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Sports on TV for Nov. 23 - 24Lee Enterprises announced a partnership Friday morning with Perplexity, the AI search engine, through the company’s Publishers’ Program. This collaboration underscores Lee’s commitment to advancing local journalism by integrating innovative AI solutions that enhance content delivery, deepen audience engagement, and create new revenue opportunities, according to a news release. "By leveraging Perplexity’s advanced AI capabilities, Lee aims to redefine how communities interact with local news and advertising, offering personalized content experiences and opening new avenues for local businesses to connect with their audiences," the release continued. The partnership between Lee Enterprises and Perplexity focuses on two key initiatives: • Advertising Innovation: Utilizing AI technology to empower local businesses with data-driven advertising solutions, optimizing their reach, and ensuring campaigns resonate with community needs. • Future-Ready Strategies: Collaborating on scalable innovations to strengthen local journalism, explore new content monetization opportunities, and support advertisers in an evolving digital landscape. “AI is reshaping the business models of industries around the world, and journalism is no exception,” said Kevin Mowbray, CEO at Lee Enterprises. “This partnership with Perplexity is a bold step forward in embracing change. By integrating AI into our operations, we’re excited to transform how we deliver news, support our advertisers, and engage with readers in ways that were never possible before. This is about creating a future where trusted local journalism thrives in the digital age.” Runners climb the Brady Street Hill as the 50th Quad City Times Bix 7 kicks-off. Runners leave the mark in the eight-year-old division at the Arconic Junior Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Theodore Schnekloth, 6, takes off in the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. A young runner takes a much-deserved break with some snacks after the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Raelynn Fuhlman, 7, of Silvis, receives some help as she finishes the race at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Volunteers hand out medals to participants as they finish the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. A volunteer hands out medals to the six-year-old runners medals at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Two members of the crowd peek out from the race barricade on Fourth Street at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Conner Byrd, 11, of North Liberty, crosses the finish line with an entourage of Bix Buddies from the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Young runners leave the mark along Fourth Street at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Friends and family cheer on runners at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. The crowd cheers on runners at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. The 7-year-old division participants elbow their way out from the starting line at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Racers on the mark at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Volunteers hand out medals to runners as they cross the finish line at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Participants run the Arconic Jr. Bix down Fourth Street on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Young runners wait on the mark at the Arconic Junior Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. A volunteer leads the runners to the finish line at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. The 7-year-old division participants are anxious to start running at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. A volunteer hands out medals to the 6-year-old runners medals at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. A boy hitches a ride at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Runners in the six-year-old division cross the finish line at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Guests stay hydrated at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. A group of 11-year-olds run the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. A young guest watches the Arconic Jr. Bix from a comfortable height on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. A family encourages a runner as he nears the finish line at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Nathan Paustian, 12, of Durant, receives some encouragement from the crowd at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Hugh Thomas, 10, of Davenport, sticks his hand out for high-fives from the crowd at the Arconic Jr.Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Eleven-year-old runners leave their mark at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. Runners run into the sunset at the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, in Davenport. A young spectator high-fives an Arconic Jr. Bix racer during the six-year-old race on Friday, July 26, 2024. Jr. Bix racers grab post-race popsicles in the Quad-City Times parking lot on Friday, July 26, 2024. Six-year-old Obed Toto, the Garfield Elementary School Running Club's top "Elite" runner for the 2023-24 school year, poses after the Arconic Jr. Bix race on Friday, July 26, 2024. Miguel Cedillo, 9, of Bettendorf, high-fives the Chik-fil-A mascot before racing in the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. A young spectator extends a high-five to an Arconic Jr. Bix racer during the six-year-old race on Friday, July 26, 2024. Two six-year-old racers join hands during the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. Obed Toto, the Garfield Elementary School Running Club's top "Elite" runner, speeds by during the Arconic Jr. Bix six-year-old race on Friday, July 26, 2024. Obed Toko (left), of Davenport, races alongside Beau Schepers, of Bettendorf, during the Arconic Jr. Bix six-year-old race on Friday, July 26, 2024. Six-year-old Arconic Jr. Bix runners gear up for the race on Friday, July 26, 2024. Logan Dasso 6, of Davenport, sits on the shoulders of Andrew, her dad, and watches the races, Friday, July 26, 2024, during the Arconic Jr. Bix in Davenport. Oliver Little 6, of Eldridge plays with is Jr. Bix Medal as he is held by friend Jen Burman, Friday, July 26, 2024, during the Arconic Jr. Bix in Davenport. Jim Thomas from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, blows loudly on his horn, encouraging the racers to finish, Friday, July 26, 2024, during the Arconic Jr. Bix in Davenport. A large crowd complete with cell phone cameras, capture the end of the races, Friday, July 26, 2024, during the Arconic Jr. Bix in Davenport. The start of the 11-year-old race, Friday, July 26, 2024, during the Arconic Jr. Bix in Davenport. Terriq Morgan-Clay (R) of Bettendorf beats out Logan Boll of Bettendorf at the finish line of the 10-year-old 's race Friday, July 26, 2024, during the Arconic Jr. Bix in Davenport. The start of the nine-year-old race, Friday, July 26, 2024, during the Arconic Jr. Bix in Davenport. Elyjah Ashby of Davenport gets some high five's as he approaches the finish line of the nine-year-old race, Friday, July 26, 2024, during the Arconic Jr. Bix in Davenport. The start of the eight-year-old race, Friday, July 26, 2024, during the Arconic Jr. Bix in Davenport. Jimmie Martin of Davenport is determined to finish his race, Friday, July 26, 2024, during the Arconic Jr. Bix in Davenport. The six-year-olds leave the starting line , Friday, July 26, 2024, during the Arconic Jr. Bix in Davenport. A Bix Buddy picks up a six-year-old on her back so he can finish the race, Friday, July 26, 2024, during the Arconic Jr. Bix in Davenport. A pair of six-year-olds race for the finish line as the crowd cheers, Friday, July 26, 2024, during the Arconic Jr. Bix in Davenport. Five-year-old Jayden "Superman" Gibbs gets ready to run the Arconic Junior Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. Three-year-old Oscar Sanchez is all smiles during his heat of the Arconic Junior Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. Following the completion of the ages five and under races, Bix 7 Volunteers Emerson Quick, Allison Harris and Ava Harris-Shepard couldn't resist their own race at the Arconic Junior Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. Calvin Henneman flies to the finish line during the three-year-old division of the Arconic Junior Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. Sydney Hutchins of Rock Island and her friend Mickey Mouse went their separate ways during the 3-year-old division of the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. Sydney Hutchins of Rock Island and her friend Mickey Mouse went their separate ways during the 3-year-old division of the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. Sydney Hutchins of Rock Island and her friend Mickey Mouse went their separate ways during the 3-year-old division of the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. Axel Munos, of Davenport, had to get a little help across the finish line of the Arconic Jr. Bix race, from his mother Stephanie, on Friday, July 26, 2024. Two-year-old Tatum Grothus chases her shadow during her heat of the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. Sophie Shrader finds a familiar face to run to during the 3-year-old division of the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. One-year-old Callie Peters crosses the finish line with a big smile during the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. Runners take off from the starting line during the 11-year-old division of the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. Seven-year-olds jump the starting gun during of the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. From left, Bella Lombardi, Allie Stringer and Trey Pettigrew run in the four-year-old division of the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. Nine-month-old Briar Smith would rather check the taste of her medal than pose for a photo with her mother, Lexi, after crawling in the under one-year-old division of the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. From left, Briar Larsen (530), Claire Berkley (460) and Josephine Vradenburg (461) run in the 3-year-old division of the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. Two-year-old Rowan Lind runs with his mother Brandee during the Arconic Jr. Bix on Friday, July 26, 2024. Get the latest local business news delivered FREE to your inbox weekly. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.

