Oman has been mediating between Iran and the United States as President Donald Trump seeks an agreement that would curb Iran’s nuclear programme, which Washington believes is aimed at developing a nuclear weapon.

“We discussed the progress of negotiations between Iranian and American representatives,” Interfax quoted Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov as saying.

“We will see what the result will be. We maintain close contact with our Iranian colleagues. Where we can, we help.”

Trump has threatened to bomb Iran unless a deal is reached; Iran denies seeking atomic weapons. Russia signed a strategic partnership treaty with Iran in January and is also trying to improve relations with the Trump administration.

Moscow has a role in nuclear talks with Iran as a signatory to a previous nuclear deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018. Russia has said any U.S. military action against Iran would be illegal.

In televised comments, Putin was shown telling the sultan that Russian energy companies were interested in developing relations with Oman.

It was the second time in less than a week that Putin has met face-to-face with a Middle Eastern leader, following a visit by the emir of Qatar on April 17. Iran’s foreign minister visited last week.

—

(Reporting by Reuters, writing by Mark TrevelyanEditing by Peter Graff)

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Marketing execs reveal that companies feel pressured to maintain a presence on X, particularly following Musk’s prominent role in President Trump’s administration and recent legal actions against advertisers who ceased spending.

Lou Paskalis, CEO of AJL Advisory, explains, “It’s whatever amount is enough to stay off the naughty list. The far greater risk is that a comment (from Musk) in the press sends your stock price tumbling.”

Related Story: Musk Could Be Headed for a Washington Exit After Turbulent Times at Trump’s DOGE

Revenue and Advertiser Trends

X’s revenue is projected to increase to $2.3 billion this year, up from $1.9 billion last year, but still below 2022’s $4.1 billion. Some major advertisers, including Hulu and Unilever, have returned to the platform, while others like American Express have significantly reduced their spending.

Four large ad agencies are negotiating annual spending targets with X, despite concerns about potential legal repercussions. X has filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against a coalition of brands and ad agencies, accusing them of coordinating an “illegal boycott.”

Mark Penn, CEO of Stagwell agency, believes X is “a revived and increasingly vibrant platform,” noting that “political boycotts and things are dissipating because companies are realizing that taking one side and the other is a dangerous place to be.”

However, some industry experts remain skeptical about the platform’s return on investment and its ability to attract major advertisers at previous levels.

Read more at Ars Technica

The post Big Brands Spend Just Enough on X to Avoid Musk’s ‘Naughty List’ appeared first on GV Wire.

The Central California Osteopathy Clinic at 225 Herndon Ave. No. 103 is open and taking appointments for Fridays, according to a news release from the practice.

Led by Lisa Chun, DO, the clinic also provides a teaching environment for students from the California Health Sciences University.

Editor’s Note: GV Wire Publisher Darius Assemi is a founder and board member of CHSU.

Osteopathy a Holistic Approach to Ailments

Osteopaths take a holistic approach to ailments in the body. They receive specialized training in nervous and musculoskeletal systems, including how to manipulate joints and muscles, according to Healthline.com.

Related Story: Clovis Medical School Hits Huge Milestone: 7-Year Accreditation

Three other faculty physicians join Chun at the osteopathy clinic. It operates as a fee-for-service clinic in that patients can get reimbursement from their insurance companies after paying for the cost of treatment.

Patients should check with their insurance provider to ensure they are eligible for reimbursement, the release stated.

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With the academic fall semester coming to an end, Fresno State students are beginning to enroll in classes for next semester and some are striking out.

As enrollment numbers rise, securing spots in high-demand classes, such as general ed or prerequisites has become increasingly competitive.

However, registration is not the only aspect in high demand. Parking since the beginning of the semester has been nearly impossible for students. Even if they bought a parking permit, students are desperately looking for a spot to park.

(Rahaf Qutob is the Fresno State campus correspondent for GV Wire)

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Musk dismissed recent allegations against former President Donald Trump as “hoaxes,” claiming they reflect authoritarian tactics. Musk, who’s been campaigning for Trump, reiterated his belief that “if Trump doesn’t win, this will be the last real election.”

