The Latest: Former President Jimmy Carter is dead at age 100

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

DALLAS (AP) — More than 60 years after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated , conspiracy theories still swirl and any new glimpse into the fateful day of Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas continues to fascinate . President-elect Donald Trump promised during his reelection campaign that he would declassify all of the remaining government records surrounding the assassination if he returned to office. He made a similar pledge during his first term, but ultimately bended to appeals from the CIA and FBI to keep some documents withheld. At this point, only a few thousand of the millions of governmental records related to the assassination have yet to be fully released, and those who have studied the records released so far say that even if the remaining files are declassified, the public shouldn't anticipate any earth-shattering revelations. “Anybody waiting for a smoking gun that’s going to turn this case upside down will be sorely disappointed,” said Gerald Posner, author of “Case Closed,” which concludes that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Friday's 61st anniversary is expected to be marked with a moment of silence at 12:30 p.m. in Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy's motorcade was passing through when he was fatally shot. And throughout this week there have been events marking the anniversary. When Air Force One carrying Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy touched down in Dallas , they were greeted by a clear sky and enthusiastic crowds. With a reelection campaign on the horizon the next year, they had gone to Texas on political fence-mending trip. But as the motorcade was finishing its parade route downtown, shots rang out from the Texas School Book Depository building. Police arrested 24-year-old Oswald and, two days later, nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald during a jail transfer. A year after the assassination, the Warren Commission, which President Lyndon B. Johnson established to investigate the assassination, concluded that Oswald acted alone and there was no evidence of a conspiracy. But that hasn't quelled a web of alternative theories over the decades. In the early 1990s, the federal government mandated that all assassination-related documents be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration. The collection of over 5 million records was required to be opened by 2017, barring any exemptions designated by the president. Trump, who took office for his first term in 2017, had boasted that he'd allow the release of all of the remaining records but ended up holding some back because of what he called the potential harm to national security. And while files have continued to be released during President Joe Biden's administration, some still remain unseen. The documents released over the last few years offer details on the way intelligence services operated at the time, and include CIA cables and memos discussing visits by Oswald to the Soviet and Cuban embassies during a trip to Mexico City just weeks before the assassination. The former Marine had previously defected to the Soviet Union before returning home to Texas. Mark S. Zaid, a national security attorney in Washington, said what's been released so far has contributed to the understanding of the time period, giving “a great picture” of what was happening during the Cold War and the activities of the CIA. Posner estimates that there are still about 3,000 to 4,000 documents in the collection that haven’t yet been fully released. Of those documents, some are still completely redacted while others just have small redactions, like someone's Social Security number. “If you have been following it, as I have and others have, you sort of are zeroed in on the pages you think might provide some additional information for history,” Posner said. There are about 500 documents that have been completely withheld, Posner said, and those include Oswald’s and Ruby’s tax returns. Those files, the National Archives says on its website, weren't subject to the 2017 disclosure requirement. Trump's transition team hasn’t responded to questions this week about his plans when he takes office. From the start, there were those who believed there had to be more to the story than just Oswald acting alone, said Stephen Fagin, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, which tells the story of the assassination from the building where Oswald made his sniper's perch. “People want to make sense of this and they want to find the solution that fits the crime," said Fagin, who said that while there are lingering questions, law enforcement made “a pretty compelling case” against Oswald. Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said his interest in the assassination dates back to the event itself, when he was a child. “It just seemed so fantastical that one very disturbed individual could end up pulling off the crime of the century," Sabato said. “But the more I studied it, the more I realized that is a very possible, maybe even probable in my view, hypothesis.”