WASHINGTON — The House shut down Democrats' efforts Thursday to release the long-awaited ethics report into former Rep. Matt Gaetz, pushing the fate of any resolution to the yearslong investigation of sexual misconduct allegations into further uncertainty. Matt Gaetz talks before President-elect Donald Trump speaks during an America First Policy Institute gala at his Mar-a-Lago estate Nov. 14 in Palm Beach, Fla. The nearly party-line votes came after Democrats had been pressing for the findings to be published even though the Florida Republican left Congress and withdrew as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general. Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., was the sole Republican to support the effort. Most Republicans have argued that any congressional probe into Gaetz ended when he resigned from the House. Speaker Mike Johnson also requested that the committee not publish its report, saying it would be a terrible precedent to set. While ethics reports have previously been released after a member’s resignation, it is extremely rare. Shortly before the votes took place, Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., who introduced one of the bills to force the release, said that if Republicans reject the release, they will have “succeeded in sweeping credible allegations of sexual misconduct under the rug.” Gaetz has repeatedly denied the claims. Earlier Thursday, the Ethics panel met to discuss the Gaetz report but made no decision, saying in a short statement that the matter is still being discussed. It's unclear now whether the document will ever see the light of day as lawmakers have only a few weeks left before a new session of Congress begins. It's the culmination of weeks of pressure on the Ethics committee's five Republicans and five Democrats who mostly work in secret as they investigate allegations of misconduct against lawmakers. The status of the Gaetz investigation became an open question last month when he abruptly resigned from Congress after Trump's announcement that he wanted his ally in the Cabinet. It is standard practice for the committee to end investigations when members of Congress depart, but the circumstances surrounding Gaetz were unusual, given his potential role in the new administration. Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., the committee chairman, said Wednesday that there is no longer the same urgency to release the report given that Gaetz has left Congress and stepped aside as Trump's choice to head the Justice Department. “I’ve been steadfast about that. He’s no longer a member. He is no longer going to be confirmed by the Senate because he withdrew his nomination to be the attorney general,” Guest said. The Gaetz report has also caused tensions between lawmakers on the bipartisan committee. Pennsylvania Rep. Susan Wild, the top Democrat on the panel, publicly admonished Guest last month for mischaracterizing a previous meeting to the press. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing and said last year that the Justice Department’s separate investigation against him into sex trafficking allegations involving underage girls ended without federal charges. His onetime political ally Joel Greenberg, a fellow Republican who served as the tax collector in Florida’s Seminole County, admitted as part of a plea deal with prosecutors in 2021 that he paid women and an underage girl to have sex with him and other men. The men were not identified in court documents when he pleaded guilty. Greenberg was sentenced in late 2022 to 11 years in prison. Among President-elect Donald Trump's picks are Susie Wiles for chief of staff, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state, former Democratic House member Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general. Susie Wiles, 67, was a senior adviser to Trump's 2024 presidential campaign and its de facto manager. Trump named Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to be secretary of state, making a former sharp critic his choice to be the new administration's top diplomat. Rubio, 53, is a noted hawk on China, Cuba and Iran, and was a finalist to be Trump's running mate on the Republican ticket last summer. Rubio is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries,” Trump said of Rubio in a statement. The announcement punctuates the hard pivot Rubio has made with Trump, whom the senator called a “con man" during his unsuccessful campaign for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. Their relationship improved dramatically while Trump was in the White House. And as Trump campaigned for the presidency a third time, Rubio cheered his proposals. For instance, Rubio, who more than a decade ago helped craft immigration legislation that included a path to citizenship for people in the U.S. illegally, now supports Trump's plan to use the U.S. military for mass deportations. Pete Hegseth, 44, is a co-host of Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend” and has been a contributor with the network since 2014, where he developed a friendship with Trump, who made regular appearances on the show. Hegseth lacks senior military or national security experience. If confirmed by the Senate, he would inherit the top job during a series of global crises — ranging from Russia’s war in Ukraine and the ongoing attacks in the Middle East by Iranian proxies to the push for a cease-fire between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah and escalating worries about the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea. Hegseth is also the author of “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” published earlier this year. Trump tapped Pam Bondi, 59, to be attorney general after U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration. She was Florida's first female attorney general, serving between 2011 and 2019. She also was on Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment trial in 2020. Considered a loyalist, she served as part of a Trump-allied outside group that helped lay the groundwork for his future administration called the America First Policy Institute. Bondi was among a group of Republicans who showed up to support Trump at his hush money criminal trial in New York that ended in May with a conviction on 34 felony counts. A fierce defender of Trump, she also frequently appears on Fox News and has been a critic of the criminal cases against him. Trump picked South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a well-known conservative who faced sharp criticism for telling a story in her memoir about shooting a rambunctious dog, to lead an agency crucial to the president-elect’s hardline immigration agenda. Noem used her two terms leading a tiny state to vault to a prominent position in Republican politics. South Dakota is usually a political afterthought. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, Noem did not order restrictions that other states had issued and instead declared her state “open for business.” Trump held a fireworks rally at Mount Rushmore in July 2020 in one of the first large gatherings of the pandemic. She takes over a department with a sprawling mission. In addition to key immigration agencies, the Department of Homeland Security oversees natural disaster response, the U.S. Secret Service, and Transportation Security Administration agents who work at airports. The governor of North Dakota, who was once little-known outside his state, Burgum is a former Republican presidential primary contender who endorsed Trump, and spent months traveling to drum up support for him, after dropping out of the race. Burgum was a serious contender to be Trump’s vice presidential choice this summer. The two-term governor was seen as a possible pick because of his executive experience and business savvy. Burgum also has close ties to deep-pocketed energy industry CEOs. Trump made the announcement about Burgum joining his incoming administration while addressing a gala at his Mar-a-Lago club, and said a formal statement would be coming the following day. In comments to reporters before Trump took the stage, Burgum said that, in recent years, the power grid is deteriorating in many parts of the country, which he said could raise national security concerns but also drive up prices enough to increase inflation. “There's just a sense of urgency, and a sense of understanding in the Trump administration,” Burgum said. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ran for president as a Democrat, than as an independent, and then endorsed Trump . He's the son of Democratic icon Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated during his own presidential campaign. The nomination of Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services alarmed people who are concerned about his record of spreading unfounded fears about vaccines . For example, he has long advanced the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism. Scott Bessent, 62, is a former George Soros money manager and an advocate for deficit reduction. He's the founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management, after having worked on-and-off for Soros Fund Management since 1991. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the nation’s first openly gay treasury secretary. He told Bloomberg in August that he decided to join Trump’s campaign in part to attack the mounting U.S. national debt. That would include slashing government programs and other spending. “This election cycle is the last chance for the U.S. to grow our way out of this mountain of debt without becoming a sort of European-style socialist democracy,” he said then. Oregon Republican U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer narrowly lost her reelection bid this month, but received strong backing from union members in her district. As a potential labor secretary, she would oversee the Labor Department’s workforce, its budget and put forth priorities that impact workers’ wages, health and safety, ability to unionize, and employer’s rights to fire employers, among other responsibilities. Chavez-DeRemer is one of few House Republicans to endorse the “Protecting the Right to Organize” or PRO Act would allow more workers to conduct organizing campaigns and would add penalties for companies that violate workers’ rights. The act would also weaken “right-to-work” laws that allow employees in more than half the states to avoid participating in or paying dues to unions that represent workers at their places of employment. Scott Turner is a former NFL player and White House aide. He ran the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council during Trump’s first term in office. Trump, in a statement, credited Turner, the highest-ranking Black person he’s yet selected for his administration, with “helping to lead an Unprecedented Effort that Transformed our Country’s most distressed communities.” Sean Duffy is a former House member from Wisconsin who was one of Trump's most visible defenders on cable news. Duffy served in the House for nearly nine years, sitting on the Financial Services Committee and chairing the subcommittee on insurance and housing. He left Congress in 2019 for a TV career and has been the host of “The Bottom Line” on Fox Business. Before entering politics, Duffy was a reality TV star on MTV, where he met his wife, “Fox and Friends Weekend” co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy. They have nine children. A campaign donor and CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, Write is a vocal advocate of oil and gas development, including fracking — a key pillar of Trump’s quest to achieve U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market. Wright also has been one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change. He said the climate movement around the world is “collapsing under its own weight.” The Energy Department is responsible for advancing energy, environmental and nuclear security of the United States. Wright also won support from influential conservatives, including oil and gas tycoon Harold Hamm. Hamm, executive chairman of Oklahoma-based Continental Resources, a major shale oil company, is a longtime Trump supporter and adviser who played a key role on energy issues in Trump’s first term. President-elect Donald Trump tapped billionaire professional wrestling mogul Linda McMahon to be secretary of the Education Department, tasked with overseeing an agency Trump promised to dismantle. McMahon led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s initial term from 2017 to 2019 and twice ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut. She’s seen as a relative unknown in education circles, though she expressed support for charter schools and school choice. She served on the Connecticut Board of Education for a year starting in 2009 and has spent years on the board of trustees for Sacred Heart University in Connecticut. Brooke Rollins, who graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in agricultural development, is a longtime Trump associate who served as White House domestic policy chief during his first presidency. The 52-year-old is president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, a group helping to lay the groundwork for a second Trump administration. She previously served as an aide to former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and ran a think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Trump chose Howard Lutnick, head of brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald and a cryptocurrency enthusiast, as his nominee for commerce secretary, a position in which he'd have a key role in carrying out Trump's plans to raise and enforce tariffs. Trump made the announcement Tuesday on his social media platform, Truth Social. Lutnick is a co-chair of Trump’s transition team, along with Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive who previously led Trump’s Small Business Administration. Both are tasked with putting forward candidates for key roles in the next administration. The nomination would put Lutnick in charge of a sprawling Cabinet agency that is involved in funding new computer chip factories, imposing trade restrictions, releasing economic data and monitoring the weather. It is also a position in which connections to CEOs and the wider business community are crucial. Doug Collins is a former Republican congressman from Georgia who gained recognition for defending Trump during his first impeachment trial, which centered on U.S. assistance for Ukraine. Trump was impeached for urging Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden in 2019 during the Democratic presidential nomination, but he was acquitted by the Senate. Collins has also served in the armed forces himself and is currently a chaplain in the United States Air Force Reserve Command. "We must take care of our brave men and women in uniform, and Doug will be a great advocate for our Active Duty Servicemembers, Veterans, and Military Families to ensure they have the support they need," Trump said in a statement about nominating Collins to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. Karoline Leavitt, 27, was Trump's campaign press secretary and currently a spokesperson for his transition. She would be the youngest White House press secretary in history. The White House press secretary typically serves as the public face of the administration and historically has held daily briefings for the press corps. Leavitt, a New Hampshire native, was a spokesperson for MAGA Inc., a super PAC supporting Trump, before joining his 2024 campaign. In 2022, she ran for Congress in New Hampshire, winning a 10-way Republican primary before losing to Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas. Leavitt worked in the White House press office during Trump's first term before she became communications director for New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, Trump's choice for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has been tapped by Trump to be director of national intelligence, keeping with the trend to stock his Cabinet with loyal personalities rather than veteran professionals in their requisite fields. Gabbard, 43, was a Democratic House member who unsuccessfully sought the party's 2020 presidential nomination before leaving the party in 2022. She endorsed Trump in August and campaigned often with him this fall. “I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community,” Trump said in a statement. Gabbard, who has served in the Army National Guard for more than two decades, deploying to Iraq and Kuwait, would come to the role as somewhat of an outsider compared to her predecessor. The current director, Avril Haines, was confirmed by the Senate in 2021 following several years in a number of top national security and intelligence positions. Trump has picked John Ratcliffe, a former Texas congressman who served as director of national intelligence during his first administration, to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency in his next. Ratcliffe was director of national intelligence during the final year and a half of Trump's first term, leading the U.S. government's spy agencies during the coronavirus pandemic. “I look forward to John being the first person ever to serve in both of our Nation's highest Intelligence positions,” Trump said in a statement, calling him a “fearless fighter for the Constitutional Rights of all Americans” who would ensure “the Highest Levels of National Security, and PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.” Kash Patel spent several years as a Justice Department prosecutor before catching the Trump administration’s attention as a staffer on Capitol Hill who helped investigate the Russia probe. Patel called for dramatically reducing the agency’s footprint, a perspective that sets him apart from earlier directors who sought additional resources for the bureau. Though the Justice Department in 2021 halted the practice of secretly seizing reporters’ phone records during leak investigations, Patel said he intends to aggressively hunt down government officials who leak information to reporters. Trump has chosen former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to serve as his pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency . Zeldin does not appear to have any experience in environmental issues, but is a longtime supporter of the former president. The 44-year-old former U.S. House member from New York wrote on X , “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI.” “We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water,” he added. During his campaign, Trump often attacked the Biden administration's promotion of electric vehicles, and incorrectly referring to a tax credit for EV purchases as a government mandate. Trump also often told his audiences during the campaign his administration would “Drill, baby, drill,” referring to his support for expanded petroleum exploration. In a statement, Trump said Zeldin “will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet.” Trump has named Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, as the new chairman of the agency tasked with regulating broadcasting, telecommunications and broadband. Carr is a longtime member of the commission and served previously as the FCC’s general counsel. He has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate three times and was nominated by both Trump and President Joe Biden to the commission. Carr made past appearances on “Fox News Channel," including when he decried Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris' pre-Election Day appearance on “Saturday Night Live.” He wrote an op-ed last month defending a satellite company owned by Trump supporter Elon Musk. Trump said Atkins, the CEO of Patomak Partners and a former SEC commissioner, was a “proven leader for common sense regulations.” In the years since leaving the SEC, Atkins has made the case against too much market regulation. “He believes in the promise of robust, innovative capital markets that are responsive to the needs of Investors, & that provide capital to make our Economy the best in the World. He also recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. The commission oversees U.S. securities markets and investments and is currently led by Gary Gensler, who has been leading the U.S. government’s crackdown on the crypto industry. Gensler, who was nominated by President Joe Biden, announced last month that he would be stepping down from his post on the day that Trump is inaugurated — Jan. 20, 2025. Atkins began his career as a lawyer and has a long history working in the financial markets sector, both in government and private practice. In the 1990s, he worked on the staffs of two former SEC chairmen, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt. Jared Isaacman, 41, is a tech billionaire who bought a series of spaceflights from Elon Musk’s SpaceX and conducted the first private spacewalk . He is the founder and CEO of a card-processing company and has collaborated closely with Musk ever since buying his first chartered SpaceX flight. He took contest winners on that 2021 trip and followed it in September with a mission where he briefly popped out the hatch to test SpaceX’s new spacewalking suits. Rep. Elise Stefanik is a representative from New York and one of Trump's staunchest defenders going back to his first impeachment. Elected to the House in 2014, Stefanik was selected by her GOP House colleagues as House Republican Conference chair in 2021, when former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney was removed from the post after publicly criticizing Trump for falsely claiming he won the 2020 election. Stefanik, 40, has served in that role ever since as the third-ranking member of House leadership. Stefanik’s questioning of university presidents over antisemitism on their campuses helped lead to two of those presidents resigning, further raising her national profile. If confirmed, she would represent American interests at the U.N. as Trump vows to end the war waged by Russia against Ukraine begun in 2022. He has also called for peace as Israel continues its offensive against Hamas in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon to target Hezbollah. President-elect Donald Trump says he's chosen former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker to serve as U.S. ambassador to NATO. Trump has expressed skepticism about the Western military alliance for years. Trump said in a statement Wednesday that Whitaker is “a strong warrior and loyal Patriot” who “will ensure the United States’ interests are advanced and defended” and “strengthen relationships with our NATO Allies, and stand firm in the face of threats to Peace and Stability.” The choice of Whitaker as the nation’s representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an unusual one, given his background is as a lawyer and not in foreign policy. Trump will nominate former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is a staunch defender of Israel and his intended nomination comes as Trump has promised to align U.S. foreign policy more closely with Israel's interests as it wages wars against the Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah. “He loves Israel, and likewise the people of Israel love him,” Trump said in a statement. “Mike will work tirelessly to bring about peace in the Middle East.” Huckabee, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and 2016, has been a popular figure among evangelical Christian conservatives, many of whom support Israel due to Old Testament writings that Jews are God’s chosen people and that Israel is their rightful homeland. Trump has been praised by some in this important Republican voting bloc for moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump on Tuesday named real estate investor Steven Witkoff to be special envoy to the Middle East. The 67-year-old Witkoff is the president-elect's golf partner and was golfing with him at Trump's club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sept. 15, when the former president was the target of a second attempted assassination. Witkoff “is a Highly Respected Leader in Business and Philanthropy,” Trump said of Witkoff in a statement. “Steve will be an unrelenting Voice for PEACE, and make us all proud." Trump also named Witkoff co-chair, with former Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, of his inaugural committee. Trump said Wednesday that he will nominate Gen. Keith Kellogg to serve as assistant to the president and special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. Kellogg, a retired Army lieutenant general who has long been Trump’s top adviser on defense issues, served as National Security Advisor to Trump's former Vice President Mike Pence. For the America First Policy Institute, one of several groups formed after Trump left office to help lay the groundwork for the next Republican administration, Kellogg in April wrote that “bringing the Russia-Ukraine war to a close will require strong, America First leadership to deliver a peace deal and immediately end the hostilities between the two warring parties.” (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib) Trump asked Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., a retired Army National Guard officer and war veteran, to be his national security adviser, Trump announced in a statement Tuesday. The move puts Waltz in the middle of national security crises, ranging from efforts to provide weapons to Ukraine and worries about the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea to the persistent attacks in the Middle East by Iran proxies and the push for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah. “Mike has been a strong champion of my America First Foreign Policy agenda,” Trump's statement said, "and will be a tremendous champion of our pursuit of Peace through Strength!” Waltz is a three-term GOP congressman from east-central Florida. He served multiple tours in Afghanistan and also worked in the Pentagon as a policy adviser when Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates were defense chiefs. He is considered hawkish on China, and called for a U.S. boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing due to its involvement in the origin of COVID-19 and its mistreatment of the minority Muslim Uighur population. Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner , was a vocal spokesperson during the presidential campaign for Trump's priority of mass deportations. The 39-year-old was a senior adviser during Trump's first administration. Miller has been a central figure in some of Trump's policy decisions, notably his move to separate thousands of immigrant families. Trump argued throughout the campaign that the nation's economic, national security and social priorities could be met by deporting people who are in the United States illegally. Since Trump left office in 2021, Miller has served as the president of America First Legal, an organization made up of former Trump advisers aimed at challenging the Biden administration, media companies, universities and others over issues such as free speech and national security. Thomas Homan, 62, has been tasked with Trump’s top priority of carrying out the largest deportation operation in the nation’s history. Homan, who served under Trump in his first administration leading U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was widely expected to be offered a position related to the border, an issue Trump made central to his campaign. Though Homan has insisted such a massive undertaking would be humane, he has long been a loyal supporter of Trump's policy proposals, suggesting at a July conference in Washington that he would be willing to "run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.” Democrats have criticized Homan for his defending Trump's “zero tolerance” policy on border crossings during his first administration, which led to the separation of thousands of parents and children seeking asylum at the border. Former Rep. Billy Long represented Missouri in the U.S. House from 2011 to 2023. Since leaving Congress, Trump said, Long “has worked as a Business and Tax advisor, helping Small Businesses navigate the complexities of complying with the IRS Rules and Regulations.” Former Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler was appointed in January 2020 by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and then lost a runoff election a year later. She started a conservative voter registration organization and dived into GOP fundraising, becoming one of the top individual donors and bundlers to Trump’s 2024 comeback campaign. Even before nominating her for agriculture secretary, the president-elect already had tapped Loeffler as co-chair of his inaugural committee. Dr. Mehmet Oz, 64, is a former heart surgeon who hosted “The Dr. Oz Show,” a long-running daytime television talk show. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as the Republican nominee in 2022 and is an outspoken supporter of Trump, who endorsed Oz's bid for elected office. Elon Musk, left, and Vivek Ramaswamy speak before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at an Oct. 27 campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. Trump on Tuesday said Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Ramaswamy will lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency" — which is not, despite the name, a government agency. The acronym “DOGE” is a nod to Musk's favorite cryptocurrency, dogecoin. Trump said Musk and Ramaswamy will work from outside the government to offer the White House “advice and guidance” and will partner with the Office of Management and Budget to “drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.” He added the move would shock government systems. It's not clear how the organization will operate. Musk, owner of X and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has been a constant presence at Mar-a-Lago since Trump won the presidential election. Ramaswamy suspended his campaign in January and threw his support behind Trump. Trump said the two will “pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.” Russell Vought held the position during Trump’s first presidency. After Trump’s initial term ended, Vought founded the Center for Renewing America, a think tank that describes its mission as “renew a consensus of America as a nation under God.” Vought was closely involved with Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for Trump’s second term that he tried to distance himself from during the campaign. Vought has also previously worked as the executive and budget director for the Republican Study Committee, a caucus for conservative House Republicans. He also worked at Heritage Action, the political group tied to The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Dan Scavino, deputy chief of staff Scavino, whom Trump's transition referred to in a statement as one of “Trump's longest serving and most trusted aides,” was a senior adviser to Trump's 2024 campaign, as well as his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. He will be deputy chief of staff and assistant to the president. Scavino had run Trump's social media profile in the White House during his first administration. He was also held in contempt of Congress in 2022 after a month-long refusal to comply with a subpoena from the House committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. James Blair, deputy chief of staff Blair was political director for Trump's 2024 campaign and for the Republican National Committee. He will be deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs and assistant to the president. Blair was key to Trump's economic messaging during his winning White House comeback campaign this year, a driving force behind the candidate's “Trump can fix it” slogan and his query to audiences this fall if they were better off than four years ago. Taylor Budowich, deputy chief of staff Budowich is a veteran Trump campaign aide who launched and directed Make America Great Again, Inc., a super PAC that supported Trump's 2024 campaign. He will be deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel and assistant to the president. Budowich also had served as a spokesman for Trump after his presidency. Jay Bhattacharya, National Institutes of Health Trump has chosen Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health. Bhattacharya is a physician and professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, and is a critic of pandemic lockdowns and vaccine mandates. He promoted the idea of herd immunity during the pandemic, arguing that people at low risk should live normally while building up immunity to COVID-19 through infection. The National Institutes of Health funds medical research through competitive grants to researchers at institutions throughout the nation. NIH also conducts its own research with thousands of scientists working at its labs in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Marty Makary, Food and Drug Administration Makary is a Johns Hopkins surgeon and author who argued against pandemic lockdowns. He routinely appeared on Fox News during the COVID-19 pandemic and wrote opinion articles questioning masks for children. He cast doubt on vaccine mandates but supported vaccines generally. Makary also cast doubt on whether booster shots worked, which was against federal recommendations on the vaccine. Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, Surgeon General Nesheiwat is a general practitioner who serves as medical director for CityMD, a network of urgent care centers in New York and New Jersey. She has been a contributor to Fox News. Dr. Dave Weldon, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Weldon is a former Florida congressman who recently ran for a Florida state legislative seat and lost; Trump backed Weldon’s opponent. In Congress, Weldon weighed in on one of the nation’s most heated debates of the 1990s over quality of life and a right-to-die and whether Terri Schiavo, who was in a persistent vegetative state after cardiac arrest, should have been allowed to have her feeding tube removed. He sided with the parents who did not want it removed. Jamieson Greer, U.S. trade representative Kevin Hassett, Director of the White House National Economic Council Trump is turning to two officials with experience navigating not only Washington but the key issues of income taxes and tariffs as he fills out his economic team. He announced he has chosen international trade attorney Jamieson Greer to be his U.S. trade representative and Kevin Hassett as director of the White House National Economic Council. While Trump has in several cases nominated outsiders to key posts, these picks reflect a recognition that his reputation will likely hinge on restoring the public’s confidence in the economy. Trump said in a statement that Greer was instrumental in his first term in imposing tariffs on China and others and replacing the trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, “therefore making it much better for American Workers.” Hassett, 62, served in the first Trump term as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. He has a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and worked at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute before joining the Trump White House in 2017. Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter.US stocks close lower. Dow down for the 9th consecutive dayTrump offers a public show of support for Pete Hegseth, his embattled nominee to lead the Pentagon

