CINCINNATI — Hamilton County is seeing an increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness. Organizations like Strategies to End Homelessness attribute this to a large demand for limited housing in an inflated economy. “There were really two parts to what happened during the pandemic," CEO Kevin Finn said. "You did moratoriums on evictions, but you also had large amounts of money available to help people who had gotten behind on their rent.” The end of COVID-era federal funding for eviction prevention programs and emergency rental assistance only ramped up the load for those at Our Daily Bread Soup Kitchen and Social Center. “We increased about 30% from where we were with our pre-COVID numbers," executive director Georgine Getty said. "And then we had another 30% jump this year since May.” Getty said that's a jump from serving 200-300 meals a day to serving about 500-600 meals a day. For Getty, the issue is housing and local laws in the Tri-State area. Getty cited efforts in Kentucky to criminalize homelessness. The law imposes a class B misdemeanor for second offenses and carries a maximum $250 fine and 90 days in jail. “Kentucky passed a really Draconian law about prohibiting people from sleeping outside," Getty said. "And we’ve been seeing a lot of people coming from Kentucky who don’t feel safe being there who are looking for services in Cincinnati now.” Other homeless advocates said they believe the local response to the homeless crisis has been stunted by federal requirements. "The federal government provides $28 million a year to effect homelessness," Flynn said. "We’re not allowed to use any of that money for prevention. We have to wait for people to be on the street or in a shelter before we can help them.” Flynn said there's a very small amount of emergency rental assistance to help people with eviction notices left now compared to a couple of years ago when American Rescue Plan funds were free-flowing into local programs and initiatives. Experts say the average cost to house someone post-homelessness is about $4,700. But, by preventing a person from becoming homeless, they say that the cost is reduced to about $1,650. When asked what can be done to help, Getty said making COVID-era programs a more permanent and funded fixture locally. “A lot of times what happens is people get behind," said Getty. "They get behind, they’re in between jobs. They’re having a hard time catching up. It’s that couple months of rental assistance, this is what we learned during COVID; a few months of rental assistance can make all of the difference in preventing somebody from going through the drama of being homeless.”Courtland Sutton's surge is helping rookie Bo Nix and the Denver Broncos make a playoff push

PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Newly married and sworn as a Naval officer, Jimmy Carter left his tiny hometown in 1946 hoping to climb the ranks and see the world. Less than a decade later, the death of his father and namesake, a merchant farmer and local politician who went by “Mr. Earl,” prompted the submariner and his wife, Rosalynn, to return to the rural life of Plains, Georgia, they thought they’d escaped. The lieutenant never would be an admiral. Instead, he became commander in chief. Years after his presidency ended in humbling defeat, he would add a Nobel Peace Prize, awarded not for his White House accomplishments but “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” The life of James Earl Carter Jr., the 39th and longest-lived U.S. president, ended Sunday at the age of 100 where it began: Plains, the town of 600 that fueled his political rise, welcomed him after his fall and sustained him during 40 years of service that redefined what it means to be a former president. With the stubborn confidence of an engineer and an optimism rooted in his Baptist faith, Carter described his motivations in politics and beyond in the same way: an almost missionary zeal to solve problems and improve lives. Carter was raised amid racism, abject poverty and hard rural living — realities that shaped both his deliberate politics and emphasis on human rights. “He always felt a responsibility to help people,” said Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend of Carter's in Plains. “And when he couldn’t make change wherever he was, he decided he had to go higher.” Carter's path, a mix of happenstance and calculation , pitted moral imperatives against political pragmatism; and it defied typical labels of American politics, especially caricatures of one-term presidents as failures. “We shouldn’t judge presidents by how popular they are in their day. That's a very narrow way of assessing them," Carter biographer Jonathan Alter told the Associated Press. “We should judge them by how they changed the country and the world for the better. On that score, Jimmy Carter is not in the first rank of American presidents, but he stands up quite well.” Later in life, Carter conceded that many Americans, even those too young to remember his tenure, judged him ineffective for failing to contain inflation or interest rates, end the energy crisis or quickly bring home American hostages in Iran. He gained admirers instead for his work at The Carter Center — advocating globally for public health, human rights and democracy since 1982 — and the decades he and