During the conversation, Musk referenced Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s notorious police chief, saying the Democrats are using similar tactics. “They decided SpaceX was the target,” Musk said, describing investigations as an example. He argued that the Democrats are “doing all the things they accused Trump of doing—openly.”

 

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Rogan supported Musk’s view, citing criticism of Trump’s supposed plans to weaponize the justice system if re-elected. Musk and Rogan referenced examples like Trump’s “fine people” remark about Charlottesville, which Musk claims is often misinterpreted. Musk also criticized former President Obama for revisiting the remark, calling it a tool to demonize Trump.

The Tesla CEO also accused the left of silencing opposition to control public opinion. “If they’re trying to suppress people’s ability to communicate, they’re only doing that because they want to do things that people don’t want them to do,” Musk said, arguing that traditional media exploits “low-information voters” with selective narratives.

He cited MSNBC’s comparison of a Trump rally to a Nazi gathering, calling it misleading: “There was literally an Israeli flag in the audience.”

Read more at The Times of India. 

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GOP lawyer Chris Gober also said that the recipients Monday and Tuesday will come from Arizona and Michigan, respectively, and therefore will not affect the Pennsylvania election. He said the recipients are chosen based on their personal stories and sign a contract with the political organization, America PAC.

“The $1 million recipients are not chosen by chance,” Gober said Monday. “We know exactly who will be announced as the $1 million recipient today and tomorrow.”

Related Story: Pennsylvania Challenge of Elon Musk’s $1M-a-Day Voter Sweepstakes Moves ...

Musk’s Absence and Krasner’s Testimony

Musk did not attend the hearing, held on the day before the presidential election. He has committed more than $70 million to the super PAC to help Trump and other Republicans win in November.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner took the witness stand Monday and called the sweepstakes a scam as he asked the judge to shut it down. Common Pleas Court Judge Angelo Foglietta planned to rule after a short lunch break.

“This was all a political marketing masquerading as a lottery,” Krasner testified. “That’s what it is. A grift.”

Related Story: What One Tossup District Says About the Trump-Harris Battle for the Suburbs

Sweepstakes Details and Legal Concerns

Lawyers for Musk and the PAC said they do not plan to extend the lottery beyond Tuesday. Krasner said the first three winners, starting on Oct. 19, came from Pennsylvania in the days leading up to the state’s Oct. 21 voter registration deadline.

Other winners came from the battleground states of Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan. It’s not clear if anyone has yet received the money. The PAC pledged they would get it by Nov. 30, according to an exhibit shown in court.

More than 1 million people from the seven states have registered for the sweepstakes by signing a petition saying they support the right to free speech and to bear arms, the first two amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Krasner questioned how the PAC might use their data, which it will have on hand well past the election.

“They were scammed for their information,” Krasner said. “It has almost unlimited use.”

Legal Proceedings and Potential Consequences

Krasner’s lawyer, John Summers, said Musk is “the heartbeat of America PAC,” and the person announcing the winners and presenting the checks.

“He was the one who presented the checks, albeit large cardboard checks. We don’t really know if there are any real checks,” Summers said.

Foglietta was presiding over the case at Philadelphia City Hall after Musk and the PAC lost an effort to move it to federal court.

Krasner has said he could still consider criminal charges, as he’s tasked with protecting both lotteries and the integrity of elections. In the lawsuit, he said the defendants are “indisputably violating” Pennsylvania’s lottery laws.

Pennsylvania remains a key battleground state with 19 electoral votes and both Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris have repeatedly visited the state, including stops planned Monday in the final hours of the campaign.

Krasner — who noted that he has long driven a Tesla — said he could also seek civil damages for the Pennsylvania registrants. Musk owns Tesla along with the social media platform X, where America PAC has published posts on the sweepstakes, and the rocket ship maker SpaceX.

The post Musk PAC Tells Philadelphia Judge the $1 Million Sweepstakes Winners Are Not Chosen by Chance appeared first on GV Wire.

The S&P 500 was edging up by 0.1% in midday trading and near its record set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 144 points, or 0.3%, as of 11:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher.

