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DeSantis-Musk alliance was a year in the making

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:59:27 GMT

By Steve Contorno | CNNWhen Tesla CEO Elon Musk first mused about buying Twitter in early 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was among the many Republicans publicly cheering on the tech billionaire’s pursuit of a social media platform long viewed by conservatives as hostile to them.But DeSantis pressed further than most GOP officials. Dangling the Florida pension fund’s investments in the company, the governor vowed to turn the country’s third largest state against Twitter’s board if they didn’t sell to Musk.“We’re going to be looking at ways that the state of Florida potentially can be holding these Twitter board of directors accountable for breaching their fiduciary duty,” he said in April 2022. “So stay tuned on that.”Now, a year after DeSantis came to Musk’s aide, the Silicon Valley mogul is returning the favor. DeSantis launched his presidential campaign Wednesday from Twitter with Musk joining the Florida governor for the announcement on the site he now owns after a $44 billion s...

Photos: San Jose State University’s joyous Class of 2023 graduation

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:59:27 GMT

Cheers rang out Wednesday at One Washington Square as San Jose State University held the first of 10 commencements planned for the Class of 2023 this week.The university is conferring diplomas on 7,400 undergraduate and graduate students.Thousands reveled in the pomp and circumstance at the ceremonies that will run through Friday at the Provident Credit Union Event Center on campus. President Cynthia Teniente-Matson, attending her first commencement in that role, spoke and congratulated students.Wednesday’s honorees were graduates from Lucas College and the Graduate School of Business — the largest business school in Silicon Valley — and the College of Health and Human Sciences.Receiving diplomas on Thursday will be graduates of the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering, the College of Science and the Connie L. Lurie College of Education and College of Professional and Global Education. And on Friday, the grads of the College of Social Sciences and College of ...

Broadway show’s creator visits San Jose theater production

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:59:27 GMT

If you’ve been involved in youth theater in Silicon Valley at all during the past couple of decades, you’re probably familiar with “Starmites” — a sci-fi fantasy musical with a short Broadway run in the late 1980s and now a cult classic around here.Barry Keating, who wrote the show’s music and lyrics and co-wrote its book, has been pleasantly surprised by how much it’s been embraced in the Bay Area. He saw that first-hand last weekend, when he watched two Playful People Productions performances of the show at the Historic Hoover Theatre in San Jose.“I heard about it for a long time because San Jose’s done so many productions of my show,” said Keating, 76. He flew in from Manhattan and took part in two “talk back” sessions before shows featuring older teens and their adult family members as well as chatted with audience members, cast and crew. Indeed, its been a staple for CMT San Jose, Starting Arts, Playful Peo...

Biden trolls DeSantis over glitchy 2024 launch on Twitter Spaces

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:59:27 GMT

President Biden on Wednesday mocked the issue-laden presidential campaign launch of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), whose attempt to talk about his candidacy on Twitter Spaces was marred by tech problems."This link works," Biden posted on his personal Twitter account, linking to a donation page for his campaign.The tweet came as the conversation that was set to feature DeSantis discussing his brand new campaign with Twitter CEO Elon Musk was beset by audio issues. DeSantis and Musk were supposed to speak on a Twitter Spaces, and hundreds of thousands of people had tuned in to listen.But the audio repeatedly cut out and nobody could be heard for more than a few seconds at a time.David Sacks, who was moderating the conversation, could be heard saying at one point that the number of listeners was "melting the servers."DeSantis's rivals had already questioned why the governor was making his announcement on Twitter Spaces, and they quickly and widely mocked the issues surrounding the laun...

Tech issues plague Musk, DeSantis Twitter Spaces

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:59:27 GMT

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) encountered technology problems on Wednesday, as he attempted to announce his 2024 presidential campaign on Twitter Spaces with CEO Elon Musk.Tech entrepreneur David Sacks, who was set to moderate the discussion, said on the call that the vast number of people attempting to join were “melting the servers.” At one point, the Twitter Space showed that there were more than 500,000 users listening in.The call went in and out for more than 20 minutes, before Musk ended the original Twitter Spaces and attempted to begin a new one. DeSantis, who has teased a White House run for months, launched an official campaign video on Twitter shortly before the discussion with Musk was set to begin. The Florida governor filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission declaring his candidacy earlier on Wednesday.

