#UK Bush spends millions on TV but has yet to rise in GOP race

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Republican presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signs an autograph for Tim Nass during a campaign stop at the University of Dubuque's Heritage Center on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015 in Dubuque, Iowa.  (Jessica Reilly/Telegraph Herald via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) — Jeb Bush and his super PAC have put roughly three times as much money into television advertising as any of his Republican presidential rivals.

But the former Florida governor appears to have made little progress in a race that continues to be dominated by political novices like real estate mogul Donald Trump.

Bush’s poll numbers are in the single digits nationally and in New Hampshire, the second-to-vote state where he has concentrated its efforts. That’s about where they were when his ads began.

Still, Bush’s supporters say the advertising has paid off by helping stabilize a campaign that was losing ground.

Two months before the first votes are cast, Bush is showcasing new endorsements, and his team continues to raise a steady stream of money.

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#UK Zuckerberg is a dad, and he’s giving away most of his money

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife announced the birth of their daughter Max as well as plans to donate most of their wealth, or roughly $45 billion, to a new organization that will tackle a broad range of the world’s ills.

Zuckerberg’s wife, Priscilla Chan, gave birth last week to a baby girl. The couple didn’t put out the news until Zuckerberg posted it Tuesday on — of course — Facebook.

In the same post, Zuckerberg said he and Chan will commit 99 percent of their Facebook stock to such causes as fighting disease, improving education, harnessing clean energy, reducing poverty and promoting equal rights. They are forming a new organization, called the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, to pursue those goals.

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#UK Walmart reveals the hottest items on Cyber Monday

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Walmart

Walmart offered more than 2,000 deals on Cyber Monday, one of the biggest online shopping days of the year. 

Among the thousands of items that were marked down, these were some of the top sellers, the company told Business Insider:

An Apple iPad Mini 2 for $199, Lego Large Creative Boxes for $45, 14-foot trampolines, Xbox One and PS4 bundles for around $299, and stainless steel 6-in-1 pressure cookers with mini mitts for $75.

Walmart said most customers visiting Walmart’s website Monday shopped from their smartphones. 

Mobile is making up more than 70% of traffic to Walmart.com, and now, nearly half of our orders since Thanksgiving have been placed on a mobile device – that’s double compared to last year,” Fernando Madeira, president and CEO of Walmart.com, said in a statement. Our customers went from previously mostly searching and browsing on mobile, to making purchases at a much higher rate.”

Total Cyber Monday sales reached roughly $2.98 billion, up 12% from the previous year, according to Adobe, which tracks holiday spending. The average order was $135.25.

SEE ALSO: Macy’s CEO says there’s one thing everyone is getting wrong about the retail industry

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NOW WATCH: Patti LaBelle spent Thanksgiving with the guy whose viral video helped her sell $2 million worth of pies at Walmart

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#UK We tried the ‘Uber of helicopters’ that lets elite New Yorkers skip airport traffic

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sunset blade helicoptersBlade is an aviation startup catering to New York’s elite.

After offering seaplane and helicopter rides from NYC to the Hamptons all summer, a new service called “Blade Bounce” flies its private choppers from Manhattan to all nearby airports.

“There’s no better way to start your holiday than to fly over traffic and get to your airline of choice between four and six minutes, and enjoy rosé on the way and the best view on the planet,” Blade co-founder Rob Wiesenthal told INSIDER. 

Blade let us hop on a recent flight from East 34th Street to JFK airport ahead of Thanksgiving weekend, and the experience couldn’t have been better.

VIDEO: The only 28 apps you need to have on your iPhone home screen

Blade, an aviation startup known as “the Uber of helicopters,” gained popularity this summer by flying NYC’s elite to and from the Hamptons.

The company recently launched a new service called “Blade Bounce,” flying its private choppers from Manhattan to all nearby airports.

The ride only takes about five minutes — but costs $895 for a full 6-seat helicopter.

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#UK Bush: Uncertain I would have attended Paris climate summit

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WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush says he’s not sure he would have attended the Paris climate summit because its proposals would hurt the U.S. economy.

