ABC '20/20' Documentary Online Having insurance does not spare you from these horrors. Some of the worst health care horror stories you’ll ever hear come from people with health insurance. Yet without insurance, things can be even worse; the same punishments somehow magnified. Søren Mau writes about the “ mute compulsion ” of capitalism: You gotta play the game or else you don’t eat. Health insurance works the same way. Get in the pit, and you might go bankrupt and your kid might die from cancer; stay out, and you will go bankrupt; your kid will die. It is essential to the perpetuation of American society as it currently exists that we are trained to view this as the natural course of events. David Roth of Defector explained why in his reflection on the 2024 election. “Everywhere, in every way, American culture works to prise people apart and keep them confused and worried and mean; this is much easier to do when people think of themselves only as themselves, and not as part of any greater community or project, which is why America’s reactionaries have so dedicated themselves to tearing down or splitting up those kinds of communities and projects,” Roth writes. “This is a good way to keep people working and shopping and pliable, but it is also corrosive and lonely.” In a vacuum, it is unsurprising for any American to go mad when confronted with this atrocity; in the real world, we are made hopeless by the state-sponsored agreement that this quiet violence is the ordinary cost of doing business. Mangione’s manifesto — or, at least, the one attributed to him — describes a need to resolve the contradiction between what everyone knows and what everyone has to believe with lead and “brutal honesty.” This is not a desirable arrangement, and the last serious attempt to reform American health finance, the Affordable Care Act, along with its subsequent decade of slapdash policy tweaks, failed to prevent the conditions that made this assassination possible. These tiny reforms, as titanic and final as they’re sold to us as, will continue to fail. The terrible mountain of bodies and its shadow of mass suffering are normal, expected outcomes for the American model of health finance. There is no recourse in the existing health care system, and we are offered no vehicle for change in mainstream politics. What happened on December 4 was unique in that it was an inversion of the violence which undergirds our heath finance model. The only possible rearrangement of health finance in America that can prevent this continual onslaught of death is a single-payer health care system like Medicare for All . Absent a political movement, this murder will become nothing but a memento mori — a meme around which distressingly online Zoomer dance clubs will throw occasional theme nights throughout the duration of Mangione’s trial, until we all forget about it and pay next year’s ever-higher premiums, angrier and poorer but submitting still to the extortion into which we have been born. Shit is fucked up and bullshit . Part of the reason everyone and their maxed-out 401k is writing essays about The Scandalous Reaction to the Assassination is that frustration with American health finance has metastasized to an extent that modern political and media institutions are unable to taxonomize. Hating health insurance is no longer identifiable as a specifically left-wing position, which is scary to people who make their trade confidently telling you how the world works. We now live in the era of “Bailamos” — nothing is forbidden anymore . Based on the reaction to the assassination, the vibrant Medicare for All movement pre-2020, and every interaction I’ve ever had talking to people about their health care, I know you know you’re being fucked over. Let me explain how. The fundamental tension of American health finance is this: It’s very expensive to take care of sick people, and it’s not profitable to pay for their health care. The American approach toward this problem has been a patchwork series of accidents, union struggles, government subsidies, and tax incentives that over 70 years developed in more-or-less unguided fits and bursts. This isn’t controversial or secret; all the C-levels making bank off the arrangement sit around looking at the State of Things, write “Wow, look at all these complicated problems!” in The New York Times or wherever, then go home to sit surrounded by the tremendous piles of money they’ve accumulated by their maintenance of the problems they lament. Nobody (or, at least, nobody normal ) can afford to pay for their own health care completely out-of-pocket. Thus the invention of insurance: Everyone puts a little bit into the pot (this would be your insurance premium ), and when it’s your turn to receive health care — when you have a kid, or get bitten by a raccoon, or come down with lupus — you take a share of the accumulated pile of money to pay for it (or, in the United States, some of it). Not many people need health care at the same time, and for the people who do need it, can be very expensive. In a