- Eminem Asks Not To Stand Up In Court Battle Over Trademarking The Term ‘Shady’ Deadline
- Eminem Seeks Protective Order Against Gizelle Bryant and Robyn Dixon in Trademark Dispute Case PEOPLE
- Eminem Does Not Want to Sit for a Deposition In His Trademark Fight With Two ‘Real Housewives’ Stars Rolling Stone
- Eminem requests protective order against ‘The Real Housewives of Potomac’ stars Gizelle Bryant and Robyn Dixon over ‘Shady’ trademark dispute. Entertainment Weekly News
- Eminem Asks to Skip Deposition in Dispute With ‘RHOP’ Stars Us Weekly
Tag Archives: term
Russia seeks an 8-year prison term for an artist and musician who protested the war in Ukraine – Yahoo News
- Russia seeks an 8-year prison term for an artist and musician who protested the war in Ukraine Yahoo News
- Russian artist who staged anti-war supermarket protest faces eight years in jail Reuters
- Russian artist facing 8 years for supermarket protest Bangkok Post
- Prosecutors Seek Eight Years For Russian Artist Who Used Price Tags For Anti-War Protest Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
- Prosecution requests eight-year sentence for Sasha Skochilenko, St. Petersburg artist who replaced price tags with information about war in Ukraine Meduza
- View Full Coverage on Google News
WGA Negotiating Committee Member David Simon On Urgency To Tackle AI Now & Fight To Keep Term Employment – Deadline
- WGA Negotiating Committee Member David Simon On Urgency To Tackle AI Now & Fight To Keep Term Employment Deadline
- Warner Bros. Discovery Asks Talent Not to Appear In-Person at Upfronts Amid Writers Strike (EXCLUSIVE) Variety
- Here’s what media giants face as they try to charm advertisers this week CNBC
- Dispatches From WGA Picket Lines Day 14: Neil Gaiman, Jordan Klepper & Dave Foley Among 200 Writers Picketing NBCUniversal Upfronts Deadline
- Good Omens: Neil Gaiman Joins Writers’ Strike NYC Picket Lines (VIDEO) Bleeding Cool News
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Jerry Jones says Eagles bet it all to win this year, Cowboys think longer term
The Rams won the Super Bowl a year ago with their famous “F them picks” strategy of trading draft picks for veteran players, but this season the Rams fell back to earth, and many have questioned whether the Rams’ approach was a viable long-term strategy for a team.
But Cowboys owner Jerry Jones made a surprising comment on Wednesday, lumping this year’s NFC champion Eagles in with last year’s Rams. Jones said both the Rams and the Eagles went all-in to win this year, while Jones wants the Cowboys to build for the long term.
“Anybody who thinks I won’t take a chance, has misread the tea leaves. But I do think longer term,” Jones said. “And I’m real hesitant to bet it all for a year. There’s a lot of things that can happen for that year. In essence, we’re seeing a couple of teams that have had some real success putting it all out there and paying for it later, in Philadelphia and Los Angeles.”
But while Jones makes a valid point that the Rams paid for it a year later, the Eagles had a fundamentally different approach. It’s true that the Eagles traded a first-round draft pick for wide receiver A.J. Brown, but they did so only after a series of trades that left them in good position, with multiple first-round picks. And the Eagles have two first-round picks in the 2023 NFL draft as well. The Eagles also currently have more cap space for 2023 than the Cowboys do, so it’s hard to see how Jones can justify any claim that the Eagles went all-in while the Cowboys are thinking longer term.
Still, Jones thinks the Rams and Eagles are similar.
“That’s pretty impressive to have two teams in the last two years empty the bucket and get to the Super Bowl,” Jones said. “But if you miss, it is a long go.”
Jones said he doesn’t think the Cowboys should be either the most aggressive team in making trades and free agent signings, or too hesitant to take chances.
“I like where we are right now, more in the middle,” Jones said.
The Eagles like where they are right now, in the Super Bowl.
Va. Sen. Tim Kaine says he will seek another term
He said he grappled with the choice while traveling throughout the state, energized by the people he met in every corner, he said, before ultimately deciding: He wasn’t done yet.
“Man, I’ve got more I wanna do,” he said. “I’ve got to be honest and look in the mirror and say, ‘Have I done everything I wanted to get done?’ And the answer is, no I haven’t.”