The BBC has revealed details of a one-year podcast licensing deal with Gary Lineker’s production company. Broadcaster and former England striker Lineker is leaving BBC football highlights programme Match Of The Day at the end of the season after more than a quarter of a decade at the helm. Advertisement When it announced this month that the 63-year-old was departing, the corporation said it will host two podcasts from his co-founded company Goalhanger on BBC Sounds. The Rest Is Football, which is fronted by Lineker and fellow former players Alan Shearer and Micah Richards, will have one episode released each week from November 27th. 🎧 @BBCSounds has scored a licensing deal for two popular titles! ⚽️The Rest Is Football - First episode drops on 27 November 📜 The Rest Is History - First episode drops on 29 November Find out more ➡️ https://t.co/RpVUa7DgRf pic.twitter.com/KpcGZu6RRf Advertisement — BBC Press Office (@bbcpress) November 22, 2024 It will arrive on the online radio and podcast platform two days after general release elsewhere. Advertisement Another Goalhanger podcast, The Rest Is History, presented by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, will also be available on BBC Sounds after a successful trial on the platform from September 2022 to January 2023. It will air two episodes a week, eight weeks after general release, with the first for BBC Sounds coming on November 29. Jonathan Wall, director of BBC Sounds, said: “We’re delighted to announce an exciting new partnership with Goalhanger, adding not one but two outstanding The Rest Is podcasts to our existing world-class history and sports content on BBC Sounds. “And these popular titles don’t just broaden our audio offering for listeners – they underscore our continued dedication to driving growth in the UK podcast industry and collaborating within the sector.” Advertisement The BBC said it would be a “one-year deal with the opportunity to extend, with episodes remaining available on BBC Sounds for three years”. Tony Pastor, co-founder at Goalhanger, said: “We’re excited to announce that episodes of The Rest Is Football and The Rest Is History are now available on BBC Sounds, giving listeners even more ways to enjoy the shows. Entertainment Coleen Rooney says public have not forgiven husban... Read More “While, of course, remaining available on all other podcast platforms and YouTube.” Lineker’s last appearance as presenter of Sports Personality Of The Year in 2023 was his final in the role, the BBC said. Advertisement It is understood that the decision was not related to contract discussions, and Lineker will continue to present live football on the BBC until after the 2026 World Cup.New Delhi : The Central Bureau of Investigation ( CBI ) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are set to start trials in some high-profile cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act and Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). ET Year-end Special Reads What kept India's stock market investors on toes in 2024? India's car race: How far EVs went in 2024 Investing in 2025: Six wealth management trends to watch out for Although the federal investigative agencies had filed several charge sheets against the accused - most of whom are out on bail - the trials had not been initiated. Most of these cases are at the stage of Section 207 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrpC), which requires that the accused be provided with certain documents used by the prosecution to buttress its case against the accused. In one of the high profile cases, CBI has concluded its arguments on framing of charges against former Union railway minister Lalu Prasad and co-accused. The need to kick-start trials also stems from the recent orders of the Supreme Court which, while granting bail to the accused, has repeatedly underscored the need to commence trials without delay. Besides completing investigations and starting trials, ED is also focusing on restitution of assets to victims. ET takes a deep dive into the high-profile cases in which agencies will try to commence the trial in 2025. 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In September 2024, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had accorded sanction to prosecute Prasad. A month later, the sanction to prosecute 30 co-accused was also received from the authorities. CBI had previously received sanction to prosecute Prasad for his alleged involvement in the alleged scam. The agency had filed two charge sheets, elaborating his alleged role in illegal recruitment of employees in two railway zones - central and western. But CBI filed its final and composite charge sheet in the case, including all the remaining railway zones. Prasad and other public servants were also charged in the final charge sheet. It is for this final charge sheet that the agency had sought sanction from the authorities in June. CBI