Rosalynn wore hardhats and swung hammers with Habitat for Humanity. Yet the common view that he was better after the Oval Office than in it annoyed Carter, and his allies relished him living long enough to see historians reassess his presidency. “He doesn’t quite fit in today’s terms” of a left-right, red-blue scoreboard, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the former president multiple times during his own White House bid. At various points in his political career, Carter labeled himself “progressive” or “conservative” — sometimes both at once. His most ambitious health care bill failed — perhaps one of his biggest legislative disappointments — because it didn’t go far enough to suit liberals. Republicans, especially after his 1980 defeat, cast him as a left-wing cartoon. It would be easiest to classify Carter as a centrist, Buttigieg said, “but there’s also something radical about the depth of his commitment to looking after those who are left out of society and out of the economy.” Indeed, Carter’s legacy is stitched with complexities, contradictions and evolutions — personal and political. The self-styled peacemaker was a war-trained Naval Academy graduate who promised Democratic challenger Ted Kennedy that he’d “kick his ass.” But he campaigned with a call to treat everyone with “respect and compassion and with love.” Carter vowed to restore America’s virtue after the shame of Vietnam and Watergate, and his technocratic, good-government approach didn't suit Republicans who tagged government itself as the problem. It also sometimes put Carter at odds with fellow Democrats. The result still was a notable legislative record, with wins on the environment, education, and mental health care. He dramatically expanded federally protected lands, began deregulating air travel, railroads and trucking, and he put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. As a fiscal hawk, Carter added a relative pittance to the national debt, unlike successors from both parties. Carter nonetheless struggled to make his achievements resonate with the electorate he charmed in 1976. Quoting Bob Dylan and grinning enthusiastically, he had promised voters he would “never tell a lie.” Once in Washington, though, he led like a joyless engineer, insisting his ideas would become reality and he'd be rewarded politically if only he could convince enough people with facts and logic. This served him well at Camp David, where he brokered peace between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Epypt’s Anwar Sadat, an experience that later sparked the idea of The Carter Center in Atlanta. Carter's tenacity helped the center grow to a global force that monitored elections across five continents, enabled his freelance diplomacy and sent public health experts across the developing world. The center’s wins were personal for Carter, who hoped to outlive the last Guinea worm parasite, and nearly did. As president, though, the approach fell short when he urged consumers beleaguered by energy costs to turn down their thermostats. Or when he tried to be the nation’s cheerleader, beseeching Americans to overcome a collective “crisis of confidence.” Republican Ronald Reagan exploited Carter's lecturing tone with a belittling quip in their lone 1980 debate. “There you go again,” the former Hollywood actor said in response to a wonky answer from the sitting president. “The Great Communicator” outpaced Carter in all but six states. Carter later suggested he “tried to do too much, too soon” and mused that he was incompatible with Washington culture: media figures, lobbyists and Georgetown social elites who looked down on the Georgians and their inner circle as “country come to town.” Carter carefully navigated divides on race and class on his way to the Oval Office. Born Oct. 1, 1924 , Carter was raised in the mostly Black community of Archery, just outside Plains, by a progressive mother and white supremacist father. Their home had no running water or electricity but the future president still grew up with the relative advantages of a locally prominent, land-owning family in a system of Jim Crow segregation. He wrote of President Franklin Roosevelt’s towering presence and his family’s Democratic Party roots, but his father soured on FDR, and Jimmy Carter never campaigned or governed as a New Deal liberal. He offered himself as a small-town peanut farmer with an understated style, carrying his own luggage, bunking with supporters during his first presidential campaign and always using his nickname. And he began his political career in a whites-only Democratic Party. As private citizens, he and Rosalynn supported integration as early as the 1950s and believed it inevitable. Carter refused to join the White Citizens Council in Plains and spoke out in his Baptist church against denying Black people access to worship services. “This is not my house; this is not your house,” he said in a churchwide meeting, reminding fellow parishioners their sanctuary belonged to God. Yet as the appointed chairman of Sumter County schools he never pushed to desegregate, thinking it impractical after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board decision. And while presidential candidate Carter would hail the 1965 Voting Rights Act, signed by fellow Democrat Lyndon Johnson when Carter was a state