The claim: Image shows woman holding sign for abortion rights with her daughter A Nov. 21 Facebook post ( direct link , archive link ) includes an image showing a woman standing next to a young girl and holding a sign that says “I want my daughter to have the right to abortion that I didn’t have.” On-screen text in the image reads, “When your mom is ‘subtly’ saying she doesn’t love you." It was shared more than 1,500 times in 11 days. Other versions of the claim spread widely on Facebook and Instagram . More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page Our rating: Altered The message on the sign has been altered. The original sign was written in Spanish and translates to “I am the mother of the girl you will never touch.” Photo was from 2023 women's rights march in Mexico The claim came weeks after millions of people voted on abortion rights measures around the United States. Abortion rights have been governed at the state level since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. But the pro-abortion rights sign in the image circulating on social media isn't authentic. It’s an altered version of a photo included in a March 2023 article published by La Casa de Todas y Todos, a Mexico-based website. The article describes an annual women's rights march that took place earlier that month in Monterrey, the capital of the Mexican state of Nuevo León. The woman’s sign says “Soy mamá de la niña que jamás vas a tocar,” which translates to “I am the mother of the girl you will never touch.” Neither the woman nor the child was named in the photo's caption. Fact check : Elon Musk didn't threaten to suspend X users who mock him. Post is fabricated USA TODAY has debunked an array of altered images, including those that purport to show a legitimate photo of Mexico’s president-elect , Taylor Swift holding a banner in support of President-elect Donald Trump, and Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz posing with a communist sign . USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response. AFP , Full Fact and PolitiFact also debunked the claim. Our fact-check sources Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here . USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta .
Trump's DEA nominee withdrawsSave articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. One decision stands out from all others in what has been a grim year for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – and it holds a clue as to what he may do next. Albanese ends 2024 in a dire position for a leader who must face the people in just a few short months: the economy is weak, the federal budget is back in deficit and his personal popularity is down. But his allies name his move to overhaul personal tax cuts in January, delivering bigger benefits to millions of workers, as the best example of what he did right this year. Albanese began the year with a bold move by breaking an election pledge to leave the “stage three” personal tax cuts intact after years of argument about a tax package that had been written into law by the Coalition five years earlier. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton railed against the Labor changes and called for an election to be held to decide the matter, only to retreat when polls showed that most Australians liked the idea of a $313 billion package with bigger tax cuts for more workers on low and middle incomes. Albanese won the policy and the politics. He took a risk and it paid off. The tax cuts went ahead as scheduled in July with the Labor brand stamped all over them. If there was a reward from the electorate, however, it evaporated before the summer was over. Just as Albanese seemed to be taking the initiative, the Labor primary vote went into reverse . It fell from 35 per cent in December to 34 per cent in February and 32 per cent in March. This became the pattern of the year. Nothing seemed to work for Albanese. His readiness to do radio interviews, while Dutton avoided scrutiny, did not appear to create a lasting bond with listeners. His speaking style, with mangled sentences instead of sharp messages, made it harder for him to cut through. Worse, the government never seemed to galvanise Australians with a sense of political mission. It unveiled more assistance for childcare, an age limit for social media, subsidies for energy bills, a wage boost for aged care workers and changes to prescriptions to make medicines cheaper. And it drifted down in the polls. “Labor and Albanese appear so dour, a government of grinding necessity,” says Paul Strangio, the emeritus professor of politics at Monash University. “The sense of missed opportunity is all the greater since they are in office at a time when the public shows signs of being fed up with business as usual. Albanese doesn’t appear to know how to harness or manage that sentiment.” Strangio highlighted this challenge in an essay for Inside Story in September and says there has been no shift in the pattern in the final months of the year. “Growth in office has been a hallmark of many of Australia’s best prime ministers,” he says. “Albanese is yet to demonstrate this.” While Albanese was elected to parliament in 1996 and watched John Howard govern for 11 years, there is no sign he is learning a lesson from the Howard era. “When Howard was in trouble during his first term, he drew upon his deep-seated convictions to strike out in a bold direction,” Strangio says. The result was a high-stakes election on the GST. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Chinese President Xi Jinping hold hands for the G20 group photo in Rio de Janeiro in November. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen On international affairs, however, Albanese has moved easily into overseas meetings and global summits. He lowered the temperature with China, resumed leadership meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and helped restart exports of beef, barley and lobster. This added billions of dollars to Australian industry. There was no economic dividend, and possibly no political payoff, from his effort to secure the release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from the United States and the five remaining members of the Bali Nine from Indonesia. Even so, he pursued the talks to bring Australians home. The defeat of the Indigenous Voice in October 2023 still reverberates around Australian politics – and polling shows a slide in Labor support from that moment – but the government points to other achievements in this term, such as legislating a climate target to cut greenhouse gas emissions, to counter claims it has too little to show for its time in office. One minister says Australians will back the prime minister when the election arrives because of his personal qualities and what he offers in hard policy. “We are closer to making sure voters see this as a choice between Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese,” he says. Labor strategists say this is not just about what Albanese has delivered during this term, but about the “forward offer” of policies for the next three years. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen In this assessment, from those closest to Albanese, the prime minister is just getting started in winning voters with new policy measures and attacking Dutton on Coalition vulnerabilities, such as its nuclear energy plan. But Albanese has been subject to relentless attacks from left and right while trying to hold the middle ground on the Middle East. Greens leader Adam Bandt accused him of complicity in genocide over the war in Gaza, while Dutton accused him of deserting Israel and being weak on antisemitism. The conservative media picked up on the claim and rammed it home. When arsonists committed what police called a “likely act of terrorism” at the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne in early December, Albanese condemned the antisemitism in a statement and on radio. But he was scheduled to fly to Perth and did not divert the aircraft to Melbourne, which meant he took several days to visit the destruction and stand with the Jewish community. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne on Tuesday, December 10. Credit: Justin McManus The symbolic show of support seemed too slow, even if the actual support was strong. Albanese gave no quarter to protesters who called antisemitic chants, and he made sure that laws were passed to ban the “doxxing” used to reveal personal details of Jewish Australians. He arranged more funding to protect synagogues and schools. This was not enough, however, when the government was infuriating Israel by voting at the United Nations for a ceasefire in Gaza in a motion that did not condemn Hamas, listed by Australian authorities as a terrorist group. “I don’t subscribe to the view that he has been weak on antisemitism,” says Strangio. “To me, this is an idea prosecuted by dogmatic elements – especially the Murdoch media – and doesn’t allow for the diabolical challenge it has been for the government to strike a position that doesn’t aggravate the polarisation of community opinion but maintains some degree of social cohesion.” Australians, meanwhile, felt their household incomes shrinking in real terms. Although wages moved ahead of inflation in recent quarters, they remain down in real terms since the election. With the Reserve Bank seeking to reduce inflation, the government could not risk spending more money to help voters. The pressure on households generated pain in the polls. Voters are clearly sceptical about Albanese. Thirty-one per cent said in early December that he was doing a good job, but 57 per cent said he was doing a poor job. His net rating in the Resolve Political Monitor, minus 26 per cent, was four times worse in December than it had been in February. The verdict is more savage from some of his own Labor colleagues. “He’s tough on the weak issues and weak on the tough issues,” says one caucus member. The complaint is that Albanese can take a strong line on something that is secondary to most Australians – like the release of the last of the Bali Nine – but struggle on the problems that will decide the election. Most of all, the cost of living. Cautious in choosing his battles before the election, Albanese risks leaving voters with the sense that he does not know what to fight for. “I like Anthony Albanese, and I regard him as a friend, but I find his government underwhelming,” says independent MP Andrew Wilkie. “And that would be the view of many of my constituents. It is fair to add that politics in general has become underwhelming. I’m not suggesting for a moment that Peter Dutton is any better.” Albanese tried through the year to outline practical policies – including a rush in December to pass dozens of laws through parliament. This