is awaiting sanction to prosecute a former government servant, RK Mahajan, private secretary to Prasad, following which the agency will argue on framing of charges against Prasad, his kin and co-accused. After CBI, the accused will be given an opportunity to counter the agency's contentions. The counsel of accused will demand discharge, following which the court will take a decision whether to start trial or discharge accused. ED has attached properties of Prasad's family worth ₹6 crore in connection with the case. The properties attached by the agency include Delhi and Patna properties, including a house in New Friends Colony. CBI, in its charge sheet, has described Prasad, his wife and son (Tejashwi) as "ultimate beneficiaries". All three have denied the allegations against them. IRCTC case This is another alleged scandal in which CBI has filed charge sheets against Prasad, Tejashwi Yadav and Rabri Devi. The agency has already concluded its arguments on framing of charges. The special CBI court has already made it clear that hearing needs to be "expedited" and "adjournments are to be avoided". The defence is yet to present its counter arguments, following which the court will pronounce its verdict on whether or not to frame charges against the accused. If the court decides to frame charges, it will mean commencement of trial. The trial hasn't commenced because a co-accused - former government official Vinod Kumar Asthana - had last year obtained a stay from the Supreme Court on framing of charges against him. Asthana has demanded quashing of cognisance of CBI's charge sheet taken by the special court. He had moved SC after the Delhi High Court dismissed his plea in October 2022, ruling "it would not be feasible to quash the proceedings at such an initial stage". CBI has moved an application for early hearing of its plea seeking to vacate the stay granted in favour of Asthana. The plea is yet to come up for hearing in SC. The CBI court in July 2018 took cognisance of a charge sheet against Prasad and the other co-accused registered a year earlier for allegedly making illegal gains by tweaking the terms of a tender for IRCTC hotel contracts. CBI had booked Prasad, Rabri Devi, Tejashwi Yadav and others in July 2017 for allegedly making ill-gotten gains by tweaking the terms of tender of IRCTC hotels. As per CBI, Prasad had colluded with the owners of Chanakya and Sujata Hotel in Patna through IRCTC officials and owners of a front company belonging to Prasad and his wife. Delhi excise policy case All the accused in the erstwhile excise policy case of Delhi have been released on bail. The case includes senior AAP leaders - former CM Arvind Kejriwal , former deputy CM Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and others. The case is at the stage of Section 207 of CrPC. After furnishing of documents sought by the accused, CBI will argue on framing of charges. In a first, in May 2024, the ED filed a charge sheet against AAP as an accused under PMLA. AAP became the first political party to have been accused under anti-money laundering laws. ED invoked Section 70 (1) of PMLA to implead AAP as an accused. It will be significant to observe whether the court decides to charge AAP as an accused and start a trial against it. SC, while ordering release of the accused in the case, had recorded that the trial had not commenced. Granting bail to Kejriwal on September 13, the top court had slammed CBI. "It is imperative that CBI dispel the notion of it being a caged parrot," justice Ujjal Bhuyan, as part of a bench, had said in his judgment. "In a functional democracy governed by the rule of law, perception matters. Like Caesar's wife, an investigating agency must be above board," he had said. CBI's perception should rather be "that of an uncaged parrot", he said. VVIP chopper case CBI is likely to press for deciding its application seeking to segregate the trial. In December 2022, the agency had moved a special court, urging it to segregate the trial of the accused who have been served summons and joined investigation from those (accused) who have till date either not been served upon or have evaded the investigation. In its application, CBI argued that the accused who joined the probe cannot be denied their "right to speedy trial". The trial has yet to begin nearly 12 years after a probe was launched into alleged irregularities in an air force deal to purchase helicopters for transporting VVIPs. So far, CBI and ED have filed more than a dozen chargesheets in the case. However, the trial court could not make a decision on CBI's application seeking segregation of trial because CBI moved the Delhi High Court challenging orders passed by the special CBI court permitting a co-accused to inspect documents not relied upon by the agency. The appeal stated that the agency was required to produce only before the court all material collected by it during investigation which