The former Florida governor said Tuesday in early-voting Iowa that he’s “uncertain” he would have attended the summit if he were president. He says world leaders participating in the summit are exploring policies that are detrimental to the economy.

Key world leaders, including President Barack Obama, have said one of the smartest ways to fight global warming is by taxing or otherwise putting a price on carbon dioxide pollution.

Bush says Americans are hurting economically and carbon pricing could make matters worse. He has said the federal government should invest in research and development to find new energy sources.

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#UK Adele has harsh words for music streaming: ‘It probably is the future, but, eh’

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adele

Adele doesn’t care much for streaming services and wants CDs to make a comeback.

Rolling Stone released some quotes that didn’t make it into the magazine’s November cover story about the musician, including her thoughts on streaming services like Spotify, which she did not give rights to offer her record-breaking new album “25.”

“It probably is the future, but, eh,” she said. “There are kids I know who are, like, nine who don’t even know what a f*****g CD is! I’ve got my CDs out on display in my house just to prove a point. Maybe CDs will have a massive comeback like vinyl did. Actually I think cassettes, just to be a pain in the ass!”

At the time of the interview in October, Adele hadn’t decided to keep her album off of streaming services. Now, Pandora is the only site to stream her album because it constitutes a radio broadcast. 

The singer also said, “I don’t care if 10 people buy the album as long as those, like, 10 people believe me. That’s the most important thing to me, is just being believed.”

Right now, more than 4 million people believe in her, and they helped her crush the record for most copies of an album sold in its debut week, selling 3.38 million copies of “25” last week alone. 

SEE ALSO: How Adele’s record-breaking 3.38 million sales of ’25’ compare to Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’

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NOW WATCH: Here’s why Adele is the most popular musician on the planet

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#UK Fiat Chrysler sales up in what could be a record November

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In this Thursday, Nov. 5, 2015, photo, salesperson Andrew Montalvo, left, talks to a customer checking out the interior of a 2015 Grand Cherokee Limited in Doral, Fla. Fiat Chrysler sales are up in what could be a record November. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

DETROIT (AP) — November used to be a slow month for U.S. car sales. Not anymore.

Black Friday promotions — some of which began well before Thanksgiving — pushed last month’s sales to a 14-year high of 1.3 million, just short of a record for the month. Sales were up 1.4 percent from last November, according to Autodata Corp.

General Motors’ sales rose 1.5 percent, while Toyota and Fiat Chrysler each saw 3 percent sales gains. Hyundai’s sales jumped 12 percent, while Nissan’s were up 4 percent. Ford’s sales were flat.

Honda’s sales fell 5 percent, hurt by lower CR-V sales. But the biggest sales decline was at Volkswagen. VW’s U.S. sales plummeted almost 25 percent, hurt by the company’s admission that its diesel vehicles cheated on emissions tests.

November was a notoriously slow sales month until about five years ago, when car dealers joined other retailers in promoting Black Friday, according to Edmunds analyst Jessica Caldwell. Now, like Amazon, Wal-Mart and others, dealers start advertising Black Friday deals as early as Halloween. Jeep offered zero percent financing for up to 75 months. GM teased savings of up to 20 percent of for its Buick, Chevrolet and GMC brands. Hyundai offered an extra $500 on the Sonata sedan between Nov. 20 and Nov. 30.

Ford’s U.S. sales chief Mark LaNeve said sales got progressively stronger in November, and the last day of the month was one of the best this year.

Deals can be dangerous for the auto industry because they cut into profits and lower vehicles’ resale value. Incentives have been creeping upward since 2011; in November, they rose an estimated $172 over last year to $3,066 per vehicle, according to the car buying site TrueCar.com.

But Eric Lyman, vice president for industry insights at TrueCar, says the gradual increase isn’t a worrisome trend for the industry. For one thing, companies are making more profit per vehicle than they used to because they’re selling more expensive SUVs and trucks. The average sale price of a vehicle last month was $32,966, up 1 percent from the previous month.

Automakers are also trying to capture as many sales as they can in the boom years before sales inevitably slow. Rising interest rates, higher gas prices and other factors are all expected to stall auto sales sometime in the next few years.

“It’s kind of like, make hay while the sun shines,” Lyman said.

