GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands (AP) — Kimani Hamilton led High Point with 18 points and made a contested shot in the lane with 10.9 seconds remaining as the Panthers knocked off Hampton 76-73 on Tuesday. Hamilton also added eight rebounds for the Panthers (7-1). Trae Benham scored 17 points while shooting 4 for 5 (4 for 4 from 3-point range) and 5 of 5 from the free-throw line. Kezza Giffa shot 4 of 10 from the field and 2 of 3 from the free-throw line to finish with 11 points. George Beale led the way for the Pirates (3-5) with 17 points. Noah Farrakhan added 16 points for Hampton. High Point went into halftime ahead of Hampton 38-33. Giffa scored 11 points in the half. Hamilton scored a team-high 13 points in the second half. ___ The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by and data from . The Associated Press

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Hamilton and High Point knock off Hampton 76-73By MARY CLARE JALONICK and MATT BROWN WASHINGTON (AP) — Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Defense Department, said he had a “wonderful conversation” with Maine Sen. Susan Collins on Wednesday as he pushed to win enough votes for confirmation. He said he will not back down after allegations of excessive drinking and sexual misconduct. Related Articles National Politics | Donald Trump will ring the New York Stock Exchange bell. It’ll be a first for him National Politics | The Trump and Biden teams insist they’re working hand in glove on foreign crises National Politics | ‘You don’t know what’s next.’ International students scramble ahead of Trump inauguration National Politics | Trump is threatening to raise tariffs again. Here’s how China plans to fight back National Politics | Trump won’t be able to save the struggling US beef industry Collins said after the hourlong meeting that she questioned Hegseth about the allegations amid reports of drinking and the revelation that he made a settlement payment after being accused of a sexual assault that he denies. She said she had a “good, substantive” discussion with Hegseth and “covered a wide range of topics,” including sexual assault in the military, Ukraine and NATO. But she said she would wait until a hearing, and notably a background check, to make a decision. “I asked virtually every question under the sun,” Collins told reporters as she left her office after the meeting. “I pressed him both on his position on military issues as well as the allegations against him, so I don’t think there was anything that we did not cover.” The meeting with Collins was closely watched as she is seen as more likely than most of her Republican Senate colleagues to vote against some of Trump’s Cabinet picks. She and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a fellow moderate Republican, did not shy from opposing Trump in his first term when they wanted to do so and sometimes supported President Joe Biden’s nominees for the judicial and executive branches. And Hegseth, an infantry combat veteran and former “Fox & Friends” weekend host, is working to gain as many votes as he can as some senators have expressed concerns about his personal history and lack of management experience. “I’m certainly not going to assume anything about where the senator stands,” Hegseth said as he left Collins’ office. “This is a process that we respect and appreciate. And we hope, in time, overall, when we get through that committee and to the floor that we can earn her support.” Hegseth met with Murkowski on Tuesday. He has also been meeting repeatedly with Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, a military veteran who has said she is a survivor of sexual assault and has spent time in the Senate working on improving how attacks are reported and prosecuted within the ranks. On Monday, Ernst said after a meeting with him that he had committed to selecting a senior official to prioritize those goals. Republicans will have a 53-49 majority next year, meaning Trump cannot lose more than three votes on any of his nominees. It is so far unclear whether Hegseth will have enough support, but Trump has stepped up his pressure on senators in the last week. “Pete is a WINNER, and there is nothing that can be done to change that!!!” Trump posted on his social media platform last week.O’Shea stands by decision to keep playing Collaros after QB was hurt in Grey Cup