it proposes to rely upon. In July 2024, the CBI had informed the Delhi High Court that it had no difficulty if the accused inspected unrelied documents and statements of witnesses. The agency's stand had contrasted with its earlier position. The high court disposed of CBI's petition after the agency told it that "only for the purpose of expedience and without going into the merits, the present petition may be disposed of" and the accused "may be allowed to inspect unrelied documents and unrelied statements of witnesses". This meant the decks were cleared for the CBI to seek commencement of trial. The accused are being supplied documents, following which CBI will press its application for segregation of trial, said people in the know. Cash-for-jobs case (Bengal) SC in December directed the trial court to decide on framing of charges before the commencement of winter vacations or before December 31, 2024, whichever is earlier. The alleged cash-for-jobs scandal involves former West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee. SC ordered expediting the trial on a bail plea of Chatterjee. A bench headed by justice Surya Kant ordered that Chatterjee can be released on bail on or before February 1, 2025, in the money laundering case registered against him by ED. The bench directed the trial court to record the statements of prosecution witnesses who are most material and vulnerable in the second or third week of January 2025. Subject to the completion of these steps, Chatterjee can be released on bail. ED had also arrested Chatterjee's alleged associate, Arpita Mukherjee, in the case. Restitution of assets by ED After taking charge as the new ED director in August 2024, Rahul Navin had made it clear to sleuths that the focus must be on concluding investigations in key cases and initiating trials. The agency has also made significant progress in restitution of assets to victims. The agency has restored properties worth ₹22,280 crore to the victims or rightful claimants and the fight against economic offenders will continue unabated, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had informed the Lok Sabha in the winter session. ED has recovered assets worth ₹17,750 crore in connection with various cases involving fugitives Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. Sitharaman had also informed that ₹14,131.6 crore worth of properties belonging to Mallya have been restored to public sector banks. (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel )

Does Trump Jan 6. Pardon Plan Include the Seditionists?They were all exceptional – Mikel Arteta loved seeing Arsenal run riot in Lisbon

Seattle-based has launched a Customer Data Cloud – an AI-powered setup designed to help users transform raw customer data in a data warehouse into actionable business assets through its Lakehouse architecture. It enables them to standardize data, resolve identities, build profiles, and provide access to save time and build more accurate data models. It features: AI-Powered Identity Resolution – Easy-to-configure, ML-powered identity resolution that quickly finds hidden connections in online and offline customer data; Industry-Specific Data Modeling – Turnkey data models and lifecycle management predictions that accelerate the creation of a 360-degree customer view; Self-Service Data Access – Business-friendly reverse ETL tools and GenAI capabilities that enable non-technical users to explore and segment data independently, reducing ongoing data requests; Intelligent Change Management – End-to-end workflow testing in a full production sandbox that has GenAI built-in to help users resolve errors using natural language. There are real-time tables, a bridge for Snowflake in real time through Snowflake Secure Data Sharing, eliminating the need for ETL maintenance and complex integrations. A zero-copy data access capability allows AWS users to leverage their existing storage infrastructure to house their customer profiles and data assets. .... re:Invent news roundup part 2 Amazon Nova – a new generation of foundation models (FMs) that have state-of-the-art intelligence across a wide range of tasks, and industry-leading price performance. Amazon Nova will be available on Amazon Bedrock. Trainium 2 instances – AWS announced GA of Trainium2-powered EC2 instances, introduced new Trn2 UltraServers, enabling customers to train and deploy today’s latest AI models as well as future large language models (LLM) and foundation models (FM) with exceptional levels of performance and cost efficiency, and unveiled next-generation Trainium3 chips. S3 managed Apache Iceberg tables – See story . DynamoDB and Aurora DSQL – AWS announced new capabilities for Aurora and DynamoDB to support customers’ most demanding workloads that need to operate across multiple Regions with strong consistency, low latency, and the highest availability whether they want SQL or NoSQL. SageMaker – AWS