by Linda Straker Jacqueline Alexis, Chairperson of the National Celebrations Committee has disclosed that 50 citizens will be awarded for 2024 during the 2025 Independence celebrations. “In 2025 it is a kind of a way of closing off the 50th with the awards. The awards will be given out to 50 of our citizens,” she said during a news conference on Tuesday, 17 December 2024. Alexis explained that the committee was established by the Governor-General as recommended in the 2007 National Honours and Awards Act. She said that names nominated to the committee, chaired by Dominic Jeremiah were submitted to the Cabinet. From those nominations, 50 people will be selected to be awarded on 7 February at the Independence Day Rally at the Kirani James Athletic Stadium. Alexis explained that nominee selections were made from sectors including fisheries, community development, medicine, youth development, sports and education, social work and journalism, culture, business and entrepreneurship, policing, innovators, foreign services, tourism and hospitality, the creative arts, academia, science and technology, the marine environment and financial services. Section 10 of the National Honours and Awards legislation states that any individual may submit to the committee for its consideration and recommend a nomination of a person for an award of the Order. Upon receipt of a nomination, the committee shall consider such nomination, conduct such investigations as it may deem necessary and submit its recommendation to the Prime Minister. “The Prime Minister shall review the recommendations submitted to him or her by the Committee and may make such recommendations to the Governor-General for the conferment of awards as he or she may deem necessary,” the legislation instructs. The recommendations made to the Governor-General shall be announced publicly and shall be published in the Government Gazette. An award granted by the Governor-General shall be granted by Proclamation, sealed with the Seal of the Order and shall have effect from the date of the Seal unless another effective date is specified in the Proclamation.Registration a must for playway schoolsNEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes rose to more records Wednesday after tech companies talked up how much of a boost they’re getting from the artificial-intelligence boom. The S&P 500 climbed 0.6% to add to what’s set to be one of its best years of the millennium. It’s the 56th time the index has hit an all-time high this year after climbing in 11 of the last 12 days . The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 308 points, or 0.7%, while the Nasdaq composite added 1.3% to its own record. Salesforce helped pull the market higher after delivering stronger revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, though its profit fell just short. CEO Mark Benioff highlighted the company’s artificial-intelligence offering for customers, saying “the rise of autonomous AI agents is revolutionizing global labor, reshaping how industries operate and scale.” The stock price of the company, which helps businesses manage their customers, jumped 11%. Marvell Technology leaped even more after delivering better results than expected, up 23.2%. CEO Matt Murphy said the semiconductor supplier is seeing strong demand from AI and gave a forecast for profit in the upcoming quarter that topped analysts’ expectations. All the optimistic talk helped Nvidia , the company whose chips are powering much of the move into AI, rally 3.5%. It was the strongest force pushing upward on the S&P 500 by far. They helped offset an 8.9% drop for Foot Locker, which reported profit and revenue that fell short of analysts’ expectations. CEO Mary Dillon said the company is taking a more cautious view, and it cut its forecasts for sales and profit this year. Dillon pointed to how keen customers are for discounts and how soft demand has been outside of Thanksgiving week and other key selling periods. Retailers overall have offered mixed signals about how resilient U.S. shoppers can remain. Their spending has been one of the main reasons the U.S. economy has avoided a recession that earlier seemed inevitable after the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates to crush inflation. But shoppers are now contending with still-high prices and a slowing job market . This week’s highlight for Wall Street will be Friday’s jobs report from the U.S. government, which will show how many people employers hired and fired last month. A narrower report released Wednesday morning suggested employers in the private sector increased their payrolls by less last month than economists expected. Hiring in manufacturing was the weakest since the spring, according to Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP. The report strengthened traders’ expectations that the Fed will cut its main interest rate again when it meets in two weeks. The Fed began easing its main interest rate from a two-decade high in September, hoping to offer more support for the job market. The central bank had appeared set to continue cutting rates into next year, but the election of Donald Trump has scrambled Wall Street’s expectations somewhat. Trump’s preference for higher tariffs and other policies could lead to higher inflation , which could alter the Fed’s plans . Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that the central bank can afford to cut rates cautiously because inflation has slowed from its peak two years ago and the economy remains sturdy. A separate report on Wednesday said health care, finance and other businesses in the U.S. services sector are continuing to grow, but not by as much as before and not by as much as economists expected. One respondent from the construction industry told the survey from the Institute for Supply Management that the Fed’s rate cuts haven't pulled down mortgage rates as much as hoped. Plus, “the unknown effect of tariffs clouds the future.” In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.18% from 4.23% late Tuesday. On Wall Street, Campbell’s sank 6.2% for one of the S&P 500’s sharper losses despite increasing its dividend and reporting a stronger profit than analysts expected. Its revenue fell short of Wall Street’s expectations, and the National Football League’s Washington Commanders hired Campbell’s CEO Mark Clouse as its team president. Gains for airline stocks helped offset that drop after JetBlue Airways said it saw stronger bookings for travel in November and December following the presidential election. It also said it’s benefiting from lower fuel prices, as well as lower costs due to improved on-time performance. JetBlue jumped 8.3%, while Southwest Airlines climbed 3.5%. All told, the S&P 500 rose 36.61 points to 6,086.49. The Dow climbed 308.51 to 45,014.04, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 254.21 to 19,735.12. In stock markets abroad, South Korea’s Kospi sank 1.4% following a night full of drama in Seoul. President Yoon Suk Yeol was facing possible impeachment after he suddenly declared martial law on Tuesday night, prompting troops to surround the parliament. He revoked the martial law declaration six hours later. In the crypto market , bitcoin climbed near $99,000 after Trump said he would nominate Paul Atkins , a cryptocurrency advocate, to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission. AP Writers Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed. 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!Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. are exploring a potential merger, according to people familiar with the matter, which would create a singular rival to Toyota Motor Corp. in Japan and better position the combined company to face competitive challenges around the world. The two carmakers have been holding preliminary talks about a combination, the people said Tuesday, asking not to be identified because discussions are private. One option being considered is the creation of a new holding company under which the combined businesses would operate, one of the people said. The transaction could also be expanded to include Mitsubishi Motors Corp., the person said. Discussions are early stage and may not lead to an agreement, the people said. While Honda and Nissan stopped short of confirming the merger talks, both automakers issued statements that reiterated their previous pledges for further future cooperation. “We will inform our stakeholders of any updates at an appropriate time,” Honda said in its statement. Such a deal would effectively consolidate the Japanese auto industry into two main camps: One controlled by Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi and another consisting of Toyota group companies. It would also provide them with more resources to compete with larger peers globally after downsizing long-held partnerships with other carmakers. Nissan has loosened ties with France’s Renault SA and Honda has backed away from General Motors Co. The move toward a merger would follow a decision by the two companies earlier this year to work together on electric vehicle batteries and software. At that time, Honda Chief Executive Officer Toshihiro Mibe floated the possibility of a capital tie-up with Nissan. The two Japanese carmakers plan to sign a memorandum of understanding to discuss shared equity stakes in a new holding company, the Nikkei reported earlier in the day. The merger would help the manufacturers compete against rivals in electric vehicles such as Tesla Inc. and Chinese automakers, it said. American depositary receipts of Honda and Nissan shares climbed on the report. Nissan ADRs rose 12% and Honda’s gained 0.9% in late New York trading. In some ways, it could be seen as a defensive merger among Japan’s weaker players. Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi combined sold about 4 million vehicles globally in the first six months of the year, well shy of the 5.2 million that Toyota sold on its own. Combining forces would allow the two companies to fend off Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, at home and abroad. Toyota has taken stakes in Subaru Corp., Suzuki Motor Corp. and Mazda Motor Corp., creating a powerhouse of brands backed by its top-notch credit rating. Honda’s valuation stood at 6.8 trillion yen ($44.4 billion) as of the close of trading in Tokyo on Tuesday, well above Nissan’s 1.3 trillion yen market capitalization. But even their combined value is dwarfed by Toyota’s 42.2 trillion yen. Honda has long struggled to keep up with bigger capitalized rivals when it comes to investments in new technologies. It recently has shifted gears to boost hybrid gas-electric vehicles even as it spends billions of dollars on all-electric production. At the same time, Honda’s arms-length partnership with GM has been weakened, most recently earlier this month when their self-driving car partnership ended. GM has strengthened its ties with South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co. Nissan is in need of a partner to put it back on a stronger financial footing as it steps up restructuring efforts to cope with stalled revenue growth and lower profits. It faces pressure from an activist shareholder and a daunting debt load that has led to speculation in credit markets about its investment grade rating. The Yokohama-based company has partially unwound its complex 25-year strategic partnership with Renault, a fixation of former Chair Carlos Ghosn. Rivalries and mutual suspicion mounted over the years and came to a head when Ghosn openly contemplated a merger, contributing to his downfall. The former chairman and CEO, who has filed a suit against his former company for ousting him in 2018, warned of a “disguised takeover” of Nissan by Honda in an August interview with Automotive News. The merger talks come after the Financial Times said last month that Nissan was looking for an anchor investor to replace part of Renault’s equity holding and that it hadn’t ruled out having Honda buy some of its shares.

