Author: potus

Steve Huffman, co-founder and CEO of Reddit, speaks during the WSJ Tech Live conference hosted by The Wall Street Journal at the Montage Laguna Beach in Laguna Beach, California, on Oct. 21, 2024.Frederic J. Brown | Afp | Getty ImagesReddit shares fell more than 15% on Wednesday after the company reported weaker-than-expected user numbers in its fourth-quarter earnings.Here’s how the company did compared with LSEG estimates:Earnings per share: 36 cents vs. 25 cents expectedRevenue: $428 million vs. $405 million expectedGlobal daily active uniques, or DAUq, rose 39% from a year earlier to an average of 101.7 million for the fourth quarter. That trailed Wall…

Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation to serve as the director of national intelligence once seemed in doubt. Republican senators voiced private skepticism about her qualifications, and her stances on Russia and Syria were at odds with the party’s old positions. But, on a party-line vote on Wednesday, the Senate approved Ms. Gabbard to serve in the senior intelligence post.After all of the Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee endorsed her nomination, her confirmation was all but assured. Those private worries of Republican lawmakers never became significant public opposition. Elon Musk, President Trump’s billionaire ally, took to task one Republican whose vote was…

The New Jersey governor’s race is providing an early test for Democrats trying to navigate the thorny issues of immigration and border security following Donald Trump’s victory, and those issues are already dividing the party’s candidates. “Those national issues are going to loom large in this gubernatorial race,” N.J. Democratic Party Chairman LeRoy Jones said. “It already has.”A crowded field of Democrats, including mayors, members of Congress and a former state Senate leader, are competing to replace the term-limited Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, and the primary could be an early testing ground for the party as it regroups from the 2024…

Belarus, Russia’s closest ally, has released an American prisoner and two others from jail, an exiled opposition group said on Wednesday, in the latest sign that the autocratic Belarusian president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, was looking for ways to improve frozen relations with the West.The releases, announced by an opposition group led by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in Lithuania, a neighbor of Belarus, followed what Western diplomats said was a secret visit on Wednesday to Minsk, the Belarusian capital, by a U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, Christopher W. Smith. The group did not identify the American who was freed.The State Department did…

Over the last decade, as China dropped its show of geopolitical obeisance and began to perform similar games of dominance — telling the 10 nations of the ASEAN regional alliance, for instance, China is a big country, and you are small countries, and that is a fact — it inspired a new foreign-policy term: wolf-warrior diplomacy. This scandalized the foreign policy institutionalists of the West, including Biden, who in juggling not just China but Russia and Israel dedicated much of the second half of his presidency to a nostalgic diplomatic restoration project. The MAGA riposte is, Let’s not be naïve…

Britt Lower and Adam Scott in “Severance,” now streaming on Apple TV+.Source:  Apple TV+Apple TV+ is now available on Android devices as the iPhone maker on Wednesday released its video streaming service for Google’s mobile computing platform. It’s unusual for Apple to release Android apps. The company typically focuses on software for its own iOS and MacOS platforms, but Wednesday’s release is the latest sign that Apple won’t be limiting the growth potential of its Services division by keeping popular services like Apple TV+ exclusive to its own devices.More people have iPhones than Android phones in the U.S., but globally, Android claims…

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks prior to a meeting with Brunei Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah at Istana Nurul Iman in Bandar Seri Begawan on September 4, 2024.Dean Kassim | Afp | Getty ImagesIndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is headed to Washington, D.C., for meetings with President Donald Trump and members of his administration, including Elon Musk, to discuss topics such as efforts to avoid a trade war and artificial intelligence policy, CNBC has confirmed.In his meetings with President Trump on Thursday, Modi will address the country’s growing trade deficit and present a menu of trade concessions including some tied to…

Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, has been confirmed as the director of national intelligence in the United States, a cabinet-level role in the administration of President Donald Trump. Wednesday’s confirmation in the Senate was considered one of the most controversial of Trump’s second term. Nevertheless, the Republican-controlled Senate voted 52-48, mostly along party lines, to approve Gabbard for the post, which oversees the 18 agencies in the US intelligence community. The only Republican to vote against her was Senator Mitch McConnell, who had been the party’s leader in the chamber for 18 years until the end of last year.…

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said that he spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone Wednesday about ending the war in Ukraine and that Putin indicated he would be willing to negotiate directly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.”As we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social about their first known call of his second term.”We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations,” he added. “We have also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately.”Trump said…

(The Center Square) — California officials told legislators that the state is spending $9.5 billion on healthcare for illegal immigrants in the current 2024-2025 budget.With the governor’s proposed budget including a $7 billion reserve withdrawal and deficits expected to soon rise to $30 billion, and federal funding likely to decrease, the state may face challenges in continuing to pay for this growing program. During a budget hearing earlier this week, Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, asked California Department of Finance officials how much the state has allocated to undocumented immigrant healthcare in the current budget. “In the current year, to cover undocumented…