PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Newly married and sworn as a Naval officer, Jimmy Carter left his tiny hometown in 1946 hoping to climb the ranks and see the world. Less than a decade later, the death of his father and namesake, a merchant farmer and local politician who went by “Mr. Earl,” prompted the submariner and his wife, Rosalynn, to return to the rural life of Plains, Georgia, they thought they’d escaped. The lieutenant never would be an admiral. Instead, he became commander in chief. Years after his presidency ended in humbling defeat, he would add a Nobel Peace Prize, awarded not for his White House accomplishments but “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” The life of James Earl Carter Jr., the 39th and longest-lived U.S. president, ended Sunday at the age of 100 where it began: Plains, the town of 600 that fueled his political rise, welcomed him after his fall and sustained him during 40 years of service that redefined what it means to be a former president. With the stubborn confidence of an engineer and an optimism rooted in his Baptist faith, Carter described his motivations in politics and beyond in the same way: an almost missionary zeal to solve problems and improve lives. Carter was raised amid racism, abject poverty and hard rural living — realities that shaped both his deliberate politics and emphasis on human rights. “He always felt a responsibility to help people,” said Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend of Carter's in Plains. “And when he couldn’t make change wherever he was, he decided he had to go higher.” Carter's path, a mix of happenstance and calculation , pitted moral imperatives against political pragmatism; and it defied typical labels of American politics, especially caricatures of one-term presidents as failures. “We shouldn’t judge presidents by how popular they are in their day. That's a very narrow way of assessing them," Carter biographer Jonathan Alter told the Associated Press. “We should judge them by how they changed the country and the world for the better. On that score, Jimmy Carter is not in the first rank of American presidents, but he stands up quite well.” Later in life, Carter conceded that many Americans, even those too young to remember his tenure, judged him ineffective for failing to contain inflation or interest rates, end the energy crisis or quickly bring home American hostages in Iran. He gained admirers instead for his work at The Carter Center — advocating globally for public health, human rights and democracy since 1982 — and the decades he and Rosalynn wore hardhats and swung hammers with Habitat for Humanity. Yet the common view that he was better after the Oval Office than in it annoyed Carter, and his allies relished him living long enough to see historians reassess his presidency. “He doesn’t quite fit in today’s terms” of a left-right, red-blue scoreboard, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the former president multiple times during his own White House bid. At various points in his political career, Carter labeled himself “progressive” or “conservative” — sometimes both at once. His most ambitious health care bill failed — perhaps one of his biggest legislative disappointments — because it didn’t go far enough to suit liberals. Republicans, especially after his 1980 defeat, cast him as a left-wing cartoon. It would be easiest to classify Carter as a centrist, Buttigieg said, “but there’s also something radical about the depth of his commitment to looking after those who are left out of society and out of the economy.” Indeed, Carter’s legacy is stitched with complexities, contradictions and evolutions — personal and political. The self-styled peacemaker was a war-trained Naval Academy graduate who promised Democratic challenger Ted Kennedy that he’d “kick his ass.” But he campaigned with a call to treat everyone with “respect and compassion and with love.” Carter vowed to restore America’s virtue after the shame of Vietnam and Watergate, and his technocratic, good-government approach didn't suit Republicans who tagged government itself as the problem. It also sometimes put Carter at odds with fellow Democrats. The result still was a notable legislative record, with wins on the environment, education, and mental health care. He dramatically expanded federally protected lands, began deregulating air travel, railroads and trucking, and he put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. As a fiscal hawk, Carter added a relative pittance to the national debt, unlike successors from both parties. Carter nonetheless struggled to make his achievements resonate with the electorate he charmed in 1976. Quoting Bob Dylan and grinning enthusiastically, he had promised voters he would “never tell a lie.” Once in Washington, though, he led like a joyless engineer, insisting his ideas would become reality and he'd be rewarded politically if only he could convince enough people with facts and logic. This served him well at Camp David, where he brokered peace between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Epypt’s Anwar Sadat, an experience that later sparked the idea of The Carter Center in Atlanta. Carter's tenacity helped the center grow to a global force that monitored elections across five continents, enabled his freelance diplomacy and sent public health experts across the developing world. The center’s wins were personal for Carter, who hoped to outlive the last Guinea worm parasite, and nearly did. As president, though, the approach fell short when he urged consumers beleaguered by energy costs to turn down their thermostats. Or when he tried to be the nation’s cheerleader, beseeching Americans to overcome a collective “crisis of confidence.” Republican Ronald Reagan exploited Carter's lecturing tone with a belittling quip in their lone 1980 debate. “There you go again,” the former Hollywood actor said in response to a wonky answer from the sitting president. “The Great Communicator” outpaced Carter in all but six states. Carter later suggested he “tried to do too much, too soon” and mused that he was incompatible with Washington culture: media