included the Help to Buy scheme to offer $5.6 billion in federal equity for young people buying their first homes, as well as the Build to Rent scheme to attract investment into new homes. Also in December came the $1 billion early education fund for childcare and the “three-day guarantee” to make it easier for new parents to receive childcare subsidies. The Coalition opposes the move, which could help Albanese in a cost-of-living battle. Albanese can point to other measures that help with costs. The changes to student loans will help young Australians by reducing their debts by $3 billion, with the promise of more change if the government holds power at the election. Again, the Coalition opposes the move. This leaves some observers wanting a bolder vision. Saul Eslake, an independent economist, says Australia needs ambitious reform to lift living standards over the long term. Dutton has no significant economic policy, other than his nuclear plan, and Albanese is not revealing anything too risky. “I sort of despair, really, that the government has shown no inclination to argue for an ambitious second-term reform agenda,” says Eslake. “And it’s almost too late now. Albanese seems not to have the vision or the rhetorical capacity to do this stuff.” Leaders are not only judged on what they do, but what they choose not to do. A shadow has fallen over Anthony Albanese’s prime ministership in 2024. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen Will the prime minister lift his fortunes after a difficult year? Watch for some policy moves early in 2025 to convince voters to stick with him rather than take a risk with Dutton. The Labor strategy seeks to copy the approach taken at the last election: to kick with the wind in the final quarter. One of the prime minister’s allies says the critics of today forget the mistakes of the critics from three years ago, when Albanese was not given much credit for lining up a victory that swept Labor into power. “On the big calls he was proven right,” he says. This year has been no triumph for Albanese. But the contest is not over. Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter .
Donald Trump’s views concerning the involvement of transgender athletes in organised sport – specifically, the participation by trans-male athletes in women’s sport – are nothing if not simplistic and clear. “Men” must be kept out of women’s sport. Full stop, new paragraph. According to the incoming US president, the “problem” of transgender athlete participation in women’s sport is easy to solve. The fundamental flaw in Trump’s invective is that policy born as a by-product of fear and loathing is invariably bad policy. Trump draws no distinction between transgender athletes competing in the Olympics and transgender athletes competing in a game of under-10s pee-wee football. However, the imperatives that are relevant to protecting the integrity of Olympic competition aren’t determining factors when it comes to participation sport. The rules governing transgender participation in Saturday morning sport have no correlation to how, for example, US Swimming should handle transgender women swimming against cisgender women in national championships. The next Olympic Games will be staged in Los Angeles in 2028 during the final year of Trump’s presidency. Just as America’s culture wars could implode a whole nation before the opening ceremony, the Olympic movement itself may be in for a reckoning before the end of the next Games cycle. Credit: Simon Letch Designing, implementing and enforcing transgender policy in sport at any level, from the grassroots to Olympic competition, isn’t about fear and isn’t about division for the sake of dividing. Instead, it’s the complicated process of balancing the interests of transgender athletes with all other competitors and the paramount importance of the core integrity of sport. This is all relevant not only because Trump will be back in the White House but also because by this time next year the International Olympic Committee will be under new leadership (an election for the IOC’s presidency will take place in less than four months’ time). Of the seven nominated candidates to replace the outgoing Thomas Bach, the candidate of greatest prominence, or at least the loudest public advocate for change within the Olympic Movement, is Sebastian Coe, twice an Olympic champion and current president of World Athletics. As with Trump, Coe presents as an agent for change . He is opposed to transgender participation in Olympic competition on the grounds that if you don’t protect the female category of competition in Olympic-level sport, then female sport itself will be lost. When you think about it, that position is not remotely similar to Trump’s. Not at all. As Lord Coe correctly identifies, it’s a core failing of the IOC that it has not enacted any detailed or overarching guidance to world sport and the myriad international federations that sit within its structures as to how Olympic sports should set transgender policy. It is the IOC’s policy failures that permitted the boxing competition in Paris 2024 to become so mired in conjecture due to the participation of Algeria’s Imane Khelif, when the IOC (and not World Boxing) ran that competition. Likewise, the IOC’s transgender policy is weak. In late 2021, the IOC published its Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations. Unfortunately, however, that