axiebet88 free 200 philippines With the Detroit Lions set to play against the Chicago Bears on Thursday this week, the team released its first injury report on Monday and a total of six players did not take part in practice. The injury report was an estimation, as the Lions only held a walkthrough. The six players who did not take part are cornerback Carlton Davis (knee, thumb), left tackle Taylor Decker (knee), running back David Montgomery (shoulder), wide receiver Kalif Raymond (foot), defensive lineman D.J. Reader (illness) and wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown (knee). The only player listed on the initial injury report as a full participant was cornerback Terrion Arnold (groin), who missed the Week 12 game against the Indianapolis Colts . The estimated full session puts Arnold on track to return in Week 13. After practice, head coach Dan Campbell addressed the media and revealed that of those aforementioned six players, Decker, Davis and Raymond have a chance to sit out the Thanksgiving contest against Chicago. Dan Campbell says there may be three of the guys listed below who could miss this week: Decker, Davis, Raymond. Says St. Brown is a little banged up, too. https://t.co/Gak7b9Q1ho Amon-Ra St. Brown injury update St. Brown was the only real surprise on the injury report, but knowing how tough he is, it would take an act of God to prevent him from playing. "Saint is a little banged up," Campbell said. "We'll see how he recovers." Campbell also noted he doesn't think most of the injuries will be long-term issues. After the game on Sunday, Campbell said Raymond was likely to miss time. David Montgomery injury update Raymond, Davis, Decker and Montgomery all exited Sunday's contest due to injury, but Decker was able to return to the game. Montgomery said he could have returned but was held out as a precaution and he expects to suit up on Thursday. Decker was also positive about his outlook . MORE DETROIT LIONS NEWS NFL power rankings: Did Lions to enough to stay at No. 1? Lions break multiple franchise records in win over Colts Photo of Aaron Glenn just chillin' on Lions sideline goes viralVaxcyte (NASDAQ:PCVX) Shares Down 5.8% – Here’s WhySinclair Broadcast stock hits 52-week high at $18.21AppTech Payments Corp. (NASDAQ:APCX) Sees Significant Growth in Short Interest

CONWAY, Ark., Dec. 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Home BancShares, Inc. (NYSE: HOMB) (“Home” or “the Company”), and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Centennial Bank (“Centennial”), announced it has established additional reserves for loan losses as a result of Hurricane Milton. On October 11, 2024, HOMB announced a $16.7 million reserve as a result of Hurricane Helene, which made landfall September 26, 2024. Upon announcement HOMB indicated the more recent and powerful Hurricane Milton, which made landfall on October 9, 2024, and caused the spin-off of more than two dozen tornados, would likely lead to an increase in this reserve amount. “Out of an abundance of caution, HOMB has decided to make an additional $16.7 million reserve following the second Florida hurricane, bringing our total hurricane reserve to $33.4 million for the year,” said John Allison, Chairman of HOMB. “The two hurricanes spanned across the third and fourth quarter and the amount of time it takes for customers to settle with insurance will no doubt increase, with two back-to-back events,” continued Allison. “We have approximately $110 million currently on deferral as a result of the two hurricanes and in keeping with our conservative nature, we feel as though this proactive move is a prudent and predictable course of action,” added Allison. Branches The Company currently has 76 branches in Arkansas, 78 branches in Florida, 58 branches in Texas, 5 branches in Alabama and one branch in New York City. About Home BancShares Home BancShares, Inc. is a bank holding company, headquartered in Conway, Arkansas. Its wholly-owned subsidiary, Centennial Bank, provides a broad range of commercial and retail banking plus related financial services to businesses, real estate developers, investors, individuals and municipalities. Centennial Bank has branch locations in Arkansas, Florida, Texas, South Alabama and New York City. The Company’s common stock is traded through the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “HOMB.” The Company was founded in 1998. Visit www.homebancshares.com or www.my100bank.com for more information. General This release contains forward-looking statements regarding the Company’s plans, expectations, goals and outlook for the future, including future financial results. Statements in this press release that are not historical facts should be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future events, performance or results. When we use words or phrases like “may,” “plan,” “propose,” “contemplate,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “intend,” “continue,” “expect,” “project,” “predict,” “estimate,” “could,” “should,” “would,” “on track” and similar expressions, you should consider them as identifying forward-looking statements, although we may use other phrasing. Forward-looking statements of this type speak only as of the date of this news release. By nature, forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Various factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. These factors include, but are not limited to, the following: economic conditions, credit quality, interest rates, loan demand, real estate values and unemployment, including the ongoing impacts of inflation; the ability to identify, complete and successfully integrate new acquisitions; the risk that expected cost savings and other benefits from acquisitions may not be fully realized or may take longer to realize than expected; diversion of management time on acquisition-related issues; the availability of and access to capital and liquidity on terms acceptable to us; legislative and regulatory changes and risks and expenses associated with current and future legislation and regulations; technological changes and cybersecurity risks and incidents; the effects of changes in accounting policies and practices; changes in governmental monetary and fiscal policies; political instability, military conflicts and other major domestic or international events; the impact of recent or future adverse weather events, including hurricanes, and other natural disasters; disruptions, uncertainties and related effects on credit quality, liquidity and other aspects of our business and operations that may result from any future public health crises; competition from other financial institutions; potential claims, expenses and other adverse effects related to current or future litigation, regulatory examinations or other government actions; potential increases in deposit insurance assessments, increased regulatory scrutiny or market disruptions resulting from financial challenges in the banking industry; changes in the assumptions used in making the forward-looking statements; and other factors described in reports we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), including those factors set forth in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, filed with the SEC on February 26, 2024. FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Donna Townsell Director of Investor Relations Home BancShares, Inc. (501) 328-4625

VALPARAISO — Valparaiso hired longtime Marietta coach Andy Waddle as its new football coach, athletic director Laurel Hosmer announced Monday. Waddle is scheduled to be formally introduced on campus Wednesday. He spent the last 12 seasons turning around the Division III program located in Southeastern Ohio. There, he went 55-61 after inheriting a winless team. He led the Pioneers to their first 8-0 start last season and matched the 1920 squad's school record with a 13-game winning streak that started in 2023. In 2024, Marietta made its first postseason appearance since 1973. Waddle went 16-5 over the past two seasons and produced seven winning records over the last eight seasons. The Pioneers had only two winning seasons in the previous 20 years. “I think there is a great group of young men on the (Valparaiso) roster, and we’re excited to invest in those student-athletes and continue to add more high-quality people and football players to the program,” Waddle said of the program located in Indiana's northwest corner. “I think Valpo is not only an outstanding fit for me professionally, but also an outstanding fit for me and my family.” Waddle spent eight seasons working with the defense as an assistant for his alma mater, Wittenberg, where he was an all-conference defensive back. He also has coached at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania and at Maryville College in Tennessee. “His experience building success and winning culture as a head coach, passion for developing student-athletes on and off the field and high character made it clear he was the right leader for our football program,” Hosmer said in a statement. The move comes two weeks after Hosmer announced the school would not give Landon Fox a contract extension after his deal expired. Fox was 21-42 in six seasons at Valparaiso.

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum." Section 1.10.32 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum", written by Cicero in 45 BC "Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?" 1914 translation by H. Rackham "But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?" 1914 translation by H. Rackham "But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?" To keep reading, please log in to your account, create a free account, or simply fill out the form below.Two-thirds of Wild's top line back together with Eriksson Ek’s return

Kansas once required voters to prove citizenship. That didn't work out so well

The biggest and most memorable moments from Jimmy Carter's 100 years of lifeKansas once required voters to prove citizenship. That didn't work out so well

RAY MASSEY: It's time to consult my trusty crystal ball for 2025's motoring predictions By RAY MASSEY Updated: 18:27, 29 December 2024 e-mail View comments Each New Year brings with it the chance to take stock of the past 12 months and look forward to the many opportunities ahead. So here are my predictions... 1) Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds will water down elements of the controversial ZEV Mandate, which insists 28 per cent of cars sold next year must be fully electric (up from 22 per cent this year) – rising to 100 per cent by 2035. Failure to hit those targets means manufacturers are fined £15,000 per car sold in breach of the limit. That suggests many EVs are being sold at a loss. The minister announced a 'fast-track' review of the controversial targets at November's Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders' annual dinner – where, hours earlier, Vauxhall announced it was shutting its Luton electric van plant, with more than 1,100 jobs at risk. Nissan's plant in Sunderland is also looking shaky. Humiliated by the sudden news, Reynolds admitted he was 'profoundly concerned' by how the mandate was working, telling 1,000 guests he had heard them 'loud and clear'. On Christmas Eve, the Government sneaked out a formal consultation (open until February 18) on the ZEV mandate to examine 'current arrangements and flexibilities'. So expect wiggle room for car firms to potentially be allowed to count EVs that they export, not just those sold here. Looking ahead: The BYD Sealion 7 crossover launches next year The consultation also seeks views on restoring the 2030 deadline to stop new petrol and diesel car sales. But expect plug-in hybrid cars (and maybe some hybrids) to be exempt until 2035. However, don't anticipate consumer discounts for EVs. SMMT chief Mike Hawes warned that 'such incentives are unsustainable – industry cannot deliver the UK's world-leading ambitions alone'. 2) Keep your eye on China as it exploits such weaknesses to export huge numbers of more affordable electric cars to the UK. Chinese giant BYD has a range of electrified cars such as the Dolphin hatchback (from around £26,000), Seal SUV (£46,000) and Sealion 7 crossover landing next year from £44,990. ‹ Slide me › And from February, brace yourself for the GWM Haval Jolion Pro Hybrid – priced between £23,995 and £29,995. Tariffs, as already imposed by the US and EU, have so far been dismissed in the UK as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer cosies up to the Chinese leadership. 3) Then there's Jaguar. Or should that be 'jaGuar' after its rebranding caused a global meltdown? Nevertheless, I wish the firm well. RELATED ARTICLES Previous 1 Next RAY MASSEY: Polestar 4 is a rear-view revolution with no... Nine well-known cars killed off in 2024 from the Ford Focus... Share this article Share HOW THIS IS MONEY CAN HELP How to save money on car insurance: Ten top tips to cut the cost in just a few minutes The electric 'jaGuar' GT concept car looks bold and exciting and, despite the 'woke' marketing debacle, has grown on me – though the 'copy of nothing' claim is a stretch. But we'll have to wait until later next year to see production models, and until 2026 to see them on sale. 4) I also predict the war on the nation's hard-pressed motorists will continue unabated – with more cash-raising cameras to enforce 20mph zones and other speed limits, parking zones and bus lanes. Whatever the future may bring, a Happy New Year to all. CARS & MOTORING: ON TEST Last petrol Jag: F-Type review ahead of Jaguar's big electric move Hyundai Inster review: Is it the affordable EV we've been waiting for? The most controversial new car of 2024: We drive the Ford Capri EV Has Vauxhall's grand plans for its new Grandland SUV paid dividends? Aston Martin Vanquish: Britain's new brute of a sports car tested Renault 5 EV: Can it recreate the character and charm of the original? Polestar 4 EV: The first car sold in Britain WITHOUT a rear window We take to the wheel of Ferrari's stunning new £336k 12Cilindri GT car China's new sub-£16k EV: Leapmotor T03 arrives in UK with low price Peugeot E-5008: Is the £49k SUV the choice for eco-conscious families? Ducati's new £30,000 Panigale V4 S costs the same as a small Mercedes Is the new £22k MG ZS hybrid family-friendly SUV a genuine bargain? This £100k Volvo has driven me to distraction: EX90 SUV driven VW Touareg is a luxury SUV for a lower price - why is it so unpopular? We test the new MG HS - Britain's favourite budget-friendly family SUV We test drive the £15,000 Dacia Spring - the UK's CHEAPEST new EV Suitable for UK climates: You can enjoy Mercedes CLE Cabrio year round Kia's affordable Picanto offers a fun and nippy drive in the big city MG Cyberster review - convertible EV costs £60k and is fun to drive 'Euros' winning Renault Scenic E-Tech gets Ray Massey's vote Ford Explorer: Is the £40k electric SUV a good buy for UK drivers? Polestar 3: Does the Tesla Model Y now have a real fight on its hands? Lotus Eletre is an EV Lamborghini Urus rival: The hyper-SUV tested Dacia's new Duster is here - has it lost its value-for-money appeal? Alfa Romeo Tonale review: Can this SUV bring some sporting thrill? In a world of SUVs, can the VW Passat re-energise the estate market? Ineos Quartermaster review: The new premium pick-up truck in town Peugeot e-3008 is attractive, sprightly and has a 326-mile range New £165k Aston Martin Vantage tested - is it better than a Ferrari? Can BMW harness the magic of the original Mini in an EV made in China? Is this the ultimate open-top super tourer? Aston Martin DB12 Volante New Fiat 600e EV family car is here, but should wait for the hybrid? VW Tiguan review: Brand's best-selling SUV is back - but is it better? Should you consider the Mini Countryman EV instead of the petrol? Another BMW goes electric - we test the new iX2 vs its petrol X2 rival The 2024 Range Rover Evoque plug-in hybrid is a home-grown winner Britain's favourite car DRIVEN - we review the best-selling Ford Puma BMW's i5 EV offers supercar performance in an exec saloon package We drive the £76,000 Kia EV9 - Korea's all-electric Range Rover rival Has the BMW M3 Touring been worth the three-decade wait? Our review Has Britain's most popular small car just got much better? New Corsa Volvo EX30 review: Sweden's new 'green' pocket rocket SUV rival Tesla Is Renault's new Austral E-Tech SUV the complete package? We drive it The Audi Q8 is annoyingly good for a 'sporty' coupe-style SUV Ferrari Roma Spider costs £210k - here's what you get for your money China's all-electric BYD Dolphin lands ashore - we test it on UK roads Our epic road test through Demark and Sweden in the new Polestar 2 New Abarth 500e convertible is a rare treat - it's electric and sporty Honda's new CR-V is bigger than its predecessor - but is it better? We beat the new Bond to test his new car: Aston Martin DB12 review Behind the wheel of Rolls-Royce's Spectre: We test the new EV Roller Skoda's crowning glory: Superb L&K 4x4 Estate with extras driven Maserati Grecale test - the SUV with 50% of sales projected for women Dacia's budget family car with seven seats! The £18,000 Jogger tested This Q8 is just great: We take Audi's new Sportback e-tron for a spin Enter the Dragon! BYD Atto EV is the Chinese company's first UK model Ferrari's first four-door family car: New £313,000 Purosangue driven Thrills without frills: £31,000 MG5 is one of the cheapest family EVs Renault's Arkana ticks all the boxes for what car-buying Britons want Can Peugeot's chic 408 hybrid crossover be a hit in the UK? We test it We drive the Civic Type R - the rebellious bad boy in Honda's line-up Rolls Royce Spectre: What's it lke to drive the first ELECTRIC Roller? Ineos Grenadier driven: Sir Jim Ratcliffe's £69,000 Defender Can you really live with a tiny Citroen Ami? Seven tasks in seven days Don't supersize me! Is the 'smaller' Volvo XC60 all the SUV you need? We pamper some passengers in the new £211k Bentley Bentayga New kind of Buzz! VW's electric MPV still feels like a hippy campervan Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Next Share or comment on this article: RAY MASSEY: It's time to consult my trusty crystal ball for 2025's motoring predictions e-mail Add comment Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

Who is the last Democrat presidential candidate to win Texas? The answer: Jimmy Carter. His 1976 victory over Gerald Ford in Texas signaled the last gasp for a Lone Star Democratic Party already on the ropes. In 1968, Richard Nixon’s southern strategy had already jump-started the movement of conservative Democrats to the Republican Party. And Lyndon B. Johnson’s push for civil rights legislation years earlier started the migration of white southerners from the Democratic Party. After the Watergate scandal led to Nixon’s resignation, Carter won big for Democrats in 1976. It was hoped that he would usher in a new era of Democratic Party stars, particularly because he was largely unknown to most Americans — and Texans — when he defeated Ford. Carter’s rise in Texas was remarkable. He ran in a Democratic primary that included U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, the state’s favorite son candidate. While most Texans supported Bentsen, a young Democrat and Dallas lawyer named Martin Frost backed Carter, becoming his North Texas campaign coordinator. “The Carter campaign was willing to listen to local people,” Frost said. “The campaign also involved some younger people and their new ideas, instead of just using the same old folks. ... We knew it was going to be close. And it was very close, and of course, Carter was the last Democrat to carry the state of Texas for president.” Once Carter became the Democratic Party nominee, Frost said his Texas aides took an out-of-the box approach to challenging Ford in Texas. In one instance, Frost directed Carter to speak to a group of Dallas-area businessmen instead of a group of ministers. That turned out to be a fortunate decision, because before the meeting the infamous "Playboy" article was published in which Carter said, “I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.” “That’s the only thing that would have been in the story,” Frost said. “It turned out to be the right decision.” On the Sunday before the 1976 general election, Carter went to Fort Worth, then a Democratic Party stronghold, rather than the GOP environs of Dallas. The large rally attracted 10,000 people at the Fort Worth Convention Center. Carter was also popular with many Black voters because of his association with the family of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. “Carter was a southerner, but he had strong support in the Black community in addition to being a fairly moderate Democrat,” Frost said. “That made it possible for him to win.” Just as quickly as Carter rose as a Democratic Party champion, his 1980 loss to Ronald Reagan changed the course of politics, especially in southern states like Texas. “The biggest turn came with Ronald Reagan,” said 5th Court of Appeals Justice Ken Molberg, who helped Carter win Texas against Ford. “Once Carter lost in such dramatic fashion, things really started to change.” The Reagan revolution and Carter’s collapse accelerated the exodus of conservatives from the Democratic Party. In time, folks like Rick Perry, a former Democrat, switched to the GOP and thrived. Perry would go on to be Texas governor. Democrats hung in there for a while. As late as 1990 Ann Richards had a high-profile win for Texas governor. But that was essentially the end of the line for a party that had dominated Texas politics since it became a state. George W. Bush upended Richards in 1994. And that year marked the last time a Democrat won a statewide office. The gut-punch for Democrats came in 2003, when Republicans took control of the Texas House for the first time since Reconstruction. Just as Reagan became a hero for the conservative movement, Carter was a symbol of the Democratic Party’s decline. The Texas Democratic Party is now dominated by Black and Hispanic leaders. Once plentiful in the Texas Legislature, there are only a few white male Democrats left. Small town Texas was once heavily controlled by Democrats. Not any more. Despite the 1980 loss, many Texas Democrats have fond memories of Carter. Frost said Carter took advantage of what was needed at the time of his rise. “He was the right guy in the right place at the right time,” he said. “The country wanted somebody after Watergate. They wanted somebody fresh. They wanted an honest guy, and Carter happened to fit that description.” Carter, Frost added, had success as a president. “He played a tremendously instrumental role in bringing up peace between Israel and Egypt. And he did the right thing in terms of our relations with Latin America,” Frost said. “Not only was he pro-civil rights, but he was also pro-democracy. He had a lot of appeal.” After a failed 1974 congressional race, Frost used his experience with the 1976 Carter campaign to try another run for public office. “Based on my experience in ‘76, and the fact that I made some correct judgments in terms of what we should do this campaign. I decided I’d give this another shot,” he said. “So I ran again in ‘78, and I won.” Frost represented the Dallas area in the U.S. House from 1979 to 2005. When asked whether Carter endorsed his former North Texas campaign director for Congress, Frost replied: “Let’s just say that his name was invoked.” Molberg remembers Carter as a “genuinely nice man” and an underrated president. A former chairman of the Dallas County Democratic Party and veteran of many political campaigns, Molberg wasn’t always a Carter supporter. “In 1980, I was part of Ted Kennedy’s insurgency,” he said. “I was fighting against Jimmy Carter, but then I fought to help him win Texas against Ford.” Molberg says the culture wars of the last two decades have helped Republicans hold their power. But he adds demographic shifts and progressive issues, like the need for affordable health care and an economy that works for all Americans, could help to turn Texas blue. Democrats have already rebounded in Dallas and Harris counties and are making inroads in other parts of North Texas. Molberg’s 2018 election to the Dallas-based 5th Court of Appeals was something a Democrat couldn’t achieve early in the decade. That’s something Carter would appreciate. ©2024 The Dallas Morning News. Visit dallasnews.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Jimmy Carter, the 39th US president, has died at 100Not having big expectations isn’t always a bad thing. The pressure was amplified last year as North Ridgeville was the preseason favorite to win the Southwestern Conference. Because of injuries and ultimately the pressure, the Rangers fell short and finished fifth in the SWC with an overall record of 13-10. Ridgeville needed to replace four starters this offseason, including its talented three-man senior class. Now without the preseason expectations, the Rangers will fly under the radar and are poised for a bounce-back year. “It’s nice not having the expectation and the target on our back,” North Ridgeville coach Ben Chase said. “I feel like the last two years, the pressure on the kids, not to mention from outside, getting picked to win the league. Our kids knew that if you’re getting picked to win the league, you can’t lose. That created a lot of pressure.” North Ridgeville had star players Jake Boynar and Griffin Turay to rely on over the past two seasons. There isn’t a go-to guy on this year’s squad. However, the Rangers have strong depth and several players who can produce. This version of the Rangers has size and athleticism. Additionally, Chase says this is the smartest team he has coached in his four years at the helm. “I think people might underestimate us a little bit,” Chase said. “But if you watch us practice and watch us scrimmage, those kids have really good chemistry, which is exciting. When I took over as the head coach, these were the freshmen that came in. This is four years of hard work for these kids and they’re excited to show what they can do.” Last year’s SWC race came down to the final game as Elyria edged Berea-Midpark for the outright title. Those two teams are slated to be at the top once again. But everything else is wide open. The Rangers drew the short straw losing as much production as they did, but they expect to be in it this year. Owen Pawul is the lone returning starter and Charlie Steinmetz also played significant minutes. The Rangers’ ceiling this year hinges on the others who will have expanded roles. Miller has waited for his chance to become the point guard, and he has now earned that spot. Fellow seniors Dean Ighneim, Brett Lienerth and Ndeh Tuma all return along with junior Cole Miller and sophomore Luke Rowe. “I’ve been playing with these guys as long as I can remember,” Miller said. “We have such good ball movement right now, you can see it every practice. This team just seems special, we work really well together.” Depending on how teams fit together, not having a main option can ruin a season. That won’t be the case here. It’s to the Rangers’ benefit to not have a go-to scorer because what could make this team special is the ball movement. There not be a target on their backs this year, but there’s still a program standard to maintain. Last season’s struggles have motivated this group. “You’ll always face injuries, you’ll always face adversity,” Steinmetz said. “You just have to work together as a team through those moments and keep going. I would say we have a lot of guys that can move the ball, are fast and hard-working. I feel like we all can share the ball and make some plays for the team.” North Ridgeville opens up its season against Lorain at Midview’s DiFranco Classic on Nov. 27. It will be an early test for the new-look Rangers to go up against the Titans’ athleticism. A new era starts with a new mentality for the Rangers. “We are just continuing to tell them ‘process over results’,” Chase said. “I feel like we talked about the result a little too much over the past couple of years because there of the expectations. We’re really just focusing on making sure that we’re doing everything we do to the best of our ability and at the highest level.”

ATLANTA (AP) — Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who won the presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, endured humbling defeat after one tumultuous term and then redefined life after the White House as a global humanitarian, has died. He was 100 years old. The longest-lived American president died on Sunday, more than a year after entering hospice care , at his home in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died at 96 in November 2023 , spent most of their lives, The Carter Center said. “Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia,” the center said in posting about his death on the social media platform X. It added in a statement that he died peacefully, surrounded by his family. As reaction poured in from around the world, President Joe Biden mourned Carter’s death, saying the world lost an “extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian” and he lost a dear friend. Biden cited Carter’s compassion and moral clarity, his work to eradicate disease, forge peace, advance civil and human rights, promote free and fair elections, house the homeless and advocacy for the disadvantaged as an example for others. “To all of the young people in this nation and for anyone in search of what it means to live a life of purpose and meaning – the good life – study Jimmy Carter, a man of principle, faith, and humility,” Biden said in a statement. “He showed that we are a great nation because we are a good people – decent and honorable, courageous and compassionate, humble and strong.” Biden said he is ordering a state funeral for Carter in Washington. Businessman, Navy officer, evangelist, politician, negotiator, author, woodworker, citizen of the world — Carter forged a path that still challenges political assumptions and stands out among the 45 men who reached the nation’s highest office. The 39th president leveraged his ambition with a keen intellect, deep religious faith and prodigious work ethic, conducting diplomatic missions into his 80s and building houses for the poor well into his 90s. “My faith demands — this is not optional — my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference,” Carter once said. A moderate Democrat, Carter entered the 1976 presidential race as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad smile, outspoken Baptist mores and technocratic plans reflecting his education as an engineer. His no-frills campaign depended on public financing, and his promise not to deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and U.S. defeat in southeast Asia. “If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Carter repeated before narrowly beating Republican incumbent Gerald Ford, who had lost popularity pardoning Nixon. Carter governed amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets and social upheaval over racism, women’s rights and America’s global role. His most acclaimed achievement in office was a Mideast peace deal that he brokered by keeping Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the bargaining table for 13 days in 1978. That Camp David experience inspired the post-presidential center where Carter would establish so much of his legacy. Yet Carter’s electoral coalition splintered under double-digit inflation, gasoline lines and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His bleakest hour came when eight Americans died in a failed hostage rescue in April 1980, helping to ensure his landslide defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan. Carter acknowledged in his 2020 “White House Diary” that he could be “micromanaging” and “excessively autocratic,” complicating dealings with Congress and the federal bureaucracy. He also turned a cold shoulder to Washington’s news media and lobbyists, not fully appreciating their influence on his political fortunes. “It didn’t take us long to realize that the underestimation existed, but by that time we were not able to repair the mistake,” Carter told historians in 1982, suggesting that he had “an inherent incompatibility” with Washington insiders. Carter insisted his overall approach was sound and that he achieved his primary objectives — to “protect our nation’s security and interests peacefully” and “enhance human rights here and abroad” — even if he fell spectacularly short of a second term. Ignominious defeat, though, allowed for renewal. The Carters founded The Carter Center in 1982 as a first-of-its-kind base of operations, asserting themselves as international peacemakers and champions of democracy, public health and human rights. “I was not interested in just building a museum or storing my White House records and memorabilia,” Carter wrote in a memoir published after his 90th birthday. “I wanted a place where we could work.” That work included easing nuclear tensions in North and South Korea, helping to avert a U.S. invasion of Haiti and negotiating cease-fires in Bosnia and Sudan. By 2022, The Carter Center had declared at least 113 elections in Latin America, Asia and Africa to be free or fraudulent. Recently, the center began monitoring U.S. elections as well. Carter’s stubborn self-assuredness and even self-righteousness proved effective once he was unencumbered by the Washington order, sometimes to the point of frustrating his successors . He went “where others are not treading,” he said, to places like Ethiopia, Liberia and North Korea, where he secured the release of an American who had wandered across the border in 2010. “I can say what I like. I can meet whom I want. I can take on projects that please me and reject the ones that don’t,” Carter said. He announced an arms-reduction-for-aid deal with North Korea without clearing the details with Bill Clinton’s White House. He openly criticized President George W. Bush for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He also criticized America’s approach to Israel with his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” And he repeatedly countered U.S. administrations by insisting North Korea should be included in international affairs, a position that most aligned Carter with Republican President Donald Trump. Among the center’s many public health initiatives, Carter vowed to eradicate the guinea worm parasite during his lifetime, and nearly achieved it: Cases dropped from millions in the 1980s to nearly a handful. With hardhats and hammers, the Carters also built homes with Habitat for Humanity. The Nobel committee’s 2002 Peace Prize cites his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” Carter should have won it alongside Sadat and Begin in 1978, the chairman added. Carter accepted the recognition saying there was more work to be done. “The world is now, in many ways, a more dangerous place,” he said. “The greater ease of travel and communication has not been matched by equal understanding and mutual respect.” Carter’s globetrotting took him to remote villages where he met little “Jimmy Carters,” so named by admiring parents. But he spent most of his days in the same one-story Plains house — expanded and guarded by Secret Service agents — where they lived before he became governor. He regularly taught Sunday School lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church until his mobility declined and the coronavirus pandemic raged. Those sessions drew visitors from around the world to the small sanctuary where Carter will receive his final send-off after a state funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral. The common assessment that he was a better ex-president than president rankled Carter and his allies. His prolific post-presidency gave him a brand above politics, particularly for Americans too young to witness him in office. But Carter also lived long enough to see biographers and historians reassess his White House years more generously. His record includes the deregulation of key industries, reduction of U.S. dependence on foreign oil, cautious management of the national debt and notable legislation on the environment, education and mental health. He focused on human rights in foreign policy, pressuring dictators to release thousands of political prisoners . He acknowledged America’s historical imperialism, pardoned Vietnam War draft evaders and relinquished control of the Panama Canal. He normalized relations with China. “I am not nominating Jimmy Carter for a place on Mount Rushmore,” Stuart Eizenstat, Carter’s domestic policy director, wrote in a 2018 book. “He was not a great president” but also not the “hapless and weak” caricature voters rejected in 1980, Eizenstat said. Rather, Carter was “good and productive” and “delivered results, many of which were realized only after he left office.” Madeleine Albright, a national security staffer for Carter and Clinton’s secretary of state, wrote in Eizenstat’s forward that Carter was “consequential and successful” and expressed hope that “perceptions will continue to evolve” about his presidency. “Our country was lucky to have him as our leader,” said Albright, who died in 2022. Jonathan Alter, who penned a comprehensive Carter biography published in 2020, said in an interview that Carter should be remembered for “an epic American life” spanning from a humble start in a home with no electricity or indoor plumbing through decades on the world stage across two centuries. “He will likely go down as one of the most misunderstood and underestimated figures in American history,” Alter told The Associated Press. James Earl Carter Jr. was born Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains and spent his early years in nearby Archery. His family was a minority in the mostly Black community, decades before the civil rights movement played out at the dawn of Carter’s political career. Carter, who campaigned as a moderate on race relations but governed more progressively, talked often of the influence of his Black caregivers and playmates but also noted his advantages: His land-owning father sat atop Archery’s tenant-farming system and owned a main street grocery. His mother, Lillian , would become a staple of his political campaigns. Seeking to broaden his world beyond Plains and its population of fewer than 1,000 — then and now — Carter won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating in 1946. That same year he married Rosalynn Smith, another Plains native, a decision he considered more important than any he made as head of state. She shared his desire to see the world, sacrificing college to support his Navy career. Carter climbed in rank to lieutenant, but then his father was diagnosed with cancer, so the submarine officer set aside his ambitions of admiralty and moved the family back to Plains. His decision angered Rosalynn, even as she dived into the peanut business alongside her husband. Carter again failed to talk with his wife before his first run for office — he later called it “inconceivable” not to have consulted her on such major life decisions — but this time, she was on board. “My wife is much more political,” Carter told the AP in 2021. He won a state Senate seat in 1962 but wasn’t long for the General Assembly and its back-slapping, deal-cutting ways. He ran for governor in 1966 — losing to arch-segregationist Lester Maddox — and then immediately focused on the next campaign. Carter had spoken out against church segregation as a Baptist deacon and opposed racist “Dixiecrats” as a state senator. Yet as a local school board leader in the 1950s he had not pushed to end school segregation even after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, despite his private support for integration. And in 1970, Carter ran for governor again as the more conservative Democrat against Carl Sanders, a wealthy businessman Carter mocked as “Cufflinks Carl.” Sanders never forgave him for anonymous, race-baiting flyers, which Carter disavowed. Ultimately, Carter won his races by attracting both Black voters and culturally conservative whites. Once in office, he was more direct. “I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over,” he declared in his 1971 inaugural address, setting a new standard for Southern governors that landed him on the cover of Time magazine. His statehouse initiatives included environmental protection, boosting rural education and overhauling antiquated executive branch structures. He proclaimed Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the slain civil rights leader’s home state. And he decided, as he received presidential candidates in 1972, that they were no more talented than he was. In 1974, he ran Democrats’ national campaign arm. Then he declared his own candidacy for 1976. An Atlanta newspaper responded with the headline: “Jimmy Who?” The Carters and a “Peanut Brigade” of family members and Georgia supporters camped out in Iowa and New Hampshire, establishing both states as presidential proving grounds. His first Senate endorsement: a young first-termer from Delaware named Joe Biden. Yet it was Carter’s ability to navigate America’s complex racial and rural politics that cemented the nomination. He swept the Deep South that November, the last Democrat to do so, as many white Southerners shifted to Republicans in response to civil rights initiatives. A self-declared “born-again Christian,” Carter drew snickers by referring to Scripture in a Playboy magazine interview, saying he “had looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.” The remarks gave Ford a new foothold and television comedians pounced — including NBC’s new “Saturday Night Live” show. But voters weary of cynicism in politics found it endearing. Carter chose Minnesota Sen. Walter “Fritz” Mondale as his running mate on a “Grits and Fritz” ticket. In office, he elevated the vice presidency and the first lady’s office. Mondale’s governing partnership was a model for influential successors Al Gore, Dick Cheney and Biden. Rosalynn Carter was one of the most involved presidential spouses in history, welcomed into Cabinet meetings and huddles with lawmakers and top aides. The Carters presided with uncommon informality: He used his nickname “Jimmy” even when taking the oath of office, carried his own luggage and tried to silence the Marine Band’s “Hail to the Chief.” They bought their clothes off the rack. Carter wore a cardigan for a White House address, urging Americans to conserve energy by turning down their thermostats. Amy, the youngest of four children, attended District of Columbia public school. Washington’s social and media elite scorned their style. But the larger concern was that “he hated politics,” according to Eizenstat, leaving him nowhere to turn politically once economic turmoil and foreign policy challenges took their toll. Carter partially deregulated the airline, railroad and trucking industries and established the departments of Education and Energy, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He designated millions of acres of Alaska as national parks or wildlife refuges. He appointed a then-record number of women and nonwhite people to federal posts. He never had a Supreme Court nomination, but he elevated civil rights attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the nation’s second highest court, positioning her for a promotion in 1993. He appointed Paul Volker, the Federal Reserve chairman whose policies would help the economy boom in the 1980s — after Carter left office. He built on Nixon’s opening with China, and though he tolerated autocrats in Asia, pushed Latin America from dictatorships to democracy. But he couldn’t immediately tame inflation or the related energy crisis. And then came Iran. After he admitted the exiled Shah of Iran to the U.S. for medical treatment, the American Embassy in Tehran was overrun in 1979 by followers of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Negotiations to free the hostages broke down repeatedly ahead of the failed rescue attempt. The same year, Carter signed SALT II, the new strategic arms treaty with Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union, only to pull it back, impose trade sanctions and order a U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Hoping to instill optimism, he delivered what the media dubbed his “malaise” speech, although he didn’t use that word. He declared the nation was suffering “a crisis of confidence.” By then, many Americans had lost confidence in the president, not themselves. Carter campaigned sparingly for reelection because of the hostage crisis, instead sending Rosalynn as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy challenged him for the Democratic nomination. Carter famously said he’d “kick his ass,” but was hobbled by Kennedy as Reagan rallied a broad coalition with “make America great again” appeals and asking voters whether they were “better off than you were four years ago.” Reagan further capitalized on Carter’s lecturing tone, eviscerating him in their lone fall debate with the quip: “There you go again.” Carter lost all but six states and Republicans rolled to a new Senate majority. Carter successfully negotiated the hostages’ freedom after the election, but in one final, bitter turn of events, Tehran waited until hours after Carter left office to let them walk free. At 56, Carter returned to Georgia with “no idea what I would do with the rest of my life.” Four decades after launching The Carter Center, he still talked of unfinished business. “I thought when we got into politics we would have resolved everything,” Carter told the AP in 2021. “But it’s turned out to be much more long-lasting and insidious than I had thought it was. I think in general, the world itself is much more divided than in previous years.” Still, he affirmed what he said when he underwent treatment for a cancer diagnosis in his 10th decade of life. “I’m perfectly at ease with whatever comes,” he said in 2015 . “I’ve had a wonderful life. I’ve had thousands of friends, I’ve had an exciting, adventurous and gratifying existence.” Sanz is a former Associated Press reporter.Arguments over whether Luigi Mangione is a 'hero' offer glimpse into unusual American moment

