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Elon Musk’s month pushing Twitter Blue failed to win many subscribers

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:02:12 GMT

By Aisha Counts | BloombergTwitter Inc. is struggling to sell users on its new subscription product, Twitter Blue, according to a new report.Only 116,000 people signed up for the service of 2.6 million people who visited the Twitter Blue sales page on the web in March, according to estimates by SimiliarWeb, which analyzes internet traffic.Twitter owner Elon Musk had said that starting this month, only subscribers to Twitter Blue would be eligible for verification check marks, previously reserved for public figures. In March, when a person who got a check through the old system logged onto Twitter, they sometimes received a message encouraging them to sign up to pay for Twitter Blue in order to keep their status.The change in rules was expected to cause an uptick in subscriptions. Recently, Musk decided to give some verified users more time to decide whether to pay him.TRelated ArticlesBusiness | A new group of Twitter vendors is suing the company for alleged unpaid bills ...

More court dates for parolee accused of stabbing 80-years-old man at Bay Area Burger King

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:02:12 GMT

A  trial date remains pending for a 36-year-old parolee charged with stabbing an elderly man in a Fairfield fast food restaurant in 2018.Solano County Superior Court records show that Dale James Chordorowski, who  appeared Tuesday Department 11, was scheduled for a trial setting, but Judge William J. Pendergast reset it for 8:30 a.m. May 4 in the Justice Center in Fairfield.At the the newly scheduled setting, Pendergast also will consider a Romero motion submitted by the Public Defender’s Office, which represents Chordorowski. It is a motion by a defense attorney to remove a prior strike conviction from consideration during sentencing. If a judge grants the motion, it can significantly reduce the length of a state prison sentence should a defendant be convicted.After a 2021 preliminary hearing, as previously reported, Pendergast declared there was enough evidence to hold Chordorowski for trial.During a previous court proceeding, Chordorowski also faced a restoration-of-mental-compet...

Veteran Spanish actress says surrogate baby is granddaughter

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:02:12 GMT

MADRID (AP) — A heated debate in Spain triggered by a 68-year-old celebrity who was reported to have used a surrogate mother in Miami to have a baby took a twist Wednesday when the woman announced in socialite magazine ¡Hola! that the baby is actually the daughter of her son who died of cancer in 2020.Actress and presenter Ana Obregón told ¡Hola! that doctors had encouraged her son, Aless Lequio García, to preserve samples of sperm before he began treatment and that he expressed a desire just before dying to have a child. The samples, she said, were stored in New York.Surrogate pregnancies are banned in Spain, although children from such pregnancies in other countries can be registered.“This girl is not my daughter, but rather my granddaughter” Obregón told the magazine. “It was Aless’ last wish to bring a child into the world.”Initial reports about the baby grabbed the attention of the Spanish media and the country’s political parties, sparking criticism from the leftist coalition ...

Macron in China urges ‘shared responsibility for peace’

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:02:12 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday he wants to “engage China toward a shared responsibility for peace” in Ukraine when he meets Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week.French officials said earlier Macron planned to urge Xi in talks Thursday to use Beijing’s influence with Russian President Vladimir Putin but didn’t expect a big shift in the Chinese position.Macron is accompanied by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a show of European unity in dealings with Beijing.Xi and Putin declared their governments had a “no limits friendship” before Moscow’s February 2022 attack on Ukraine. Beijing has refused to criticize the Kremlin but has tried to appear neutral and has called for a cease-fire and peace talks.In a speech to French residents of China, Macron said he would “try to build, and somehow engage China toward a shared responsibility for peace and stability on international issues” including Ukraine, Iran and North...

Fuerzas israelíes asaltan mezquita de al-Aqsa en Jerusalén y arrestan a más de 350 personas

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:02:12 GMT

(CNN) — La policía de Israel irrumpió en la mezquita al-Aqsa en la Ciudad Vieja de Jerusalén este miércoles temprano y arrestó más de 350 personas, pocos días después de que un palestino fuera asesinado fuera del lugar sagrado.Escenas violentas dentro de la mezquita compartidas en las redes sociales muestran a las fuerzas israelíes agitando linternas y aparentemente golpeando con porras a personas que gritaban dentro del edificio a oscuras. Testigos oculares le dijeron a CNN que la policía rompió puertas y ventanas y disparó granadas de aturdimiento y balas de goma.Un video compartido por la policía de Israel muestra a agentes ingresando a la mezquita por la fuerza con sus escudos antidisturbios mientras se les lanzan fuegos artificiales que rebotan en las paredes.La policía israelí ingresa a la mezquita al-Aqsa en Jerusalén el 4 de abril de 2023. (Mostafa Alkharouf/Agencia Anadolu/Getty Images)En un comunicado, la policía israelí dijo que sus fuerzas ingresaron a la mezquita ...

