Stock market today: Wall Street rises toward records despite tariff talk
What medical care for transgender minors is at stake in Supreme Court case?
By ZEKE MILLER, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday reached a required agreement with President Joe Biden’s White House to allow his transition staff to coordinate with the existing federal workforce before taking office on Jan. 20. The congressionally mandated agreement allows transition aides to work with federal agencies and access non-public information and gives a green light to government workers to talk to the transition team. But Trump has declined to sign a separate agreement with the General Services Administration that would have given his team access to secure government offices and email accounts, in part because it would require that the president-elect limit contributions to $5,000 and reveal who is donating to his transition effort. The White House agreement was supposed to have been signed by Oct. 1, according to the Presidential Transition Act, and the Biden White House had issued both public and private appeals for Trump’s team to sign on. The agreement is a critical step in ensuring an orderly transfer of power at noon on Inauguration Day, and lays the groundwork for the White House and government agencies to begin to share details on ongoing programs, operations and threats. It limits the risk that the Trump team could find itself taking control of the massive federal government without briefings and documents from the outgoing administration. As part of the agreement with the White House, Trump’s team will have to publicly disclose its ethics plan for the transition operation and make a commitment to uphold it, the White House said. Transition aides must sign statements that they have no financial positions that could pose a conflict of interest before they receive access to non-public federal information. Biden himself raised the agreement with Trump when they met in the Oval Office on Nov. 13, according to the White House, and Trump indicated that his team was working to get it signed. Trump chief of staff-designate Susie Wiles met with Biden’s chief of staff Jeff Zients at the White House on Nov. 19 and other senior officials in part to discuss remaining holdups, while lawyers for the two sides have spoken more than a half-dozen times in recent days to finalize the agreement. “Like President Biden said to the American people from the Rose Garden and directly to President-elect Trump, he is committed to an orderly transition,” said White House spokesperson Saloni Sharma. “President-elect Trump and his team will be in seat on January 20 at 12 pm – and they will immediately be responsible for a range of domestic and global challenges, foreseen and unforeseen. A smooth transition is critical to the safety and security of the American people who are counting on their leaders to be responsible and prepared.” Without the signed agreement, Biden administration officials were restricted in what they could share with the incoming team. Trump national security adviser-designate Rep. Mike Waltz met recently with Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan, but the outgoing team was limited in what it could discuss. “We are doing everything that we can to effect a professional and an orderly transition,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday. “And we continue to urge the incoming team to take the steps that are necessary to be able to facilitate that on their end as well.” “This engagement allows our intended Cabinet nominees to begin critical preparations, including the deployment of landing teams to every department and agency, and complete the orderly transition of power,” said Wiles in a statement. The Trump transition team says it would disclose its donors to the public and would not take foreign donations. A separate agreement with the Department of Justice to coordinate background checks for vetting and security clearances is still being actively worked on and could be signed quickly now that the White House agreement is signed. The agency has teams of investigators standing by to process clearances for Trump aides and advisers once that document is signed. That would clear the way for transition aides and future administration appointees and nominees to begin accessing classified information before Trump takes office. Some Trump aides may hold active clearances from his first term in office or other government roles, but others will need new clearances to access classified data. Trump’s team on Friday formally told the GSA that they would not utilize the government office space blocks from the White House reserved for their use, or government email accounts, phones and computers during the transition. The White House said it does not agree with Trump’s decision to forgo support from the GSA, but is working on alternate ways to get Trump appointees the information they need without jeopardizing national security. Federal agencies are receiving guidance on Tuesday on how to share sensitive information with the Trump team without jeopardizing national security or non-public information. For instance, agencies may require in-person meetings and document reviews since the Trump team has declined to shift to using secure phones and computers. For unclassified information, agencies may ask Trump transition staff to attest that they are taking basic safeguards, like using two-factor authentication on their accounts.A tug-of-war has begun in the Mahayuti, with the BJP insisting that the next chief minister should be from the saffron party. This argument is being supported by NCP leader Ajit Pawar as well as Union minister Ramdas Athawale, who has also stated that the BJP should hold the chief