Israel said Tuesday it had bombed more than 350 military sites in Syria during the previous 48 hours, targeting “most of the strategic weapons stockpiles” in the country. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the wave of airstrikes in neighboring Syria was necessary to keep the weapons from being used against Israel following the Syrian government’s stunning collapse . Israel also acknowledged its troops were pushing into a border buffer zone inside Syria, which was established after the 1973 Mideast war. However, Israel denied its forces were advancing Tuesday toward the Syrian capital of Damascus. Life in the capital was slowly returning to normal after jihadi-led Syrian insurgents ousted President Bashar Assad over the weekend. People celebrated for a third day in a main square, and shops and banks reopened. The United States said Tuesday it would recognize and support a new Syrian government that renounces terrorism, destroys chemical weapons stocks and protects the rights of minorities and women. Syria's nearly 14-year civil war killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of the country’s prewar population of 23 million, becoming a proxy battlefield for regional and international powers. Here's the Latest: SAYDNAYA, Syria — Tens of thousands came to Saydnaya Prison from all over Syria after the fall of former President Bashar Assad to search for their loved ones. The place so notorious for its horrors was long known as “the slaughterhouse.” For the past two days, all have been looking for signs of loved ones who disappeared years or even decades ago into the secretive, sprawling prison just outside Damascus. But hope gave way to despair Monday. People opened the heavy iron doors lining the hallways to find cells inside empty. With sledgehammers, shovels and drills, men pounded holes in floors and walls, looking for what they believed were secret dungeons, or chasing sounds they thought they heard from underground. They found nothing. Insurgents freed dozens of people from the Saydnaya military prison on Sunday when Damascus fell. Since then, almost no one has been found. “Where is everyone? Where are everyone’s children? Where are they?” said Ghada Assad, breaking down in tears. An estimated 150,000 people were detained or went missing in Syria since 2011 — and tens of thousands of them are believed to have gone through Saydnaya. WASHINGTON — The top U.S. military commander for the Middle East was on the ground in Syria on Tuesday, meeting with a Kurish-led, U.S.-allied force at several bases in the country's east, U.S. Central Command said. Army Gen. Erik Kurilla visited with U.S. military commanders and troops as well as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. It wasn’t clear if he met with SDF leader Mazloum Abdi, and U.S. Central Command did not respond to a request for details about his visit or with whom he met. U.S. officials said they did not know what his message to the SDF was. The U.S has about 900 troops in Syria, including forces working with Kurdish allies in the northeast to prevent any resurgence of the Islamic State group. In a press release, Central Command said Kurilla received an “assessment of force protection measures, the rapidly evolving situation, and ongoing efforts to prevent ISIS from exploiting the current situation.” Kurilla then went on to Iraq where he met with leaders in Baghdad. UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations says it still getting reports about the looting of warehouses with humanitarian aid in a number of areas in Syria, including around the capital Damascus. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Tuesday that U.N. agencies and their partners are working to identify the extent of looting at the warehouses, including those of U.N. agencies and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. Dujarric said U.N. aid officials report that “the humanitarian situation remains volatile across Syria, with reports of people continuing to be displaced.” Humanitarian officials reported that 25 trucks carrying U.N. aid crossed from Turkey to northwest Syria, which the situation is now relatively calm, the U.N. spokesman said. All 11 receptions opened in Idlib in the northwest to host newly displaced families were empty as of Monday, Dujarric said. In the northeast, he said, authorities report that as of Tuesday 100,000 people have been displaced due to fighting in Tal Rifaat and other parts of Aleppo governorate. Dujarric said the U.N.’s partners report that “reception centers in Tabqa and Raqqa have reached full capacity, and more than 200 sites – including municipal buildings, schools, mosques, and stadiums – are being used to accommodate newly displaced people.” BEIRUT — The Lebanese army said Tuesday that “unidentified gunmen” crossed the border from Syria into eastern Lebanon's Bekaa province and approached a Lebanese border post. In a statement, the army said the gunmen fired into the air and seized equipment from an evacuated Syrian army post in the outskirts of Kfar Fouq, near Rashaya al-Wadi, in the western part of Bekaa province. Lebanese army personnel responded with warning shots, forcing the group to retreat back into Syrian territory. The Lebanese army did not report any injuries or provide further details about the identity of the gunmen. WASHINGTON — Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched multiple drones and a missile at three commercial ships being escorted in the Gulf of Aden by U.S. Navy ships, a U.S. official said Tuesday. There was no damage and no injuries. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations, said U.S. Navy destroyers, and Navy helicopter and a French Air Force aircraft shot down four of the drones and the missile. The three U.S. affiliated flagged ships were sailing east toward Djibouti. The Iran-backed Houthis have targeted shipping through the key waterway for more than a year, attacks they say are meant to force an end to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. JERUSALEM — Israel’s military said it bombed more than 350 sites in Syria during the previous 48 hours, targeting “most of the strategic weapons stockpiles” in the country. There is concern that, with the sudden collapse of the Syrian government, weapons stockpiles could be seized by jihadi militants. Warplanes hit what Israel said were Syrian air defense systems, military airfields, missile depots, and dozens of weapons production sites in the cities of Damascus, Homs, Tartus, Latakia, and Palmyra, the Israeli army statement said. In naval operations overnight Monday, Israeli missile ships struck two Syrian navy facilities simultaneously — Al-Bayda port and Latakia port — where the army said 15 Syrian naval vessels were docked. Israeli did not specify how many Syrian naval vessels were hit. The private security firm Ambrey said it had seen evidence that at least six Soviet-era Syrian navy missile ships were hit. Israeli officials said earlier that Israel also targeted alleged chemical weapons sites. JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Tuesday that his country’s military launched a wave of airstrikes across Syria to destroy the toppled government’s leftover “military capabilities,” and said Israel wants relations with the new government emerging Syria. Hours after Israeli warplanes pounded Syria, Netanyahu said Israeli doesn’t want to meddle in Syria’s internal affairs, but would take necessary steps to protect Israel's security and prevent jihadi militants from seizing the Syrian army assets. He warned that if the new Syrian government “allows Iran to re-establish itself in Syria or allows the transfer of Iranian weapons or any other weapons to Hezbollah, or attacks us -- we will respond forcefully and we will exact a heavy price from it.” He spoke in a video statement recorded at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, after his first day of testimony in his corruption trial. DAMASCUS, Syria — In Umayyad Square in Damascus, Syrians celebrated the fall of President Bashar Assad for the third day on Tuesday despite Israeli airstrikes across the country. Insurgents who recently took control of the capital city tried to impose a new rule banning the celebratory gunfire. There were a few violators, and much less deafening gunfire. Protesters climbed the square's central monument to wave the Syrian revolutionary flag. On the ground, crowds chanted: “Out with Bashar! Out with Bashar!” Assad fled to Russia over the weekend after a lightning rebel offensive toppled his brutal police state. Demonstrators from different provinces marched in the square in groups, celebrating Assad's fall. Men on motorcycles and horses paraded into the square. One woman from Idlib province shouted that the Israeli strikes ruined the joy of ousting Assad. “Why are you striking us? We just deposed a tyrant,” she said. “Give us peace. Leave us alone,” said Ahmed Jreida, 22, a dentist student, when asked about the Israeli airstrikes. Hamzeh Hamada, 22, said this was the first time he had gone out to a demonstration. “We want the country to get better, to live in dignity and be like other countries that respect citizens’ rights and where there are no bribes,” he said. “We have suffered a lot from bribes. ... We had to bribe people for very minor things; things that should be our right.” Abdul-Jalil Diab was taking a stroll with his brothers in another square in western Damascus. He said he came back from Jordan the day Damascus fell. He was there studying German to prepare to move to Germany and said he is now reconsidering his plans. He was ecstatic, saying words can’t describe how he feels. “We are happy to get rid of the corrupt regime that was based on bribes. The whole country feels better. Everyone is happy and celebrating,” Abdul-Jalil Diab said. QAMISHLI, Syria — Residents of northeast Syria in the area around Qamishli airport said Tuesday they heard explosions overnight after an airstrike hit trucks loaded with rockets and ammunition that were heading to a military base in Tartab. “We don’t know the story. It was only in the morning when we realized they are trucks loaded with ammunition, leftovers of the former army, the regime,” said Ibrahim al-Thalaj, who lives near the base. He said residents assumed that the strikes were Israeli. Israel has carried out a heavy wave of airstrikes across Syria targeting military infrastructure after Syrian insurgents toppled the government of Bashar Assad. However, Turkish security officials said Tuesday that the strike in Qamishli was carried out by Turkey, targeting weapons and ammunition that were abandoned by the Syrian army and seized by Syrian Kurdish militants. The explosions lasted for over 20 minutes after the strike, and many houses in the surrounding area were damaged as a result, residents of the area said. “We just felt a strike hitting. It hit the first one (truck) and we saw the other trucks retreating back, and from there rockets and shells started flying over,” said Hamid al-Asaad, an eyewitness from Qub al-Zeki village in Qamishli. “We were sitting when these explosions started to hit the house,” said Mahmoud Hamza of Tartab. “It was hitting randomly and we didn’t know where it was coming from. ... Once we got out of our house, a rocket hit the house.” There were no details released by the local Kurdish administration regarding the explosions, but members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces blocked the road to the base. BRUSSELS — The European Union’s top diplomat is concerned that Syria might violently fall apart like neighboring Iraq, or Libya and Afghanistan if its territorial integrity and the rights of minorities are not protected. “The transition will present huge challenges in Syria and in the region,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told European lawmakers on Tuesday during a special hearing. “There are legitimate concerns about the risks of sectarian violence, extremist resurgence and the governance vacuum, all of which must be averted. We must avoid a repeat of the horrific scenarios of Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan,” she said. “The rights of all Syrians, including those of many minority groups, must be protected,” she said. “It is crucial to preserve the territorial integrity of Syria, and to respect its independence, its sovereignty, as well as the state institutions.” Kallas also said the collapse of the government has shown that Assad’s backers in Russia and Iran “could neither afford to do it any longer, nor had any interest of being present in the aftermath.” “They are weakened, distracted and overstretched in other theaters in the broader Middle East, but also in Ukraine,” she said. ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s intelligence agency, MIT, has attacked a convoy of trucks that was allegedly carrying missiles, heavy weapons and ammunition that were abandoned by the Syrian government and reportedly seized by Syrian Kurdish militias, Turkish security officials said Tuesday. The officials said 12 trucks, two tanks and two ammunition depots were “destroyed” in aerial strikes in the city of Qamishli, near the border with Turkey in northeast Syria. The officials provided the information on condition of anonymity in line with Turkish regulations. They did not say when the attack occurred. The officials said the intelligence agency detected that weapons left by the Syrian government forces were being moved to warehouses belonging to the Syrian Kurdish People’s Defense Units, or YPG. Turkey views the group as a terrorist organization because of its links to the banned Kurdish militants that have led a decadeslong insurgency in Turkey. According to the officials, he group was allegedly planning to use the equipment and supplies against Turkish security forces. By Suzan Fraser WASHINGTON — The White House is signaling its approval of Israel’s strikes against Syrian military and alleged chemical weapons targets and the seizure of a buffer zone in the Syrian Golan Heights after the fall of the Assad government. “These are exigent operations to eliminate what they believe are imminent threats to their national security,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday, saying the U.S. would leave it up to the Israelis to discuss details of their operations. “They have as always the right to defend themselves,” Kirby said. He declined to detail and U.S. intelligence cooperation with the Israelis that went into the strikes. Kirby said the White House was reasserting its support of the 1974 Golan Heights disengagement agreement, but didn’t criticize the Israeli seizure of the demilitarized zone. Israel has a long history of seizing territory during wars with its neighbors and occupying it indefinitely , citing security concerns. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally, except by the United States. WASHINGTON — The Biden administration says it will recognize and support a new Syrian government that renounces terrorism, destroys chemical weapons stocks and protects the rights of minorities and women. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Tuesday that the U.S. would work with groups in Syria and regional partners to ensure that the transition from President Bashar Assad’s deposed government runs smoothly. He was not specific about which groups the U.S. would work with. Blinken says Syrians should decide their future and that other countries should “support an inclusive and transparent process” and not interfere. “The United States will recognize and fully support a future Syria government that results from this process,” he said. “We stand prepared to lend all appropriate support to all of Syria’s diverse communities and constituencies.” DAMASCUS, Syria — Jihad Mustafa Shibani was taking his new motorcycle for a spin with a friend around the house of the deposed Syrian president in western Damascus on Tuesday. Shibani was released from prison a week before the capital Damascus fell, after he served two years on charges of buying his motorcycle using foreign currency on accusations he was dealing in dollars. He was tortured for 15 days and and given a quick trial where he was sentenced for two years, he said. He was released the day Aleppo fell to the insurgents. “Everything was banned in Syria. The (Assad loyalists) only could use it,” Shibani said. He said he has never been to this neighborhood, because it was taken over by Assad, his family and supporters. “For 50 years, my family’s house is near here, and we don’t know anything about it. ... The Syrian people had been oppressed, you can’t imagine.” Shibani said he has no fear of the rebel newcomers who have taken control of the country. “We are not afraid. There can be no one more unjust than Bashar. Impossible.” BEIRUT — Lebanon’s prime minister is in contact with security and judicial officials to follow up on reports that senior members of President Bashar Assad’s government have fled to Lebanon. Najib Mikati’s office quoted him as saying that Lebanon abides by international laws regarding people who cross its borders. Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said that several top security officials have entered Lebanon over the past two days. Abdurrahman added that Syria’s former intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk, who is wanted in Lebanon over two bombings in 2012 in the northern city of Tripoli that killed dozens, was allegedly brought to Lebanon by the Hezbollah militant group and was staying in a southern suburb of Beirut where the group has deep support. Lebanon’s Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi, whose ministry is in charge of border crossings, told reporters Tuesday that no person who is wanted in Lebanon entered the country through legal border crossings. There are dozens of illegal border crossings between Lebanon and Syria where people are usually smuggled in and out of Lebanon, but it was not possible to independently confirm whether Mamlouk had entered Lebanon. GENEVA — The United Nations says humanitarian operations in two major areas in northwestern Syria have resumed, deploying food, medical supplies, fuel and other needed services and supplies. Spokesman Jens Laerke of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that some health facilities were “overwhelmed” – in part due to staff shortages – and many border crossings have been closed, disrupting supply chains. OCHA said humanitarian operations in some parts of northwestern Syria were put on hold in the early days of the recent escalation, and resumed on Monday. “As of yesterday, all humanitarian organizations in Idlib and northern Aleppo have resumed operations,” Laerke told reporters at a U.N. briefing in Geneva. He said the three border crossings from Turkey used by the U.N. to deliver assistance into Syria remain open and “we are providing assistance in the northwest, including to those who have been newly displaced.” Even before the latest escalation, which led President Bashar Assad to flee the country, nearly 17 million people in Syria needed humanitarian assistance. More than 1 million have been displaced across Idlib, Aleppo, Hama and Homs since the escalation. JERUSALEM — Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz said Tuesday that Israel's military destroyed Syria’s fleet overnight and intends to establish a demilitarized zone “in southern Syria” to prevent attacks on Israel. He also issued a warning to Syria’s rebels, saying that “whoever follows Assad’s path will end up like Assad — we will not allow an extremist Islamic terrorist entity to act against Israel across its border while putting its citizens at risk.” Speaking at a naval base in Haifa, Katz said the Israeli navy “operated last night to destroy the Syrian fleet and with great success.” Video showing the smoking wreckage of what appeared to be small Syrian naval ships in the port at Latakia was broadcast by Saudi-owned television station Al-Hadath on Tuesday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has closely tracked the conflict since the civil war erupted in 2011, said Israel targeted Syrian warships, military warehouses and an air-defense facility on the coast. Katz added that he had instructed the army to establish a “defense zone free of weapons and terrorist threats in southern Syria, without a permanent Israeli presence, in order to prevent terrorism in Syria from taking root and organizing.” It was unclear if the demilitarized zone would reach beyond the buffer zone that Israel has taken over in the border area. Israel has a long history of seizing territory during wars with its neighbors and occupying it indefinitely , citing security concerns. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally, except by the United States. DAMASCUS, Syria — Members of the Syrian government under ousted President Bashar Assad will gradually transfer power to a new transitional cabinet headed by Mohammed al-Bashir. The departing government met with al-Bashir for the first time since Assad fled Damascus over the weekend. Al-Bashir had previously led the “salvation government” running the rebel stronghold in northwest Syria. Al-Bashir told reporters after the meeting that the ministers discussed transferring the portfolios to the interim government during the transitional period until the beginning of March. He said that in the coming days the new government will decide on each ministry. DAMASCUS, Syria — Banks and shops are reopening in Damascus after the chaos and confusion of the first two days following the ouster of President Bashar Assad. Sadi Ahmad, manager of Syria Gulf Bank, said life is returning to normal. A customer who came to withdraw money from an ATM was surprised to see it functioning. At the historic Hamadiyeh market, fighters who seized power were still standing guard but shops had reopened — even an ice cream stand. Resident Maysoun Al-Qurabi said she was initially “against what happened,” referring to the insurgency, but changed her mind after seeing footage of rebels releasing inmates from the notorious Saydnaya prison. “People are at ease and secure now,” she said. “Before, people were hungry and scared.” DAMASCUS, Syria — Minority Christians in Syria have been living in a state of uneasy anticipation since insurgents headed by the Islamic militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham took control after ousting President Bashar Assad. Mazen Kalash, a resident of Bab Touma, a Christian neighborhood in Damascus, said he wants to know the plans of the new government that will be formed by the rebels. “The important thing is to feel safe, bring order, law and respect to the citizens,” he said. “We need to be able to work whatever we want and do whatever we want without any interference from anyone.” The insurgents have so far attempted to reassure minorities that they will be protected. Large numbers of Syrian Christians, who made up 10% of the population, fled after the civil war erupted in 2011. Many of those who stayed supported Assad out of fear they might be targeted by Islamist insurgents. TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at media during testimony at his corruption trial, which involves media moguls. “There has never been such a biased media in any democracy ... as there is in Israel,” Netanyahu told the court, describing his testy relationship with the press. He is accused of exchanging regulatory favors with media bosses for more positive coverage of himself and his family. He has denied wrongdoing. GENEVA — The U.N. envoy for Syria says armed groups that drove out President Bashar Assad have “been sending good messages” about national unity and inclusiveness but acknowledges that a Security Council resolution still counts the leading one as a terrorist group. With Syria’s future and stability still very much in flux since Assad’s departure over the weekend, Geir Pedersen suggested that the international community needs to help the country get through this turbulent moment. “We are still in what I would call a very fluid period. Things are not settled,” Pedersen told reporters at U.N. offices in Geneva on Tuesday. “There is a real opportunity for change, but this opportunity needs to be grasped by the Syrians themselves and supported by the U.N. and the international community.” Referring to Israeli military strikes in Syria, Pedersen said it was “extremely important that we now don’t see any action from any international country that destroys the possibility for this transformation in Syria to take place.” The insurgents are led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which grew out of an al-Qaida-affiliate called the Nusra Front that the Security Council listed as a terror group in a 2015 resolution. “This is obviously a complicating factor for all of us,” Pedersen said. “But we also have to be honest, we have to look at the facts and to see what has happened during the last nine years.” “The reality so far is that the HTS and also the other armed groups have been sending good messages to the Syrian people,” he said. “They have been sending messages of unity, of inclusiveness, and frankly speaking, also, we have seen in (the captured cities of) Aleppo and in Hama ... reassuring things on the ground." Ahmad al-Sharaa, previously known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the leader of the insurgency and the founder of both groups Nusra and HTS, cut ties with al-Qaida in 2016 and says he is committed to pluralism and religious tolerance. ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey has “strongly” condemned Israel’s advance into Syrian territory, saying it was in violation of a 1974 agreement on a buffer zone inside Syria. “We strongly condemn Israel’s violation of the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement, its entry into the separation zone between Israel and Syria, and its advance into Syrian territory,” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The ministry accused Israel of “displaying a mentality of an occupier” at a time when the possibility of peace and stability had emerged in Syria. The statement also reiterated Turkey’s support to Syria’s “sovereignty, political unity, and territorial integrity.” Israeli troops on Sunday entered the buffer zone that had been established after the 1973 Mideast war and the military said it would deploy in “several other places necessary for (Israel’s’) defense.” TEL AVIV, Israel — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he works 17 to 18 hours a day and that he is engulfed in meetings, especially during the past year that Israel has been fighting wars. Netanyahu was testifying in his long-running corruption trial. He has denied charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases. “If only I could steal away five minutes to enjoy some time with my wife,” he told the court Tuesday. TEL AVIV, Israel — An Israeli military official says troops plan to seize a buffer zone inside Syria as well as “a few more points that have strategic meaning.” The official spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. The official dismissed reports of a larger Israeli invasion as “rumors.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israeli forces were moving to control a roughly 400-square-kilometer (155-square-mile) demilitarized buffer zone in Syrian territory. The buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights was created by the U.N. after the 1973 Mideast war. Following the overthrow of President Bashar Assad, Israel sent troops into the buffer zone. It said the move was temporary and was aimed at preventing attacks. It said the 1974 agreement establishing the zone had collapsed and that Syrian troops had withdrawn from their positions. Israel has also carried out airstrikes across Syria in recent days targeting what it says are suspected chemical weapons and long-range rockets. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have condemned Israel’s incursion, accusing it of exploiting the disarray in Syria and violating international law. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in a move not recognized by the international community, except for the United States. The rest of the world views the strategic plateau as occupied Syrian territory. — By Joseph Krauss DAMASCUS, Syria — Israel’s air force has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in different parts of Syria as its ground forces move north of the Golan Heights along the border with Lebanon, according to an opposition war monitor. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday that since the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government, Israel’s air force has carried out more than 300 airstrikes against research centers, arms depots and military infrastructure across Syria, as well as a naval base along the Mediterranean coast. Associated Press journalists in Damascus witnessed intense airstrikes on the city and its suburbs overnight into Tuesday morning. Photographs posted online by activists showed destroyed missile launchers, helicopters and warplanes. Meanwhile, Israeli troops marched along the border with Lebanon and now control a long stretch on the Syrian side facing Lebanon’s Rashaya region, according to the war monitor's head, Rami Abdurrahman, and the Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV, which has reporters in Syria. Israeli troops are now about 25 kilometers (15 miles) southwest of Damascus, according to the monitor. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia has condemned Israel’s incursion into a buffer zone in Syria and a wave of Israeli airstrikes launched after the overthrow of President Bashar Assad. The Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement Tuesday that “the assaults carried out by the Israeli occupation government, including the seizure of the buffer zone in the Golan Heights, and the targeting of Syrian territory confirm Israel’s continued violation of the principles of international law and its determination to sabotage Syria’s chances of restoring its security, stability and territorial integrity.” Israel sent troops into a buffer zone inside Syria that had been established after the 1973 Mideast war. It said the move was temporary and was taken to prevent any cross-border attacks after Syrian troops withdrew. Israel has also carried out heavy airstrikes that it says are aimed at preventing suspected chemical weapons and long-range rockets from falling into the hands of extremists. Saudi Arabia has been in talks with the United States in recent years over normalizing relations with Israel in exchange for a U.S. defense pact, American assistance in establishing a civilian nuclear program and a pathway to the establishment of a Palestinian state. But the kingdom has also repeatedly condemned Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip, where it is at war with the Hamas militant group. Last month, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and day-to-day ruler Mohammed bin Salman accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza , allegations Israel adamantly rejects.ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Vladislov Goldin and Nimari Burnett scored 17 points apiece and Tre Donaldson and Danny Wolf posted double-doubles to lead Michigan to a 112-64 romp over Western Kentucky on Sunday night, snapping a six-game win streak for the Hilltoppers. Goldin made 7 of 8 shots with two 3-pointers and 1 of 2 free throws for the Wolverines (10-3), whose three losses this season have been by a combined five points. Burnett did most of his damage on 5-for-7 shooting from 3-point range. Donaldson totaled 12 points and 11 rebounds for his first career double-double, while Wolf finished with 12 points and 10 boards for his sixth of the season. Sam Walters scored 13 off the bench for Michigan and Roddy Gayle Jr. pitched in with 11 points and four assists. Don McHenry sank three 3-pointers and scored 18 to lead Western Kentucky (9-4). Julius Thedford scored 11 on 3-for-16 shooting. Enoch Kalambay added 10 points. Gayle and Goldin both had 11 points to guide Michigan to a 59-31 advantage at halftime. The Wolverines shot 57.6% from the floor and made 11 of 21 from 3-point range in posting their highest scoring half of the season. The Wolverines topped the century mark on 3-pointer by Danny Wolf with 6:05 remaining for a 102-52 lead. It was the first time the two teams squared off in 17 years. Michigan has won 4 of 6 all time against the Hilltoppers. Michigan travels to play Southern California on Saturday in a Big Ten Conference matchup. Western Kentucky travels to play Liberty on Thursday in a Conference USA opener. ____ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-toWp-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball

Hundreds Of People Help Rescue Whales Stranded On New Zealand Beach: 'Deeply Grateful'

The LNP government has met for its first party meeting since the election, with leader David Crisafulli focusing attention on fulfilling his key campaign pledge by Christmas. The new Queensland premier met with colleagues at Parliament House from about 4pm on Monday before the first sitting day this week. Premier David Crisafulli addresses his LNP colleagues on Monday. Credit: William Davis “The first thing we’re going to be discussing is the Making Queensland Safer laws,” Crisafulli said. “There’s a lot of hard work to do in the next couple of weeks. “I want Queenslanders to know we’re serious about serving them and being a good government.” A 1100-kilometre transmission line connecting the North-West Minerals Province to the electricity grid near Townsville could cost up to $9 billion to build. That is the latest price tag put on Copperstring 2032 by government-owned corporation Powerlink, as Nine News political reporter Tim Arvier reported on Monday night. The $9 billion includes a $2 billion contingency, and capitalised interest costs of $800 million, and follows a previous cost blowout to $6.2 billion, announced by the then Labor government in August. While documents provided to the LNP government suggest Powerlink made the higher estimate in August, Labor told Arvier that Treasury was behind the estimate of $6.2 billion. The bill to ban social media for children under 16 will be a “test” for Peter Dutton’s leadership, says Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth. Speaking on Nine’s Today , Rishworth said there was bipartisan support for the bill, but that Dutton was losing control of his caucus. “Just a couple of weeks ago, Peter Dutton said he would facilitate this important piece of legislation and support the government. And now we see our senators defying him,” she said. “So this is a test for Peter Dutton and his leadership.” Also on Today was Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie, who said there were still concerns about digital ID laws and privacy. “We do want strong, robust laws to protect kids under 16 on social media platforms. “We’ve been out of the blocks before the government on this. We need to get the legislation right so it does actually get the outcomes we want. “And we need to make sure that those protections exist in the legislation.” Read more about the debate within the Coalition on the ban here. Social media companies, including Snapchat, TikTok, and Meta, have taken aim at the “rushed” consultation process for the ban on children under 16. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland introduced the world-leading reform to parliament last Thursday, which she said would make the online environment better for young people. The consultation period for groups and individuals to make submissions closed on Friday. A Senate committee held a one-day hearing on Monday and is due to report back on Tuesday. In submissions to the inquiry, several groups, including social media companies, pointed to the short notice period. Snap Inc. wrote that “the extremely compressed timeline” had allowed stakeholders little more than 24 hours to provide a response, which “severely” constrained thorough analysis and informed debate. X, formerly Twitter, also criticised the “unreasonably short time frame of one day”, writing that it has “serious concerns as to the lawfulness of the bill”. Meta, which owns Facebook, wrote that there had been “minimal consultation or engagement” and urged the government to wait for the results of the age assurance trial before progressing with the legislation. TikTok said that despite the “time-limited review”, there was a range of “serious, unresolved problems” that the government must clarify to ensure there wouldn’t be unintended consequences for all Australians. AAP The LNP government has met for its first party meeting since the election, with leader David Crisafulli focusing attention on fulfilling his key campaign pledge by Christmas. The new Queensland premier met with colleagues at Parliament House from about 4pm on Monday before the first sitting day this week. Premier David Crisafulli addresses his LNP colleagues on Monday. Credit: William Davis “The first thing we’re going to be discussing is the Making Queensland Safer laws,” Crisafulli said. “There’s a lot of hard work to do in the next couple of weeks. “I want Queenslanders to know we’re serious about serving them and being a good government.” The temperature in Brisbane is going to come close to 30 degrees today, on a partly cloudy day with the mere chance of a morning shower. The city is predicted to be warmer in the days to come, with the likelihood of showers stronger later in the week. Here’s the seven-day outlook: Stories making the rounds further afield this morning: Treasurer Jim Chalmers has revealed the budget bottom line is getting worse before the looming federal election, with warnings he faces a $27 billion blowout over the next four years. Labor has gained a crucial concession from the Greens after a year of dispute over a $5.5 billion housing plan, but other bills are on the brink of defeat after Senate crossbenchers blasted Labor for trying to rush through changes on various issues. Social media companies including Snapchat, TikTok, and Meta have taken aim at the “rushed” consultation process for the proposal ban on children under 16. In the US, Special Counsel Jack Smith asked a federal judge to dismiss the case accusing President-elect Donald Trump of plotting to overturn the 2020 election. And Israel’s cabinet will meet on Tuesday to approve a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah, with expectations that an accord could be announced “within hours”. Good morning, thanks for joining us for Brisbane Times’ live news blog. It’s Tuesday, November 26, and we’re expecting a partly cloudy day and a top temperature of 29 degrees. In this morning’s local headlines: Ahead of the return of parliament, Brisbane Times state politics reporter Matt Dennien has analysed official diaries to determine who the new ministers scheduled the most meetings with before their election victory last month. Brisbane home prices are forecast to rise by 9 to 14 per cent next year – the highest capital city increase apart from Perth. Police are investigating the death of a child in Innisfail in Far North Queensland on Monday afternoon. The Brisbane Lions have added their voices to a campaign by local charity Beyond DV for men to take the lead in eliminating violence against women. And Grant Howard has been a coal miner since he left school, now based in the Bowen Basin in Queensland. At the weekend he was arrested at a protest, trying to hasten the end of his industry.The Department of Finance (DOF) expects the Philippines to achieve a historic P606.6 billion in non-tax revenues for 2024, exceeding targets by more than 200 percent and surpassing the 2023 total by more than half. “Emerging non-tax revenues for the full year 2024 are expected to reach P606.6 billion—the highest ever recorded,” the DOF said in a Dec. 28 statement. This would surpass the 2024 Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing (BESF) target by P407.6 billion and exceed the 2023 figure by P211.8 billion, or 53.6 percent. This, after the government has collected a total of P555.30 billion in non-tax revenues as of end-November, marking a significant (45.6 percent) increase compared to the same period last year. “We need to raise more funds to meet the growing needs of our people,” said Finance Secretary Ralph G. Recto. “On top of tax collections, the non-tax revenue sources help us marshal additional resources to equip the government in delivering more and better services in critical areas like healthcare, education, food security, social protection, and national security,” Recto explained. The DOF boosted non-tax revenues by increasing government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCC) dividend remittance to 75 percent, privatizing assets, and reallocating unused GOCC funds as directed by Congress. As of Dec. 9, GOCCs remitted P136.29 billion in dividends to the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr), surpassing the P100 billion target and rising 35 percent year-on-year. As per DOF, its privatization efforts yielded P4.44 billion by end-2024, a 129 percent increase year-on-year. Proceeds from these included asset sales, leases, dividends, and more, with a notable P2.9 billion sale of government shares in NLEX Corporation. The government also secured a P30 billion upfront payment from SMC-SAP & Co. Consortium for the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) rehabilitation deal, expected to generate P900 billion in revenues over a 15-year term. Excess GOCC funds “On top of these, the DOF has put the excess and unused GOCC funds to efficient use this year, as mandated under Republic Act No. 11975 or the General Appropriation Act (GAA) of 2024,” the DOF stated. Just over a week ago, the DOF remitted P167.23 billion from the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) and the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC) to the BTr. Excess GOCC funds, according to the DOF, were used to finance health benefits, medical equipment, new health facilities, and salary increases for government workers. It also supported counterpart financing for major foreign-assisted projects, including bridges, subways, agriculture, and nutrition initiatives nationwide.

