Elon Musk is ‘a man without a political home' following Trump feud: political analyst
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CTV News' U.S. political analyst Eric Ham says Trump may see Musk as 'a threat to his legislative agenda' because of Musk's financial interests.
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Globe and Mail
13 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
‘This is a Chaos Trade,' Says Investor About Palantir Stock
The international storm clouds have grown darker throughout 2025, with geopolitical flashpoints popping up left and right. In part due to these tensions, Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ:PLTR) – which touts its capabilities in the defense and security sectors – recently reached an all-time high this week. Confident Investing Starts Here: Easily unpack a company's performance with TipRanks' new KPI Data for smart investment decisions Receive undervalued, market resilient stocks right to your inbox with TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter The company has been riding a supercharged wave of growth, demonstrated in its most recent earnings report. Record revenues and a 'Who's Who' of clientele – including NATO, Qualcomm, and a slew of others – have given investors plenty of confidence in Palantir's ability to continue growing. Of course, the big (perhaps, only) caveat when it comes to Palantir is the company's inflated valuation, which is trading at an EV/EBITDA ratio north of 700x. One investor known by the pseudonym Weebler Finance thinks that the expensive Palantir is appropriate, in no small part because it could be a safe harbor during times of turmoil. 'While Palantir appears overvalued by traditional metrics, its explosive growth trajectory could justify its high multiples if geopolitical catalysts continue,' explains the investor. Weebler points to the company's Maven Smart Systems, a central component of its defense-related AI offerings. Maven has seen its usage double in less than half a year, which the investor notes is a strong indication that sovereign nations are going to increase their engagement with Palantir. 'I believe that this exponential ramp-up reflects growing institutional dependence,' adds Weebler. 'The company is uniquely positioned to actually benefit from crisis-driven demand.' Moreover, the investor notes that Palantir's products become 'deeply wired into core workflows,' meaning that replacing the company is no easy feat. Regarding its valuation, while admittedly expensive, Weebler believes that PLTR's share price can be justified if the company can achieve 75% EBITDA growth year-over-year for 2025. Pointing out that Palantir grew by 210% in 2023 and 120% in 2024, this seems like a reasonable assumption to Weebler – especially given the situation around the world. 'Palantir is a company primly suited to thrive in times of geopolitical turbulence,' concludes Weebler Finance, who rates PLTR a Buy. (To watch Weebler Finance's track record, click here) Wall Street offers a mixed picture when it comes to Palantir. With 3 Buy, 10 Hold, and 4 Sell ratings, PLTR has a consensus Hold (i.e. Neutral) rating. Its 12-month average price target of $104.27 has a downside of ~25%. (See PLTR stock forecast) To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks' Best Stocks to Buy, a tool that unites all of TipRanks' equity insights.
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
Olympic president Kirsty Coventry starts work with strong IOC and challenges for Los Angeles Games
Kirsty Coventry reacts after she was announced as the new IOC President at the International Olympic Committee 144th session in Costa Navarino, western Greece, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis), File) GENEVA — The world Kirsty Coventry walks into Monday as the International Olympic Committee's first female and first African president is already very different to the one she was elected in three months ago. Take Los Angeles, host of the next Summer Games that is the public face and financial foundation of most Olympic sports. The city described last week as a 'trash heap' by U.S. President Donald Trump is preparing to welcome teams from more than 200 nations in July 2028. Most of the 11,000 athletes and thousands more coaches and officials who will take part in the LA Olympics will have seen images of military being deployed against the wishes of city and state leaders. A growing number of those athletes' home countries face being on a Trump-directed travel ban list — including Coventry's home Zimbabwe — though Olympic participants are promised exemptions to come to the U.S. Several players from Senegal's women's basketball team were denied visas for a training trip to the U.S., the country's prime minister said. A first face-to-face meeting with Trump is a priority for the new IOC president, perhaps at a sports event. Welcome to Olympic diplomacy, the outgoing IOC president Thomas Bach could reasonably comment to his political protégé Coventry. The six Olympic Games of Bach's 12 years were rocked by Russian doping scandals and military aggression, Korean nuclear tensions, a global health crisis and corruption-fueled Brazilian chaos. Still, Coventry inherits an IOC with a solid reputation and finances after a widely praised 2024 Paris Olympics, plus a slate of summer and winter hosts for the next decade. Risks and challenges ahead are clear to see. New leadership style For the two-time Olympic champion swimmer's first full day as president Tuesday she has invited the 109-strong IOC membership to closed-doors meetings about its future under the banner 'Pause and Reflect.' 