announced the next generation of SageMaker, unifying the capabilities customers need for fast SQL analytics, petabyte-scale big data processing, data exploration and integration, model development and training, and GenAI into one integrated platform. Bedrock – AI Safeguard, agent orchestration, and customization options, Bedrock is a fully managed service for building and scaling generative artificial intelligence applications with high-performing foundation models. Q Developer – AWS announced enhancements to Amazon Q Developer, including agents that automate unit testing, documentation, and code reviews to help developers build faster across the entire software development process, and a capability to help users address operational issues in a fraction of the time. Enhancements to Q Business as well. GuardDuty – AWS introduced advanced AI/ML threat detection capabilities in Amazon GuardDuty. This new feature uses the extensive cloud visibility and scale of AWS to provide improved threat detection for your applications, workloads, and data. GuardDuty Extended Threat Detection employs sophisticated AI/ML to identify both known and previously unknown attack sequences, offering a more comprehensive and proactive approach to cloud security. OpenSearch Service zero-ETL integration with Amazon Security Lake – This integration enables organizations to efficiently search, analyze, and gain actionable insights from their security data, streamlining complex data engineering requirements and unlocking the full potential of security data. ... is accelerating file reads with a storage caching server. A shows how users can create an Amazon EC2-based cache that provides 25GB/sec of read throughput for under $4/hour, which can be scaled to almost unlimited throughput. The workload “should have a working data set small enough to fit into the RAM of a single EC2 instance. It’s primarily read-only (read/write caching might be possible, but we’re not covering it here), and it needs to be a filesystem with Linux support, in this example we use NFS. This caching “relies on the Linux OS file cache, which uses spare system RAM to cache file access. Mounting a filesystem via an Amazon EC2 instance will cache any file accessed. No additional software is needed.” Read the blog to find out more. ... Cloud backup and storage provider has a “game-changing media production acceleration case study” with the Philadelphia Eagles. With the team and system integrator CHESA, Backblaze: Game-planned a fast, cloud-based media workflow, including Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage, Mimir asset management software, and a Quantum shared file system to support accelerated content production for increased fan engagement. Traded slow access, failure-prone LTO tape for immediate access to decades of rich content stored in the cloud – no more waiting days or weeks, or missing out completely, when historical footage of a player or play is needed. Scored early team wins, including enabling its media professionals to access and make more footage in the critical 48 hours after each game so they can then shift attention to the next game, and saving time and hassle by making content sharing with outside vendors and other organizations far more efficient. ... DNA storage startup has raised $18 million in Series A funding, led by Crédit Mutuel Innovation, with participation from various French investment organizations. Biomemory has demonstrated the viability and potential of its molecular storage technology. The funding will enable the biz to complete the development of the first generation of its data storage appliance, accelerate the development of partnerships with industry players and cloud providers, recruit top talent in molecular biology and engineering to accelerate the development of the product and its commercialization, and advance research into broader molecular-based solutions. ... Live data replicator has launched Data Migrator 3.0, with production-ready support for Apache Iceberg, expanded capabilities for Databricks Delta Lake, significant enterprise security enhancements, and comprehensive extensibility. CTO Paul Scott-Murphy claimed: “Our production-ready, direct support for open table formats like Apache Iceberg and Delta Lake eliminates the constraints of closed data architectures, even if you have petabytes of data held in formats or locations that previously required lengthy, complex and risky efforts to modernize. Data Migrator 3.0 is a significant advancement for organizations that want to future-proof their data management, analytics and AI strategies.” ... has announced its “Interoperability Ecosystem” with founding members AWS and Snowflake. The ecosystem makes it easier for customers to connect their workloads with Snowflake, Cloudera and now unique AWS services – such as S3, EKS, RDS. EC2 and Athena. Some of the features the collaboration enables include: Seamless