Corporate Earnings and Market Movements

Marriott International fell 2.1% after reporting weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. But Fox climbed 4.4% after reporting a stronger profit than expected. That was despite increases in some costs, including for newsgathering at Fox News to cover this election cycle.

Election Day will arrive Tuesday, but its result may not be known for some time as officials count all the votes. That’s raised fears about the possibility of sharp swings around the world because markets infamously hate uncertainty.

History may be less foreboding. The broad U.S. stock market has historically gone on to rise regardless of which party wins the White House. And in 2020, U.S. stocks climbed immediately after Election Day and kept going even after former President Donald Trump refused to concede and challenged the results, creating lots of uncertainty. A large part of that rally was due to excitement about the potential for a vaccine for COVID-19, which had just shut down the global economy.

Related Story: Stock Market Today: Amazon’s Surge Leads a Rally on Wall Street

Election Impact on Markets

“Bottom line – the US election is incredibly important, but the process is likely to be incredibly noisy,” according to Michael Zezas, a strategist at Morgan Stanley.

For markets, Zezas also points to how prices may have already moved ahead of expected outcomes from the election. A win for Trump this election could mean U.S. tariffs on Mexican imports, for example, which could hurt the value of the Mexican peso. But the peso has already fallen against the U.S. dollar in recent months, which could limit further moves if a Trump win were to actually happen.

A Trump victory would also be less of a surprise to markets this time around than in 2016, when Treasury yields soared amid expectations for tax cuts that could fuel a stronger U.S economy or further inflate the nation’s debt. Treasury yields have already climbed in recent weeks, in part due to rising expectations in some market corners for a Trump win, along with a spate of reports showing the U.S. economy has remained stronger than feared.

On Monday, Treasury yields gave back a chunk of those gains. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.30% from 4.38% late Friday.

Related Story: America’s Political Divide Shifts from Economics to Education: Fareed Zakaria

Trump-Related Stocks and Oil Market

Another investment that’s become a barometer in the market for Trump’s perceived chances of victory was swinging sharply. Trump Media & Technology Group veered between a loss of 3.8% and a gain of 6.3% within the first half hour of trading. It was mostly recently up 1.4%.

The stock of the company behind Trump’s Truth Social platform had been ripping higher from a bottom in September, until it hit a wall last week and dropped at least 11% in three straight days.

In the oil market, the price for a barrel of U.S. crude rose 2.3% to $71.12 after Saudi Arabia and other oil exporters said they would delay plans to increase the amount of crude they produced. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 1.7% to $74.36.

The price of Brent is still down for the year so far, in part because of worries about how much demand China will provide given challenges for the world’s second-largest economy.

Related Story: US Adds a Robust 254,000 Jobs and Unemployment Dips to 4.1% in Sign of ...

Global Economic Factors

The Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress is meeting this week, and analysts are predicting the government may endorse major spending initiatives to boost its economic growth amid troubles for the real-estate industry.

Beyond that meeting and Election Day in the United States, this week will also feature the latest meeting of the Federal Reserve, where the widespread expectation is for it to cut its main interest rate for a second straight time.

The Fed kicked off its rate-cutting campaign in September with a larger-than-usual cut of half a percentage point, as it widens its focus to include keeping the job market humming. It’s a sharp turnaround after the Fed kept its main interest rate at a two-decade high in order to slow the economy enough to stamp out high inflation.

The hope that’s propelled U.S. stock indexes to records recently is that the U.S. economy can manage to avoid a long-feared recession, in part because of the coming cuts to rates expected from the Fed.

On Wall Street, Nvidia rose 2.5% and was the strongest force pushing upward on the S&P 500. That’s often been the case in recent years as demand surges for its chips that are powering the move into artificial-intelligence technology.

Nvidia’s stock has been so strong that S&P Dow Jones Indices said on Friday that it and Sherwin-Williams will join its Dow Jones Industrial Average. They are replacing Intel and Dow, the chemical company. Sherwin-Williams climbed 4%.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed after rising in much of Asia.

The post Stock Market Today: Wall Street Drifts Ahead of Election Day, While Oil Rises and Yields Sink appeared first on GV Wire.

Turns out, it was on purpose.

