Tag Archives: Jump

Technology

Jump In! Event Guide • MTG Arena Zone

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MTG Arena will be hosting a special series of events called the Decathlon. Ten events with a variety of formats spanning fifteen days will be culminating to one final event for a chance to win some big prizes, including TWO copies of each card in the upcoming Phyrexia: All Will Be One set! This guide will contain everything you need to know about the Jump In! event including the schedule, rewards and our exclusive sample decklists.

Event Details

  • Duration: January 1, 2021 @ 8:00 AM PST to January 4, 2021 @ 8:00 AM PST
  • Format: Pauper
  • Entry Fee: 2,000 Gold or 400 Gems
  • Ends After: 7 wins or 3 losses, whichever comes first
  • Match Structure: Best-of-one matches (BO1)

Rewards

Wins Reward
7 wins 4,000 Gold + Decathlon token
5-6 wins 3 packs
3–4 wins 2 packs
1-2 wins 1 pack
0 wins No rewards
Entry Reward Bronze Sundering Titan Sleeve
Bronze Sundering Titan Sleeve

Packs awarded during Decathlon events can be from sets legal in Historic, Standard, and can even include the new Alchemy: Innistrad packs:

  • Standard main set: 40%
  • Non-Standard main set pack: 40%
  • Alchemy set – 10%
  • Mythic pack: 10%

You can enter the Decathlon events as many times as you want, but you can only get one decathlon token from each event. You also need to get three different tokens to be able to enter the finals so make plans to play other events if you want to get your hands on some of those sweet finals prizes.

Jump In! Guide

Unfortunately we don’t have any super concrete advice for Jump In! as it’s going to be very much determined by what packs you get offered. However, understanding the rares that each pack offers and picking the most strongest of the Rares and packs that work synergistically with each other is a good idea. To know what has which, be sure to check out the guide and hope to get packs that are more synergistic with each other.

Past Events

The first Decathlon is best-of-one Alchemy! 63 new powerful digital-only cards and 11 rebalanced existing Standard cards to shakeup the metagame in this brand new format, we are bound to see a good variety of decks that feature them. Here’s everything you need to know about this event, rewards and sample decklists from the community that achieved the maximum wins.

Event Details

  • Duration: December 18, 2021 @ 8:00 AM PST to December 20, 2021 @ 8:00 AM PST
  • Format: Alchemy
  • Entry Fee: 2,000 Gold or 400 Gems
  • Ends After: 7 wins or 3 losses, whichever comes first
  • Match Structure: Best-of-one matches (BO1)

Rewards

Wins Reward
7 wins 3,000 Gold + Decathlon token
6 wins 3 packs
5 wins 2 packs
3–4 wins 1 pack
0–2 wins No rewards
Entry Reward Arena Decathlete Sleeve
Arena Decathlete Sleeve

Packs awarded during Decathlon events can be from sets legal in Historic, Standard, and can even include the new Alchemy: Innistrad packs:

  • Alchemy: Innistrad pack: 20%
  • Standard set pack: 40%
  • Historic set pack: 40%

You can enter the Decathlon events as many times as you want, but you can only get one decathlon token from each event. You also need to get three different tokens to be able to enter the finals so make plans to play other events if you want to get your hands on some of those sweet finals prizes.

Alchemy Guide

Below is our latest take on Alchemy (a Premium article) which goes beyond the event but also recommendations for best-of-three.

7 Win Alchemy Decklists

Below are the decklists from the community that managed to reach the maximum 7 wins in the event. We have showcased one deck from each archetype – please note that it is not a representation of the Alchemy metagame at large.

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DoggertQBones

Robert “DoggertQBones” Lee is the content manager of MTGAZone and a high ranked Arena player. He has one GP Top 8 and pioneered popular archetypes like UB 8 Shark, UB Yorion, and GW Company in Historic. Beyond Magic, his passions are writing and coaching! Join our community on
Twitch and Discord.