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Investor Warren Buffett renewed his Thanksgiving tradition of giving by handing out more than $1.1 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock to four of his family's foundations Monday, and he offered new details about who will be handing out the rest of his fortune after his death. Buffett has said previously that his three kids will distribute his remaining $147.4 billion fortune in the 10 years after his death, but now he has also designated successors for them because it's possible that Buffett's children could die before giving it all away. He didn't identify the successors, but said his kids all know them and agree they would be good choices. “Father time always wins. But he can be fickle – indeed unfair and even cruel – sometimes ending life at birth or soon thereafter while, at other times, waiting a century or so before paying a visit,” the 94-year-old Buffett said in a letter to his fellow shareholders Monday. “To date, I’ve been very lucky, but, before long, he will get around to me. There is, however, a downside to my good fortune in avoiding his notice. The expected life span of my children has materially diminished since the 2006 pledge. They are now 71, 69 and 66.” Buffett said he still has no interest in creating dynastic wealth in his family — a view shared by his first and current wives. He acknowledged giving Howard, Peter and Susie millions over the years, but he has long said he believes “hugely wealthy parents should leave their children enough so they can do anything but not enough that they can do nothing.” The secret to building up such massive wealth over time has been the power of compounding interest and the steady growth of the Berkshire conglomerate Buffett leads through acquisitions and smart investments like buying billions of dollars of Apple shares as iPhone sales continued to drive growth in that company. Buffett never sold any of his Berkshire stock over the years and also resisted the trappings of wealth and never indulged in much — preferring instead to continue living in the same Omaha home he'd bought decades earlier and drive sensible luxury sedans about 20 blocks to work each day. “As a family, we have had everything we needed or simply liked, but we have not sought enjoyment from the fact that others craved what we had,” he said. If Buffett and his first wife had never given away any of their Berkshire shares, the family's fortune would be worth nearly $364 billion — easily making him the world's richest man — but Buffett said he had no regrets about his giving over the years. The family's giving began in earnest with the distribution of Susan Buffett's $3 billion estate after her death in 2004, but really took off when Warren Buffett announced plans in 2006 to make annual gifts to the foundations run by his kids along with the one he and his wife started, as well as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Warren Buffett's giving to date has favored the Gates Foundation with $55 billion in stock because his friend Bill Gates already had his foundation set up and could handle huge gifts when Buffett started giving away his fortune. But Buffett has said his kids now have enough experience in philanthropy to handle the task and he plans to cut off his Gates Foundation donations after his death. Buffett always makes his main annual gifts to all five foundations every summer, but for several years now he has been giving additional Berkshire shares to his family's foundations at Thanksgiving. Buffett reiterated Monday his advice to every parent to allow their families to read their will while they are still alive — like he has done — to make sure they have a chance to explain their decisions about how to distribute their belongings and answer their children's questions. Buffett said he and his longtime investing partner Charlie Munger, who died a year ago, “saw many families driven apart after the posthumous dictates of the will left beneficiaries confused and sometimes angry.” Today, Buffett continues to lead Berkshire Hathaway as chairman and CEO and has no plans to retire although he has handed over most of the day-to-day managing duties for the conglomerates dozens of companies to others. That allows him to focus on his favorite activity of deciding where to invest Berkshire's billions . One of Buffett's deputies who oversees all the noninsurance companies now, Greg Abel, is set to take over as CEO after Buffett's death. Even after converting 1,600 Class A shares into 2.4 million Class B Berkshire shares and giving them away, Buffett still owns 206,363 Class A shares and controls more than 30% of the vote. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Get local news delivered to your inbox!

WuKong Education Named to the 2025 GSV 150 for Leading the Way in Education Technology

Panaji: The Goa Human Rights Commission has issued notice to the director of social welfare over a news report that people have not received their monthly benefits under the Deendayal Social Security Scheme ( DSSS ) over the last few months. Based on the news report, the human rights body said “prima facie, this indicates violation of human rights of the beneficiaries,” and sought an explanation from the directorate of social welfare by Jan 3. Stay updated with the latest news on Times of India . Don't miss daily games like Crossword , Sudoku , Location Guesser and Mini Crossword . Spread love this holiday season with these Christmas wishes , messages , and quotes .Why University of Rwanda has reverted back to four-year degree programs

Hiring your children to work on Small Business Saturday can teach them positive work values and give you extra help for the holidays.

