Shares in Trump’s Truth Social fall to record low following presidential debate

(NEW YORK) — For anyone who marks their calendars timed to food celebrations, Taco Bell has a new date for you to highlight in October that aligns perfectly with a delicious day of the week — Taco Tuesday.

The California-based fast food chain announced Tuesday that this year, National Taco Day will fall on Oct. 1, three days earlier than in previous years, to ensure the food festivity aligns with the beloved weekly tradition of Taco Tuesday.

The permanent date change to the first Tuesday of October was set in motion by the fast food chain with the help of the National Day Calendar, the authoritative entity that curates national days, weeks, months and other tentpole events.

“For years, we’ve celebrated National Taco Day on October 4th, but it’s always felt like there was a bigger opportunity to align it with something even more special — Taco Tuesday,” Marlo Anderson, founder of National Day Calendar, said in a press release. “Thanks to Taco Bell’s efforts, we’re excited to officially move National Taco Day to the first Tuesday in October, creating the Taco Tuesday of all Taco Tuesdays.”

This marks the latest milestone in Taco Bell’s ongoing Taco Tuesday journey, which included a petition that relinquished the trademark title in all 50 states last year.

Taco Bell’s Chief Marketing Officer Taylor Montgomery said in a statement that after the brand “liberated Taco Tuesday last year … we couldn’t just stop there.”

“With National Taco Day coming up, it felt unnatural for it to not fall on a Tuesday, and as some of the biggest advocates of Taco Tuesday out there, we knew we had to help shift the holiday permanently to give taco makers and lovers the opportunity to celebrate bigger and better every year,” Montgomery said.

To celebrate the new date for National Taco Day, Taco Bell plans to host a “frenzy of Tuesday Drop celebrations” kicking off Oct. 1 that will roll out all month long.

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(NEW YORK CITY) — The U.S. stock market climbed higher in early trading on Tuesday, as voters rushed to the polls and the nation awaited the results of a closely contested presidential election.

The S&P 500 ticked upward about 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 300 points, jumping about 0.8%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 1.3%.

Gains at large tech firms are helping to boost the market. Shares of Nvidia, an artificial intelligence chipmaker, climbed nearly 3% in early trading.

As of the early afternoon, tech giants Microsoft and Amazon each saw shares rise about 1.5%.

The market upswing follows a flurry of largely positive economic news over the past week. Government data released last week showed robust economic growth over a recent three-month period, alongside a continued cooldown of inflation.

U.S. hiring slowed in October, but fallout from hurricanes and labor strikes likely caused an undercount of the nation’s workers, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data on Friday showed.

Ivan Feinseth, a market analyst at investment firm Tigress Financial, attributed the returns on Tuesday to eager anticipation among investors to move past the U.S. election.

“The nightmare of an endless election and a contentious battle has consumed a lot of the focus and attention. It’s almost over. Then it goes back to the fundamentals of the market,” Feinseth said.

The gains on Election Day extended a banner year for U.S. stocks. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq have each climbed more than 20% this year while the Dow Jones is up about 11%.

The performance has owed to enthusiasm about artificial intelligence as well as resilient economic growth and expectations that interest rates would ease, Feinseth said.

The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate a half of a percentage point in September, dialing back its yearslong fight against inflation and delivering relief for borrowers saddled with high costs.

The Fed is widely expected to cut interest rates by another quarter of a percentage point when it meets on Thursday, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.

An expectation of interest rate cuts among investors often sends stocks higher, since lower rates pave the way for cheaper corporate borrowing and the potential for higher profits.

“The market looks toward the future, and the Fed is now on the side of the bulls,” Feinseth said.

Over the full span of the next administration, the market will likely move higher whether the nation elects Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump, experts previously told ABC News. However, each candidate’s policies could favor different types of stocks while posing unique risks, they added.

Trump has proposed a combination of low corporate tax rates and loose regulation that would likely bolster corporate profits and propel the stock market higher, experts said. Prices would likely increase under Harris, as they have under the economic stewardship of President Joe Biden, they added.

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(NEW YORK) — Tech billionaire Elon Musk has kept busy since Election Day, advising President-elect Donald Trump and receiving an appointment to co-lead a new government efficiency commission.

Musk has also found time to promote Trump in scores of posts on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, which he owns. But such advocacy appears to have driven some X users to seek alternatives.

One such app, Bluesky, has drawn attention as a possible X rival and has amassed a total of 20 million users to date. Its growth accelerated in the aftermath of the election, when Bluesky added one million users in a single week.

Launched by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky has attracted some prominent users in recent days, including comedian Ben Stiller, author Stephen King, and pop star Lizzo.

Here’s what to know about Bluesky, and how to join:

What is Bluesky?

Bluesky is a text-oriented social media platform on which users can post messages as long as 300 characters. Like X, the messages posted on Bluesky appear on a newsfeed displayed to users. The app is available on iOS and Android.

The platform operates on an open framework, meaning that users can post their messages to a server tailored for specific interests or communities. The system design resembles that which is used on another text-first app, Mastodon, as well as the decentralized platform Discord.

Bluesky began in 2019 as a venture at Twitter overseen by Dorsey, and was launched as an independent company in 2022, the year after he left Twitter.

Development of the site started after a 2020 tweet from Dorsey announcing Twitter’s plans to fund a decentralized social media platform, Bluesky said in a blog post. The eventual leaders at Bluesky were among those who sent direct messages to Dorsey in response to his post, the blog added.

Who owns Bluesky?

The board of directors at Bluesky features Dorsey as well as Jeremie Miller, the founder in the late 1990s of a free instant messaging service called Jabber.

Bluesky’s CEO is Jay Graber, who formerly founded an events-oriented social media site called Happening and worked as a software engineer on a cryptocurrency called Zcash, according to LinkedIn. She also serves on the Bluesky board.

The company is owned by Graber as well as “the Bluesky team,” the Bluesky website says.

While Bluesky has retained a traditional corporate structure featuring a board and chief executive, the company said it aspires to take control of content away from a top-down entity and return it to creators.

“Traditional social networks are often closed platforms with a central authority,” the website says. “There’s a small group of people who control those companies, and they have total control over how users can use the platform and what developers can build.”

Dorsey criticized Musk’s leadership at Twitter on Bluesky last year, saying that things “all went south” at the platform after Musk’s acquisition, CNBC reported.

Is Bluesky a viable alternative to X?

The steady growth of Bluesky has made it a destination for an increasing number of celebrities, elected officials and government entities. But the platform remains much smaller than X or the Meta-owned competitor, Threads.

Bluesky boasts roughly 20 million users, which amounts to less than 10% of the 229 million daily active users disclosed by Twitter in a June 2022 earnings report. X’s user data is no longer publicly available since Musk took the company private.

In July, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Threads had exceeded 175 million monthly active users.

How do you join Bluesky?

During Bluesky’s initial years, users could only join the platform if they received an invitation. The policy aimed to limit the app’s user base as it underwent testing.

In February, however, the platform made itself available to all users. Individuals or organizations can navigate to the platform and follow instructions to create an account.

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