Articles: 568

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US

Slipping over Mexico border, migrants get the jump on U.S. court ruling

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CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico Dec 28 (Reuters) – Even before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday opted to keep in place a measure aimed at deterring border crossings, hundreds of migrants in northern Mexico were taking matters into their own hands to slip into the United States.

The contentious pandemic-era measure known as Title 42 had been due to expire on Dec. 21, but last-minute legal stays pitched border policy into limbo and made many migrants decide they had little to lose by crossing anyway.

After spending days in chilly border cities, groups of migrants from Venezuela and other countries targeted by Title 42 opted to make a run for it rather than sit out the uncertainty of the legal tug-of-war playing out in U.S. courts.

“We ran, and we hid, until we managed to make it,” said Jhonatan, a Venezuelan migrant who scrambled across the border from the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez into El Paso, Texas with his wife and five children, aged 3 to 16, on Monday night.

Giving only his first name and speaking by phone, Jhonatan said he had already spent several months in Mexico and had not wanted to enter the United States illegally.

But the thought of failing after a journey that took his family through the perilous jungles of Darien in Panama, up Central America and into Mexico was more than he could bear.

“It would be the last straw to get here, and then they send us back to Venezuela,” he told Reuters.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a request by a group of Republican state attorneys general to put on hold a judge’s decision invalidating Title 42. They had argued its removal would increase border crossings.

The court said it would hear arguments on whether the states could intervene to defend Title 42 during its February session. A ruling is expected by the end of June.

[1/3] Migrants run to hide from the U.S. Border Patrol and Texas State Troopers after crossing into the United States from Mexico, in El Paso, Texas, U.S., December 23, 2022. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

Reuters images showed migrants racing across a busy highway alongside the border last week, one man barefoot and carrying a small child – the kind of risky crossing that alarms migrant advocates.

“We’re talking about people who come to request asylum … and they’re still crossing the border in very dangerous ways,” said Fernando Garcia, director of the Border Network for Human Rights.

John Martin, the deputy director at El Paso’s Opportunity Center for the Homeless, said the number of migrants his shelter has taken in are increasingly people who crossed illegally, including many Venezuelans.

“At one point, the majority were documented; now I’m seeing it reverse,” he said.

The agency’s El Paso sector was registering about 2,500 daily migrant encounters in mid-December, but the number dipped through Christmas to just over half that by the time of the court decision, CBP figures show.

On Tuesday before the Supreme Court ruling, a Venezuelan migrant in Ciudad Juarez who gave his name as Antonio said he was waiting to see whether U.S. border surveillance would let up, hoping to make money in the United States to send home.

“If they don’t end Title 42,” he said, “we’re going to keep entering illegally.”

Elsewhere along the border, other migrants said they felt they had run out of options.

“We don’t have a future in Mexico,” said Cesar, a Venezuelan migrant in Tijuana who did not give his last name, explaining why he has attempted once to cross the border fence to get into the United States, and plans to try again.

Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City and Jose Luis Gonzalez in Ciudad Juarez; Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz and Ted Hesson; Editing by Dave Graham and Gerry Doyle

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Technology

Samsung Galaxy S23 to reportedly bring a sizeable performance jump

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The Galaxy S23 series is expected to go official in early February 2023, but many of its features have already leaked. It is widely considered that all Galaxy S23 series units worldwide will come equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor. Now, for the first time, a report claims what kind of performance improvement we can expect from Samsung’s upcoming phones.

According to tipster Ahmed Qwaider, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2-equipped Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+, and Galaxy S23 Ultra will feature a sizeable jump in performance compared to their predecessors. The upcoming phones would reportedly feature 36% better CPU performance, 48% faster GPU, and 60% faster NPU (Neural Processing Unit used for AI and ML acceleration). The devices are also expected to feature a better chipset cooling solution for better performance under sustained loads.