Judge grants request from prosecutors to dismiss election interference case against President-elect Donald TrumpMan accused in the burning death of a woman on a New York subway appears in courtNone

North Carolina 2025 schedule, opponents under new head coach Bill BelichickPresident James Earl “Jimmy” Carter Jr. died on Sunday, December 29, 2024 at his home in Plains, Georgia, at 100 years old. Carter will be remembered as a consummate humanitarian and Nobel Prize winning statesman who spent his retirement years building houses with Habitat for Humanity and all but eradicating a truly terrible parasite, the guinea worm, from the planet. He will also be rather unfairly remembered as a weak, ineffectual leader, relegated to a single four-year stint in the White House; a rarity among modern presidents. It’s a reputation pushed by the Greed-is-Good Reaganites who immediately followed Carter’s single-term presidency. But looking back, it’s clear that Carter’s presidency included plenty of far-reaching changes that could have drastically altered the course of America — specifically, our dependency on cars and foreign oil, and our rate of toxic pollution output — if only we had stuck with his plans. It is far beyond anyone’s ability to sum up such a man, even with a few thousand words to work with, but here’s how Carter biographer Jonathan Alter describes his subject : With skills ranging from agronomist, land-use planner, nuclear engineer and sonar technologist to poet, painter, Sunday School teacher and master woodworker, Carter was the first president since Thomas Jefferson who could rightly be considered a Renaissance Man. He was also the first since Jefferson under whom no blood was shed in war. And his record of honesty and decency — once seen as minimum qualifications — have loomed larger with time. At a farewell dinner just before leaving office, his vice-president, Walter F. Mondale, whose job Carter turned from punchline into a position of real responsibility, toasted the Carter Administration: “We told the truth. We obeyed the law. We kept the peace.” Carter later added a fourth major accomplishment: “And we championed human rights.” Carter served as president from 1977 to 1981, during a time when the U.S. alone consumed one-third of the entire planet’s energy production — much of that going towards fueling the large, criminally inefficient cars of the era. Carter created ground-breaking policies that attempted to reverse this trend, many of which Regan dismantled quicker than a solar panel on the White House roof. Even so, there were some deeply-felt lasting effects of his administration. Carter wrote in his autobiography: The Congressional Quarterly reported that since 1953 Lyndon Johnson, John Kennedy and I ranked in that order in obtaining approval of legislation proposed to Congress. The Miller Center reported that my record exceeded Kennedy’s. Indeed, he got his legislative way in Congress 76.6 percent of the time, according to Politifact . He left a deep mark on this country, especially when it comes to the environment and the automotive industry. Carter was the first president to bail out an American automaker, Chrysler, with a $1.5-billion Treasury loan. He was the first to attempt to get oil companies to pay their fair share of taxes during times of record profits (and record gas-pump prices) and the first leader in the world to address global warming, and humanity’s role in it, as a reality. Carter looked at our wasteful, energy-hungry American culture and struck a solemn — occasionally scolding — chord, imploring us to build toward a brighter future. But such a vision is not sexy, and it’s not fun. It’s certainly not part of what we think of as the go-go 1980s culture. Instead of seriously investing in innovations that would reduce our dependence on carbon-emitting oil from hostile countries, America chose to proceed in an entirely different direction, made clear when the electorate chose Ronald Regan by a landslide in the 1980 presidential election. “Carter also envisioned electric cars by the mid-1980s, and would have used his power to push automakers in that direction, as he did on CAFE standards,” Carter biographer Jonathan Alter told Jalopnik. Alter believes that a second Carter term would have been much better in a lot of ways. “Starting with more compassion domestically and less saber-rattling abroad, where he would have likely completed the unfinished business of Camp David, namely some comprehensive Mideast peace deal that included an eventual Palestinian state. Carter told me this was his biggest regret about losing.” Carter won the Nobel Peace Price in 2002, the committee citing his groundbreaking work towards peace throughout his career, both as president and as a private civilian. The Camp David Accords ended 30 years of hostility between Egypt and Israel and remain the longest-lasting peace agreement since World War II. That’s not to say Carter was without fault. As president, Carter saved Chrysler (and the automaker paid off its debt to the American people seven years early), but the Carter administration also helped establish an emboldened corporate America where workers still regularly bear the burden of highly-paid CEOs’ mistakes. He created a new tax that would directly result in the rise of the SUV, inspiring automakers to revamp their ’70s gas-guzzler shortsightedness for the 21st century. And he led a White House that seemed chaotic and directionless when America yearned for strong leadership. Let’s take a look at where this influential president went right — and where he went wrong — in his dealings with the American automotive industry. Taking on Fuel Economy and Big Oil By 1977, the concept of the modern suburb was only about 25 years old, but had overtaken the American way of life. By the 1970s, the number of cars on American roads had quadrupled in two decades, to 118 million vehicles, and the number of miles traveled by car had doubled. This was the Malaise Era of cars — a time of inefficient, poorly built, uninspired land yachts. The rise of in-car air conditioning shaved even more miles off the U.S. economy average, costing new car owners about two and a half miles per gallon. Carter addressed this waste in his first address as president: We have learned that “more” is not necessarily “better,” that even our great Nation has its recognized limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all problems. We cannot afford to do everything, nor can we afford to lack boldness as we meet the future. So, together, in a spirit of individual sacrifice for the common good, we