framework comprised six pages of high-level statements of principle without much in the way of adequate detail. International federations were left to set their own policies, as required. In one section of its framework, the IOC states its position that athletes should be allowed passage to compete in the available category that aligns with their self-determined gender identity. In the next section, the IOC forces responsibility onto the international federations to ensure no athletes are afforded disproportionate and unfair competitive advantages if permitted to compete in a gender category not aligned with their biological gender. Imane Khelif celebrates her gold medal with her team and fans in Paris. Credit: Eddie Jim All of which is as clear as mud. For political reasons or otherwise by reason of weakness, the IOC under its current leadership plainly doesn’t want the responsibility of setting transgender policy across all sports. Yet to pass that complex responsibility onto the international federations is inconsistent with the IOC’s functions. Lord Coe is irrefutably correct that in terms of Olympic competition and international-standard elite sport the sanctity of the integrity of sport itself must be protected and preserved, no matter the cost. Otherwise, elite sport may as well not exist in the first place. He’s also correct that the IOC must set clear and unequivocal policy to protect the integrity of female sport and female athletic competition. It is extremely difficult to design policy to integrate transgender athlete participation in elite sport, especially when the integrity of competition is already under constant attack. If gender is kaleidoscopic, sport is black and white. Besides horse racing, some forms of motorsport and mixed doubles tennis, men and women typically don’t compete against each other. If gender is kaleidoscopic, sport is black and white. It’s in Olympic and international-level athletic competition where records are set and legacies forged. The playing field must not only be balanced, it must be known to be balanced. Rules must demand that a competing transgender athlete derives no unfair and disproportionate competitive advantage by competing in their chosen gender, if that’s different to their biological gender. The IOC’s absolute imperative must be that transgender athletes be prohibited from competing in Olympic competition if to allow those athletes to compete would mean they enjoyed any material competitive advantage. Whatever leadership position the IOC must take to set such rules within that philosophy, it must do so. Some international federations have braved the frontier, given the IOC’s contrasting tepidness. World Aquatics was the first international federation to set policy to stipulate that a female transgender athlete is ineligible for international competitions in the female category, unless either they never experienced male puberty or where they had their male puberty pharmacologically surpassed before their 12th birthday and before any physical signs of male puberty were physically detectable. Straightforward? Yes. Harsh? Yes. Necessary? Also yes. Those rules are simple, not open to interpretation or manipulation, and lacking subjectiveness. No element of the application of the rules requires measurement, or monitoring. In contrast, the IOC’s rules are all over the shop. Some researchers who know way more than me will tell you that the medical and scientific evidence isn’t absolute in demonstrating that transgender athletes – and male-to-female athletes in particular – benefit by everlasting physical and physiological advantages over their cisgender fellow competitors. Perhaps that’s the correct analysis that will prevail three decades on. But that alone can’t be a reason for the IOC and governing bodies to sit on their hands in the meantime. To do that would be to fail the current generation of Olympians, and the next. Sebastian Coe at least stands for something. Sports news, results and expert commentary. Sign up for our Sport newsletter .
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BLACKPINK ‘s Jennie recently received hate comments on her recent social media update. On November 27, Jennie shared an Instagram post showing the behind-the-scenes of the photoshoot for her collaboration with bakery Nudake . The idol collaborated with the bakery for a pop-up set to be open through January 3, featuring a festive feeling perfect for Christmas. A post shared by NUDAKE (@nu_dake) Jennie’s images were like some of her other posts, showing off her playfulness while looking gorgeous, and did not immediately attract negative attention. However, a detail of the post resulted in many leaving hate comments directed at the BLACKPINK member. On her post, Jennie added Michael Buble ‘s rendition of “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas” as music, seemingly fitting perfectly with her collaboration’s Christmas-y theme. This song became a source of contention for some, linking her again to BTS ‘s V , with whom she previously had relationship rumors. In December 2022 andJune 2023, V released a covers of the famous song. Many left rude comments on Jennie’s posts, including direct insults. Naturally, fans of the artist have come to her defense, encouraging others to leave kind comments to drown out the hate. everyone pls go and leave nice comments under Jennie's latest