Kaine will be seeking reelection under a decidedly different environment than in his last race, when a Democrat was in the executive mansion and his opponent, Corey Stewart, turned off moderate Virginians with hard-right positions and staunch support for Confederate statues. Kaine won by 16 points. He won by 6 in 2012 against former Virginia governor and senator George Allen.
Though Kaine is still considered well-positioned to keep his seat, Republicans have been energized by Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s victory in 2021 over former governor Terry McAuliffe (D) by about 2 percentage points, and have been motivated to keep the momentum going.
Whether the governor could be a contender for the seat himself remains an open question; Virginia governors cannot seek consecutive terms. Youngkin’s ambitions have been under a microscope, as the governor has launched two political-action committees, met with megadonors and crisscrossed the state stumping for GOP gubernatorial candidates during the midterms. Youngkin has frequently deflected suggestions he is eyeing a White House bid — but others haven’t ruled out a Senate run.
A September University of Mary Washington Poll tested a Youngkin Senate candidacy in a hypothetical matchup against Kaine, finding support for them was close among Virginia voting-age adults.
Asked about what kind of pressure he got from Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to run, Kaine said Schumer and other Senate Democrats have been “good at encouraging” him to do so while also acknowledging it was his own decision to make, giving him time and space.
“I think it was Abraham Lincoln who said, ‘I’m a slow walker, but when I do walk, I don’t turn back.’ Having made the decision, I’m all in. I’m ready to run very, very vigorously,” Kaine said. “I’m ready to keep serving very vigorously. Some people were pretty patient with me as I was making my decision and I really appreciate that.”
Kaine avoided speculating about his potential opponent at his news conference Friday, held after an economic roundtable with young Richmond leaders. The group at the roundtable, he said, were exactly the kind of people who have inspired him to want to continue the work.
The Senate could be a frustrating place sometimes, Kaine said — but nevertheless he feels that progress has been made on some fronts, sometimes by the narrowest of margins, showing how one senator’s decision to stay or go can make a big difference. “We saved the Affordable Care Act by one vote in 2017,” he said. “That will always be maybe the moment in politics I’ll remember the most: 30 million people’s health insurance was on the line. And it was a one-voter and you know, if I hadn’t run in 2012, it would have gone the other way.”
Kaine credited his wife, former Virginia education secretary Anne Holton, with giving him the advice to “come to a resolve point in your mind, and then live with it for about a week and find out if you’re waking up, second-guessing it or not.”
He said he followed that advice and picked two Bible verses to represent his choices: one that could be read as a reason to retire, the other as a reason to run.
One the retire side he turned to Ecclesiastes: “For every thing there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.” On the run side, Galatians: “Do not grow weary in doing good. You will reap a great harvest if you do not give up,” as Kaine recited.
“I drove around the state, kind of thinking about, Which of these two verses resonates with me right now?” Kaine said.
He said he made his decision a little more than a week ago. “But I needed the time to let it sit and make sure that I wasn’t second guessing.” Then he managed to pull off a rarity in politics by keeping his secret secret. Aside from his family, Kaine said he told three staffers two days before and the rest of his staff at 9 p.m. Thursday.
Should he win a third term, Kaine said he had more to do on a range of issues, from national security and immigration reform to workforce development, affordable housing and reproductive rights.
In just 10 years, Kaine has developed a reputation as an honest broker with many Republicans — a policy wonk who more often strikes an optimistic note about bipartisan get-alongs, and who has publicly described a personal mission not to grow cynical about dysfunction in Congress. He’s been at the negotiating table on some of the most consequential legislation, sometimes working with bipartisan rump “gangs” on legislation not initially approved of by Senate leaders.
That reputation has put him at the forefront of more challenging assignments in the face of the Senate filibuster: He’s worked with fellow Catholic Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on protecting abortion rights, despite his personal opposition to abortion, and he helped lead the charge on Democrats’ major voting rights legislation despite not serving on the relevant committees, saying he hoped to “change the trajectory” of his Senate seat previously occupied by segregationists.
A fluent Spanish-speaker who spent time with Jesuit missionaries in Honduras, Kaine has also prioritized immigration reform, making history in 2013 as the first senator to deliver a speech entirely in Spanish on the Senate floor.
He sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he has relentlessly sought to rewrite the war resolutions used to start the Afghanistan and Iraq wars two decades ago.