King and PM honour former US president Jimmy Carter after his death aged 100

okbet.88 Chicago Bears president Kevin Warren conceded that mistakes were made regarding the handling of head coach Matt Eberflus' firing . On the heels of the Bears’ gut wrenching 23-20 loss to the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving, Eberflus was relieved of his duties - mere hours after speaking to reporters during his scheduled Zoom meeting . During the press conference, the 54-year-old was even asked about his uncertain future, but expressed confidence that he’d still be around for Chicago’s Week 14 matchup against the San Francisco 49ers . "Those are conversations we'll have,” Eberflus said. “And again, I'm confident that I'll be working on to San Francisco and getting ready for that game." Bears locker room had 'colorful language' for Matt Eberflus after Thanksgiving disaster Terry Bradshaw and Michael Strahan passionately stamp out Bears claim on FOX NFL Sunday Addressing the unfortunate timing of Eberflus’ ousting, Warren revealed that he, Bears chairman George McCaskey and general manager Ryan Poles convened on Friday morning to discuss the coach’s future - though the group was unable to reach a consensus before his media availability. “I can tell you this, when Coach Eberflus had his press conference, we had not made a final decision,” Warren said on Monday. “And I think you know me; I think you know Ryan; I think you know McCaskey; I think you know the McCaskey family. “If [there’s] one thing we stand for, it’s family and integrity and doing it the right way. In retrospect, could we have done it better? Absolutely and I’ll be the first one to raise my hand, yes. Follow us on X for the best and latest in sports news “But, during his press conference and even a couple of hours later, we had not reached a decision,” he continued. “But on the flip side of it, something that was important to us is that once we reached the decision, we wanted to make sure we talked to Matt about that so he could have the respect to be able to call his family.” While Warren asserted that Bears top brass had Eberflus’ best interest in mind when informing him of his firing, he conceded that the situation as a whole could’ve been handled better. “It happens around the league a lot where a head coach will find out he’s terminated and he finds out before he’s told from the organization - and that’s something we promised that we weren’t going to do,” Warren added. “So, in retrospect, could we have done better? Yes. But we were trying to be respectful, and we did not know our decision when he started his press conference.” Looking ahead to the offseason, Warren insisted that the Bears’ vacant head coaching position would be one of the most sought-after openings in the NFL, given Chicago’s fans, cap space, draft capital and young talent. "When you look at all of these elements as we sit here today, we are in a unique situation," he said. "This will be the most coveted job in the National Football League this year, and Ryan and I need to work hand-in-hand together to make sure we bring that to life, not only from a head coach standpoint but from an entire staff standpoint." Want to watch more live sports? Peacock has your favorite sports, shows, and more all in one place. Peacock offers plans starting at $7.99 so you can stream live sports like NFL, Premier League, and Big Ten Football.Cardinals are average through 12 games and the frustration is it feels as if they could be better The Arizona Cardinals are 6-6 through 12 games, which makes them an average football team. That's much better than the previous two years, which both ended with just four wins. David Brandt, The Associated Press Dec 2, 2024 3:10 PM Dec 2, 2024 3:35 PM Share by Email Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Print Share via Text Message Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. (18) reaches for an incomplete pass over Minnesota Vikings cornerback Fabian Moreau (23) during the first half of an NFL football game Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr) The Arizona Cardinals are 6-6 through 12 games, which makes them an average football team. That's much better than the previous two years, which both ended with just four wins. But after two straight frustrating losses, it's not providing much consolation for a franchise that feels as though it should be much better. The latest setback came on Sunday, when the Minnesota Vikings rallied to beat the Cardinals 23-22 . Arizona never trailed until Sam Darnold threw a 5-yard touchdown pass with 1:18 remaining that proved to be the winning score. It was a mistake-filled performance for the Cardinals, who racked up 10 penalties for 96 yards. That's a big reason they had to settle for five field goals and scored just one touchdown. The Cardinals were leading 19-16 in the fourth quarter and had first-and-goal at the Vikings 5, but Tip Reiman was called for a false start and then quarterback Kyler Murray was called for intentional grounding . The Cardinals kicked a field goal for a 22-16 lead, giving the Vikings the chance they needed to drive for the winning score. Murray threw two interceptions in the fourth quarter. “I thought we moved the ball well,” Murray said. “Again, it just comes down to not scoring touchdowns. Get down there and kick field goals and penalties bite us. It’s bad — it’s bad football.” The loss knocked the Cardinals out of first place in the NFC West, though they're still in decent playoff position. A pivotal game against the division-rival Seahawks looms on Sunday. Second-year coach Jonathan Gannon acknowledged the frustration of Sunday's loss, but said they've got to rebound quickly. “They’re disappointed and down, but it’s the NFL,” Gannon said. “They’ve got to put all their energy and focus into tomorrow.” What’s working Arizona's defense blamed itself for not coming up with a stop on the Vikings' winning drive, but the unit played exceptionally well for most of the afternoon. Mack Wilson and L.J. Collier both had two sacks and the Cardinals held Minnesota to just 273 total yards. For a group that looked as if it might be the team's weakness this season, it was another rock solid performance. What needs help The Cardinals aren't a good enough football team to overcome 10 penalties and get a win — particularly on the road. Reiman had a rough day, getting called for three false starts. His false start on the next-to-last offensive drive — coupled with Murray's intentional grounding penalty — proved to be extremely costly. “That was brutal,” Gannon said. “Just got to figure out ways to punch the ball in for touchdowns there, not field goals.” Stock up Rookie Marvin Harrison Jr. had five catches for 60 yards, including an impressive touchdown catch that put the Cardinals up 19-6. It was Harrison's seventh TD reception of the season. The No. 4 overall pick has been a little inconsistent in his first year, but there's little doubt he's a difference-maker for the offense. He's still got a chance to reach 1,000 yards receiving this season if he averages about 80 yards receiving over the final five games. Considering his talent, that's certainly possible. Stock down Gannon was second-guessed for his decision to kick a field goal late in the fourth quarter instead of trying for a touchdown at the Vikings 4 with 3:29 left. Chad Ryland made the 23-yard chip shot for a 22-16 lead, but the Vikings drove the field on the ensuing possession for the winning score. “I trust JG,” Murray said. “I see both sides. Go up six and make them score; trust the defense to go get a stop. Go for it, you don’t get it, they’ve still got to go down and score. If you do get it, you probably put the game away.” Said Gannon: "Yeah, I mean there’s thought about it. Just wanted to go up more than a field goal there. Definitely a decision point that we talked about. So be it.” Injuries The Cardinals came out of the game fairly healthy. Rookie DL Darius Robinson — the No. 27 overall pick — made his NFL debut against the Vikings after missing the first 11 games due to a calf injury. Key number 1,074 — Running back James Conner's total yards from the line of scrimmage this season, including 773 on the ground and 301 in the passing game. Next steps The Cardinals return home for a game against the Seahawks on Sunday. ___ AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl David Brandt, The Associated Press See a typo/mistake? Have a story/tip? This has been shared 0 times 0 Shares Share by Email Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Print Share via Text Message Get your daily Victoria news briefing Email Sign Up More Football (NFL) NFL Inactive Report Dec 2, 2024 3:52 PM Rams finally ran the ball well in New Orleans, and it kept them in the playoff race Dec 2, 2024 3:37 PM Justin Tucker's erratic season isn't getting any better, and it's hurting Baltimore's outlook Dec 2, 2024 3:32 PMThe for ( ) stock moved into a higher percentile Monday, as it got a lift from 67 to 75. This exclusive rating from Investor's Business Daily tracks market leadership with a 1 (worst) to 99 (best) score. The score shows how a stock's price behavior over the last 52 weeks stacks up against all the other stocks in our database. Decades of market research reveals that the market's biggest winners typically have an RS Rating north of 80 in the early stages of their moves. See if Unity Software stock can continue to show renewed price strength and hit that benchmark. Is Unity Software Stock A Buy? Unity Software stock is still inside a buy zone after breaking past a 23.40 buy point in a . The proper buying range is up to 5% above the initial entry. Once a stock moves above that range, it's best to wait for it to set up another buying opportunity.. The video game engine developer reported 0% EPS growth last quarter, while sales growth came in at -18%. Unity Software stock earns the No. 11 rank among its peers in the Computer Software-Design industry group. ( ), ( ) and ( ) are among the top 5 highly rated stocks within the group.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel unleashed its largest wave of airstrikes across Lebanon since agreeing to a ceasefire with Hezbollah last week, killing at least 11 people on Monday after the Lebanese militant group fired a volley of projectiles as a warning over what it said were Israeli truce violations . The projectiles were apparently the first time that Hezbollah took aim at Israeli forces after the 60-day ceasefire went into effect last Wednesday. The increasingly fragile truce aimed to end more than a year of war between Hezbollah and Israel — part of a wider regional conflict sparked by the devastating Israel-Hamas war in Gaza . In the United States, President-elect Donald Trump demanded the immediate release of Israeli hostages held by the Palestinian militant Hamas group in Gaza, saying on social media that if they are not freed before he takes office in January there would be “HELL TO PAY.” It was not immediately clear whether Trump was threatening to directly involve the U.S. military in Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. The U.S. has given Israel crucial military and diplomatic support throughout the nearly 15-month conflict. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Haris killed five people and wounded two while another airstrike on the village of Tallousa killed four and also wounded two. Israel's military carried out a string of airstrikes late Monday against what it said were Hezbollah fighters, infrastructure and rocket launchers across Lebanon, in response to Hezbollah firing two projectiles toward Mount Dov — a disputed Israeli-held territory known as Shebaa Farms in Lebanon where the borders of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel meet. Israel said the projectiles fell in open areas and no injuries were reported. Hezbollah said in a statement that it fired on an Israeli military position in the area as a “defensive and warning response” after what it called “repeated violations” of the ceasefire deal by Israel. It said complaints to mediators tasked with monitoring the ceasefire “were futile in stopping these violations.” Before the Hezbollah projectiles, Israeli carried out at least four airstrikes and an artillery barrage in southern Lebanon, including a drone strike that killed a person on a motorcycle, according to Lebanese state media. Another strike killed a corporal in the Lebanese security services. Israel has said its strikes are in response to unspecified Hezbollah violations, and that under the ceasefire deal it reserves the right to retaliate. Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, accused Israel of violating the truce more than 50 times in recent days by launching airstrikes, demolishing homes near the border and violating Lebanon's airspace. Officials in the U.S. — which along with France helped broker the truce and heads a commission meant to monitor adherence to the deal — played down the significance of Israeli strikes. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said, “Largely speaking, the ceasefire is holding.” “We’ve gone from dozens of strikes down to one a day maybe two a day,” Kirby told reporters, referring to Israeli strikes. “We’re going to keep trying and see what we can do to get it down to zero.” Under the deal, Iran-backed Hezbollah has 60 days to withdraw its fighters and infrastructure from southern Lebanon. During that time, Israeli troops are also to withdraw to their side of the border. In a post on his Truth Social site, Trump called for Palestinian militants to free all of the roughly 100 Israeli hostages still held inside Gaza , around two-thirds of whom are believed to be alive. If not, Trump said, “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!” Hours earlier, the Israeli government confirmed the death of Omer Neutra, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, whose body is still believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza, according to the Israeli government. The Biden administration is mounting a last-ditch effort to try to restart talks between Israel and Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on Trump's post though President Isaac Herzog welcomed it. In Gaza, meanwhile, alarm is mounting over increasing hunger. The amount of food allowed in by Israel has plunged over the past two months, compounded by a decision Sunday by the United Nations to halt aid deliveries from the main crossing into the territory because of the threat of armed gangs looting convoys. Experts have already warned of famine in the northernmost part of Gaza , which Israeli forces have almost completely isolated since early October, saying they're fighting regrouped Hamas militants there. Displaced families have set up tents surrounded by piles of garbage on the streets of Gaza City. Bilal Marouf, 55, said he and 11 family members fled the Israeli offensive “barefoot and naked.” “We had nothing. Hunger and thirst killed us, and we did not have a single shekel, nor clothes, nor a mattress, nor a blanket,” he said, speaking near his tent. Israel’s campaign in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, has driven almost the entire population of the territory from their homes. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians now live in squalid tent camps, relying on international aid. The Israeli military said it allowed 40 trucks carrying 600 tons of flour for the World Food Program to enter the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday night, as well as 16 other food trucks. Israel has said it is working to increase the flow of aid. November saw an increase in the average number of humanitarian trucks it let into Gaza, up to 77 daily from 57 the month before, according to official Israeli figures. But the levels are still nearly the lowest of the entire 15-month war. And the U.N. says less than half of that actually reaches Palestinians because Israeli military restrictions, fighting and robberies make it too dangerous to deliver the aid. The World Food Program was able to only deliver aid to some 300,000 Palestinians in November across the Gaza Strip due to ongoing Israeli military offensives and the looting of convoys, Carl Skau, WFP’s deputy executive director, said Monday. In a tent camp in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, Palestinians lined up at makeshift mud ovens trying to buy a few loaves of flatbread for their families. With the price of flour mounting because of scarcity, the bakers — women displaced from further north — said they could bake less bread, and families could afford far less. “They divide them to their children, one loaf every day,” said one woman baker, Wafaa al-Attar. Abou AlJoud reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Fatma Khalid in Cairo contributed to this report. Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/mideast-wars

NoneGloria Steinem often recounts an encounter with Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay in the 1970s that had a lifelong impact on her. The American feminist met the great Indian activist with the goal of exploring the potential of Gandhian organisational tactics for use in feminist campaigns worldwide. ET Year-end Special Reads What kept India's stock market investors on toes in 2024? India's car race: How far EVs went in 2024 Investing in 2025: Six wealth management trends to watch out for Steinem recalls that Chattopadhyay listened patiently to her, before responding, 'Well, my dear, we taught him everything he knew.' She proceeded to explain how Mohandas Gandhi himself had been inspired by India's decades-long women's movements. You will be hard-pressed to find this insight in textbooks for Indian schoolchildren. As I listened to Steinem discuss Chattopadhyay some months back on 'Wiser Than Me', a podcast hosted by actor-comedian Julia Louis-Dreyfus, I was reminded not just of how women's contributions are routinely erased or diminished by patriarchal historians, education systems and news media, but also of how Black and Brown women are relegated to the margins in the global - and even Indian - discourse on feminism. This issue is particularly on my mind as we bid goodbye to 2024, a year on which India's Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) has had a profound impact. Too often, public conversation on feminism in India portrays White women and those operating in the West as leaders of this transcontinental ism. Steinem and Germaine Greer are more likely to be cited than Savitribai Phule, Chattopadhyay, Mary Roy, Bhanwari Devi, or the numerous others whose courage, diligence, perseverance and sacrifices reformed society and opened doors that were once shut to women. During a TV panel debate about a decade back after a heinous rape made headlines, I was torn between amusement and exasperation at the ignorance of a news anchor who asked me, 'Does India need a feminist movement?' As though we have not had one for centuries. 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Yet, it has taken seven years and a sensational news development in August 2024 for the national media to finally give WCC the coverage that their groundbreaking feminism merits. WCC came together in early 2017 following the sexual assault of a Malayalam film star, many months before #MeToo in the US. This year, the group attracted international attention with the release of the Hema Committee Report on the working conditions of women in Malayalam cinema. The committee was set up by the Kerala government at WCC's urging. Le Monde described its report as 'explosive' for 'revealing widespread sexual harassment and abuse' in the industry. The conversation has since fallen off the national radar. But WCC is unrelenting in its pursuit of equitable workplaces for women. While the media and public remained preoccupied with the sexual crimes unearthed by the Hema Committee Report, WCC determinedly kept drawing our focus back to the fact that these crimes are just one part of the report and a symptom of a larger problem - gender inequality - pervading the film industry and society at large. As the Kerala High Court monitors the action taken by the authorities on the Hema Committee Report findings, WCC is quietly working towards shaping government policy in the state. This single-mindedness has extracted a heavy price from the organisation's members. Actors Parvathy Thiruvothu and Ramya Nambessan are among those who have publicly spoken of losing work in their male-dominated industry as retribution for their activism. That said, the group has provided a useful template for activists in other film industries. Women of the Telugu industry, for instance, got together to form the Voice of Women with similar goals in 2019, and have repeatedly acknowledged WCC as an inspiration. Any future encyclopaedia on feminism will be incomplete without a chapter on WCC. That chapter will be written, though, only if we acknowledge the persistent marginalisation and erasure of women's pivotal roles in rights movements, and course-correct. Our time to do that starts now. The writer is author of The Adventuresof an Intrepid Film Critic

A Deep Dive into Containerization and CI/CD Pipelines with Sudheer Amgothu

Humans could be trapped on because space is running out of space, boffins have warned. The rapid rise in satellites and space junk will make low Earth orbit unusable unless rival nations and companies start sharing data needed to navigate it, experts say. The rocketing risk of collisions, particularly in a band between 500 and 560 miles above Earth, could halt That would scupper plans to build a base 240,000 miles away on the Moon, and US billionaire Elon Musk’s bid to have one million humans living on 140m-miles-away Mars by 2050. More than 14,000 satellites circle the globe in low , according to data from safety analyst Slingshot Aerospace. Alongside those are 120 million pieces of debris from rocket launches, collisions and spacecraft wear-and-tear break-ups of which only a few thousand are large enough to track. As of last week, Musk’s Starlink network had 6,764 satellites in orbit between 336 and 354 miles above the planet. It had to conduct nearly 50,000 collision avoidance manoeuvres in the first half of 2024 alone, figures show. The European Space Agency, which has fewer spacecraft than SpaceX, said in 2021 its manoeuvres had increased to three or four-per-craft from a historical average of one. Tens of thousands more satellites are scheduled to be launched over the next few years. The 500-mile high orbit band contains fewer satellites but 3,114 objects including operational and non-operational payloads, rocket bodies and fragments which make up 20% of the total mass of objects in low Earth orbit posing significant collision risk, LeoLabs data showed. Around 3,500 dead satellites add to the clutter as they stay in orbit until they fall into, and burn up in, Earth’s atmosphere years later or are flown to a "graveyard orbit" 22,000 miles away. The jammed zones could block the path of future space missions. A United Nations panel on space traffic coordination said urgent action was needed to combat the problem. Aarti Holla-Maini, director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, said: "There’s no time to lose on space traffic coordination. With so many objects being launched into space we have to do everything we can to ensure space safety. "That means facilitating the sharing of information between operators, be they public or private, in order to avoid collisions." Experts want space to have enforceable rules like those used by the International Civil Aviation Organization for air traffic. Holla-Maini said: "The top challenges are speed as consensus-building takes time and trust. Some countries simply can’t communicate with others. But the UN can facilitate this process. Speed is our biggest enemy. But there’s no alternative. It must be done." Low Earth orbit must stay safe to prevent costly disruption to the technology behind global communication, navigation and scientific exploration, she said. The UK space industry is a world leader in pioneering clean-up craft aimed at removing junk. But there is currently no centralised information system all space-faring nations can use, and persuading them to adopt one has proved problematic. While some countries are willing to share data others fear it will compromise security as satellites often have a dual use including defence capability. Companies are also keen to guard commercial secrets. In the meantime space junk continues to build up. A Chinese rocket stage that exploded in August added thousands of fragments of debris to low Earth orbit. In June a defunct Russian satellite blew up scattering thousands of shards that forced astronauts on the International Space Station, which is 250 miles high, to take shelter for an hour. Low Earth orbit is the region most congested with human-made objects as it offers a balance between cost and proximity making it a prime target for the booming commercial space sector. It has also seen a 17% rise in close approaches per satellite over the past year, Slingshot data showed. The potential cost of collisions is £440million over five years based on an estimated 3.13% annual crash probability. That works out at £88million a year, according to Canadian monitoring firm NorthStar Earth & Space. Its chief executive officer Stewart Bain said: "We are at a critical point with respect to putting regulations and structure in space to monitor and manage the growing congestion. "With Starlink launching thousands of satellites per year, China and others preparing to follow, we will soon push the bearing capacity of prime orbits." Anirudh Sharma, chief executive officer of Digantara which specialises in space situational awareness, warned the space junk problem would explode with real life Star Wars. "The potential for conflicts between states has been on a steep rise in the recent past,’’ he said. "If these extend to space it could complicate the outer space environment. "We urgently need common global rules for coordination."Miami enters the week still stunned after losing its fourth straight game. Next up, the Hurricanes will play host to Arkansas on Tuesday night in Coral Gables, Fla., as part of the ACC/SEC Challenge. Miami (3-4) lost on Saturday afternoon to Charleston Southern, a team that entered with a 1-7 record. Arkansas (5-2) is coming off a Thanksgiving loss to Illinois on a neutral floor in Kansas City, Mo. "We've got a lot to learn," said John Calipari, in his first season coaching Arkansas. "We really haven't scrimmaged because we haven't had 10 guys (due to injuries). "But this team is going to be fine." The same thing cannot confidently be said about the Hurricanes. Their first three defeats of the current skid were tough for Miami to take, losing to Drake, Oklahoma State and VCU on a neutral court as part of the Charleston Classic. But the loss to Charleston Southern -- which was a 25-point underdog -- has to be considered among the worst in Miami history. Hurricanes coach Jim Larranaga was without point guard Nijel Pack, who missed the contest due to a lower-body injury. Pack leads Miami in scoring (15.2) and assists (4.7). There are no reports on how long he will be out. With Pack unavailable, five-star freshman Jalil Bethea made his first college start. However, the 6-foot-5 shooting guard has not yet played up to his ranking. Bethea is averaging 6.3 points, 1.1 rebounds and 0.7 assists. He is also shooting 30.0 percent on 3-pointers. Miami ranks 284th in the nation in rebounds and 259th in blocked shots. "We haven't been able to put together a solid defensive effort," Larranaga said following the loss to Charleston Southern. "Some of it has to do with fundamentals. Some of it has to do with athletic ability. Some of it has to do with size." Tuesday's game will match two veteran coaches: Larranaga, 75, and Calipari, 65. Calipari brought in seven transfers and five freshmen for his first season in Fayetteville. Two of those transfers -- 6-foot-8 wing Adou Thiero and 7-foot-2 center Zvonimir Ivisic -- were signed after leaving Kentucky, Calipari's previous stop. Thiero leads Arkansas in scoring (19.1), rebounds (5.9) and steals (2.9). Ivisic leads Arkansas in blocks (2.7) while ranking third in points (12.1). Freshman Boogie Fland, a McDonald's All-American, has made a quick transition to college ball. The 6-foot-2 point guard is second on the team in scoring (15.9) and steals (1.9) and first in assists (4.9). Among Arkansas' bench pieces are 6-foot-11 Tennessee transfer Jonas Aidoo and 6-foot-10 Arkansas holdover Trevon Brazile. Their combined 92 college starts illustrate Arkansas' depth. "The ceiling is there," Calipari said. "But we need to be the aggressors." --Field Level Media

NEW YORK (AP) — No ex-president had a more prolific and diverse publishing career than . His more than two dozen books included nonfiction, poetry, fiction, religious meditations and a children’s story. His memoir “An Hour Before Daylight” was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2002, while his 2006 best-seller “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” stirred a fierce debate by likening Israel’s policies in the West Bank to the brutal South African system of racial segregation. And just before his 100th birthday, the honored him with a for how he wielded “the power of the written word to foster peace, social justice, and global understanding.” In one recent work, “A Full Life,” Carter observed that he “enjoyed writing” and that his books “provided a much-needed source of income.” But some projects were easier than others. “Everything to Gain,” a 1987 collaboration with his wife, Rosalynn, turned into the “worst threat we ever experienced in our marriage,” an intractable standoff for the facilitator of the Camp David accords and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. According to Carter, Rosalynn was a meticulous author who considered “the resulting sentences as though they have come down from Mount Sinai, carved into stone.” Their memories differed on various events and they fell into “constant arguments.” They were ready to abandon the book and return the advance, until their editor persuaded them to simply divide any disputed passages between them. “In the book, each of these paragraphs is identified by a ‘J’ or an ‘R,’ and our marriage survived,” he wrote. Here is a partial list of books by Carter: “Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President” “The Blood of Abraham: Insights into the Middle East” (With Rosalynn Carter) “Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life” “An Outdoor Journal: Adventures and Reflections” “Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age” “Always a Reckoning, and Other Poems” (With daughter Amy Carter) “The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer” “Living Faith” “The Virtues of Aging” “An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood” “Christmas in Plains: Memories” “The Hornet’s Nest: A Novel of the Revolutionary War” “Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis” “Faith & Freedom: The Christian Challenge for the World” “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” “A Remarkable Mother” “Beyond the White House” “We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work” “White House Diary” “NIV Lessons from Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter” “A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power” “A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety”( MENAFN - Jordan Times) Jordan stands at a crossroads. Blessed with a young, tech-savvy population and a thriving IT sector, the country possesses the ingredients for a sustainable and prosperous future. However, a high youth unemployment rate casts a shadow on this potential. The question here is how can Jordan leverage its strengths to empower its youth, transforming a challenge into an opportunity. Jordan boasts an impressive foundation for an IT-driven future. With a literacy rate exceeding 98 per cent and near-universal internet access (97 per cent), the population is primed for technological advancement. The IT sector itself contributes a significant 13 per cent to Jordan's GDP, highlighting its potential as an economic engine. Jordan's leadership in Arabic internet content creation further demonstrates its existing expertise in the digital domain. Despite these advantages, Jordan faces a stark reality; a youth unemployment rate of 22 per cent. This disconnect between a highly educated populace and a lack of job opportunities necessitates immediate action. Developed economies like Singapore and Japan prioritise education and invest heavily in cultivating a skilled workforce. Singapore's focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education has fuelled its IT sector's global dominance. Japan's emphasis on vocational training, meanwhile, ensures a steady stream of skilled professionals entering the workforce. It is strategically wise to consider an intensive education and training programme in the IT sector. Such initiative would drive economic growth, elevate educational standards and reduce unemployment by equipping the workforce with essential skills for the IT sector. Key objectives include economic diversification, educational excellence and increased employment opportunities. Expected outcomes are a highly skilled workforce, significant job creation, sustainable economic development and improved educational quality. This strategic investment promises to transform challenges into opportunities, positioning Jordan as a leader in the IT landscape. Also, IT companies can invest in scholarship programmes that target promising students from underprivileged backgrounds. This ensures a diverse and talented pool entering the workforce. Additionally, establishing internship programmes allows companies to identify and mentor future employees, while providing students with invaluable real-world experience. Partnerships with IT certification bodies like Microsoft, Cisco, or CompTIA can offer industry-recognised certifications within the educational curriculum. Earning these certifications can give Jordanian graduates a competitive edge in the global job market. These intensive programmes should focus on high-demand, industry-specific skills. This could involve bootcamps in web development, data analysis, mobile app development or cybersecurity. The curriculum should be designed for rapid skill acquisition. Jordan can create a future-proof workforce by prioritising these emerging technologies. AI expertise can empower young Jordanians to develop innovative solutions in healthcare, finance and transportation. Also, strong cybersecurity skills will safeguard Jordan's growing digital infrastructure, while cloud computing proficiency will enable businesses to operate with greater agility and scalability. Establishing technology-focused incubators and accelerators that provide young entrepreneurs with co-working spaces, mentorship from experienced professionals, and access to seed funding. These programmes can nurture promising ideas and transform them into viable businesses. By implementing these multifaceted strategies, Jordan can create a dynamic ecosystem that fosters continuous learning, industry collaboration and practical skill development. This will equip its young population with the tools they need to thrive in the ever-evolving IT landscape, solidifying Jordan's position as a leader in the regional technology sector. Though fostering a culture of innovation and providing the necessary support systems, Jordan can empower its young people to become not just employees but also job creators. This entrepreneurial spirit will drive the development of homegrown Jordanian tech companies, and fostering economic growth for generations to come. Accordingly, Jordan can transform its youth unemployment challenge into a springboard for sustainable development. Hamza Alakaleek is a corporate lawyer and tax attorney MENAFN02122024000028011005ID1108949042 Legal Disclaimer: MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. 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Stanford and California meet for the first time as Atlantic Coast Conference rivals when each tries to prove its impressive non-league record is no fluke on Saturday afternoon in Berkeley, Calif. Stanford (7-2) took last year's season series 2-1, but the clubs were so evenly matched -- the Cardinal won 14 games, the Golden Bears 13 -- it took overtime at the final Pacific-12 Conference tournament to determine the rivalry winner. The teams enter their first meeting this season with the same number of losses, but Cal (6-2) has had the edge in strength of schedule. The Golden Bears were invited to play in the SEC/ACC Challenge, in which they squandered a second-half lead en route to a 98-93 loss at Missouri. Cal's only other loss also came on the road at a Southeastern Conference site, an 85-69 setback at Vanderbilt on Nov. 13. Meanwhile, Stanford has played seven of its nine games at home and hasn't left the state of California. The Cardinal were beaten by Grand Canyon at a neutral site on Nov. 26 before getting shocked at home by Cal Poly last Saturday. This Saturday's matchup is the first since Andrej Stojakovic, Stanford's prize recruit last year, transferred to Cal after just one season. The son of former NBA standout Peja Stojakovic leads the Golden Bears in scoring at 18.8 points per game. Andrej Stojakovic has averaged 31.9 minutes per game for Cal after getting just 22.3 per game as a freshman at Stanford a season ago. He said anticipating that type of greater opportunity prompted his move across the San Francisco Bay. "I thought that when I played a large amount of minutes (last season), I performed to what I was expected to do from the staff and the program," he noted. "But just going into Cal and having a more consistent role and having the confidence instilled from the staff has been huge so far." Stanford returned just one of its top seven scorers from last season, but that was center Maxime Raynaud. The preseason All-ACC selection is averaging 22.3 points and 12.2 rebounds per game, with double-doubles in eight of nine outings. He had two double-doubles and a pair of 20-point games against Cal last season. Duke transfer Jaylen Blakes offered a unique perspective on his first Stanford-Cal experience. "Every ACC game is going to be a challenge," he claimed. "(Cal is) a rivalry game, but we are just trying to get a win." --Field Level MediaThe Melbourne Stars have finalised their list for the upcoming BBL season, with veteran quick Peter Siddle completing a “full circle” moment by joining the club he originally signed with but never got the chance to play a game due to international commitments. Siddle, 40, is proving that age is just a number, with the former Test star ready to rip in for his third club after two stints with the Renegades and six seasons with the Strikers where he won a title. While he only played four games last year, Siddle was the most destructive bowler in the 2021/22 season with 30 wickets, with the quick one victim away from joining the 100-wicket club. “It’s great to come full circle and be back at the Stars after being one of the original signings,” Siddle said. “It’s always a privilege playing at the MCG and I’m really looking forward to helping out however I can with this group.” Siddle has played 83 BBL games across nine seasons and will provide terrific leadership for a Stars side that hasn’t won a BBL title. “To secure someone of Peter’s experience with the last spot on the list is fantastic, not only for his on-field ability but his leadership off the field and what he can provide to others is something that really appealed to us,” Stars general manager Blair Crouch said. “As we’ve already seen in the current domestic season, Peter is still bowling at a really high level, having taken 10 wickets across 5 One Day Cup appearances so far.”Dane Mizutani: These Vikings are a lot better than Version 2022

Codexis Announces New Employment Inducement Grants​The International Energy Agency projects global oil supply will exceed demand by over 1 million barrels per day in 2025. This forecast assumes OPEC+ maintains its current production cuts throughout the period. ​Non-OPEC+ countries, particularly the United States, Canada, and Guyana, are expected to drive the surplus through increased production. This additional output could challenge OPEC+’s ability to maintain market balance. ​The post-covid-19 pandemic demand rebound has largely played out, with growth rates expected to moderate. China’s economic slowdown remains a key concern for demand projections, potentially limiting upside pressure on prices. ​Economic headwinds in major economies could further impact consumption patterns, with the transition to cleaner energy technologies also affecting demand growth rates in developed markets. Price forecasts and market expectations ​Major investment banks have provided conservative price outlooks for 2025. Trading commodities analysts at Goldman Sachs forecast Brent crude oil averaging $76.00 per barrel. ​J.P. Morgan takes a more bearish stance, projecting Brent at $73.00 per barrel and WTI at $64.00. These forecasts reflect expectations of ample market supply and moderate demand growth. ​The U.S. Energy Information Administration anticipates increasing global inventories will pressure prices. Their analysis suggests Brent could average $74.00 per barrel in the latter half of 2025. ​These projections indicate a relatively stable price environment, though geopolitical events and OPEC+ decisions could create significant volatility. Impact on energy trading strategies ​Oil trading strategies in 2025 will need to account for potential supply surpluses and price pressures. Risk management becomes crucial in this environment. ​Traders should monitor OPEC+ compliance with production agreements, as any breakdown in unity could accelerate price declines. The group’s response to market oversupply will be critical. ​Technical analysis of key support and resistance levels will help identify entry and exit points. The $70.00-80.00 range for Brent crude appears significant based on current forecasts. ​Commodity trading platforms offer various tools to manage exposure to oil price movements, including stop losses and limit orders. Key factors to watch ​Geopolitical developments remain crucial for oil markets. U.S. energy policy changes could significantly impact global supply dynamics and price movements. ​Chinese demand growth will be essential for market balance. Any significant economic stimulus measures could boost consumption and support prices. ​The pace of energy transition and electric vehicle adoption could affect demand projections. However, the impact may be limited in the 2025 timeframe. Source: IGHezbollah attack draws Israeli strikes on Lebanon, killing 11 people and testing ceasefire's limits

Dec 22 – India is on the cusp of an economic transformation that will redefine its position on the global stage. Through groundbreaking reforms, strategic initiatives, and large-scale projects, the country is set to become the world’s third-largest economy by 2027 and achieve a GDP of USD 7 trillion by 2030. This ambitious journey is supported by efforts to modernize infrastructure, embrace technological innovation, and improve the quality of life for its citizens. Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp The economic trajectory is fueled by significant advancements in manufacturing, transportation, digital connectivity, and urbanization. These efforts are not only positioning India as a global economic leader but also as a trailblazer in sustainable development and technological innovation. India’s economic growth over the past decade has been remarkable. By 2030, the country’s GDP is expected to grow by more than 70%, from USD 3.8 trillion in 2024 to USD 7 trillion. This growth will make India the world’s third-largest economy, surpassing key global players. Per capita income is also set to rise dramatically, from USD 2,700 in 2024 to USD 4,660 by 2030, reflecting the expansion of the middle class and increased domestic consumption. India’s export sector will be a critical driver of this growth. By 2030, exports are projected to reach USD 2 trillion, a significant leap from USD 778 billion in 2024. This surge will be driven by initiatives like “Make in India” and Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes, which focus on high-value sectors such as electronics, renewable energy, pharmaceuticals, and automotive manufacturing. “India is transitioning from being primarily a consumer-driven economy to a major global producer, attracting investment and creating millions of jobs,” analysts note. India’s growth is supported by ambitious changes across various sectors, including transportation, infrastructure, and urban development. Transportation Infrastructure: Indian Railways aims to achieve 100% electrification by 2030, reducing reliance on fossil fuels and improving sustainability. The development of high-speed rail corridors will enhance connectivity and reduce travel times. In aviation, over 200 airports are expected to be operational by 2030, boosting regional and international connectivity. Additionally, the Bharatmala Project will see the development of over 100,000 kilometers of national highways, enhancing goods transportation and economic activities. Urban Development and Smart Cities: Under the Smart Cities Mission, over 100 cities will be transformed by 2030, incorporating renewable energy, efficient public infrastructure, and smart waste management systems. These cities will serve as hubs of sustainability and innovation, improving the quality of life for urban populations. Digital Connectivity: The Digital India initiative aims to provide universal high-speed internet access by 2030. This will drive exponential growth in e-commerce, fintech, edtech, and digital health services, boosting financial inclusion and entrepreneurship across urban and rural areas. India is making significant strides toward sustainability, with renewable energy playing a central role in its economic strategy. By 2030, the country is expected to lead the world in solar and wind power generation, reducing its dependence on imported fossil fuels. These initiatives align with India’s commitment to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2070, creating millions of jobs in the clean energy sector while safeguarding the environment.One of the first signs that Jimmy Carter was not your average politician came in January 1974. Already a Bob Dylan fan, the then-governor of Georgia was in the audience at Atlanta’s Omni Coliseum to see Dylan and the Band on their historic tour. Afterward, the musicians, promoter Bill Graham, and a few local music-biz associates were driven (accompanied by state troopers) to the governor’s mansion for an after-show gathering. In the years that followed — both during his White House run and subsequent presidency — Carter confirmed his music-fan bona fides by hanging out with Willie Nelson, Aretha Franklin, the Allman Brothers Band, the Atlanta Rhythm Section, and many more, as well as hosting an all-star jazz festival on the grounds of the White House. In a previously unpublished interview conducted in February 2023, the Band’s Robbie Robertson (who died in August 2023 ) recalled that night, nearly 50 years ago, when he and his comrades encountered one of the most unusual politicians they’d ever met. Carter died on Sunday, Dec. 29, at the age of 100. When we played Atlanta, we saw Phil Walden, who had managed Otis Redding and had started this company, Capricorn Records. A very cool Southern guy who pushed a button in my street-savvy awareness. He said, “After the concert, can you guys come to the governor’s mansion? We’ll have a nightcap and you can say hello and have a little bite to eat if you want.” Jimmy’s son Chip was also behind organizing the whole thing. I’d only vaguely heard of Jimmy Carter. I’m from Canada. And during this particular period, the 1974 tour, there was something in the air about American politics that was not very inviting at all for a Canadian. People like Richard Nixon, I could tell from a mile away, “This guy, you gotta keep an eye on him. He’s not a good guy. And he’ll play with all the dirty tricks he can.” Anyway, we go to the mansion, and I meet this governor. I talked with him for a few minutes, and I get a read on this guy, that he doesn’t have a bad bone in his body. This is a good person. I could feel it. I could sense it. I felt so comfortable, within 30 seconds of being around him, that we were kidding around, making jokes and carrying on. Editor’s picks The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time And while I’m talking to him, I see [the late drummer and renowned partier] Buddy Miles in the background, coming out of the bathroom. Jimmy has his back to him so he doesn’t see this. But I do, and I think, “Whoa! Hello, governor’s mansion!” This is way hipper than any mansion I’d been to before. They had it all going on that night. They had food [grits, scrambled eggs, and country ham, according to a 1974 RS article ] coming and going, which was also very Southern. Bob and Jimmy had a little chat. I think he talked about Bob making a difference in his songwriting. It was a crowd of people you would never dream, in a million years, would be up in the middle of the night at a governor’s mansion, just having a good laugh and appreciation of work. I thought, “Wow, [the Carters] just go with it. It’s late, and everybody is enjoying everybody’s company. This is so beautiful. These people are OK.” Consequently, I left there with a great impression of this guy. Jimmy didn’t try to be hip. That night he just said, “You know, sometimes you put on a record and it comes right through to you, it gets you and you feel it. And you carry that around with you. And sometimes you put on a record, and nothing happens. And when I put on your record, it was a good feeling.” That meant everything to me. [The Band’s Music from Big Pink and The Band would subsequently be included in the White House Record Library updated during Carter’s time in office.] Coming from Canada, one of the things that I noticed in the Mississippi Delta, where this music grew out of the ground, is that when we played down South, there would be people of every age group. There’d be old people. There’d be young people. And everybody dancing. This was unheard of up north. But Jimmy Carter was a typical Southern guy who grew up loving music and he was as true as he could be as part of that world. Related Content Jimmy Carter: America’s Greatest Environmental President Jimmy Carter, U.S. President and Prolific Humanitarian, Dead at 100 Southern Rock Is Rising From the Ashes Another Last Waltz: Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, and More Remember Robbie Robertson at L.A. Concert Later, Lorne Michaels asked us to play Saturday Night Live . He had asked us a few times before. This was going to be the show right before the [1976 presidential] election. And I said, “I like this guy, Jimmy Carter, let’s do the show.” Lorne said, “You can do four songs.” And I said, “I want to do ‘Georgia on My Mind’ in hopes that Jimmy Carter becomes the president of this country.” And we did it. I sent Jimmy a note saying we were going to do that, and I got a sweet note back. Unfortunately, when he became president, it became quite clear that he wasn’t very good at playing the “game.” The game of sucking up to this one or playing the game with that one or letting someone get away with some shit. Jimmy Carter didn’t have that sensibility. He was too true for that, and in many ways, that didn’t turn out great for him. Things happened while he was president that nobody could have seen coming or fix. I was sad to see that it came down on him and turned on him. He didn’t know how to play the game, and it came back to haunt him. But he was a better man for it. As for his legacy, sometimes good overrules bad. You’d like to think there’s a possibility, somewhere, sometime, that somebody could do their job and not be a complete jive ass. Richard Nixon was so jive. Ronald Reagan was so jive. I didn’t believe a word he said. He was a bad actor. Jimmy Carter wasn’t an actor, and he didn’t want to be. He was so kind that you thought, “Oh, this can’t be real.” But it was real. He was actually a real kind, wonderful human being, and in politics they don’t make enough of those.Snow continued to fall Monday around parts of the Great Lakes region, where storm-weary residents who have plowed and shoveled for days faced the prospect of even greater accumulations. Lake-effect snow fell on parts of western New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio that were already blanketed with a foot (0.3 meters) or more over the past four days. By Monday morning, the village of Cassadaga, New York, east of Lake Erie, recorded 4.5 feet (1.4 meters) of snow. Snow was forecast through Tuesday in that largely rural area south of Buffalo. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. Get updates and player profiles ahead of Friday's high school games, plus a recap Saturday with stories, photos, video Frequency: Seasonal Twice a week