must simply do our best. The country was still reeling from the 1973 Gas Crisis, caused after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries placed an embargo on U.S. oil sales in response to the U.S. re-supplying Israel during the Yom Kippur War. This caused a spike in gas prices and shortages in fuel across the country. OPEC ended its embargo in May of 1974, but fuel prices remained high while oil companies profited immensely. To prevent another painful energy crisis, Carter’s predecessor, Gerald Ford, had signed into law the first Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard. This policy would eventually be expanded by the energy bill Carter promised in his inaugural address. Passed in 1978 as the National Energy Act, the collection of eight bills created the Department of Energy, pushed renewable energy goals, raised fleet average MPG requirements, reduced oil imports by supporting the U.S. oil industry, and imposed a gas guzzler tax which would increase as CAFE standards tightened. Carter called the previous administration’s energy crisis the “...moral equivalent of war,” and he planned to come out with both guns blazing. His new Department of Energy would be put to the test just a year after its creation when, in 1979, Carter faced the moral war of his own energy crisis. The Iranian Revolution and the subsequent hostage crisis sent oil prices soaring from $13 per barrel in mid-1979 to $34 per barrel by mid-1980 — despite the loss in oil supply being estimated at only four to five percent. Long lines at fuel pumps were once again angering Americans. But folksy Carter was famous for facing moral struggles. The president sequestered himself at Camp David for 10 days to consider the energy problems facing America. He met with leaders in business, science and faith, and spent hours alone studying and writing. After this period of reflection, Carter believed he had identified the problem. In what would later become known as Carter’s Malaise Speech , he cut to the heart of U.S. consumerist culture: The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America. . . . In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world. While certainly not wrong, saying as much is kind of a bummer. Amazingly, Carter’s incredibly low approval numbers received an 11-point bump after the speech, which was squandered a few days later when Carter fired five cabinet members. His presidency seemed scattered and chaotic heading into the 1980 presidential election. In order to bring down gas prices, Carter would begin to deregulate domestic fuel markets even as he imposed a large tax on oil company windfalls during the nationwide gas shortages and price hikes. His policies would initially lead to an increase in domestic oil production of nearly 1 million barrels a day between 1980 and 1985, according to the Miller Center. However, the price of oil plummeted in the mid ’80s, and the tax became a significant hindrance to domestic oil production, while not raking in all that much dough for the federal government. It was repealed in 1988; politicians have been twitchy over the idea of taxing massive oil company profits ever since. President Joe Biden recently floated the same idea, which was almost universally panned as being doomed to repeat Carter’s failure. Carter’s regulation of the auto industry wasn’t perfect, either. During his time in office, Carter expanded a tax on Japanese light-trucks in order to prop up domestic sales. Reagan would build on this policy in 1981, pressing Japanese automakers into “voluntary” export restrictions. Further, light trucks were exempt from Carter’s strict new MPG standards, and continue to be exempt to this day. These little favors for the automakers would lead directly to the rise of deadly, dangerous and wasteful SUVs and trucks on America’s roads, setting us up for yet another energy crisis in 2022, when gas prices and inflation once again reared their ugly heads. Carter told the Harvard Business Review he was proactive with automakers about building more fuel-efficient cars even before his own oil crisis. The heads of the Big Three were hesitant to get on board, however: [...] I called in to my cabinet room the chief executive officers—the chairmen of the board and the presidents of every automobile manufacturer in the nation—along with the autoworkers’ union representatives. I told them we were going to pass some very strict air pollution and energy conservation laws. My hope was that they would take the initiative right then and commit themselves to producing energy-efficient automobiles that would comply with these strict standards. Their unanimous response was that it simply was not possible. I told them that automakers in Sweden and in Japan were doing it, so it was possible. But they insisted that they just couldn’t make a profit on it because their profit came from the larger automobiles. So they refused to modify their designs. Eventually we passed a law that required them, incrementally and annually, to improve their automobiles’ efficiency and to comply with environmental standards. In the meantime, American manufacturers lost a lot of the domestic market. That was a case of the automobile industry being unwilling to look to the future. They could not see the long-run advantage, even though it might prove to be costly in the close-in years. That delay would cost Chrysler dearly. The 1979 Chrysler Bailout That lack of long-term foresight Carter spoke of in his Malaise speech would send Chrysler spiraling towards something unimaginable in the post-war United States: The bankruptcy of a major American automobile manufacturer. And yet, in 1979 Chrysler faced half a billion dollars in losses. At a time of rising gas prices and the emergence of stringent federal fuel economy standards, the American automaker was still churning out those poorly-built road yachts. No automaker built them quite as big (or as wasteful) as the Chrysler corporation. At the time, Chrysler was the third-largest automaker in the country, and the 10th-largest industrial manufacturer. By the time Carter took office, America had waded through five years of energy ups and downs, but Chrysler hadn’t changed its vehicles all that much. When the second gas crisis hit, along with the new regulations put in place by Carter’s energy policy, Chrysler fumbled. The company had recently scooped up celebrity CEO Lee Iaoccoa , fresh off eight years of making money hand over fist for Henry Ford II. Iacoccoa was the fall guy for the Ford Pinto disaster, but had made few friends with his desire to push the company