given year, 50 percent of medical expenses come from 5 percent of the population . The borders of this 5 percent are porous; in much the same way that poverty works, some years you’re in need, and most years you aren’t. In America, we largely delegate the function of insurance to private, for-profit companies (don’t let Blue Cross Blue Shield’s “not-for-profit” status fool you ). Thing is, private companies really don’t want to pay for sick people’s health care — it’s expensive, and spending a lot of money is a hard way to make a profit. Meanwhile, the price of care increases every year, totally unassociated with how much health care people receive. So insurers raise the price of premiums, and finagle little ways to saddle you with more and more of the cost: deductibles, copays, and claim denials. In the 1960s, the government stepped in. Poor people (who couldn’t afford premiums) and elderly people (who are generally much more expensive than younger people to insure, and therefore couldn’t afford their premiums either) were dying uninsured. Horror story after horror story and protest after protest wielded by well-organized advocacy groups shocked the machinery of the state into action, leading to the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, which generally insure elderly and poor or disabled people respectively. Insurers were effectively spared the costs of insuring people who need health care — an arrangement they found could only be improved with the introduction of privatized Medicare and Medicaid plans about 30 years later. Now, thanks to generous and easily gameable government subsidies, otherwise unprofitable patients can live up to their potential and be cash cows for private insurers, though privatized Medicare is becoming a slightly less tantalizing option as senior citizens begin actually using their insurance plans again following a lull during the height of the COVID pandemic. You might see some pundit or another wriggle his pudgy little nose and point out that everyone getting mad about insurance is being irrational — after all, UnitedHealthcare “only” turns a 6 percent profit ! They neglect to mention that 6 percent comes from $280 billion — $16 billion we pay to one company alone that doesn’t go toward anyone’s health care. That’s not even counting the roughly 17 percent private insurers spend on administrative costs, about six times what Medicare spends on administration. Depending on how you measure it, between $500 billion and over $1 trillion of our total national health care expenditures went to administrative costs, largely generated by the card-shuffling between providers and insurers. The CEOs of insurance companies will whine about how costs are increasing. They’re correct! But the insurance industry altogether isn’t really that upset. The amount of money they’re required to spend on health care (their “Medical Loss Ratio,” or MLR) is a fixed percentage of their total premium revenue, often 15 percent, and if costs keep going up, so too do premiums — good news for your insurer, who now gets to keep 15 percent of $60 billion (or whatever) instead of 15 percent of $50 billion. This is not meant to depict health care providers as blameless. There’s a lot of waste in health care. Prices are totally unmoored from costs. Two MRIs from the exact same MRI machine can have a 4.5x cost difference based on who’s paying for them. Pharmaceutical companies perform incredible sleight of hand to artificially extend monopolies on expensive drugs, and Congress for years has banned Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices. Sometimes there’s outright fraud , usually perpetrated on the most vulnerable patients — 90 percent of hysterectomies are unnecessary . Doctors, human as any of us (despite what they might like you to believe), often prescribe on faulty memory, professional superstition, and vibes, not current scientific evidence . Hospitals go to great lengths to make pricing completely opaque — list prices are artificially inflated as a method of negotiating better prices from insurers, so uninsured patients are stuck with insane costs. Giant nonprofit megahospitals routinely hide information about financial assistance from eligible patients while paying their workers so little they have to open food banks for their own employees . The rot runs deep. America’s private insurance network is supposed to be a counterweight to all this graft. It’s failed; after 70 years, we must consider that perhaps it doesn’t want to succeed. Insurers focus on reducing the amount of health care people seek instead of taking on the prices at the core of the problem of health care spending. (“ It’s the prices, stupid ,” quipped legendary health economist Uwe Reinhardt.) Provider-payer squabbling is largely kayfabe: No matter what happens, the people making money keep making money, the overwhelming majority of it from the government, while individual workers or patients are left to suffer. It’s hard to quantify how many people die because of our health care system alone, because