Kaine has long been a political heavyweight in Virginia and beyond. He served as Hillary Clinton’s running mate in her 2016 presidential campaign, a job Barack Obama first vetted him for in 2008 before asking him to serve as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Kaine, who first rose to prominence in the state as a civil rights lawyer, began his political career in Richmond, first as a city council member, then mayor, climbing to become governor of Virginia. His steady but emotional leadership in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech mass shooting garnered broad recognition, an experience he has said has informed his push to expand gun restrictions during his tenure in the Senate.
Kaine, who also served as Virginia’s lieutenant governor under fellow Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), holds a degree from Harvard Law School, where he met his wife.
Kaine has been public about the effects he’s experienced from long covid, and last year sponsored legislation aimed at funding research on the condition. He described the symptoms as a persistent tingling sensation — as if “all my nerves have had like five cups of coffee,” as he described the feeling last year — but has stressed the symptoms were not debilitating and did not prevent him from doing his work.
During the news conference, Kaine said his experience with long covid was actually part of the reason he chose to run again. “I have long covid. It’s mild. It’s not getting in my way. But it is noticeable enough that I knew there are people who are really struggling with this,” he said. “We’ve got to do better in terms of finding treatments and cures and therapies for the millions of Americans who are going not be dealing with this for a very long time.”
This story is developing and will be updated.
Paul Kane, Amy Gardner and Scott Clement contributed to this report. Vozzella reported from Richmond.
Ex-cop who kneeled on George Floyd’s back gets 3.5-year term
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The former Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on George Floyd’s back while another officer kneeled on the Black man’s neck was sentenced Friday to 3 1/2 years in prison.
J. Alexander Kueng pleaded guilty in October to a state count of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. In exchange, a charge of aiding and abetting murder was dropped. Kueng is already serving a federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights, and the state and federal sentences will be served at the same time.
Kueng appeared at the hearing via video from a federal prison in Ohio. When given the chance to address the court, he declined.
With credit for time served and different parole guidelines in the state and federal systems, Kueng will likely serve a total of about 2 1/2 years behind bars.
Floyd’s family members had the right to make victim impact statements, but none did. Family attorney Ben Crump, who has taken on some of the nation’s most high-profile police killings of Black people, said in a statement before the hearing that Kueng’s sentencing “delivers yet another piece of justice for the Floyd family. ”
“While the family faces yet another holiday season without George, we hope that moments like these continue to bring them a measure of peace, knowing that George’s death was not in vain,” he said.
Floyd died on May 25, 2020, after former Officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes as Floyd repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe and eventually went limp. The killing, which was recorded on video by a bystander, sparked worldwide protests as part of a broader reckoning over racial injustice.
Kueng kneeled on Floyd’s back during the restraint. Then-Officer Thomas Lane held Floyd’s legs and Tou Thao, also an officer at the time, kept bystanders from intervening. All of the officers were fired and faced state and federal charges.
As part of his plea agreement, Kueng admitted that he held Floyd’s torso, that he knew from his experience and training that restraining a handcuffed person in a prone position created a substantial risk, and that the restraint of Floyd was unreasonable under the circumstances.
Matthew Frank, who led the prosecution for the Minnesota attorney general’s office, said repeatedly during the hearing that Floyd was a crime victim and that the prosecution “focused on the officers” who caused his death. He added that the case was not meant to be a broader examination of policing, but added that he hopes it will reaffirm that police officers cannot treat those “who are in crisis as non-people or second-class citizens.”
“Mr. Kueng was not simply a bystander that day. He did less than what some of the bystanders attempted to do in helping Mr. Floyd,” Frank said.
Kueng’s attorney, Thomas Plunkett, on Friday blamed the Minneapolis Police Department’s leadership and a lack of training for Floyd’s death. He highlighted Kueng’s status as a rookie — saying he had only been on the job on his own for three days — and accused department leadership of failing to implement training to encourage officers to intervene when one of their colleagues is doing something wrong.
“On behalf of Mr. Kueng, I’m not calling for justice. I’m calling for progress,” he said.
Then-Chief Medaria Arradondo fired Kueng and the three other officers the day after Floyd’s killing and later testified at Chauvin’s trial that the officers did not follow training. The former head of training for the department has also testified that the officers acted in a way that was inconsistent with department policies.
Kueng’s sentencing brings the cases against all of the former officers a step closer to resolution, although the state case against Thao is still pending.