Data Sharing and Interoperability – AWS customers can leverage Cloudera’s data lakehouse alongside Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud, facilitating unified data access and sharing across platforms while ensuring compliance and scalability for customers handling sensitive data. Enhanced AI/ML Performance – The partnership optimizes data workflows for AI/ML applications by enabling Cloudera’s on-premises or hybrid data sets running AWS to integrate with Snowflake’s analytics capabilities, reducing latency and improving insights. Maximized Cloud Investments and Support for Multi-Cloud Strategies – Customers can leverage Snowflake for targeted analytics while managing broader data operations with Cloudera, maximizing AWS investments by combining their strengths. This collaboration simplifies connecting AWS data with Snowflake, supports multi-cloud strategies, and enhances data mobility without vendor lock-in. Check out a to find out more. ... Michelle Scardino ( on X/Twitter) joined as VP of Demand Generation in September, reporting to CMO Jyothi Swaroop. ... announced general availability of Elasticsearch logsdb index mode, which reduces the storage footprint of log data by up to 65 percent compared to recent versions of Elasticsearch. Logsdb index mode optimizes data ordering, eliminates duplication by reconstructing non-stored field values with synthetic _source, and improves compression with advanced algorithms and codecs. Benefits include reduced costs, preservation of valuable data, expanded visibility and streamlined access to data. Logsdb index mode is generally available for Cloud Hosted and Self-Managed customers starting in version 8.17 and is enabled by default for logs in Elastic Cloud Serverless. ... Data mover announced 40 percent year-on-year growth in the AWS Marketplace, attributed to rising enterprise demand for AI and analytics. It says its Managed Data Lake Service automates structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data into Delta Lake or Apache Iceberg formats as it moves into Amazon S3 data lakes. By automating table maintenance, natively integrating with catalogs including AWS Glue, and covering compute costs associated with ingestion, Fivetran reduces the resources needed to keep data continuously query-ready, enabling teams to prioritize AI and ML projects over manual data preparation. ... announced that its Storage Performance Development Kit (SPDK) project will be transitioning to the Linux Foundation in 2025. It declared “this move aims to ensure the long-term sustainability and growth of SPDK, fostering a vibrant community and driving innovation in storage performance. While Intel will be divesting from the project, we remain committed to supporting the community during this transition.” ... NAND fabber and DRAM producer announced the development of OCTRAM (Oxide-Semiconductor Channel Transistor DRAM) – a new type of 4F DRAM comprised of an oxide-semiconductor transistor that has a high ON current, and an ultra-low OFF current, simultaneously. This technology is expected to realize a low-power DRAM by bringing out the ultra-low leakage property of the InGaZnO*1 transistor. The OCTRAM utilizes a cylinder-shaped InGaZnO vertical transistor as a cell transistor. This was first announced at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) held in San Francisco, CA on December 9, 2024. InGaZnO is a compound of In(indium), Ga(gallium), Zn(zinc), and O(oxygen). Each memory cell occupies an area of 4F , where F is the minimum feature size achievable with the fabrication process. The design enables the adaptation of a 4F DRAM, which offers significant advantages in memory density compared to the conventional silicon-based 6F DRAM. ... announced that the cryptographic module used in its CM7 Series PCIe 5.0 NVMe Enterprise SSDs has been validated to meet Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-3, Level 2 for cryptographic modules. ... announced its Universal Flash Storage (UFS) Ver. 4.0 embedded flash memory devices designed for automotive applications have received Automotive SPICE(ASPICE) Capacity Level 2 (CL2) certification. Kioxia is the first manufacturer to be awarded this distinction for automotive grade UFS 4.0. ... According to the , was valued at $18 billion when the Bain-led consortium bought it in 2018. Its IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange is expected to reflect a $5.1 billion valuation and raise $800 million. When Kioxia previously planned an IPO in 2020 – which did not come to pass – its valuation was $16 million. The valuation fall is ascribed to its net debt following the Bain buyout: $4.9 billion, “equal to around 1.2 times its shareholders’ equity. Western Digital’s ratio is less than 0.5 times and SK hynix’s is under 0.3 times.” The WSJ observes: “The company has been losing market share in particular to SK hynix. Kioxia’s market share in the