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Meta ending 3rd-party fact checkers ‘transformative,’ but other legal issues remain, says expert

The decision by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to end Facebook’s work with third-party fact-checkers and ease some of its content restrictions is a potentially ‘transformative’ moment for the platform, experts said, but one that is unlikely to shield the company from liability in ongoing court proceedings.

The updates were announced by Zuckerberg, who said in a video that the previous content restrictions used on Facebook and Instagram — which were put into place after the 2016 elections — had ‘gone too far’ and allowed for too much political bias from outside fact-checkers.

Meta will now replace that system with a ‘Community Notes’-style program, similar to the approach taken by social media platform X, he said. X is owned by Elon Musk, the co-director of the planned Department of Government Efficiency.

‘We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship,’ Zuckerberg said. ‘The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point toward once again prioritizing speech. So we are going to get back to our roots, focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms.’

The news was praised by President-elect Donald Trump, who told Fox News Digital that he thought Meta’s presentation ‘was excellent.’  ‘They have come a long way,’ Trump said.

Still, it is unlikely to ease the legal liability for Meta, which in recent months has been hit with the possibility of a multibillion-dollar class action lawsuit stemming from a privacy scandal involving the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. 

The Supreme Court in November rejected Meta’s effort to block the lawsuit, leaving in place an appellate court ruling that allowed the class action suit to move forward. 

Meta has also been the target of multiple Republican-led investigations in Congress. Republicans on the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government probed Meta’s activity and communication with the federal government and the Biden administration last year as part of a broader investigation into alleged censorship. 

The platform also came under scrutiny by the House Oversight Committee in August, as part of an investigation into claims that the platform suppressed information about the July 13 assassination attempt of Trump. 

Combined, these factors make it unlikely that Meta will see its legal problems go away anytime soon, law professor and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley told Fox News Digital in an interview.

‘Facebook is now looking at a tough patch ahead,’ he said. ‘Not only do the Republicans carry both houses of Congress as well as the White House, but there is ongoing litigation in the social media case in Texas.’

Additionally, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority is also unlikely to be sympathetic to the views of Meta in any case centered on First Amendment protections and rights to free speech.

The House investigations and litigation have both forced more of Meta’s actions into public view— something Turley said expects to come under further scrutiny in the discovery process in Missouri v. Biden, a case that centers on allegations of political censorship.

‘That discovery is still revealing new details,’ Turley said. ‘So Meta understood that in the coming months, more details would be forthcoming on its censorship program.’

Still, he said, this ‘could be a transformative moment,’ Turley said. 

‘And an alliance of Zuckerberg with [Elon] Musk could turn the tide in this fight over free speech,’ Turley said. ‘And as one of Zuckerberg’s most vocal critics  I welcome him to this fight.’

Related Topics

  • Politics
  • Judiciary
  • Donald Trump
  • Technology
  • Tech
  • Mark Zuckerberg
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World

Garland asks court for permission to release special counsel report on Jan. 6 insurrection before Trump takes office

The Justice Department told a federal appeals court on Wednesday that Attorney General Merrick Garland intends to release the January 6-related volume of its final report of special counsel Jack Smith before Donald Trump takes office.

However, Garland does not plan to publicly release the part of Smith’s report regarding the investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, the Justice Department said, the first formal notification of the attorney general’s intentions.

The Justice Department asked the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals to approve the plan.

“The Attorney General intends to release Volume One to Congress and the public consistent … in furtherance of the public interest in informing a co-equal branch and the public regarding this significant matter,” DOJ said in a filing.

At the moment, Garland is blocked from releasing any part of Smith’s report due to a ruling from District Judge Aileen Cannon. The Justice Department is seeking to lift the injunction as it applies to the January 6 section of the report.

Cannon on Tuesday temporarily blocked the special counsel from releasing both volumes, following a request from Trump and his former co-defendants in the classified documents case, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira. (Nauta and De Olivera have pleaded not guilty.)

Because it won’t make the part regarding Nauta and De Oliveira public, the Justice Department told the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals that the pair shouldn’t be allowed to stop the rest of the report from being released.

“There is neither any need nor legal basis for an injunction,” the DOJ wrote in a filing to an appeals court on Wednesday. … But to avoid any risk of prejudice to defendants Nauta and De Oliveira, the Attorney General has determined, at the recommendation of the Special Counsel, that he will not publicly release Volume Two so long as defendants’ criminal proceedings remain pending.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

This post appeared first on cnn.com
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Fortune Minerals Provides an Update of NICO Project Test Work, Rio Tinto Process Collaboration & Feasibility Study

The Company is advancing the NICO Project toward a construction decision with U.S. & Canadian Government financial support from critical minerals supply chain security programs

Fortune Minerals Limited (TSX: FT) (OTCQB: FTMDF) (‘ Fortune ‘ or the ‘ Company ‘) ( www.fortuneminerals.com ) is pleased to provide an update of ongoing work on the vertically integrated NICO cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper critical minerals project in Canada (‘ NICO Project ‘). The NICO Project is comprised of a planned mine and concentrator in the Northwest Territories (‘ NWT ‘) and a hydrometallurgical processing facility in Lamont County, Alberta where concentrates from the mine, and other feed sources, will be processed to value-added products needed for the energy transition, new technologies and defense. Fortune has been awarded ~C$17 million of non-dilutive contribution funding from the U.S. Department of Defense (‘ DoD ‘), Natural Resources Canada (‘ NRCan ‘), and Alberta Innovates to help finance the work needed to bring the NICO Project to a project finance and construction decision (see news releases dated, December 5, 2023, and May 16, 2024). Development of the NICO Project would provide a reliable North American supply of cobalt sulphate, gold doré, bismuth ingots, and copper precipitate enhancing domestic supply chains for three metals identified on the Canadian and U.S. Government critical minerals lists and a highly liquid and countercyclical gold co-product to mitigate metal price volatility.