'The way in which I like to lead is with collaboration,' said Coventry, who was sports minister in Zimbabwe for the past seven years, told reporters Thursday. Many, if not most, members want more say in how the IOC makes decisions after nearly 12 years of Bach's tight executive control. It was a theme in manifestos by the other election candidates, and the runner-up in March, IOC vice president Juan Antonio Samaranch, will lead one of the sessions. 'I like people to say: 'Yes, I had a say and this was the direction that we went,'' Coventry said. 'That way, you get really authentic buy-in.' In an in-house IOC interview, Coventry also described how she wanted to be perceived: 'She never changed. Always humble, always approachable.' That could mean more member input, if not an open and contested vote, to decide the 2036 Olympics host. The 2036 decision Coventry's win was widely seen as positive for the ambitions of India, and its richest family, to host the Summer Games that will follow Los Angeles in 2028 and Brisbane in 2032. Nita Ambani, the philanthropist wife of industrialist Mukesh Ambani, has been an IOC member since 2016 and helped promote India's Olympic bid in Paris last year. She and Coventry are seen as being close, and the 2036 hosting award is among the biggest decisions pending. 'It is an open question,' Coventry told reporters Thursday. 'For me as a president I need to be able to remain neutral.' Qatar is bidding for the Summer Games for a fourth time and Saudi Arabia also is interested. A regional Middle East bid could be a political and logistical solution. A Bach legacy is the policy of fast-tracking well-connected bidders into exclusive negotiations toward a rubber-stamp vote by IOC members. Russia's return At some point in Coventry's presidency, Russia could possibly return fully to the Olympic family. It is unclear exactly when less than eight months before the 2026 Winter Games opening ceremony in Milan. Russian athletes have faced a wider blanket ban in winter sports than summer ones during the military invasion of Ukraine. Even neutral status for individual Russians to compete looks elusive. Vladimir Putin offered 'sincere congratulations' on Coventry's election win, with the Kremlin praising her 'high authority in the sporting world.' However, there seems little scope for the IOC to lift its formal suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee imposed in 2023 because of a territorial grab in sports administration. Four regional sports bodies in eastern Ukraine were taken under Russian control. Coventry said she will ask a task force to review IOC policy relating to athletes from countries involved in wars and conflicts. Gender equality The first Summer Games under a female presidency will be the first with a majority of athlete quota places for women. Another task force is promised to look at gender eligibility issues, after the turmoil around women's boxing and two gold medalists in Paris. The new World Boxing governing body said last month it will introduce mandatory sex testing. Coventry often states the importance of 'Olympic Values,' which include gender parity, inclusion and inspiring young people through sports. 'That is something that we can never, never, never compromise. And we have to be proud of that.' IOC housekeeping The top-tier Olympic sponsor program might have peaked in Paris with 15 partners earning the IOC more than US$1.6 billion in cash and services over the past two years. The sponsor slate is down to 11 after all three Japanese sponsors and US tech firm Intel did not renew, though a major new backer from India is all-but promised. Total revenue was $7.7 billion for 2021-24, including $3.25 billion of broadcasting revenue in 2024. It helps fund the Olympic Channel media operation in Madrid and about 700 staff in Lausanne. Salary and staff costs topped $250 million last year. Though the future broadcasting landscape is hard to predict, the IOC has said $7.4 billion already is secured through 2028, and $4 billion for the 2033-36 commercial cycle. That sum was topped up in March with a foundational $3 billion deal. NBC renewed for two more Olympics through the 2034 Salt Lake City Winter Games and the 2036 Summer Games that look destined for Asia. The IOC also has a 12-year deal with Saudi Arabia through 2036 to host a video gaming Esports Olympics, though the launch is delayed until at least 2027. Graham Dunbar, The Associated Press
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
Many Americans are witnessing immigration arrests for the first time and reacting
Melyssa Rivas poses for a photo at a location where she witnessed masked federal agents detaining a person earlier this month outside Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Downey, Calif., on Friday, June 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) SAN DIEGO — Adam Greenfield was home nursing a cold when his girlfriend raced in to tell him Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles were pulling up in their trendy San Diego neighborhood. The author and podcast producer grabbed his iPhone and bolted out the door barefoot, joining a handful of neighbors recording masked agents raiding a popular Italian restaurant nearby, as they yelled at the officers to leave. An hour later, the crowd had grown to nearly 75 people, with many in front of the agents' vehicles. 'I couldn't stay silent,' Greenfield said. 