Excerpt from Carol Mithers’ book, ‘Rethinking Rescue’Syria's Alawite community: Once feared, now living in fear?
Rafael Nadal has had a profound impact on not just his supporters, pundits and opponents but also his own people. One of them is Carlos Costa of IMG fame, who started as Nadal’s agent and eventually became his business partner. Costa has been associated with Nadal since he was 16 when he didn’t even properly make it on the ATP Tour. On social media, Costa went viral with his post for which he took a lot of effort and love to showcase it to the world. The post included a caption in which he expressed gratitude for getting to work with Nadal for 22 years in the ‘world’s best tournaments’. The picture had all of Costa’s ID cards till date, which are required to be worn by each member of a particular player’s box as well as their representatives. Those cards are arguably Costa’s most prized possessions. Costa has played a vital role in the 22-time Grand Slam champion’s material success but is more proud of Nadal, the person. Nadal’s values throughout his career have not changed, as he is someone who doesn’t like change within his setup and values loyalty. Apart from relieving uncle Toni Nadal in 2017 from his coaching duties, his core team has remained pretty much the same, and this included Costa. It is this continuity that helped Nadal to earn more than just prize money at the peak of his playing career. Costa is the man who is the key to the former World No.1 still having sponsors like Kia Motors, Nike and Babolat, who have backed him since the start. Eventually, Costa made him diversify from prize money and endorsements into businesses and other investments so much that his net worth is reportedly said to be beyond $320 million today . After his retirement, Nadal will be continuing with Costa since they co-own Hi7tory, an athlete and event management company that is responsible for growing and funding Rafa Nadal Academy branches across the world. Costa also plays a vital role in ensuring that the Rafa Nadal Foundation is taken care of. Little did Costa know that he would go on to become a successful businessperson after failing to reach his potential as a professional tennis player. When Costa tried to put Spanish tennis on the world map before Nadal A six-time ATP title winner in singles, Carlos Costa played professional tennis for 11 years. In doubles too, he has won 5 titles. His prize money earnings in his tennis career came up to $3,134,189. But his most famous win was at the Stockholm Open in 1993 when he defeated the eventual 14-time Grand Slam champion, Pete Sampras on clay. Costa won that match 7-6 (7-1), 2-6, 6-1, and was a major deal in the tennis world. The surface was an indoor carpet surface, and it suited Costa. Costa never won a Grand Slam title but nevertheless contributed a lot to Nadal winning 22 of them. While the Spanish legend might not publicly credit him often, he is the first person to admit that Costa’s influence behind the scenes worked wonders for him. Nadal and Costa’s equation shows that money is important but must never supersede relations and the game. This is something that aspiring young players must look to emulate.Video: This man is a graduate, but you won't believe what he is doing for a livingThe all-male Tasmanian Club will allow women inside. As long as they are with a man.
The year 2024 has been a fast-paced one in terms of political shifts, deadly conflicts, and regional developments. As we approach the end of this eventful year, the repercussions of these events will undoubtedly carry over into 2025. The contemporary history of the world is filled with wars and conflicts driven by political, geographical, and religious differences. However, the conflicts of 2024 reflect a combination of both religious and political motives fueling the violence. Reports from organizations like ACLED and the Global Peace Index suggest that 2024 has been one of the most violent years since World War II. Over 92 countries have experienced cross-border conflicts, and violence-related casualties have significantly increased. The International Rescue Committee, in its annual monitoring report, also highlighted the rise in global conflicts, predicting that 2025 will continue to be affected by the ongoing violence. In the Middle East, events such as the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, as well as violent incidents in Gaza and Lebanon, have made 2024 one of the most tense years in the region. Meanwhile, the conflict between Israel and the Houthis in Yemen has intensified, and the possibility of direct confrontation between Israel and Iran has emerged as a potential scenario for 2025. Vladimir Putin’s re-election as the President of Russia for the fifth time, alongside Donald Trump’s return to power in the United States, were major political developments that had significant international implications. On the other hand, far-right extremist parties, known for their anti-immigration policies, have gained traction in Europe, while European countries with centrist, mainly liberal policies have not had a particularly favorable year. Climate change and its consequences were also key topics in 2024. At the latest United Nations Climate Change Conference, no new agreements were reached to effectively address the impacts of climate change. 2024 was reported as the hottest year on record, with a rise of 1.5°C since the Industrial Revolution, underscoring humanity’s failure to curb global warming. 2024 also saw significant developments in the virtual space. Artificial intelligence reached new capabilities, sparking both new expectations and new concerns regarding its implications on society. As we approach 2025, the political, social, and environmental challenges of 2024 are expected to leave lasting effects. From the ongoing global conflicts to the growing influence of far-right politics in Europe, and the failure to adequately address climate change, the future remains uncertain. With technological advancements such as artificial intelligence and virtual spaces also advancing rapidly, society will need to grapple with both the potential and the risks these changes bring. As we move forward, it is clear that the lessons of 2024 will shape the strategies and decisions of governments, organizations, and individuals in the years to come. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. ΔWhite House says at least 8 US telecom firms, dozens of nations impacted by China hacking campaign