senator, there is no record of Carter publicly supporting it at the time. Carter overcame a ballot-stuffing opponent to win his legislative seat, then lost the 1966 governor's race to an arch-segregationist. He won four years later by avoiding explicit mentions of race and campaigning to the right of his rival, who he mocked as “Cufflinks Carl” — the insult of an ascendant politician who never saw himself as part the establishment. Carter’s rural and small-town coalition in 1970 would match any victorious Republican electoral map in 2024. Once elected, though, Carter shocked his white conservative supporters — and landed on the cover of Time magazine — by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” Before making the jump to Washington, Carter befriended the family of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whom he’d never sought out as he eyed the governor’s office. Carter lamented his foot-dragging on school integration as a “mistake.” But he also met, conspicuously, with Alabama's segregationist Gov. George Wallace to accept his primary rival's endorsement ahead of the 1976 Democratic convention. “He very shrewdly took advantage of his own Southerness,” said Amber Roessner, a University of Tennessee professor and expert on Carter’s campaigns. A coalition of Black voters and white moderate Democrats ultimately made Carter the last Democratic presidential nominee to sweep the Deep South. Then, just as he did in Georgia, he used his power in office to appoint more non-whites than all his predecessors had, combined. He once acknowledged “the secret shame” of white Americans who didn’t fight segregation. But he also told Alter that doing more would have sacrificed his political viability – and thus everything he accomplished in office and after. King's daughter, Bernice King, described Carter as wisely “strategic” in winning higher offices to enact change. “He was a leader of conscience,” she said in an interview. Rosalynn Carter, who died on Nov. 19 at the age of 96, was identified by both husband and wife as the “more political” of the pair; she sat in on Cabinet meetings and urged him to postpone certain priorities, like pressing the Senate to relinquish control of the Panama Canal. “Let that go until the second term,” she would sometimes say. The president, recalled her former aide Kathy Cade, retorted that he was “going to do what’s right” even if “it might cut short the time I have.” Rosalynn held firm, Cade said: “She’d remind him you have to win to govern.” Carter also was the first president to appoint multiple women as Cabinet officers. Yet by his own telling, his career sprouted from chauvinism in the Carters' early marriage: He did not consult Rosalynn when deciding to move back to Plains in 1953 or before launching his state Senate bid a decade later. Many years later, he called it “inconceivable” that he didn’t confer with the woman he described as his “full partner,” at home, in government and at The Carter Center. “We developed a partnership when we were working in the farm supply business, and it continued when Jimmy got involved in politics,” Rosalynn Carter told AP in 2021. So deep was their trust that when Carter remained tethered to the White House in 1980 as 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, it was Rosalynn who campaigned on her husband’s behalf. “I just loved it,” she said, despite the bitterness of defeat. Fair or not, the label of a disastrous presidency had leading Democrats keep their distance, at least publicly, for many years, but Carter managed to remain relevant, writing books and weighing in on societal challenges. He lamented widening wealth gaps and the influence of money in politics. He voted for democratic socialist Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and later declared that America had devolved from fully functioning democracy to “oligarchy.” Yet looking ahead to 2020, with Sanders running again, Carter warned Democrats not to “move to a very liberal program,” lest they help re-elect President Donald Trump. Carter scolded the Republican for his serial lies and threats to democracy, and chided the U.S. establishment for misunderstanding Trump’s populist appeal. He delighted in yearly convocations with Emory University freshmen, often asking them to guess how much he’d raised in his two general election campaigns. “Zero,” he’d gesture with a smile, explaining the public financing system candidates now avoid so they can raise billions. Carter still remained quite practical in partnering with wealthy corporations and foundations to advance Carter Center programs. Carter recognized that economic woes and the Iran crisis doomed his presidency, but offered no apologies for appointing Paul Volcker as the Federal Reserve chairman whose interest rate hikes would not curb inflation until Reagan's presidency. He was proud of getting all the hostages home without starting a shooting war, even though Tehran would not free them until Reagan's Inauguration Day. “Carter didn’t look at it” as a failure, Alter emphasized. “He said, ‘They came home safely.’ And that’s what he wanted.” Well into their 90s, the Carters greeted visitors at Plains’ Maranatha Baptist Church, where he taught Sunday School and where he will have his last funeral before being buried on family property alongside Rosalynn . Carter, who made the congregation’s collection plates in his woodworking shop, still garnered headlines there, calling for women’s rights within religious institutions, many of which, he said, “subjugate” women in church and society. Carter was not one to dwell on regrets. “I am at peace with the accomplishments, regret the unrealized goals and utilize my former political position to enhance everything we do,” he wrote around his 90th birthday. The politician who had supposedly hated Washington politics also enjoyed hosting Democratic presidential contenders as public pilgrimages to Plains became advantageous again. Carter sat with Buttigieg for the final time March 1, 2020, hours before the Indiana mayor ended his campaign and endorsed eventual winner Joe Biden. “He asked me how I thought the campaign was going,” Buttigieg said, recalling that Carter flashed his signature grin and nodded along as the young candidate, born a year after Carter left office, “put the best face” on the walloping he endured the day before in South Carolina. Never breaking his smile, the 95-year-old host fired back, “I think you ought to drop out.” “So matter of fact,” Buttigieg said with a laugh. “It was somehow encouraging.” Carter had lived enough, won plenty and lost enough to take the long view. “He talked a lot about coming from nowhere,” Buttigieg said, not just to attain the presidency but to leverage “all of the instruments you have in life” and “make the world more peaceful.” In his farewell address as president, Carter said as much to the country that had embraced and rejected him. “The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language,” he declared. “Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity and who suffer for the sake of justice — they are the patriots of this cause.” Carter pledged to remain engaged with and for them as he returned “home to the South where I was born and raised,” home to Plains, where that young lieutenant had indeed become “a fellow citizen of the world.” —- Bill Barrow, based in Atlanta, has covered national politics including multiple presidential campaigns for the AP since 2012.2 Lincoln high schools receive fake reports of school shootings

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Saskatchewan premier says he won't allow Speaker intimidation as legislature resumesFOX45: Raskin launches bid for ranking member of House Judiciary CommitteeWATCH the incredible unearthed footage that shows the world's first autonomous car in action, and it's not one of Elon Musk's Teslas. Decades before self-driving cars were unleashed to the public a 1986 vehicle was moving without a human at the wheel. Musk is typically dubbed as the person who brought out self-driving vehicles. Decades before Musk's Tesla company was created a German man brought driverless vehicles onto European roads. Ernst Dickmanns, a German scientist, developed a vehicle that was able to navigate roads on its own. A group of German engineers came together in the 1980s to transform a Mercedes van, bought by Ernst. Read more on cars The team took eight years to build their technological phenomenon and it hit the roads in 1986. This van was filled with sensors that could detect cars, people, and objects around it. The modified Mercedes was able to identify up to six items and obstructions at any one time. The special car reached up to 59mph and was able to change lanes and stop on its own. Most read in Motors Despite his successes, Ernst's plans were initially doubted at the German university where he ran his tests, according to Politico . The scientist started out as an aerospace engineer but set his sights on revolutionizing the car world. Ernst said: “The colleagues at the university said, well, he’s an oddball, but he’s got a track record [of achievements in aerospace technology,] so let’s just let him do it." His modified van became the first self-driving car when it rode on a skidpan on the university campus. He upped the stakes when he sent his creation down the unopened autobahn at top speeds. Ernst then said he was approached by German carmaker Daimler to get a self-driving car on a busy Parisian road. The creator revealed he found this proposition to be "absurd" but eventually agreed to take on the challenge. The autonomous car picked up a group of elite visitors from Charles de Gaulle Airport and drove onto an open motorway where it was switched to self-drive mode. Ernst's creation was able to switch lanes on its own, while an engineer remained behind the wheel in case something went wrong. One of the engineers said: “Sometimes, we would take our hands off the wheel." This remarkable team even took one of their self-driving creations on a long ride from Southern Germany to Denmark . Despite its successes, this car did not become mainstream due to a lack of funding from Daimler. BIG CHANGES Driverless cars are slowly becoming more and more normal on our roads. Self-driving taxis have become a controversial part of San Francisco, as the Waymo robo-cabs don't even have a driver behind these wheels for emergencies. READ MORE SUN STORIES In February, a large crowd set one of these autonomous taxis alight in a fiery blaze in the middle of the major city. Chilling footage showed an aggressive mob surrounding the white vehicle as plumes of back smoke soared into the sky.

NEW YORK (AP) — Shohei Ohtani wins his third MVP and first in the NL following a historic offensive season with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

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Semona scores 15 as Stonehill takes down Lafayette 70-65OTTAWA - Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says the federal government is hoping a temporary break on GST will address a ‘vibecession’ that has gripped Canadians. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Thursday that starting Dec. 14 the goods and services tax will be taken off a slew of items for two months to help with the affordability crunch. Freeland says there’s a disconnect between recent good news on inflation and interest rates and how Canadians are feeling about the economy, something she said is being referred to as a “vibecession.” She says the tax cut is meant to help bridge that gap and stimulate consumer spending. The federal government also plans to send $250 cheques in the spring to Canadians who were working in 2023 and earned up to $150,000. The two measures are estimated to cost the federal government $6.3 billion. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 25, 2024.

Trump offers a public show of support for Pete Hegseth, his embattled nominee to lead the Pentagon

The gym in Richton Park was bursting at the seams for the highly-anticipated showdown between host Rich and Homewood-Flossmoor, the defending Class 4A state champions in the Big Dipper Holiday Tournament title game on Sunday . At halftime, it even had to be cleared out a bit. Fans who had to leave were offered refunds. ”By order of the fire marshal, if you are sitting in the aisles you will be asked to leave,” the PA announcer said. The Big Dipper is a beloved south suburban institution that has been back bigger than ever the past few seasons. This year was special. For the first time in 31 years, the host school won. The Raptors received a lot of attention in the preseason. They are one of the most talented teams in the state. But their early results were a let down. “We had to correct some stuff so we did some team bonding,” junior Jayden Williams said. “We all did Christmas together as teammates.” It worked. Rich knocked off undefeated, top-ranked Kenwood in the semifinals on Saturday and took down Homewood-Flossmoor 81-67 in the championship game. “This feels amazing,” junior guard Jamson Coulter said. “We worked our butts off and came to play. I’m just happy for the program. All the work we put in is showing.” Coulter scored 30 points. Senior Al Brooks added 12 points, 15 rebounds and four blocks. Coulter and Brooks were established stars last season. Williams, who scored 18 points, had a breakout week. He had 21 in the semifinals against Kenwood. Rich coach Lou Adams wasn’t on the sideline for the game. He’s been dealing with some health issues so he wasn’t coaching. But he was on the baseline watching and occasionally looking more involved than his doctors may have liked. “I had some issues [during the semifinal against Kenwood on Saturday],” Adams said. “So I had to play it by ear today. I’m so proud of these guys. We brought it back.” Rich (7-4) led 37-30 at halftime. The Vikings cut the lead to 66-61 on a layup by Jayden Tyler with 3:20 left but that was as close as it would get. Tyler led the Vikings (13-2) with 24 points and four steals and senior Arden Eaves added 18 points and six rebounds. “They made a lot of threes,” H-F coach Jamere Dismukes said. “We are back to the drawing board to see what we can do. The biggest takeaway from us is allowing those shots. It seems like they wanted it a little more.”A bankruptcy judge on Monday delayed a hearing in conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ effort to stop the satirical news outlet The Onion from buying Infowars, keeping the auction sale up in the air for at least another few weeks. Jones alleges fraud and collusion marred the bankruptcy auction that resulted in The Onion being named the winning bidder over a company affiliated with him. A trustee overseeing the auction denies the allegations and accuses Jones of launching a smear campaign because he didn't like the outcome. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez had been scheduled to hear an emergency motion to disqualify The Onion's bid on Monday, but put it off until either Dec. 9 or Dec. 17. That's also when the judge will hear arguments on the trustee's request to approve the sale of Infowars to The Onion. Lopez said it made sense to have one hearing on both requests. “I want a fair and transparent process and let’s just see where the process goes," Lopez said. Lopez could ultimately allow The Onion to move forward with its purchase, order a new auction or name the other bidder as the winner. At stake is whether Jones gets to stay at Infowars’ studio in Austin, Texas, under a new owner friendly to him, or whether he gets kicked out by The Onion. The other bidder, First United American Companies, runs a website in Jones’ name that sells nutritional supplements. Jones continues to broadcast his show from the Infowars studio, but he has set up a new location, websites and social media accounts as a precaution. The trustee shut down the Austin studio and Infowars' websites for about 24 hours last week after The Onion was announced as the winning bidder, but allowed them to resume the next day, drawing more complaints from Jones. Jones declared bankruptcy and liquidated his assets after he was ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion to relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. He was ordered to pay damages for defamation and emotional distress in lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas after he repeatedly said the 2012 shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators was a hoax staged by actors to increase gun control. Proceeds from the liquidation are to go to Jones’ creditors, including the Sandy Hook families who sued him. Last year, Lopez ruled that $1.1 billion of the Sandy Hook judgments could not be discharged in the bankruptcy. On Monday, he denied a request from Sandy Hook families to make the full $1.5 billion not dischargeable, meaning the debt cannot be wiped clean. Also Monday, lawyers for the social media platform X objected to any sale of the accounts of both Jones and Infowars, saying X is the owner of the accounts and it has not given consent for them to be sold or transferred. Jones' personal X account, with 3.3 million followers, was not part of the auction, but Lopez will be deciding if it should be included in the liquidation. Jones has praised X owner Elon Musk on his show and suggested that Musk should buy Infowars. Musk has not responded publicly to that suggestion and was not among the bidders. Jones was permanently banned from Twitter in 2018 for abusive behavior, but Musk restored Jones’ account on the platform he has since renamed X in December last year. Jones alleges The Onion’s bid was the result of fraud and collusion involving many of the Sandy Hook families, the humor site and the court-appointed trustee. First United American Companies submitted a $3.5 million sealed bid, while The Onion offered $1.75 million in cash. But The Onion's bid also included a pledge by Sandy Hook families to forgo some or all of the auction proceeds due to them to give other creditors a total of $100,000 more than they would receive under other bids. The trustee, Christopher Murray, said that made The Onion's proposal better for creditors and he named it the winning bid. Jones and First United American Companies claimed that the bid violated Lopez’s rules for the auction by including multiple entities and lacking a valid dollar amount. Jones also alleged Murray improperly canceled an expected round of live bidding and only selected from among the two sealed bids that were submitted. Jones called the auction “rigged” and a “fraud” on his show, which airs on the Infowars website, radio stations and Jones' X account. He filed a counter lawsuit last week against Murray, The Onion's parent company and the Sandy Hook families in the bankruptcy court. In a court filing on Sunday, Murray called the allegations a “desperate attempt” to delay the sale of Infowars to The Onion and accused Jones, his lawyers and attorneys for First United American Companies of a “vicious smear campaign lobbing patently false accusations.” He also alleged Jones collaborated with First United American Companies to try to buy Infowars. Lopez’s September order on the auction procedures made a live bidding round optional. And it gave broad authority to Murray to conduct the sale, including the power to reject any bid, no matter how high, that was “contrary to the best interests” of Jones, his company and their creditors. The assets of Infowars' parent company, Free Speech Systems, that were up for sale included the Austin studio, Infowars' video archive, video production equipment, product trademarks, and Infowars' websites and social media accounts. Another auction of remaining assets is set for Dec. 10. Jones is appealing the $1.5 billion in judgments citing free speech rights, but has acknowledged that the school shooting happened . Many of Jones’ personal assets, including real estate, guns and other belongings, also are being sold as part of the bankruptcy. Documents filed in court this year say Jones had about $9 million in personal assets, while Free Speech Systems had about $6 million in cash and more than $1 million worth of inventory.