And the sun is certainly shining. Last week, sales forecasting firm LMC Automotive said sales are now likely to reach a record 17.5 million in 2015.

For November, automakers said:

— GM’s sales rose 1.5 percent to 229,296. Chevrolet and Cadillac brand sales were up but fell at Buick and GMC. Sales of GM’s best-seller, the Silverado pickup, rose 5 percent.

— Toyota’s sales rose 3 percent to 189,517. In a sign of the impact of lower gas prices, sales of the RAV4 SUV jumped nearly 30 percent while Prius hybrid sales were down 10 percent.

— Ford’s sales were up less than 1 percent to 187,794. A 10-percent increase in F-Series pickup sales couldn’t overcome lower sales of key vehicles like the Escape SUV and Fusion sedan.

— FCA’s sales rose 3 percent to 175,974, powered by a 20-percent increase in Jeep sales. Ram truck sales rose 1 percent. Dodge, Fiat and Chrysler sales all fell.

— Honda’s sales fell 5 percent to 115,441. The company was hurt by an 18-percent decline in sales at its Acura luxury brand.

— Nissan’s sales rose 4 percent to 107,083. Truck and SUV sales jumped 15 percent, but Leaf electric car sales dropped 60 percent.

— Hyundai’s sales rose 12 percent to 60,007. Sales of its newly redesigned Tucson SUV nearly doubled over last November.

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#UK De Bruyne sends Man City into League Cup semis

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Manchester City's midfielder Kevin De Bruyne (C) is tracked by Hull City's defender Isaac Hayden during an English League Cup quarter-final football match at the Etihad Stadium on December 1, 2015

London (AFP) – In-form Kevin De Bruyne struck twice as Premier League leaders Manchester City overpowered Hull City 4-1 on Tuesday to lead three top-flight teams into the League Cup semi-finals.

De Bruyne had scored one goal and made two in Saturday’s 3-1 win over Southampton and he continued in the same vein as the 2014 winners saw off second-tier Hull, with Wilfried Bony and Kelechi Iheanacho also scoring.

Gerard Deulofeu starred as Everton won 2-0 at Middlesbrough and Stoke City beat Sheffield Wednesday 1-0 to guarantee an all-Premier League last four ahead of Liverpool’s trip to Southampton on Wednesday.

City made five changes for the visit of Hull, currently fourth in the Championship, with David Silva captaining the side at the Etihad Stadium on his first start following two months out with an ankle problem.

Sergio Aguero was absent, having taken a knock in the win over Southampton, but Bony ensured that he was not missed by following in to open the scoring in the 12th minute after De Bruyne had hit the post.

Iheanacho replaced Bony in the 71st minute and got on the score-sheet nine minutes later, toeing in a cross from Raheem Sterling.

De Bruyne’s brace arrived late on, the Belgium forward exploiting a defensive mistake to prod home in the 82nd minute and then sweeping a free-kick into the top-left corner three minutes from time.

Andrew Robertson tucked away an injury-time consolation for Hull.

Former Barcelona winger Deulofeu stole the show as Everton won at Championship high-fliers Middlesbrough, who had eliminated Manchester United on penalties at Old Trafford in the fourth round.

The 21-year-old Spaniard broke the deadlock in the 20th minute at the Riverside Stadium, wriggling between two defenders and shaping a low shot into the bottom-left corner from the edge of the box.

Eight minutes later he set up Everton’s second goal, bamboozling Fernando Amorebieta with a flurry of step-overs and crossing for Romelu Lukaku to head in his 13th goal of the season, and sixth in five games.

Championship side Wednesday had stunned Arsenal 3-0 in the previous round, but their cup adventure came to an end at Stoke’s Britannia Stadium.

Peter Crouch limped off with an apparent hamstring injury in the early stages, but his replacement, Joselu, teed up Ibrahim Afellay to volley in Stoke’s opener on the half hour.

Phil Bardsley wrapped up the win with 15 minutes to play by driving home from a free-kick as Stoke reached the last four for the first time since they won the tournament in 1972.

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#UK In slap at Obama, GOP-led House moves to block climate rule

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WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Barack Obama worked to hammer out a global climate agreement in Paris, Republicans in Congress were moving to block his plan to force steep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants.