Like our news? Click-to-post on X .

Highlights

  • New comminution & flotation circuit designs to reduce capital & operating costs
  • Concentrator modifications to improve gold, bismuth & cobalt recoveries
  • Smaller hydrometallurgical bismuth circuit with lower capital costs & higher recoveries
  • Successful leaching & cementation of blended Rio Tinto & Fortune bismuth streams

Feasibility Study Update

Fortune retained Worley Canada Services Ltd. (‘ Worley ‘) to lead the engineering for an updated Feasibility Study assessing the economics of the NICO Project at current costs and commodity prices. Worley is also assisting Fortune with permitting for the brownfield site in Lamont County, Alberta where the Company plans to construct its hydrometallurgical facility. The NICO Project was previously assessed in a positive Feasibility Study by Micon International Limited (‘ Micon ‘) in 2014 but is now out of date. Micon, P&E Mining Consultants Inc. (‘ P&E ‘) and WSP Golder, who participated in the 2014 study, are also engaged to assist Worley with preparation of the updated study and NI 43-101 Technical Report. The Feasibility Study is being supported with funding from the U.S. DoD and NRCan’s Global Partnerships Initiative (‘ GPI ‘) contribution funding.

The updated Feasibility Study will incorporate a number of improvements to the NICO Project identified by Fortune and Worley to deliver a more financially robust development. These include: the superior brownfield Alberta hydrometallurgical facility site with existing buildings; the new Tlicho Highway to Whati, NWT; a new geological block model with more constrained ore zone boundaries to reduce modelling dilution and better differentiate high-grade resource blocks for earlier processing; a new mine plan and production schedule with a stockpiling strategy to accelerate the processing of higher margin ores and reduce near-surface waste rock stripping; better equipment choices; and process optimizations from recent test work.

Worley has completed value enhancement studies improving the grinding and comminution, and flotation circuits for the planned concentrator in the NWT. A High-Pressure Grinding Rolls (‘ HPGR ‘) and vertical mills will replace parts of the previously designed circuit and ball mill with an anticipated ~C$7 million reduction in capital costs and ~C$1.3 million reduction in annual operating costs from a smaller plant footprint utilizing more energy efficient equipment. HPGR variability tests are in progress at SGS Canada Inc. (‘ SGS ‘) in Lakefield, Ontario to provide additional data for the detailed design.

Worley has also reviewed the Company’s historical flotation test work and piloting information and has identified opportunities using Jameson flotation cells to recover additional fine, 5- to 20-micron sized gold and bismuth particles contained in NICO deposit ores. Jameson cell tests were completed at SGS at a finer (minus 44-micron) grind size and the Company is pleased to report that these tests have confirmed an improvement in gold, bismuth and cobalt recoveries for the concentrator. A carbon column is also being designed into the secondary flotation circuit to capture the ~5% of contained gold that previously would have been dissolved and lost in the process water during bismuth and cobalt separation. Fortune is also investigating other options to reduce potential gold losses during the processing of high-grade, gold-rich ores.

Worley has also completed a minor realignment of the NICO access road design to reduce construction costs and has also completed the process flow diagrams, piping and instrumentation diagrams, and mass balance for the NWT concentrator. As part of the ongoing Feasibility Study improvements, Worley is also working on updated concentrator and hydrometallurgical facility designs to advance the vertically integrated development.

Test Work Update

Fortune collected between 15 and 16 metric tonnes of ores from its earlier test mining stockpiles at the NICO mine site and shipped this material to SGS for metallurgical test work and piloting. The test work is being financially supported with contribution funding from NRCan’s GPI and a $715,000 award in 2023 from the Critical Minerals Research Development and Demonstration (‘ CMRDD ‘), with additional financial support coming from Alberta Innovates’ Clean Resources Continuous Intake Program and the U.S. DoD. Phase 2 of the program, consisting of crushing, grinding and bulk and secondary flotation was successfully completed in Q3, 2024, producing gold-bearing cobalt and bismuth concentrates for hydrometallurgical testing.

The Phase 3 hydrometallurgical work is in progress and the results achieved to date are exceeding the Company’s expectations. Ferric chloride leaching of bismuth concentrate followed by cementation and purification test work achieved 97% bismuth recoveries, producing a cement grading up to 95% bismuth, and averaging about 0.2% iron as the main impurity. The data was used to support the bismuth circuit process design criteria on the basis of a 66% reduction of the leaching residence time, from three hours to one hour. Overall, the design criteria are predictive of a significant material reduction in the size, capital and operating costs for the bismuth circuit for the hydrometallurgical plant. The results are also predictive of about a 2% higher bismuth recovery than initially estimated for the bismuth leaching and cementation circuits. Fortune has retained XPS Industry Relevant Solutions to conduct the smelting and refining parts of the bismuth test work and complete the design of the bismuth pyrometallurgical circuit.

A preliminary pressure oxidation (‘ POX ‘) test on the cobalt concentrate was recently completed, but more comprehensive cobalt processing tests will be carried out in the first quarter of 2025. The cobalt test work will also include a value enhancement optimization of sequential gypsum precipitation to validate the production of a gypsum by-product from the autoclave effluent. If successful, a saleable gypsum by-product would provide a material improvement to the hydrometallurgical facility overall revenues and reduce waste disposal costs for the process residue.