it’s hard to distinguish un- or underinsurance from things like gun violence or overdoses within the gap between America’s excess mortality rate and those of peer countries. What we can quantify about the impacts of our health finance system on poverty is staggering: 44 percent of working-age Americans are either uninsured or underinsured, meaning they have insurance too expensive for them to use. KFF finds that 41 percent of American adults carry debt from medical or dental bills, while the Commonwealth Fund finds that 14 percent of adults under 65 have medical debt of over $2,000. One in five adults with medical debt think they’ll never be able to pay it off . Commonwealth found that nearly 60 percent of underinsured adults avoided seeking health care because they were afraid of the cost. Two-thirds of adults who avoided care because of cost said their problems had worsened because of it. Poverty has a stronger association with mortality than nearly any other cause around — the only things that cause more deaths than poverty are smoking, cancer, and heart disease. There’s no room for equivocation: Health care costs kill people. UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of Brian Thompson’s UnitedHealthcare and the fourth-largest corporation in America by revenue, was essentially designed in the great laboratory of the market to demonstrate how this all happens. STAT News has been on the beat for a long time, and this year Maureen Tkacik put the company in her crosshairs at the American Prospect. Here are some of the tactics UHG and other health insurers use to game the system: Nearly two centuries ago, Friedrich Engels coined the term “social murder” to describe how the living conditions that led to the premature deaths of British workers were, though occluded, not natural accidents but the product of aggregated political decisions in service of the normal function of the economy. The framework fits in America, too; as much as one man shooting another is an act of killing, so too is the arrangement of companies, institutions, and incentives that result in poor men dying up to 15 years sooner than rich men, white people living five years longer than Black people, and an 8-year difference in life expectancies between poor and rich ZIP codes five or six miles apart. Many have pointed to Mangione’s spirited Goodreads review of Industrial Society and Its Future — better known as Ted Kaczynski’s “Unabomber Manifesto” — as foreshadowing the assassination. Kaczynski argued that the technological developments of mass society inevitably dominate and restrict human autonomy and that the only paths available to preserve human freedom were revolution or withdrawal. In light of the “nursing home AI” scandal, it is tempting to draw a parallel between the American health finance system and the powers of the Industrial Revolution Kaczynski lamented: Both are domineering forces that relentlessly reorder humans around the whims of technology. But that lets the people who put us here off the hook. Nobody’s put it better than epidemiologist and writer Abby Cartus . “I think it matters whether we want to understand the health insurance industry and its evils as an autonomous technical behemoth, superficially at the level of algorithmic decisions , or whether we want to understand it as a way of organizing technological and economic resources, incentives, and choices given the political-economic structure of capitalism,” Cartus writes. She continues: “The former — the story of autonomous technology — strips away the industry’s guilt and [...] misdirects attention that should be focused like a white-hot laser beam on the real problem: private, for-profit health care, and the thugs who administer it.” Viewing the social murder of American health finance as some sort of uncontrolled, ambient force that, like a ghost or a dog , just does things arbitrarily, is to excuse the aggregate human decisions which create and maintain this condition. The wretched circumstance of health finance in America may not be intentional, but neither is it accidental. It emerges directly from its organization according to the sole principle of having to create shareholder value. December 4 isn’t how things are supposed to work. Executives are supposed to look down from atop the great murder machine, not get crushed under its weight. Judging by the rush of calls to personal security firms from the moneymaker class and the small army of cops New York City Mayor Eric Adams led to march Mangione to his arraignment, this sudden inversion scares the hell out of them. But violence — the loud kind — will inevitably erupt from an institution created and nourished by acts of violence. Brian Thompson may not have pulled any triggers himself — his friends describe “BT” as a decent man concerned with the state of American health care, God bless him; aren’t they all. As the executive of the most powerful private insurer in America, the core of the most powerful private medical entity in the world, he commanded an institution inseparable