Republican-controlled committee rejects Louisiana bill to ban gender-affirming care for minors

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:59:27 GMT

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Bucking the trend of other reliably red states adopting restrictions on young transgender people, a Republican-controlled Louisiana legislative committee voted Wednesday to a kill a bill that would have banned gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. Proponents of Louisiana’s failed bill, which would have prohibited hormone treatments, gender-affirming surgery or puberty-blocking drugs for any transgender minor, say they fear that the state could draw minors from surrounding states — where there are bans — seeking gender-affirming health care. Those in Louisiana’s LGBTQ+ community say gender-affirming care in the state is not as easily accessible as conservatives make it seem.The tie-breaking 5-4 vote to kill the bill Wednesday came down to Republican state Sen. Fred Mills, the chairman of the Senate’s Health and Welfare Committee. After nearly three hours of public testimony and debate, Mills joined Democrats in opposition to the legislation.“Al...

NASCAR opens investigation into Wallace’s hacked radio channel at All-Star race

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:59:27 GMT

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — NASCAR has opened an investigation into how a derogatory message was broadcast on the radio channel of Bubba Wallace’s race team during last weekend’s All-Star race.Wallace, NASCAR’s only Black driver in the Cup series, had just finished Sunday’s race at North Wilkesboro Speedway when a person not on the 23XI Racing team said over the radio, “Go back to where you came from” and then added another non-racial expletive.NASCAR spokesman Mike Forde said Wednesday the series immediately had its security and racing electronic teams look into the hack. He said Wallace did not hear the remark.Forde said NASCAR is trying to determine who cracked Wallace’s radio communications and how it was done, as well the best method toward preventing it from happening in the future.Forde said the investigation was ongoing and would have happened no matter the nature of the comment.“We certainly take that seriously, no doubt about that,” he said. “But we can&...

Elon Musk’s ‘historic’ Twitter event with Ron DeSantis struggles with technical glitches

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:59:27 GMT

Elon Musk wants to turn Twitter into a “digital town square,” but his much-publicized Twitter Spaces kickoff event, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announcing his run for president, started off with technical glitches and a near half-hour delay Tuesday. The billionaire Twitter owner said the problems were due to “straining” servers because so many people were trying to listen to the audio-only event. “There’s so many people,” said host David Sacks amid the disruptions. “We’ve got so many people here that we are kind of melting the servers, which is a good sign.”Musk a day earlier dubbed the event a historic first for Twitter, saying it would be “the first time something like this is happening on social media.” The event was scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. ET but nearly 30 minutes passed with users getting kicked off, hearing microphone feedback and enduring other technical problems before it finally began. At one point, over 300,000 Twitter users were listed as listening to the event, b...

Capitol rioter who propped feet on Pelosi’s desk in photo sentenced to over 4 years

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:59:27 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — An Arkansas man who propped his feet on a desk in then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office in a widely circulated photo from the U.S. Capitol riot was sentenced Wednesday to more than four years in prison.Richard “Bigo” Barnett became one of the faces of the Jan. 6 riot by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, and U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said in announcing that sentence that Barnett seemed at times to enjoy the notoriety.“All the folks who follow ‘Bigo’ need to know the actions of Jan. 6 cannot be repeated without some serious repercussions,” Cooper said, alluding to the media attention and social media following Barnett attracted after the riot. The 54-month sentence for Barnett, a retired firefighter from Gravette, Arkansas, comes after he was convicted at trial on eight counts, including felony charges of civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding, in this case a Jan. 6, 2021, session of Congress to certify Joe Biden’s vic...

UN conference raises less than $1 billion for climate-wracked Horn of Africa in major disappointment

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:59:27 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A high-level U.N. conference on Wednesday raised less than $1 billion of the more than $5 billion organizers were hoping for to help over 30 million people in the Horn of Africa cope with a major climate crisis and mass displacement after years of conflict, a major disappointment to aid agencies.The U.N. appealed for $7 billion this year to provide food and other humanitarian assistance for the three Horn of Africa countries – Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, and had only received $1.6 billion. After pledges were tallied, the U.N. humanitarian office said the total funding for 2023 now stands at $2.4 billion.That means only $800 million in new funding was announced Wednesday – over 60% from the United States which made an additional donation of $524 million . That brought its total to more than $1.4 billion for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged would-be donors at the start of the pledging conference to make an immediate a...