Related Story: Oregon, Penn State Move Behind No. 1 Texas. Army, Navy Both Ranked for 1st Time ...

Lanning’s Strategic Gambit

“We spend an inordinate amount of time on situations and some situations don’t come up very often in college football, but this was obviously something we had worked on,” Oregon coach Dan Lanning said Monday night. “You can see the result.”

Oregon took the lead with 1:47 left on Atticus Sappington’s 19-yard field goal in Saturday night’s game, giving the Buckeyes time to drive down the field for a potential winning field goal. With Ohio State facing a third-and-25 from Oregon’s 43-yard line, the Ducks called a timeout with 10 seconds left.

Executing the Unconventional Play

Just before the ball was snapped, Oregon defensive back Dontae Manning walked onto the field, giving the Ducks an extra defender. Ohio State failed to complete a pass against Oregon’s 12-man defense on the next play, and the Ducks were flagged for an illegal substitution penalty.

Ohio State gained five yards on the penalty, but lost four seconds off the clock since the penalty was deemed a live-ball foul. The Buckeyes were left with six seconds on the clock, and quarterback Will Howard scrambled up the middle, sliding a second too late for Ohio State to call a timeout for a potential game-winning field goal at Oregon’s 26.

Ducks Rise in Rankings

Lanning’s ploy helped the Ducks win the game and move up to No. 2 in this week’s AP Top 25.

The post No. 2 Oregon Purposely Induced Late Penalty in Win Over No. 4 Ohio State appeared first on GV Wire.

Wilson hit a pull-up from the elbow with 2 minutes left in the game to reach the mark. Earlier this week, the Aces’ star broke the single-season scoring record that Jewell Loyd set last year. Las Vegas called timeout about 30 seconds later and her teammates mobbed Wilson.

She then went out on the court and acknowledged a loud ovation from the crowd, clapping her hands.

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Aces Hold Slim Lead for No. 4 Seed

The Aces (25-13) hold a one-game lead over Seattle for the No. 4 seed in the playoffs and home-court advantage in that series. Las Vegas has won seven of its last eight games.

Connecticut (27-11) trails the Minnesota Lynx by two games for the No. 2 seed. The two teams play in Connecticut on Tuesday.

Related Story: All-Star Dearica Hamby Sues WNBA, Aces Alleging Discrimination, Retaliation for ...

Wilson Dominates Third Quarter

The Sun made just 4 of 16 from the field — 0 of 5 from 3-point range — in the third quarter as the Aces stretched an eight-point lead at halftime to 71-51 going into the fourth. Young’s pull-up jumper midway through the period made it 58-47 and Las Vegas led by double figures the rest of the way. Wilson was dominant at both ends, making 6 of 8 from the field and both of her 3-point shots while scoring 14 points with four rebounds and two blocks in the third quarter.

Marina Mabrey led the Sun with 18 points. Brionna Jones added 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting and nine rebounds and Tyasha Harris scored 16 points.

Jones is averaging 20.1 points per game on 66% (59 of 89) shooting in seven games during the month of September.

Related Story: WNBA Earns Landmark 11-Year Media Deal With Disney, Amazon Prime, NBC

Aces Take Control in Second Quarter

Kelsey Plum, who finished with 14 points, hit a 3-pointer to five the Aces the lead for good and spark an 11-1 run that made it 48-40 when she capped the spurt with a step-back jumper to close the first half.

The post A’ja Wilson Becomes 1st WNBA Player to Reach 1,000 Points in a Season appeared first on GV Wire.

The one-third-acre Trolley Park at Van Ness Boulevard and Weldon Avenue packs a lot into a small area: a playground, exercise zones, dedicated water bowls for dogs, a bocce ball court, green space, 19 trees, mosaics made by Fresno High Students, and sitting walls that encourage people to converse with one another.

The park is the first built with Measure P, the sales tax for parks and cultural arts.

The Fresno City Council approved $1.5 million in Measure P funds to construct the park in 2021.

The final cost was $3.3 million, said city parks and recreation director Aaron Aguirre. That included $1 million in federal COVID-19 recovery money and $800,000 from the city’s general fund.

The park was supposed to open in spring 2023.

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