NAND flash memory market dropped from 17.8 percent in the first quarter in 2023 to 15.1 percent last quarter, according to industry tracker TrendForce.” Kioxia could become an acquisition target, with the NAND industry potentially consolidating. ... , a cloud data storage supplier that developed NVMe over TCP, has joined the Mirantis partner program. Mirantis is a provider of open source-based infrastructure services and systems. The two collaborators aim to move customers from VMware to a Lightbits cloud infrastructure, using OpenStack for Kubernetes, with “dramatically improved performance and cost-efficiency at scale.” Find out more . ... DRAM, NAND and SSD producer has been $6.1 billion in a federal funding agreement through the CHIPS and Science Act – $4.6 billion for New York and $1.5 billion for Idaho. Reuters reports the funding will support Micron’s long-term plan to invest around $100 billion in a 1,400-acre DRAM campus in New York and $25 billion in Idaho, and is one of the largest government awards to chip companies under the $52.7 billion 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. According to Micron the $100 billion New York plant will create 9,000 jobs over 20 years and 36,000 support positions at related suppliers and service companies. Separately, the US Commerce Department has reached a preliminary agreement to award Micron up to $275 million to expand and modernize its facility in Manassas, Virginia to help update its wafer production. ... and Futurum have produced a report titled Cloud, Complexity, AI: The Triple Threat Demanding New Cyber Resilience Strategies. The four main findings are: Cloud Security Risks – Misconfigurations and vulnerabilities in hybrid multi-cloud environments are now among the top threats, outpacing traditional attacks like ransomware. Tool Sprawl Challenges – Seventy percent of respondents use more than 40 cyber security tools, with 84 percent citing operational complexity as a major inhibitor to cyber resiliency, underscoring the need for tool consolidation and integrated solutions to streamline operations. AI in Cybersecurity – Forty percent of organizations are leveraging AI for threat detection, with plans to expand its use for automating response and recovery. Increased Investment – Over 90 pe4rcent of respondents plan to increase cyber security budgets in the next 12 to 18 months, focusing on integrated and proactive solutions. Get a copy of the report . ... HPC storage systems engineer Jake Wynne at Oak Ridge National Labs ( ) has developed a transfer tool to simplify the process of transferring vast amounts of data at speed and ORNL is making it available for public use. It was created to help transfer large quantities of data from the facility’s tape library-based High Performance Storage System, or , to the newly deployed nearline storage system, . Kronos is a 134PB, multi-programmatic nearline storage system that also provides back-end tape-based backups for all data as a disaster-recovery measure. The hsi_xfer transfer tool is named after the hsi command-line interface for the HPSS. The goal was to prevent overloading the tape library’s robotic tape-retrieval mechanisms and provide users with a simpler, more efficient way to access their data. “By batching all requested files from a single tape and streaming them together, the script minimizes robotic movement, reduces tape loading and seek times, and helps extend the lifespan of both the tapes and the hardware,” Wynne explained. The script has demonstrated superior transfer performance compared to other tools, while also offering data-integrity features typically found in tools such as Globus – features that are not available in the standard hsi. Like Globus, the script includes a checkpointing feature that allows users to recover quickly from interrupted transfers, resuming exactly where they left off with minimal overhead. Wynne is currently stewarding the script through ORNL’s open-sourcing process, and he hopes it will soon appear in the repository. ... Wedbush analyst Matt Bryson tells subscribers that, per the Korea Daily, won’t break into Nvidia’s supply chain this year and is hoping to penetrate the largest consumer of HBM next year. And today suggests that Samsung has reassigned 2K engineers to work on this initiative. Assuming DigiTimes is correct, we view this shift of more resource to HBM as confirming that Samsung still has work to do to fix its HBM – a result that should benefit Hynix (and Micron) on the HBM front, but could hurt general DRAM dynamics if Samsung is forced to reallocate HBM capacity to standard DRAM production. ... , which provides superfast software-defined cloud storage, has appointed Ronen Schwartz to its board of directors. “Schwartz, who currently serves as CEO of K2View, brings decades of experience in cloud storage, data management, and enterprise solutions to Silk’s board. Previously, he served as SVP and