The House was poised to pass two resolutions Tuesday disapproving Obama’s power-plant rules and rendering them inoperative. The measures were approved last month by the Senate under a little-used law that allows Congress to block executive actions it considers onerous. The maneuver is subject to a presidential veto and has rarely been successful.

Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., said GOP lawmakers were forcing a vote on the rule to “send a message to the climate conference in Paris that in America, there’s serious disagreement with the policies of this president.”

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Obama wants to reduce carbon emissions, but his policies will kill jobs, increase costs and decrease the reliability of the U.S. energy supply.

And Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., said he wished Obama took the threat posed by “radical Jihadists” such as the Islamic State as seriously as he takes what Duncan called a “pseudoscientific threat” posed by climate change.

Democrats countered that the power-plant rules were important steps to slow global climate change that is already causing real harm through increased droughts, wildfires, floods and more severe storms.

Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said it was regrettable that Republicans were trying to block the power plant rules even as officials form more than 190 nearly countries and many of the world’s largest private companies gathered in Paris to work out details of a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The global agreement “will prevent us from further over-heating the earth and causing major disruptions to peoples’ lives, their property and to the global economy,” Pallone said. “We know that (climate change) will endanger our children’s future if we don’t act now.”

The White House has threatened to veto the resolutions, saying they undermine public health protections of the Clean Air Act and “stop critical U.S. efforts to reduce dangerous carbon pollution from power plants.”

Speaking in Paris Tuesday, Obama said parts of a global climate agreement should be legally binding. His declaration was both a boost to climate negotiators seeking a tough accord and a challenge to Republicans in Congress, many of whom reject the idea of global warming.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Republicans were in step with the American people, who want jobs and economic growth.

“I think when you weigh the costs and the benefits against these so-called legally binding obligations they don’t add up,” Ryan told reporters. “I think it’s very clear people want jobs.”

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#UK 16 tech titans who won’t leave their fortune to their kids

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Zuck

Some entrepreneurs who have made billions off of their tech ventures like to spend them in some pretty extravagant ways, whether it be on private planes, summer homes, or even an entire island. 

Others turn to more philanthropic efforts, choosing to donate their wealth to different causes through foundations and trusts. 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the birth of his daughter Max Tuesday afternoon.

Along with the official announcement, he shared that he and wife Priscilla Chan plan to give away 99% of their Facebook shares — currently valued at about $45 billion — to charity. 

We’ve rounded up some of the other most generous people in tech, all of whom have decided to donate large portions of their wealth to charity rather than leave all of it to their children. 

SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg to give away 99% of his Facebook shares, or $45B, to charity during his lifetime

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates

Gates has been open about his decision not to leave his $84.9 billion fortune to his three children. They will reportedly inherit just a small slice, about $10 million each.

“I definitely think leaving kids massive amounts of money is not a favor to them,” he said in a Reddit AMA. 

He founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 1994, and it currently has more than $38 billion in assets. Gates also teamed up with longtime friend Warren Buffett to start a campaign called “The Giving Pledge,” which encourages other billionaires to donate at least half of their fortune to charity. 

AOL co-founder Steve Case

Case helped millions of Americans get online, and now he’s donating much of his wealth to developing other technologies.

He founded the Case Foundation in 1997, which focuses on using technology to make philanthropy more effective. He also started an investment firm called Revolution, which invests in startups outside of Silicon Valley, and signed the Giving Pledge.

“We share the view that those to whom much is given, much is expected. We realize we have been given a unique platform and opportunity, and we are committed to doing the best we can with it,” he and wife Jean wrote. “We do not believe our assets are ‘ours’ but rather we try to be the responsible stewards of these resources.”

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff

Benioff recently launched a campaign called SF Gives, which challenged tech companies to raise $10 million for San Francisco-based nonprofit programs in just 60 days. 

He’s encouraged other corporations to follow his 1/1/1 model, which says that a company should donate 1% of its equity, 1% of its employees’ time, and 1% of its resources to philanthropic efforts.

He and wife Lynne have also personally given a total of $200 million to the children’s hospital at UCSF. 

 

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