Thao previously told Judge Peter Cahill that it “would be lying” to plead guilty. In October, he agreed to what’s called a stipulated evidence trial on the count of aiding and abetting manslaughter. As part of that process, his attorneys and prosecutors are working out agreed-upon evidence in his case and filing written closing arguments. Cahill will then decide whether Thao is guilty or not.
If Thao is convicted, the murder count — which carries a presumptive sentence of 12 1/2 years in prison — will be dropped.
Chauvin, who is white, was convicted of state murder and manslaughter charges last year and is serving 22 1/2 years in the state case. He also pleaded guilty to a federal charge of violating Floyd’s civil rights and was sentenced to 21 years. He is serving the sentences concurrently at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona.
Kueng, Lane and Thao were convicted of federal charges in February: All three were convicted of depriving Floyd of his right to medical care, and Thao and Kueng were also convicted of failing to intervene to stop Chauvin during the killing.
Lane, who is white, is serving his 2 1/2-year federal sentence at a facility in Colorado. He’s serving a three-year state sentence at the same time. Kueng, who is Black, was sentenced to three years on the federal counts; Thao, who is Hmong American, got a 3 1/2-year federal sentence.
___
Groves reported from Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
___
For more AP coverage of the killing of George Floyd: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd
Short Term Memory Problems Can Be Improved With Laser Therapy
Summary: Transcranial photobiomodulation (tPBM), a laser therapy delivered to the right prefrontal cortex appears to improve short-term memory in both human and animal models. The therapy, which is non-invasive and has no side effects, could help treat those with short-term memory deficits.
Source: University of Birmingham
Scientists at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. and Beijing Normal University in China, demonstrated that the therapy, which is non-invasive, could improve short term, or working memory in people by up to 25%.
The treatment, called transcranial photobiomodulation (tPBM), is applied to an area of the brain known as the right prefrontal cortex. This area is widely recognized as important for working memory.
In their experiment, the team showed how working memory improved among research participants after several minutes of treatment. They were also able to track the changes in brain activity using electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring during treatment and testing.
Previous studies have shown that laser light treatment will improve working memory in mice, and human studies have shown tPBM treatment can improve accuracy, speed up reaction time and improve high-order functions such as attention and emotion.
This is the first study, however, to confirm a link between tPBM and working memory in humans.
Dongwei Li, a visiting Ph.D. student in the University of Birmingham’s Center for Human Brain Health, is co-author on the paper. He said, “People with conditions like ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) or other attention-related conditions could benefit from this type of treatment, which is safe, simple and non-invasive, with no side-effects.”
In the study researchers at Beijing Normal University carried out experiments with 90 male and female participants aged between 18 and 25. Participants were treated with laser light to the right prefrontal cortex at wavelengths of 1,064 nm, while others were treated at a shorter wavelength, or treatment was delivered to the left prefrontal cortex. Each participant was also treated with a sham, or inactive, tPBM to rule out the placebo effect.
After tPBM treatment over 12 minutes, the participants were asked to remember the orientations or color of a set of items displayed on a screen. The participants treated with laser light to the right prefrontal cortex at 1,064 nm showed clear improvements in memory over those who had received the other treatments.
While participants receiving other treatment variations were about to remember between three and four of the test objects, those with the targeted treatment were able to recall between four and five objects.
Data, including from electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring during the experiment was analyzed at the University of Birmingham and showed changes in brain activity that also predicted the improvements in memory performance.
The researchers do not yet know precisely why the treatment results in positive effects on working memory, nor how long the effects will last. Further research is planned to investigate these aspects.
Professor Ole Jensen, also at the Center for Human Brain Health, said, “We need further research to understand exactly why the tPBM is having this positive effect, but it’s possible that the light is stimulating the astrocytes—the powerplants—in the nerve cells within the prefrontal cortex, and this has a positive effect on the cells’ efficiency. We will also be investigating how long the effects might last. Clearly if these experiments are to lead to a clinical intervention, we will need to see long-lasting benefits.”
About this neurotech and memory research news
Author: Press Office
Source: University of Birmingham
Contact: Press Office – University of Birmingham
Image: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: Open access.
“Transcranial photobiomodulation enhances visual working memory capacity in humans” by Chenguang Zhao et al. Science Advances
See also
Abstract
Transcranial photobiomodulation enhances visual working memory capacity in humans
Transcranial photobiomodulation (tPBM) is a safe and noninvasive intervention that has shown promise for improving cognitive performance.