5 top tech gifts for the holidaysCreators Will Soon Contribute To AI “And Get Paid For It”, Google CEO Sundar Pichai Predicts

Reniya Kelly scores 18 and No. 16 North Carolina women beat 14th-ranked Kentucky 72-53

Chandigarh: The Bhagavad Gita is a legacy of India’s cultural history and a scripture for the welfare of all humanity, Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan said on Thursday. He was addressing the 9th International Gita Conference on the theme ‘Balanced Nature-Pure Environment Based on Srimad Bhagavad Gita’. The event was organised in Kurukshetra University, Haryana as part of the International Gita Mahotsav in Kurukshetra. “It reflects the unity and integrity of India,” Khan said. According to an official statement, the Kerala governor said the Gita plays an important role in environmental conservation, and it is essential to spread its environmental protection message worldwide. It encapsulates the essence of the ‘Upanishads’ and vedic texts, he added. Speaking on the occasion as chief guest, Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatreya said the Gita conveys a message of environmental protection to the world. It is a sacred text for the welfare of all humanity, offering solutions to all the challenges related to human life, Dattatreya said. Before the address at the Kurukshetra University, Dattatreya, who is also the Chancellor of the university, and other dignitaries formally inaugurated the conference by lighting a lamp and unveiling the conference’s souvenir. In his address, the Governor of Uttarakhand, Lieutenant General Gurmit Singh (retd), emphasized that the Gita represents the essence of the philosophy of life for all humanity. He noted that coming to Kurukshetra brings a sense of completeness. The 18-day International Gita Mahotsav, organized by the Haryana government, will help the world understand the teachings of the Gita, he said. “The knowledge in the Gita guides us to the right path in life, helping us overcome confusion, dilemmas, and doubts,” Singh said. The Gita is a religious and moral text that provides strength, clarity, and the ability to make the right decisions in times of crisis, he said. Swami Gyananand Maharaj, a scholar of the Gita, said that the Bhagavad Gita contains a global message of environmental protection. Kurukshetra, the sacred land of the Gita, is the birthplace of these teachings. Balance is essential in every area of life, and the Gita provides solutions to all problems, he said. At the conference, Tanzania’s Minister for Information, Youth, Culture and Sports Tabia Maulid Mwita, stated that there is a deep connection between India and Tanzania in the fields of education and agriculture. “The sacred land of Kurukshetra is where Lord Krishna delivered the message of the Gita to Arjuna. Such events will strengthen the relationship between Tanzania and India, benefiting areas like culture, agriculture, health, trade, education, and research,” the minister said. Earlier in the day, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini formally inaugurated the International Gita Mahotsav (IGM), organised on the banks of the Brahmasarovar in Kurukshetra. Tanzania is the partner country while Odisha is the partner state for this year’s IGM, which is being held from November 28 to December 15. The main events of the festival will be held from December 5 to December 11. Meanwhile, Haryana Governor Dattatreya inaugurated the Haryana Pavilion on Thursday at Purushottampura Bagh, located on the sacred banks of Brahmasarovar. The pavilion, established under the joint aegis of the Kurukshetra University and the Kurukshetra Development Board (KDB), was lauded by the governor as a “mirror of Haryanvi culture”, showcasing the state’s vibrant folk art and heritage. Dattatreya praised the Kurukshetra University for its commendable efforts in promoting and preserving Haryanvi culture. He remarked that as part of the International Gita Mahotsav celebrations, the university and KDB have successfully brought the essence of Haryana’s folk traditions to a global audience. Kerala Governor Khan highlighted the pavilion’s role in educating the younger generation about Haryana’s ancient culture and heritage, emphasizing its global recognition. Uttarakhand Governor Singh expressed pride in the preservation of cultural values and commended the pavilion for celebrating the richness of Haryanvi traditions.With the reborn Madera Community Hospital in January 2025, Madera County has much to be thankful for. Other large projects in the pipeline include Gunner Ranch, “Village D” and North Fork Mono Casino & Resort. Adobe Stock Image The Nov. 29 print edition of The Business Journal included economic forecasts for each of the four counties we cover. We will be sharing them throughout the week. There is an air of positivity for the Madera County business community as the New Year rings closer. Despite challenges in the ag sector, major projects are coming or making significant progress in 2025. And then there’s the matter of a beloved hospital. The Highway 41 corridor has been ripe with activity, said Bobby Kahn, interim executive director of the Madera County Economic Development Commission (MCEDC). This past August, Valley Children’s Healthcare announced plans for “The Hill,” a 220-acre, mixed-used development on its main campus. It will have a mix of health care space, housing, commercial, recreation, office and hospitality. Kahn said in following with the 1,135-acre Gunner Ranch West Specific Plan, infrastructure work across the street from Valley Children’s Hospital is anticipated to start in the next 12 to 24 months. The plan envisions a medical campus that will provide significant medical services and opportunities, with an array of commercial uses, including a regional commercial center and a system of parks, trails and open space. The plan proposes development of up to 2,840 residential units, more than 2 million square feet of regional commercial uses, 751,000 square feet of medical office and related services, 1.1 million square feet of hospital and related services, community facilities, elementary schools, and a community/government center. The plan also calls for 72 acres of open space and parks, and a 62-acre wastewater treatment plant. Perhaps the most symbolic victory for Madera County is the return of Madera Community Hospital, which closed its doors in January 2023 and filed for bankruptcy protection. The hospital received the first $15 million installment of a total $57 million emergency loan from the Distressed Hospital Loan Program. The funds are to be used for improvements such as updating patient equipment and operational expenses including hiring and training. Kahn said the hospital is scheduled to open on Jan. 13, 2025, under new operator American Advanced Management from Modesto. American Advanced Management has been hosting job fairs to fill more than 200 staff positions (not including doctors). Of those, 135 positions have been filled. “As it opens, they will continue to staff-up and grow, adding more and more services,” Kahn said. “That will be huge for the City of Madera and the surrounding area. The health industry is known for higher wages, and those are industries you’d like to see in your community. The Riverstone development already has more than 1,000 homes built, and its commercial development mix includes Dutch Bros, a couple of restaurants and retailers. A 2025 opening of Riley’s Pub is expected at Riverwalk, an office plaza on the corner of Highway 41 and Avenue 12. The Tesoro Viejo community has plans for about 5,200 homes, with more than 1,000 already built. Across from Tesoro Viejo on Avenue 15 and Highway 41, there are plans for a Starbucks. There is also the “Village D” Infrastructure Plan, located on Avenue 16 and Road 23, with the project covering 1,860 acres and including 10,783 housing units, as well as commercial and public facilities, recreation and open space. The project is estimated to be built-out over a 20-year time span, Kahn said. Recently, a closed Church and Dwight Co. food supplement manufacturing on Avenue 12 near Road 32 was purchased by Vezina Industries, a Madera manufacturer specializing in windows, doors and HVAC solutions. Along with the homegrown expansion, the area is getting attention from outside the area, though nothing has been finalized. “We are getting a lot of looks now from national tenants,” Kahn said. “Madera is on the map. I think we will see continual retail growth in the City of Madera.” A major project in the area is the North Fork Mono Casino & Resort, off of Avenue 18 and Road 23, which broke ground in September. Kahn said there is hopes that the casino portion will open by late 2025 or early 2026. The first phase will be construction of the casino, followed by the resort, with a total construction timeline spanning five to ten years. In August, the new AutoZone distribution center, located between Highway 99 and the Chowchilla Airport, debuted with 500,000 square feet, creating 200-300 new jobs. This season provided big, rainy storms and high temperatures, which presented a challenge for some crops. Kahn noted the price of almonds remains soft, and grape growers still face challenges as wine consumption drops. He predicts almond orchards will continue to be pushed out, especially the older ones. Wineries are not seeking out grape contracts like they used to, and the raisin market is “mediocre” from a pricing perspective, Kahn said. He also noted that the dairy industry continues to struggle with pricing “I think ag in 2025 is still going to be a challenge for most commodities, but if you’re a farmer that’s positioned right, and not taking on a lot of debt, you should be OK,” Kahn said. This month, Kristina Gallagher was named as the new executive director of the MCEDC, coming from a background in in local government advocacy, public policy, and community engagement with the California State Association of Counties. Gallagher said she will look to Kahn’s experience for guidance, as well as the community. “I’m looking to be very active with businesses and real estate and find out how to help build infrastructure into the two cities [Madera and Chowchilla] and the county,” Gallagher said. “In a year or two, I hope to have a 5-year plan going — something we could put down with the executive committee, and businesses and other local partners.” While millions flock from all over the world to see Madera County’s natural landscapes, most notably Yosemite National Park, the park’s reservation system did cause a dip in visitors when it was implemented last year, said Rhonda Salisbury, CEO of the Southern Yosemite Visitors Bureau. The first and second quarters of 2024 saw high levels of tourism that waned off after the Yosemite reservations set in. “It hurt the economy quite a bit,” Salisbury said. “We are expecting anywhere from a 10-20% drop in hotel occupancy from last year.” The reservation system did provide a small boost for local tour operators, businesses and restaurants as more people waited in nearby towns before they could enter the park. Salisbury said Yosemite National Park has not released its reservation system for 2025, but she assumes there will be one. She hopes 2025 will be another test year — and not a permanent fixture — for the reservation system, and that it’s less aggressive than 2024. She said the park was pushing away 700 visitors that didn’t have a reservation each day. The bureau has sent letters to Washington, D.C., with hopes to find the best system. Darren Rose, CEO of the Building Industry Association of Fresno/Madera Counties, said much remains to be seen in 2025, considering falling interest and mortgage rates. “I think we will continue to see building activity, and a lot of it depends on how things unfold with the new administration,” Rose said. If implemented, Trump’s proposed tariffs will increase prices on construction inputs, such as in lumber, concrete, and other items used to build homes. Those increases in costs will be put into the purchase price and passed on to home buyers. Even though prices for nearly everything has gone up, builders continue to build homes. “All of my builders are anticipating growth, and we are excited about that, but we have to see how things unfold with the economy,” Rose said. The Nov. 29 print edition of The Business Journal included A national staffing firm based in Fresno is hosting a A new report shows that the City of Fresno is The Nov. 29 print edition of The Business Journal included