towards more fuel-efficient vehicles. As a sign of the serious situation Chrysler was in, Iacoccoa took a salary of only $1 in his first year as CEO. Iacocca then tried to move Chrysler towards smaller vehicles, but quickly realized his new employer would not be able to weather this financial storm alone. Iacocca reached out to the feds for help. He persuaded lawmakers that Chrysler was too big to fail. Carter’s Treasury Department was on board, but in order to get enough support in Congress for a loan, the Carter administration would ask the company, and the UAW, to make deep concessions. Treasury Secretary G. William Miller proposed a $1.5 billion loan, then the Carter Administration’s Council on Wage and Price Stability testified before the Senate Banking Committee that such a loan would be consumed in three years flat, thanks to the automaker’s obligations to the UAW. After a summer of bad press and congressional cajoling, the UAW eventually agreed to $525 million in concessions in late October 1979, along with a three-year wage freeze. Just before Christmas, Chrysler got its $1.5 billion loan in the form of the Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee Act. The act did more than just bail out Chrysler. While Chrysler would be subject to more government oversight while paying off the debt — including $2 billion in cost-cutting measures and a three-year plan approved by Congress to get the company back on track — the special act also relaxed the brand-new gas mileage requirements updated by the 1978 National Energy Act. That alone gave Chrysler a much-needed boost, which Iacocca used to springboard the company-saving K-cars and, eventually, the minivan, which came to define the brand in the 1980s and 1990s. This bailout would be used as a blueprint by the Obama administration in 2008 when General Motors and Chrysler found themselves in the same situation Chrysler had faced in 1979. While Chrysler employees weren’t the ones who made the bad business decisions in the ’70s, they would bear a great burden in the plan to right the company’s course. As they accepted major concessions, union members were painted by the media as selfish and lazy, willing to kill Chrysler to get their golden retirement funds. Even with steep concessions and wage freezes in the middle of historic inflation, Chrysler laid off 57,000 of its 134,000-strong production workforce, the Washington Post reported in a retrospective on the bailout published in 1984. All told, the auto industry as a whole would lay off 239,000 workers in one month in 1980 . Still, Carter biographer Jonathan Alter says saving Chrysler was worth it. “It was a binary decision: Save Chrysler and thousands of jobs or not, and he clearly made the right call for workers, for whom he had much more respect than did Reagan,” Alter told Jalopnik The damage to unions would last much longer than Chrysler’s debt. The automaker managed to pay off its loan seven years early — mostly to get out from under federal oversight. The U.S. made $300 million on its investment in the company. While Chrysler would thrive in the ’80s and ’90s thanks to Iacocca’s simple, fuel-efficient K-cars and the popular minivan, union membership in America dropped precipitously as Right-to-Work laws swept the nation. And as union memberships stagnate, so do wages . Carter Was Right The energy crisis was a key issue to voters who tossed Carter out in favor of Ronald Reagan in a legendary landslide. Having fellow democrat Ted Kennedy challenge the sitting president for his party’s nomination was just one more nail in the coffin of Carter’s re-election campaign. His shaky administration didn’t look any more solid when the president lost consciousness during a 10K run. Reagan didn’t chide the American public for their gas-guzzling cars. He didn’t ask Americans to spend less, or look deep within themselves and question consumerist culture — Reagan promised wealth, abundance and a revitalization of the American dream (for some, anyway). Once he took office, Reagan stripped the Carter-installed solar panels off the roof of the White House and tossed them in a basement. The dismantling served as a symbol of America rejecting Carter’s old energy policies wholesale. When the solar panels were found in 2010, they still worked . Carter’s concerns about the U.S. didn’t disappear — we just put them on the back burner for a few decades. Now we’re facing challenges similar to what Carter attempted to address with his time in office: climate change; oil companies profiteering on the back of sky-high fuel prices; the runaway popularity of giant, inefficient vehicles; and detrimental consumerism on a scale familiar to anyone who lived through the 1970s. So what if Reagan had lost the 1980 election? According to a New York Times op-ed, we might be living in a very different world: According to a recent report by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, if the United States had continued to conserve oil at the rate it did in the period from 1976 to 1985, it would no longer have needed Persian Gulf oil after 1985. Had we continued this wise course, we might not have had to fight the Persian Gulf war, and we would have insulated ourselves from price shocks in the international oil market. Just before Carter left office in 1981, a member of his White House Council on Environmental Quality, Gus Speth, authored a presidential report as part of Global 2000, a process recommending action on global warming. It was the first such policy pronouncement anywhere in the world. “Speth’s recommendations for tackling climate change in 1981 would be almost identical to the Paris Climate Accords some 34 years later. Such a report would have become part of Carter’s legislative agenda in 1980,” Alter told Jalopnik. With Jimmy Carter’s death, America didn’t just lose an exemplary humanitarian who doubled the size of the National Parks system and signed 15 major pieces of environmental legislation, including the first toxic waste cleanup. We lost a reminder that our nation once had a head-start on solving some of the greatest problems we face today: environmental pollution, runaway oil consumption, rampant consumerism, a mental health crisis, climate change and Middle East violence. Carter envisioned a different, more responsible America, and he was rejected for it. Carter’s most enduring legacy will be this: He tried to leave America a little better than he found it. He attempted to warn Americans about the challenges we’d face over the next five decades. Our own legacy shows we were completely unwilling to heed those warnings.