Real Madrid earns most UEFA prize money with $146M in 2022

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:02:12 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Champions League winner Real Madrid earned the most prize money from a European club competition last season with 133.7 million euros ($146.4 million), UEFA said Wednesday.Madrid’s total included a basic payment for entering the group stage, results bonuses, a share of Spanish broadcasting rights and an extra payment based on clubs’ historical records in UEFA competitions.Liverpool lost the final to Madrid and was second in the “prize money table” with a total of 120 million euros ($131.4 million) from UEFA’s total Champions League prize fund of more than 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion).Only two other clubs earned nine-figure sums: Bayern Munich got nearly 110 million euros ($120.4 million) and Manchester City was paid nearly 109 million euros ($119 million).Paris Saint-Germain’s loss to Madrid in the round of 16 meant it was paid just 92 million euros ($100.7 million) by UEFA.UEFA said the 32 group-stage clubs were paid an average of 61.8 million euros ($67.7 million) ...

‘This is our second crypto winter as a company:’ RoundlyX explains how it expects to grow in 2023

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:02:12 GMT

RoundlyX may reside in a fickle cryptocurrency space, but it survived that industry’s 2018 downturn, and isn’t looking to change directions now. Instead, it expects to triple revenue and significantly grow its user base.“This is our second crypto winter as a company,” founder Andrew Elliot said. “We are not questioning what we do. We know it works like this. It’s very cyclical. Everything in the financial market has only validated Bitcoin.”Founded in 2017 by Elliot and partner Will Trible, RoundlyX Inc. allows cryptocurrency investors to round their daily purchases to the nearest dollar and apply the amount to their cryptocurrency investments. The Richmond company, formerly known as Coin Savage, has built partnerships with Coinbase, Giving Block and other companies in the cryptocurrency sector.Cryptocurrency is still an emerging asset class, Elliot said, one that grew tremendously in 2020 and 2021 before declining in 2022. So far, cryptocurrency is up in 2023, but…Read the full stor...

As Finland joins its ranks NATO ponders Ukraine’s prospects

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:02:12 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — As Finland joined NATO this week, casting aside a history of military nonalignment, a small but noisy group of Ukraine supporters outside the security fence at the alliance’s headquarters used a loudspeaker system to chant “Ukraine needs NATO,” “Ukraine in NATO,” and “Ukraine needs fighter jets.”Russia’s war on Ukraine has driven Finland into NATO’s ranks to benefit from its security guarantee that an attack on any one of the now-31 member countries will be met with a response from them all. Sweden, Bosnia, Georgia and — most urgently — Ukraine, want in, too.At their summit in Lithuania on July 11-12, U.S. President Joe Biden and his counterparts want to offer Ukraine something more, something stronger, in line with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s expectations more than a year into a war that has killed tens of thousands and driven millions from their homes. The question, NATO diplomats say, is: What, exactly?The problem is simple. Most of NATO’s bigger member nation...

Simply Good Foods: Fiscal Q2 Earnings Snapshot

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:02:12 GMT

DENVER (AP) — DENVER (AP) — The Simply Good Foods Co. (SMPL) on Wednesday reported fiscal second-quarter earnings of $25.6 million.The Denver-based company said it had net income of 25 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, came to 32 cents per share.The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of five analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 30 cents per share.The nutritional foods company posted revenue of $296.6 million in the period, which also topped Street forecasts. Five analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $290.7 million._____This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on SMPL at https://www.zacks.com/ap/SMPLSource

Police stop driver with tags from 2020 in Wheat Ridge

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:02:12 GMT

WHEAT RIDGE, Colo. (KDVR) -- "Oh boy, we know this one is going to cause a ruckus," was the response from the Wheat Ridge Police Department after they shared a photo of a driver pulled over with tags that expired in December of 2020.In the photo, the plates showed an expiration date of Dec. 18, 2020.WRPD said that was not the most expired plate spotted during a traffic stop this week, another officer saw a plate that expired in September of 2020 on Monday. Expired tags? Here’s how much it will cost you "You know how you ask us all the time why we don't pull people over for expired registration? Well, we do. We can't catch them all; there are too many of them and not enough of us. But we certainly try, especially when the date is as outrageous as the one in this photo," WRPD said on Facebook.The Colorado Department of Revenue said failing to register your vehicle on time could cost you a late fee."Here's the bottom line: the citation these drivers get is for 60 days or more expired...