minister’s position, given that it has by far the largest number of legislators in the assembly. However, the election was fought under the leadership of Eknath Shinde, and his faction of the Shiv Sena insists that he should continue as chief minister. This has created a deadlock in the decision-making process. Shiv Sena MPs, MLAs and party workers are actively campaigning for Shinde, making their position clear in the media and across social media platforms. His supporters are also organising prayers and religious ceremonies to back their demand. On Tuesday, Lata Shinde, Eknath Shinde’s wife, performed a puja at the Trimbakeshwar Jyotirlinga Temple in Nashik, praying for his reappointment as chief minister. Meanwhile, RPI chief Athawale made a notable statement, revealing that the BJP high command has reportedly informed Shinde that Devendra Fadnavis will be the next CM. Athawale emphasised that the “Bihar model”, under which it was pre-decided that Nitish Kumar would be chief minister, does not apply in Maharashtra, as no such promise was made to Shinde. He urged Shinde to consider the BJP’s suggestions and accept a role in the state or central cabinet. Athawale also acknowledged the key contributions of Shinde, Fadnavis and Pawar in ensuring the Mahayuti’s victory. Sena leader Uday Samant strongly reacted to Athawale’s statement. “We are capable of resolving our own issues and do not need anyone’s advice,” he said. “I humbly request that Athawale refrain from offering suggestions to us.” Mahayuti leaders have openly acknowledged the crucial role played by the RSS in their victory in Maharashtra. RSS members coordinated with Fadnavis for election-related tasks. Immediately after the polls, Fadnavis met with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat at the RSS headquarters. Given this, the RSS’ stance will be important. Therefore, the views of the RSS, along with the central leadership, will play a key role in determining who becomes the Chief Minister. In Maharashtra, there is a possibility of a formula with one chief minister and two deputy chief ministers. However, there is also speculation that the top position could be rotated.Upside down can be right side up. That’s what NASA researchers determined for tests of an efficient wing concept that could be part of the agency’s answer to making future aircraft sustainable. Research from NASA’s Advanced Air Transport Technology project involving a 10-foot model could help NASA engineers validate the concept of the Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW), an aircraft using long, thin wings stabilized by diagonal struts. The TTBW concept’s efficient wings add lift and could result in reduced fuel use and emissions for future commercial single-aisle aircraft. A team at the Flight Loads Laboratory at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, are using the model, called the Mock Truss-Braced Wing, to verify the concept and their testing methods. The model wing and the strut have instruments installed to measure strain, then attached to a rigid vertical test frame. Wire hanging from an overhead portion of the frame stabilizes the model wing for tests. For these tests, researchers chose to mount the 10-foot-long aluminum wing upside down, adding weights to apply stress. The upside-down orientation allows gravity to simulate the lift a wing would experience in flight. “A strut reduces the structure needed on the main wing, and the result is less structural weight, and a thinner wing,” said Frank Pena, NASA mock wing test director. “In this case, the test measured the reaction forces at the base of the main wing and at the base of the strut. There is a certain amount of load sharing between the wing and the strut, and we are trying to measure how much of the load stays in the main wing and how much is transferred to the strut.” To collect those measurements, the team added weights one at a time to the wing and the truss. In another series of tests, engineers tapped the wing structure with an instrumented hammer in key locations, monitoring the results with sensors. “The structure has natural frequencies it wants to vibrate at depending on its stiffness and mass,” said Ben Park, NASA mock wing ground vibration test director. “Understanding the wing’s frequencies, where they are and how they respond, are key to being able to predict how the wing will respond in flight.” Adding weights to the wingtip, tapping the structure with a hammer, and collecting the vibration response is an unusual testing method because it adds complexity, Park said. The process is worth it, he said, if it provides the data engineers are seeking. The tests are also unique because NASA Armstrong designed, built, and assembled the wing, strut, and test fixture, and conducted the tests. With the successful loads calibration and vibration tests nearly complete on the 10-foot wing, the NASA Armstrong Flight Loads Laboratory team is working on designing a system and hardware for testing a 15-foot model made from graphite-epoxy composite. The Advanced Air Transport Technology TTBW team at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, is designing and constructing the model, which is called the Structural Wing Experiment Evaluating Truss-bracing. The larger wing model will be built with a structural design that will more closely resembles what could potentially fly on a future commercial aircraft. The goals of these tests are to calibrate predictions with measured strain data and learn how to test novel aircraft structures such as the TTBW concept. NASA’s Advanced Air Transport Technology project falls under NASA’s Advanced Air Vehicles Program, which evaluates and develops technologies for new aircraft systems and explores promising air travel concepts.