Whether tPBM can modulate brain activity and thereby enhance working memory (WM) capacity in humans remains unclear.
In this study, we found that 1064-nm tPBM applied to the right prefrontal cortex (PFC) improves visual working memory capacity and increases occipitoparietal contralateral delay activity (CDA).
The CDA set-size effect during retention mediated the effect between the 1064-nm tPBM and subsequent WM capacity.
The behavioral benefits and the corresponding changes in the CDA set-size effect were absent with tPBM at a wavelength of 852 nm or with stimulation of the left PFC.
Our findings provide converging evidence that 1064-nm tPBM applied to the right PFC can improve WM capacity.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot files for 2nd term
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot filed her petitions to run for re-election on Monday as Chicago’s election cycle enters a bare-knuckle period where candidates for local office try to knock each other off the ballot.
“With the filing today, one chapter in the campaign ends and another opens,” she said after submitting a stack of nominating papers that, sitting on the Board of Elections table, almost reached her shoulders. Surrounded by supporters and Chicago first lady Amy Eshleman, Lightfoot quipped that her pile of more-than-40,000 signatures “looks like enough to me” before expressing that the next focus is on telling voters “why the only rational choice is to return me to office.”
She touted her record, asserting she’s run the country’s “most equitable” vaccine program, made progress toward transforming Chicago into the “safest big city in the nation” and protected “workers and workers’ rights.” She also tried to evoke the energy of her first campaign in 2019 as one of insurgency and change — though this time she now runs as the incumbent.
“What’s on the ballot is, do we return to the status quo that left huge swaths of our city of our residents out of the equation, out of the future of Chicago? Or do we keep forging ahead on the path that we’ve been on?” Lightfoot said. “And the path that we’ve been on, folks, unapologetically, it’s about equity. It’s about inclusion. It’s about making sure that no part of our city is forgotten, that every part gets resources and gets dealt in to the prosperity of our city.”
Chicago’s nominating petition process is one of the most prominent holdovers of the old-school political machine. To run for mayor, a candidate must submit 12,500 signatures from voters, which can be disqualified on narrow technical grounds. So far, six candidates have submitted signatures to run for mayor: Ald. Sophia King, activist Ja’Mal Green, Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas, businessman Willie Wilson and state Rep. Kam Buckner.
[ Who’s in, who’s out and who’s filed to run for Chicago mayor ]
Ald. Roderick Sawyer and U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, a later entry to the race as an announced candidate, are expected to join them on Monday.
Lightfoot’s decision not to file on the first day drew scorn from rivals, who said it reflects organizational challenges as the mayor fights an uphill battle to win reelection. But Lightfoot has shrugged off the criticism.
She also went against conventional wisdom Monday by submitting her petitions first thing on the last day of filing rather than at the end of the day. That means she’s also forgoing the chance to be last on the ballot, which is often preferred if a candidate doesn’t appear first.
The incumbent mayor said her lack of interest in playing that game was because she isn’t worried about name recognition — and because “I actually got a city to run as well.”
“The position on the ballot is if you are an unknown, and people don’t know you. They know who I am,” Lightfoot said, to which a supporter added to reporters, “You better listen.”
The coalition of supporters flanking Lightfoot included the colorfully dressed activist Wallace “Gator” Bradley, a pardoned ex-gang enforcer who has been a frequent presence at Chicago City Hall, and U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, a longtime member of the city’s Black political establishment who recently fended off a progressive primary challenger to win a 14th term in Congress.
Once all the signatures are filed at the end of the day Monday, candidates will have until Dec. 5 to challenge their rivals’ signatures and get them kicked off the ballot.
In the 2019 election for mayor, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle — who ultimately lost to Lightfoot in a runoff — succeeded in getting former Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown kicked off the ballot. That year, Green also withdrew while facing a stiff challenge from Wilson.
Election lawyers often encourage candidates to collect roughly three times the minimum number of signatures because challengers can use charges of forgery, fraud and more minor technicalities to invalidate signatures and knock opponents out of the race. Lightfoot on Monday said she amassed more than 40,000 signatures, more than three times the threshold.
Election day is Feb. 28 with a runoff scheduled for April 4 if no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote.
The six candidates who filed first thing on Nov. 21 will be in a lottery to determine who’s first on the ballot.
In closing remarks before walking out the elections board room, Lightfoot sought to warn the media that though incumbents like her face a “tough environment,” her candidacy is not to be counted out.