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AP Sports SummaryBrief at 5:44 p.m. ESTJERUSALEM — The ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants began early Wednesday as a region on edge wondered whether it will hold. The ceasefire announced Tuesday is a major step toward ending nearly 14 months of fighting sparked by the ongoing war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. Israel said it will attack if Hezbollah breaks the ceasefire agreement. The ceasefire calls for an initial two-month halt to fighting and requires Hezbollah to end its armed presence in southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops are to return to their side of the border. An international panel led by the United States will monitor compliance. The ceasefire began at 4 a.m. Wednesday, a day after Israel carried out its most intense wave of airstrikes in Beirut since the start of the conflict that in recent weeks turned into all-out war. At least 42 people were killed in strikes across the country, according to local authorities. Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. The ceasefire does not address the devastating war in Gaza , where Hamas is still holding dozens of hostages and the conflict is more intractable. There appeared to be lingering disagreement over whether Israel would have the right to strike Hezbollah if it believed the militants had violated the agreement, something Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted was part of the deal but which Lebanese and Hezbollah officials have rejected. Israel's security Cabinet approved the U.S.-France-brokered ceasefire agreement after Netanyahu presented it, his office said. U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking in Washington, called the agreement “good news” and said his administration would make a renewed push for a ceasefire in Gaza. The Biden administration spent much of this year trying to broker a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza but the talks repeatedly sputtered to a halt . President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to bring peace to the Middle East without saying how. Still, any halt to the fighting in Lebanon is expected to reduce the likelihood of war between Israel and Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas and exchanged direct fire with Israel on two occasions earlier this year. In this screen grab image from video provide by the Israeli Government Press Office, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes a televised statement Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024, in Jerusalem, Israel. Netanyahu presented the ceasefire proposal to Cabinet ministers after a televised address in which he listed accomplishments against Israel’s enemies across the region. He said a ceasefire with Hezbollah would further isolate Hamas in Gaza and allow Israel to focus on its main enemy, Iran. “If Hezbollah breaks the agreement and tries to rearm, we will attack,” he said. “For every violation, we will attack with might.” The ceasefire deal calls for a two-month initial halt in fighting and would require Hezbollah to end its armed presence in a broad swath of southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops would return to their side of the border. Thousands of additional Lebanese troops and U.N. peacekeepers would deploy in the south, and an international panel headed by the United States would monitor compliance. Biden said Israel reserved the right to quickly resume operations in Lebanon if Hezbollah breaks the terms of the truce, but that the deal "was designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities.” A police bomb squad officer inspects the site where a rocket fired from Lebanon landed in a backyard in Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel, Tuesday Nov. 26, 2024. Netanyahu’s office said Israel appreciated the U.S. efforts in securing the deal but “reserves the right to act against every threat to its security.” Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati welcomed the ceasefire and described it as a crucial step toward stability and the return of displaced people. Hezbollah has said it accepts the proposal, but a senior official with the group said Tuesday it had not seen the agreement in its final form. “After reviewing the agreement signed by the enemy government, we will see if there is a match between what we stated and what was agreed upon by the Lebanese officials,” Mahmoud Qamati, deputy chair of Hezbollah’s political council, told the Al Jazeera news network. “We want an end to the aggression, of course, but not at the expense of the sovereignty of the state," he said, referring to Israel's demand for freedom of action. “Any violation of sovereignty is refused.” Rescuers and residents search for victims Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024, at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a building in Beirut, Lebanon. Even as ceasefire efforts gained momentum in recent days, Israel continued to strike what it called Hezbollah targets across Lebanon while the militants fired rockets, missiles and drones across the border. An Israeli strike on Tuesday leveled a residential building in central Beirut — the second time in recent days warplanes have hit the crowded area near downtown. At least seven people were killed and 37 wounded, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. Israel also struck a building in Beirut's bustling commercial district of Hamra for the first time, hitting a site around 400 meters (yards) from Lebanon’s Central Bank. There were no reports of casualties. The Israeli military said it struck targets linked to Hezbollah's financial arm. The evacuation warnings covered many areas, including parts of Beirut that previously were not targeted. Residents fled. Traffic was gridlocked, with mattresses tied to some cars. Dozens of people, some wearing pajamas, gathered in a central square, huddling under blankets or standing around fires as Israeli drones buzzed overhead. Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee issued evacuation warnings for 20 buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a major presence, as well as a warning for the southern town of Naqoura where the U.N. peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL, is headquartered. UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said peacekeepers will not evacuate. Israeli soldiers inspect the site Tuesday Nov. 26, 2024, where a rocket fired from Lebanon landed in a backyard in Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel. The Israeli military also said its ground troops clashed with Hezbollah forces and destroyed rocket launchers in the Slouqi area on the eastern end of the Litani River, a few kilometers (miles) from the Israeli border. Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah is required to move its forces north of the Litani, which in some places is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border. Hezbollah began firing into northern Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, saying it was showing support for the Palestinians, a day after Hamas carried out its attack on southern Israel, triggering the Gaza war. Israel returned fire on Hezbollah, and the two sides have exchanged barrages ever since. Israel escalated its bombardment in mid-September and later sent troops into Lebanon, vowing to put an end to Hezbollah fire so tens of thousands of evacuated Israelis could return to their homes. Israeli security officers and army soldiers inspect the site Tuesday Nov. 26, 2024, where a rocket fired from Lebanon landed in a backyard in Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel. More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon the past 13 months, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The bombardment has driven 1.2 million people from their homes. Israel says it has killed more than 2,000 Hezbollah members. Hezbollah fire has forced some 50,000 Israelis to evacuate in the country’s north, and its rockets have reached as far south in Israel as Tel Aviv. At least 75 people have been killed, more than half of them civilians. More than 50 Israeli soldiers have died in the ground offensive in Lebanon. Chehayeb and Mroue reported from Beirut and Federman from Jerusalem. Associated Press reporters Lujain Jo and Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter.

(Bloomberg) -- SEC Chair Gary Gensler, whose ambitious agenda drew fierce resistance from Wall Street and the crypto industry, plans to step down on Jan. 20. “The Securities and Exchange Commission is a remarkable agency,” Gensler said in a statement on Thursday. “The staff and the commission are deeply mission-driven, focused on protecting investors, facilitating capital formation and ensuring that the markets work for investors and issuers alike.” His departure will leave the SEC in the hands of an acting chair who’s expected to be either Mark Uyeda or Hester Peirce — both Republican commissioners. Gensler, a self-described “markets guy” appointed by President Joe Biden in 2021, has pursed an aggressive agenda highlighted by climate-risk disclosures, stock-trading reforms and crackdowns on crypto scofflaws. Some of his regulations will leave a lasting imprint on finance. Others have been stymied in conservative courts. The Trump administration’s coming pick for SEC chair could try to further unwind Gensler’s signature rules and take a more crypto-friendly approach to enforcement. Gensler’s policy achievements include speeding up the settlement time for US stock trades and a new regulation that will result in trillions of dollars more in US Treasury market transactions to be centrally cleared each day. Corporate insiders also face stricter disclosures and rules for stock sales. Some of the pillars of Gensler’s agenda faced legal challenges, however. The SEC in March published sweeping rules calling on businesses to reveal details about their greenhouse-gas emissions and how climate change could affect their bottom lines. The agency froze the rules in April after multiple lawsuits. A federal judge on Thursday struck down new SEC rules that would have required some Wall Street firms to register as dealers in the Treasury market. Hedge funds had sued in March to block the regulations, saying they were too broad and could harm the market. “His tenure should be thought of as extraordinarily ambitious in terms of scope of issues he wanted to focus on,” said Tyler Gellasch, head of the Healthy Markets Association, a trade group that includes pension funds and others. “That agenda ran face first into an onslaught of litigation.” Crypto Landscape Trump’s SEC will probably ease enforcement against brokers, banks and hedge funds for using third-party messaging apps to communicate. The digital-asset industry could experience a sea change in policy. Gensler doggedly pursued crypto fraudsters, as well as companies like Coinbase Global Inc. and proprietary trading behemoth DRW Holdings for failing to register with the agency. The industry had pushed back hard, saying he had provided no real way for the nascent asset class to fit within decades-old structures. Gensler was frequently criticized by the industry for clamping down on the market instead of making clear how to play by the rules. “My mom always told me if I didn’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. So I’m just gonna sit this one out,” Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal wrote on X after Gensler announced his pending departure. Trump, who embraced cryptocurrency during his campaign, told supporters earlier this year he would fire Gensler on “day one.” Robinhood Markets Inc. legal chief Dan Gallagher, former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins, and Robert Stebbins, a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, have been considered to be possible Trump picks to lead the agency, Bloomberg News reported earlier this month. --With assistance from Ben Bain. (Updates with details about Gensler’s policies, reaction to departure.) More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com ©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

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UK water companies now have to release live sewage spill data—why more transparency is key to cleaner riversMANCHESTER, England (AP) — Manchester City's players were booed by their own fans Tuesday after blowing a three-goal lead against Feyenoord in the Champions League to extend their winless run to six games. Jeers rang around the Etihad Stadium after the final whistle of a dramatic 3-3 draw. After five-straight losses in all competitions, City looked to be cruising to victory after going three up inside 50 minutes. But Feyenoord mounted an improbable comeback and leveled the game in the 89th minute to leave the home crowd stunned. While the worst losing streak of Guardiola’s managerial career was brought to an end, his wait for a first win since Oct. 26 goes on. Erling Haaland had scored twice, with Ilkay Gundogan also on target to put City in control. But goals from Anis Hadj Moussa in the 75th, Santiago Gimenez in the 82nd and David Hancko in the 89th turned the game on its head. City's players, including Bernardo Silva, Josko Gvardiol and Haaland looked visibly frustrated as they left the field to cheers of the delirious traveling Dutch fans in the away section of the stadium. City plays Premier League leader Liverpool on Sunday — defeat would leave it 11 points adrift of its title rival. James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccerDr Charlotte Proudman, who specialises in family law, had faced a Bar Standards Board (BSB) disciplinary tribunal over a 14-part Twitter thread criticising a judge’s ruling over a domestic abuse case, saying it echoed a “boys’ club”. However, the five charges against the 36-year-old were dropped on Thursday. In an interview with The Times, Dr Proudman described the position of Mark Neale, the board’s director-general, as “untenable” and said its chairwoman, Kathryn Stone, should also stand down. “They need a change, not just in those two individuals, though, because, of course, it seeps down to the rest of the organisation,” she said. She told the paper she “genuinely” wanted to work with the Bar Standards Board in helping them to understand how misogyny and sexism have impacted women at the bar. However, she said that “under the current leadership, it’s just not going to be possible”. The charges alleged Dr Proudman had “failed to act with integrity” in posting the tweets, that they amounted to professional misconduct, were “misleading” and “inaccurately reflected the findings of the judge” in the case. The women’s rights campaigner was also accused of behaving in a way “which was likely to diminish the trust and confidence which the public placed in her and in the profession”, and that she “knowingly or recklessly misled or attempted to mislead the public” by making the posts. But panel chairman Nicholas Ainley found her tweets are protected under Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right of freedom of expression. He said her tweets did not “gravely damage” the judiciary, which would “put them outside” of Article 10 protection, even if they “might not have been pleasant for any judge to read” or even “hurtful”. “We take the view that the judiciary of England and Wales is far more robust than that,” he said. The panel also concluded that some of the tweets were only inaccurate “to a minor degree” and not to the extent necessary for a charge of a lack of integrity. Speaking after the hearing, Dr Proudman told the PA news agency: “This ruling is a victory for women’s rights and a right to freedom of speech. “The prosecution against me brought by my regulatory body, the Bar Standards Board, should never have happened and I said that from day one. “I criticised a domestic abuse judgment. Everyone should have the right to do that, whether you’re a barrister or not. Our justice system, which I strongly believe in, is robust enough to withstand criticism from me.” She believes her tweets help “foster confidence” in the justice system, adding: “Only that way can we go about building change and a better treatment for all victims, women and children and men who are affected by domestic abuse.” Explaining that the BSB appears to have spent almost £40,000 “of barristers’ money” on instructing counsel in her case, she added: “I think it’s shameful that they’re using our money to pay for, in my view, malicious, vexatious prosecutions which I have no doubt was a personal attack against me as a woman and as a feminist, as an outspoken critic and advocate for women’s rights.” Dr Proudman called for “systemic change” within the board. “They don’t understand gender, they don’t understand diversity, I don’t think they’ve ever heard of the concept misogyny and certainly not institutional misogyny,” she said. “Until they recognise the deeply rooted, entrenched issue of bullying, harassment, sexism at the bar, for which I have suffered relentlessly... and own up to it I don’t think we’re going to see any change and I have no confidence in them.” She told of how male barristers have called her insulting names on social media and made derogatory comments about her. In the posts on April 6 2022, Dr Proudman referenced a case in which her client alleged she had been subjected to coercive and controlling behaviour by her husband, a part-time judge, meaning she had been “unable to freely enter” the couple’s “post-nuptial” financial agreement. Commenting on the ruling by Family Court judge Sir Jonathan Cohen, Dr Proudman wrote: “I represented Amanda Traharne. “She said she was coerced into signing a post-nuptial agreement by her husband (who is a part-time judge). I lost the case. “I do not accept the Judge’s reasoning. I will never accept the minimisation of domestic abuse.” She continued: “Demeaning the significance of domestic abuse has the affect of silencing victims and rendering perpetrators invisible. “This judgement has echoes of (t)he ‘boys club’ which still exists among men in powerful positions.” In the thread, Dr Proudman wrote that the judge had described the relationship of the couple as “tempestuous”, which she argued was a “trivialisation” of domestic abuse. “Tempestuous? Lose his temper? Isn’t this the trivialisation of domestic abuse & gendered language. This is not normal married life,” she wrote.

With E3 truly being a thing of the past in the post-pandemic world, Geoff Kieghley’s The Game Awards are now the year's biggest source of video game announcements, taking up the mantle left behind by the show that gave us such memorable moments as “my body is ready.” Keighley’s Summer Game Fest also typically features a few surprises, as does Germany's Gamescom , but it’s clear that the awards show is where the big guns come out. Despite its name, it’s almost better known as a trailer festival at this point, as joked about by Muppets Statler and Waldorf ( yes, really ) during this year’s event. With that in mind, here are the biggest reveals from last night’s show, including two different returns to fantasy favorites and a new sci-fi game from the creators of The Last of Us . The Witcher IV puts Ciri in the lead role Can you believe it’s been a little over nine years since The Witcher 3 came out? In the time since then, the title has gotten two hefty expansions and served as partial inspiration for a Netflix show, but it’s finally time for it to get a proper sequel. Simply titled The Witcher IV , the game’s reveal was the first big announcement of the show, and while gameplay wasn’t yet shown, it came with two big revelations. The first was a change in protagonist. Geralt and his Fabio hair are taking a break this time around, with his adopted daughter and apprentice Ciri instead taking up the dual blades to hunt down the monsters of the Continent. The second actually had little to do with the game itself, and was instead more of a teaser for tech nerds. At the start of the game’s trailer, a small note at the bottom of the screen said that it was “pre-rendered in Unreal Engine 5 on an unannounced Nvidia GeForce RTX GPU,” which confirms that game developers already have their hands on Nvidia’s next generation of graphics cards. Eager PC builders will likely hear about them soon, possibly as early as next month’s CES. Elden Ring Nightreign is a co-op spin-off After an almost 60-hour base game and a 30-40 hour expansion, Elden Ring isn’t done yet. In a surprising move for developer FromSoftware, the next title in the series will be a co-op, session-based game rather than an RPG set in a persistent world. You wouldn’t know that from the trailer, which mostly focuses on small groups of players grouping up to fight big bosses, Monster Hunter style (it looks sick, tbh). However, outlets such as IGN (which is owned by the same parent company as Lifehacker) have already conducted interviews and gone hands-on with preview builds, which is where these details are coming from. According to the developers, the game is built for three players but will have a solo mode, and will take place in a condensed version of the Limgrave map from the first game. Over the course of three in-game days, players will be tasked with surviving and preparing to take on a major boss at the end of the session. Rather than customizing their own characters, players will also instead choose between eight presets here, although I presume the same character can look very different by the end of different sessions. As a big fan of FromSoftware games, but not a huge enjoyer of their usually somewhat clunky multiplayer systems, I’m cautiously optimistic that Nightreign might finally be the game that convinces me to try playing with friends. A new game from the people behind Shadow of the Colossus It’s been eight years since the last game directed by legendary developer Fumito Ueda, the chief creative mind behind classics including Ico and Shadow of the Colossus . With the studio behind those titles, Japan Studio, having since been shut down and merged with Astro Bot developer Team Asobi (more on them later), it was unclear whether we’d ever see another title in the same vein as those games again. Luckily, it seems like Ueda and a bunch of Japan Studio veterans are back with a new game currently codenamed “Project Robot.” The trailer from last night’s award show was fairly light on details, but the vibes we all remember from Ueda’s previous games were all there, as the crowd silently watched a small figure in cryptic garb climb up a lumbering giant robot to escape an oncoming catastrophe. Like our protagonist at the end of the trailer, a release date is still up in the air, but one surprising detail: Epic Games (yes, the Fortnite people) is helping to produce. Okami is back Towards the end of the awards show, Geoff Keighley pumped up the audience for what seemed like his favorite announcement of the night, going as far as to seemingly tear up a little and bring in a real-life drummer to set the tone before the trailer played. When the host talked about impossibilities coming true and said “if you truly love video games like I do, this moment is for all of us,” I was expecting Half-Life 3 to pop up on my screen. Instead, I was surprised with an Okami sequel. I’m not disappointed! A cult classic game for the PS2 and Wii, Okami combined a beautiful art style, Japanese folklore, innovative calligraphy mechanics, and a Legend of Zelda -style approach to gameplay to create a truly impressive blend of mechanics and vision that hasn’t really been captured since. Part of the reason for that? Shortly after its release in 2006, director Hideki Kamiya left Capcom to help found Platinum Games, with his studio Clover shutting down just a few months later. The game had been a critical success, but it seems Capcom wasn’t happy with sales . Now, it seems like the publisher is ready to give Kamiya a second chance, not only announcing an Okami sequel (no official title as of yet) with him at the helm, but in fact giving him a new studio under the name of Clovers (never change, Kamiya). The news follows the success of Devil May Cry 5 , a sequel to another Kamiya classic, which probably helped change Capcom’s tune. I wouldn’t be surprised to see other cult hits like Viewtiful Joe or God Hand get their time in the sun next. A new Naughty Dog sci-fi game In the final trailer of the night, The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog revealed its next big game, and finally, it has nothing to do with zombies. Instead, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is a space adventure following a bounty hunter as she tries to be the first person in over 600 years to leave the planet Sempiria’s orbit. Actual gameplay was light (a running theme for the evening), although the reveal trailer did show our heroine arming herself with a gun and facing down a hulking robot with a not-lightsaber. In what’s proven to be a controversial decision on my Bluesky feed, the trailer also played up the ‘80s nostalgia and its brand partnerships a lot, which definitely gave it some Guardians of the Galaxy vibes. Still, the announcement’s overall lighter tone should prove to be a fun break from the grim nature of The Last of Us series, and will perhaps take Naughty Dog closer to its Jak & Daxter roots. And the winner is... Finally, you can’t have The Game Awards without declaring the game of the year. This year’s winner had to face some stacked competition, with the nominee list including Balatro , Black Myth: Wukong , Metaphor: ReFantazio , Astro Bot , and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth . In the end, though, Team Asobi’s Astro Bot pulled through. The win is the first time a platformer has taken home the game of the year award, with Astro Bot doing what even Mario could not (to be fair, he was going up against the likes of Link and Geralt when he was nominated). It’s an impressive achievement for the character’s first full-fledged game, though—and as if to celebrate, the title is about $10 off across most storefronts right now.

Gophers football players are preparing to play Wisconsin for Paul Bunyan’s Axe on Friday, but three key pieces peered beyond the blinders to shore up their commitment to Minnesota on Monday. Quarterback Max Brosmer and offensive lineman Quinn Carroll — two sixth-year seniors — said they will play in the Gophers’ to-be-determined bowl game, bucking a growing trend of players skipping postseason games to prepare for shots in the NFL. ADVERTISEMENT Brosmer, a transfer from FCS-level New Hampshire, said he will “definitely” suit up. “It’s another opportunity for us to play as a team,” said Brosmer, who threw for 2,426 yards, 15 touchdowns and five interceptions in 11 games this season. “It’s a compilation of what you have worked on all season.” Carroll said he respects higher-level prospects who might opt out and protect their draft stock, but he wants to get back to a “standard” of players not skipping the games. “My goal ever since I came here was to be the leader, be the standard all the time, and I don’t want it to become a standard that we don’t play in the bowl game if we have NFL aspirations,” said Carroll, who has played three seasons at Minnesota after three years at Notre Dame. “Obviously it’s different for guys who are maybe touted a little bit higher or think it will be better off for them to start working on the next step, whether that is combine training or what have you. But that is one opportunity that I’m blessed with to play with the guys and I’m going to take full advantage of it.” Left tackle Aireontae Ersery is a prime candidate of a Gophers player who might want to safeguard a higher draft stock and limit injury exposure by sitting out the bowl game. The possible first- or second-round pick has not said what he might do. For example, former U center, John Michael Schmitz opted out of the Pinstripe Bowl in 2022; he was drafted in the second round by the New York Giants. Meanwhile, Gophers fifth-year defensive lineman Jalen Logan-Redding said he will return to Minnesota for 2025, instead of trying his luck in the NFL. “Coming back next year is definitely going to be the best for me and being able to maximize all my opportunities and exhaust eligibility,” Logan-Redding said. Logan-Redding said he talked with fellow D-lineman Deven Eastern, who has one more year remaining, about pairing up in 2025. ADVERTISEMENT “We talk a lot about it,” Logan-Redding said. “... We are excited for it, honestly. Not only continuing to build the D-line, but just continuing to build on the experience that we already have. We’ve seen the amount of destruction that we can create when we are focused. Me, Dev and, of course, (Anthony Smith). He would be pissed if I didn’t shout him out.” Smith, who has two more years of eligibility, has been one of the U’s best players in the last month. He has 23 total pressures and five sacks, including one sack in each of the last three weeks. ______________________________________________________ This story was written by one of our partner news agencies. Forum Communications Company uses content from agencies such as Reuters, Kaiser Health News, Tribune News Service and others to provide a wider range of news to our readers. Learn more about the news services FCC uses here .

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — “My Driver and I” was supposed to be made in 2016, but was scuttled amid Saudi Arabia's decades-long cinema ban. Eight years later, the landscape for film in the kingdom looks much different — and the star of “My Driver and I” now has an award. Read this article for free: Already have an account? As we navigate through unprecedented times, our journalists are working harder than ever to bring you the latest local updates to keep you safe and informed. Now, more than ever, we need your support. Starting at $14.99 plus taxes every four weeks you can access your Brandon Sun online and full access to all content as it appears on our website. or call circulation directly at (204) 727-0527. Your pledge helps to ensure we provide the news that matters most to your community! JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — “My Driver and I” was supposed to be made in 2016, but was scuttled amid Saudi Arabia's decades-long cinema ban. Eight years later, the landscape for film in the kingdom looks much different — and the star of “My Driver and I” now has an award. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — “My Driver and I” was supposed to be made in 2016, but was scuttled amid Saudi Arabia’s decades-long cinema ban. Eight years later, the landscape for film in the kingdom looks much different — and the star of “My Driver and I” now has an award. Roula Dakheelallah was named the winner of the Chopard Emerging Saudi Talent award at the Red Sea International Film Festival on Thursday. The award — and the glitzy festival itself — is a sign of Saudi Arabia’s commitment to shaping a new film industry. “My heart is attached to cinema and art; I have always dreamed of a moment like this,” Dakheelallah, who still works a 9-5 job, told The Associated Press before the awards ceremony. “I used to work in voluntary films and help my friends in the field, but this is my first big role in a film.” The reopening of cinemas in 2018 marked a cultural turning point for Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy that had instituted the ban 35 years before, under the influence of ultraconservative religious authorities. It has since invested heavily in a native film industry by building theaters and launching programs to support local filmmakers through grants and training. The Red Sea International Film Festival was launched just a year later, part of an attempt to expand Saudi influence into films, gaming, sports and other cultural fields. Activists have decried the investments as whitewashing the kingdom’s human rights record as it tightly controls speech and remains one of the world’s top executioners. With FIFA awarding the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia this week, Lina al-Hathloul, a Saudi activist with the London-based rights group ALQST, said Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman “has really managed to create this bubble where people only see entertainment and they don’t see the reality on the ground.” These efforts are part of Vision 2030, an ambitious reform plan unveiled in 2016 to ease the economy’s dependence on oil. As part of it, Saudi Arabia plans to construct 350 cinemas with over 2,500 movie screens — by this past April, across 22 cities, it already had 66 cinemas showing movies from the local film industry, as well as Hollywood and Bollywood. (The Red Sea International Film Festival attracts a host of talent from the latter industries, with Viola Davis and Priyanka Chopra Jonas also picking up awards Thursday.) The country’s General Entertainment Authority last month opened Al Hisn Studios on the outskirts of Riyadh. As one of the largest such production hubs in the Middle East, it not only includes several film studios but also a production village with workshops for carpentry, blacksmithing and fashion tailoring. “These facilities, when they exist, will stimulate filmmakers,” said Saudi actor Mohammed Elshehri. “Today, no writer or director has an excuse to imagine and say, ‘I cannot implement my imagination.’” The facilities are one part of the equation — the content itself is another. One of the major players in transforming Saudi filmmaking has been Telfaz11, a media company founded in 2011 that began as a YouTube channel and quickly became a trailblazer. Producing high-quality digital content such as short films, comedy sketches and series, Telfaz11 offered fresh perspectives on Saudi and regional issues. In 2020, Telfaz11 signed a partnership with Netflix to produce original content for the streaming giant. The result has been movies that demonstrate an evolution on the storytelling level, tackling topics that were once off-limits and sensitive to the public like secret nightlife in “Mandoob” (“Night Courier”) and changing social norms in “Naga.” “I think we tell our stories in a very simple way, and that’s what reaches the world,” Elshehri says of the changing shift. “When you tell your story in a natural way without any affectation, it will reach every person.” But the films were not without their critics, drawing mixed reaction. Social media discoursed ranged from pleasure that Saudi film were tackling such topics to anger over how the films reflected conservative society. As Hana Al-Omair, a Saudi writer and director, points out, there are still many stories left untold. “We certainly have a long time ahead of us before we can tell the Saudi narrative as it should be,” she said, acknowledging that there are still barriers and rampant censorship. “The Goat Life,” a Malayalam-language movie about an Indian man forced to work without pay in Saudi Arabia, is not available on Netflix’s platform in the country. Movies that explore political topics or LGBTQ+ stories are essentially out of the question. Even “My Driver and I,” featured at the Red Sea festival alongside 11 other Saudi feature-length films, was initially too controversial. It centers on a Sudanese man in Jeddah, living away from his own daughter, who feels responsible for the girl he drives as her parents are absent. It was initially blocked from being made because of the relationship between the girl and the driver, filmmaker Ahd Kamel has said, even though it’s not a romantic relationship. Now in 2024, the film is a success story — a symbol of the Saudi film industry’s evolution as well as the growing role of women like Kamel behind the camera and Dakheelallah in front of it. “I see the change in Saudi cinema, a very beautiful change and it is moving at a wonderful speed. In my opinion, we do not need to rush,” Dakheelallah said. “We need to guide the truth of the artistic movement that is happening in Saudi Arabia.” Advertisement Advertisement

The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) on Tuesday handed a four-year suspension to Indian wrestler Bajrang Punia after he refused to provide a sample for a dope test during the national selection trials on March 10. Initially suspended by NADA on April 23, the Tokyo Games bronze medallist was also suspended by the World Wrestling Federation (UWW) in the light of the incident. The suspension bars Bajrang from returning to competitive wrestling for four years and may also impact his aspirations of applying for coaching jobs abroad. NADA clarified that the suspension period would begin from April 23, 2024, the date when the notification was sent. However, the period between May 31, 2024, and June 21, 2024, when the provisional suspension was lifted, will not be counted toward the total four-year ineligibility period. "The Panel holds that the Athlete is liable for sanctions under Article 10.3.1 and liable for ineligibility for a period of 4 years," the ADDP said in its order. Bajrang has maintained that he was unfairly treated due to his involvement in protests against former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) President Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. He argued that he had never outright refused to give his sample, but instead sought clarification from NADA on why expired doping kits had been used during a previous test in December 2023. The athlete-turned-politician had appealed against the provisional suspension, and on May 31, NADA's Anti-Disciplinary Doping Panel (ADDP) revoked it until the agency issued a formal notice of charge. On June 23, NADA served the notice to the wrestler. Bajrang, who joined Congress along with fellow wrestler Vinesh Phogat, contested the charges in a written submission on July 11. This led to hearings on September 20 and October 4. 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The agency also stated that Bajrang's refusal to provide the sample was "intentional and deliberate," adding that the wrestler had shown "utter disregard towards his duties and responsibilities as per Articles 20.1 & 20.2 of the Anti-Doping Rules , 2021." Bajrang, in his submission, explained that NADA's prior mishandling of doping control processes had created mistrust in his mind, particularly their failure to acknowledge issues such as the use of expired kits. He contended that, as a senior athlete, he was morally compelled to take a stand. "It was not an outright refusal per se. The athlete was always willing to provide his sample provided that he first received a response from NADA concerning the use of expired kits," the Congress youth leader said. Despite these defences, NADA has insisted that the wrestler's refusal was deliberate and had a significant impact on his standing in the anti-doping process. (With agency inputs) (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel )NEW YORK , Dec. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Report on how AI is redefining market landscape - The global seafood market size is estimated to grow by USD 150.04 billion from 2024-2028, according to Technavio. The market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 13.55% during the forecast period. Rising consumer awareness about healthy nutrition is driving market growth, with a trend towards growth of online retailing in seafood industry. However, depletion of sea species poses a challenge. Key market players include Aker BioMarine ASA, Austevoll Seafood ASA, Clifton Sea Food Co., Cooke Aquaculture Inc., Djibah Seafood SARL, Grayton Seafood Co. LLC, Kangamiut Seafood AS, Kings Seafood Group, Lee Fish , Lee Fishing Company, Marel Group, Mida Food Distributors Inc., Motor City Seafood Co., Mowi ASA, Nueva Pescanova SL, Pacific Seafood Group, Phillips Foods Inc., Seattle Fish Co., The Deep Seafood Co., and Trident Seafoods Corp.. Key insights into market evolution with AI-powered analysis. Explore trends, segmentation, and growth drivers- View Free Sample PDF Market Driver The seafood industry is a significant source of protein for consumers worldwide. With increasing awareness of health benefits, per capita consumption of seafood continues to rise. Price remains a key factor, with fresh and frozen options available for various budgets. Tourism and hospitality sectors heavily rely on seafood for culinary experimentation and value-added fish products. 3D printing technology and product innovation are trends shaping the industry, offering personalized textures, flavors, and appearances. Alternative protein sources and seafood substitutes are gaining popularity due to ethical concerns and environmental impact. Lean fish like cod, salmon, tuna, tilapia, and crustaceans like shrimps, lobster, and crab, are popular choices. Certifications from organizations like the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and Marine Stewardship Council ensure sustainability and traceability. Brexit and the EU transition period may impact seafood imports and exports. Health advantages of seafood, including omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals, make it a crucial component of a balanced diet. Administrative authorities and seafood farmers work towards addressing environmental issues and ethical concerns, such as the use of anabolic steroids and toxic chemicals. Consumers prefer lean, sustainable, and ethically sourced seafood, driving demand for certified products. Seafood cuisines and restaurants offer diverse culinary applications, with pork-based foods facing competition. The global growth of e-commerce has been driven by the widespread availability of the Internet and the convenience it offers. In 2020, e-commerce sales in the US accounted for 21.3% of total retail sales, up from 15.8% in 2019. This trend is fueled by the ease of shopping, product discovery, and attractive pricing and personalized offers. For seafood suppliers, online retailing presents new opportunities to expand sales, reach broader markets, and enhance customer relationships and profitability. Manufacturers and distributors can increase their product visibility across regions by establishing an online presence. Request Sample of our comprehensive report now to stay ahead in the AI-driven market evolution! Market Challenges The seafood industry faces several challenges in providing high-quality, sustainable, and affordable protein sources for consumers. Price volatility, driven by factors like tourism and hospitality trends, impacts the industry. Innovation through 3D printing technology and culinary experimentation offers solutions. Product personalization, focusing on texture, flavor, and appearance, is a growing trend. Alternative protein sources and seafood substitutes, like plant-based options, address ethical concerns and environmental impact. Lean fish like cod, salmon, tuna, tilapia, shrimps, lobster, and crab offer health advantages with omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals. Sustainability through aquaculture techniques, certifications, and traceability initiatives is crucial. Brexit and the EU transition period impact seafood imports and exports. Organized retailers and food businesses cater to diverse diets, including pescetarian foods and vegetarian alternatives. Ensuring a balanced diet, seafood cuisines, and restaurants continue to innovate, while addressing concerns over anabolic steroids and toxic chemicals in fish. Administrative authorities and seafood farmers work together to address environmental issues and fishing activity. Per capita consumption remains high, with convenience seafood items gaining popularity. Pork-based foods face competition as heart benefits of fish are increasingly recognized. The depletion of fish stocks due to overfishing is a significant concern for both the ocean ecosystem and the livelihoods of millions of people. Overfishing occurs when the number of fish taken exceeds their ability to reproduce, leading to a decrease in the exploitable portion of the stock. This not only hinders the stock's maximal productive capability but also negatively impacts the ocean ecosystem. Furthermore, overfishing affects the social and economic well-being of coastal communities who depend on seafood as their primary source of protein and income. With billions of people relying on fishing for their livelihoods, it is crucial to address this issue and ensure sustainable fishing practices to maintain a healthy and productive ocean ecosystem. Discover how AI is revolutionizing market trends- Get your access now! Segment Overview This seafood market report extensively covers market segmentation by 1.1 Fish 1.2 Crustacean 1.3 Mollusca 1.4 Others 2.1 Offline 2.2 Online 3.1 APAC 3.2 North America 3.3 South America 3.4 Europe 3.5 Middle East and Africa 1.1 Fish- The global seafood market experienced significant growth in 2023, with the fish segment leading the way. The expanding preference for fish as a high-protein alternative to meat is a key factor fueling this growth. The number of meat eaters is on the rise, and consumers are increasingly aware of the health benefits of fish, which includes omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins like D and B2 (riboflavin). The American Heart Association recommends incorporating fish into one's diet at least twice a week. Consequently, fish is the most preferred type of seafood, driving the growth of the fish segment and the global seafood market as a whole. Download a Sample of our comprehensive report today to discover how AI-driven innovations are reshaping competitive dynamics Research Analysis The seafood industry is a significant source of protein for consumers worldwide, providing a wide range of flavors, textures, and appearances. Seafood is a staple in tourism and hospitality industries, enhancing culinary experimentation and product innovation. The price of seafood can vary greatly depending on the species, availability, and location. 3D printing technology is being explored to create seafood substitutes, offering alternative protein sources for ethical and environmental concerns. Lean fish like cod, salmon, and tuna are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, and offer health advantages for a balanced diet. Sustainability is a priority in the seafood industry, with organizations like the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and Marine Stewardship Council promoting sustainable aquaculture techniques. Shrimps and other seafood items have numerous culinary applications, and value-added fish products cater to personalized preferences. The industry continues to innovate, addressing concerns of ethical sourcing, environmental impact, and consumer demand for new and exciting flavors. Market Research Overview The seafood industry is a significant source of protein for consumers around the world. With the growing awareness of health benefits associated with a balanced diet, the demand for seafood continues to rise. Seafood offers unique textures, flavors, and appearances that make it a popular choice for culinary experimentation and product innovation. However, the industry faces challenges such as price volatility, ethical concerns, and environmental impact. The use of 3D printing technology and alternative protein sources like plant-based seafood substitutes is gaining popularity to address these challenges. Sustainability is a key focus area, with certifications from organizations like the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and Marine Stewardship Council ensuring responsible farming practices. Seafood is a staple in tourism and hospitality industries, with shrimps, salmon, tuna, cod, tilapia, lobster, and crab being popular choices. Fresh and frozen seafood items are available, catering to different consumer preferences and convenience. Brexit and the transition period of the European Union (EU) have impacted the seafood industry, with administrative authorities and organized retail operators implementing traceability initiatives to maintain transparency. Seafood cuisines and restaurants offer a wide range of dishes, from traditional pescetarian foods to vegetarian diet options. However, concerns over anabolic steroids and toxic chemicals in seafood production persist, highlighting the need for stricter regulations. Lean fish like cod and salmon are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals, making them a healthy addition to a balanced diet. Fatty fish like tuna are also known for their heart benefits, particularly DHA, which is essential for brain health. Aquaculture techniques have evolved to ensure sustainable farming practices, with a focus on reducing the environmental impact of fishing activity. Per capita consumption of seafood varies globally, with some countries consuming more than others. In conclusion, the seafood industry offers a rich source of protein and unique culinary experiences. However, it faces challenges related to price, ethics, and sustainability. Innovations in technology, product development, and farming practices are essential to meet the evolving demands of consumers while minimizing the impact on the environment. Table of Contents: 1 Executive Summary 2 Market Landscape 3 Market Sizing 4 Historic Market Size 5 Five Forces Analysis 6 Market Segmentation Type Fish Crustacean Mollusca Others Distribution Channel Offline Online Geography APAC North America South America Europe Middle East And Africa 7 Customer Landscape 8 Geographic Landscape 9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 10 Company Landscape 11 Company Analysis 12 Appendix About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. Contacts Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media & Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 Email: [email protected] Website: www.technavio.com/ SOURCE Technavio