Previous reports indicate that Samsung might have stuck a deal with Qualcomm for an overclocked version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Going by benchmark figures, this particular version of the processor has a 170MHz faster CPU clock speed (for its Prime CPU core). Its GPU could be clocked at 719MHz. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 also features faster RAM (LPDDR5X) and storage (UFS 4.0), which should result in a considerable performance jump.

Apart from raw performance improvement, the Galaxy S23 series is expected to bring brighter screens (all variants at 1,750 nits), improved colors in outdoor conditions, a better selfie camera (12MP Dual-Pixel AF), 8K 30fps video recording, and satellite connectivity. The Galaxy S23 and the Galaxy S23+ are getting slightly bigger batteries, at 3,900mAh and 4,700mAh, respectively.



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Business

Cryptoverse: Jump or slump? $30k or $5k? Play the bitcoin roulette

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Dec 13 (Reuters) – Plucky bitcoin’s been holding steady since seeing off the chaos of the FTX collapse, gathering its strength to rally towards the dizzy heights of $30,000 in 2023.

Battered bitcoin’s been unresponsive since being clobbered by the FTX collapse, taking in a deep ragged breath before plunging towards the depths of $5,000.

Place your bets, spin the wheel.

The world’s dominant cryptocurrency has certainly been uncharacteristically muted over the past two weeks, treading water between about $15,770 and $17,350 in the eerie wake of the FTX-induced market mini-crash in November.

What happens next is anyone’s guess.

“The question we need to be asking ourselves now is: Are there any sellers left in this market? To my mind, no, there aren’t that many left,” said Jacob Sansbury, co-founder of retail investor services firm Pluto.

Sansbury believes most over-leveraged miners, who tend to be large holders of bitcoin, have exited positions to pay off debts taken out in traditional money to fund their equipment and operations.

Indeed bitcoin’s recent calmness could be down to the fact that there are fewer coins to sell: the amount held on exchanges for trading stands at 1.97 million, Coinglass data shows, down steeply from 2.33 million at the start of the year.

Major offloading has already taken place; November saw a 7-day realized loss of $10.16 billion in bitcoin investments as investors were forced to exit long-term positions, the fourth-largest loss on record by this measure, according to Glassnode data.

The cryptocurrency has already dropped more than 60% in 2022 and set to see its first annual loss since 2018.

Many remaining investors are placing their bitcoin into offline “cold storage” according to on-chain data, which should strengthen a floor price around $16,000, said Bob Ras, co-founder of Sologenic, an exchange and digital asset firm.

“Barring any more surprises in the market, it’s hard to imagine BTC going significantly lower,” he added.

Ras believes that if it wasn’t for the high-profile collapse of crypto players FTX, Celsius and Terra this year, the price of bitcoin would be close to $25,000 now.

But this is crypto, and more surprises could well be in store, with a number of potential selling triggers on the horizon.

THE BEAR’S TALE

First potential peril is the risk of more bitcoin miners being forced to sell their holdings to stay afloat, as mining becomes increasingly expensive.

“Miners as a group start to become unprofitable under $20,000, so we’re below (that) point,” noted Ben McMillan, chief investment officer at IDX Digital Assets.

CrytpoQuant’s miner reserve indicator, which tracks the amount of bitcoin held in miners’ wallets, has dropped by about 7,722 bitcoin since November.

Market players also pointed to concerns about the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, (GBTC.PK) the world’s largest bitcoin fund with $10.9 billion in assets. Parent company Digital Currency Group, which owns Genesis Trading, owes $575 million to Genesis’ crypto lending arm, DCG’s CEO told shareholders on Nov. 22.

Grayscale Bitcoin Trust’s discount to its net asset value, is at an all-time low of 48% and shares have not traded at a premium since March 2021, Coinglass data showed.

DCG last month said troubles at Genesis’ lending business had no impact on DCG and its subsidiaries, while Grayscale maintained it was business as usual and its underlying assets were unaffected.

“This could be the other shoe to drop,” said McMillan, referring to the possibility of Grayscale running into financial trouble. “That said, if bitcoin can hold the $15,000 line through the DCG workout, that would be a strong indicator going into 2023.