Global Asset Servicing Market Set For 7.4% Growth, Reaching $1859.64 Billion By 2028A new visual recognition approach improved a machine learning technique's ability to both identify an object and how it is oriented in space, according to a presented in October at the in Milan, Italy. Self-supervised learning is a machine learning approach that trains on unlabeled data, extending generalizability to real-world data. While it excels at identifying objects, a task called semantic classification, it may struggle to recognize objects in new poses. This weakness quickly becomes a problem in situations like autonomous vehicle navigation, where an algorithm must assess whether an approaching car is a head-on collision threat or side-oriented and just passing by. "Our work helps machines perceive the world more like humans do, paving the way for smarter robots, safer self-driving cars and more intuitive interactions between technology and the physical world," said Stella Yu, a University of Michigan professor of computer science and engineering and senior author of the study. To help machines learn both object identities and poses, the research team developed a new self-supervised learning benchmark with problem setting, training and evaluation protocols along with a of unlabeled image triplets for pose-aware representation learning. The image triplets involve capturing three adjacent shots of the same object with slight camera pose changes, known as a smooth viewpoint trajectory. However, neither object labels (e.g. "car") nor pose labels (e.g., frontal view) are provided. This mimics robotic vision where the robot pans a camera as it moves around the environment. While the robot understands it is viewing the same object, it does not know what the object is or its pose. Previous approaches typically managed regularization by mapping different views of the same object to the same feature at the final layer of a deep neural network. The new approach uses the mid-layer feature and imposes viewpoint trajectory regularization, which instead maps three consecutive views of an object to a straight line in the feature space. The first strategy boosts pose estimation performance by 10–20%, whereas the second strategy further improves pose estimation by 4% without reducing semantic classification. "More importantly, we map an image to a feature that encodes not only object identities but also object poses, and such a feature map can generalize better to images of novel objects the robot has never seen before," said Jiayun Wang, a University of California Berkeley doctoral graduate of vision science and the Berkeley AI research lab and first author of the study. This concept can be applied to uncover meaningful patterns in various types of related data, such as multichannel audio or time series. For instance, each snapshot of audio at a specific moment can be assigned a unique feature, while the entire sequence is mapped to a smooth feature trajectory that captures how things change continuously over time.

Trump mocks Trudeau as ‘governor of state’Police release new photos as they search for the gunman who killed UnitedHealthcare CEO NEW YORK (AP) — Two law enforcement officials say a masked gunman who stalked and killed the leader of one of the largest U.S. health insurance companies on a Manhattan sidewalk used ammunition emblazoned with the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose." The official were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke Thursday to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Police also released photos of a person they say is wanted for questioning in the ambush the day before of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The words on the ammunition may have been a reference to tactics insurance companies use to avoid paying claims. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are bringing Trump's DOGE to Capitol Hill WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s DOGE time at the U.S. Capitol. Billionaire Elon Musk and fellow business titan Vivek Ramaswamy spent several hours meeting with lawmakers, swapping ideas for how to cut government. The two are heading up President-elect Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, with its plans to “dismantle” the federal government. Trump tapped the duo to come up with ways for firing federal workers, cutting government programs and slashing federal regulations — all part of Trump's agenda for a second-term at the White House. For hours they listened as lawmakers shared ideas. House Speaker Mike Johnson said there's going to be “a lot of change” in Washington. House rejects Democratic efforts to force release of Matt Gaetz ethics report WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has shut down Democrats’ efforts to release the long-awaited ethics report into former Rep. Matt Gaetz. The party line vote pushes the fate of any resolution to the yearslong investigation of sexual misconduct allegations into further uncertainty. Democrats had been pressing for the findings to be published even though the Florida Republican left Congress and withdrew as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general. Earlier Thursday, the Ethics panel met to discuss the Gaetz report but made no decision, saying in a short statement that the matter is still being discussed. Gaetz has repeatedly denied the claims. Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif. was the sole Republican to vote in support of releasing the report. Hamas official says Gaza ceasefire talks have resumed after weekslong hiatus ISTANBUL (AP) — A Hamas official says that after a weekslong hiatus international mediators have resumed negotiating with the militant group and Israel over a ceasefire in Gaza, and that he was hopeful a deal to end the 14-month war was within reach. Ceasefire negotiations were halted last month when Qatar suspended its talks with mediators from Egypt and the United States over frustration with a lack of progress between Israel and Hamas. But Bassem Naim, an official in Hamas’ political wing, said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press that there has been a “reactivation” of efforts to end the fighting, release hostages from Gaza and free Palestinian prisoners in Israel. Hegseth faces senators' concerns not only about his behavior but also his views on women in combat WASHINGTON (AP) — Pete Hegseth has spent the week on Capitol Hill trying to reassure Republican senators that he is fit to lead President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Defense in the wake of high-profile allegations about excessive drinking and sexual assault. But senators in both parties have also expressed concern about another issue — Hegseth’s frequent comments that women should not serve in frontline military combat jobs. As he meets with senators for a fourth day Thursday, his professional views on women troops are coming under deeper scrutiny. Hegseth said this week that “we have amazing women who serve our military.” Pressed if they should serve in combat, Hegseth said they already do. Why the rebel capture of Syria's Hama, a city with a dark history, matters BEIRUT (AP) — One of the darkest moments in the modern history of the Arab world happened more than four decades ago, when then-Syrian President Hafez Assad launched what came to be known as the Hama Massacre. The slaughter was named for the Syrian city where 10,000 to 40,000 people were killed or disappeared in a government attack that began on Feb. 2, 1982, and lasted for nearly a month. Hama was turned into ruins. The memory of the assault and the monthlong siege on the city remains visceral in Syrian and Arab minds. Now Islamist insurgents have captured the city in a moment many Syrians have awaited for over 40 years. France's Macron vows to stay in office till end of term, says he'll name a new prime minister soon PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to stay in office until the end of his term in 2027 and announced that he will name a new prime minister within days. In his address to the nation on Thursday, Macron came out fighting, laying blame at the door of his opponents on the far right for bringing down the government of Michel Barnier. He said they chose “not to do but to undo” and that they “chose disorder.” The president also said the far right and the far left had united in what he called “an anti-Republican front.” He said he’ll name a new prime minister within days but gave no hints who that might be. 7.0 earthquake off Northern California prompts brief tsunami warning SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The National Weather Service has canceled its tsunami warning for the U.S. West Coast after there was a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. According to the U.S. Geological Survey on Thursday, at least 5.3 million people in California were under a tsunami warning after the earthquake struck. It was felt as far south as San Francisco, where residents felt a rolling motion for several seconds. It was followed by multiple smaller aftershocks. There were no immediate reports of major damage or injury. Yoon replaces the defense minister as South Korea's parliament moves to vote on their impeachments SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s president has replaced his defense minister as opposition parties moved to impeach both men over the stunning-but-brief imposition of martial law that brought armed troops into Seoul streets. Opposition parties are pushing for a vote on motion to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol on Saturday evening. They hold 192 seats but need 200 votes for the motion to pass. Yoon’s office said he decided to replace Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun with Choi Byung Hyuk, a retired general who is South Korea’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Kim earlier apologized and said he ordered troops to carry out duties related to martial law. The Foreign Ministry also worked to mitigate the backlash and concern over South Korea's democracy. From outsider to the Oval Office, bitcoin surges as a new administration embraces crypto NEW YORK (AP) — Bitcoin burst on the scene after trust had withered in the financial system and Washington’s ability to protect people from it. Now, it’s Washington’s embrace of bitcoin that’s sending it to records. Bitcoin briefly surged above $103,000 after President-elect Donald Trump said he will nominate Paul Atkins, who's seen as friendly to crypto, to be the Securities and Exchange Commission's next chair. The crypto industry, meanwhile, did its part to bring politicians friendly to digital currencies into Washington. It's a twist from bitcoin's early days, when it was lauded as a kind of electronic cash that wouldn’t be beholden to any government or financial institution.