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– Increased or Maintained Dividend for Over 30 Consecutive Years – GREAT NECK, N.Y., Dec. 12, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- One Liberty Properties, Inc. (NYSE: OLP) today announced that its Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend on the Company’s common stock of $0.45 per share. The dividend is payable on January 6, 2025 to stockholders of record at the close of business on December 23, 2024, and represents One Liberty’s 128 th consecutive quarterly dividend. One Liberty has increased or maintained its dividend for over 30 consecutive years. About One Liberty Properties, Inc: One Liberty is a self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust incorporated in Maryland in 1982. The Company acquires, owns and manages a geographically diversified portfolio consisting primarily of industrial properties. Many of these properties are subject to long-term net leases under which the tenant is typically responsible for real estate taxes, insurance and ordinary maintenance and repairs. Additional financial and descriptive information on One Liberty, its operations and its portfolio, is available on its website at: http://1liberty.com. Interested parties are encouraged to review One Liberty’s Annual Report on Form 10-K and the other reports it files with the Securities and Exchange Commission for additional information. Contact: One Liberty Properties Investor Relations Phone: (516) 466-3100 http://1liberty.com

Scoop: Trump likely to tap loyalist Kash Patel for top FBI or DOJ postDictionary.com Names "Demure" as the 2024 Word of the Year

Leader’s foreign policy advisor reaffirms unwavering support for Resistance AxisNoneBiden welcomed 2,500 guests to the South Lawn under sunny skies as he cracked jokes about the fates of “Peach” and “Blossom” and sounded wistful tones about the last weeks of his presidency after a half-century in Washington power circles. “It’s been the honor of my life. I’m forever grateful,” Biden said, taking note of his impending departure on Jan. 20, 2025. That's when power will transfer to Republican President-elect Donald Trump, the man Biden defeated four years ago and was battling again until he was pressured to bow out of the race amid concerns about his age and viability. Biden is 82. Until Inauguration Day, the president and first lady Jill Biden will continue a busy run of festivities that will double as their long goodbye. The White House schedule in December is replete with holiday parties for various constituencies, from West Wing staff to members of Congress and the White House press corps. Biden relished the brief ceremony with the pardoned turkeys, named for the official flower of the president's home state of Delaware. “The peach pie in my state is one of my favorites,” he said during remarks that were occasionally interrupted by Peach gobbling atop the table to Biden's right. “Peach is making a last-minute plea,” Biden said at one point, drawing laughter from an overflow crowd that included Cabinet members, White House staff and their families, and students from 4H programs and Future Farmers of America chapters. Biden introduced Peach as a bird who “lives by the motto, ‘Keep calm and gobble on.’” Blossom, the president said, has a different motto: “No fowl play. Just Minnesota nice.” Peach and Blossom came from the farm of John Zimmerman, near the southern Minnesota city of Northfield. Zimmerman, who has raised about 4 million turkeys, is president of the National Turkey Federation, the group that has gifted U.S. presidents Thanksgiving turkeys since the Truman administration after World War II. President Harry Truman, however, preferred to eat the birds. Official pardon ceremonies did not become an annual White House tradition until the administration of President George H.W. Bush in 1989. With their presidential reprieve, Peach and Blossom will live out their days at Farmamerica, an agriculture interpretative center near Waseca in southern Minnesota. The center's aim is to promote agriculture and educate future farmers and others about agriculture in America. Separately Monday, first lady Jill Biden received the official White House Christmas tree that will be decorated and put on display in the Blue Room. The 18.5 foot (5.64 meters) Fraser fir came from a farm in an area of western North Carolina that recently was devastated by Hurricane Helene . Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm lost thousands of trees in the storm “but this one remained standing and they named it ‘Tremendous’ for the extraordinary hope that it represents,” Jill Biden said at the event. The Bidens were also traveling to New York City on Monday for an evening “Friendsgiving” event at a Coast Guard station on Staten Island. Biden began his valedictory calendar Friday night with a gala for hundreds of his friends, supporters and staff members who gathered in a pavilion erected on the South Lawn, with a view out to the Lincoln Memorial. Cabinet secretaries, Democratic donors and his longest-serving staff members came together to hear from the president and pay tribute, with no evidence that Biden was effectively forced from the Democratic ticket this summer and watched Vice President Kamala Harris suffer defeat on Nov. 5. “I’m so proud that we’ve done all of this with a deep belief in the core values of America,” said Biden, sporting a tuxedo for the black-tie event. Setting aside his criticisms of Trump as a fundamental threat to democracy, Biden added his characteristic national cheerleading: “I fully believe that America is better positioned to lead the world today than at any point in my 50 years of public service.” The first lady toasted her husband with a nod to his 2020 campaign promise to “restore the soul of the nation,” in Trump’s aftermath. With the results on Election Day, however, Biden’s four years now become sandwiched in the middle of an era dominated by Trump's presence on the national stage and in the White House. Even as the first couple avoided the context surrounding the president's coming exit, those political realities were nonetheless apparent, as younger Democrats like Maryland Gov. Wes Moore , Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Biden's Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg not only raised their glasses to the president but held forth with many attendees who could remain in the party's power circles in the 2028 election cycle and beyond.

Dem Who Scolded Party For Trans Issue Voted Against Protecting Girls’ Sports Last Year

Darius Tahir | (TNS) KFF Health News President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to run the sprawling government agency that administers Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act marketplace — celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz — recently held broad investments in health care, tech, and food companies that would pose significant conflicts of interest. Oz’s holdings, some shared with family, included a stake in UnitedHealth Group worth as much as $600,000, as well as shares of pharmaceutical firms and tech companies with business in the health care sector, such as Amazon. Collectively, Oz’s investments total tens of millions of dollars, according to financial disclosures he filed during his failed 2022 run for a Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat. Trump said Tuesday he would nominate Oz as administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The agency’s scope is huge: CMS oversees coverage for more than 160 million Americans, nearly half the population. Medicare alone accounts for approximately $1 trillion in annual spending, with over 67 million enrollees. UnitedHealth Group is one of the largest health care companies in the nation and arguably the most important business partner of CMS, through which it is the leading provider of commercial health plans available to Medicare beneficiaries. UnitedHealth also offers managed-care plans under Medicaid, the joint state-federal program for low-income people, and sells plans on government-run marketplaces set up via the Affordable Care Act. Oz also had smaller stakes in CVS Health, which now includes the insurer Aetna, and in the insurer Cigna. It’s not clear if Oz, a heart surgeon by training, still holds investments in health care companies, or if he would divest his shares or otherwise seek to mitigate conflicts of interest should he be confirmed by the Senate. Reached by phone on Wednesday, he said he was in a Zoom meeting and declined to comment. An assistant did not reply to an email message with detailed questions. “It’s obvious that over the years he’s cultivated an interest in the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance industry,” said Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a watchdog group. “That raises a question of whether he can be trusted to act on behalf of the American people.” (The publisher of KFF Health News, David Rousseau, is on the CSPI board .) Oz used his TikTok page on multiple occasions in November to praise Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including their efforts to take on the “illness-industrial complex,” and he slammed “so-called experts like the big medical societies” for dishing out what he called bad nutritional advice. Oz’s positions on health policy have been chameleonic; in 2010, he cut an ad urging Californians to sign up for insurance under President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, telling viewers they had a “historic opportunity.” Oz’s 2022 financial disclosures show that the television star invested a substantial part of his wealth in health care and food firms. Were he confirmed to run CMS, his job would involve interacting with giants of the industry that have contributed to his wealth. Given the breadth of his investments, it would be difficult for Oz to recuse himself from matters affecting his assets, if he still holds them. “He could spend his time in a rocking chair” if that happened, Lurie said. In the past, nominees for government positions with similar potential conflicts of interest have chosen to sell the assets or otherwise divest themselves. For instance, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Attorney General Merrick Garland agreed to divest their holdings in relevant, publicly traded companies when they joined the Biden administration. Trump, however, declined in his first term to relinquish control of his own companies and other assets while in office, and he isn’t expected to do so in his second term. He has not publicly indicated concern about his subordinates’ financial holdings. CMS’ main job is to administer Medicare. About half of new enrollees now choose Medicare Advantage, in which commercial insurers provide their health coverage, instead of the traditional, government-run program, according to an analysis from KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News. Proponents of Medicare Advantage say the private plans offer more compelling services than the government and better manage the costs of care. Critics note that Medicare Advantage plans have a long history of costing taxpayers more than the traditional program. UnitedHealth, CVS, and Cigna are all substantial players in the Medicare Advantage market. It’s not always a good relationship with the government. The Department of Justice filed a 2017 complaint against UnitedHealth alleging the company used false information to inflate charges to the government. The case is ongoing. Oz is an enthusiastic proponent of Medicare Advantage. In 2020, he proposed offering Medicare Advantage to all; during his Senate run, he offered a more general pledge to expand those plans. After Trump announced Oz’s nomination for CMS, Jeffrey Singer, a senior fellow at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, said he was “uncertain about Dr. Oz’s familiarity with health care financing and economics.” Singer said Oz’s Medicare Advantage proposal could require large new taxes — perhaps a 20% payroll tax — to implement. Oz has gotten a mixed reception from elsewhere in Washington. Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, the Democrat who defeated Oz in 2022, signaled he’d potentially support his appointment to CMS. “If Dr. Oz is about protecting and preserving Medicare and Medicaid, I’m voting for the dude,” he said on the social platform X. Oz’s investments in companies doing business with the federal government don’t end with big insurers. He and his family also hold hospital stocks, according to his 2022 disclosure, as well as a stake in Amazon worth as much as nearly $2.4 million. (Candidates for federal office are required to disclose a broad range of values for their holdings, not a specific figure.) Amazon operates an internet pharmacy, and the company announced in June that its subscription service is available to Medicare enrollees. It also owns a primary care service , One Medical, that accepts Medicare and “select” Medicare Advantage plans. Oz was also directly invested in several large pharmaceutical companies and, through investments in venture capital funds, indirectly invested in other biotech and vaccine firms. Big Pharma has been a frequent target of criticism and sometimes conspiracy theories from Trump and his allies. Kennedy, whom Trump has said he’ll nominate to be Health and Human Services secretary, is a longtime anti-vaccine activist. During the Biden administration, Congress gave Medicare authority to negotiate with drug companies over their prices. CMS initially selected 10 drugs. Those drugs collectively accounted for $50.5 billion in spending between June 1, 2022, and May 31, 2023, under Medicare’s Part D prescription drug benefit. At least four of those 10 medications are manufactured by companies in which Oz held stock, worth as much as about $50,000. Related Articles National Politics | The rising price of paying the national debt is a risk for Trump’s promises on growth and inflation National Politics | After Trump’s Project 2025 denials, he is tapping its authors and influencers for key roles National Politics | Republicans push back against Democrats’ claims that Trump intelligence pick Gabbard is compromised National Politics | Trump 2.0 has a Cabinet and executive branch of different ideas and eclectic personalities National Politics | Senators took down one Trump Cabinet pick. But the fight over their authority is just beginning Oz may gain or lose financially from other Trump administration proposals. For example, as of 2022, Oz held investments worth as much as $6 million in fertility treatment providers. To counter fears that politicians who oppose abortion would ban in vitro fertilization, Trump floated during his campaign making in vitro fertilization treatment free. It’s unclear whether the government would pay for the services. In his TikTok videos from earlier in November, Oz echoed attacks on the food industry by Kennedy and other figures in his “Make America Healthy Again” movement. They blame processed foods and underregulation of the industry for the poor health of many Americans, concerns shared by many Democrats and more mainstream experts. But in 2022, Oz owned stakes worth as much as $80,000 in Domino’s Pizza, Pepsi, and US Foods, as well as more substantial investments in other parts of the food chain, including cattle; Oz reported investments worth as much as $5.5 million in a farm and livestock, as well as a stake in a dairy-free milk startup. He was also indirectly invested in the restaurant chain Epic Burger. One of his largest investments was in the Pennsylvania-based convenience store chain Wawa, which sells fast food and all manner of ultra-processed snacks. Oz and his wife reported a stake in the company, beloved by many Pennsylvanians, worth as much as $30 million. ©2024 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.In his first public words since a five-day search ended with his arrest at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania, Luigi Nicholas Mangione emerged from a patrol car shouting about an “insult to the intelligence of the American people” while deputies pushed him inside a courthouse. The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from a prominent Maryland real estate family is fighting attempts to extradite him to New York so that he can face a murder charge in the Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson , who led the United States’ largest medical insurance company. A law enforcement bulletin obtained by The Associated Press said that at the time of his arrest, Mangione was carrying a handwritten document expressing anger with what he called “parasitic” health insurance companies and a disdain for corporate greed and power. He wrote that the U.S. has the most expensive health care system in the world and that profits of major corporations continue to rise while “our life expectancy” does not, according to the bulletin. In social media posts, Mangione called “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski — who carried out a series of bombings while railing against modern society and technology — a “political revolutionary,” according to the police bulletin. Mangione remained jailed in Pennsylvania, where he was initially charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. Manhattan prosecutors were beginning to take steps to bring Mangione to New York, but at a brief hearing Tuesday, defense lawyer Thomas Dickey said his client will not waive extradition and instead wants a hearing on the issue. Mangione was denied bail after prosecutors said he was too dangerous to be released. He mostly stared straight ahead at the hearing, occasionally looking at papers, rocking in his chair or looking back at the gallery. At one point, he began to speak to respond to the court discussion but was quieted by his lawyer. “You can’t rush to judgment in this case or any case,” Dickey said afterward. “He’s presumed innocent. Let’s not forget that.” Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles west of New York City, after a McDonald’s customer recognized him and notified an employee, authorities said. Images of Mangione released Tuesday by Pennsylvania State Police showed him pulling down his mask in the corner of the McDonald’s while holding what appeared to be hash browns and wearing a winter jacket and beanie. In another photo from a holding cell, he stood unsmiling with rumpled hair. New York police officials have said Mangione was carrying a gun like the one used to kill Thompson and the same fake ID the shooter had used to check into a New York hostel, along with a passport and other fraudulent IDs. A law enforcement official who wasn’t authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity said a three-page, handwritten document found with Mangione included a line in which he claimed to have acted alone. “To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone,” the document said, according to the official. It also said, “I do apologize for any strife or traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.” Thompson, 50, was killed last Wednesday as he walked alone to a Manhattan hotel for an investor conference. From surveillance video, New York investigators determined the shooter quickly fled the city, likely by bus. Mangione was born into a life of country clubs and privilege. His grandfather was a self-made real estate developer and philanthropist. Valedictorian at his elite Baltimore prep school, he went on to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science in 2020 from the University of Pennsylvania, a spokesperson said. “Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest,” Mangione’s family said in a statement posted on social media late Monday by his cousin, Maryland Del. Nino Mangione. “We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved.” From January to June 2022, Luigi Mangione lived at Surfbreak, a “co-living” space at the edge of touristy Waikiki in Honolulu. Like other residents of the shared penthouse catering to remote workers, Mangione underwent a background check, said Josiah Ryan, a spokesperson for owner and founder R.J. Martin. “Luigi was just widely considered to be a great guy. There were no complaints,” Ryan said. “There was no sign that might point to these alleged crimes they’re saying he committed.” At Surfbreak, Martin learned Mangione had severe back pain from childhood that interfered with many aspects of his life, from surfing to romance, Ryan said. Mangione left Surfbreak to get surgery on the mainland, Ryan said, then later returned to Honolulu and rented an apartment. Martin stopped hearing from Mangione six months to a year ago.Pitcher Yusei Kikuchi and Los Angeles Angels agree to a $63 million, 3-year contract, AP source says A person familiar with the negotiations tells The Associated Press left-hander Yusei Kikuchi and the Los Angeles Angels have agreed to a $63 million, three-year contract. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal, first reported by the New York Post, was subject to a successful physical. An All-Star with Seattle in 2021, Kikuchi was 9-10 with a 4.05 ERA this year for Toronto and Houston, which acquired him on July 30. Kikuchi was 5-1 with a 2.70 ERA in 10 starts with the Astros. He is 41-47 with a 4.57 ERA in six seasons. Formula 1 expands grid to add General Motors' Cadillac brand and new American team for 2026 season LAS VEGAS (AP) — Formula 1 will expand the grid in 2026 to make room for an American team that is partnered with General Motors. The approval ends years of wrangling that launched a federal investigation into why Colorado-based Liberty Media, would not approve the team initially started by Michael Andretti, who has since stepped aside. The 11th team will be called Cadillac F1 and be run by new Andretti Global majority owners Dan Towriss and Mark Walter. The team will use Ferrari engines its first two years until GM has a Cadillac engine built for competition in time for the 2028 season. US goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher is retiring from international soccer U.S. women’s national team goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher is retiring from international soccer. Naeher is on the team’s roster for a pair of upcoming matches in Europe but those will be her last after a full 11 years playing for the United States. Naeher was on the U.S. team that won the Women’s World Cup in 2019 and the gold medal at this year's Olympics in France. She’s the only U.S. goalkeeper to earn a shutout in both a World Cup and an Olympic final. Judge rejects request to sideline a San Jose State volleyball player on grounds she’s transgender A judge has rejected a request to block a San Jose State women’s volleyball team member from playing in a conference tournament on grounds that she’s transgender. Monday’s ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Kato Crews in Denver will allow the player to continue competing in the Mountain West Conference women’s championship in Las Vegas this week. The ruling comes after a lawsuit was filed by nine current players who are suing the Mountain West Conference challenging the league’s policies for allowing transgender players to participate. The players argued that letting her compete was a safety risk and unfair. Conference title games a chance at a banner, bragging rights and, for some, a season-wrecking loss Indiana should be able to breathe easy. The Hoosiers have very little chance of making it to the Big Ten championship game. In the Southeastern Conference, Georgia has a spot in the league title game but with that comes a lot of worry. Conference title games give teams a chance to hang a banner, but for national title contenders it is an additional chance for a season-wrecking loss — even with an expanded 12-team College Football Playoff field. UCLA moves up to No. 1 in AP Top 25 women's basketball poll for first time in history UCLA has earned the school's first No. 1 ranking in in The Associated Press Top 25 women's basketball poll. The Bruins knocked off the previous top team, South Carolina, which had held the No. 1 spot for the previous 23 polls. UCLA moved up four spots. UConn remained No. 2. Notre Dame pulled off its own upset, beating then-No. 3 USC and moving up to third. South Carolina dropped to fourth, Texas is fifth and USC fell to sixth. Iowa is in the poll for the first time in the post-Caitlin Clark era, coming in at No. 22. Kansas stays at No. 1 ahead of showdown vs. No. 11 Duke; Ole Miss, Mississippi St back in AP Top 25 Kansas remained solidly entrenched at No. 1 in the AP Top 25 men’s college basketball poll ahead of its showdown with Duke in Las Vegas. The Jayhawks received 51 of 62 first-place votes from the national panel of media, putting them well ahead of two-time reigning national champion UConn, which was second with six first-place votes. Gonzaga was third with two first-place votes, Auburn was next with three, and Iowa State rounded out a top five that was unchanged from the previous week. Xavier, Ole Miss and Mississippi State entered the poll at the expense of Illinois, St. John's and Rutgers. Week 12 was filled with sloppy play, especially on special teams: Analysis Week 12 was filled with sloppy play around the NFL, leading to some upsets and surprising outcomes. Jayden Daniels nearly led Washington to an improbable comeback down 10 in the final two minutes against Dallas only to fall short because Austin Seibert’s extra point sailed wide left. After a field goal and successful onside kick, Daniels connected with Terry McLaurin on an 86-yard catch-and-run touchdown to bring the Commanders within one point with 21 seconds remaining. But Seibert’s point-after attempt failed and the Cowboys returned the ensuing onside kick for a touchdown to seal a 34-26 victory. Cavaliers' unexpected 17-1 start to season also produces unexpected star: reserve guard Ty Jerome CLEVELAND (AP) — The M-V-P chants weren't only directed at Cleveland All-Star Donvan Mitchell on Sunday night. As the Cavaliers were improving to 17-1 overall and 10-0 at home, reserve guard Ty Jerome heard them while shooting a free throw. The Cavs' unexpected start has produced an unexpected rising star in Jerome, who played in just two games last season because of a severe ankle injury. Jerome has scored 29 and 26 points, respectively, in his last two games. But he's been a marvel since the season began for first-year coach Kenny Atkinson, who is finding it hard to take him off the floor. Most drivers not named Joey Logano eager for some changes to NASCAR's current playoff format CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — It seems everyone outside of Joey Logano is eager to see to a change to the NASCAR playoff format. How to fix it remains up for debate. Logano won his third Cup Series championship earlier this month, igniting a new conversation on whether the current playoff format is the best way to determine a worthy champion. Logano wound up winning four races this season, but only had 13 top 10 finishes in 37 races and clearly didn’t have one of the best racecars this season. Some drivers like Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney feel that more emphasis should be placed on regular season success, ensuring that the top drivers are racing for a championship.

MALIBU, Calif. (AP) — The wildfire alert came in the middle of the night as some college students in Southern California were cramming for final exams and others were woken up in their dorms. But rather than run away from the impending blaze, some 3,000 students at Pepperdine University headed toward two buildings at the heart of the 830-acre (336 hectare) campus in coastal Malibu, California, to shelter in place. The protocol at the Christian university with picturesque views of the Pacific Ocean may seem to defy logic to those accustomed to scenes elsewhere in wildfire-prone California of thousands of residents evacuating fire zones in lengthy caravans of cars. For years, the university nestled in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains has had a special protocol due to its unique terrain and design that calls for students to be brought to a library and campus center where they can get food and water and have their basic needs met, said Michael Friel, a Pepperdine spokesperson. The school began preparing students and community members on what to do in case of a wildfire during new student orientation at the beginning of the academic year. When the fire broke out Monday night, school officials started communicating with students around 11 p.m. and activated the shelter-in-place protocol about two hours later, spreading the word through text messages, email, social media and by going door to door. “A lot of our students were woken up by a knock on the door, and we made sure they were aware of the conditions and we were able to get them out of harm’s way,” Friel said. The quickly moved south, jumping over the famous Pacific Coast Highway and stretching to the coast, where large homes line the beach. Thousands of Southern California residents were under evacuation orders and warnings Tuesday with more than 8,100 homes and other structures under threat. County fire officials estimated that more than 3.5 square miles (9 square kilometers) of trees and dry brush had burned amid dangerous conditions fanned by dry, gusty that were expected to last into Wednesday. The cause of the fire was not immediately known. Ryan Song, a resident assistant at Pepperdine University, said he noticed the power went out at his dorm late Monday. When he looked out the window, he saw a huge pink glow. “I thought, ‘This is too bright,’ and it got bigger and bigger,” the 20-year-old junior said. “I immediately went outside and saw that it was a real fire.” Song and the other assistants went door to door to get students out. Most were calm and followed instructions, he said; a few who were scared rushed to their cars to get off campus. Song said he spent the next few hours racing back and forth in the dark between his dorm and the main campus to ensure no one was left behind. Pepperdine University officials said the campus was designed in the 1960s with fire safety in mind due to the region’s experience with wildfires. Buildings were clustered together and covered in stucco while roadways were constructed to make it easy for firefighters to get in, said Phil Phillips, the school’s executive vice president. During the 1990s, campus officials worked with Los Angeles County fire authorities to develop a safety plan, and authorities said the safest option for students would be to remain on campus. The school is diligent about brush clearance and has a plan to reduce smoke in shelter-in-place locations by taping shut doors and using air filters, he said. The nearby stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway can also become congested during an emergency, Phillips said, such as during the deadly in 2018. “What you don’t want is to be stuck,” said Phillips, who has been at the campus for three decades — including as a student — and said he has been through seven fires. “Protecting our students, providing for their safety is a moral obligation for us, so we take it really, really seriously.” On Tuesday, heavy smoke from the Franklin Fire, burning northeast of the school, billowed over the campus 29 miles (47 kilometers) west of Los Angeles, and classes were cancelled and final exams postponed. Firefighters had not contained any part of the blaze as of Tuesday afternoon. The campus was singed but no injuries were reported, and only one structure possibly was minimally damaged thanks to firefighters’ hard work and collaboration from students, faculty and others on campus, Friel said. Jim Gash, the college’s president, said the campus was no longer threatened on Tuesday afternoon. “I am grateful that through prayer, preparation, and cooperation, our Pepperdine community safely navigated the challenges encountered over the last 12 hours,” Gash said in a statement. “Our prayers continue to go out to the Malibu community.” ___ Taxin reported from Santa Ana, Calif. Associated Press writer Julie Watson in San Diego contributed to this report.

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Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton recently scolded his party for supporting transgender athletes despite voting against legislation meant to protect girls sports in 2023. The representative told the New York Times just after the November election that he did not support boys playing in girls sports and bashed Democrats for leaning into the issue. In April of 2023, Moulton voted against the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act which sought to prevent males who identify as transgender from participating in female sports and activities under Title IX. “Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face,” Moulton said, according to the NYT. “I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.” Demonstrators listen to the speaking program during an “Our Bodies, Our Sports” rally for the 50th anniversary of Title IX at Freedom Plaza on June 23, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) Despite his new critiques of the left’s interest in identity politics, Moulton wasted no time bashing Republicans after the bill protecting women’s sports passed the House. “This bill is part of a broader Republican attack on the rights of transgender people—with detrimental consequences for children’s mental and physical health,” Moulton wrote in an April 2023 press release. “H.R. 734 adds to a dangerous and unfactual narrative that transgender girls are a threat to cisgender girls, which harms trans girls’ ability to socialize with peers, develop friendships, and maintain their mental health.” “As a father with two young daughters, I am committed to ensuring girls can enjoy equal and safe participation in athletic opportunities,” Moulton continued at the time. “Sport should provide a space for our daughters to develop self-efficacy, confidence, and community. But in the fight to uphold Title IX, we are wrong to single out transgender girls and contribute to discrimination and stigma against them.” Moulton claimed his position on the subject has not changed when asked about the contradiction. “I have nuanced views on these issues, and that’s exactly what we need,” Moulton told The Free Press. Many Democrats have since turned against Moulton over his recent comments, rallying in an effort to replace the congressman in office, according to Fox News. (RELATED: Court Blocks Law Banning Biological Men From Competing In Women’s Sports) “We’ve worked so hard at becoming tolerant that we’ve become intolerant,” Moulton said of his party, according to The Free Press. Moulton did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org .

Watch Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa's best throws from his 317-yard, 4-touchdown game vs. the New England Patriots during Week 12 of the 2024 NFL season.Tehran preparing for attack against Israel: Ayatollah Khamenei's aideKey issues driving China’s economic policy pivot

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Ruling may further delay count of Puerto Rico's still-uncertified votes in Nov. 5 electionsThings to watch this week in the Big 12 Conference: No. 14 BYU (9-1, 6-1 Big 12, No. 14 CFP) at No. 21 Arizona State (8-2, 5-2, No. 21), Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET (ESPN) League newcomer Arizona State has a three-game winning streak and BYU is coming off its first loss. The Cougars, after losing at home to Kansas, still control their own destiny in making the Big 12 championship game. They can clinch a spot in that Dec. 7 game as early as Saturday, if they win and instate rival Utah wins at home against No. 22 Iowa State. Arizona State was picked at the bottom of the 16-team league in the preseason media poll, but already has a five-win improvement in coach Kenny Dillingham's second season. No. 16 Colorado (8-2, 6-1, No. 16 CFP) at Kansas (4-6, 3-4), Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET (Fox) Coach Deion Sanders and the Buffaloes are in prime position to make the Big 12 title game in their return to the league after 13 seasons in the Pac-12. If BYU and Utah win, Colorado would be able to claim the other title game spot with a win over Kansas. The Buffs have a four-game winning streak. The Jayhawks need another November win over a ranked Big 12 contender while trying to get bowl eligible for the third season in a row. Kansas has won consecutive games over Top 25 teams for the first time in school history, knocking off Iowa State before BYU. Iowa State quarterback Rocco Becht has thrown a touchdown in a school-record 14 consecutive games, while receivers Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel both have more than 800 yards receiving. San Jose State is the only other FBS team with a pair of 800-yard receivers. Becht has 2,628 yards and 17 touchdowns passing for the Cyclones (8-2, 5-2), who are still in Big 12 contention. Oklahoma State goes into its home finale against Texas Tech with a seven-game losing streak, its longest since a nine-game skid from 1977-78. The only longer winless streak since was an 0-10-1 season in 1991. This is Mike Gundy's 20th season as head coach, and his longest losing streak before now was five in a row in 2005, his first season and the last time the Cowboys didn't make a bowl game. ... Baylor plays at Houston for the first time since 1995, the final Southwest Conference season. The Cougars won last year in the only meeting since to even the series 14-14-1. ... Eight Big 12 teams are bowl eligible. As many as six more teams could reach six wins. The Big 12 already has four 1,000-yard rushers, including three who did it last season. UCF's RJ Harvey is the league's top rusher (1,328 yards) and top scorer with 21 touchdowns (19 rushing/two receiving). The others with consecutive 1,000-yard seasons are Texas Tech career rushing leader Tahj Brooks (1,184 yards) and Kansas State's DJ Giddens (1,128 yards). Cam Skattebo with league newcomer Arizona State has 1,074 yards. Devin Neal, the career rushing leader at his hometown university, is 74 yards shy of being the first Kansas player with three 1,000-yard seasons. Cincinnati's Corey Kiner needs 97 yards to reach 1,000 again. Get local news delivered to your inbox!