from the American machine of social murder. If all lives are equal, then all deaths are too. What do the Mangione fundraisers , the club nights, Ben Shapiro’s YouTube comment section , the stickers, the TikTok folk hero ballads mean ? They mean that a lot of people hate their insurance — a lot — in a way that transcends conventional ideology or political expression. Part of the reason the reaction to the shooting came as such a shock is that many people who tip poorly or write newspaper columns assumed the frustration about American health insurance was limited to the cranks and unwashed longhairs of the Medicare for All movement, which had been cauterized quickly and painfully after Joe Biden seized the Democratic nomination in 2020. Policy decisions since have reflected this self-assurance, throwing yet more public money into the pit of for-profit companies: Among the most substantial health finance policy achievements of Biden’s presidency was increasing subsidies to insurance companies selling individual marketplace plans. These subsidies have become load-bearing insurance infrastructure, and without their projected $335 billion over the next decade, millions of people will be even less able to afford their health care. Gains made under the Affordable Care Act have been erased. More people are insured than they were before the ACA, but many more people are underinsured . Some premiums for employer-sponsored insurance plans have increased by 50 percent since 2011; out-of-pocket spending (in addition to premiums) is up 16 percent from where it was pre-ACA. The Affordable Care Act was a series of elaborate bribes designed to persuade the for-profit entities that run American health care to be a little less ferocious; a decade later, Cerberus has broken free of his leash. Every policy tweak in the mold of the past 10 years of American health policy will fare similarly: They are little more than incredibly expensive bandages slapped onto an ever-spreading wound. The refusal of the 2020-2024 Democrats to reject the limitless money of the profiteers and seize on the deep bipartisan fury against the health insurance system was a predictable (some might say inevitable), disastrous, and world-changing own-goal. While most of the party is focused on making sure nothing ever changes , some politicians trying to catch the spirit have come out to wring their hands and talk about how we need reform. They and many others will suggest policies over the next few months — some lightweight, like restricting AI oversight of claim denials; some essential but incomplete, like antitrust legislation against UnitedHealth and its peers. Elected officials are incapable of doing anything more unless they are willing to jettison the idea that health care should be arranged according to the whims of shareholder value — an idea lodged, like Excalibur, into the foundation of our political economy. They, or their low- VORP successors, will be unwilling to do so unless there is concerted political effort to demand it. This is not a question of policy, but power. Individual acts of violence will not bring about the systemic reforms required to obviate the institutionalized extortion of private insurance. I don’t imagine a mass militia of patients will (or should) rise up and revolt against their medical oppressors with an armory of 3D-printed guns. If anything, the extremely “median voter” ideology of Mangione instead suggests the potential for a massive political coalition that can be directed toward serious health care reform. We can find inspiration from how ADAPT and other disability rights organizations organized in mass groups and threw their bodies on the line to preserve Medicaid financing and the Affordable Care Act under Donald Trump. We can look to Reclaim Idaho , the nonpartisan mass movement that expanded Medicaid in the state through a ballot referendum in 2018. We should not find solace in campaign promises toward tweaky minor reforms that, through their victories, kill momentum for more serious change. Whether you believe health care is a human or civil right or if you just want to maximize efficiency while guaranteeing universal coverage, the only policy path forward is an expanded and improved Medicare for All , a system in which premiums and deductibles are replaced with fairly distributed taxes and all health care spending is paid by the federal government, which uses its tremendous purchasing power to drive costs down and guarantees patients need spend nothing out-of-pocket. Twenty-two separate studies , including one by the conservative Mercatus Center, find that some version of Medicare for All or another would save money compared to our current privatized arrangement. Other countries’ health care models instruct us that any introduction of fragmented, privatized insurance creates gaps into which the sickest or poorest people fall. I have argued elsewhere that a Medicare for All model is absolutely necessary (but not sufficient in and of itself) to address the larger problems which sicken and kill the