By MARY CLARE JALONICK and MATT BROWN WASHINGTON (AP) — Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Defense Department, said he had a “wonderful conversation” with Maine Sen. Susan Collins on Wednesday as he pushed to win enough votes for confirmation. He said he will not back down after allegations of excessive drinking and sexual misconduct. Related Articles National Politics | Donald Trump will ring the New York Stock Exchange bell. It’ll be a first for him National Politics | The Trump and Biden teams insist they’re working hand in glove on foreign crises National Politics | ‘You don’t know what’s next.’ International students scramble ahead of Trump inauguration National Politics | Trump is threatening to raise tariffs again. Here’s how China plans to fight back National Politics | Trump won’t be able to save the struggling US beef industry Collins said after the hourlong meeting that she questioned Hegseth about the allegations amid reports of drinking and the revelation that he made a settlement payment after being accused of a sexual assault that he denies. She said she had a “good, substantive” discussion with Hegseth and “covered a wide range of topics,” including sexual assault in the military, Ukraine and NATO. But she said she would wait until a hearing, and notably a background check, to make a decision. “I asked virtually every question under the sun,” Collins told reporters as she left her office after the meeting. “I pressed him both on his position on military issues as well as the allegations against him, so I don’t think there was anything that we did not cover.” The meeting with Collins was closely watched as she is seen as more likely than most of her Republican Senate colleagues to vote against some of Trump’s Cabinet picks. She and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a fellow moderate Republican, did not shy from opposing Trump in his first term when they wanted to do so and sometimes supported President Joe Biden’s nominees for the judicial and executive branches. And Hegseth, an infantry combat veteran and former “Fox & Friends” weekend host, is working to gain as many votes as he can as some senators have expressed concerns about his personal history and lack of management experience. “I’m certainly not going to assume anything about where the senator stands,” Hegseth said as he left Collins’ office. “This is a process that we respect and appreciate. And we hope, in time, overall, when we get through that committee and to the floor that we can earn her support.” Hegseth met with Murkowski on Tuesday. He has also been meeting repeatedly with Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, a military veteran who has said she is a survivor of sexual assault and has spent time in the Senate working on improving how attacks are reported and prosecuted within the ranks. On Monday, Ernst said after a meeting with him that he had committed to selecting a senior official to prioritize those goals. Republicans will have a 53-49 majority next year, meaning Trump cannot lose more than three votes on any of his nominees. It is so far unclear whether Hegseth will have enough support, but Trump has stepped up his pressure on senators in the last week. “Pete is a WINNER, and there is nothing that can be done to change that!!!” Trump posted on his social media platform last week.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. , Dec. 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ --WuKong Education, a leading online K-12 education provider, has been named to the highly-anticipated 2025 edition of the GSV 150 : GSV's annual list of the top 150 private companies transforming digital learning and workforce skills. This recognition underscores WuKong Education's transformative role in the EdTech industry and its commitment to empowering students worldwide through AI-powered personalized learning. Out of more than 2,500 global VC- and PE-backed companies, WuKong Education was selected for the 2025 GSV 150 based on a proprietary evaluation framework, including revenue scale, growth, user reach, geographic diversification, and margin profile. The 2025 cohort of the GSV 150 collectively reaches 3B learners and generates over $25B in annual revenue. "The rapid rise of generative AI is fueling knowledge and creating opportunities we had not imagined before," says Luben Pampoulov, Partner at GSV Ventures. "Multi-modality is making education more engaging, AI tools are driving personalization and productivity, and learning is happening at the speed of light. Effectively everyone across the 2025 GSV 150 has generative AI deeply embedded in their offering." WuKong Education is revolutionizing online education for students aged 3-18 worldwide, offering courses in Chinese, Mathematics, and English Language Arts. By leveraging cutting-edge AI technology, WuKong Education empowers students from 118 countries with a unique learning journey that ignites curiosity, nurtures creativity, and sharpens critical thinking skills. Powered by AI, WuKong Education adapts to each student's unique needs, ensuring that every learner receives a personalized educational journey: This AI-driven teaching model has not only significantly improved student academic performance but also fostered the holistic development of students, earning widespread praise from students and parents around the world. "We are honored to be named to the 2025 GSV 150," said Vicky