by Shanthilal Nanayakkara Retired Principal Engineer, Digital Transition Division, Australian Communications and Media Authority A Japanese delegation recently announced the resumption of the previously stalled digital television project in Sri Lanka following a meeting with the newly-elected President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The commencement of the digitisation project is now imminent. Once terrestrial television transmissions are digitised in Sri Lanka, it will replace the old analogue terrestrial television forever. Therefore, it is critically important that the final outcome is better than the current analogue television, if not far superior. Setting such a goal prior to the implementation of the project is crucial for its fruitful completion. To achieve this outcome, deficiencies in the current parameters in the Japanese Digital Plans need to be revisited and appropriately addressed for the benefit of all stakeholders. Otherwise, as it stands today, there is a high potential for rural and regional viewers in Sri Lanka to miss out on the digital coverage. (This is further illustrated below). Such an unwarranted outcome could become a highly ‘politically sensitive’ issue for the new government . Why Digital In analogue transmissions, radio waves encounter several problems. When radio waves are subjected to multipath, ghosting images appear on television screen. They are also subjected to cancellation of their own signals and interference. Digital technology overcomes these analogue transmission weaknesses and, as a huge value addition, is able to carry more information than its analogue counterpart. As this capacity enhancement feature helps carry multiple programmes on one frequency or channel, digital television transmission technology is considered to be highly spectrum productive. Once analogue is switched off, the vacant spectrum that can be harnessed, commonly known as Digital Dividend (DD), becomes an income earner for the Government, as spare spectrum can be sold to Telcos for broadband internet use. Thus, this digitisation project is effectively a self-financing venture for the government and a win-win for all stakeholders. Stakeholder benefits of digital Many countries in the world have now moved or are in the process of moving to the digital domain. Irrespective of the digital television transmission standard adopted in Sri Lanka, benefits of a conversion from analogue to digital television are many for the majority of stakeholders. These are listed below against the various stakeholders: * Government – a significant income from selling the vacant spare spectrum to Telcos, following full conversion to digital, provided appropriate modifications are made to the JICA plan; * Broadcasters – increased television channels and scope for increase of advertising revenue; * Viewers – increased number of television channels to facilitate a wider selection of content, with True High Definition (True HD) quality and potential 5.1 Surround Sound; * Content providers – opportunity to produce a wide range of programmes that are in demand; * Production houses – larger revenue from vastly increased niche productions; * Creators of social media and other internet-based content – opportunities to develop novel visual and aural media content; * Electronic Manufacturing/Testing – opportunities to manufacture digital television receivers and set up a receiver harmonisation/compatibility centre; * Broadcast Towers (similar to Lotus Tower) – Opportunities to establish and operate consolidated broadcast towers in the country; * Telcos- opportunity to purchase superior vacant spectrum for future fixed and mobile broadband applications. Funding arrangements or self-financing The current funding arrangement for digitisation of television in Sri Lanka is a ‘soft loan’ from the Japanese government, and it is tied up in ‘one bundle’ with loans for other projects. This loan is also based on the premise that the deployment of the Japanese digital television standard, Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting-Terrestrial (ISDB-T) is mandatory. As the vacant spectrum can be sold after Analogue Switch Off (ASO), the venture could also be a self-financing project, albeit with bridging finance. Purpose of this essay The main purpose of this article is to suggest ways of optimising the benefits of the digitisation project while retaining the support of the Japanese government. If the bulk of problems for viewers and broadcasters can be removed by making appropriate adjustments to the current plans at a minimal cost, with broadcasters becoming willing participants, the digitisation of television in Sri Lanka would no doubt be a success for all stakeholders, including the new government. Otherwise, there is an urgent need to review the bi-lateral agreement that was signed previously. The broadcasting fraternity in Sri Lanka is fully aware that the Japanese system is not as efficient as the second generation European standard, Digital Video Broadcast-Terrestrial 2 (DVB-T2). Understanding Digital Simply put, digitisation of analogue vision and sound enables radio waves to carry more information within the same channel or bandwidth than in the analogue era. This allows producers of visual and aural content to be more creative than before. The technology also facilitates easy communication in both fixed and mobile environments and facilitates two-way communication more than in the analogue era. However, there are two main pitfalls that one needs to address in order to make the venture a success. They are as follows: Cliff effect (sudden loss of signal): – * to avoid the ‘cliff effect’ a robust signal (with higher reliability and availability at a receive location than in analogue era) is needed at the receiver to prevent momentary picture pixelation and/or sudden loss of signal; and * it is also necessary to ensure that all television digital services reaching viewer locations are of the same signal strength to ensure equity of services and therefore must originate from ONE location such as the Lotus Tower. * Absence of ‘graceful degradation’ and its effect on signal level – even with a degraded signal with ‘snowy pictures’, analogue signal is still watchable. It is not so with digital due to ‘cliff effect’. Therefore, there is a need to ensure that the digital coverage is the same or better than the existing watchable analogue coverage that is defined by a signal level of 43 dBuV/m in VHF Band III. This limit was adopted for digitisation in Australia. Deficiencies of the Japanese standard/plan In planning to deploy the ISDB-T system in our country, everyone should aim for a cost-beneficial outcome as it is of paramount importance to all stakeholders. There are several issues in the Japanese documentation of 2014/2018, which should be addressed to suit the needs of the public/consumers, broadcasters and government. They range from policy issues at the outset, technical areas during planning and management issues during the proposed phases of ASO and Digital Switch On (DSO). Spectrum for Digital: VHF/UHF issue In particular, the proposal to use only a part of the available broadcast spectrum has an impact on the eventual DD income for the Government. The Japanese have deployed both VHF and UHF spectrum in Brazil, strangely not offered to Sri Lanka. In that context, it is not clear why the Japanese team has not proposed a VHF and UHF combined solution as deployed in Brazil. This was pointed out by the writer when a Japanese team, including a senior Embassy official Sato Takefumi, met him in 2017 in Colombo to discuss Lotus Tower issues (after his disclosure in an article in The Island about the Lotus tower) and digitisation in general. Their response was ‘no one asked for it’. As it stands today in Sri Lanka, analogue television transmissions are based on frequencies using both VHF and UHF Bands, but the proposed Japanese digital conversion is not utilising the VHF Band. In particular, VHF Band III exhibits superior propagation characteristics, while contributing to lower the consumption of electricity by the transmitters. More importantly, VHF radio waves carry longer distances than UHF due to lower propagation losses, are able to travel around obstacles comparatively and therefore VHF is more suitable for wide coverage transmissions. Currently, the VHF spectrum is occupied by three television broadcasting networks i.e. Rupavahini, ITN and TNL. These networks will lose their inherent wide coverage VHF Band advantage. They also have the additional burden of occupying a digital channel in the UHF spectrum, especially when the earmarked UHF channels for digital are almost at the bottom of the UHF Band V, where propagation losses are higher than in UHF Band IV. ISDB-T New Coder H.265 It is a known fact that the Japanese ISDB-T standard, in payload capacity terms, is second to the second generation European Standard DVB-T2 that provides 45 Mb/s capacity. However, the Japanese standard can only carry about 1/2 of the European standard per channel at 23 Mb/s. But as the Japanese are now offering to change the content source coder to H.265, they will be able to provide HD at 1080P at a rate of 2-4 Mb/s. This change would now allow all HD TV ready broadcasters to provide True HD content at 1920 x 1080P and possibly can accommodate all television channels in Colombo. But the downside is that the receivers are going to be more complex with the new coder. This may then lead to more expensive ISDB-T receivers or STBs in Sri Lanka. Vacant VHF Band III The unused VHF Band III is likely to reduce the DD for the government though the Japanese strategy is to achieve some productivity by the use of single frequency networks in the UHF Band (SFNs-a technique to use the same frequency multiple times to improve spectrum productivity). However, in practice receiving of SFNs is not simplistic as the reception of SFN signals are subject to receiver complexities. The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) may be exclusively reserving the VHF band for future digital radio, but the same band could be co-shared with digital television without any problems. For example, Australia is co-sharing VHF Band III for both digital television and radio without any issues. Once all analogue transmissions are switched off with the deployment of UHF band per se for digital, the unused VHF Band III spectrum, where 7 MHz bandwidth, 8 VHF Frequency channels exists, will become vacant. This is clearly a waste of unused spectrum. Additionally, as Restacking [restack is the re-arrangement of frequencies ideally in the two bands of VHF and UHF, to maximise the spectrum productivity] is in the Japanese Plan, additional expenditure on broadcasting infrastructure is also on the cards. Where are the funds coming from? There is no mention of new funding arrangements for Restacking of the spectrum, and it also raises questions about the STB/Receiver specifications as frequencies may need to change after Restacking. If some broadcasters are not keen to use ISDB-T, they may canvass for the opportunity to use the vacant VHF Band for the potential deployment of DVB-T2 standard. This MUST be avoided at all costs! If this happens, there will be two digital systems in Sri Lanka. This issue, in particular, could become another potential headache for the government as it is likely to be under heavy pressure from commercial broadcasters to release the vacant VHF Band III for the more efficient DVB-T2. This issue, too, was pointed out by the writer when another Japanese team consisting of a Senior Engineer from Yacheo Engineering along with Sato Takefumi of the Japanese Embassy met him in 2017/2018. Unless there are plans to use the vacant VHF Band III by Restacking the spectrum, this spectrum specifically allocated for broadcasting would go to waste. Digital Signal Reliability & Availability Unlike in the analogue domain, television signal reliability and its availability becomes crucial in digital reception. In the analogue era, television broadcasting service field strength was planned for 50% of the locations and 50% of the time at a receiving height of 10 m. But in digital this becomes 80%-95% of the locations and 90% of the time to ensure reliability and availability of the digital signal. Hence the planned field strength would need to be adjusted to ensure the required reliability and availability at a higher field strength. In Australia, field strength used was 50 dBuV/m for Band IV and 54 dBuV/m for Band V frequencies in a rural environment However, it is not clear from the published documents of the Japanese plans 2014/2018 whether this issue had been addressed or otherwise. The signal level at 51 dBuV/m identified in the 2018 Japanese documentation is certainly not adequate for a rural grade of service in the UHF Band! It ought to be in the region of 54-74 dBuV/m in the UHF Band V. For example, the Australian Broadcasting Planning Handbook for Digital Television Broadcasting has clearly identified these requirements and provided information on how they were derived. Duplication Parameter The potential impact of the proposals for duplication of coverage is illustrated in the diagram. (See Figure 01) The signal threshold of a planned analogue coverage is 50 dBuV/m for VHF Band III. However, some regional and rural viewers in Sri Lanka are currently receiving watchable analogue signals well below this value. If, as planned by the Japanese studies in 2014, the analogue coverage is converted at the planned cut-off level of 55 dBuV/m, then the majority of regional and rural viewers, who are currently watching the analogue television with no issues, will not be able to receive digital television coverage. This could potentially become a political nightmare for the new government. Therefore, the cut-off signal level, as illustrated above, should be lowered to 43 dBuV/m. Though Single Frequency Networks (SFNs) are a solution to mitigate this difference in coverage, it is not easy to implement them at the receiver-end due to the variation in receiver profiles of Set-Top-Boxes (STBs) and complexities in receiver SFN signal detection. The Japanese designers, while being aware of this issue, may have been heavily constrained due to the requirement for spectrum productivity. Most probably, given the limits of the available UHF spectrum for digital and the lower data efficacy of the Japanese ISDB-T standard, this higher limit of duplication may have been proposed by the designers in order to preserve some spectrum productivity. One Network Operator for Digital The advent of digital terrestrial television also signifies the end of individual transmission facilities for broadcasters, as several content feeds are carried on one frequency or the channel and the requirement to consolidate all transmissions at one site. A combined digital transmission service provider may, in the future, be an independent entity and the facilities may be offered to the broadcasters on a fee-levying basis, based on a pragmatic business plan. In a future digital broadcasting landscape, the broadcasters will essentially be ‘content’ providers. Perhaps, there ought to be some sort of protection provided to the existing broadcasters in the event new content providers also express a desire to use digital transmissions. Cost to viewers and broadcasters All consumer television sets require digital receivers to extract video and audio content from digital transmissions. Therefore, either in-built ISDB-T receivers or compatible STBs are required. For example, there are flat TVs that do not have in-built ISDB-T receivers. The cost of an STB for ISDB-T with H.265 decoders, is likely to be around US $ 50-100, depending on their complexity and economies of scale. If in the event, there is likely to be a Restack of frequencies including the VHF Band, two band STBs or receivers may be needed; one during the first phase and another after the Restack of channels with the ability to tune into the VHF Band. Additionally, at some household locations, there may also be a requirement for new receiver antenna installation to receive VHF/UHF channels. If so, this is also an additional cost to the viewer. There is also a significant cost to the commercial television broadcasters to provide HD ready studios, Outside Broadcast (OB)/Electronic News Gathering (ENG) equipment, and content feeding arrangements. However, once the commercial television broadcasters elect to use consolidated broadcast towers, analogue era transmission costs would also disappear as their independent transmission networks are no longer needed, in a digital environment. It is noteworthy to highlight that the Japanese financial proposal for digitisation of television is primarily for Rupavahini, and limited to funding the analogue to digital transfer of Rupavahini facilities, including the provision of a True HD studio, OB unit, Transmission equipment and a Central Command centre for the proposed Digital Broadcast Network Operations (DBNO) at the Lotus Tower. At this stage, there are no signs of any discussions with the broadcasters to develop a ‘road map’ to facilitate the smooth transition from analogue to digital of commercial channels. If Restack is to take place, there is likely to be additional costs but there is no mention of further Japanese funding for Restack of channels either. As additional costs to the commercial television broadcasters are likely, strategic government policy initiatives to compensate for the additional capital expenditure in a highly competitive market are in order. Way forward It is heartening to note that the Japanese plan has now incorporated the more efficient coder in H.265 with an intention to maximise the use of limited payload capacity of an ISDB-T channel, which then will result in providing True HD transmission (1920 x 1080P) for ALL licensed television channels in Colombo. If Japanese consultants can pay attention to the issues of using VHF Band III, changing receiving the field strength requirements to that of the ITU signal level requirements for UHF and address the duplication parameter issue, then ALL stakeholders including the government and broadcasters will no doubt look forward to the venture of digitisation of television in Sri Lanka.A chorus of support is growing behind actress Blake Lively after she filed a complaint alleging sexual harassment and a smear campaign against "It Ends With Us" co-star Justin Baldoni. Actress Amber Heard on Monday became the latest celebrity to speak out on behalf of the "Gossip Girl" alum over what she says was a coordinated social media effort to tarnish her name. Over the weekend, Lively filed a complaint claiming that Baldoni and a lead producer had behaved unacceptably during the filming of box office hit "It Ends With Us." The allegations included that Baldoni -- who also directed the film -- had spoken inappropriately about his sex life, and had sought to alter the film to include sex scenes that were not in the script and had not been agreed to. They also detailed how lead producer Jamey Heath had watched Lively while she was topless, despite having been asked to turn away. But the complaint goes into great detail -- including with texts and emails -- on a PR campaign to wreck her reputation and to divert attention from any public comments she might make about the men's alleged misbehavior. This was "a carefully crafted, coordinated, and resourced retaliatory scheme to silence her, and others from speaking out about the hostile environment that Mr Baldoni and Mr Heath created," the complaint says. It includes allegations that the two men hired a crisis PR team that amplified or planted negative stories about Lively on social media platforms. "You know we can bury anyone," Melissa Nathan, a member of the team, is alleged to have said, according to messages contained in the complaint. Heard's ex-husband Johnny Depp hired the same PR team during the high-profile defamation trial between the couple in 2022, in which a jury unanimously found that Heard defamed Depp over allegations he abused her. "Social media is the absolute personification of the classic saying 'A lie travels halfway around the world before truth can get its boots on,'" Heard said in a statement carried by NBC News. "I saw this firsthand and up close. It's as horrifying as it is destructive." Heard's support came on the heels of a joint statement by America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn and Alexis Bledel, who starred with Lively in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants." "As Blake's friends and sisters for over 20 years, we stand with her in solidarity as she fights back against the reported campaign waged to destroy her reputation," they wrote on Instagram. "Throughout the filming of 'It Ends with Us', we saw her summon the courage to ask for a safe workplace for herself and colleagues on set, and we are appalled to read the evidence of a premeditated and vindictive effort that ensued to discredit her voice." A lawyer for Wayfarer, the studio behind the film, said in a statement released to the New York Times that neither the studio, its executives, nor its PR team did anything to retaliate against Lively. "These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media," lawyer Bryan Freedman wrote. The complaint was lodged with the California Civil Rights Department, and is a precursor to a lawsuit. Major Hollywood talent agency WME -- which represents Lively -- has reportedly dropped Baldoni as a client. hg/ahaMeghan Markle's decision to 'withdraw' from public life laid bare after failed projects

Support grows for Blake Lively over smear campaign claim

Stocks rose in afternoon trading on Wall Street Friday, keeping the market on track for its fifth gain in a row. The S&P 500 was up 0.3% and was solidly on track for a weekly gain that will erase most of last week's loss. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 352 points, or 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.1% as of 2:05 p.m. Eastern. Markets have been volatile over the last few weeks, losing ground in the runup to elections in November, then surging following Donald Trump's victory, before falling again. The S&P 500 has been steadily rising throughout this week to within close range of its record. “Overall, market behavior has normalized following an intense few weeks,” said Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide, in a statement. Several retailers jumped after giving Wall Street encouraging financial updates. Gap soared 10.8% after handily beating analysts' third-quarter earnings and revenue expectations, while raising its own revenue forecast for the year. Discount retailer Ross Stores rose 2.2% after raising its earnings forecast for the year. EchoStar fell 3.3% after DirecTV called off its purchase of that company's Dish Network unit. Smaller company stocks had some of the biggest gains. The Russell 2000 index rose 1.7%. A majority of stocks in the S&P 500 were gaining ground, but those gains were kept in check by slumps for several big technology companies. Nvidia fell 3.2%. Its pricey valuation makes it among the heaviest influences on whether the broader market gains or loses ground. The company has grown into a nearly $3.6 trillion behemoth because of demand for its chips used in artificial-intelligence technology. Intuit, which makes TurboTax and other accounting software, fell 5.6%. It gave investors a quarterly earnings forecast that fell short of analysts’ expectations. Facebook owner Meta Platforms fell 0.8% following a decision by the Supreme Court to allow a multibillion-dollar class action investors’ lawsuit to proceed against the company. It stems from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm. European markets were mostly higher and Asian markets ended mixed. Crude oil prices rose. Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.40% from 4.42% late Thursday. In the crypto market, Bitcoin hovered around $99,000, according to CoinDesk. It has more than doubled this year and first surpassed the $99,000 level on Thursday. Retailers remained a big focus for investors this week amid close scrutiny on consumer spending habits headed into the holiday shopping season. Walmart, the nation's largest retailer, reported a quarter of strong sales and gave investors an encouraging financial forecast. Target, though, reported weaker earnings than analysts' expected and its forecast disappointed Wall Street. Consumer spending has fueled economic growth, despite a persistent squeeze from inflation and high borrowing costs. Inflation has been easing and the Federal Reserve has started trimming its benchmark interest rates. That is likely to help relieve pressure on consumers, but any major shift in spending could prompt the Fed to reassess its path ahead on interest rates. Also, any big reversals on the rate of inflation could curtail spending. Consumer sentiment remains strong, according to the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index. It revised its latest figure for November to 71.8 from an initial reading of 73 earlier this month, though economists expected a slight increase. It's still up from 70.5 in October. The survey also showed that consumers' inflation expectations for the year ahead fell slightly to 2.6%, which is the lowest reading since December of 2020. Wall Street will get another update on how consumers feel when the business group The Conference Board releases its monthly consumer confidence survey on Tuesday. A key inflation update will come on Wednesday when the U.S. releases its October personal consumption expenditures index. The PCE is the Fed's preferred measure of inflation and this will be the last PCE reading prior to the central bank's meeting in December.Not only was he one of the best players on the roster for the Los Angeles Dodgers during their World Series run, but Kiké Hernández is also a fan favorite. From his play and heroics on the field, to his passion for the game, to his hilarious post-game interviews, Kiké is a player that fans want to see retained by the Dodgers. He, along with Teoscar Hernández and Blake Treinen are likely candidates to get re-signed, but nothing is a certainty. This most likely means nothing, perhaps (and hopefully) just boredom, but Hernández just posted this to his Instagram story . Kiké Hernández Cryptic Post Signal To Los Angeles Dodgers ? If Hernández were to sign with a team other than the Dodgers, there are two teams that would break the hearts of fans: the San Francisco Giants and the Houston Astros. The 33-year-old utility man was drafted by the Astros in 2014, so perhaps he is just paying homage to the team that started his career. Or has he been in talks with the ‘Stros and contemplating a return to where it began? Also Read: Insider Gives Promising Los Angeles Dodgers Update On Roki Sasaki Or maybe he is trying to push Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman to get a deal done ASAP. Either way, we stand with everyone in hoping Hernández does not sign with the Houston Astros. This article first appeared on LAFB Network and was syndicated with permission.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The right frame can freeze a moment in time, creating meaning for the masses from a fist pump over a bloodied ear , a bridge crumbled by a ship , towns shredded by nature , and a victory sealed with an on-field kiss . In 2024, photographers across the U.S. captured glimpses of humanity, ranging from a deeply divisive presidential election , to hurricanes and fires that ravaged communities, to campus protests over the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The gallery from The Associated Press illustrates a new chapter of political history — the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump , the moment President Joe Biden announced he would no longer run again , the campaign sprint by Vice President Kamala Harris in Biden’s place, and the raw emotion from voters during a grueling contest ultimately won by Trump . Related Articles Hurricanes whipped through the country with devastating imagery, leaving a path of wreckage and death from Florida to Appalachia . After Hurricane Helene , Lake Lure in North Carolina was shown in a jarring photo covered in shards of debris thick enough to hide the surface of the water. Hurricane Milton ripped apart the roof of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, home to Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays. The scale of destruction experienced in some corners of the country in 2024 was hard to capture and might have been harder to fathom. That was the case when a container ship slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, causing it to collapse and crumple around the vessel, killing construction workers on the bridge. As flames torched the landscape in California , another image captured firefighters and sheriff’s deputies pushing a vintage car away from a burning home. Elsewhere in California , one photo is aglow with bright orange flames, broken up only by the subtle features of an animal running through them. But hope also persevered in the face of devastation. In Helene’s aftermath , an image from Crystal River, Florida, shows Dustin Holmes holding hands with his girlfriend, Hailey Morgan, as they sloshed through floodwaters with her 4- and 7-year-old children to return to their flooded home. And in Manasota Key, Florida, a family was lit up by the glow of flashlights as they walked to check on their home damaged by Milton. Other photos from 2024 also grabbed the darkness and shadows to emphasize light: among them, a rocket liftoff and a total solar eclipse . And, yes, eclipse glasses were back in style for a shared moment of skygazing. But many other photos delivered a blast of color, from the spectrum of the northern lights across a Maine sky to a crew of workers wading into the deep-red of a Massachusetts cranberry bog . And, once again, Taylor Swift captured the country’s attention, even as a part of the crowd. She rushed down from the stands to kiss her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, after the Chiefs won the AFC Championship , en route to another Super Bowl win.

Danica McKellar is no stranger to Christmas films and has watched as the genre’s popularity continues to rise in recent years. “More than an escape, it provides a reminder of what human nature can be,” she said. “We need that. We need that reminder. We need, yes, the feeling of comfort, but also ideas for how to move forward in a wholesome, earnest kind of way.” McKellar stars in the upcoming film “A Cinderella Christmas Ball,” which follows her character’s search for her birth father. Similarly, she explained that while the characters in the Christmas movies may not appear especially dramatic, they are always dealing with genuine struggles. “It’s painful, it’s scary, but what you see is a character in earnest really doing her best, pushing through and trying to make good choices along the way,” she said of her character. “So that’s what we can model for people in the midst of just giving them, yes, comfort food around the holiday season, which it’s important to feel those warm and fuzzy feelings around the holidays.” The actress has starred in Christmas movies since 2012, from “Love at the Christmas Table” to 2023’s “A Royal Date for Christmas.” However, McKellar says “A Cinderella Christmas Ball” holds much more meaning for her than the others. “It’s much harder than they show in the packages because it would bum people out to see how stressful it is,” McKellar told host Cheryl Burke of the “Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans” podcast. “It just wouldn’t be as fun anymore for people.” “Failure was not an option,” she added. “So I put an enormous amount of pressure on myself to try and fulfill it, and it broke me. I was in tears because I didn’t know how to handle that kind of pressure.” While the actress loves dancing, being in the competition show complicated her relationship with the sport. “I remember telling somebody it was like if you love chocolate and somebody puts you in a vat of chocolate and then holds your head under it,” she explained. “That’s what ‘Dancing with the Stars’ is like. And every now and then, you get a breath. It’s unrelenting.” Born on Jan. 3, 1975, in La Jolla, California, McKellar launched her acting career when she got the role of Gwendolyn “Winnie” Cooper on ABC’s hit coming-of-age series “The Wonder Years.” The show premiered in 1988 and ran for six seasons until ending in 1993. McKellar has also starred in a number of Hallmark films, including 2015’s “Crown for Christmas,” 2017’s “Campfire Kiss,” 2018’s “Love in Design,” and 2020’s “Christmas She Wrote.” The actress married Scott Sveslosky in 2014 and celebrated their 10-year anniversary this month. “Ten years has flown by, and I feel like the luckiest woman on the planet! Happy 10 year anniversary, my love!” she added. McKellar’s latest project, “A Cinderella Christmas Ball,” premieres Nov. 29.AP News Summary at 2:51 p.m. ESTNoneThe national consumer watchdog is taking online travel booking website Webjet to over allegations it misled customers and breached consumer law. or signup to continue reading The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission alleges Webjet advertised minimum airfares but failed to disclose compulsory service and booking fees. It will also allege Webjet took payments for flights and sent customers confirmation emails, but had not booked the flights with the airline. ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said she was very concerned about the conduct. The pricing claims relate to Webjet's marketing on social media, emails and its app about minimum airfares to domestic and international destinations. Webjet advertised "flights from $x", however the quoted price did not include the Webjet servicing fee or booking price guarantee fee, which ranged from $34.90 to $54.90 per booking, the ACCC alleges. Among the examples were airfares to London advertised as "Flights from $1398* return". The statements were made between November 2018 to November 2023, the ACCC said. The ACCC alleges the additional fees were not disclosed on social media. It said while the information was available on the Webject app and website, it was not prominent and was written in fine print. Ms Cass-Gottlieb said the conduct came at a time when consumers were carefully . "A statement about the lowest price must be a true minimum price, not a price subject to further fees and charges before a booking can be made," she said. The ACCC will also allege Webjet breached consumer law by taking payment from customers but not booking the flight with the respective airline. Customers allegedly received a confirmation email after paying, but were then asked for an additional payment before Webjet would complete the booking, or were offered a refund instead. This conduct occurred across 382 bookings between at least November 2018 and June 2024, the ACCC alleges. The watchdog said customers may have made other travel arrangements having paid for their flight and receiving confirmation from Webjet. They may have had to choose between paying more money or cancelling other travel plans at a potential loss, the ACCC said. "We are very concerned about this alleged conduct by Webjet, which represented to consumers that their flight booking had been confirmed and left some consumers in the position of having to pay more to later complete the booking," Ms Cass-Gottlieb said. Through the Federal Court action, the ACCC is seeking penalties, declarations, injunctions, consumer redress, costs and other orders. Brittney is part of the federal political bureau, covering politics, the public service and economics. Brittney joined The Canberra Times in 2021 and was previously the property reporter. Got a news tip? Get in touch: brittney.levinson@canberratimes.com.au Brittney is part of the federal political bureau, covering politics, the public service and economics. Brittney joined The Canberra Times in 2021 and was previously the property reporter. Got a news tip? Get in touch: brittney.levinson@canberratimes.com.au DAILY Today's top stories curated by our news team. 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Robot reality check: Crewed warplanes will remain vital for years, Air Force official saysIrish General Election 2024: A look at the major parties ahead of polling on Friday

In a startling incident on Saturday, Delhi Police detained a bus marshal accused of throwing a liquid, purportedly water, on Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The incident occurred during Kejriwal's padyatra in the Greater Kailash area of Delhi. Authorities reported that the alleged perpetrator, Ashok Jha, attempted to douse Kejriwal while he interacted with the crowd. His attempt, however, was thwarted by the police stationed nearby. Jha, identified as a bus marshal at Khanpur Depot, is currently under investigation to determine the motives behind the act. The event has intensified political tensions, with Delhi Chief Minister Atishi alleging that the attacker is affiliated with the BJP, insinuating political intimidation ahead of elections. Punjab's CM Bhagwant Mann condemned the attack, describing it as a result of BJP's frustration over electoral prospects. Meanwhile, Congress leader Udit Raj expressed skepticism about the nature of the incident, while accentuating the dissatisfaction among the public towards political leaders. Kejriwal, having recently visited the grieving family of a murder victim, further criticized the city's deteriorating safety conditions, directing questions towards Home Minister Amit Shah. (With inputs from agencies.)The Onion's bid to buy Infowars goes before judge as Alex Jones tries stopping saleReport: FSU to hire Guz Malzahn as offensive coordinator - Tomahawk NationNone

New York: At the fruit stand where he works on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Shah Alam sells dozens of bananas a day at 35 cents apiece, or four for $US1. He does a brisk business in cheap fruit outside Sotheby’s auction house; inside, art can sell for millions. But last Wednesday, Alam sold a banana that a short time later would be auctioned as part of a work of absurdist art, won by a cryptocurrency entrepreneur for $US5.2 million plus more than $US1 million in auction house fees ($9.5 million in total). A fruit stand in front of Sotheby’s in Manhattan, where a banana that became part of a $US5.2 million piece of art was sold. Credit: Amir Hamja/The New York Times A few days after the sale, as Alam stood in the rain on York Avenue and East 72nd Street, snapping bananas free of their bunches, he learned from a reporter what had become of the fruit: It had been duct-taped to a wall as part of a work by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, and sold to Justin Sun, the Chinese founder of a cryptocurrency platform. And when he was told the sale price, he began to cry. “I am a poor man,” Alam, 74, said, his voice breaking. “I have never had this kind of money; I have never seen this kind of money.” The infamous ‘Comedian’ by Maurizio Cattelan will be displayed at the 2023 Triennial. Credit: Eddie Jim The banana’s journey from fruit stand to artwork began in 2019, when Cattelan first exhibited the work at Art Basel Miami Beach, an international art fair. The conceptual piece of three editions, titled Comedian , is an implicit send-up of the absurdity of the art world, in keeping with Cattelan’s puckish oeuvre. It came with a detailed owner’s manual on just how to affix the banana with the tape, and permission to refresh it when it rots. (Cattelan bought the original bananas at a Miami grocery store, he has said in interviews.) Each edition sold in Miami for $US120,000 to $US150,000 and spurred unruly crowds: A performance artist at the exhibition ripped one off the wall, peeled the banana and ate it. Cattelan was delighted by the ensuing debate over what exactly constitutes art, and how it is valued. By last Wednesday, those questions of five years ago seemed quaint: Bidding for Lot No. 10 — Alam’s banana affixed to a wall with a slash of silver tape — started at $US800,000. Within five minutes, seven bidders drove its price above $US5 million. The artist was not compensated for the Sotheby’s sale, which was on behalf of a collector who has not been named, but he said in an email that he was nonetheless thrilled by the price it commanded. “Honestly, I feel fantastic,” Cattelan wrote. “The auction has turned what began as a statement in Basel into an even more absurd global spectacle.” He added: “In that way, the work becomes self-reflexive: The higher the price, the more it reinforces its original concept.” On social platform X, Sun crowed about his new art acquisition, and announced he now plans to eat it Friday. He was honoured, he wrote, to be the banana’s “proud owner”: “I believe this piece will inspire more thought and discussion in the future and will become a part of history.” Nowhere in that history is Alam. (Karina Sokolovsky, a spokesperson for Sotheby’s, confirmed that the banana was purchased from the cart where Alam works the day of the sale. The vendor himself has no specific recollection of selling an extra-special fruit.) A widower from Dhaka, Bangladesh, Alam was a civil servant before he moved to the United States in 2007 to be closer to one of his two children, a married daughter who lives on Long Island. He said his home is a basement apartment with five other men in Parkchester, in the Bronx. For his room he pays $US500 a month in rent, he said, speaking in Bengali. His fruit stand shifts are 12 hours long, four days a week; for each hour on his feet, in all weather, the owner pays him $US12. His English is limited mostly to the prices and names of his wares — apples, three for $US2; small pears, $US1 each. He has never stepped inside the auction house. He wouldn’t be able to see the art clearly anyway: His vision is deeply impaired, he said, because he needs cataract surgery, which he has scheduled for January. To Alam, the joke of Comedian feels at his expense. As a blur of people rushed by his corner a few days after the sale, shock and distress washed over him as he considered who profited — and who did not. “Those who bought it, what kind of people are they?” he asked. “Do they not know what a banana is?” In his email, Cattelan said he was affected by Alam’s reaction to his artwork, but stopped short of joining in his criticism. “The reaction of the banana vendor moves me deeply, underscoring how art can resonate in unexpected and profound ways,” he wrote. “However, art, by its nature, does not solve problems — if it did, it would be politics.” For Alam, not much has changed since his banana sold. At the fruit stand, it’s still four bananas for $US1, or 24.8 million bananas for $US6.2 million. This article originally appeared in The New York Times .Arne Slot was pleased to beat a Real Madrid team who have been a “pain in the ass” for Liverpool for several years but played down the significance of the 2-0 victory. After seven defeats and a draw – including losses in the 2018 and 2022 finals – the Reds gained their first success over their European nemesis since 2009 with goals from Alexis Mac Allister and Cody Gakpo. Liverpool top the Champions League with five wins from five and are on the verge of securing a place in the last 16 but Slot said the win would mean much more if it came in the knockout stages. “I wouldn’t say it is the same as any other one because you know how special it is to play against a club that won this Champions League so many times and are the reigning champions as well, dominated Europe for the last few years and were a pain in the ass for Liverpool many times as well,” he told TNT Sports. In his post-match press conference Slot added: “I think it is always good to win a game and especially a big game like this, you know you face so many quality players. “This is such a strange and different setup in the Champions League it is difficult to judge how important these wins are. “If we meet them in the last 16 and then we are able to beat them it would be a bigger statement.” Liverpool were well worth their long-awaited victory as they dominated throughout and kept generational talents Kylian Mbappe – who missed a penalty – and Jude Bellingham quite for almost the entire game. They could even afford for Mohamed Salah to miss a spot-kick of his own but it did not affect the outcome as Real were restricted to 37 per cent possession and just three shots on target. Asked whether his side were currently the best in Europe, Slot said: “The ones (players) here for a long time are almost used to playing a final, this team has always been there. “The last two years have maybe been different but it was only a few adjustments and we are only five games in in a new format. “We are happy where we are but not getting carried away by winning a group-stage game. This club wants more.” The only blemish on the night were injuries to Ibrahima Konate and the excellent 21-year-old Conor Bradley , who kept Mbappe quiet and then provided the assist for Mac Allister’s opener. “I know where they have pain but how bad or good it is difficult to judge so close after the game but this happens,” said Slot, who has four days to prepare his Premier League leaders for the visit of Manchester City. “I am really hoping both are available but if not someone else has to step up.” On the performance of Bradley, deputising for Trent Alexander-Arnold who was on the bench after returning from a hamstring injury, the Liverpool boss added: “Conor did very well but I am totally not surprised, he showed it last season and this as well.” Real manager Carlo Ancelotti accepted they were beaten by the better team. “I think that to be totally honest it is a fair result, Liverpool deserved to win,” he said. “I think Mbappe it is a difficult moment. We have to support him and give him our love, he will soon be fine. “It could be a lack of confidence maybe, sometimes maybe when you have moments when things aren’t working out, the idea is to keep things simple, don’t complicate life. “You don’t need to blame him for missing penalties, people miss penalties, it happens a lot.” A third group-stage defeat for the first time in the club’s history leaves them right on the cut line of 24th to progress to at least a play-off for the last 16 – but Ancelotti has no doubts. “This game today wasn’t a decisive game in terms of our league position,” he said. “It was always going to be tough to finish in the top eight, we have to make sure we are in the next 24 as high as we can and we will be there.”Berlin confirmed plans to reform its legal framework make it a clear criminal offence to “facilitate the smuggling of migrants to the UK” as part of the agreement, the Home Office said. The Home Office said the move would give German prosecutors more tools to tackle the supply and storage of dangerous small boats. Both countries will also commit to exchange information that may help to remove migrant-smuggling content from social media platforms and tackle end-to-end routes of criminal smuggling networks as part of the deal. It comes ahead of the UK and Germany hosting the so-called Calais Group in London, which sees ministers and police from the two countries, alongside France, Belgium and the Netherlands, gather to discuss migration in Europe. Delegates are expected to agree a detailed plan to tackle people-smuggling gangs in 2025 at the meeting on Tuesday. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “For too long organised criminal gangs have been exploiting vulnerable people, undermining border security in the UK and across Europe while putting thousands of lives at risk. “We are clear that this cannot go on. “Germany is already a key partner in our efforts to crack down on migrant smuggling, but there is always more we can do together. “Our new joint action plan with deliver a strengthened partnership with Germany, boosting our respective border security as we work to fix the foundations, and ultimately saving lives.” Nancy Faeser, German federal minister of the interior said: “We are now stepping up our joint action to fight the brutal activities of international smugglers. “This is at the core of our joint action plan that we have agreed in London. “I am very grateful to my British counterpart Yvette Cooper that we were able to reach this important agreement. “It will help us end the inhumane activities of criminal migrant smuggling organisations. “By cramming people into inflatable boats under threats of violence and sending them across the Channel, these organisations put human lives at risk. “Many of these crimes are planned in Germany. “Together, we are now countering this unscrupulous business with even more resolve. “This includes maintaining a high investigative pressure, exchanging information between our security authorities as best as possible, and persistently investigating financial flows to identify the criminals operating behind the scenes.”

Georgia quarterback Carson Beck has been ruled out for the second half of Saturday's SEC Championship Game against Texas after being injured on the final play of the first half. Texas' Trey Moore forced a fumble on Beck's pass attempt, appearing to injure the Georgia quarterback's throwing arm. Beck remained motionless on the field for a short time before joining the team in the locker room. Coach Kirby Smart told ESPN at halftime that Beck was done for the day. During the third quarter, Beck was seen with ice on his right elbow. Beck completed 7 of 13 passes for 56 yards and was sacked once before exiting. Georgia backup Gunner Stockton entered and led Georgia on a 10-play, 75-yard opening second-half drive, giving the Bulldogs their first lead at 10-6. Bulldogs punter Brett Thorson injured his left knee in the third quarter and was ruled out of the contest. He was taken off on a cart. --Field Level MediaThings to watch this week in the Big 12 Conference: No. 14 BYU (9-1, 6-1 Big 12, No. 14 CFP) at No. 21 Arizona State (8-2, 5-2, No. 21), Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET (ESPN) League newcomer Arizona State has a three-game winning streak and BYU is coming off its first loss. The Cougars, after losing at home to Kansas, still control their own destiny in making the Big 12 championship game. They can clinch a spot in that Dec. 7 game as early as Saturday, if they win and instate rival Utah wins at home against No. 22 Iowa State. Arizona State was picked at the bottom of the 16-team league in the preseason media poll, but already has a five-win improvement in coach Kenny Dillingham's second season. No. 16 Colorado (8-2, 6-1, No. 16 CFP) at Kansas (4-6, 3-4), Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET (Fox) Coach Deion Sanders and the Buffaloes are in prime position to make the Big 12 title game in their return to the league after 13 seasons in the Pac-12. If BYU and Utah win, Colorado would be able to claim the other title game spot with a win over Kansas. The Buffs have a four-game winning streak. The Jayhawks need another November win over a ranked Big 12 contender while trying to get bowl eligible for the third season in a row. Kansas has won consecutive games over Top 25 teams for the first time in school history, knocking off Iowa State before BYU. Iowa State quarterback Rocco Becht has thrown a touchdown in a school-record 14 consecutive games, while receivers Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel both have more than 800 yards receiving. San Jose State is the only other FBS team with a pair of 800-yard receivers. Becht has 2,628 yards and 17 touchdowns passing for the Cyclones (8-2, 5-2), who are still in Big 12 contention. Oklahoma State goes into its home finale against Texas Tech with a seven-game losing streak, its longest since a nine-game skid from 1977-78. The only longer winless streak since was an 0-10-1 season in 1991. This is Mike Gundy's 20th season as head coach, and his longest losing streak before now was five in a row in 2005, his first season and the last time the Cowboys didn't make a bowl game. ... Baylor plays at Houston for the first time since 1995, the final Southwest Conference season. The Cougars won last year in the only meeting since to even the series 14-14-1. ... Eight Big 12 teams are bowl eligible. As many as six more teams could reach six wins. The Big 12 already has four 1,000-yard rushers, including three who did it last season. UCF's RJ Harvey is the league's top rusher (1,328 yards) and top scorer with 21 touchdowns (19 rushing/two receiving). The others with consecutive 1,000-yard seasons are Texas Tech career rushing leader Tahj Brooks (1,184 yards) and Kansas State's DJ Giddens (1,128 yards). Cam Skattebo with league newcomer Arizona State has 1,074 yards. Devin Neal, the career rushing leader at his hometown university, is 74 yards shy of being the first Kansas player with three 1,000-yard seasons. Cincinnati's Corey Kiner needs 97 yards to reach 1,000 again. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox!The Washington Commanders' recent ineptitude on first-round draft picks was on display again Saturday, as the team waived cornerback Emmanuel Forbes, according to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport . Per Nicki Jhabvala of the Washington Post , that move means every first-round pick made by the Commanders from 2019 through 2023 is no longer with the team: Washington selected Forbes with the No. 16 overall pick in the 2023 NFL draft out of Mississippi State, but after appearing in 20 games and making only seven starts over the course of two seasons, his tenure with the Commanders is already over. This article will be updated soon to provide more information and analysis. For more from Bleacher Report on this topic and from around the sports world, check out our B/R app , homepage and social feeds—including Twitter , Instagram , Facebook and TikTok .

axiebet88 legit The Monsoon Session of Parliament is set to commence on Monday, with expectations of heated debates as the government and opposition prepare to clash over a range of critical issues. Scheduled to run from 25 November to 20 December, the session comes on the heels of assembly election results in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. Amid anticipations of a stormy session, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju appealed for smooth conduct in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha during an all-party meeting on Sunday. “The government is open to discussing all issues, but our only request is to ensure smooth conduct of proceedings,” Rijiju said, emphasising the importance of peaceful discussions to ensure all members have an opportunity to participate. The meeting, chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, witnessed participation from 42 leaders and floor managers representing 30 parties. The government highlighted its legislative agenda, which includes at least 17 bills, while opposition leaders raised various issues for inclusion in the session’s discussions. Parliament Monsoon Session: Waqf Amendment Bill Listed For Consideration The government has listed 16 bills for consideration during the session, including the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, the Coastal Shipping Bill, the Indian Ports Bill, and the Merchant Shipping Bill, aimed at fulfilling India’s maritime treaty obligations, news agency PTI reported. Other significant items include: Punjab Courts (Amendment) Bill: To enhance the monetary jurisdiction of Delhi district courts from ₹3 lahks to ₹20 lahks and First Batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants (2024-25): Presentation, discussion, and voting. The Waqf (Amendment) Bill is pending in the Lok Sabha and will be considered after the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) submits its report, likely by the end of the first week of the session. However, opposition members have sought an extension, accusing committee chair Jagdambika Pal of hastening proceedings. The Bharatiya Vayuyan Vidheyak, passed by the Lok Sabha, is also pending in the Rajya Sabha. According to the Rajya Sabha Secretariat, 19 sittings are scheduled for the session, during which the government aims to address economic and social welfare issues, including discussions on the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana and other key development schemes. Parliament Monsoon Session: Constitution Day Celebration On 26 November, Parliament will commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Constitution’s adoption with an event in the Central Hall of the Samvidhan Sadan, the old Parliament building. President Droupadi Murmu will attend the event, during which key documents related to the Constitution’s drafting will be unveiled. ALSO READ | Congress Demands Discussion On Adani, Pollution, Train Accidents During Parliament Winter Session Parliament Monsoon Session: INDIA Bloc Leaders To Chalk Out Floor Strategy As Congress Seeks To Raise Adani Bribery Allegations, Manipur Violence The INDIA bloc aims to formulate a coordinated strategy to address concerns over economic policies, social justice, and the ongoing ethnic violence in Manipur. The Congress has prioritised the Adani bribery allegations for discussion as the first issue when Parliament convenes. Additionally, the party intends to address issues such as the ongoing ethnic violence in Manipur, the alarming air pollution in northern India, and recent train accidents, PTI reported. Leaders from other opposition parties, including the CPI, CPI(M), TMC, AAP, DMK, Shiv Sena (UBT), and NCP, are expected to support these demands. The INDIA bloc, representing the opposition, will meet under Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday to strategise a united response to the government’s legislative agenda. The session begins amidst contrasting political moods, with the NDA celebrating a victory in Maharashtra while the INDIA bloc retained power in Jharkhand. These outcomes are expected to influence the tone of debates, with both camps likely to use the results to bolster their narratives. Rijiju assured that suggestions from the all-party meeting would be shared with the Lok Sabha Speaker and Rajya Sabha Chairman. He also stressed the government’s commitment to inclusivity in finalising the session’s agenda through the business advisory committees of both Houses. As Parliament prepares for what is expected to be a contentious session, all eyes are on the government and opposition to see how they navigate critical and contentious issues like the Waqf Amendment Bill. While there is speculation that the government might introduce bills related to simultaneous elections during this session, these are not currently on the official agenda.