A more hawkish than expected Federal Reserve at its final meeting of the year on Wednesday could further erode risk appetite and bitcoin’s prospects, crypto watchers said.

Bitcoin has fallen 75% after hitting a record high of $69,000 in November 2021

GETTING TECHNICAL

The scenarios of bitcoin leaping to $30,000 or tumbling to $5,000 in 2023 were long-shot possibilities flagged by VanEck and Standard Chartered, respectively.

When it comes to the technicals, several analysts pointed to indicators showing bitcoin may have found support between $16,000 and $16,800.

The cryptocurrency could also run into resistance around the $17,490 level, said Eddie Tofpik, head of technical analysis at ADM Investor Services, cautioning that any long-term rally was likely to be challenging.

“Anytime we see a rally, it’s one step up and then two or three steps down,” he said.

Vetle Lunde, analyst at Arcane Research, said long-term bets could be appealing in the wake of the November turmoil.

Nonetheless, uncertainty reigns.

“Bear in mind that massive drawdowns tend to be followed by a long-lasting directionless market filled with apathy and unfathomable second-guessing,” Lunde added.

Reuters Graphics Reuters Graphics

Reporting by Lisa Pauline Mattackal and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Pravin Char

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

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Health

RSV hospitalizations jump 31% in a week, stoking ‘tripledemic’ fear

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A trio of viruses is on the rise, causing some experts to warn of a “tripledemic” of COVID-19, flu and the far lesser known RSV.

Respiratory Syncytial Virus is an upper respiratory virus, and cases in Europe, America and Israel are growing fast. The Health Ministry reported on Thursday that in the last week, the number of patients hospitalized with RSV jumped 31 percent. Since the beginning of October, 696 people have been hospitalized with RSV, including 229 in the past week.

Most children catch RSV in their first two or three years, but parents normally don’t give it a name and just say their children are “feeling unwell” or “have a virus.”

As with COVID, the concern is when it hits the vulnerable. For young babies, the elderly, and those with health complications, it can cause more severe illness such as infection of the lungs, bronchiolitis, an inflammation of the small airways in the lung, and pneumonia. RSV causes more cases of bronchiolitis and pneumonia before age 1 than any other pathogen.

Normally, morbidity is spread out, and hospitals can easily handle the flow of serious cases that filters through. But there is currently a sudden rise, and it is coming during a winter when hospitals are also dealing with two other major respiratory diseases — COVID-19 and flu.

“Israel is now experiencing what we’ve already seen in North America and some other places, with the rise in RSV,” the leading pediatrician Prof. Moshe Ashkenazi, deputy director of the children’s hospital at Sheba Medical Center, told The Times of Israel. “It’s spreading more violently than in previous years.

“People shouldn’t panic, but they should be aware that it’s a virus that is dangerous to young babies, especially preterm babies, and to children with heart and lung diseases.”

RSV – a 3D rendering of the virus (CIPhotos via iStock by Getty Images)

What makes RSV the odd one out alongside flu and COVID-19 is vaccine availability. The latter two viruses have easily accessible vaccines that are cheap for health providers to source. “There is a vaccine for RSV, but it is only given to the most at-risk as it’s a special antibody injection given in five shots and costs $20,000 to $30,000 per person, per season.”

It’s not known for sure why RSV is spiking now, after declining at the height of the COVID pandemic. But there is a strong belief among medical experts that masking and social distancing meant people were exposed to fewer viruses than normal and therefore now have reduced immunity.

“There’s a theory that for a long time we were masked and we weren’t exposed to regular viruses as we normally would have been, and therefore immunity levels against general viruses are low,” Ashkenazi said. “Now that masks are worn less, RSV is spreading more.”

Science supports the theory that masks may have been keeping RSV at bay. Like COVID, it spreads largely via droplets from an infected person — normally their coughs or sneezes — entering the airways of somebody else.