people we love. It’s been five fallow years for health justice. Is this the spark we need, or is it just a directionless moment of cultural catharsis? Will Brian Thompson’s death bring us to the doors of our neighbors, the halls of our legislatures, and the streets of our cities? Will someone — a union leader, a politician, a community organization — be able to capitalize on this kinetic energy the way Bernie Sanders did, this time more prepared to face the extreme resistance of capital, or is the conquest of the boardroom over the living room absolute? I’m not optimistic, but I’m hopeful; I’m putting my boots on. I gotta. There is no alternative but the nihilism of lonely Luigi Mangione.Trump's lawyers rebuff DA's idea for upholding his hush money conviction

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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Sam Darnold tossed aside his stoic demeanor for a moment after realizing he was on the videoboard, aggressively twirling a towel to further stoke the crowd's fire after the Minnesota Vikings had pulled away from Kirk Cousins and the Atlanta Falcons late in the game. “I just felt the buzz. That was pure passion, pure joy, man,” Darnold said. Darnold added yet another highlight to his brilliant first season with the Vikings, passing for 347 yards and five touchdowns, both career highs, in a 42-21 victory over the foundering Falcons on Sunday to stretch their winning streak to six games. “It just felt like it was one of those days to keep the gas pedal down,” said coach Kevin O'Connell, who enjoyed his team's first 40-point game in three seasons on the job. Darnold passed for 250 yards after halftime to help the Vikings (11-2) break a 21-all tie early in the fourth quarter and stay one game behind NFC North-leading Detroit with a final-week matchup looming with the Lions. Jordan Addison had eight catches for 133 yards and three scores and Justin Jefferson racked up seven receptions for 132 yards and two touchdowns after going the past six games without scoring. “This is something that we want to do and we can do every single week,” Jefferson said. Cousins, whose departure in free agency for Atlanta prompted Minnesota to sign Darnold as a bridge to currently injured rookie J.J. McCarthy, threw two more interceptions without a touchdown in this unhappy homecoming following a mixed six-year run with the Vikings. Booed as he took the field, Cousins and the Falcons (6-7) left with a fourth consecutive loss to tumble out of first place in the NFC South and fall one game behind Tampa Bay. “When you’re playing well you usually aren’t as good as people are telling you when they’re patting you on the back, and if you’re in a rut you’re usually not as bad as people kind of leaving you for dead,” Cousins said. “The reality’s usually somewhere in the middle. You just have to keep playing and see where the dust settles in January.” Cousins went 23 for 37 for 344 yards for the Falcons, who crossed midfield on all nine of their possessions and finished with 496 total yards. He overthrew Ray-Ray McCloud III on fourth down in the first quarter, and the Falcons settled for short field goals just before and right after halftime. Their fate was sealed when McCloud fumbled the kickoff at the 32 after the Vikings went 70 yards in six plays for the go-ahead touchdown pass to Addison, who scored again seven plays later. The Falcons handed the Vikings an earlier touchdown when Kentavious Street was called for defensive holding during a field-goal attempt late in the second quarter, giving Darnold a fresh set of downs before a 12-yard laser to Jefferson on a post route on third-and-6. “You just can’t have the self-inflicted wounds and expect to win football games like we had today,” coach Raheem Morris said. Bijan Robinson had 22 carries for 92 yards and a touchdown and Tyler Allgeier rushed nine times for 63 yards and a score for the Falcons against the NFL’s leading run defense. Cousins, who was picked off four times last week, hesitated as he wound up to throw on first down from the Minnesota 47 in a tie game early in the second quarter and then inexplicably fired a pass straight to Josh Metellus as he sat in a zone in front of Drake London. Cousins has a NFL -most 15 interceptions. Byron Murphy snagged an overthrow for the second one near the goal line with a 35-21 lead and 6:26 left. Darnold, who went 22 for 28 without a turnover-worthy play despite heavy first-half pressure, then directed a seven-play, 98-yard drive to seal it. “I think we grew up a lot today offensively,” O'Connell said. Addison and Jefferson became the first duo in Vikings history to each have 100-plus receiving yards and two-plus touchdown catches in the same game. Addison also became the first Vikings player with three receiving touchdowns in a game since Stefon Diggs caught three from Cousins in 2019. Murphy has six interceptions this season, the most for the Vikings since Jimmy Hitchcock had seven in 1998. Falcons: CB Mike Hughes (knee) was back in the lineup after missing two games. Minnesota's 2018 first-round draft pick returned an interception for a touchdown against Atlanta in his NFL debut here. Vikings: CB Stephon Gilmore (hamstring) and backup OLB Patrick Jones (knee) were out. TE Josh Oliver (wrist/ankle) returned from a two-game absence, and LS Andrew DePaola (hand) and PK Will Reichard (quadriceps) were back from four-game injured reserve stints. Both teams play next Monday night, Dec. 16: Atlanta visits Las Vegas, and Minnesota hosts Chicago. AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