It’s been wild seeing ’s . The was supposedly active on SO many platforms, from Goodreads to Letterboxd, and of course, had all the usual social media accounts. After he was named as a “person of interest” in the , online sleuths quickly got to work. His X account (formerly Twitter) and Instagram were quickly identified, and his follower account skyrocketed. While what’s believed to be Mangione’s Instagram account (@luigi.from.fiji) originally had just over 1,300 followers, it only took about three hours from discovery to grow to over 74,000. His tagged photos were originally filled with snaps taken by family or friends, but they were soon pushed way down as clout chasers took over. Influencers started tagging Mangione in all sorts of nonsense posts, from Reels to selfies, so they could get a lil’ boost of popularity. One posted her own thirst trap from a boudoir shoot. Guess her logic was that people are thirsting over Mangione, so why not grab some of that for herself?! She’s a ~businesswoman~ for sure. Another influencer shared a from his trip to Europe, filled with your classic Hot Euro Summer vibes. You know, a visit to a rave, fit checks where they’re feelin’ themselves, food and expensive cars. He only ended up getting 4,500 views on his Reel, so his publicity stunt didn’t really work out. Mangione’s tagged tab became clogged with pics of randoms holding pumpkins, selfies from the beach, and all sorts of other influencer posts. His Instagram account has since been suspended so for aspiring influencers out there thinking about joining in, you’ve sadly missed the boat. However, Mangione’s X account is now verified and has over 348,000 followers. It was briefly suspended but stepped in so we can trawl through Mangione’s past tweets, thank god. Seeing as the alleged hot assassin has now been charged with murder, his influence and reach is only gonna grow. We’ll probably keep seeing more clout chasers pop up online as people try to grab a slice of the pie!By MICHELLE L. PRICE and ROB GILLIES NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump’s recent dinner with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his visit to Paris for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral were not just exercises in policy and diplomacy. They were also prime trolling opportunities for Trump. Related Articles National Politics | Biden issues veto threat on bill expanding federal judiciary as partisan split emerges National Politics | Trump lawyers and aide hit with 10 additional felony charges in Wisconsin over 2020 fake electors National Politics | After withdrawing as attorney general nominee, Matt Gaetz lands a talk show on OANN television National Politics | What will happen to Social Security under Trump’s tax plan? National Politics | Republican-led states are rolling out plans that could aid Trump’s mass deportation effort Throughout his first term in the White House and during his campaign to return, Trump has spun out countless provocative, antagonizing and mocking statements. There were his belittling nicknames for political opponents, his impressions of other political figures and the plentiful memes he shared on social media. Now that’s he’s preparing to return to the Oval Office, Trump is back at it, and his trolling is attracting more attention — and eyerolls. On Sunday, Trump turned a photo of himself seated near a smiling first lady Jill Biden at the Notre Dame ceremony into a social media promo for his new perfume and cologne line, with the tag line, “A fragrance your enemies can’t resist!” The first lady’s office declined to comment. When Trudeau hastily flew to Florida to meet with Trump last month over the president-elect’s threat to impose a 25% tax on all Canadian products entering the U.S., the Republican tossed out the idea that Canada become the 51st U.S. state. The Canadians passed off the comment as a joke, but Trump has continued to play up the dig, including in a post Tuesday morning on his social media network referring to the prime minister as “Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada.” After decades as an entertainer and tabloid fixture, Trump has a flair for the provocative that is aimed at attracting attention and, in his most recent incarnation as a politician, mobilizing fans. He has long relished poking at his opponents, both to demean and minimize them and to delight supporters who share his irreverent comments and posts widely online and cheer for them in person. Trump, to the joy of his fans, first publicly needled Canada on his social media network a week ago when he posted an AI-generated image that showed him standing on a mountain with a Canadian flag next to him and the caption “Oh Canada!” After his latest post, Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Tuesday: “It sounds like we’re living in a episode of South Park.” Trudeau said earlier this week that when it comes to Trump, “his approach will often be to challenge people, to destabilize a negotiating partner, to offer uncertainty and even sometimes a bit of chaos into the well established hallways of democracies and institutions and one of the most important things for us to do is not to freak out, not to panic.” Even Thanksgiving dinner isn’t a trolling-free zone for Trump’s adversaries. On Thanksgiving Day, Trump posted a movie clip from “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” with President Joe Biden and other Democrats’ faces superimposed on the characters in a spoof of the turkey-carving scene. The video shows Trump appearing to explode out of the turkey in a swirl of purple sparks, with the former president stiffly dancing to one of his favorite songs, Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” In his most recent presidential campaign, Trump mocked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, refusing to call his GOP primary opponent by his real name and instead dubbing him “Ron DeSanctimonious.” He added, for good measure, in a post on his Truth Social network: “I will never call Ron DeSanctimonious ‘Meatball’ Ron, as the Fake News is insisting I will.” As he campaigned against Biden, Trump taunted him in online posts and with comments and impressions at his rallies, deriding the president over his intellect, his walk, his golf game and even his beach body. After Vice President Kamala Harris took over Biden’s spot as the Democratic nominee, Trump repeatedly suggested she never worked at McDonalds while in college. Trump, true to form, turned his mocking into a spectacle by appearing at a Pennsylvania McDonalds in October, when he manned the fries station and held an impromptu news conference from the restaurant drive-thru. Trump’s team thinks people should get a sense of humor. “President Trump is a master at messaging and he’s always relatable to the average person, whereas many media members take themselves too seriously and have no concept of anything else other than suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome,” said Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director. “President Trump will Make America Great Again and we are getting back to a sense of optimism after a tumultuous four years.” Though both the Biden and Harris campaigns created and shared memes and launched other stunts to respond to Trump’s taunts, so far America’s neighbors to the north are not taking the bait. “I don’t think we should necessarily look on Truth Social for public policy,” Miller said. Gerald Butts, a former top adviser to Trudeau and a close friend, said Trump brought up the 51st state line to Trudeau repeatedly during Trump’s first term in office. “Oh God,” Butts said Tuesday, “At least a half dozen times.” “This is who he is and what he does. He’s trying to destabilize everybody and make people anxious,” Butts said. “He’s trying to get people on the defensive and anxious and therefore willing to do things they wouldn’t otherwise entertain if they had their wits about them. I don’t know why anybody is surprised by it.” Gillies reported from Toronto. Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

QLD News Don't miss out on the headlines from QLD News. Followed categories will be added to My News. Moment teen McKeon nearly gave it all up Queensland swimming superstar Emma McKeon has announced her retirement from the pool. McKeon, who won a record 14 Olympic medals as well as five world championships, took to social media on Monday to announce she was hanging up her cap and goggles for good “Today I am officially retiring from competitive swimming,” the 30-year-old said on Instagram. “Leading into Paris, I knew it would be my last Olympics, and the months since have given me time to reflect on my journey, and think about what I wanted my future to look like in swimming. Emma McKeon in the 4x100m Womens Medley final in Paris. Picture: Adam Head “I am proud of myself for giving my swimming career absolutely everything, both physically and mentally. “I wanted to see what I was capable of – and I did. “Swimming has given me so much. From the dream igniting at 5 years old, right through to my third Olympic Games – I have so many lessons, experiences, friendships and memories that I am so thankful for. “Along with every person who supported me, worked hard with me and cheered me on, THANK YOU. “Now I am excited to see how I can push myself in other ways, and for all the things that life has in store.” Emma McKeon with her 100m bronze medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Picture: Adam Head McKeon’s announcement brings to an end a career that stretched back to her teens when she almost quit the sport after missing the 2012 London Olympic team. The softly-spoken sprinter however fought back, with her crowning glory coming at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics when she won a stunning four gold and three bronze medals including the illustrious 50m and 100m freestyle double gold. “If I look back at that young person – I think I was 17 when I missed London – you couldn’t have told her that I was going to go on to do this,” McKeon said in a statement. “It’s just persisting, you have ups and you have downs. You just keep going along and you keep ticking the boxes. I can’t believe where I’m at right now and how I got here. “Leading in to Paris was definitely the hardest preparation I have had. I lost a lot of confidence in my swimming and felt a lot of pressure to back-up what I had done in Tokyo. “But I’m proud of how I handled it and proud I could still step up for my team while feeling the self-doubt. Emma McKeon in the women’s 4 x 200m Freestyle Final at the XXI Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in 2018. Picture: AAP Image/Dave Hunt “Great things take time, and the long road there is where all the necessary things are learnt to take us to the next level. I will definitely miss it ... It’s brought me a lot of great relationships and shaped me into the person I am. “But I’m definitely ready for the next part of my life, which I’m excited for. I don’t think I’ve had the time to reflect on everything yet. “I want young kids to know that I was once in the same position they are – dreaming of one day doing something big. “And I want to have an impact on people’s lives by encouraging them to push hard and go after their dreams and what they are passionate about. Don’t be afraid to take on hard things and set aspirational goals, that may at time be scary. This is how we push ourselves to achieve our dreams.” Cody Simpson and Emma McKeon attend the Marie Claire Women Of The Year Awards on November 13. (Photo by Hanna Lassen/Getty Images) Fellow Queensland swimming golden girl Ariarne Titmus was among many wellwishers to react publicly following the announcement. “So proud of you Em, you’re a legend in and out of the pool forever xx,” she posted. McKeon is dating pop star and swimmer Cody Simpson and the pair last year bought a $1.8m mansion on the Gold Coast. Originally published as Emma McKeon announces retirement from swimming Join the conversation Add your comment to this story To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout More related stories QLD News Swimmer seriously injured in rip at popular beach Two young men were rescued from a rip at a Sunshine Coast beach with one hospitalised after being brought to shore by surfers. Read more QLD News Untold story of how June Dally-Watkins took on China and won An Australian icon, famous for her “charm schools” and modelling agency, ventured into China a decade ago with one mission. What happened next changed the country forever. Read moreAtalanta tops Serie A after late win over AC Milan while Inter goes 13 games unbeaten

Donald Trump is returning to the world stage. So is his trolling

Southampton boss Russell Martin was left infuriated by two crucial refereeing decisions during his side's defeat to Liverpool . Martin saw his side give up a 2-1 lead as a Mo Salah brace handed Arne Slot his 10th Premier League victory , after Dominik Szoboszlai's strike had been cancelled out by goals from Adam Armstrong and Mateus Fernandes. The result leaves Southampton bottom of the table with only a late penalty from Liverpool's star Egyptian denying the south coast side a point at St Mary's. The 38-year-old coach pinpointed his side being denied a penalty when Caoimhin Kelleher collided with Armstrong as a pivotal moment where the video assistant referee should have intervened. Martin was also left frustrated when offside was not awarded in a phase of play before Liverpool scored. "Adam Armstrong not getting a penalty at 2-1 up, I have a big issue with that. After watching it back in slo-motion, it’s what VAR is there for," he said. "Adam is trying to play the ball, the goalie tries to play the ball and misses it and collides with Adam – then it’s given as a handball against Adam. "So in my opinion it’s a penalty. It’s not the reason we lose, but at 2-1 that’s a big, big moment. “Then of course it’s subjective about Yuki [Sagawara]’s handball [for Mo Salah ‘s penalty winner], I haven’t seen it back so I have to accept that. But I have a big problem with that decision [against Armstrong]. “There’s a real, clear offside as well. We ask our guys to defend a high line from a wide free-kick, maybe a minute and 50 seconds or whatever before they score, but there’s five of their players offside and it doesn’t get given. So I’m annoyed at that, I am annoyed at that. “I’m proud of a lot of the performance, I’m annoyed at the goals we concede and I’m disappointed we don’t get anything from the game.” Reds boss Arne Slot was also left frustrated with the officials after Southampton were awarded a penalty after a foul that did not appear to be in the box. "In general sometimes you could have made a different decision or not, but for me with the offsides and deciding if a ball is inside or outside, that is just black and white," he said. "It was a foul, that was clear, so if they saw it was inside then, yes, it’s a penalty. Sometimes with a knock, yes or no, or red card, yes or no. There was also an incident in the first half where you could argue if it’s a red card, yes or no. Those things you can argue, but offside and inside or outside the 18-yard box is something you cannot argue." Join our new WhatsApp community and receive your daily dose of Mirror Football content. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. Sky has slashed the price of its Sky Sports, Sky Stream, Sky TV and Netflix bundle in an unbeatable new deal that saves £240 and includes 1,400 live matches across the Premier League, EFL and more.

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MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Mike McDaniel has seen a change in quarterback Tua Tagovailoa over the past month. “He's found a way to improve the way he plays the position throughout the game,” the Dolphins coach said Sunday, after Tagovailoa threw for four touchdowns in a dominant 34-15 win over the New England Patriots. “The most monumental thing that you have to overcome as a quarterback is playing the position regardless of the ebbs and flows," McDaniel added, "so not changing how you play based upon positive or negative results and letting every play stand on its own.” Tagovailoa has mastered that ability to remain even-keeled during Miami's three-game winning streak, McDaniel noted, highlighted by his 317-yard passing performance on Sunday. The Dolphins (5-6) have a thin margin for error the rest of the season but have kept themselves afloat with a strong stretch that includes two-straight 30-point games. With their win at New England (3-9) in Week 5, the Dolphins have swept their division rivals in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1999-2000. Tagovailoa, who moved to 7-0 in his career against New England, entered the game with a league-high 73.4% completion rate and went 29 for 40. He has 11 passing touchdowns and just one interception since returning from injured reserve in Week 8. “We’re still below the .500 threshold, and it’s a long way to where we want to get to," Tagovailoa said. “We’ll enjoy this win, but this next one is going to be big for us.” The Dolphins have a short turnaround with a game at Green Bay on Thursday. Backup Skylar Thompson replaced Tagovailoa with about 11 minutes left in what was already a blowout, but a bad handoff on his first play resulted in a fumble that was recovered by cornerback Christian Gonzalez and returned 63 yards for a touchdown. It cut New England's deficit to 31-15, and Tagovailoa returned the next drive. Miami's defense held the rest of the way. Linebacker Tyrel Dodson intercepted rookie quarterback Drake Maye on New England's penultimate drive, then Miami stopped the Patriots on fourth down on the next. Jaylen Waddle caught eight passes for a season-high 144 yards and a 23-yard touchdown that stretched Miami's lead to 31-0 entering the fourth. Running back De'Von Achane scored on a 9-yard screen pass and then walked into the end zone for an 11-yard TD in the first half. Jonnu Smith finished with 87 yards on nine catches to continue his strong first season as a Dolphin. One week after catching two touchdowns with a career-high 101 yards receiving, Smith found the end zone for a 7-yard TD catch on the Dolphins' second drive. New England was shut out until tight end Austin Hooper got behind the Dolphins defense for a wide-open 38-yard touchdown catch from Maye to make it 31-7 with 13:43 left. Maye completed 22 of 37 passes for 221 yards with 26 yards rushing. But he couldn't overcome an overall sloppy performance by the Patriots in which they got nothing going offensively until the final quarter and had 10 penalties accepted against them. “I always say I hate losing more than I like to win," Maye said. "We got our butts whipped today, and it’s only up from here. We’ve got a bright future and the right players in there for the Patriots.” New England's best drive of the first half lasted 12 plays and covered 80 yards but included three accepted offensive penalties and ended in a missed 45-yard field goal by Joey Slye. The Patriots forced a Dolphins punt and moved down the field again on the opening drive of the second half, with Maye completing an improvised 10-yard throw on third down to receiver Kendrick Bourne. New England then tried a double pass with Bourne, whose cross-field throw fell short of Rhamondre Stevenson on 3rd-and-17. DeMario Douglas led the Patriots with 61 yards receiving. Antonio Gibson had six rushes for 30 yards. With the loss, the Patriots will finish their third straight season below .500. Its the first time since 1991-93 New England has had three straight losing seasons. “Once those guys cross the white lines, there’s nothing I can do for them,” coach Jerod Mayo said. "There’s nothing any coach can do for them. It’s my job to continue to prepare not only them, but our coaches as well.” Dolphins: LB Anthony Walker Jr. sustained a noncontact hamstring injury in the second quarter. He was helped slowly off the field by trainers and did not return. Patriots: Host Indianapolis next Sunday. Dolphins: At Green Bay on Thursday. AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

If You Invested $100 In This Stock 5 Years Ago, You Would Have This Much Today

Aurora looks at renovating fourth floor of City Hall

Stakeholders critique leadership recruitment in Africa at Wigwe Varsity's AR3 eventAvior Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in Neuberger Berman Municipal Fund Inc. ( NYSEAMERICAN:NBH – Free Report ) by 25.2% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 17,486 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 3,516 shares during the quarter. Avior Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Neuberger Berman Municipal Fund were worth $194,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Farther Finance Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Neuberger Berman Municipal Fund during the 3rd quarter worth $36,000. Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC acquired a new stake in Neuberger Berman Municipal Fund during the 2nd quarter worth $91,000. NINE MASTS CAPITAL Ltd boosted its stake in Neuberger Berman Municipal Fund by 114.1% during the 2nd quarter. NINE MASTS CAPITAL Ltd now owns 36,298 shares of the company’s stock worth $388,000 after purchasing an additional 19,348 shares during the last quarter. Rothschild Investment LLC acquired a new stake in Neuberger Berman Municipal Fund during the 2nd quarter worth $574,000. Finally, Blue Bell Private Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in Neuberger Berman Municipal Fund by 201.0% during the 2nd quarter. Blue Bell Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 57,581 shares of the company’s stock worth $615,000 after purchasing an additional 38,454 shares during the last quarter. Neuberger Berman Municipal Fund Stock Performance Shares of NBH opened at $10.67 on Friday. Neuberger Berman Municipal Fund Inc. has a 52-week low of $9.62 and a 52-week high of $11.41. Neuberger Berman Municipal Fund Announces Dividend Neuberger Berman Municipal Fund Company Profile ( Free Report ) Neuberger Berman Intermediate Municipal Fund Inc is a closed-ended fixed income mutual fund launched and managed by Neuberger Berman LLC. The fund is co-managed by Neuberger Berman Management LLC. It invests in the fixed income markets of the United States. The fund primarily invests in municipal bonds which have income that is exempt from federal income tax and have remaining maturities of less than 15 years. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding NBH? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Neuberger Berman Municipal Fund Inc. ( NYSEAMERICAN:NBH – Free Report ). Receive News & Ratings for Neuberger Berman Municipal Fund Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Neuberger Berman Municipal Fund and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .

LOS ANGELES — He’d been battered for weeks, lingering on the turf in pain at various points in previous wins over Nebraska and UCLA, always game enough to return a few players later after gingerly limping off. But running back Woody Marks, long USC’s Iron Man at running back, couldn’t return after another blow Saturday against Notre Dame. After a first-quarter handoff for nine yards, Marks laid on the turf for a few beats before stumbling to his feet, appearing slightly disoriented as he entered a medical tent on USC’s sideline. He eventually returned to the sideline as redshirt freshman Quinten Joyner took his place, but walked off into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum tunnel at the two-minute mark of the first half as the CBS broadcast reported he’d be out for the rest of the afternoon . It was a massive loss for USC’s offense, and could’ve served as the end of Marks’ time in a Trojans jersey depending on his bowl-game decision. If so, what a run it has been for the Mississippi State transfer: finishing with 1,133 yards on the ground in 12 games, putting together one of the more complete seasons by any USC running back in recent memory. They came marching one by one down the barrel of the Coliseum, adorned with wreaths of honor, USC’s Easton Mascarenas-Arnold and Jaylin Smith and Woody Marks all exchanging hugs with Lincoln Riley as an early crowd erupted in claps for its program pillars. It was a moment of levity, USC honoring beloved seniors Saturday afternoon on the final day of its regular season. It was also, however, a sobering reality. With Mascarenas-Arnold, Smith and Marks went 138 combined tackles and four interceptions and 1,421 yards from scrimmage; with left guard Emmanuel Pregnon and center Jonah Monheim went two crucial pieces of a much-improved Trojans offensive line. Walking out from the tunnel on Senior Day, certainly, doesn’t provide an end-all, be-all on players’ futures. But it gave a hint, certainly, that several names who still carried eligibility – Mascarenas-Arnold, Smith, wide receiver Kyron Hudson – could be moving on come the winter. “We’ll have a few guys, obviously, who will have some decisions to make on if they go pro or if they stay and play another year,” Riley said Tuesday, when asked how he might adjust USC’s offensive personnel in the offseason. “Not a ton, but we’ve got a couple guys that have those decisions. We’ll just see. We’re going to try to get the right talent in here.” USC will be hard-pressed to add that talent, certainly, as eyes turn ahead to a bowl-game slot and the 2025 season. If every player honored on USC’s announced Senior Day graphic moves on , either via the NFL draft or the transfer portal, USC stands to lose 17 players from its offense, defense and special teams who started Saturday against Notre Dame. Here’s the breakdown: Offense: WR Kyle Ford, TE Lake McRee, RB Woody Marks, C Jonah Monheim, LG Emmanuel Pregnon, RT Mason Murphy, WR Kyron Hudson Defense: S Akili Arnold, LB Easton Mascarenas-Arnold, LB Mason Cobb, CB Jacobe Covington, DT Nate Clifton, DT Gavin Meyer, CB Jaylin Smith, CB Greedy Vance Jr. Special teams: P Eddie Czaplicki, K Michael Lantz It’s still probable, as Riley mentioned, that a few of those names elect to stay at USC for another season. McRee, Murphy and Hudson, in particular, are redshirt juniors and would likely see their draft stock elevated by a return for a prominent senior year at USC. Still, the Trojans will have major work to do in the transfer portal and with depth development this offseason, particularly at center, replacing Monheim, and cornerback. Related Articles Not a day after the NFL’s Chicago Bears canned head coach Matt Eberflus following a 23-20 loss to the Detroit Lions , former star quarterback and No. 1 overall draft pick Caleb Williams was back at the Coliseum on for his USC jersey-retirement ceremony in a palate cleanser of a Saturday afternoon. Williams, the Heisman Trophy winner who conquered opposing defenses and NIL riches in his time at USC, took a moment to thank the Coliseum crowd upon leading the Trojans out of the tunnel Saturday. “Number 13 is back,” Williams announced over the PA, speaking in a microphone to wide cheers. “And not only – is in the rafters now, because of all of you.”Saskatchewan government outlines priorities in 2024 throne speech76ers' Paul George to Miss Extended Time With Severe Bone Bruise Injury

axiebet88 voucher code Ray'Sean Taylor, Ring Malith lead SIU Edwardsville over Ball State 82-69Gulfport Energy upgraded at KeyBanc on Trump tailwindsATLANTA • Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who won the presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, endured humbling defeat after one tumultuous term and then redefined life after the White House as a global humanitarian, has died. He was 100 years old. The longest-lived American president died on Sunday, more than a year after entering hospice care, at his home in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died at 96 in November 2023, spent most of their lives, The Carter Center said. “Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia,” the center said in posting about his death on the social media platform X. It added in a statement that he died peacefully, surrounded by his family. Condolences poured in from across America and the globe. “Today, I join my fellow Americans to mourn the passing of Former President Jimmy Carter at age 100," said Gov. Jared Polis, adding that Carter "advanced the American ideals we cherish most — human rights, international cooperation, compassion, and treating every American equally." "I express my deep condolences to the Carter family during this difficult time and share my gratitude for Former President Carter’s leadership, service, and deep dedication to our strong and resilient nation during his time in office and beyond,” Polis said. Businessman, Navy officer, evangelist, politician, negotiator, author, woodworker, citizen of the world — Carter forged a path that still challenges political assumptions and stands out among the 45 men who reached the nation’s highest office. The 39th president leveraged his ambition with a keen intellect, deep religious faith and prodigious work ethic, conducting diplomatic missions into his 80s and building houses for the poor well into his 90s. “My faith demands — this is not optional — my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference,” Carter once said. A president from Plains A moderate Democrat, Carter entered the 1976 presidential race as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad smile, outspoken Baptist mores and technocratic plans reflecting his education as an engineer. His no-frills campaign depended on public financing, and his promise not to deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and U.S. defeat in southeast Asia. “If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Carter repeated before narrowly beating Republican incumbent Gerald Ford, who had lost popularity pardoning Nixon. Carter governed amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets and social upheaval over racism, women’s rights and America’s global role. His most acclaimed achievement in office was a Mideast peace deal that he brokered by keeping Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the bargaining table for 13 days in 1978. That Camp David experience inspired the post-presidential center where Carter would establish so much of his legacy. Yet Carter’s electoral coalition splintered under double-digit inflation, gasoline lines and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His bleakest hour came when eight Americans died in a failed hostage rescue in April 1980, helping to ensure his landslide defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan. Carter acknowledged in his 2020 “White House Diary” that he could be “micromanaging” and “excessively autocratic,” complicating dealings with Congress and the federal bureaucracy. He also turned a cold shoulder to Washington’s news media and lobbyists, not fully appreciating their influence on his political fortunes. “It didn’t take us long to realize that the underestimation existed, but by that time we were not able to repair the mistake,” Carter told historians in 1982, suggesting that he had “an inherent incompatibility” with Washington insiders. Carter insisted his overall approach was sound and that he achieved his primary objectives — to “protect our nation’s security and interests peacefully” and “enhance human rights here and abroad” — even if he fell spectacularly short of a second term. And then, the world Ignominious defeat, though, allowed for renewal. The Carters founded The Carter Center in 1982 as a first-of-its-kind base of operations, asserting themselves as international peacemakers and champions of democracy, public health and human rights. “I was not interested in just building a museum or storing my White House records and memorabilia,” Carter wrote in a memoir published after his 90th birthday. “I wanted a place where we could work.” That work included easing nuclear tensions in North and South Korea, helping to avert a U.S. invasion of Haiti and negotiating cease-fires in Bosnia and Sudan. By 2022, The Carter Center had declared at least 113 elections in Latin America, Asia and Africa to be free or fraudulent. Recently, the center began monitoring U.S. elections, as well. Carter’s stubborn self-assuredness and even self-righteousness proved effective once he was unencumbered by the Washington order, sometimes to the point of frustrating his successors. He went “where others are not treading,” he said, to places like Ethiopia, Liberia and North Korea, where he secured the release of an American who had wandered across the border in 2010. “I can say what I like. I can meet whom I want. I can take on projects that please me and reject the ones that don’t,” Carter said. He announced an arms-reduction-for-aid deal with North Korea without clearing the details with Bill Clinton’s White House. He openly criticized President George W. Bush for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He also criticized America’s approach to Israel with his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” And he repeatedly countered U.S. administrations by insisting North Korea should be included in international affairs, a position that most aligned Carter with Republican President Donald Trump. Among the center’s many public health initiatives, Carter vowed to eradicate the guinea worm parasite during his lifetime, and nearly achieved it: Cases dropped from millions in the 1980s to nearly a handful. With hardhats and hammers, the Carters also built homes with Habitat for Humanity. The Nobel committee’s 2002 Peace Prize cites his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” Carter should have won it alongside Sadat and Begin in 1978, the chairman added. Carter accepted the recognition, saying there was more work to be done. “The world is now, in many ways, a more dangerous place,” he said. “The greater ease of travel and communication has not been matched by equal understanding and mutual respect.” ‘An epic American life’ Carter’s globetrotting took him to remote villages, where he met little “Jimmy Carters,” so named by admiring parents. But he spent most of his days in the same one-story Plains house — expanded and guarded by Secret Service agents — where they lived before he became governor. He regularly taught Sunday School lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church until his mobility declined and the coronavirus pandemic raged. Those sessions drew visitors from around the world to the small sanctuary, where Carter will receive his final send-off after a state funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral. The common assessment that he was a better ex-president than president rankled Carter and his allies. His prolific post-presidency gave him a brand above politics, particularly for Americans too young to witness him in office. But Carter also lived long enough to see biographers and historians reassess his White House years more generously. His record includes the deregulation of key industries, reduction of U.S. dependence on foreign oil, cautious management of the national debt and notable legislation on the environment, education and mental health. He focused on human rights in foreign policy, pressuring dictators to release thousands of political prisoners. He acknowledged America’s historical imperialism, pardoned Vietnam War draft evaders and relinquished control of the Panama Canal. He normalized relations with China. “I am not nominating Jimmy Carter for a place on Mount Rushmore,” Stuart Eizenstat, Carter’s domestic policy director, wrote in a 2018 book. “He was not a great president” but also not the “hapless and weak” caricature voters rejected in 1980, Eizenstat said. Rather, Carter was “good and productive” and “delivered results, many of which were realized only after he left office.” Madeleine Albright, a national security staffer for Carter and Clinton’s secretary of state, wrote in Eizenstat’s forward that Carter was “consequential and successful” and expressed hope that “perceptions will continue to evolve” about his presidency. “Our country was lucky to have him as our leader,” said Albright, who died in 2022. Jonathan Alter, who penned a comprehensive Carter biography published in 2020, said in an interview that Carter should be remembered for “an epic American life” spanning from a humble start in a home with no electricity or indoor plumbing through decades on the world stage across two centuries. “He will likely go down as one of the most misunderstood and underestimated figures in American history,” Alter told The Associated Press. A small-town start James Earl Carter Jr. was born Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains and spent his early years in nearby Archery. His family was a minority in the mostly Black community, decades before the civil rights movement played out at the dawn of Carter’s political career. Carter, who campaigned as a moderate on race relations but governed more progressively, talked often of the influence of his Black caregivers and playmates but also noted his advantages: His land-owning father sat atop Archery’s tenant-farming system and owned a main street grocery. His mother, Lillian, would become a staple of his political campaigns. Seeking to broaden his world beyond Plains and its population of fewer than 1,000 — then and now — Carter won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating in 1946. That same year, he married Rosalynn Smith, another Plains native, a decision he considered more important than any he made as head of state. She shared his desire to see the world, sacrificing college to support his Navy career. Carter climbed in rank to lieutenant, but then his father was diagnosed with cancer, so the submarine officer set aside his ambitions of admiralty and moved the family back to Plains. His decision angered Rosalynn, even as she dived into the peanut business alongside her husband. Carter again failed to talk with his wife before his first run for office — he later called it “inconceivable” not to have consulted her on such major life decisions — but this time, she was on board. “My wife is much more political,” Carter told the AP in 2021. He won a state Senate seat in 1962 but wasn’t long for the General Assembly and its back-slapping, deal-cutting ways. He ran for governor in 1966 — losing to Lester Maddox — and then immediately focused on the next campaign. Carter had spoken out against church segregation as a Baptist deacon and opposed racist “Dixiecrats” as a state senator. Yet as a local school board leader in the 1950s he had not pushed to end school segregation even after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, despite his private support for integration. In 1970, Carter ran for governor again as the more conservative Democrat against Carl Sanders, a wealthy businessman Carter mocked as “Cufflinks Carl.” Sanders never forgave him for anonymous, race-baiting flyers, which Carter disavowed. Ultimately, Carter won his races by attracting both Black voters and culturally conservative Whites. Once in office, he was more direct. “I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over,” he declared in his 1971 inaugural address, setting a new standard for Southern governors that landed him on the cover of Time magazine. 'Jimmy Who?' His statehouse initiatives included environmental protection, boosting rural education and overhauling antiquated executive branch structures. He proclaimed Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the slain civil rights leader’s home state. And he decided, as he received presidential candidates in 1972, that they were no more talented than he was. In 1974, he ran Democrats’ national campaign arm. Then he declared his own candidacy for 1976. An Atlanta newspaper responded with the headline: “Jimmy Who?” The Carters and a “Peanut Brigade” of family members and Georgia supporters camped out in Iowa and New Hampshire, establishing both states as presidential proving grounds. His first Senate endorsement came from a young first-termer from Delaware named Joe Biden. Yet it was Carter’s ability to navigate America’s complex racial and rural politics that cemented the nomination. He swept the Deep South that November, the last Democrat to do so, as many white Southerners shifted to Republicans in response to civil rights initiatives. A self-declared “born-again Christian,” Carter drew snickers by referring to Scripture in a Playboy magazine interview, saying he “had looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.” The remarks gave Ford a new foothold and television comedians pounced — including NBC’s new “Saturday Night Live” show. But voters weary of cynicism in politics found it endearing. Carter chose Minnesota Sen. Walter “Fritz” Mondale as his running mate on a “Grits and Fritz” ticket. In office, he elevated the vice presidency and the first lady’s office. Mondale’s governing partnership was a model for influential successors Al Gore, Dick Cheney and Biden. Rosalynn Carter was one of the most involved presidential spouses in history, welcomed into Cabinet meetings, huddling with lawmakers and top aides. The Carters presided with uncommon informality: He used his nickname “Jimmy” even when taking the oath of office, carried his own luggage and tried to silence the Marine Band’s “Hail to the Chief.” They bought their clothes off the rack. Carter wore a cardigan for a White House address, urging Americans to conserve energy by turning down their thermostats. Amy, the youngest of four children, attended District of Columbia public school. Washington’s social and media elite scorned their style. But the larger concern was that “he hated politics,” according to Eizenstat, leaving him nowhere to turn politically once economic turmoil and foreign policy challenges took their toll. Accomplishments, and ‘malaise’ Carter partially deregulated the airline, railroad and trucking industries and established the departments of Education and Energy, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He designated millions of acres of Alaska as national parks or wildlife refuges. He appointed a then-record number of women and non-White people to federal posts. He never had a Supreme Court nomination, but he elevated civil rights attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the nation’s second highest court, positioning her for a promotion in 1993. He appointed Paul Volker, the Federal Reserve chairman whose policies would help the economy boom in the 1980s — after Carter left office. He built on Nixon’s opening with China, and though he tolerated autocrats in Asia, pushed Latin America from dictatorships to democracy. But he couldn’t immediately tame inflation or the related energy crisis. And then came Iran. After he admitted the exiled Shah of Iran to the U.S. for medical treatment, the American Embassy in Tehran was overrun in 1979 by followers of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Negotiations to free the hostages broke down repeatedly ahead of the failed rescue attempt. The same year, Carter signed SALT II, the new strategic arms treaty with Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union, only to pull it back, impose trade sanctions and order a U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Hoping to instill optimism, he delivered what the media dubbed his “malaise” speech, although he didn’t use that word. He declared the nation was suffering “a crisis of confidence.” By then, many Americans had lost confidence in the president, not themselves. Carter campaigned sparingly for reelection because of the hostage crisis, instead sending Rosalynn as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy challenged him for the Democratic nomination. Carter famously said he’d “kick his ass,” but was hobbled by Kennedy as Reagan rallied a broad coalition with “make America great again” appeals and asking voters whether they were “better off than you were four years ago.” Reagan further capitalized on Carter’s lecturing tone, eviscerating him in their lone fall debate with the quip: “There you go again.” Carter lost all but six states and Republicans rolled to a new Senate majority. Carter successfully negotiated the hostages’ freedom after the election, but in one final, bitter turn of events, Tehran waited until hours after Carter left office to let them walk free. 'A wonderful life' At 56, Carter returned to Georgia with “no idea what I would do with the rest of my life.” Four decades after launching The Carter Center, he still talked of unfinished business. “I thought when we got into politics we would have resolved everything,” Carter told the AP in 2021. “But it’s turned out to be much more long-lasting and insidious than I had thought it was. I think in general, the world itself is much more divided than in previous years.” Still, he affirmed what he said when he underwent treatment for a cancer diagnosis in his 10th decade of life. “I’m perfectly at ease with whatever comes,” he said in 2015. “I’ve had a wonderful life. I’ve had thousands of friends, I’ve had an exciting, adventurous and gratifying existence.”