NEW YORK (AP) -- President-elect Donald Trump's lawyers formally asked a judge Monday to throw out his hush money criminal conviction, arguing continuing the case would present unconstitutional "disruptions to the institution of the Presidency." In a filing made public Tuesday, Trump's lawyers told Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan that dismissal is warranted because of the extraordinary circumstances of his impending return to the White House. "Wrongly continuing proceedings in this failed lawfare case disrupts President Trump's transition efforts," the attorneys continued, before citing the "overwhelming national mandate granted to him by the American people on November 5, 2024." Trump's lawyers also cited President Joe Biden's recent pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, who had been convicted of tax and gun charges. "President Biden asserted that his son was 'selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,' and 'treated differently,'" Trump's legal team wrote. The Manhattan district attorney, they claimed, had engaged in the type of political theater "that President Biden condemned." Prosecutors will have until Dec. 9 to respond. They have said they will fight any efforts to dismiss the case but have indicated openness to delaying sentencing until after Trump's second term ends in 2029. In their filing Monday, Trump's attorneys dismissed the idea of holding off sentencing until Trump is out of office as a "ridiculous suggestion." Following Trump's election victory last month, Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed his sentencing, previously scheduled for late November, to allow the defense and prosecution to weigh in on the future of the case. He also delayed a decision on Trump's prior bid to dismiss the case on immunity grounds. Trump has been fighting for months to reverse the conviction, which involved efforts to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels, whose affair allegations threatened to disrupt his 2016 campaign. He has denied any wrongdoing. Trump takes office on Jan. 20. Merchan hasn't set a timetable for a decision. The defense filing was signed by Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who represented Trump during the trial and have since been selected by the president-elect to fill senior roles at the Justice Department. A dismissal would erase Trump's historic conviction, sparing him the cloud of a criminal record and possible prison sentence. Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime and the first convicted criminal to be elected to the office. Merchan could also decide to uphold the verdict and proceed to sentencing, delay the case until Trump leaves office, wait until a federal appeals court rules on Trump's parallel effort to get the case moved out of state court or choose some other option. Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels, just before the 2016 presidential election, to suppress her claim that they had sex a decade earlier. He says they did not and denies any wrongdoing. Prosecutors cast the payout as part of a Trump-driven effort to keep voters from hearing salacious stories about him. Trump's then-lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels. Trump later reimbursed him, and Trump's company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses - concealing what they really were, prosecutors alleged. Trump has pledged to appeal the verdict if the case is not dismissed. He and his lawyers said the payments to Cohen were properly categorized as legal expenses for legal work.
The Gunners took two points out of Liverpool’s lead at the summit of the Premier League after Jurrien Timber and William Saliba struck in the second half – both from corners – to condemn Amorim to his first defeat as United boss. The hosts’ second-half strikes took their goals-from-corners tally to 22 since the start of last season – a statistic that is unmatched by any other team in the division. Asked if Arsenal are one of the best teams he has come up against on corners, Amorim replied: “If you follow the Premier League for a long time you can see that. “They are also big players and you see every occasion when (Gabriel) Martinelli and (Bukayo) Saka have one-on-ones, a lot of times they go outside and they cross, and they know that if the cross goes well, they can score, and if it is a corner they can score, too, so we have to be better on that. “You have seen in all Arsenal games that every team have had problems with that (corners). And the difference today was the set-pieces. “You see a goal and then the momentum changed, and it is really hard for us to take the full control of the game after that.” Timber leaned into Rasmus Hojlund at the front post before diverting Declan Rice’s set-piece into the back of Andre Onana’s net after 54 minutes to send Arsenal into the lead. Thomas Partey’s header from Saka’s corner then deflected in off Saliba’s shoulder with 17 minutes left. Arteta and the club’s set-piece guru Nicolas Jover embraced on the touchline as Amorim was left with his head in his hands. The Arsenal supporters cheered raucously every time they won a corner – landing 13 in all without reply. However, Arteta moved to play down the significance of Arsenal’s set-piece threat. “We need that, but we want to be very dangerous and very effective from every angle and every phase of play,” said Arteta. “Today we could have scored from open play like we did against West Ham and Sporting. Last year we scored the most goals in the history of this football club. Arsenal have won four consecutive Premier League matches against Man Utd for the first time ever! 