Rio Tinto Process Collaboration

Fortune has a process collaboration agreement with Rio Tinto investigating the feasibility of recovering additional cobalt and bismuth at the Alberta hydrometallurgical facility by processing precipitates produced from Kennecott smelter wastes in Utah. Rio Tinto successfully generated a high-grade bismuth oxychloride intermediate from its Utah process streams and shipped samples of this material to SGS for testing using Fortune’s process criteria as well as blending with NICO bismuth concentrates. Leaching and cementation tests carried out on the Rio Tinto material blended with NICO bismuth concentrate were very successful, validating no material change in bismuth recoveries or metallurgical performance relative to treating unblended NICO bismuth concentrate. The feasibility of processing Rio Tinto material at the Alberta Hydrometallurgical facility has therefore been confirmed and additional work is planned by both companies to advance the collaboration. These blending validation studies are financially supported by NRCan’s GPI contribution funding and the U.S. DoD.

About the NICO Project

Fortune has expended approximately C$140 million to advance the NICO Project from an in-house mineral discovery to a near construction-ready development. The Company has secured the environmental assessment approval and the major mine permits for the facilities in the NWT and the municipal planning approvals for the Alberta hydrometallurgical facility. Additional permitting is required at both sites and is in progress with partial funding support from the U.S. DoD.

The NICO deposit and planned mine is situated in Tlicho Territory, approximately 160 km northwest of the City of Yellowknife and 50 km north of the community of Whati where the new Tlicho Highway currently terminates. A spur road from Whati is planned as part of the development to enable trucking concentrates to the railhead at Enterprise, NWT for delivery to Alberta and downstream processing.

The NICO deposit contains open pit and underground Proven and Probable Mineral Reserves totaling 33.1 million tonnes containing 1.11 million ounces of gold, 82.3 million pounds of cobalt, 102.1 million pounds of bismuth, and 27.2 million pounds of copper to support a ~20-year mine life. Fortune also owns the Sue-Dianne satellite copper deposit located 25 km north of the NICO deposit and is a potential future source of incremental mill feed for the Company’s planned concentrator. NICO and Sue-Dianne are iron oxide copper-gold (‘ IOCG ‘)-type mineral deposits with world class global analogues that support the exploration potential of the area and Fortune’s properties.

Ores from the NICO deposit will be mined primarily by open pit methods with a low waste to ore strip ratio. Portions of the higher-grade Mineral Reserves would be mined by underground open stoping methods to accelerate cash flows during early years of the mine life using the existing ramp and underground workings for access and ore haulage.

NICO ores will be processed in a concentrator constructed at the mine site with a 4,650 metric tonnes per day mill throughput rate and a low (4%) mass pull during bulk flotation that captures the recoverable metals in only 180 tonnes of bulk concentrate per day. A very efficient secondary flotation process separates the ore minerals into gold-bearing cobalt and bismuth concentrates for low-cost transportation by truck and rail to Alberta.

The hydrometallurgical facility is planned to be constructed in Lamont County in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland, approximately 50 km northeast of Edmonton. Cobalt concentrate will be processed by POX in an autoclave to dissolve the contained metals, followed by sequential neutralization, copper cementation, and solvent extraction purification and crystallization of cobalt sulphate heptahydrate. The bismuth concentrate will be processed by ferric chloride leaching, followed by cementation, and smelting to 99.995% bismuth ingots. Gold will be recovered by leaching the combined autoclave residue, followed by carbon elution and smelting to doré bars.

Development of the NICO Project would provide a reliable, vertically integrated domestic supply of cobalt, gold, bismuth and copper with supply chain transparency and custody control of the metals from ores through to the production of value-added products. Fortune’s cobalt production is targeting the lithium-ion rechargeable battery industry for use in electric vehicles, portable electronics and stationary energy storage cells. The NICO deposit contains 12% of global bismuth reserves and the ingots produced by Fortune will be marketed for automotive glass and steel coatings, low melting temperature and dimensionally stable alloys, and an environmentally safe and non-toxic replacement for lead in brass, solder, steel, aluminum and galvanizing alloys, paint, radiation shielding, ceramic glazes, ammunition and fishing weights. New applications also include environmentally safe plugs to properly seal decommissioned oil and gas wells, magnets for EV powertrains, and alloys used in the nuclear and defense industries. Notably, gold, bismuth and copper prices have all been increasing and compensate for the short-term weakness in the cobalt price.

For more detailed information about the NICO Mineral Reserves and certain technical information in this news release, please refer to the Technical Report on the NICO Project, entitled ‘Technical Report on the Feasibility Study for the NICO-Gold-Cobalt-Bismuth-Copper Project, Northwest Territories, Canada’, dated April 2, 2014 and prepared by Micon International Limited which has been filed on SEDAR and is available under the Company’s profile at www.sedar.com .

The disclosure of scientific and technical information contained in this news release have been approved by Robin Goad, M.Sc., P.Geo., President and Chief Executive Officer of Fortune and Alex Mezei, M.Sc., P.Eng. Fortune’s Chief Metallurgist, who are ‘Qualified Persons’ under National Instrument 43-101.

About Fortune Minerals

Fortune is a Canadian mining company focused on developing the NICO cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper project in the Northwest Territories and Alberta. Fortune also owns the satellite Sue-Dianne copper-silver-gold deposit located 25 km north of the NICO deposit and is a potential future source of incremental mill feed to extend the life of the NICO concentrator.

Follow Fortune Minerals:

Click here to subscribe to Fortune’s email list.

Click here to follow Fortune on LinkedIn.

@FortuneMineral on X.