Article content Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s recent testimony before the Senate to support the government’s proposed temporary two-month GST holiday has faced significant backlash. Recommended Videos Senators criticized the measure as a flawed piece of fiscal policy driven more by political survival than sound economics. The proposal is particularly troubling because it could lead to unintended consequences, including opportunity pricing by grocers that may impact even non-taxable food items. The concern lies in how grocers might exploit this temporary tax break. By subtly raising prices on non-taxed goods, retailers could create additional inflationary pressures at the grocery store — a scenario that would further strain Canadian households already grappling with rising costs. Temporary measures like this GST holiday can also disrupt pricing strategies, encouraging grocers to adjust overall margins to compensate for the two-month tax break, leading to higher prices on non-taxable food even after the holiday ends. Essentially, consumers could end up paying more in the long term for food that is currently not subject to GST. Canadians need to know this. The Senate, often referred to as the “chamber of sober second thought,” has played an important role in scrutinizing this legislation to ensure it truly benefits Canadians. Observers have noted that with a fractured government prioritizing political survival, many recent proposals emerging from the House of Commons seem rushed and poorly conceived. The GST holiday debate has also reignited broader discussions about the ethics and practicality of taxing food. The NDP has announced plans to introduce a motion to permanently eliminate the GST on grocery store food. This measure deserves serious consideration, as Canadians currently pay between $1 billion and $1.5 billion annually in GST on groceries—a figure that continues to grow each year. Recommended video Part of the issue lies with “shrinkflation,” which has led to a growing number of food items becoming taxable. For example, a box of six granola bars is not taxed, but a box of five is. Similarly, a container of ice cream over 500 ml is non-taxable, while a smaller one is taxed. Food economists estimate that 25 to 100 items each year cross into taxable territory due to such arbitrary thresholds. This fiscal inconsistency disproportionately affects consumers and adds to the inefficiencies of Canada’s tax regime. Some proponents of food taxation argue that taxing less nutritious items, such as sugary snacks or beverages, can discourage unhealthy consumption. However, studies highlight that empirical evidence does not support this claim. In Canada, no studies have conclusively shown that food taxes result in meaningful reductions in sales or significant changes in consumption habits. The soda tax implemented in Newfoundland and Labrador in 2022 provides a clear example. While the tax generated $6.1 million in its first year, revenue nearly doubled to $12 million in the following fiscal year—indicating that soda consumption increased. Economists attribute this outcome to the supply chain’s ability to absorb the tax and maintain consistent retail prices, effectively neutralizing any deterrent effect. This policy, instead of promoting healthier choices, became a straightforward revenue-generating mechanism. Taxing food is both ineffective and regressive. It disproportionately penalizes lower-income households, who often rely on lower-cost, less nutritious options out of necessity or limited awareness. Education and consumer awareness, they argue, are far more effective tools for encouraging healthier eating habits. The GST holiday debate has exposed how Canadians have become increasingly conditioned to view taxes as a tool for influencing behaviour, despite little evidence to support this belief. A permanent removal of the GST on grocery store food would represent a meaningful step toward addressing food affordability while respecting consumer choice. Rather than relying on punitive taxes, the focus should shift to education, access to affordable nutritious foods, and policies that support healthier lifestyles without imposing additional financial burdens on consumers. — Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is the director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University and co-host of The Food Professor Podcast.Fast, Rewritable Computing with DNA Origami Registers

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