'It was literally outside of my front door.' More Americans are witnessing people being hauled off as they shop, exercise at the gym, dine out and otherwise go about their daily lives as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration aggressively works to increase immigration arrests. As the raids touch the lives of people who aren't immigrants themselves, many Americans who rarely, if ever, participated in civil disobedience are rushing out to record the actions on their phones and launch impromptu protests. Arrests are being made outside gyms, busy restaurants Greenfield said on the evening of the May 30 raid, the crowd included grandparents, retired military members, hippies, and restaurant patrons arriving for date night. Authorities threw flash bangs to force the crowd back and then drove off with four detained workers, he said. 'To do this, at 5 o'clock, right at the dinner rush, right on a busy intersection with multiple restaurants, they were trying to make a statement,' Greenfield said. 'But I don't know if their intended point is getting across the way they want it to. I think it is sparking more backlash.' Previously, many arrests happened late at night or in the pre-dawn hours by agents waiting outside people's homes as they left for work or outside their work sites when they finished their day. When ICE raided another popular restaurant in San Diego in 2008, agents did it in the early morning without incident. White House border czar Tom Homan has said agents are being forced to make more arrests in communities because of sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with ICE in certain cities and states. ICE enforces immigration laws nationwide but seeks state and local help in alerting federal authorities of immigrants wanted for deportation and holding that person until federal officers take custody. U.S. Vice President JD Vance, during a visit to Los Angeles on Friday, said those policies have given agents 'a bit of a morale problem because they've had the local government in this community tell them that they're not allowed to do their job.' 'When that Border Patrol agent goes out to do their job, they said within 15 minutes they have protesters, sometimes violent protesters who are in their face obstructing them,' he said. 'It was like a scene out of a movie' Melyssa Rivas had just arrived at her office in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, California one morning last week when she heard the frightened screams of young women. She went outside to find the women confronting nearly a dozen masked federal agents who had surrounded a man kneeling on the pavement. 'It was like a scene out of a movie,' Rivas said. 'They all had their faces covered and were standing over this man who was clearly traumatized. And there are these young girls screaming at the top of their lungs.' As Rivas began recording the interaction, a growing group of neighbors shouted at the agents to leave the man alone. They eventually drove off in vehicles, without detaining him, video shows. Rivas spoke to the man afterward, who told her the agents had arrived at the car wash where he worked that morning, then pursued him as he fled on his bicycle. It was one of several recent workplace raids in the majority-Latino city. The same day, federal agents were seen at a Home Depot, a construction site and an LA Fitness gym. It wasn't immediately clear how many people had been detained. 'Everyone is just rattled,' said Alex Frayde, an employee at LA Fitness who said he saw the agents outside the gym and stood at the entrance, ready to turn them away as another employee warned customers about the sighting. In the end, the agents never came in. Communities protest around ICE buildings Arrests at immigration courts and other ICE buildings have also prompted emotional scenes as masked agents have turned up to detain people going to routine appointments and hearings. In the city of Spokane in eastern Washington state, hundreds of people rushed to protest outside an ICE building June 11 after former city councilor Ben Stuckart posted on Facebook. Stuckart wrote that he was a legal guardian of a Venezuelan asylum seeker who went to check in at the ICE building, only to be detained. His Venezuelan roommate was also detained. Both men had permission to live and work in the U.S. temporarily under humanitarian parole, Stuckart told The Associated Press. 'I am going to sit in front of the bus,' Stuckart wrote, referring to the van that was set to transport the two men to an ICE detention center in Tacoma. 'The Latino community needs the rest of our community now. Not tonight, not Saturday, but right now!!!!' The city of roughly 230,000 is the seat of Spokane County, where just over half of voters cast ballots for Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Stuckart was touched to see his mother's caregiver among the demonstrators. 'She was just like, 'I'm here because I love your mom, and I love you, and if you or your friends need help, then I want to help,'' he said through tears. By evening, the Spokane Police Department sent over 180 officers, with some using pepper balls, to disperse protesters. Over 30 people were arrested, including Stuckart who blocked the transport van with others. He was later released. Aysha Mercer, a stay-at-home mother of three, said she is 'not political in any way, shape or form.' But many children in her Spokane neighborhood — who play in her yard and jump on her trampoline — come from immigrant families, and the thought of them being affected by deportations was 'unacceptable,' she said. She said she wasn't able to go to Stuckart's protest. But she marched for the first time in her life on June 14, joining millions in 'No Kings' protests across the country. 'I don't think I've ever felt as strongly as I do right this here second,' she said. Offenhartz reported from Los Angeles and Rush from Portland, Oregon. Julie Watson, Jake Offenhartz And Claire Rush, The Associated Press