This press release contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. This forward-looking information includes statements with respect to, among other things, the exercise of the option by the Company and the purchase of the JFSL site, the construction of the proposed Hydrometallurgical Facility at the JFSL site, the potential for expansion of the NICO Deposit and the Company’s plans to develop the NICO Project. Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management as well as certain assumptions at the date the information is given (including, in respect of the forward-looking information contained in this press release, assumptions regarding: the successful completion of the Company’s due diligence investigations on the JFSL site, the Company’s ability to secure the necessary financing to fund the exercise of the option and complete the purchase of the JFSL site, the Company’s ability to complete construction of a NICO Project Hydrometallurgical Facility; the Company’s ability to arrange the necessary financing to continue operations and develop the NICO Project; the receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals for the construction and operation of the NICO Project and the related Hydrometallurgical Facility and the timing thereof; growth in the demand for cobalt; the time required to construct the NICO Project; and the economic environment in which the Company will operate in the future, including the price of gold, cobalt and other by-product metals, anticipated costs and the volumes of metals to be produced at the NICO Project). However, such forward-looking information is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. These factors include the risks that the 2021 drill program may not result in a meaningful expansion of the NICO Deposit, the Company may not be able to complete the purchase of the JFSL site and secure a site for the construction of a Hydrometallurgical Facility, the Company may not be able to finance and develop NICO on favourable terms or at all, uncertainties with respect to the receipt or timing of required permits, approvals and agreements for the development of the NICO Project, including the related Hydrometallurgical Facility, the construction of the NICO Project may take longer than anticipated, the Company may not be able to secure offtake agreements for the metals to be produced at the NICO Project, the Sue-Dianne Property may not be developed to the point where it can provide mill feed to the NICO Project, the inherent risks involved in the exploration and development of mineral properties and in the mining industry in general, the market for products that use cobalt or bismuth may not grow to the extent anticipated, the future supply of cobalt and bismuth may not be as limited as anticipated, the risk of decreases in the market prices of cobalt, bismuth and other metals to be produced by the NICO Project, discrepancies between actual and estimated Mineral Resources or between actual and estimated metallurgical recoveries, uncertainties associated with estimating Mineral Resources and Reserves and the risk that even if such Mineral Resources prove accurate the risk that such Mineral Resources may not be converted into Mineral Reserves once economic conditions are applied, the Company’s production of cobalt, bismuth and other metals may be less than anticipated and other operational and development risks, market risks and regulatory risks. Readers are cautioned to not place undue reliance on forward-looking information because it is possible that predictions, forecasts, projections and other forms of forward-looking information will not be achieved by the Company. The forward-looking information contained herein is made as of the date hereof and the Company assumes no responsibility to update or revise it to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250108515555/en/

Fortune Minerals Limited  
Troy Nazarewicz
Investor Relations Manager
info@fortuneminerals.com
Tel: (519) 858-8188
www.fortuneminerals.com

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Grande Portage Resources Initiates Sensor-Based Ore Sorting Testwork

Grande Portage Resources Ltd. (TSXV:GPG)(OTCQB:GPTRF)(FSE:GPB) (‘Grande Portage’ or the ‘Company’) is pleased to announce that it is initiating testwork for a sensor-based ore sorting system, utilizing samples from the New Amalga Mine Project located approximately 16 miles (25 km) northwest of the city of Juneau, Alaska

As previously announced, the Company’s Conceptual Mining Plan envisions the development of the New Amalga gold mine as a selective underground mining operation which would send ore off-site to be processed at a third-party facility, enabled by the project’s location near tidewater and less than 4 miles (6.5km) from existing paved highway (Fig 1). This results in a dramatically reduced mine site footprint due to the avoidance of chemical processing and tailings storage facilities. Processing options include potential use of third-party concentrator facilities around the Pacific Rim or direct shipment to smelters in East Asia.

Grande Portage has assembled a drill core composite which is reflective of the anticipated production from the Conceptual Mine Plan. The composite includes both ore and waste samples to reflect the expected dilution from wall rock (waste) which is inherent with underground blasting of narrow ore veins. This core is being subjected to a sensor-based ore sorting test process at the facilities of Steinert US Inc, a leading global manufacturer of ore-sorting equipment. The purpose of ore sorting is to quickly separate particles of waste dilution rock from the mined material, without the use of chemical reagents.

Sensor-based ore sorting utilizes a variety of measurements to determine whether a particle is ore or waste, including color, electromagnetic induction, and x-ray analysis to assess elemental composition. The crushed rock is placed on a conveyor belt and then dropped in front of the sensor, which rapidly analyzes the individual pieces of rock. When a piece of rock is identified as waste, a puff of compressed air redirects it to a ‘reject’ bin. The remaining pieces of rock are sent to the stockpile of accepted material. (Fig. 2)

The New Amalga deposit is considered a good candidate for use of ore sorting technology since the wall rock is often both visually and geochemically distinct from the quartz vein resource (Fig. 3).

Ian Klassen, President and CEO comments: ‘Sensor-based ore sorting is a well-established technology currently in use at many mines worldwide, and we are very excited to be working with Steinert to test its effectiveness on samples representative of the New Amalga conceptual mine plan.’

Mr. Klassen continued: ‘Integrating ore sorting into the production plan could significantly reduce the amount of mined rock requiring transportation and processing at a third-party facility, lowering per-ounce costs while also providing useful sorter-reject material for underground backfill as part of the mining cycle. This would further enhance the existing advantages of our proposed direct-ship mine configuration which utilizes offsite processing. It may also create opportunities for inclusion of thinner veins into the mine plan – areas of the deposit which otherwise may not have been considered viable.’

Fig. 1: Location of New Amalga Mine Project

Fig. 2: Simplified Conceptual Diagram of an Ore Sorting System

Fig. 3: Example of New Amalga Drill Core, Displaying Distinct Wall Rock vs Quartz Vein Intervals

The Company is also pleased to announce that it has entered into an advertising/e-marketing contract with 1000903966 Ontario Inc. to provide marketing services, including social media engagement through X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, YouTube and Reddit. The initial term of the agreement is 90 days, starting on January 6, 2025, and may be renewed with mutual written agreement. During the initial term, 1000903966 Ontario Inc., will be paid CAD$12,000.

Kyle Mehalek, P.E.., is the QP within the meaning of NI 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical disclosure in this release. Mr. Mehalek is independent of Grande Portage within the meaning of NI 43-101.

About Grande Portage:
Grande Portage Resources Ltd. is a publicly traded mineral exploration company focused on the New Amalga Gold Mine Project (formerly the Herbert Gold project) situated approximately 25 km north of Juneau, Alaska. The Company holds a 100% interest in the New Amalga property. The New Amalga Gold property system is open to length and depth and is host to at least six main composite vein-fault structures that contain ribbon structure quartz-sulfide veins. The project lies prominently within the 160km long Juneau Gold Belt, which has produced over seven million ounces of gold.

The Company’s updated NI#43-101 Mineral Resource estimate (filed in June 2024) reported at a base case mineral resources cut-off grade of 2.5 grams per tonne gold (g/t Au) and consists of: an Indicated Resource of 1,438,500 ounces of gold at an average grade of 9.47 g/t Au (4,726,000 tonnes); and an Inferred Resource of 515,700 ounces of gold at an average grade of 8.85 g/t Au (1,813,000 tonnes), as well as an Indicated Resource of 891,600 ounces of silver at an average grade of 5.86 g/t Ag (4,726,000 tonnes); and an Inferred Resource of 390,600 ounces of silver at an average grade of 7.33 g/t silver (1,813,000 tonnes).

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

‘Ian Klassen’
Ian M. Klassen
President & Chief Executive Officer
Tel: (604) 899-0106
Email: Ian@grandeportage.com

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information
This news release includes certain ‘forward-looking statements’ under applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements include estimates and statements that describe the Company’s future plans, objectives or goals, including words to the effect that the Company or management expects a stated condition or result to occur. Forward-looking statements may be identified by such terms as ‘believes’, ‘anticipates’, ‘expects’, ‘estimates’, ‘may’, ‘could’, ‘would’, ‘will’, or ‘plan’. Since forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties as described in the Company’s filings with Canadian securities regulators. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law.

Please note that under National Instrument 43-101, the Company is required to disclose that it has not based any production decision on NI 43-101-compliant reserve estimates, preliminary economic assessments, or feasibility studies, and historically production decisions made without such reports have increased uncertainty and higher technical and economic risks of failure. These risks include, among others, areas that are analyzed in more detail in a feasibility study or preliminary economic assessment, such as the application of economic analysis to mineral resources, more detailed metallurgical and other specialized studies in areas such as mining and recovery methods, market analysis, and environmental, social, and community impacts. Any decision to place the New Amalga Mine into operation at levels intended by management, expand a mine, make other production-related decisions, or otherwise carry out mining and processing operations would be largely based on internal non-public Company data, and on reports based on exploration and mining work by the Company and by geologists and engineers engaged by the Company.

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICE PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED UNDER THE POLICIES OF THE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS NEWS RELEASE

SOURCE:Grande Portage Resources Limited

View the original press release on accesswire.com

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Majority of Americans believe Biden will be remembered as below average or poor president: poll

Most Americans believe President Biden will be remembered as a below-average president once he leaves office, according to a Wednesday poll.

The new poll from Gallup found that 54% of Americans say Biden will be remembered as either ‘below average’ (37%) or ‘poor’ (17%). Meanwhile, just 19% are confident he will have a positive legacy, with 6% saying he was ‘outstanding’ and 13% saying he was ‘above average.’

Just over a quarter of Americans, 26%, predict Biden will be remembered as an average president, the poll found.

Gallup’s poll ranked Biden alongside nine other recent presidents, and only President Richard Nixon proved to be less popular. Nixon received a net positivity rating of -42, compared to Biden’s -35. The next closest president was George W. Bush at -9.

Gallup noted that presidents who serve challenging terms like Biden typically see their approval ratings rise in the years after they leave office. The pollster noted that Presidents Jimmy Carter, Trump and Bush all benefited from this trend.

President-elect Trump’s first term received a net positivity rating of -4. The most popular president was John F. Kennedy, at +68, followed by Ronald Reagan at +38.

Gallup conducted the poll from Dec. 2 – 18, surveying 1,003 U.S. adults via cellphone and landline. The poll advertises a margin of error of 4%.

The poll came the same day that Biden acknowledged concerns about his age and discussed his legacy in an interview with USA Today in the Oval Office. He still claimed he would have won another term if he’d run against Trump, but he admitted he’s not sure if he could have lasted four more years.

‘Do you think you would’ve had the vigor to serve another four years in office?’ USA Today’s Susan Page asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Biden said. ‘That’s why I thought when I first announced, talking to Barack [Obama] about it, I said I thought I was the person. I had no intention of running after [my son] Beau died – for real, not a joke. And then when Trump was running again for re-election, I really thought I had the best chance of beating him.’

‘But I also wasn’t looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old. And so I did talk about passing the baton,’ Biden added, reflecting on concerns over his age, especially before he dropped out of the presidential race.

Biden says his ‘hope’ is that history remembers ‘that I came in and I had a plan how to restore the economy and reestablish America’s leadership in the world.’

‘I hope that my legacy is one that says I took an economy that was in disarray and set it on track to lead the world, in terms of the new sort of rules of the road,’ he said.

The White House declined to comment on the record when contacted by Fox News Digital regarding the poll.

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Trump files emergency petition to Supreme Court to prevent sentencing in NY v. Trump

President-elect Trump on Wednesday morning filed an emergency petition to the United States Supreme Court in an effort to block his sentencing in New York v. Trump. 

Judge Juan Merchan set Trump’s sentencing in New York v. Trump for Jan. 10 after a jury found the now-president-elect guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree, stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and has appealed the ruling but was rejected last week by Merchan. 

‘President Trump’s legal team filed an emergency petition with the United States Supreme Court, asking the Court to correct the unjust actions by New York courts and stop the unlawful sentencing in the Manhattan D.A.’s Witch Hunt,’ Trump spokesman and incoming White House communications director Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital. 

‘The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the Constitution, and established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately dismissed.’ 

Cheung said the ‘American People elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate that demands an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and all of the remaining Witch Hunts.’ 

He added: ‘We look forward to uniting our country in the new administration as President Trump makes America great again.’

Trump’s lawyers, in its petition to the high court, said it should ‘immediately order a stay of pending criminal proceedings in the Supreme Court of New York County, New York, pending the final resolution of President Trump’s interlocutory appeal raising questions of Presidential immunity, including in this Court if necessary.’ 

‘The Court should also enter, if necessary, a temporary administrative stay while it considers this stay application,’ the filing states. 

Trump attorneys also argued that New York prosecutors erroneously admitted extensive evidence relating to official presidential acts during trial, ignoring the high court’s ruling on presidential immunity. 

The Supreme Court, earlier this year, ruled that presidents are immune from prosecution related to official presidential acts. 

Trump’s legal team is arguing Merchan should not be permitted to move any further, and said their appeal on the ruling ‘will ultimately result in the dismissal of the District Attorney’s politically motivated prosecution that was flawed from the very beginning, centered around the wrongful actions and false claims of a disgraced, disbarred serial-liar former attorney, violated President Trump’s due process rights, and had no merit.’ 

‘In the meantime, the New York trial court lacks authority to impose sentence and judgment on President Trump—or conduct any further criminal proceedings against him—until the resolution of his underlying appeal raising substantial claims of Presidential immunity, including by review in this Court if necessary,’ the filing states. ‘As discussed herein, this Court should order an immediate stay of criminal proceedings against President Trump in the New York trial court, including but not limited to the criminal sentencing hearing scheduled for January 10, 2025, at 9:30 a.m.’ 

New York has to file a written response by Thursday at 10:00 a.m. 

The filing to the United States Supreme Court comes after a judge in New York on Tuesday denied Trump’s motion to stay the Jan. 10 sentencing, which is currently set for Friday, Jan. 10, at 9:30 a.m.  

Merchan set the sentencing date last week but said he will not sentence the president-elect to prison. 

Merchan wrote in his decision that he is not likely to ‘impose any sentence of incarceration,’ but rather a sentence of an ‘unconditional discharge,’ which means there would be no punishment imposed. 

Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States on Jan. 20. 

Trump has maintained his innocence in the case and repeatedly railed against it as an example of ‘lawfare’ promoted by Democrats in an effort to hurt his election efforts ahead of November. 

Fox News’ Shannon Bream and Bill Mears contributed to this report. 

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  • Donald Trump
  • Politics
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Trump energy plan will avoid Europe’s energy disaster

President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would declare a national energy emergency on his first day in office, ending President Joe Biden’s restrictions on energy production, doing away with the electric vehicle mandate, ending incentives for renewable energy, and canceling Biden’s natural gas export ban.  

This is welcome news. America faces a national energy emergency because the Biden administration has created a serious and dangerous energy situation so damaging to ordinary people and our country that it requires immediate action. 

Trump can ensure that America does not walk down the same yellow brick road of Europe’s energy and climate policies. 

The danger of climate change measures is already hurting Europe. Europe’s manufacturing sector is closing down due to climate change regulations. Germany used to be renowned for its industry, but German industry expects a 3% fall in production in 2024, the third year of decline, with no uptick in 2025.  

German workers are losing their jobs because of climate regulations, with auto industry layoffs due to inexpensive Chinese EV imports. 

Biden’s climate change rules need to be changed to commonsense measures to prevent strengthening Chinese workers at the expense of Americans.  

His regulations have caused prices of electricity and transportation to rise, raising inflation. Higher electricity prices drive up inflation, disproportionately hurting poor people, small businesses and farmers. 

The worst is that these poorly considered climate regulations impoverish Americans and make China rich without lowering global emissions or temperatures. Four more years of Democrat green energy policies will indebt the nation through subsidies and high energy costs while only reducing global temperatures by a fraction of a degree by 2100. 

US energy sector prepares for second Trump term

Trump’s energy emergency will help reverse the damage that Biden has caused.  

Final Environmental Protection Agency regulations require 70% of new cars sold in 2032 to be battery-powered electric or plug-in hybrid, up from 8% today, or face fines and mandatory purchases of credits. These cars are more expensive than gasoline-powered vehicles. The popular Chevy Silverado is $96,000 for an electric, $42,300 for a regular truck.  

Auto companies also have to deal with California auto regulations, and California’s Advanced Clean Car II Rules require all new vehicles sold in the Golden State to be plug-in hybrid or pure battery powered by 2035. This month EPA granted California a waiver for its rule because the Clean Air Act does not allow states to set more rigorous vehicle emission standards than the federal government.  

Another 13 states have signed up for California’s Advanced Clean Car II Rules. With the waiver, California and Biden can push car manufacturers to stop producing gasoline-powered vehicles. Trump seems likely to reverse the California waiver, which allows California to set standards in automobiles for the rest of the country. 

Trump chooses Chris Wright as Energy secretary

In order to get electric vehicles to sell, auto companies must price them lower and gasoline-powered vehicles higher. That means ordinary people face higher prices on the pickup trucks, SUVs and minivans that they want to buy. Higher new car prices translate into higher used car prices too, driving up transportation prices and contributing to inflation. 

The residential cost of electricity has risen by 32% since January 2021. With 50 states, each with their own ways of producing electricity, it’s clear that the required use of renewables leads to higher prices. This is because intermittent energy is more complicated to produce than continuous energy. The wind blows for free, and the sun shines for free, but integrating their energy into the electricity grid is more complicated and costly than running a natural gas generator continuously.   

The average U.S. residential electricity price is 17 cents per kilowatt-hour, and rates range from 11 cents per kilowatt-hour in Utah and Louisiana to 33 cents in California. (Hawaii, in the Pacific, has a higher rate.) Of the 10 states with the highest electricity prices, all but one has required use of renewables. Of the 10 states with the lowest electricity prices, all but one have no requirements for renewables.  

The worst is that these poorly considered climate regulations impoverish Americans and make China rich without lowering global emissions or temperatures. Four more years of Democrat green energy policies will indebt the nation through subsidies and high energy costs while only reducing global temperatures by a fraction of a degree by 2100. 

Trump can do away with incentives for wind and solar, which reduce production of electricity from natural gas, coal and nuclear power, and send electricity bills higher. He can also end the ban on new natural gas exports, which hurts our allies. 

Trump’s urgency is eminently sensible, because Biden’s solutions to climate change, which he calls ‘an existential threat,’ are making people poor. An emergency is a threat to ordinary people, and Americans are facing higher car prices, higher electricity prices, and job loss to China. This is a national energy emergency. 

Related Topics

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  • US Energy
  • Joe Biden
  • US Climate Change
  • Trump Transition
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Trump asks Supreme Court to pause sentencing in hush money case

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday urged the US Supreme Court to pause his sentencing in the hush money case, a highly unusual request that relies in part on the court’s decision last year to grant him broad immunity from criminal prosecution.

Trump’s emergency appeal arrived a day after a state appeals court in New York rejected his request to postpone his sentencing, which is set for Friday.

The pause is required, Trump’s attorneys told the court, “to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the presidency and the operations of the federal government.”

In response to Trump’s filing, a spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said, “We will respond in court papers.”

The high court has asked prosecutors respond by 10 a.m. ET on Thursday.

The president-elect is appealing his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, arguing it should be tossed because a conservative majority of the Supreme Court in July ruled that former presidents are entitled to sweeping immunity for official actions.

Trump’s latest request to the US Supreme Court is unusual – and likely an uphill fight – because his criminal case isn’t yet fully resolved by New York courts. Judge Juan Merchan, the trial judge in New York, has rejected Trump’s demands to stop the Friday sentencing.

Merchan has signaled that Trump, who will be inaugurated on January 20, will face no legal penalties.

Trump was convicted in May of falsifying business records over payments to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen to reimburse a $130,000 hush money payment made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, in order to keep her from speaking out about an alleged affair before the 2016 election. Trump has denied the affair.

Merchan upheld Trump’s conviction last week.

Earlier Tuesday, a New York appellate judge swiftly rejected Trump’s postponement request following a brief hearing.

Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche, whom he’s picked to serve as a top Justice Department official in his incoming administration, argued during the hearing that the court should stop the sentencing, while acknowledging the situation was unprecedented. Though Merchan has denied two arguments to vacate Trump’s conviction, Blanche argued that either of them should allow for a stay of proceedings while the appeal is litigated.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, meanwhile, argued Trump’s team has not put forward any argument that a one-hour sentencing hearing would disrupt Trump’s responsibilities as president-elect.

If Trump’s lawyers are successful in halting the proceedings before he is sworn-in in fewer than two weeks, the hush money case could linger for months while his attorneys pursue an appeal to toss out the conviction.

Trump is relying heavily on the Supreme Court’s controversial immunity decision from last year in a new filing Wednesday in which he is asking the high court to pause delay his sentencing.

He is also arguing that continuing to defend himself in the hush money case would distract from the transition and potentially jeopardize national security.

“Defending criminal litigation at all stages – especially, as here, defending a criminal sentencing – is uniquely taxing and burdensome to a criminal defendant,” Trump’s lawyers told the high court.

“President Trump is currently engaged in the most crucial and sensitive tasks of preparing to assume the executive power in less than two weeks, all of which are essential to the United States’ national security and vital interests,” they wrote.

Merchan had previously rejected Trump’s arguments around immunity, concluding that Trump’s hush money case involved unofficial conduct that is not entitled to protection.

“That decision, among many others made by the trial court, was made in error and, if allowed to stand, would gravely undermine the American Presidency as we know it,” Trump told the US Supreme Court in his emergency appeal.

Trump also asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday for an administrative pause on the lower court’s proceedings. If the Supreme Court accepts that idea, it would give the justices a few days to review legal briefs in the case before deciding on Trump’s underlying request.

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Ryanair is suing ‘disruptive passenger’ for $15,000 in damages

Ryanair, Europe’s biggest airline, is going after unruly passengers on its flights and has filed for €15,000 ($15,400) in damages from a passenger who disrupted a flight last year.

The Ireland-based budget airline announced Wednesday that it has filed legal proceedings against the passenger, who, it said, disrupted a flight from Dublin to Lanzarote in Spain in April of last year.

“This passenger’s inexcusable behaviour forced this flight to divert to Porto where it was delayed overnight, causing 160 passengers to face unnecessary disruption,” the airline said in a statement published online.

Related article Unruly passengers were a problem before the pandemic. Now they’re even worse

The carrier said it has filed a case in the Irish Circuit Court seeking to recover the costs of the delay, which included overnight accommodation, passenger expenses, and landing costs.

There have been several reports of disruptive behavior on Ryanair flights in recent years.

In November, the UK’s Independent newspaper reported that a Ryanair flight was forced to alert authorities before landing in Tenerife, Spain after several passengers became disruptive and one person urinated in the aisle.

A passenger who disrupted a Ryanair flight to Athens in 2020 was convicted last month in a Greek court and given a five-month suspended jail sentence, along with a €400 ($412) fine.

“This demonstrates just one of the many consequences that passengers who disrupt flights will face as part of Ryanair’s zero tolerance policy,” a spokesperson for the airline said in a statement.

“We plan to pursue civil action against disruptive passengers as a move towards eliminating disruptive passenger behaviour,” the spokesperson added.

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Zuckerberg’s MAGA turn insulates Meta for a while. But the business has bigger problems

Four years ago, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg banned Donald Trump from Facebook and Instagram, saying the risks of allowing him on the platforms were “simply too great” after Trump repeatedly used the sites to broadcast election lies and cheer on the January 6 mob.

A lot’s changed.

Now, Zuckerberg is making it crystal clear that Meta and MAGA can get along.

The social media giant is canning its fact-checkers and making its platforms look a little more like X, the site owned by “first buddy” Elon Musk. At the same time, Meta named Trump ally and UFC boss Dana White to its board of directors on Monday, days after elevating Joel Kaplan, the most prominent Republican lobbyist for the company, to be its new head of global affairs. Meta was one of several large tech companies to donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. And Zuckerberg — whom Trump once threatened with life in prison — has personally made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to dine with the incoming president since the election.

While Zuckerberg is clearly trying to insulate Meta from Trump’s looming corporate retribution tour, he’s also courting a potential disaster if Meta’s advertisers flee and users begin to associate the brand — already tarnished by AI slop and a yearslong dearth of innovation — with the kinds of unsavory characters who now dominate X.

On Tuesday morning, Zuckerberg tapped the president-elect’s favorite TV channel, Fox News, to announce that the world’s dominant social media platforms are now, for all intents and purposes, pro-Trump.

Meta is getting rid of its third-party fact-checkers, Zuckerberg said, because they have been “too politically biased,” made too many mistakes “and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created” — unfalsifiable statements that echo the right’s longtime claim that Facebook censors conservative views. Meta will replace fact-checkers with “community notes” similar to those on X, in which users can add comments to posts that may contain false information.

The hits kept coming on Tuesday, as my colleague Clare Duffy reported that Meta quietly updated its guidelines to free users who want to refer to gay and transgender people as having a “mental illness,” or refer to women as “household objects” and “property.”

All of this buys Meta some insurance going into an era of Trump 2.0. As business leaders remember all too well from Round One, Trump has shown little restraint when he senses companies are being insufficiently loyal. Meta’s own stock tumbled in March after Trump called in to CNBC to label Facebook an “enemy of the people.”

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If Meta were to take the harder line it invoked four years ago, it could expect to find itself in Trump’s crosshairs on social media and shut out of the rooms where rivals like Musk are making decisions about tech’s future.

But Meta’s repositioning is hardly a foolproof business plan. Just take a look at X, the site Musk acquired in 2022 when it was called Twitter. Musk remade the site in his own image, reinstating White nationalists and other offensive accounts that had been banned under Twitter’s safety guidelines. Advertisers, wary of their products appearing alongside hate speech, rushed to the exits. Millions of users, similarly unhappy about the return of neo-Nazis on the platform, also left for competitors like Bluesky and Meta’s Threads.

X’s value has cratered 80% since Musk bought it, according to estimates from investment giant Fidelity.

That’s not a huge problem for X and Musk, who could theoretically bankroll the entire operation himself.

The same can’t be said for Meta, one of the world’s most valuable public companies, with a market cap of $1.5 trillion.

“Brand safety remains a key factor in determining where advertisers spend their budgets,” Emarketer principal analyst Jasmine Enberg said in an email Tuesday. “Social media is already a minefield for content that many brands deem unsafe, and Meta’s change could exacerbate those problems.”

Even a slight dropoff in engagement could hurt the business, Enberg said.

We’ve seen it before.

In 2022, Meta lost nearly $240 billion in market value in a single day — the biggest one-day drop in company value in the history of the US stock market at the time — after it reported a slight decline in daily active Facebook users and an 8% drop in quarterly profit.

That hits Zuckerberg where he lives, because he’s the biggest individual shareholder, says Cory Doctorow, a journalist, author and activist with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. But more importantly, stock swings hit the rich-but-not-billionaire-rich class of Meta executives.

“Zuckerberg is insulated from the consequences of making bad choices until he’s not — until things reach a breaking point… and then he tends to panic,” Doctorow told me. “Tech calls these panics ‘pivots,’ but they’re just the outcome of being the CEO of a company that posts anemic growth or even a contraction and sees the Street just go nuts on you.”

Past “pivots” have included the Metaverse, the sci-fi nonsense that Zuckerberg pitched as the future of the company three years ago. More recently, Meta is testing out its own AI-generated “users” in an apparent ploy to goose engagement.

“They’re now at the end of a long run of extremely bad choices,” Doctorow said. Which is not to say Meta is doomed, per se. “But I think that they are on the path to becoming a kind of zombie — like MySpace is today. MySpace still exists. It’s just AI-generated slop and spam.”

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