Wang , founder and CEO of WuKong Education. "This recognition affirms our ongoing commitment to revolutionizing education. By combining the expertise of our teaching and research teams with the possibilities of AI, we are setting a new benchmark for digital education to empower students globally." Earlier this year, WuKong Education was named a 2024 Cognia® School of Distinction for excellence in education by Cognia®, a globally recognized education quality certification organization, and was also listed in the AU&NZ EdTech Top 50 by HolonIQ, a global leader in impact intelligence, for the third consecutive year. These recognitions underscore WuKong Education's continued leadership in the global EdTech industry and its ongoing dedication to delivering exceptional education to learners around the world. About WuKong Education Based in Silicon Valley, WuKong Education is shaping the future of online learning for students aged 3 to 18. WuKong Education's three core programs—WuKong Chinese, WuKong Math, and WuKong English (ELA)—combine AI-driven technology, expert educators, and personalized services to deliver engaging, dynamic learning experiences. With over 400,000 families served globally, WuKong Education is empowering students to succeed and become lifelong learners in an ever-changing world. Learn more at: wukongsch.com . About GSV Founded in 2011, GSV is a global platform that drives education and workforce skills innovation. We believe that ALL people have equal access to the future, and that scaled innovations in "PreK to Gray" learning and skills are crucial to achieving this goal. The GSV platform includes the ASU+GSV Summit , hosted annually in San Diego with 7,000+ attendees; the India -based ASU+GSV & Emeritus Summit , now entering its third year; and The AI Show @ ASU+GSV , an immersive exploration of the AI Revolution in education, which welcomed 10,000+ attendees this year. GSV Ventures , GSV's investment arm founded in 2015, is a multi-stage venture fund investing in the most transformational companies across the global "PreK to Gray" landscape. View original content: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wukong-education-named-to-the-2025-gsv-150-for-leading-the-way-in-education-technology-302338883.html SOURCE WuKong EducationJudge grants request from prosecutors to dismiss election interference case against President-elect Donald Trump

Lizzo looked radiant on Saturday in an Instagram post that showcased the singer's incredible transformation following her dramatic weight loss The 36-year-old stepped out with her mother, Shari Johnson-Jefferson, sporting matching milkmaid braids over the weekend. "My mom stole my hairstyle & ate me up," she quipped in the caption of her post. The accompanying video saw Lizzo lip-syncing to a humorous Kardashians clip where Kim accused Kourtney of copying her. She wore a white billowing off-the-shoulder shirt with a white skirt featuring a denim waist design. Her skin looked flawless with a glowing makeup look and sparkly silver eyeshadow. Lizzo's mother was her twin in the video, wearing the same hairstyle and a leopard print coat. Fans quickly jumped to the comments section when they saw Lizzo's incredible transformation , with one writing, "She looks stunning!" while another posted, "okay queeenn". While some alluded to the idea that Lizzo had used weight loss drugs to achieve her transformation, others were quick to lift her up, with one fan writing, "She was beautiful before and is beautiful now". The body positivity icon has been open about her weight loss journey on social media, often showcasing her daily workouts and her delicious and nutritious meals. "I've been methodical, losing weight very slowly," she told The New York Times in March. "I don't really see it because if anyone who's on a natural weight-loss journey knows, losing weight is actually the slowest thing in the world, and you don't really notice it until you notice it," she said. "Also, the scale's not really moving. But anyway, that doesn't matter. I'm super proud of my current lifestyle." She also told the publication that she is striving for body neutrality rather than body positivity, as she felt it was more achievable. While body positivity focuses on unconditional self-love, body neutrality de-centers the body and aims to cultivate appreciation for what it can do rather than its aesthetic value. Lizzo has been adamant that the purpose behind her weight loss journey is not to be smaller but to feel better in herself, as she explained in a 2023 TikTok video. "I think a lot of people see a fat person that way and immediately just assume everything they're doing is to be thin," she said. "I'm not trying to be thin. I don't ever want to be thin." "Will my body fluctuate from this size? Will I get a little smaller depending on some of the choices I make or a little bigger, depending on some of the choices I make in my life. Yes, I'm used to fluctuating." The "Truth Hurts" singer was a vegan for four years until recently when she reintroduced animal protein into her diet. "I lead a very healthy lifestyle– mentally, spiritually, I try to keep everything I put in my body super clean," she told Vanity Fair in October. "Health is something I prioritize, wherever that leads me physically. Like veganism, people were like, 'You're a vegan? What, are you deep frying the lettuce?' I'm not a vegan to lose weight, I just feel better when I eat plants."