post on ig this is ridiculous pic.twitter.com/pVjkQVHAAW — ً🧋 (@Spicycults2) December 2, 2024 This is another circumstance that has shown fans always have Jennie’s back! BLACKPINK Rosé’s Recent Comments On BLACKPINK’s 2025 Activities Generate Mixed Reactions The Best Singers In BLACKPINK, Ranked BLACKPINK’s Rosé Reveals The Pain She Put Herself Through To Write “number one girl” BLACKPINK’s Rosé Randomly Flexed Her English Leaving Her Partner Completely Flustered See more BLACKPINKEric Murphy and Jasmin Lawrence, the son of Eddie Murphy and daughter Martin Lawrence , just announced their engagement . Now, fans can’t help but imagine how entertaining their family gatherings will be. On November 30, the couple — who have been dating since 2021 — shared footage of the proposal. In a joint Instagram post set to Eric Benét’s “Spend My Life With You,” Eric popped the question in a room filled with white roses, candles, and an orange, heart-shaped light. “We’re engaged!!” they captioned the post, along with the date “11.27.2024.” “God truly blessed us with a love that feels like destiny. We couldn’t be more excited for this next chapter,” the couple wrote. “Special thank you to everyone who made this moment so beautiful!!” Although Eric and Jasmin have been together for three years, that didn’t stop fans on social media from sharing their excitement over the romantic pairing. “I wanna go to this wedding so bad,” one fan wrote on X/Twitter. “Thanksgiving must be the most hilarious reunion ever,” another user said , while someone else echoed : “I know them family holidays go crazy.” Some people couldn’t help gush over Eric and Jasmin’s future children, who will be genetically predisposed to a sense of humor. “That baby gon be so funny, I’m laughing already,” one person said , as someone else wrote : “They have the chance to make the funniest human of all time.” Then, there were those who simply wanted Murphy and Lawrence to reunite on-screen with a film about their son and daughter’s real-life romance. “Now we need this as a movie where the father in laws hate each other and cause havoc during the wedding week,” one fan said . Eric and Jasmin announced their relationship in June 2021. Their fathers first starred alongside each other in the 1992 romantic comedy Boomerang , before appearing together again in 1999’s Life . They’re rumored to be teaming up again for a remake of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World . In 2022, Jasmine revealed to InTouch that it was actually her uncle that introduced her to Eric. “It wasn’t even our dads, and they’ve done two movies together,” she said at the time. “They’re friends. I don’t even know. It’s crazy. But we met through my uncle, and we became really good friends. We bonded on a lot of things. Obviously, we have similar backgrounds, so we understood each other on a certain level.” Lawrence previously joked about Eric and Jasmin’s possible future wedding on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2022, claiming that he was going to “try to get Eddie to pay for it.” Kimmel noted that Eric and Jasmin would make “a comedy super baby” — a sentiment later echoed by Murphy in a CBS Mornings interview last June, when he said: “Our gene pool is going to make this funny baby.” He also seemed pleased when he talked about the couple, saying: “They’re both beautiful, they look amazing together.”
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Five in six young adults in Hong Kong believe the city needs to undergo economic transformation, but only two in 10 of them have considered a career pivot, according to a think tank. The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups urged the government to do more to help fresh graduates and early career professionals plan ahead, as well as boost their confidence towards the city’s future. The group conducted face-to-face interviews of 600 people aged 18 to 34 between September and October. Less than 40 per cent of respondents agreed that Hong Kong has a positive economic outlook. Around 60 percent of them expressed concerns about various issues, including a potential pay cut and a perceived lack of skills to stay competitive. Despite the pessimism, the vast majority still planned on developing their career in Hong Kong. "Young people still treat Hong Kong as their home. They are willing to contribute to the economy," said Tony Lau, convenor of the federation's employment and economy group. "It is important for the Hong Kong government to cultivate local talent, and they should roll out their utmost measures to retain them and provide training," he added. Researchers also explained that the majority of respondents had not considered a career transition because of a “lack of clarity” in their direction. Many said they were unsure which industry they could switch to, while others admitted they lacked the skills and knowledge to make a move, or were simply not interested in the openings on the market. The federation suggested young people learn more about the development plans in the Greater Bay Area or Belt and Road countries, and explore opportunities in new markets. Another way to start, researchers said, is to study manpower projection reports, which predict a labour shortage in aviation and innovative technology industries.Empowered Funds LLC Has $659,000 Stake in Chegg, Inc. (NYSE:CHGG)
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