Jets All-Pro Status Unclear for Dolphins MatchupHO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam , Dec. 18, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The HoSkar Night series has become a favorite event for hospitality and real estate professionals across Asia , connecting industry leaders, developers, and innovators in a vibrant networking atmosphere. In 2024, the series embarked on an incredible journey, covering major cities such as Ho Chi Minh City , Hanoi , Phnom Penh , Bangkok , and Manila cementing its status as a key platform for meaningful dialogue and collaboration in the industry. Launched in 2024, the HoSkar Talk – Developers Seminar marked a new milestone, bringing industry professionals together to discuss critical topics shaping the future of the hospitality and real estate industries. Looking ahead to 2025, the HoSkar Talk will dive deep into themes such as Wellness in Real Estate, Branded Residences, Technological Advancements in Hospitality, F&B Trends, and Design in Project Development. Mark your calendars for the 2025 event series, scheduled in key cities across the region: Bangkok (8th May), Phnom Penh (29th May), Manila (19th June), Ho Chi Minh City (10th July), Hanoi (29th October), Dubai (6th November) and Ho Chi Minh City (27th November). Kick off 2025 with us by joining the first HoSkar Night of the year in Ho Chi Minh City on 18th March, from 6 PM – 9 PM at Vinpearl Landmark 81, Autograph Collection. This event is part of the Meet The Experts conference, the largest Hospitality and Real Estate conference for industry professionals in the region, promising to set the tone for an exciting year ahead. Brought to you by WeHub, the largest community for hospitality and real estate developers, as well as senior industry professionals in the region. With its commitment to fostering innovation, collaboration, and growth, WeHub provides a robust platform for members to share knowledge, explore opportunities, and stay ahead in a competitive market. HoSkar Night would not be possible without the incredible support of our sponsors and partners. If you’d like to showcase your brand, share your expertise, or collaborate with us to make 2025 even more impactful, we’d love to hear from you. For sponsorship and collaboration inquiries, contact us at Host@wehubyou.com . Visit the HoSkar Night website at https://hoskarnight.com/ or find out more information at WeHub LinkedIn . Vision Asia Pacific is a registered company which owns WeHub and organizes many event series, including Meet The Experts conference (MTE) and HoSkar Night networking event. View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/hoskar-night-event-series-2025-lets-explore-the-real-estate-market-together-302333251.html SOURCE VISION ASIA PACIFIC LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANYHouse rejects Democratic efforts to force release of Matt Gaetz ethics report

Sun Devils face Cyclones in Big 12 title gameHeat star Jimmy Butler seen serving up cocktails made with his coffee. How to order one in Miami.

Top Stock Market Highlights of the Week: Singapore Post, Standard Chartered Bank and Singapore REITsManmohan Singh, the stoic reformer who reshaped India's economic landscape, passed away at 92. A scholar first, Singh became India's 14th Prime Minister, leading the nation from 2004 to 2014. Known for steering India through economic challenges, his influence on policy remains indelible. Singh's tenure introduced transformative initiatives like the Right to Information and the Right to Education. Despite facing criticism for scandals during his administration, his efforts in liberalizing India's economy in the 1990s are globally recognized. His leadership style was characterized by quiet determination and a focus on consensus-building. Born in 1932 in the undivided Punjab, Singh's journey from academic to politician was emblematic of his tenacity. As Finance Minister, he spearheaded India's economic reform, famously securing the nation's gold during a financial crisis. His legacy in governance remains a benchmark for economic development in India. (With inputs from agencies.)

Singapore, Singapore , Nov. 22, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Planetarium Labs has announced the pre-registration kickoff for its Immortal Rising 2 Path of Ascension Play 2 Airdrop campaign during the YGG Play Summit. The announcement was made by JC Kim, CEO and Founder of Planetarium Labs, who also provided a live demo of Immortal Rising 2, captivating attendees with the game's immersive dark fantasy setting and advanced Web3 features. Pre-registration for the P2A campaign is now open, offering participants the opportunity to claim a unique SoulBound Token (SBT) during this phase. This SBT will act as a hidden incentive for players, unlocking a special reward at the end of the campaign. The first season of the P2A campaign begins on November 28, 2024, inviting players to engage in a variety of daily check-in, social and in-game missions. These missions allow users to acquire additional SBTs per mission, each with unique scores that contribute to the users’ overall performance. At the end of Season 1, participants can check their final tier based on their SBT collection, unlocking exclusive rewards and benefits. The campaign not only introduces an engaging way for players to interact with Immortal Rising 2 but also provides a new layer of player-driven progression and achievement in Web3 gaming. Since its grand launch, Immortal Rising 2 has garnered significant attention, with over 500,000 players pre-registering ahead of its debut. The game has also achieved over 1 million registrations on Immortal Vault , the official platform where users can complete various social and in-game missions to earn ORB, a mileage point that will later contribute to $IMT allocation. Additionally, the game has surpassed 600,000 downloads and topped the charts for iOS and AOS in South Korea and Vietnam . Built on Immutable's zkEVM, powered by Polygon, the game seamlessly integrates blockchain technology with dynamic RPG mechanics, offering players both traditional gameplay and on-chain utility. “With Immortal Rising 2, we’re not only advancing Web3 gaming but also creating opportunities for players to engage with the ecosystem in new and rewarding ways,” said JC Kim, CEO and Founder of Planetarium Labs . “The P2A campaign is an exciting step forward, combining innovative technology with immersive gameplay to deepen player engagement.” To pre-register for the P2A campaign and secure your exclusive SoulBound Token, visit the pre-registration page or join the official website at immortalrising2.com and follow Immortal Rising 2 on X and Discord . About Planetarium Labs Planetarium Labs , which raised $32 million in a Series A funding round led by Animoca Brands, is a community-driven Web3 gaming company that builds immersive and moddable gaming experiences for users around the world. With decades of collective experience in gaming and blockchain technologies, and with industry-leading visionaries and partners, Planetarium Labs is building the protocols and experiences that take Web3 gaming to the next level. Media Contact Robert Penington robert@thronepr.com

Ten Ways Fermilab Advanced Science And Technology In 2024Bill Belichick offered UNC head coaching position, sources sayTrump offers a public show of support for Pete Hegseth, his embattled nominee to lead the Pentagon