By MARY CLARE JALONICK and MATT BROWN WASHINGTON (AP) — Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Defense Department, said he had a “wonderful conversation” with Maine Sen. Susan Collins on Wednesday as he pushed to win enough votes for confirmation. He said he will not back down after allegations of excessive drinking and sexual misconduct. Related Articles National Politics | Donald Trump will ring the New York Stock Exchange bell. It’ll be a first for him National Politics | The Trump and Biden teams insist they’re working hand in glove on foreign crises National Politics | ‘You don’t know what’s next.’ International students scramble ahead of Trump inauguration National Politics | Trump is threatening to raise tariffs again. Here’s how China plans to fight back National Politics | Trump won’t be able to save the struggling US beef industry Collins said after the hourlong meeting that she questioned Hegseth about the allegations amid reports of drinking and the revelation that he made a settlement payment after being accused of a sexual assault that he denies. She said she had a “good, substantive” discussion with Hegseth and “covered a wide range of topics,” including sexual assault in the military, Ukraine and NATO. But she said she would wait until a hearing, and notably a background check, to make a decision. “I asked virtually every question under the sun,” Collins told reporters as she left her office after the meeting. “I pressed him both on his position on military issues as well as the allegations against him, so I don’t think there was anything that we did not cover.” The meeting with Collins was closely watched as she is seen as more likely than most of her Republican Senate colleagues to vote against some of Trump’s Cabinet picks. She and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a fellow moderate Republican, did not shy from opposing Trump in his first term when they wanted to do so and sometimes supported President Joe Biden’s nominees for the judicial and executive branches. And Hegseth, an infantry combat veteran and former “Fox & Friends” weekend host, is working to gain as many votes as he can as some senators have expressed concerns about his personal history and lack of management experience. “I’m certainly not going to assume anything about where the senator stands,” Hegseth said as he left Collins’ office. “This is a process that we respect and appreciate. And we hope, in time, overall, when we get through that committee and to the floor that we can earn her support.” Hegseth met with Murkowski on Tuesday. He has also been meeting repeatedly with Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, a military veteran who has said she is a survivor of sexual assault and has spent time in the Senate working on improving how attacks are reported and prosecuted within the ranks. On Monday, Ernst said after a meeting with him that he had committed to selecting a senior official to prioritize those goals. Republicans will have a 53-49 majority next year, meaning Trump cannot lose more than three votes on any of his nominees. It is so far unclear whether Hegseth will have enough support, but Trump has stepped up his pressure on senators in the last week. “Pete is a WINNER, and there is nothing that can be done to change that!!!” Trump posted on his social media platform last week.

Warren Buffett gives away another $1.1B and plans for distributing his $147B fortune after his deathCardinals' feel-good month comes to a screeching halt after a head-scratching loss to SeahawksIsraeli air attacks across the Gaza Strip killed at least 38 Palestinians on Wednesday, most of them in a strike on a house in Beit Lahiya on the northern edge of the enclave, medics said. The Beit Lahiya strike killed at least 22 people, including women and children, health officials said. Relatives listed the names of those killed on social media. More than 30 people were living in the multi-storey building before it was struck, and several family members remained missing as rescue operations continued through the morning, the Palestinian WAFA news agency said. The Israeli military told Reuters it had carried out a strike targeting Hamas militants near the Kamal Adwan Hospital, which is located between Beit Lahiya and Jabalia, towns on the northern fringe of Gaza under Israeli bombardments for two months. In nearby Beit Hanoun, also part of the area under attack, medics said an Israeli airstrike killed and wounded several people without giving an exact death toll. Rescue workers said several people remain trapped under rubble. The death...