ChatGPT opened the floodgates. But many people don’t realize there’s a whole world of generative AI tools and applications out there, just waiting to be explored. Whether you’re struggling to overcome a case of writer’s block, lack the artistic aptitude to do your imagination justice, or just need a hand crafting efficient computer code, generative AI can help augment and streamline both your professional and creative endeavors. Yet, amid the seemingly endless variety of AI assistants currently on offer, finding the right one for your needs can prove a daunting task. So, let’s delve into some of the most impressive AI tools that are pushing the boundaries of innovation, including the best AI chatbots , the best AI image generators , and much more. The best AI tools for image generation One of the first AI image generators to be released back in 2022, Midjourney has proven immensely popular with users and art critics alike . It can output high-definition, photorealistic images in countless artistic styles based on natural language text prompts. Originally only available through the company’s Discord server, Midjourney can now be accessed through a streamlined web portal . While the website’s gallery of generated art is free to browse, you will need to subscribe to a monthly service plan (which range from $10 to $120) in order to generate images of your own. While not as creatively robust as Midjourney — only able to generate images in one of five preset artistic styles — Ideogram does offer a generous free tier that allows users to generate up to 40 images per day. Paid tiers range from $7 to $48 per month and offer a host of benefits, from additional compute resources and priority access to full-quality image downloads. The company also boasts an iOS app and an API that it claims will “offer superior image quality at a lower cost compared to other models.” This is OpenAI’s in-house text-to-image generator and runs atop the company’s GPT-4 model. Originally released in September 2023, it was initially only available to paid tier subscribers. OpenAI expanded its availability to free tier users this past August, though you’ll only be able to generate two images per day at that subscription level. Dall-E 3 is also available through Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot. If you’re looking to create high-quality images without the strict production limits that ChatGPT enforces, Google’s Imagen 3 is a solid option. It’s available through the Gemini chatbot , including the free tier, and offers higher-quality outputs with fewer artifacts than its previous versions. Note, however, that the system will not generate images of people, famous or not, unless you subscribe to Gemini Advanced (which costs $20 per month). Grok 2 is the text-to-image generator for people uninterested in adhering to copyright law. Developed for Elon Musk’s xAI company, and available on X, Grok 2 isn’t restricted by minor inconveniences like safety and legal guardrails, as other image generators are. Want to see Mickey Mouse fighting Darth Vader atop a 747 as it flies into the World Trade Center? Grok will generate it, no questions asked. You will, however, need to pony up $8 for a premium subscription to X in order to access it. Runway’s Gen 3 Alpha is a relatively new model, having been released in June of 2024, and is capable of creating both still images and video clips with nearly photorealistic quality based on the user’s natural language prompts. The company recently announced that it will begin integrating a new foundational model, dubbed Frames , into the Gen 3 platform that will offer unprecedented control over the image creation process, enabling users to generate multiple image variants while maintaining a specific aesthetic style, whether that’s mimicking 35mm disposable camera shots or retro anime motifs. Subscription prices run from $12 to $76 per month, though the company does offer a limited free tier as well. The best AI tools for image editing Skylum’s Luminar Neo is a photo editing suite designed with professional photographers in mind. It offers many of the same powerful tools as Adobe Photoshop, but outsources much of their functionality to AI. This enables users to accomplish numerous common tasks, from adjusting color balance and lighting levels to tweaking the look of the sky, water, and skin tones, with a single click. Luminar Neo might be a bit pricey for casual users, costing $421 for a yearly subscription or as a lifetime subscription for $577. It’s available on both Windows and Mac, as well as a plugin for Photoshop, Photos, and Lightroom. Canva is a multifunction creative platform that offers everything from digital whiteboarding, data visualization, and marketing material templates to photo, video, and YouTube editing features. While you can easily make minor adjustments like cropping, adding filters and adjusting aspect ratios using the site’s free editor, Canva Pro offers a number of additional AI-empowered tools. Select, move, resize, and even erase individual objects within an image; extract and modify text on flattened images; and even generatively expand the image’s background, all with a few simple clicks. Canva Pro costs $120 per year for a single user license. This online photo editing suite has served as a free and user-friendly alternative to Photoshop since it was released in 2008. Last November, the company debuted a number of AI features including image generation, a generative fill tool, AI background removal, AI face swap, and image expansion to help round out the tool set’s