Dr. Moshe Ashkenazi, deputy director of the children’s hospital at Sheba Medical Center (courtesy of Sheba Medical Center)

The World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control just highlighted the threat of RSV alongside COVID and flu. “RSV has been on the rise since October, with some 20 countries and areas experiencing intensified RSV activity,” they said in a joint statement.

“COVID-19 case rates, hospital and intensive care unit admissions, and death rates are currently low compared to the past 12 months, but this situation could change as new variants emerge, and the disease continues to strain health care resources,” the statement said.

“With the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the circulation and health impact of other respiratory pathogens, it is challenging to predict how the new winter period will develop.”

Ashkenazi said that RSV normally starts with a cough and a runny nose, sometimes alongside sneezing, fever and/or an impact on appetite.

“On a practical level, if people have anything more severe than a runny nose, they should stay home or protect their surroundings by wearing a mask,” he said.

By the time symptoms show, people may have been contagious for a day or two. They normally remain contagious for three to eight days — in some cases longer.

Ashkenazi said that when symptoms are mild, people who aren’t at elevated risk don’t normally need to seek medical advice. However, if there is a “red flag,” they should take a home coronavirus test to eliminate COVID-19, and go to the doctor if it is negative.

“Red flags include shortness of breath, inability to sleep because of a cough, coughing with a large amount of phlegm, or a change in mental state,” he said. “The best thing we can do is to vaccinate against the viruses for which we do have shots — flu and COVID — so that we reduce cases of respiratory illnesses wherever possible.”

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Business

Latest weekly jobless claims jump to 240,000

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Minneapolis
CNN Business
 — 

First-time weekly claims for unemployment benefits jumped to 240,000 for the week ended November 19, according to data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s a sharp increase of 17,000 from the previous week’s upwardly revised tally of 222,000, and surpasses economists’ expectations of 225,000.

Continuing claims, which count people who have filed for jobless aid for at least two weeks in a row, rose to 1.55 million for the week ending November 12.

The number of unemployment claims have been hovering near historic lows due to a labor market that has remained considerably tight even as workers flooded back after the end of pandemic-era lockdowns.

But that could be changing – and in short order: Large companies, notably some of the biggest names in tech, have started conducting mass layoffs.

This is a developing story. It will be updated.

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Business

Dow futures drop 300 points as rates jump, raising fears about a recession

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Stock futures fell Thursday as interest rates jumped with Federal Reserve officials signaling interest rate hikes to slow inflation are far from over.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 316 points, or 0.9%. S&P 500 futures slipped 1.1%, while Nasdaq-100 futures fell 1.2%.

St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said in a speech that “the policy rate is not yet in a zone that may be considered sufficiently restrictive.”

“The change in the monetary policy stance appears to have had only limited effects on observed inflation, but market pricing suggests disinflation is expected in 2023,” added Bullard.

The 2-year Treasury Yield jumped to 4.42% Thursday morning, raising fears higher rates would send the economy into a recession.

Stocks most vulnerable to a recession and higher rates led the losses in premarket trading. Financials led by Wells Fargo were lower. Tech shares Tesla and Netflix declined.

The latest moves followed a down day on Wall Street, the second in three days. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell 0.83% and 1.54%, respectively. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 39.09 points, or 0.12%.

Downward pressure emerged from weak guidance from Target, which reported a decline in sales as inflation pinches shoppers heading into the holiday season. The Minneapolis-based chain ended 13% lower, while its forward guidance cast doubt on other retailers.

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Sports

College Football Playoff Rankings: Top five hold, LSU and USC inch up, Washington makes huge jump in top 25

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With the top five teams in last week’s College Football Playoff Rankings all holding serve after emerging victorious last week, the third edition of the CFP top 25 released Tuesday night was largely uneventful. Reigning national champion Georgia held onto the No. 1 spot with fellow undefeateds Ohio State, Michigan and TCU rounding out what would be the four-team field should the playoff be decided today.

Tennessee, with its lone blemish coming to Georgia two weeks ago, remains the first team out at No. 5. The Volunteers will have a chance to make the playoff given the strength of their victories to this point along with having the best loss in the country. Reminder: All but one team ranked No. 1 in a season’s initial CFP Rankings ultimately reached the playoff (Mississippi State, 2014).

A debut in the CFP for the Vols is hardly a sure thing, however, as they will not have an opportunity to earn extra credit in the eyes of the CFP Selection Committee by winning a conference championship game. That possibility still exists for No. 6 LSU, which is seeking to become the first two-loss team to earn a CFP bid in the event’s history. No. 7 USC aims to become the first Pac-12 team to make the playoff since 2016-17, while No. 9 Clemson looks to get through the rest of the season unscathed; that will require it getting by fellow one-loss ACC brethren No. 13 North Carolina, which itself has a puncher’s chance at making the CFP.

Perhaps most notable was a change in ranking order for the top Group of Five programs aiming for a New Year’s Six berth. With a 38-31 head-to-head road victory over the weekend, UCF (now No. 20) jumped Tulane (now No. 21) to take pole position for that opportunity.

The biggest riser in the rankings was Washington, which jumped eight spots to No. 17 after taking down Oregon, which fell six spots down to No. 12. 

Let’s take a look at the entire CFP Rankings top 25. Analysis by bowls expert Jerry Palm below.

College Football Playoff Rankings, Nov. 15

  1. Georgia (10-0)
  2. Ohio State (10-0)
  3. Michigan (10-0)
  4. TCU (10-0)
  5. Tennessee (9-1)
  6. LSU (8-2)
  7. USC (9-1)
  8. Alabama (8-2)
  9. Clemson (9-1)
  10. Utah (8-2)
  11. Penn State (8-2)
  12. Oregon (8-2)
  13. North Carolina (9-1)
  14. Ole Miss (8-2)
  15. Kansas State (7-3)
  16. UCLA (8-2)
  17. Washington (8-2)
  18. Notre Dame (7-3)
  19. Florida State (7-3)
  20. UCF (8-2)
  21. Tulane (8-2)
  22. Oklahoma State (7-3)
  23. Oregon State (7-3)
  24. NC State (7-3)
  25. Cincinnati (8-2)

Analysis by bowls expert Jerry Palm

The only change in the top 10 this week was former Oregon dropping out, allowing LSU, USC, Alabama and Clemson to move up a spot. Utah also moves up to the top 10 ahead of a showdown with the Ducks for a leg up in the Pac-12 Championship Game race.

Only five teams remain that control their own fate in the chase for a spot in the four-team field, but they are not the top five teams in the rankings. The top four all control their own fate, but Tennessee does not. That is because if LSU beats Georgia, the Tigers would move into the top four and the Vols would be out of luck.

It is also possible that Tennessee could be passed by a 12-1 champion from another conference, most likely USC if the Trojans can pull that off. Their remaining schedule would include three ranked teams: at UCLA, vs. Notre Dame and the Pac-12 title game. The Clemson-North Carolina winner in the ACC would be in play as well, but it’s less likely to get to the top four.

Cincinnati makes its first appearance of the season in the rankings, checking in at No. 25. The Bearcats are the third AAC team in the rankings. It is extremely likely at this point that the Group of Five representative in the Cotton Bowl will come from among Cincy, UCF and Tulane. The Bearcats host the Green Wave to end the regular season with the winner likely traveling to Orlando to face the Knights for the AAC championship.

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US

Trump launches 2024 U.S. presidential run, getting jump on rivals

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PALM BEACH, Fla., Nov 15 (Reuters) – Donald Trump, who has mounted relentless attacks on the integrity of U.S. voting since his 2020 election defeat, on Tuesday launched a bid to regain the presidency in 2024, aiming to pre-empt potential Republican rivals.

Trump, seeking a potential rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden, made his announcement at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida a week after midterm elections in which Republicans failed to win as many seats in Congress as they had hoped.

In a speech broadcast live on U.S. television, Trump spoke to hundreds of supporters in a ballroom decorated with several chandeliers and lined with dozens of American flags.

“In order to make America great again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump said to a cheering phone-waving crowd of donors and longtime supporters.

Earlier in the day, aides filed paperwork with the U.S. Federal Election Commission setting up a committee called “Donald J. Trump for President 2024.”

For much of the speech Trump steered clear of the name-calling that marked his recent public appearances, opting instead for a critique of Biden’s presidency and a review of what Trump said were the policy achievements of his own time in office.

“Two years ago we were a great nation and soon we will be a great nation again,” he said.

There is a long road ahead before the Republican nominee is formally selected in the summer of 2024, with the first state-level contests more than a year away.

Trump’s announcement comes earlier than usual even in a country known for protracted presidential campaigns and signals his interest in discouraging other possible contenders such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis or his own former vice president, Mike Pence, from making a bid for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

DeSantis handily won re-election as governor during the midterms. Pence, while promoting his new book, has sought to distance himself from Trump. Other potential Republican presidential hopefuls include Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Trump played an active role in the midterms, recruiting and promoting candidates who echoed his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud.

But many of his candidates in key battleground states lost, prompting some prominent Republicans to openly blame him for promoting weak candidates who derailed the party’s hopes of taking control of the Senate.

Control of the House of Representatives remains up in the air, but Republicans are on track to win a razor-thin majority.

Trump will seek his party’s nomination even as he faces trouble on several fronts, including a criminal investigation into his possession of government documents taken when he left office as well as a congressional subpoena related to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack by his supporters. Trump has called the various investigations he faces politically motivated and has denied wrongdoing.

Trump, 76, is seeking to become only the second U.S. president in history to serve non-consecutive terms, after Grover Cleveland, whose second stint ended in 1897. Biden, 79, said last week he intends to run for re-election and will likely make a final decision by early next year.

In an Edison Research exit poll, seven out of 10 midterm voters expressed the view that Biden, who remains deeply unpopular, should not run again. In the same poll, six of 10 respondents said they had an unfavorable opinion of Trump.

TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY

During his turbulent 2017-2021 presidency, Trump defied democratic norms and promoted “America First” nationalism while presenting himself as a right-wing populist. He became the first U.S. president to be impeached twice, though congressional Democrats failed in their attempts to remove him from office.

At a rally that preceded the Capitol attack, Trump urged supporters to “fight like hell” and march on Congress to “stop the steal,” but the mob that subsequently stormed the Capitol failed to prevent Congress from formally certifying Biden’s election victory.

Even though court and state election officials rejected Trump’s false election claims, about two-thirds of Republican voters believe Biden’s victory was illegitimate, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.

Trump has elicited passionate support from many Americans, especially white men, Christian conservatives, rural residents and people without a college education. Critics accuse Trump of pursuing policies built around “white grievance” in a nation with a growing non-white population.

The political landscape has changed dramatically since he won the presidency in 2016 and some in his party, including major donors, are exhausted by the drama surrounding him.

His single term as president stands as one of the most contentious in U.S. history. He secured sweeping tax cuts, imposed curbs on immigration and orchestrated a rightward shift of the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court. He alienated U.S. allies abroad, abandoned international agreements on trade and climate change, and praised authoritarian leaders abroad, including Putin.

The Democratic-led House impeached him in 2019 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he pressed Ukraine’s leader to investigate Biden and his son on unsubstantiated corruption accusations. The Senate acquitted him, thanks to Republican support.

The House impeached Trump again a week before he left office, this time for incitement of insurrection. He was acquitted by the Senate after he left office, again thanks to Republican senators.

Reporting by Steve Holland in Palm Beach, Florida, and Andy Sullivan in Washington; Additional reporting by Gram Slattery in Washington: Editing by Will Dunham, Ross Colvin and Howard Goller

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

Hong Kong stocks jump after China trims quarantine period, up more than 7%

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Oil prices rise more than 2% on back of China easing quarantine measures

Reopening stocks jump after China’s eased Covid measures reported

China trims Covid quarantine time by two days

Chinese state media announced on Friday that the country will reduce quarantine time for international travelers by two days.

The revised rules state travelers will be required to stay at a quarantine facility for five days, shorter than the previous period of seven days, with a two day period of home observation.

— Evelyn Cheng, Lee Ying Shan

Earnings preview: Softbank to post net profit after seeing previous losses

Softbank is expected to post a net profit in upcoming quarterly earnings.

A median of forecasts predict the Japanese conglomerate to report an annualized net profit of 2.769 trillion yen ($19.5 billion) for its second quarter ending September 30, according to a Refinitiv survey.

The company posted two consecutive periods of quarterly net losses, with a 3.16 trillion yen net loss in the first quarter ending June 30 and a 2.1 trillion yen net loss in the fourth quarter ending March 30th.

— Lee Ying Shan

Hong Kong movers: Alibaba, JD.com, Tencent soar at open

Hong Kong-listed shares of Chinese technology companies popped in early Asia trade as the broader Hang Seng Index briefly added more than 6%.

Tech giants Alibaba and JD.com soared 7.94% and 10%, respectively. Tencent added 9.16%, and Meituan gained 12.26%.

— Lee Ying Shan

Currency check: Japanese yen, Chinese yuan at strengthened levels

The Japanese yen and Chinese yuan hovered around strengthened levels after the U.S. dollar index fell more than 1% overnight on a softer-than-expected inflation report.

The yen stood at 141.63 against the greenback, hovering around the strongest levels it’s seen in two months before weakening past 150 in October.

The onshore yuan was around 7.18, also trading near its strongest levels to the dollar in nearly a month.

— Jihye Lee

Asia-Pacific indexes pop at open after U.S. inflation report

CNBC Pro: Bitcoin will fall further, says fund manager — until this one catalyst kicks in

Bitcoin is down by 75% from its all-time high, and a cryptocurrency exchange is on the brink of bankruptcy. In such an environment, a bond fund manager reveals the one thing that’s needed for prices to rally.

Michael Howell from Cross Border Capital also said that due to the missing catalyst, there’s an increased risk of investors getting in a “bit too early.”

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Ganesh Rao

CPI rises less than expected

The U.S. consumer price index — a broad measure of inflation — rose by 0.4% in October from a month ago. On a year-over-year basis, the CPI rose 7.7%.

Economists polled by Dow Jones expected a month-over-month gain of 0.6% and a year-over-year advance of 7.9%.

Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core CPI increased 0.3% for the month and 6.3% on an annual basis, compared to respective estimates of 0.5% and 6.5%.

— Jeff Cox

Dollar index on pace for worst day since Dec. 2015

The U.S. dollar slid Thursday against a basket of other currencies as investors cheered October’s CPI report coming in weaker than expected, signaling that inflation may have peaked.

The dollar index shed 2%, putting it on pace for its worst daily performance since Dec. 4, 2015. If the index falls more than 2.1%, it will hit levels not seen since 2009.

This week, the dollar index is down 2.3% and is on pace for its worst week since March 2020.

—Carmen Reinicke

Biden to raise concerns about Xi’s relationship with Putin ahead of G-20 summit

The U.S. government has introduced some of its most sweeping export controls yet aiming to cut China off from advanced semiconductors. Analysts said the move could hobble China’s domestic chip industry.

Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

President Joe Biden is expected to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week in a face-to-face meeting.

The meeting between the two leaders, the first since Biden ascended to the U.S. presidency, will take place ahead of the G-20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia.

“I think the president will be honest and direct with President Xi about how we see the situation in Ukraine with Russia’s war of aggression,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters on a call.

“This is a topic that the president and President Xi have spoken about several times before. They spoke about it extensively in March in their video call and then they spoke about it again in July, so it’s part of an ongoing conversation between the two of them,” added the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

— Amanda Macias

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