“I know how to build coalitions. I know how to bring people together,” Lightfoot said. “Every single time there’s been a challenge and you all are speculating, ‘She can’t get it done because of this, that and the other and people don’t like her personality and whatnot,’ we deliver, every single time. So print that.”
Brazil’s Bolsonaro loses bid for second term in fiercely contested presidential vote
CNN
—
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is set to become the next president of Brazil, after defeating his rightwing rival, incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, by a razor-thin margin in a fiercely contested run-off election.
The leftist former leader, widely known as “Lula,” received more than 60 million votes, the most in Brazilian history, breaking his own record from 2006.
But despite the huge turnout from his supporters, his victory was by a narrow margin – according to Brazil’s electoral authority, Lula da Silva won 50.90% of the vote and Bolsonaro received 49.10%, denying him a second term.
Lula supporters thronged São Paulo Avenida Paulista on Sunday evening after polls closed. The mood was celebratory even before the results were called, with people setting off flares when he was declared winner by the country’s election authority.
Many had tears in their eyes, telling CNN that they were hopeful for the country, which has been struggling with high inflation, limited growth and rising poverty.
But others on Avenida Paulista expressed fears. Lula da Silva’s razor thin margin has raised concerns that Bolsonaro will not accept defeat, having repeatedly claimed that Brazil’s electronic ballot system is susceptible to fraud. The entirely unfounded allegation has drawn comparisons to the false election claims of former US President Donald Trump.
Hours after the results were announced, Bolsonaro had yet to concede defeat or make any public statement. Meanwhile, videos on social media showed his supporters had blocked highways in two states to protest against Lula da Silva’s victory.
“We will only leave once the army takes over the country,” one unidentified Bolsonaro supporter said in a video taken in the southern state of Santa Catarina.
Speaking to supporters on Sunday evening, Lula da Silva thanked all Brazilians. “The people who voted for me, the people who voted for the opponent, who went to the polls, who consented to fulfill their civilizing commitment of citizenship, I want to congratulate you,” he said, reported CNN Brasil.
“And, above all, I want to congratulate the people who voted for me because I consider myself a citizen who had a process of resurrection in Brazilian politics because they tried to bury me alive and I’m here,” he added.
Lula da Silva and Bolsonaro had previously gone head to head in a first round of voting on October 2, but neither gained more than half of the votes, forcing Sunday’s runoff vote, which became a referendum on two starkly different visions for Brazil.
The election came amid a tense and polarized political climate in Brazil.
Both candidates had used this election to attack one another at every turn, and rising anger has overshadowed the polls and clashes among their supporters left many voters feeling fearful of what is to come. Voters in Sao Paulo told CNN that they were keen to end this election season as soon as possible so the country can move on.
While there were no reports of political violence on Sunday, Lula da Silva allies accused the police of blocking buses and cars carrying Lula voters from getting to voting sites. However, the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), which runs Brazil’s elections, said no one had been prevented from voting and declined to extend voting hours, Reuters reports. The Federal Highway Police said they had complied with court orders, it added.
Lula da Silva was president for two terms, from 2003 to 2006 and 2007 to 2011, where he led the country through a commodities boom that helped fund huge social welfare programs and lifted millions out of poverty.
He left office with a 90% approval rating – a record tarnished however by Brazil’s largest corruption probe, dubbed “Operation Car Wash,” which led to charges against hundreds of high-ranking politicians and businesspeople across Latin America. He was convicted for corruption and money laundering in 2017, but a court threw out his conviction in March 2021, clearing the way for his political rebound.
Bolsonaro ran for his first term as president in 2018 with the conservative Liberal Party, campaigning as a political outsider and anti-corruption candidate, and gaining the moniker “Trump of the Tropics.” A divisive figure, Bolsonaro has become known for his bombastic statements and conservative agenda, which is supported by important evangelical leaders in the country.
During his reelection bid, Bolsonaro appealed to supporters’ moral values and sense of national unity, and branded his left-wing adversary as “the communist threat.” His campaign, which adopted the slogan “God, Nation, Family, and Liberty,” promised an intensified version of his first term: tax cuts, policies that would support the agricultural industry, reduction of environmental rules, and a continuation of his Auxilio Brasil welfare payments to the poorest.
But poverty has grown during his presidency, and his popularity levels took a hit over his handling of the pandemic, which he dismissed as the “little flu,” before the virus killed more than 680,000 people in the country.