figures, lobbyists and Georgetown social elites who looked down on the Georgians and their inner circle as “country come to town.” Carter carefully navigated divides on race and class on his way to the Oval Office. Born Oct. 1, 1924 , Carter was raised in the mostly Black community of Archery, just outside Plains, by a progressive mother and white supremacist father. Their home had no running water or electricity but the future president still grew up with the relative advantages of a locally prominent, land-owning family in a system of Jim Crow segregation. He wrote of President Franklin Roosevelt’s towering presence and his family’s Democratic Party roots, but his father soured on FDR, and Jimmy Carter never campaigned or governed as a New Deal liberal. He offered himself as a small-town peanut farmer with an understated style, carrying his own luggage, bunking with supporters during his first presidential campaign and always using his nickname. And he began his political career in a whites-only Democratic Party. As private citizens, he and Rosalynn supported integration as early as the 1950s and believed it inevitable. Carter refused to join the White Citizens Council in Plains and spoke out in his Baptist church against denying Black people access to worship services. “This is not my house; this is not your house,” he said in a churchwide meeting, reminding fellow parishioners their sanctuary belonged to God. Yet as the appointed chairman of Sumter County schools he never pushed to desegregate, thinking it impractical after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board decision. And while presidential candidate Carter would hail the 1965 Voting Rights Act, signed by fellow Democrat Lyndon Johnson when Carter was a state senator, there is no record of Carter publicly supporting it at the time. Carter overcame a ballot-stuffing opponent to win his legislative seat, then lost the 1966 governor's race to an arch-segregationist. He won four years later by avoiding explicit mentions of race and campaigning to the right of his rival, who he mocked as “Cufflinks Carl” — the insult of an ascendant politician who never saw himself as part the establishment. Carter’s rural and small-town coalition in 1970 would match any victorious Republican electoral map in 2024. Once elected, though, Carter shocked his white conservative supporters — and landed on the cover of Time magazine — by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” Before making the jump to Washington, Carter befriended the family of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whom he’d never sought out as he eyed the governor’s office. Carter lamented his foot-dragging on school integration as a “mistake.” But he also met, conspicuously, with Alabama's segregationist Gov. George Wallace to accept his primary rival's endorsement ahead of the 1976 Democratic convention. “He very shrewdly took advantage of his own Southerness,” said Amber Roessner, a University of Tennessee professor and expert on Carter’s campaigns. A coalition of Black voters and white moderate Democrats ultimately made Carter the last Democratic presidential nominee to sweep the Deep South. Then, just as he did in Georgia, he used his power in office to appoint more non-whites than all his predecessors had, combined. He once acknowledged “the secret shame” of white Americans who didn’t fight segregation. But he also told Alter that doing more would have sacrificed his political viability – and thus everything he accomplished in office and after. King's daughter, Bernice King, described Carter as wisely “strategic” in winning higher offices to enact change. “He was a leader of conscience,” she said in an interview. Rosalynn Carter, who died on Nov. 19 at the age of 96, was identified by both husband and wife as the “more political” of the pair; she sat in on Cabinet meetings and urged him to postpone certain priorities, like pressing the Senate to relinquish control of the Panama Canal. “Let that go until the second term,” she would sometimes say. The president, recalled her former aide Kathy Cade, retorted that he was “going to do what’s right” even if “it might cut short the time I have.” Rosalynn held firm, Cade said: “She’d remind him you have to win to govern.” Carter also was the first president to appoint multiple women as Cabinet officers. Yet by his own telling, his career sprouted from chauvinism in the Carters' early marriage: He did not consult Rosalynn when deciding to move back to Plains in 1953 or before launching his state Senate bid a decade later. Many years later, he called it “inconceivable” that he didn’t confer with the woman he described as his “full partner,” at home, in government and at The Carter Center. “We developed a partnership when we were working in the farm supply business, and it continued when Jimmy got involved in politics,” Rosalynn Carter told AP in 2021. So deep was their trust that when Carter remained tethered to the White House in 1980 as 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, it was Rosalynn who campaigned on her husband’s behalf. “I just loved it,” she said, despite the bitterness of defeat. Fair or not, the label of a disastrous presidency had leading Democrats keep their distance, at least publicly, for many years, but Carter managed to remain relevant, writing books and weighing in on societal challenges. He lamented widening wealth gaps and the influence of money in politics. He voted for democratic socialist Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and later declared that America had devolved from fully functioning democracy to “oligarchy.” Yet looking ahead to 2020, with Sanders running again, Carter warned Democrats not to “move to a very liberal program,” lest they help re-elect President Donald Trump. Carter scolded the Republican for his serial lies and threats to democracy, and chided the U.S. establishment for misunderstanding Trump’s populist appeal. He delighted in yearly convocations with Emory University freshmen, often asking them to guess how much he’d raised in his two general election campaigns. “Zero,” he’d gesture with a smile, explaining the public financing system candidates now avoid so they can raise billions. Carter still remained quite practical in partnering with wealthy corporations and foundations to advance Carter Center programs. Carter recognized that economic woes and the Iran crisis doomed his presidency, but offered no apologies for appointing Paul Volcker as the Federal Reserve chairman whose interest rate hikes would not curb inflation until Reagan's presidency. He was proud of getting all the hostages home without starting a shooting war, even though Tehran would not free them until Reagan's Inauguration Day. “Carter didn’t look at it” as a failure, Alter emphasized. “He said, ‘They came home safely.’ And that’s what he wanted.” Well into their 90s, the Carters greeted visitors at Plains’ Maranatha Baptist Church, where he taught Sunday School and where he will have his last funeral before being buried on family property alongside Rosalynn . Carter, who made the congregation’s collection plates in his woodworking shop, still garnered headlines there, calling for women’s rights within religious institutions, many of which, he said, “subjugate” women in church and society. Carter was not one to dwell on regrets. “I am at peace with the accomplishments, regret the unrealized goals and utilize my former political position to enhance everything we do,” he wrote around his 90th birthday. The politician who had supposedly hated Washington politics also enjoyed hosting Democratic presidential contenders as public pilgrimages to Plains became advantageous again. Carter sat with Buttigieg for the final time March 1, 2020, hours before the Indiana mayor ended his campaign and endorsed eventual winner Joe Biden. “He asked me how I thought the campaign was going,” Buttigieg said, recalling that Carter flashed his signature grin and nodded along as the young candidate, born a year after Carter left office, “put the best face” on the walloping he endured the day before in South Carolina. Never breaking his smile, the 95-year-old host fired back, “I think you ought to drop out.” “So matter of fact,” Buttigieg said with a laugh. “It was somehow encouraging.” Carter had lived enough, won plenty and lost enough to take the long view. “He talked a lot about coming from nowhere,” Buttigieg said, not just to attain the presidency but to leverage “all of the instruments you have in life” and “make the world more peaceful.” In his farewell address as president, Carter said as much to the country that had embraced and rejected him. “The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language,” he declared. “Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity and who suffer for the sake of justice — they are the patriots of this cause.” Carter pledged to remain engaged with and for them as he returned “home to the South where I was born and raised,” home to Plains, where that young lieutenant had indeed become “a fellow citizen of the world.” —- Bill Barrow, based in Atlanta, has covered national politics including multiple presidential campaigns for the AP since 2012.
Humacyte, Inc. ( NASDAQ:HUMA – Get Free Report )’s stock price was up 6% during trading on Thursday . The stock traded as high as $4.79 and last traded at $4.78. Approximately 920,995 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 67% from the average daily volume of 2,770,237 shares. The stock had previously closed at $4.51. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of research firms have weighed in on HUMA. Benchmark boosted their price objective on Humacyte from $15.00 to $17.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, December 23rd. D. Boral Capital reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $25.00 target price on shares of Humacyte in a research note on Friday, December 20th. HC Wainwright reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $15.00 price target (up previously from $12.00) on shares of Humacyte in a research note on Friday, December 20th. BTIG Research reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $10.00 price target on shares of Humacyte in a research report on Friday, October 18th. Finally, TD Cowen reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $10.00 price objective on shares of Humacyte in a research report on Friday, October 18th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $13.71. View Our Latest Report on HUMA Humacyte Price Performance Insider Buying and Selling at Humacyte In other Humacyte news, CEO Laura E. Niklason sold 811,172 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $4.44, for a total value of $3,601,603.68. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 2,419,712 shares in the company, valued at $10,743,521.28. The trade was a 25.11 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website . Also, Director Brady W. Dougan sold 427,459 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $4.34, for a total value of $1,855,172.06. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 1,992,253 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,646,378.02. The trade was a 17.67 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . Insiders sold a total of 1,500,000 shares of company stock valued at $6,606,799 in the last three months. 11.20% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders. Hedge Funds Weigh In On Humacyte A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in HUMA. nVerses Capital LLC acquired a new stake in Humacyte in the second quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Humacyte in the third quarter valued at $75,000. Principal Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in Humacyte during the 2nd quarter worth about $83,000. FORA Capital LLC acquired a new position in shares of Humacyte during the 3rd quarter worth about $96,000. Finally, Insigneo Advisory Services LLC purchased a new position in shares of Humacyte in the 3rd quarter valued at about $109,000. 44.