💫 pic.twitter.com/biv1kvsJEP — Premier League (@premierleague) December 4, 2024 “Not because of only set-pieces, but because of a lot of things that we have. We want to create individual and magic moments, too.” Arsenal’s win against United – the first time they have recorded four victories in a row against the Red Devils in the league – was their fourth in succession since the international break. They will head to Fulham on Sunday bidding to keep the momentum going. Arteta continued: “The will to win is there. We try our best to do that. We won four in a row, but it doesn’t matter. We have to go to Fulham now, try to be better than them and try win the game. “It’s every three days that we play. It’s a crazy schedule. We’re going to need everybody and to mentally be very strong.”REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — Icelanders will elect a new parliament Saturday after disagreements over immigration, energy policy and the economy forced Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson to pull the plug on his coalition government and call early elections. This is Iceland’s sixth general election since the 2008 financial crisis devastated the economy of the North Atlantic island nation and ushered in a new era of political instability. Opinion polls suggest the country may be in for another upheaval, with support for the three governing parties plunging. Benediktsson, who was named prime minister in April following the resignation of his predecessor, struggled to hold together the unlikely coalition of his conservative Independence Party with the centrist Progressive Party and the Left-Green Movement. Iceland, a nation of about 400,000 people, is proud of its democratic traditions, describing itself as arguably the world’s oldest parliamentary democracy. The island’s parliament, the Althingi, was founded in 930 by the Norsemen who settled the country. Here’s what to look for in the contest. How does the election work? Voters will choose 63 members of the Althingi in an election that will allocate seats both by regional constituencies and proportional representation. Parties need at least 5% of the vote to win seats in parliament. Eight parties were represented in the outgoing parliament, and 10 parties are contesting this election. Turnout is traditionally high by international standards, with 80% of registered voters casting ballots in the 2021 parliamentary election. Why now? A windswept island near the Arctic Circle, Iceland normally holds elections during the warmer months of the year. But on Oct. 13 Benediktsson decided his coalition couldn’t last any longer, and he asked President Halla Tómasdóttir to dissolve the Althingi. “The weakness of this society is that we have no very strong party and we have no very strong leader of any party,’’ said Vilhjálmur Bjarnson, a former member of parliament. “We have no charming person with a vision ... That is very difficult for us.” Why is Iceland's politics so fractured? The splintering of Iceland's political landscape came after the 2008 financial crisis, which prompted years of economic upheaval after its debt-swollen banks collapsed. The crisis led to anger and distrust of the parties that had traditionally traded power back and forth, and prompted the creation of new parties ranging from the environment focused Left-Green Alliance to the Pirate Party, which advocates direct democracy and individual freedoms. “This is one of the consequences of the economic crash,’’ said Eva H. Önnudóttir, a professor of political science at the University of Iceland. “It’s just the changed landscape. Parties, especially the old parties, have maybe kind of been hoping that we would go back to how things were before, but that’s not going to happen.” What are the issues? Like many Western countries, Iceland has been buffeted by the rising cost of living and immigration pressures. Inflation peaked at an annual rate of 10.2% in February 2023, fueled by the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While inflation slowed to 5.1% in October, that is still high compared with neighboring countries. The U.S. inflation rate stood at 2.6% last month, while the European Union’s rate was 2.3%. Iceland is also struggling to accommodate a rising number of asylum-seekers, creating tensions within the small, traditionally homogenous country. The number of immigrants seeking protection in Iceland jumped to more than 4,000 in each of the past three years, compared with a previous average of less than 1,000. What about the volcano? Repeated eruptions of a volcano in the southwestern part of the country have displaced thousands of people and strained public finances. One year after the first eruption forced the evacuation of the town of Grindavik, many residents still don’t have secure housing, leading to complaints that the government has been slow to respond. But it also added to a shortage of affordable housing exacerbated by Iceland’s tourism boom. Young people are struggling to get a foot on the housing ladder at a time when short-term vacation rentals have reduced the housing stock available for locals, Önnudóttir said. “The housing issue is becoming a big issue in Iceland,'' she said. —— Kirka reported from London. Marco Di Marco And Danica Kirka, The Associated PressField Hockey: All-Hunterdon/Warren County Teams, 2024