Environmentalists also warned that the future of the rainforest could be at stake in this election, as Bolsonaro’s government had become known for its support of ruthless exploitation of land in the Amazon, leading to record deforestation figures.
World leaders congratulated Lula da Silva on his victory.
United States President Joe Biden called the election “free, fair, and credible,” saying he looked “forward to working together to continue the cooperation between our two countries in the months and years ahead.”
Regional leaders described his win as a “time of hope.”
“Your victory opens a new time for the history of Latin America. A time of hope and future that begins today. Here you have a partner to work with and dream big about the good life of our peoples,” President of Argentina Alberto Fernández said on Twitter.
French President Emmanuel Macron described it as “a new chapter in the history of Brazil. Together, we will join forces to face the many common challenges and renew the bond of friendship between our two countries.”
More than 156 million people were eligible to vote in this year’s election. The candidates themselves voted early on Sunday, with Lula voting at a public school in the São Paulo metro Area and Bolsonaro casting his ballot in Rio de Janeiro early on Sunday morning.
Global equity markets issue sceptical verdict on Xi’s third term
Investors worldwide issued a sceptical verdict on Xi Jinping’s third term in office, selling shares in Chinese companies after the country’s leader wrapped up a Communist party congress that signalled a shift in focus from the economy to security.
The sell-off began on Monday morning in Asia, where Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Tech index fell 9.7 per cent, a one-day move that matched its largest ever drop. It continued into the US trading day, where several of the most well-known Chinese tech groups listed on Wall Street fell sharply.
Nasdaq’s Golden Dragon index, which tracks US-listed shares in Chinese companies, fell 14.4 per cent as Alibaba, JD.com and Pinduoduo faced heavy selling. The record one-day drop for the index left it down by about 50 per cent this year.
Analysts said that the sell-off was compounded by Beijing’s release of economic data, delayed while the party conference was under way, that showed China’s economy grew by 3.9 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter, below the government’s annual goal of 5.5 per cent.
But they also noted that Xi’s overhaul of the party leadership during the week-long 20th party congress, which ended at the weekend, had given power to loyalists more concerned with China’s geopolitical rivalry with the US than with economic reform.
“The risk is more about groupthink and thought capture and the line about the dire need to struggle with the US,” said Gerard DiPippo, a former senior China economy analyst at the CIA. “It is reasonable from a market perspective that, whatever hope you had of a liberal turn in China, is probably lower now than it was on Friday.”
In the months leading up to the party congress, Xi had shown a growing disregard to economic reform, enforcing strict Covid-19 lockdowns despite its impact on the Chinese economy. He has also launched a regulatory crackdown on some of the country’s fastest-growing technology groups.
“Chairman Xi clearly wanted a team to execute on his vision,” said one US industry executive.
Frank Benzimra, head of Asia equity strategy at Société Générale, said investors had been unsettled by the shift in membership of the party’s top leadership body announced on Sunday, which was stacked with cadres more focused on national security than economic reform.
“While Chinese politics have long been opaque, this sharp consolidation of power is adding to investor unease,” said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer of UBS’s Global Wealth Management. “Equity valuations, already near a 10- year trough, will likely face more pressure if international investors demand a higher risk premium.”
Among the biggest corporate names to suffer in the sell-off was Alibaba, which closed 12.5 per cent lower in Wall Street trading, pushing its shares below the $68 offering price it went public at in New York eight years ago, in what was at the time the world’s largest listing.
The company has increased its revenues more than 14-fold and doubled adjusted profits in the years since its market debut. But shares have been sliding since 2020 after Beijing cancelled the IPO of digital payments affiliate Ant Group, which had been set to raise a record $37bn.
Alibaba’s 80 per cent decline in that period reflects a loss of about $670bn in equity market value. The tech company in August reported its first quarterly revenue decline since its listing in New York.
Monday’s shakeout highlights the mounting challenges faced by China’s largest tech groups since Xi launched a regulatory crackdown on the sector.
One Alibaba employee said the government’s tech crackdown and the sinking share price had sapped “drive and energy”.
“Over the past one to two years people have stopped working hard,” the person said, noting they personally worked about 20 fewer hours a week.
Alibaba’s filings also show the company has shed more than 13,000 positions since the start of the year.
Additional reporting by Nian Liu in Beijing, Patrick Mathurin in London and Eric Platt in New York