The S&P 500 pulled 0.5% higher after flipping between gains and losses several times during the day. Banks, smaller companies and other areas of the stock market that tend to do best when the economy is strong helped lead the way, while bitcoin briefly broke above $99,000. Crude oil, meanwhile, continued to rise. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 461 points, or 1.1%, and the Nasdaq composite edged up by less than 0.1%. Nvidia rose just 0.5% after beating analysts’ estimates for profit and revenue yet again, but it was still the strongest force pulling the S&P 500 upward. It also gave a forecast for revenue in the current quarter that topped most analysts’ expectations due to voracious demand for its chips used in artificial-intelligence technology. Its stock initially sank in afterhours trading Wednesday following the release of the results. Some investors said the market might have been looking for Nvidia’s revenue forecast to surpass expectations by even more. But its stock recovered in premarket trading Thursday, and Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said it was another “flawless” profit report provided by Nvidia and CEO Jensen Huang, whom Ives calls “the Godfather of AI.” The stock meandered through Thursday as well, dragging the S&P 500 and other indexes back and forth. How Nvidia’s stock performs has more impact than any other because it’s grown into Wall Street’s most valuable company at roughly $3.6 trillion. The frenzy around AI is sweeping up other stocks, and Snowflake jumped 32.7% after reporting stronger results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The company, whose platform helps customers get a better view of all their silos of data and use AI, also reported stronger revenue growth than expected. BJ’S Wholesale Club rose 8.3% after likewise delivering a bigger profit than expected. That may help calm worries about how resilient U.S. shoppers can remain, given high prices across the economy and still-high interest rates. A day earlier, Target tumbled after reporting sluggish sales in the latest quarter and giving a dour forecast for the holiday shopping season. It followed Walmart , which gave a much more encouraging outlook. Nearly 90% of the stocks in the S&P 500 ended up rising Thursday, and the gains were even bigger among smaller companies. The Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks jumped a market-leading 1.7%. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, helped keep indexes in check. It fell 4.7% after U.S. regulators asked a judge to break up the tech giant by forcing it to sell its industry-leading Chrome web browser. In a 23-page document filed late Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice called for sweeping punishments that would include restrictions preventing Android from favoring its own search engine. Regulators stopped short of demanding Google sell Android but left the door open to it if the company’s oversight committee continues to see evidence of misconduct. All told, the S&P 500 rose 31.60 points to 5,948.71. The Dow jumped 461.88 to 43,870.35, and the Nasdaq composite added 6.28 to 18,972.42. In the crypto market, bitcoin eclipsed $99,000 for the first time before pulling back toward $98,000, according to CoinDesk. It’s more than doubled so far this year, and its climb has accelerated since Election Day. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to make the country “the crypto capital of the planet” and create a “strategic reserve” of bitcoin. Bitcoin got a further boost after Gary Gensler, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said Thursday he would step down in January . Gensler has pushed for more protections for crypto investors. Bitcoin and related investment have a notorious history of big price swings in both directions. MicroStrategy, a company that’s been raising cash expressly to buy bitcoin, saw an early Thursday gain of 14.6% for its stock quickly disappear. It finished the day with a loss of 16.2%. In the oil market, a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 2% to bring its gain for the week to 4.8%. Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 1.8%. Oil has been rising amid escalations in the Russia-Ukraine war. In stock markets abroad, shares of India’s Adani Enterprises plunged 22.6% Thursday after the U.S. charged founder Gautam Adani in a federal indictment with securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud. The businessman and one of the world’s richest people is accused of concealing that his company’s huge solar energy project on the subcontinent was being facilitated by an alleged bribery scheme. Stock indexes elsewhere in Asia and Europe were mixed. In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury inched up to 4.43% from 4.41% late Wednesday following some mixed reports on the U.S. economy. One said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week in the latest signal that the job market remains solid. Another report, though, said manufacturing in the mid-Atlantic region unexpectedly shrank. Sales of previously occupied homes, meanwhile, strengthened last month by more than expected. AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Yuri Kageyama contributed.No. 22 Xavier faces South Carolina St., eyes rebound from lone loss

Coastal Carolina beats Georgia State, wins bowl game eligibility for fifth season in a row

Fox News Flash top sports headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. The Minnesota Vikings won a thriller at Soldier Field, a game they were this close to choking away. The Vikings led by two touchdowns in the fourth quarter but needed an overtime field goal to beat the Chicago Bears , 30-27. With 22 seconds left and trailing by 11, Caleb Williams hit Keenan Allen for a one-yard score, and the two-point conversion was successful when Williams found DJ Moore. CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM T.J. Hockenson of the Minnesota Vikings reacts after a first-down catch during the fourth quarter against the Bears at Soldier Field on November 24, 2024, in Chicago. (Quinn Harris/Getty Images) The Bears then recovered the onside kick, just the third onside recovery on the season in the NFL. They quickly got in field goal range after a long catch by Moore and drilled the field goal to send the game into overtime. They outscored the Vikings 17-3 in the fourth quarter. The Bears went three-and-out on the first overtime possession, and that turned out to be the last time they would touch the ball on the day. Justin Jefferson had just one catch in regulation, but his second of the game put Minnesota at midfield. A few plays later, Sam Darnold found T.J. Hockenson for a gain of 29 to get them inside the 10-yard line. After Darnold took a knee in the middle of the hashmarks, John Parker Romo drilled the chip shot to give Minnesota the win. The Bears recover an onside kick during the fourth quarter against the Minnesota Vikings at Soldier Field in Chicago on November 24, 2024. (Quinn Harris/Getty Images) CHIEFS SQUANDER LATE DOUBLE-DIGIT LEAD, BUT SURVIVE IN WALK-OFF FASHION AGAINST PANTHERS It was the best day the Bears' offense has had in a while after they'd failed to score 20 points in each of their previous four games and lost each of them. But apparently, 27 isn't enough. Darnold went 22-for-34 for 330 yards and two touchdowns. Jordan Addison went off for eight catches and 162 yards and one of the scores. Aaron Jones also added 106 yards on the ground and another touchdown. Caleb Williams threw for 340 yards in the losing effort, while Moore had seven catches for 106 yards and a touchdown. Allen added nine catches for 86 yards and the fourth quarter score. Aaron Jones of the Minnesota Vikings celebrates with teammates after a touchdown during the third quarter against the Bears at Soldier Field in Chicago on November 24, 2024. (Quinn Harris/Getty Images) CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Minnesota improved to 9-2 on the season. They've now won four in a row after two consecutive losses that came immediately after their 5-0 start. The Bears have lost five straight and are 4-7. Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter .

( MENAFN - GlobeNewsWire - Nasdaq) Proposed Acquisition strengthens Pharming's late-stage pipeline with a potential first-in-disease asset Abliva's lead product KL1333 is currently in a pivotal clinical trial, with a positive interim analysis achieved, in mitochondrial DNA-driven primary mitochondrial diseases Total transaction value of approximately US$66.1 million No external funding required to fund acquisition and KL1333 development costs Pharming to host a conference call on Monday, December 16, 2024 at 14:00 CET (8:00 am EST) Leiden, the Netherlands, December 15, 2024: Pharming Group N.V. (“Pharming” or“the Company”) (EURONEXT Amsterdam: PHARM/Nasdaq: PHAR) today announced a recommended public cash offer to the shareholders of Abliva AB (“Abliva”) to acquire all issued and outstanding shares of Abliva. Pharming, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Pharming Technologies B.V., offers the shareholders SEK 0.45 in cash per share in Abliva. The transaction is valued at approximately US$66.1 million. Abliva is a biotechnology company, based in Lund, Sweden, focused on developing medicines for the treatment of mitochondrial disease. Abliva's lead product, KL1333, a regulator of the essential co-enzymes NAD+ and NADH, is in a pivotal clinical study (FALCON) in adult patients with genetically confirmed primary mitochondrial disease (PMD) with mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations who experience consistent, debilitating fatigue and muscle weakness (myopathy), and reduced life expectancy. Over 30,000 patients diagnosed with mtDNA mitochondrial disease would be potentially addressable by KL1333 in the U.S., EU4 (France, Germany, Italy, Spain) and the UK. KL1333 has shown positive clinical effects in a proof-of-concept Phase 1b study, and a pre-planned interim analysis of the ongoing pivotal FALCON trial demonstrated promising differences over placebo in both alternate primary efficacy endpoints. KL1333 has received Fast Track designation in the U.S. and Orphan Drug Designation for the treatment of PMD in the U.S. and EU. Sijmen de Vries, Chief Executive Officer of Pharming, said: “Abliva has made exciting progress developing KL1333, a potential first-in-disease treatment undergoing a pivotal clinical trial that offers new hope to patients with rare mtDNA mitochondrial disease who experience debilitating fatigue and muscle weakness. With over 30,000 addressable patients in the U.S., EU4 and UK, we are excited about the potential of this asset, which achieved a positive interim analysis in the registration trial in July 2024. We believe KL1333 has blockbuster potential in the U.S. alone and can significantly change Pharming's future growth trajectory. We will fund this acquisition using existing cash, and anticipate covering costs to complete the pivotal trial with positive cash flows from our existing business. The acquisition of Abliva would further strengthen our clinical pipeline with the addition of a therapy, with U.S. launch expected in 2028, aligning with our vision to become a leading global rare disease company. We are pleased that Abliva's independent Board of Directors and major shareholders recognize the expertise and value Pharming brings to the development and eventual commercialization of KL1333, and unanimously support this transaction. We look forward to welcoming the Abliva team with their strong expertise in mitochondrial research and drug development and to combining with our resources, capabilities and commercial infrastructure to bring this groundbreaking and important medicine to patients and their healthcare providers.” Transaction highlights Today at 19:45 CET, Pharming announced a recommended cash offer to the shareholders of Abliva AB. Hereby Pharming, through a wholly owned subsidiary, has offered SEK 0.45 in cash for each outstanding share of Abliva (the ''Offer''). The total value of the Offer based on all outstanding 1,611,884,536 shares in Abliva amounts to approximately SEK 725,348,041, or approximately US$66.1 million. The Board of Directors of Abliva unanimously recommends the shareholders of Abliva to accept the Offer. The Board of Directors of Abliva has obtained a fairness opinion from PwC, according to which, based on the assumptions and reservations stated in the opinion, the Offer is fair to Abliva's shareholders from a financial perspective. Pharming has obtained acceptance undertakings from the three largest shareholders, accounting for 49.82% of Abliva's outstanding shares. The Offer is subject to customary regulatory approvals, and Pharming expects to obtain such approvals prior to the end of the acceptance period. Pharming Group N.V. has cash on hand to finance the Offer in full. The acceptance period in the offer is expected to commence on or around January 16, 2025 and to expire on or around February 7, 2025. For information in relation to the Offer, please refer to An offer document will be made public by Pharming shortly before the commencement of the acceptance period. Van Lanschot Kempen N.V. is sole financial advisor and NautaDutilh N.V. and Mannheimer Swartling Advokatbyrå are legal advisors to Pharming in connection with the Offer. Invitation to conference call Pharming to host a conference call on Monday, December 16, 2024, at 14:00 CET (8:00 am EST). The conference call presentation is available on the pharming.com website from 14:00 CET on December 16, 2024 A transcript will be made available on the website in the days following the call. To participate in the conference call, please register in advance using the link below. Once registered, dial-in information and a unique PIN will be provided, allowing access to the call. Conference call dial-in details: Please note, the Company will only take questions from dial-in attendees. Webcast Link: For further public information, contact: Pharming Group, Leiden, the Netherlands Michael Levitan, VP Investor Relations & Corporate Communications T: +1 (908) 705 1696 E: ... FTI Consulting, London, UK Victoria Foster Mitchell/Alex Shaw/Amy Byrne T: +44 203 727 1000 LifeSpring Life Sciences Communication, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Leon Melens T: +31 6 53 81 64 27 E: ... Abliva investors Leo Wei T: +46 (0)709 910 081 E: ... About KL1333 KL1333 has been designed to treat chronic fatigue and myopathy (muscle weakness) in genetically confirmed adult patients with primary mitochondrial disease. Diagnoses can include MELAS-MIDD and KSS-CPEO spectrum disorders as well as MERRF syndrome. The drug candidate is intended for long-term oral treatment. KL1333 has the ability to restore the ratio of NAD+ and NADH, and thus leads to the formation of new mitochondria and improved energy levels. In a cohort of mitochondrial disease patients in a Phase 1a/b study, the patients who received KL1333 showed both improvements in symptoms of fatigue as well as functional improvements. KL1333 is currently being evaluated in a global, potentially registrational, Phase 2 study (the FALCON study) and has received orphan drug designation in both the USA and Europe as well as Fast Track designation in the USA. About the FALCON Study FALCON is a Phase 2, global, randomized, placebo-controlled, potentially registrational study evaluating the safety and efficacy of KL1333 in adult patients with primary mitochondrial disease who experience consistent, debilitating fatigue and myopathy (muscle weakness), the most common and impairing symptoms. A total of 180 patients with mitochondrial DNA mutations who meet the eligibility criteria are randomized 3:2 to receive KL1333 (50mg-100mg) or placebo twice daily for 48 weeks. The two alternative primary endpoints assess consistent fatigue (using the PROMIS® Fatigue Mitochondrial Disease Short Form) and myopathy (using the 30 second Sit-to-Stand test), only one of which must be positive to file for marketing approval. An interim analysis evaluating 24-week data from the first wave of patients confirmed the strong safety profile of KL1333, and both primary endpoints passed futility, meaning that both have the potential to demonstrate benefit in the final analysis of the study. About Abliva AB Abliva discovers and develops medicines for the treatment of mitochondrial disease. This rare and often very severe disease occurs when the cell's energy provider, the mitochondria, do not function properly. The company has prioritized two projects. KL1333, a powerful regulator of the essential co-enzymes NAD+ and NADH, has entered late-stage development. NV354, an energy replacement therapy, has completed preclinical development. Abliva, based in Lund, Sweden, is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm, Sweden (ticker: ABLI). For more information, please visit About Pharming Group N.V. Pharming Group N.V. (EURONEXT Amsterdam: PHARM/Nasdaq: PHAR) is a global biopharmaceutical company dedicated to transforming the lives of patients with rare, debilitating, and life-threatening diseases. Pharming is commercializing and developing an innovative portfolio of protein replacement therapies and precision medicines, including small molecules and biologics. Pharming is headquartered in Leiden, the Netherlands, and has employees around the globe who serve patients in over 30 markets in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific. For more information, visit and find us on LinkedIn . Forward-Looking Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements of future expectations that are based on management's current expectations and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance, or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. These forward-looking statements are identified by their use of terms and phrases such as“aim”,“ambition”, ''anticipate'', ''believe'', ''could'', ''estimate'', ''expect'', ''goals'', ''intend'', ''may'',“milestones”, ''objectives'', ''outlook'', ''plan'', ''probably'', ''project'', ''risks'',“schedule”, 'seek'', 'should'', ''target'', ''will'' and similar terms and phrases. Examples of forward-looking statements may include statements with respect to timing and progress of Pharming's preclinical studies and clinical trials of its product candidates, Pharming's clinical and commercial prospects, and Pharming's expectations regarding its projected working capital requirements and cash resources, which statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including, but not limited to the scope, progress and expansion of Pharming's clinical trials and ramifications for the cost thereof; and clinical, scientific, regulatory, commercial, competitive and technical developments. In light of these risks and uncertainties, and other risks and uncertainties that are described in Pharming's 2023 Annual Report and the Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2023, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the events and circumstances discussed in such forward-looking statements may not occur, and Pharming's actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied thereby. All forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements contained or referred to in this section. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release and are based on information available to Pharming as of the date of this release. Pharming does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or other information. Inside Information This press release relates to the disclosure of information that qualifies, or may have qualified, as inside information within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the EU Market Abuse Regulation. Attachment MENAFN15122024004107003653ID1108994994 Legal Disclaimer: MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy blatantly misgendered Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-Del.) while interviewing anti-transgender crusader Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) during Sunday’s episode of “Fox & Friends Weekend.” Campos-Duffy casually referred to McBride, a trans woman who will be the first openly trans member of Congress, as “he,” while Mace appeared on the show to promote her campaign to ban McBride and other trans women from using female restrooms on Capitol Hill. When Mace called her mission to block trans women from using the bathrooms a “winning” political message, Campos-Duffy noted that “that trans member of Congress” has said she “will actually abide by the rules and not use the women’s restroom in Congress.” Doubling down on the bigotry moments later, Campos-Duffy took aim at Rachel Levine , President Joe Biden’s assistant secretary of health. Levine, also a trans woman, is the first openly trans federal official in the United States’ history. “I’ve seen Rachel Levine. I know that’s not a woman, so I don’t understand this idea,” the Fox News anchor proclaimed as Mace nodded in agreement. "I know that's not a woman" -- Nancy Mace is on Fox & Friends and the person interviewing her is referring to Sarah McBride and other trans women as "he." Mace agrees. These people do not think trans people exist. pic.twitter.com/cEhZpRKLIe — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 24, 2024 This past Monday, Mace introduced a resolution to prohibit any lawmakers and House employees from “using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.” Asked if she was specifically targeting McBride with the proposed rule while speaking to reporters on Tuesday, the South Carolina congresswoman said, “Yes and absolutely, and then some.” “I’m absolutely 100% going to stand in the way of any man who wants to be in a women’s restroom, in our locker rooms, in our changing rooms,” she added. “I will be there fighting you every step of the way.” Since Mace began her battle to exclude trans women from Congress’ women’s bathrooms, McBride has tried to stay above the fray. In a Monday night post on X , formerly called Twitter, she said, “Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness.” McBride called the controversy an “attempt to distract” Americans from real issues during a Sunday appearance on “Face the Nation.” “Every single time we hear them say the word ‘trans,’ look what they’re doing with their right hand,” she said. “Look at what they’re doing to pick the pocket of American workers, to fleece seniors by privatizing Social Security and Medicare.” Nancy Mace Fumes Over Journalist's 'Insulting' Challenge To Her Anti-Trans Fixation 'Daily Show' Spots 4 Major Flaws In Nancy Mace's 'Performative' Anti-Trans 'Bulls**t' Nancy Mace’s Former Aide Rips Her Anti-Trans Bill As Thirsty ‘Ploy To Get On Fox News’

'Title race on' - how Odegaard & Saka are keeping Arsenal hopes alivePassenger Ferry Service Market Overview and Leading Players: San Francisco Bay Ferry, PortMiami, Angel Island Tiburon Ferry, SS Badger, Washington State Ferries, Staten Island Ferry, Block Island Ferry, Golden Gate Ferry

vipbet88 Larsa Pippen Who? Marcus Jordan & Eddie Murphy’s Ex-Wife Nicole Murphy Enjoy A Night OutST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — PGA Tour rookie Patrick Fishburn played bogey-free for an 8-under 64 for his first lead after any round. Joel Dahmen was 10 shots behind and had a bigger cause for celebration Friday in the RSM Classic. Dahmen made a 5-foot par putt on his final hole for a 2-under 68 in tough conditions brought on by the wind and cold, allowing him to make the cut on the number and get two more days to secure his PGA Tour card for next year. He is No. 124 in the FedEx Cup. "I still got more to write this weekend for sure," said Dahmen, who recently had said his story is not yet over. "But without having the opportunity to play this weekend, my story would be a lot shorter this year." Fishburn took advantage of being on the easier Plantation course, with trees blocking the brunt of the wind and two additional par 5s. He also was helped by Maverick McNealy, who opened with a 62 on the tougher Seaside course, making two bogeys late in his round and having to settle for a 70. Fishburn, who already has locked up his card for next year, was at 11-under 131 and led McNealy and Lee Hodges (63) going into the weekend. Michael Thorbjornsen had a 69 and was the only player who had to face Seaside on Friday who was among the top five. What mattered on this day, however, was far down the leaderboard. The RSM Classic is the final tournament of the PGA Tour season, and only the top 125 in the FedEx Cup have full status in 2025. That's more critical than ever with the tour only taking the top 100 for full cards after next season. Players like Dahmen will need full status to get as many playing opportunities as they can. That explains why he felt so much pressure on a Friday. He didn't make a bogey after his opening hole and was battling temperatures in the low 50s that felt even colder with the wind ripping off the Atlantic waters of St. Simons Sound. He made a key birdie on the 14th, hitting a 4-iron for his second shot on the 424-yard hole. Dahmen also hit wedge to 2 feet on the 16th that put him on the cut line, and from the 18th fairway, he was safely on the green some 40 feet away. But he lagged woefully short, leaving himself a testy 5-footer with his job on the line. "It was a great putt. I was very nervous," Dahmen said. "But there's still work to do. It wasn't the game-winner, it was like the half-court shot to get us to halftime. But without that, and the way I played today, I wouldn't have anything this weekend." His playing partners weren't so fortunate. The tour put three in danger of losing their cards in the same group — Zac Blair (No. 123), Dahmen and Wesley Bryan (No. 125). The cut was at 1-under 141. Blair and Bryan came to the 18th hole needing birdie to be assured of making the cut and both narrowly missed. Now they have to wait to see if anyone passes them, which is typically the case. Thorbjornsen in a tie for fourth and Daniel Berger (66 at Plantation) in a tie for 17th both were projected to move into the top 125. Dahmen, indeed, still has work to do. Fishburn gets a weekend to see if he can end his rookie year with a win. "I've had a lot of experience playing in cold growing up in Utah, playing this time of year, kind of get used to playing when the body's not moving very well and you've got to move your hands," said Fishburn, who played college golf at BYU. "Just pretty happy with how I played." Ludvig Aberg, the defending champion and No. 5 player in the world competing for the first time in more than two months because of knee surgery, bounced back with a 64 on Plantation and was back in the mix. Aberg played with Luke Clanton, the Florida State sophomore who looks like he belongs each week. Clanton, the No. 1 player in the world amateur ranking who received a sponsor exemption, had a 65 at Plantation and was two shots off the lead. Clanton already has a runner-up and two other top 10s since June. "Playing with him, it's pretty awesome to watch," Clanton said. "We were kind of fanboying a little it. I know he's a really good dude but to be playing with him and to see what he's done over the last couple years, it's pretty inspirational." Get local news delivered to your inbox!World News | Insurgents Reach Gates of Syria's Capital, Threatening to Upend Decades of Assad Rule

Syria rebels celebrate in captured Homs, set sights on Damascus

Wounded Bangladesh protesters receive robotic helping hand

Over the past two days, President-elect Donald Trump has made clear that he has designs for American territorial expansion, declaring that the United States has security concerns and commercial interests that can best be addressed by bringing the Panama Canal and Greenland under American control or outright ownership. Trump’s tone has had none of the trolling jocularity that surrounded his repeated suggestions in recent weeks that Canada should become America’s “51st state,” including his social media references to the country’s beleaguered prime minister as “Governor Justin Trudeau.” Instead, while naming a new ambassador to Denmark — which controls Greenland’s foreign and defense affairs — Trump made clear on Sunday that his first-term offer to buy the landmass could, in the coming term, become a deal the Danes cannot refuse. He appears to covet Greenland both for its strategic location at a time when the melting of Arctic ice is opening new commercial and naval competition and for its reserves of rare earth minerals needed for advanced technology. “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World,” Trump wrote on social media, “the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.” On Saturday evening, he had accused Panama of price-gouging American ships traversing the canal, and suggested that unless that changed, he would abandon the Jimmy Carter-era treaty that returned all control of the canal zone to Panama. “The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” he wrote, just before an increase in the charges scheduled for Jan. 1. “This complete ‘rip-off’ of our country will immediately stop.” He went on to express worry that the canal could fall into the “wrong hands,” an apparent reference to China, the second-largest user of the canal. A Hong Kong-based firm controls two ports near the canal, but China has no control over the canal itself. Not surprisingly, the government of Greenland immediately rejected Trump’s demands, as it did in 2019, when he first floated the idea. “Greenland is ours,” Prime Minister Mute B. Egede said in a statement. “We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.” The Danish prime minister’s office was more circumspect, writing in a statement that the government was “looking forward to working with the new administration” and offering no further comment on Trump’s remarks. After Trump brought up the Panama Canal again in a speech on Sunday, Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, said in a video that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zones is part of Panama, and it will continue to be.” He added: “Our country’s sovereignty and independence are not negotiable.” But the president-elect’s statements — and the not-so-subtle threats behind them — were another reminder that his version of “America First” is not an isolationist creed. His aggressive interpretation of the phrase evokes the expansionism, or colonialism, of President Theodore Roosevelt, who cemented control of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. And it reflects the instincts of a real estate developer who suddenly has the power of the world’s largest military to back up his negotiating strategy. Trump has often suggested that he does not always see the sovereignty of other nations’ borders as sacrosanct. When Russia invaded Ukraine, his first response was not a condemnation of the blatant land grab, but rather the observation that President Vladimir Putin’s move was an act of “genius.” Even now, as Trump seeks a deal to end the war in Ukraine, he has never said that the country’s borders must be restored, a key demand of the United States and NATO — he has only promised a “deal” to end the fighting. In the cases of Greenland and Panama, commercial and national security interests are at play. Trump’s desire for Greenland was made explicit in the first term, when a wealthy New York friend of his, Ronald S. Lauder, the New York cosmetics heir, put the idea in his head. In the Trump White House in 2019, the National Security Council was suddenly delving into the details of how the United States would pull off a land acquisition of that size. Trump kept pressing the point with Denmark, which consistently rebuffed him. Trump was not the first president to make the case: Harry S. Truman wanted to buy Greenland after World War II, as part of a Cold War strategy for boxing out Soviet forces. Trump can make a parallel argument, especially as Russia, China and the United States jockey for control of Arctic routes for commercial shipping and naval assets. Arctic experts did not dismiss Trump’s Greenland bid as a joke. “Not that many people are laughing about it now,” said Marc Jacobsen, an associate professor at the Royal Danish Defense College in Denmark who focuses on Arctic security. Jacobsen noted that the reaction in Denmark to Trump’s latest bid had been one of fury (one Danish politician called it “an unusually strange way to be an ally”). But, he said, Greenlanders — who have long sought independence — may seek to use Trump’s interest as an opportunity to further strengthen economic ties with the United States. Since 2009, Greenland has had the right to declare its independence, but the vast territory of about 56,000 people is still heavily dependent on Denmark and has never chosen to pursue that path. Trump’s interest could give Greenland an opening for more U.S. investments, including in tourism or rare earth mining, he said. “Was it crazy when the U.S. acquired Alaska? Was it crazy when the U.S. built the Panama Canal?” asked Sherri Goodman, a former Pentagon official and a senior fellow with the Wilson Center Polar Institute, a Washington-based think tank. Goodman, whose book “Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security” centers in part on the Arctic, said the United States did have a strong interest in ensuring that China in particular does not develop a strong presence in Greenland. China’s ambitions in the Arctic have grown, and in 2018 it laid out plans to build infrastructure and develop shipping lanes opened by climate change. Goodman said the United States should continue to prevent China from gaining a foothold in the doorstep to North America, but said Greenlanders must decide their own fate. “We want to have all those territories proximate to our own mainland territory to protect us and also to prevent an adversary from using it to our strategic disadvantage,” Goodman said. “On the other hand, there is international law and international order and sovereignty, and Greenland is still a part of Denmark.” When it comes to Panama, Trump may also hold a distant personal grudge. In 2018, Panamanian police officers ousted the Trump Organization from the Trump International Hotel in Panama City after a protracted legal battle between the president-elect’s family and the majority owner of the property. The Trump name subsequently came down. The company had held a contract to manage the property. David L. Goldwyn, who served at the State Department under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, noted that Greenland has tremendous undeveloped natural resources, including more than 43 of the 50 so-called critical rare earth elements used to make electric vehicles, wind turbines and other clean technology. “Certainly if Greenland chose to develop these resources, it would provide a significant alternative to China, although it is China’s capacity to process those minerals which gives it its current advantage,” he said. But Goldwyn said that in addition to Denmark’s sovereignty, Trump might find that Greenland’s Indigenous communities do not want mining and resource extraction as much as he does. “It is highly unlikely resource extraction could be forced on an unwilling population,” he said. “A more fruitful path might be to collaborate with the Danish government and Greenland’s population on ways to safely and sustainably develop those resources.”Luigi Mangione, a suspect in the murder of Brian Thompson , had previously shown an eerie interest in a quote on Goodreads before the crime occurred. After being arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, 286 miles from where the New York murder took place, authorities are delving into the 26-year-old's online activity. A keen reader, Mangione's GoodReads account reveals his engagement with controversial material, including quotes from Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, critiquing the American healthcare system. He shared his thoughts on Kaczynski's 'Industrial Society and Its Future,' writing. "It's easy to quickly and thoughtless write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies," wrote Mangione. "But it's simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out. He was a violent individual - rightfully imprisoned - who maimed innocent people. While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary." NYC Mayor Adams says man detained in Altoona is 'strong person of interest' in shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Luigi Mangione officially ID'd as man connected to Brian Thompson shooting after McDonald's arrest Mangione also reflected on an online interpretation of the book, adding: "When all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it's not terrorism, it's war and revolution." Among his interests, he liked a quote from Kurt Vonnegut's book "Slaughterhouse Five" that discusses America as "the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves." Authorities discovered a ghost gun on him , similar to the one used in last week's shooting, along with a silencer, a counterfeit New Jersey driver's license, and a two-page manifesto criticizing healthcare companies. Mangione hails from Towson, Maryland, reports the Express US . In the manifesto, the man wrote that "It had to be done" as well as "These parasites had it coming." Elsewhere in the two-page document, Mangione states "I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done." He attended Gilman School, an all-boys independent school in Baltimore Maryland offering classes from pre-K through high school, with high school tuition reaching up to $40,000. As class valedictorian, he graduated in 2016, speaking about how the "next hundred years of our future are going to be unlike anything humanity has ever seen before." Mangione pursued a Bachelor's and Master's in Engineering, Computer, and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. While still in high school, he volunteered for five months at an assisted living facility. He was employed as a Data Engineer at TrueCar, Inc. based in Santa Monica, California, and has also resided in Honolulu, Hawaii. Daily Express US has contacted TrueCar for a comment. Mangione is yet to face formal charges. He is currently detained in connection with the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Thompson in midtown Manhattan on Wednesday. The manhunt lasted nearly six days before Mangione was located in Pennsylvania. DAILY NEWSLETTER: Sign up here to get the latest news and updates from the Mirror US straight to your inbox with our FREE newsletter.ATLANTA -- Quarterback Carson Beck's status for No. 2 Georgia's Sugar Bowl College Football Playoff quarterfinal is uncertain after he suffered an elbow injury in Saturday's Southeastern Conference championship game win over Texas. Georgia announced Monday there is no timetable on Beck's return as he and his family explore treatment options. Georgia coach Kirby Smart said Sunday the team was awaiting results of tests. The school did not announce details of the injury in Monday's announcement. Beck was injured on the final play of the first half in the Bulldogs' 22-19 overtime win over Texas on Saturday. Beck made a dramatic return to the field for the handoff on the game-winning play. Beck was needed after backup Gunner Stockton had his helmet knocked off, forcing him to leave the game for one play. Beck's injury was to his right (throwing) arm. Even though he was able to take the snap and hand off to Trevor Etienne for the running back’s decisive 4-yard touchdown run, Beck was unable to raise his right arm. Smart said Sunday that Beck attended the team meeting for the CFP draw announcement. “He was pretty somber,” Smart said. “It was a tough deal for him in terms of not being able to go out there and finish in the second half.” Georgia announced punter Brett Thorson will need season-ending surgery after injuring his non-kicking leg against Texas. “Carson and Brett are both fierce competitors and extremely hard workers,” Smart said in a statement released by the school. “I’m confident they will attack their rehab with the same determination they exhibit in their daily habits. We will be here to support them every step of the way.” Stockton would be the likely starter if Beck can't return for the Jan. 1 Sugar Bowl. Stockton completed 12 of 16 passes for 71 yards with one interception against Texas. ___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

WASHINGTON , Dec. 2, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Internationally celebrated Japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima has been named a Trustee at the United States-Japan Foundation (USJF), further strengthening her influential role in promoting cross-cultural exchange and collaboration. She has been a leader both in promoting the role of women in architecture, and in redefining the use of public space for community purposes. Sejima, a founder of Kazuyo Sejima & Associates and co-founder of SANAA (Sejima and Nishizawa and Associates), is known for her groundbreaking work in minimalist architecture and her dedication to creating spaces that connect people with their surroundings. Her architectural contributions have earned global recognition, including the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize, awarded jointly with co-founder Ryue Nishizawa in 2010. Sejima's architectural accomplishments span numerous internationally renowned projects, such as the New Museum in New York City , the Rolex Learning Center in Switzerland , and the Louvre-Lens in France . In Japan , she has designed iconic public spaces, including Kanazawa's 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art and the New Kagawa Prefectural Sports Arena. Her minimalist design philosophy emphasizes transparency and harmony, seamlessly blending built and natural environments. In 2023, Sejima won the Jane Drew Prize for Architecture for her contribution to raising the profile of women in architecture. The Jane Drew Prize is given annually as part of the W Awards, a program held by The Architectural Review and Architects' Journal, which was previously known as the Women in Architecture Awards. "Beyond the formal, structural, and material experimentation of her work, Sejima is one of too few female architects to have established themselves on the international stage," said The Architectural Review editor Manon Mollard . "Her courage, tenacity, and success are critical reminders that it is possible." "Sejima-san will contribute her insightful perspective and deep understanding of art, architecture, and culture, enhancing the Foundation's mission of supporting initiatives that advance social, economic, and cultural connections," said Lawrence K. Fish , USJF board chair. "As an architect who has consistently challenged conventions and expanded the possibilities of design, Sejima-san brings a unique, innovative approach to the Foundation's programs." Sejima said, "When I was a child, an American family moved next door, and I have fond memories of them introducing me to many worlds I had never known. Because of that, I am honored to now be involved in passing on various activities to the next generation." For more information on Kazuyo Sejima's appointment and ongoing work with the US-Japan Foundation, please contact: info@us-jf.org View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/renowned-architect-kazuyo-sejima-appointed-to-united-states-japan-foundation-board-302320062.html SOURCE United States-Japan Foundation