functionality. While the interface is geared more for casual users and may not be as precise and granular as what Photoshop offers, you can’t beat free. If you only need to do some light retouching work on your images, the Topaz Photo AI suite offers eight enhancement tools: Denoise, Sharpen, Upscale, Recover Faces, Remove Objects, Preserve Text, Adjust Lighting, and Balance Color. It’s not a true replacement for full-function photo editors like Photoshop, but it is available without an annual subscription, for a flat rate of just $199 with version upgrades costing $99. Adobe’s Firefly AI doesn’t just generate images and video from text prompts, it also empowers a number of AI features throughout the Adobe product ecosystem. That includes the Generative Fill tool in Photoshop, text effects in Adobe Express, vector and pattern generation in Illustrator, and Generative Extend in Premiere Pro. You will need to subscribe to Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite in order to access these features, though they can either be purchased individually (the image generator, for example, costs $5/month while Photoshop costs $23) or you can pick up all 20-plus Adobe apps for $60 per month. Best AI for video generation While Luma Dream Machine may be designed with fashion, marketing and filmmaking professionals in mind, it’s built as a subscription-based service with both casual and professional users in mind. Unlike conventional AI tools, Dream Machine does not require precise and exhaustive prompting to generate the desired effect, but rather, interprets the user’s natural language request intuitively. It also accepts multi-image prompting and single-image character references so users can show the AI what they have in mind. Luma does not offer a free tier, though a “hobbyist” subscription costs just $10 per month. Kling AI video-generation system from China’s Kuaishou Technology offers photorealistic outputs on par with what we’ve seen from OpenAI’s Sora and is already available to users around the world. It can generate high-definition videos up to two minutes in length (double what Sora can) at up to 30 frames per second and 720p resolutions (slightly less than Sora’s 1080p output). Each clip starts out at just five seconds in length but can be extended in 4.5-second increments by purchasing additional credits. Just be warned that the system is blocked from generating politically-sensitive subjects. Synthesia is a bit more niche than the other video generators we’ve discussed so far. It’s designed specifically to generate video avatars from the user’s text prompts making it ideal for business applications like onboarding and training videos, sales presentations, and internal communications. Users can choose from one of more than 130 avatar models speaking 140 different languages and over 60 video templates. The free tier allows you to generate a single three-minute video per month and your choice of nine avatars, while the $30/month Starter tier and $90/month creator tier offer significantly more benefits. Vyond offers similar functionality to Synthesia in that it generates AI avatars for training videos based on the user’s text prompts, however, this service relies on animated characters rather than live actors. You also have the option to record yourself performing specific actions or movements and Vyond will motion match its animation to them. Plans start at $49 per month, which also includes access to an added video editor, though anything you produce at that tier will be watermarked with Vyond’s logo. The best AI for text generation ChatGPT , the chatbot that launched the AI boom in 2022, remains at the forefront of the industry with an estimated 200 million active weekly users. Trained on huge quantities of written content including websites, books, social media posts, and news articles, ChatGPT is equally adept at answering general knowledge queries and compiling computer code as it is at generating creative prose . It was also the first chatbot to offer a conversational feature in Advanced Voice Mode that allows users to interact with the chatbot as if it were a person, doing away with the need for text-based prompts. ChatGPT is available on the web as well as on iOS and Android. It’s free to use, though subscribing to the $20/month ChatGPT-Plus plan will give you increased access to the company’s latest AI models and features. Copilot answers the question “what if ChatGPT worked natively within Microsoft’s 365 app ecosystem?” Which is exactly what it does. Microsoft has invested billions in OpenAI’s business and, as such, its Copilot AI runs atop the startup’s GPT-4o LLM. However, Copilot is more than just a reskinned ChatGPT. For one, Copilot does not restrict users from generating images without paying for a subscription to its premium plan as ChatGPT does. For another, its functionality can be integrated across Microsoft’s products, helping users generate text in Word , create graphs and tables in Excel , and draft emails in Outlook . Google’s Gemini chatbot may have gotten off to a bit of a rocky start upon its official debut in February but the AI assistant has quickly grown into a potent rival to ChatGPT, offering much of the same functions and features. Those include the ability to generate text, images, video, audio, and code, converse with users verbally with Gemini Live, and integrate with Google’s Workspace app suite. It can gin up email responses in Gmail, search for files in Drive, create content for Slides, and draft text in Docs, all through the user’s natural language prompts. Gemini is free to use and is available on the web as well as through its iOS and Android apps, but if you want to access the AI’s more advanced features (and Workspace integrations), you’ll need to subscribe to the company’s $20/month Google One AI Premium service. Perplexity’s AI assistant offers a unique alternative to traditional search engines. Rather than simply return a list of websites in response to a user’s query as Google search does, this chatbot scours the internet for relevant information, then synthesizes an answer to the user’s question directly in the chat window. It essentially eliminates the need to click through to individual websites to find the information you’re looking for. Built atop the GPT-4 model and available on Android, iOS, as well as on the web, Perplexity is free to use. The company also offers a Pro subscription plan for $20/month (or $200/year) that grants you access to additional AI models including GPT-4 Omni and Claude 3 Sonnet and Haiku , as well as a host of additional benefits. Unlike generalized chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini, Jasper AI is all business. It is designed to generate text for emails, blogs, social media posts, and marketing materials, all while maintaining your company’s distinctive tone, voice, and brand style. The platform includes Jasper Chat, which assists with research tasks and offers writing advice, as well as can help maximize the SEO score of your marketing content. Jasper is only available on a subscription basis, with plans starting at $40 per month per user, though the company does offer a seven-day trial. The best AI for audio and voice generation ElevenLabs knows how to make a machine talk. The company is a leader in generative speech technology, offering a variety of audio-centric services from automatic voice dubbing and cloning to text-to-speech and text-to-SFX. Users can select from thousands of unique voices (including those of famous celebrities ), all trained on public domain and licensed data, in any of 32 languages. Ideal for podcasting, audio book narration, and conversational AI applications, the company’s products are available at a variety of pricing tiers ranging from free up to $99 per month. Why read a document when you can have Speechify read it to you four and a half times faster? The company’s voiceover technology can recite nearly any document you present to it in one of 200 voices (including your own through its voice cloning feature) in more than 60 languages. Speechify is available as a Chrome extension, a Mac app, a web app, iOS or Android app. The mobile apps can also read physical documents using your phone’s camera to scan the page. Speechify’s free tier limits you to simple text-to-speech in just 10 voices, while the $12/month premium tier unlocks the service’s full functionality. Respeecher specializes in voice cloning for celebrities, content creators, voice actors, game designers, and other professional applications. The company’s AI model essentially enables one person to speak in the voice of another. “We take recordings of the ‘target voice’ (the voice that is being replicated), train our system, and apply it to a ‘source speaker’ (the actor reading the lines),” the Respeecher’s FAQ explains. “It features all the emotions, intonations, and nuances of a real human voice.” The company offers a wide range of celebrity voices including Chris Farley and Richard Nixon, the latter of which earned Speechify an Emmy in 2019. Subscription plans start at $18 per month for basic text-to-speech (up to 100,000 characters per month and range up to $500 per month for the Power tier, which offers 900 minutes of speech-to-speech and 3 million characters of text-to-speech generation in more than 100 voices and 13 accents. If you fancy yourself a musician but can’t carry a tune, Controlla Voice can help. Its generative model can train an “AI Singing Voice” that sounds like you, based on 15-30 minutes of sample audio, then apply it to songs from the company’s extensive catalog, or blend your voice with others from their licensed stable of voice actors to generate unique vocals. You can even convert the vocals in existing songs from other artists into your voice for low-effort covers. Subscription prices run from $12 to $30 per month. The best AI for coding Anthropic’s Claude chatbot may not be able to generate images or speak to you conversationally, but it utterly excels at coding applications. Its latest iteration, Claude 3.5 Sonnet , drastically outperforms the likes of Gemini 1.5 Pro and ChatGPT-4o across a broad swath of leading industry benchmarks. Claude was also the first chatbot to offer a collaborative window (dubbed Artifacts ) that previews what the AI is generating outside of the chat stream. The chatbot is available free to all users on the web, iOS, and Android, though subscribing to the $20/month Pro or $30/month Teams tiers will grant you priority access to the latest and greatest models that Anthropic has to offer. Developed through a partnership between Github and OpenAI, GitHub Copilot acts as an AI autocomplete, to help users in the Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, Neovim, and JetBrains IDEs generate code faster than they can on their own. Users can present Copilot with a coding problem, phrased in natural language, and the assistant will automatically generate a solution code. Conversely, it can also explain what a given snippet of code does as well as convert snippets between various coding languages. You can use Github Copilot for free, though upgrading to either the $4/month Pro or $21/month Enterprise tiers will, of course, give you additional resources and features. Similar to Copilot, Amazon’s CodeWhisperer is a general use coding assistant that will automatically generate suggestions and code recommendations based on your existing inputs, in real time. It’s available for the JetBrains and Visual Studio IDEs and also supports natural language-to-bash translation in the Mac command line. The free tier only offers limited access to the system’s more advanced features, so you’ll have to pony up $20/month if you want to unlock its full capabilities. Cursor AI is a coding assistant in the same vein as Codewhisperer but can offer autocomplete suggestions across multiple lines of code, based on your previous inputs. It also offers a smart rewrite function that automatically corrects your typos and syntax errors so you spend less time tracking down errant quotation marks and parentheses while debugging, as well as cursor prediction that guesses where your cursor needs to be next, enabling you to navigate through your project faster and more efficiently. It even offers a chatbot assistant (leveraging GPT-4, GPT-4o, and Claude 3.5 Sonnet) that can answer questions about either the entire active file or specific selected code blocks. The chatbot can even edit that highlighted code based on your natural language instructions. Cursor AI is available for the Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems. You can try it out free for two weeks before a $20/month Pro or $40/user/month Business subscription is required. The best AI to integrate with the rest of your app ecosystem Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has been investing heavily in AI over the past few years and has recently begun incorporating the smart features found in rivals like Gemini and Copilot to its own product portfolio. “More than 400 million people are using Meta AI monthly, with 185 million people using it across our products each week,” the company boasted in a September blog post . The company now offers a conversational AI similar to Advanced Voice Mode in Messenger, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram DM. It can answer questions about photos shared in your group chats, generate custom backgrounds for images you reshare from your feed to Instagram Stories, and automatically translate the audio of your Instagram Reels. It can also generate images to share on your feed, Stories, and set as your Facebook profile picture. So when you find yourself wondering why there’s so much AI slop clogging up Facebook and Insta, understand that it is a feature Meta has spent billions developing, not a bug. Microsoft has dumped north of $10 billion into its partnership with OpenAI, so of course it’s going to shoehorn ChatGPT’s generative capabilities into every single product it possibly can. In addition to the Copilot chatbot itself, Microsoft has developed and released Copilot Pages, which function much like Claude’s Artifacts or ChatGPT’s Canvas. The company has also integrated it into Outlook to help you manage your inbox by prioritizing which messages to respond to first and quickly draft email replies. 365 Copilot can also help you rapidly establish a cohesive narrative in your PowerPoint presentations by generating pitch decks whole cloth from your natural language prompt that maintain a consistent tone and brand voice. In Excel, Copilot does the heavy lifting of generating formulas, graphs, and charts based, again, on the user’s prompt. And in Teams, Copilot can monitor your video meetings and provide summaries of what happened as well as generate actionable item lists based on what was discussed. Gemini does for Google’s Workspace app suite what Copilot does for Microsoft’s. The AI assistant can help draft emails in Gmail , write documents in Docs, generate graphs and charts in Sheets, create and modify slides in Slides, find files in Drive, and provide live-translated captions and take notes in Meet. If you don’t already have a personal Google One AI Premium subscription, you’ll have to ask your Workspace admin to grant you access. Apple Intelligence may be the new kid on the AI block, but it is promising to be more deeply integrated within its product ecosystem than any other currently on the market. Designed to serve as an overarching agent acting on the user’s behalf, it promises to streamline monotonous everyday tasks, make Siri a better conversationalist, automate proofreading and text summarization across the company’s myriad apps, and offer lightning-fast image generation. It is currently available to all devices running iOS 18 , iPadOS 18 , and MacOS Sequoia — basically, the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max (and newer), as well as iPads and Macs with M1 or newer chips.
F.N.B. Co. (NYSE:FNB) Shares Sold by Sanctuary Advisors LLC
Krispy Kreme, Inc. (NASDAQ:DNUT) Stock Position Increased by Geode Capital Management LLCThis incredible Game Pass deal will let you play Stalker 2, Avowed, and Indiana Jones for just $28Nick Kyrgios has described Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek’s positive doping tests as “disgusting” ahead of his return to tennis. The controversial Australian has played only one match in more than two years because of injury but that has not stopped him being an outspoken presence on social media during a difficult few months for the sport. First it was announced in August that Sinner had failed two doping tests in March but was cleared of fault, while in November Swiatek was handed a one-month ban for a failed test caused by contaminated medication. Kyrgios has been particularly vociferous in his criticism of Sinner, who could yet face a ban after the World Anti-Doping Agency appealed the finding of no fault or negligence in his case. At a press conference ahead of the Brisbane International, Kyrgios told reporters: “I have to be outspoken about it because I don’t think there’s enough people that are speaking about it. I think people are trying to sweep it under the rug. “I just think that it’s been handled horrifically in our sport. Two world number ones both getting done for doping is disgusting for our sport. It’s a horrible look. “The tennis integrity right now – and everyone knows it, but no one wants to speak about it – it’s awful. It’s actually awful. And it’s not OK.” He has not played a competitive match since, and it appeared doubtful that he would be able to return, but the 29-year-old will make his comeback in Brisbane this week. Kyrgios will take on France’s Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in singles, while he will also team up with Novak Djokovic in a blockbuster doubles pairing. “It’s good to be back,” said Kyrgios. “I honestly never thought I’d be back playing at this level. Even entering an event like this, preparing, doing all the right things. “I’m really excited to just go out there and play, just play tennis. I saw Novak in the gym, playing doubles with him, a lot to be excited about that I’m able to get out there and compete again.” Asked whether he could get back to the same level that saw him reach the Wimbledon final in 2022, Kyrgios said: “I still believe I can, whether or not that’s factual or not. There was another player who was like, ‘You have to be realistic’. That’s not how I am. I always back my ability.” The new tennis season is already under way, with the United Cup team event beginning on Friday. Great Britain, who are weakened by the absence of Jack Draper through injury, begin their campaign against Argentina in Sydney on Monday before facing hosts Australia on Wednesday. That could pit Katie Boulter against fiance Alex De Minaur, with the pair having announced their engagement last week. “Obviously some incredible news from our side, but I think we kind of wanted it to die down a little bit before matches started,” said Boulter of the timing. “My private life is out in the public a little bit at the moment. But, in terms of the stuff that I’m doing on the court, I’ll be doing the best I can every single day to stay in my own little bubble.” Billy Harris has taken Draper’s place, with the British number one facing a race against time to be fit for the Australian Open because of a hip problem. Emma Raducanu is the sixth seed at the ASB Classic in Auckland and will begin her season with a match against Robin Montgomery, while Cameron Norrie takes on another American, Learner Tien, at the Hong Kong Open.Another Voice: Indigenous people violated again with STAMP site
With New Year’s Eve just around the corner, it’s not too late to make last-minute plans in the Elgin areaI've seen a lot of headlines about how the stock market is expensive. That could be true, but the market consists of thousands of individual companies trading at various prices and valuations at any given time. Look hard enough, and there's always a deal somewhere. And no, you don't have to look in the market's trash heap to find a bargain. There routinely are high-quality names on sale. For example, Meta Platforms ( META 1.32% ) and Adobe ( ADBE 0.27% ) are among the world's most prominent tech companies. Yet their stocks are priced right for buyers today. Despite both stocks trading at similar affordable valuations, they've had very different years. Meta trades near an all-time high, while Adobe is on a 30% decline. Find out what's happening with each tech stock and what makes them compelling buys for 2025. Meta is a case where buying into momentum can make you lots of money Most stocks don't appear on buying lists like this after appreciating almost 400% in under two years. But Meta Platforms is built differently. It's become hard for the stock to keep up with Meta's core business: advertising to the 3.29 billion people who use social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads daily. The company will generate around $163 billion in revenue this year, almost 21% more than in 2023. Meta is highly profitable, with about a third of that winding up as free cash flow . The stock price seemingly can't keep up with Meta's earnings. The stock trades at a forward P/E of 26 today, even after its epic run. Meanwhile, analysts estimate the company will grow earnings by almost 18% annually over the long term (three to five years). That's a PEG ratio of 1.4. I happily buy high-quality stocks at PEG ratios up to 2 or 2.5, so Meta's a bargain by this measure. The company's advertising business is a juggernaut with a long growth runway ahead as global advertising dollars continue shifting from legacy media to online and social media. Meta is a tremendous player in artificial intelligence (AI) , too, which is almost like icing on the cake at this point. It has developed an AI model, accumulated the computing power to use it, and continues to invest billions of dollars annually into its AI segment (Reality Labs), which doesn't even make money yet . Assuming it eventually does, it could add a new level of growth to an already excellent business. Don't hesitate to buy Meta at highs, because it has the fundamentals to more than justify its current value. Adobe is a tantalizing bargain after becoming an unpopular name on Wall Street Adobe is one of the world's largest technology companies, offering cloud-based creativity software, including: Creative Cloud: design, image, and video creation and editing tools Document Cloud: a platform for creating and editing PDF documents Experience Cloud: tools and services for marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) The company generates $21.5 billion in annual revenue, converting over 36% of that into free cash flow. However, the stock has sold off this year as potential threats to Adobe's business emerge. Fast-growing competitors, like Canva and Figma, are thriving; Adobe even tried to acquire the latter but abandoned the deal due to regulatory scrutiny. Additionally, generative AI has become capable of generating high-resolution images from worded prompts, leading some to wonder whether AI will eventually replace some of Adobe's products. Investors shouldn't dismiss any potential disruptors, but the stock's sell-off could be an overreaction. AI can generate images, but it's far from nuanced and currently doesn't come close to replacing Adobe's well-honed technology. Plus, Adobe is already integrating AI technology into its products. It's possible that AI ultimately improves Adobe's business , rather than harming it. AI will improve over time, but it's still a long leap to replace all of Adobe's collective tools and features fully. Meanwhile, the business is still growing revenue by nearly 10%, and analysts expect annualized earnings growth to average 15% over the long term. The stock's PEG ratio is 1.5 today, underlining the stock's current appeal. Investors who buy Adobe should watch for signs that AI or competition have impacted the business. For now, Adobe probably deserves the benefit of the doubt. The stock's tumble is a buying opportunity worth jumping on.
Chungbuk National University da Coreia do Sul pronta para instalar o primeiro computador quântico IQM Spark
Health Initiative Reveals Alarming Hypertension Rates Among Mallam Market TradersStuck for a movie to stream? Here are some gems to check out this ChristmasHouston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans defended Azeez Al-Shaair after the linebacker was ejected from Sunday’s game for throwing a late hit on Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence. Ryans said Monday the team stands behind the 6-year player and explained the incident should be considered from both sides of the ball. “We’re not intentionally trying to hurt anyone, but I think there’s an overreaction when someone gets hurt but we just have to look at it all, from all perspectives. “A lot of the quarterbacks in this day and age, they try to take advantage of the rule where they slide late, and they try to get an extra yard. And now you’re a defender, a lot of onus is on the defender, right?” Ryans added, “Unfortunately, Trevor got hurt. We hope Trevor is ok. “But - it’s also if we’re sliding, we have to get down. If we’re getting out of bounds, we get out of bounds. That rule is there to protect the quarterbacks, and we want our quarterbacks to be safe in the league, so we just have to be safe and we’re sliding, make sure we’re keeping our heads down.” Ryans said Al-Shaair plays the game “the right way” and would never intend to hurt another player. “For any picture that’s painted that Azeez is a dirty player or doing something intentional, that’s the exact opposite of what Azeez is. “People who know Azeez they know him, they know how he plays the game. “Yes, he plays it fast, he plays it physical and sometimes that physical nature gets misunderstood in today’s game.” Earlier, Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson was asked what he thought an appropriate punishment might be for Al-Shaair. Peterson referenced the skirmishes and fights at several NCAA football games on Saturday. “I think the league is going to handle these situations as they come up. Just look at what even happened in college football, some of these rivalry games and things of that nature over the weekend. It’s unfortunate because it escalates to a level that doesn’t need to be on the field. “We hold ourselves to a high regard. We’re in the National Football League. Defend the shield. All that stuff. We got to figure out a way as a league to somehow minimize or at least get these plays out of the game, if possible,” Pederson said. It’s standard for the NFL to review a hit like Al-Shaair’s for potential discipline, with previous rules violations as part of the consideration, a league source told CNN on Monday. The Texans are now on a bye week and will play again on Dec. 15 against the Miami Dolphins.
The 17 Best Things to Do in TokyoTORONTO - Canada’s main stock index edged higher in trading on Wednesday, helped by strength in the technology sector, while U.S. stock markets also rose. The S&P/TSX composite index was up 5.45 points at 25,641.18. The index took a “breather” Wednesday ahead of key labour market indicators set to be released both in Canada and the U.S. this week, said Angelo Kourkafas, senior investment strategist at Edward Jones. Statistics Canada will report the latest data from the national labour force survey on Friday, the same day the November jobs report is due in the U.S. “That’s the last important data point for the Bank of Canada before they meet next week,” said Kourkafas. November was a strong month for equities, he said, so it isn’t surprising that investors are digesting the gains while they await new data. He said it’s expected that Statistics Canada will report an acceleration of job gains after last month brought a “relatively weak reading,” with job gains at about half of what analysts were expecting. While Canada’s central bank is expected to cut its key interest rate a fifth straight time on Dec. 11, the size of the cut could depend on that jobs data, he said. “We’re now looking at a rebound, but as the Bank of Canada deliberates between a quarter point cut versus half a percentage point cut, I think what we are going to see in terms of unemployment rate and the base of job gains is going to have a say into that,” said Kourkafas, adding that wage growth is another important metric to watch. “If we see steady job growth and slowing wages, that can potentially tilt the Bank of Canada towards a larger cut.” In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 308.51 points at 45,014.04. The S&P 500 index was up 36.61 points at 6,086.49, while the Nasdaq composite was up 254.21 points at 19,735.12. U.S. markets were propelled by strength in the technology sector, said Kourkafas, highlighting strong results in quarterly earnings released this week by Salesforce Inc. and Marvell Technology Inc. “I think today’s results highlight that there is still a long runway and still enthusiasm, excitement about artificial intelligence and kind of that multi-year adoption cycle,” he said. The Canadian dollar traded for 71.09 cents US compared with 71.14 cents US on Tuesday. The January crude oil contract was down US$1.40 at US$68.54 per barrel and the January natural gas contract was up less than a penny at US$3.04 per mmBTU. The February gold contract was up US$8.30 at US$2,676.20 an ounce and the March copper contract was down less than a penny at US$4.20 a pound. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 4, 2024. Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)
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NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes rose to more records Wednesday after tech companies talked up how much of a boost they’re getting from the artificial-intelligence boom. The S&P 500 climbed 0.6% to add to what’s set to be one of its best years of the millennium. It’s the 56th time the index has hit an all-time high this year after climbing in 11 of the last 12 days . The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 308 points, or 0.7%, while the Nasdaq composite added 1.3% to its own record. Salesforce helped pull the market higher after delivering stronger revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, though its profit fell just short. CEO Mark Benioff highlighted the company’s artificial-intelligence offering for customers, saying “the rise of autonomous AI agents is revolutionizing global labor, reshaping how industries operate and scale.” The stock price of the company, which helps businesses manage their customers, jumped 11%. Marvell Technology leaped even more after delivering better results than expected, up 23.2%. CEO Matt Murphy said the semiconductor supplier is seeing strong demand from AI and gave a forecast for profit in the upcoming quarter that topped analysts’ expectations. All the optimistic talk helped Nvidia , the company whose chips are powering much of the move into AI, rally 3.5%. It was the strongest force pushing upward on the S&P 500 by far. They helped offset an 8.9% drop for Foot Locker, which reported profit and revenue that fell short of analysts’ expectations. CEO Mary Dillon said the company is taking a more cautious view, and it cut its forecasts for sales and profit this year. Dillon pointed to how keen customers are for discounts and how soft demand has been outside of Thanksgiving week and other key selling periods. Retailers overall have offered mixed signals about how resilient U.S. shoppers can remain. Their spending has been one of the main reasons the U.S. economy has avoided a recession that earlier seemed inevitable after the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates to crush inflation. But shoppers are now contending with still-high prices and a slowing job market . This week’s highlight for Wall Street will be Friday’s jobs report from the U.S. government, which will show how many people employers hired and fired last month. A narrower report released Wednesday morning suggested employers in the private sector increased their payrolls by less last month than economists expected. Hiring in manufacturing was the weakest since the spring, according to Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP. The report strengthened traders’ expectations that the Fed will cut its main interest rate again when it meets in two weeks. The Fed began easing its main interest rate from a two-decade high in September, hoping to offer more support for the job market. The central bank had appeared set to continue cutting rates into next year, but the election of Donald Trump has scrambled Wall Street’s expectations somewhat. Trump’s preference for higher tariffs and other policies could lead to higher inflation , which could alter the Fed’s plans . Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that the central bank can afford to cut rates cautiously because inflation has slowed from its peak two years ago and the economy remains sturdy. A separate report on Wednesday said health care, finance and other businesses in the U.S. services sector are continuing to grow, but not by as much as before and not by as much as economists expected. One respondent from the construction industry told the survey from the Institute for Supply Management that the Fed’s rate cuts haven't pulled down mortgage rates as much as hoped. Plus, “the unknown effect of tariffs clouds the future.” In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.18% from 4.23% late Tuesday. On Wall Street, Campbell’s sank 6.2% for one of the S&P 500’s sharper losses despite increasing its dividend and reporting a stronger profit than analysts expected. Its revenue fell short of Wall Street’s expectations, and the National Football League’s Washington Commanders hired Campbell’s CEO Mark Clouse as its team president. Gains for airline stocks helped offset that drop after JetBlue Airways said it saw stronger bookings for travel in November and December following the presidential election. It also said it’s benefiting from lower fuel prices, as well as lower costs due to improved on-time performance. JetBlue jumped 8.3%, while Southwest Airlines climbed 3.5%. All told, the S&P 500 rose 36.61 points to 6,086.49. The Dow climbed 308.51 to 45,014.04, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 254.21 to 19,735.12. In stock markets abroad, South Korea’s Kospi sank 1.4% following a night full of drama in Seoul. President Yoon Suk Yeol was facing possible impeachment after he suddenly declared martial law on Tuesday night, prompting troops to surround the parliament. He revoked the martial law declaration six hours later. In the crypto market , bitcoin climbed near $99,000 after Trump said he would nominate Paul Atkins , a cryptocurrency advocate, to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission. AP Writers Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed.Rising tech stocks pull Wall Street to another record ByWhy Japan is Facing So much of Mass Tourism like Spain, Italy, Indonesia, Thailand and Greece?
Atlanta, Dec. 04, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Acuity Brands to Announce Fiscal 2025 First-Quarter Results on January 9, 2025 Atlanta, December 3, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE: AYI) (the “Company”) today announced that it is planning to release its fiscal 2025 first-quarter results on Thursday, January 9, 2025 at 6:00 a.m. (EST), followed by a conference call at 8:00 a.m. (EST). Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Acuity Brands will lead the call. The webcast, earnings release, and supplemental presentation can be accessed via the Investor Relations section of the Company's website at www.investors.acuitybrands.com on Thursday, January 9, 2025. The online replay will remain available for a limited time following the call. A replay of the call will also be posted to the Investor Relations site two hours after the completion of the conference call and will be archived on the website. To learn more about Acuity Brands, please visit the Company's website . About Acuity Brands Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE: AYI) is a market-leading industrial technology company. We use technology to solve problems in spaces, light, and more things to come. Through our two business segments, Acuity Brands Lighting and Lighting Controls (ABL) and the Intelligent Spaces Group (ISG), we design, manufacture, and bring to market products and services that make a valuable difference in people’s lives. We achieve growth through the development of innovative new products and services, including lighting, lighting controls, building management solutions, and location-aware applications. We achieve customer-focused efficiencies that allow us to increase market share and deliver superior returns. We look to aggressively deploy capital to grow the business and to enter attractive new verticals. Acuity Brands, Inc. is based in Atlanta, Georgia, with operations across North America, Europe, and Asia. The Company is powered by more than 12,000 dedicated and talented associates. Visit us at www.acuitybrands.com # # # # # Investor Contact: Charlotte McLaughlin Vice President, Investor Relations (404) 853-1456 investorrelations@acuitybrands.com Media Contact: April Appling Vice President, Corporate Communications & Events corporatecommunications@acuitybrands.com