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. About Humacyte ( Get Free Report ) Humacyte, Inc engages in the development and manufacture of off-the-shelf, implantable, and bioengineered human tissues for the treatment of diseases and conditions across a range of anatomic locations in multiple therapeutic areas. The company using its proprietary and scientific technology platform to engineer and manufacture human acellular vessels (HAVs) to be implanted into patient without inducing a foreign body response or leading to immune rejection. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Humacyte Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Humacyte and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .Fortinet ( NASDAQ:FTNT – Free Report ) had its price objective raised by Cantor Fitzgerald from $88.00 to $95.00 in a research note published on Tuesday morning, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a neutral rating on the software maker’s stock. FTNT has been the subject of a number of other reports. Guggenheim lowered Fortinet from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, July 29th. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on Fortinet from $95.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on Fortinet from $63.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price target on Fortinet from $88.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, DZ Bank raised Fortinet from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $65.00 price target for the company in a research note on Thursday, August 8th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nineteen have issued a hold rating, thirteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $88.93. Read Our Latest Research Report on FTNT Fortinet Stock Performance Insider Buying and Selling In related news, CFO Keith Jensen sold 4,250 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.83, for a total transaction of $386,027.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 4,689 shares in the company, valued at approximately $425,901.87. This trade represents a 47.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website . Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,307 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $81.89, for a total value of $1,908,610.23. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 48,915,530 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,005,692,751.70. This represents a 0.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 51,095 shares of company stock worth $4,058,575. Corporate insiders own 18.00% of the company’s stock. Hedge Funds Weigh In On Fortinet Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Anchor Investment Management LLC increased its position in Fortinet by 4.2% during the third quarter. Anchor Investment Management LLC now owns 45,966 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $3,565,000 after buying an additional 1,866 shares during the last quarter. Tri Ri Asset Management Corp acquired a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the third quarter valued at about $3,542,000. Virtue Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the third quarter valued at about $247,000. Arete Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Fortinet by 28.6% in the third quarter. Arete Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 7,791 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $603,000 after purchasing an additional 1,733 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Toronto Dominion Bank grew its position in shares of Fortinet by 2.2% in the third quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 357,634 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $27,735,000 after purchasing an additional 7,769 shares during the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. About Fortinet ( Get Free Report ) Fortinet, Inc provides cybersecurity and convergence of networking and security solutions worldwide. It offers secure networking solutions focus on the convergence of networking and security; network firewall solutions that consist of FortiGate data centers, hyperscale, and distributed firewalls, as well as encrypted applications; wireless LAN solutions; and secure connectivity solutions, including FortiSwitch secure ethernet switches, FortiAP wireless local area network access points, FortiExtender 5G connectivity gateways, and other products. Featured Stories Five stocks we like better than Fortinet Dividend King Proctor & Gamble Is A Buy On Post-Earnings Weakness Tesla Investors Continue to Profit From the Trump Trade What is Forex and How Does it Work? MicroStrategy’s Stock Dip vs. Coinbase’s Potential Rally How to invest in marijuana stocks in 7 steps Netflix Ventures Into Live Sports, Driving Stock Momentum Receive News & Ratings for Fortinet Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Fortinet and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .
The NFL issued a security alert to teams and the players’ union on Thursday following recent burglaries involving the homes of Chiefs stars Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. In a memo obtained by The Associated Press, the league says homes of professional athletes across multiple sports have become “increasingly targeted for burglaries by organized and skilled groups.” Law enforcement officials noted these groups target the homes on days the athletes have games. Players were told to take precautions and implement home security measures to reduce the risk of being targeted. Some of the burglary groups have conducted extensive surveillance on targets, including attempted home deliveries and posing as grounds maintenance or joggers in the neighborhood. Burglars have entered through side doors, via balconies, or second-floor windows. They’ve targeted homes in secluded areas and focus on master bedrooms and closet areas. Players were warned to avoid updating any social media with check-ins or daily activities until the end of the day. Posting expensive items on social media is discouraged. The homes of Mahomes and Kelce were broken into within days of each other last month, law enforcement reports show. The break-ins happened just before and the day of Kansas City’s 26-13 home victory over the New Orleans Saints on Oct. 7, where Kelce’s superstar girlfriend Taylor Swift watched from the stands. No injuries were reported in either case.