GM of Cloud Storage at NetApp, where he played a pivotal role in driving cloud adoption and innovation.” ... Sofia, Bulgaria-based primary data storage supplier has received all 4- and 5-Star reviews as part of the Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice 2024 program based on criteria including product capabilities, evaluation and contracting, integration and deployment, and service and support. The 85 percent 5-Star ratings received by StorPool during the past 12 months is among the highest ratings overview achieved among competitive vendors in the Primary Storage Platforms category. One hundred percent of peers evaluating the StorPool Storage Platform as part of Gartner Peer Insights recommend the product. The supplier’s overall ranking was 4.8 out of 5 stars. ... , the Swedish SaaS startup (2017) that provides a central place to store and analyze market research data has appointed Mårten Strömberg VP of Strategy and Analytics to enhance Stravito’s strategic direction and data-driven growth. He previously worked as director of analytics at fintech Zettle by Paypal, and as a strategy consultant at The Boston Consulting Group. Stravito has also appointed Stefan Röse as head of client development. ... Object cloud storage supplier has added ‘s London datacenter to Wasabi’s storage regions. It says Wasabi’s ability to leverage IBM’s Multizone Region (MZR) addresses the need to help joint customers address their evolving regulatory requirements and leverage AI and other emerging technologies with a secured, enterprise cloud platform. IBM Cloud MZRs are composed of three or more datacenter zones, with each being an Availability Zone. Wasabi “aims to help new and existing UK customers utilizing Wasabi AiR, an intelligent media storage solution for the sports, media, and entertainment segment, address their data residency requirements. Wasabi AiR customers such as Liverpool Football Club (LFC) in the Premier League, will be able to access and leverage key sports data securely across a hybrid cloud infrastructure.” ...

NEW YORK (AP) — No ex-president had a more prolific and diverse publishing career than Jimmy Carter . His more than two dozen books included nonfiction, poetry, fiction, religious meditations and a children’s story. His memoir “An Hour Before Daylight” was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2002, while his 2006 best-seller “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” stirred a fierce debate by likening Israel’s policies in the West Bank to the brutal South African system of racial segregation. And just before his 100th birthday, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation honored him with a lifetime achievement award for how he wielded “the power of the written word to foster peace, social justice, and global understanding.” In one recent work, “A Full Life,” Carter observed that he “enjoyed writing” and that his books “provided a much-needed source of income.” But some projects were easier than others. “Everything to Gain,” a 1987 collaboration with his wife, Rosalynn, turned into the “worst threat we ever experienced in our marriage,” an intractable standoff for the facilitator of the Camp David accords and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. According to Carter, Rosalynn was a meticulous author who considered “the resulting sentences as though they have come down from Mount Sinai, carved into stone.” Their memories differed on various events and they fell into “constant arguments.” They were ready to abandon the book and return the advance, until their editor persuaded them to simply divide any disputed passages between them. “In the book, each of these paragraphs is identified by a ‘J’ or an ‘R,’ and our marriage survived,” he wrote. Here is a partial list of books by Carter: “Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President” “The Blood of Abraham: Insights into the Middle East” (With Rosalynn Carter) “Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life” “An Outdoor Journal: Adventures and Reflections” “Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age” “Always a Reckoning, and Other Poems” (With daughter Amy Carter) “The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer” “Living Faith” “The Virtues of Aging” “An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood” “Christmas in Plains: Memories” “The Hornet’s Nest: A Novel of the Revolutionary War” “Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis” “Faith & Freedom: The Christian Challenge for the World” “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” “A Remarkable Mother” “Beyond the White House” “We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work” “White House Diary” “NIV Lessons from Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter” “A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power” “A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety”