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Trump nominates cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins as SEC chair President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he intends to nominate cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission. Alex Veiga, The Associated Press Dec 4, 2024 1:33 PM Share by Email Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Print Share via Text Message FILE - Paul Atkins, a former SEC Commissioner and current CEO of Patomak Partners, arrives at Trump Tower, Nov. 28, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci, File) President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he intends to nominate cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission. 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. Trump, once a crypto skeptic, had pledged to make the U.S. “the crypto capital of the planet” and create a “strategic reserve” of bitcoin. Money has poured into crypto assets since he won . Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, is now above $95,000. And shares in crypto platform Coinbase have surged more than 70% since the election. Paul Grewal, chief legal officer of Coinbase, congratulated Atkins in a post on X. “We appreciate his commitment to balance in regulating U.S. securities markets and look forward to his fresh leadership at (the SEC),” Grewal wrote. “It’s sorely needed and cannot come a day too soon.” Congressman Brad Sherman, a California Democrat and a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee, said he worries Atkins would not sufficiently regulate cryptocurrencies as SEC chair. “He’d probably take the position that no cryptocurrency currency is a security, and hence no exchange that deals with crypto is a securities exchange,” Sherman said. “The opportunity to defraud investors would be there in a very significant way.” 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. His work as an SEC commissioner started in 2002, a time when the fallout from corporate scandals at Enron and WorldCom had turned up the heat on Wall Street and its government regulators. Atkins was widely considered the most conservative member of the SEC during his tenure at the agency and known to have a strong free-market bent. As a commissioner, he called for greater transparency in and analysis of the costs and benefits of new SEC rules. He also emphasized investor education and increased enforcement efforts against those who steal from investors over the internet, manipulate markets, engage in Ponzi schemes and other types of fraud. At the same time, Atkins objected to stiff penalties imposed on companies accused of fraudulent conduct, contending that they did not deter crime. He caused a stir in the summer of 2006 when he said the practice of granting stock options to executives before the disclosure of news that was certain to increase the share price did not constitute insider trading. U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Atkins has the experience needed to “restore faith in the SEC.” “I’m confident his leadership will lead to clarity for the digital asset ecosystem and ensure U.S. capital markets remain the envy of the world,” McHenry posted on X. Atkins already has some experience working for Trump. During Trump's first term, Atkins was a member of the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum , an advisory group of more than a dozen CEOs and business leaders who offered input on how to create jobs and speed economic growth. In 2017, Atkins joined the Token Alliance, a cryptocurrency advocacy organization. Crypto industry players welcomed Trump’s victory in the hopes that he would push through legislative and regulatory changes that they’ve long lobbied for. Trump himself has launched World Liberty Financial, a new venture with family members to trade cryptocurrencies. Alex Veiga, The Associated Press See a typo/mistake? Have a story/tip? This has been shared 0 times 0 Shares Share by Email Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Print Share via Text Message Get your daily Victoria news briefing Email Sign Up More Science News White House says at least 8 US telecom firms, dozens of nations impacted by China hacking campaign Dec 4, 2024 1:44 PM White House says at least 8 US telecom firms, dozens of nations impacted by China hacking campaign Dec 4, 2024 12:56 PM District of Columbia says Amazon secretly stopped fast deliveries to 2 predominantly Black ZIP codes Dec 4, 2024 12:33 PMfish casino app 。

By MICHELLE L. PRICE NEW YORK (AP) — Chad Chronister, Donald Trump’s pick to run the Drug Enforcement Administration, said Tuesday he was withdrawing his name from consideration, becoming the second person selected by the president-elect to bow out quickly after being nominated for a position requiring Senate confirmation. Sheriff Chronister, the top law enforcement officer in Hillsborough County, Florida, said in a post on X that he was backing away from the opportunity, which he called “the honor of a lifetime.” “Over the past several days, as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in, I’ve concluded that I must respectfully withdraw from consideration,” Chronister wrote. He did not elaborate, and Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Chronister follows former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz , Trump’s first pick to serve as attorney general, in withdrawing his name for a post in the administration. Gaetz withdrew following scrutiny over a federal sex trafficking investigation that cast doubt on his ability to be confirmed as the nation’s chief federal law enforcement officer. Trump’s pick of Chronister for the DEA job drew backlash from conservatives, who raised concerns over his actions during the COVID-19 pandemic and his saying that his office “does not engage in federal immigration enforcement activities.” In March 2020, Chronister arrested the pastor of a megachurch who held services with hundreds of people and violated a safer-at-home order in place aimed at limiting the spread of the Covid virus. “Shame on this pastor, their legal staff and the leaders of this staff for forcing us to do our job. That’s not what we wanted to do during a declared state of emergency,” Chronister said at the time. “We are hopeful that this will be a wakeup call.” U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky, was among those airing public complaints, saying Chronister should be “disqualified” for the arrest. Others flagged comments Chronister made in a video about Florida’s immigration laws that he released in 2023 that circulated again online after Trump named him last weekend. Related Articles National Politics | Trump team signs agreement to allow Justice to conduct background checks on nominees, staff National Politics | President-elect Donald Trump’s lawyers urge judge to toss his hush money conviction National Politics | Democrats stick with Schumer as leader, their strategy for countering Trump is far less certain National Politics | Trump vows to block Japanese steelmaker from buying US Steel, pledges tax incentives and tariffs National Politics | Democrats’ outgoing chair says Trump’s win forces party to reassess how it reaches voters In the video, Chronister praised the “rich diversity” of his community and called it “a place where people from all walks of life come together.” He said it was important to note his office “does not engage in federal immigration enforcement activities. We do not target individuals based on their immigration status. That’s the authority of federal agencies.” Trump has made a sweeping crackdown on immigration a central focus of his campaign and his aims for his coming administration. Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon in Fort Lauderdale, Florida contributed to this report.

NEW YORK (AP) — Brian Thompson led one of the biggest health insurers in the U.S. but was unknown to millions of people his decisions affected. Then Wednesday's targeted fatal shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO on a midtown Manhattan sidewalk thrust the executive and his business into the national spotlight. Thompson, who was 50, had worked at the giant UnitedHealth Group Inc for 20 years and run the insurance arm since 2021 after running its Medicare and retirement business. As CEO, Thompson led a firm that provides health coverage to more than 49 million Americans — more than the population of Spain. United is the largest provider of Medicare Advantage plans, the privately run versions of the U.S. government’s Medicare program for people age 65 and older. The company also sells individual insurance and administers health-insurance coverage for thousands of employers and state-and federally funded Medicaid programs. The business run by Thompson brought in $281 billion in revenue last year, making it the largest subsidiary of the Minnetonka, Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group. His $10.2 million annual pay package, including salary, bonus and stock options awards, made him one of the company's highest-paid executives. The University of Iowa graduate began his career as a certified public accountant at PwC and had little name recognition beyond the health care industry. Even to investors who own its stock, the parent company's face belonged to CEO Andrew Witty, a knighted British triathlete who has testified before Congress. When Thompson did occasionally draw attention, it was because of his role in shaping the way Americans get health care. At an investor meeting last year, he outlined his company's shift to “value-based care,” paying doctors and other caregivers to keep patients healthy rather than focusing on treating them once sick. “Health care should be easier for people,” Thompson said at the time. “We are cognizant of the challenges. But navigating a future through value-based care unlocks a situation where the ... family doesn’t have to make the decisions on their own.” Thompson also drew attention in 2021 when the insurer, like its competitors, was widely criticized for a plan to start denying payment for what it deemed non-critical visits to hospital emergency rooms. “Patients are not medical experts and should not be expected to self-diagnose during what they believe is a medical emergency,” the chief executive of the American Hospital Association wrote in an open letter addressed to Thompson. “Threatening patients with a financial penalty for making the wrong decision could have a chilling effect on seeking emergency care.” United Healthcare responded by delaying rollout of the change. Thompson, who lived in a Minneapolis suburb and was the married father of two sons in high school, was set to speak at an investor meeting in a midtown New York hotel. He was on his own and about to enter the building when he was shot in the back by a masked assailant who fled on foot before pedaling an e-bike into Central Park a few blocks away, the New York Police Department said. Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said investigators were looking at Thompson's social media accounts and interviewing employees and family members. “Didn’t seem like he had any issues at all,” Kenny said. "He did not have a security detail.” AP reporters Michael R. Sisak and Steve Karnowski contributed to this report. Murphy reported from Indianapolis. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email.Fintech Blockchain Market: Expected to Surge to USD 57.84B by 2031

The last two countries announced their 4 Nations Roster and the Toronto Maple Leafs were well represented. With the 4 Nations Face-Off taking place next February, teams are coming together as the international battle for supremacy will no doubt capture the attention of fans. Sweden and Finland already announced their rosters with two Toronto Maple Leafs represented with Jani Hakanpaa for Finland and William Nylander for Sweden. Canada and the United States were also taking note of some very familiar names as Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner have been named to their respective teams. Matthews will don the red, white, and blue as he takes the ice alongside some pretty hefty players like Brock Nelson, the Tkachuk Brothers, Chris Kreider and Brock Faber. It will be Matthews' 6th time representing the United States after various junior hockey nominations. Even though he missed basically the entirety of November, there's no denying Matthews would earn himself a spot. Last year's leading goal-scorer is going to be a dangerous weapon for Team USA as they try and use their size and skill to control the game. Even though he's missed a month, Matthews is still enjoying a solid season with 15 points in 14 games and recently returned to the team and made an instant impact. Marner will join Team Canada as the only Maple Leaf although there were conversations that potentially teammate Chris Tanev would join as well though that's not the case. Enjoying an electric season with the Maple Leafs, Marner has scored 33 points in 24 games (9 goals, 24 assists) and led the team in the wake of Matthews' injury. Without him, the team would be nowhere near as successful as they have been a quarter of the way through the season. Marner joins Team Canada for the 4th time as he joins up with some pretty prominent Canadian players such as Sidney Crosby , Connor McDavid, and Nathan MacKinnon among a slew of future Hall of Famers. More details to come. This article first appeared on Hockey Patrol and was syndicated with permission.AP Trending SummaryBrief at 6:52 p.m. EST

What was once a major event of the college football season has, in the first week of December, just become one of the subplots. Early signing day is here for Nebraska and every other program, many of which, including NU, have their attention split several ways. Conference title games haven’t even been played yet. The transfer portal — not officially open until Dec. 9 — has nevertheless been whirling with at least seven Husker departures since Monday. NU has lost one coordinator, locked another up for two years, and set its sights on Kentucky assistant Daikiel Shorts to coach receivers. Matt Rhule’s early afternoon press conference may focus just as much — perhaps more — on topics as the 2025 recruiting class, which stood Tuesday evening at 19 members. By the time Rhule talks about the class, it could grow by a few or in theory shrink, were commits inclined to balk at the departure of Nebraska defensive coordinator Tony White. People are also reading... That hasn’t been the case so far, as some of the highest-rated prospects in the class — four-star linebackers Dawson Merritt and Christian Jones — had reaffirmed their commitment to Nebraska through social media statements. Nebraska awaits final answers from at least three prospects, though Shorts' imminent hiring could, in theory, bring more options into play. * San Antonio Alamo Heights High School five-star athlete Michael Terry, a prospect of few interviews who has narrowed his list to home-state Texas, Nebraska and Oregon, the 6-foot-3, 215-pounder’s top three schools for months. He’ll announce a choice at his 8:15 a.m. signing ceremony on Wednesday. At NU, Terry projects to wideout. * Homestead (Florida) High School four-star receiver Cortez Mills has long been committed to Oklahoma, but recruiting site reporters have him trending to flip to Nebraska. The 6-foot-1, 175-pound Mills caught 79 passes for 1,640 yards and 18 touchdowns last season, breaking Miami-Dade County single-season marks. Mills’ signing ceremony takes place between 8:05-9:30 a.m. in the school’s auditorium. * Kahuka (Hawaii) High School three-star safety Aidan Manutai remains a Husker target, though he’s currently committed to California. The 6-foot, 170-pound Manutai would be part of a defensive backs group that could vie for early playing time. * Another potential prospect to watch is Kentucky receiver commit Dejerrian Miller, who verbally pledged to Shorts and the Wildcats last week and plays prep football at St. Louis Cardinal Ritter, the same school as Husker running back commit Jamarion Parker. Miller did not previously have Nebraska among his top group of suitors and may stick in the SEC. In total, NU plans to sign six in-state commitments — headlined by Jones, an Omaha Westside linebacker — to financial aid papers, as the NCAA in October eliminated the national letter of intent, which binds prospects to school. The group of six — Jones, Omaha North defensive tackle Tyson Terry, Millard North athletes Pierce Mooberry and Caden VerMaas, Wahoo Neumann running back Conor Booth and Lincoln Southwest receiver Jackson Carpenter — are part of one of the strongest corps of in-state recruits in years. Fifteen prospects are poised to sign with FBS programs, with 12 of those headed to power conferences. Unless Terry or Mills flips to NU, Merritt, out of Overland Park (Kansas) Blue Valley High School, is NU’s highest-ranked player in the 2025 class. Thirteen of the 19 prospects in the class have a four-star according to at least one of the four major recruiting services — 247 Sports, ESPN, On3 and Rivals. And all but 247 Sports, as of Tuesday evening ranked NU’s class as No. 20 in the nation. 247 Sports had the Huskers 22nd. Photos: Nebraska football vs. Iowa on Black Friday — Nov. 29 Nebraska players, including Jacob Hood (center), turn to wave during the "Hawkeye Wave" on Friday in Iowa City. Nebraska assistant coach Garret McGuire looks on during warm up before the Iowa game, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska assistant coach Marcus Satterfield looks on during warm up before the Iowa game, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska fan Zachary Roth of Omaha dances in the cold during the Iowa game, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule talks with an official during the Iowa game on Friday at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. Nebraska's Jahmal Banks is tackled by Iowa's TJ Hall on Friday at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. Iowa's Kamari Moulton (center) is tackled by Nebraska's MJ Sherman (left) and Elijah Jeudy, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska's Carter Nelson (center) is tackled by Iowa's Deontae Craig (right) on Friday at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. Iowa's Quinn Schulte (left) tackles Nebraska's Nate Boerkircher, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska's Thomas Fidone picks up a pass against Iowa, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska's John Hohl reacts after missing a field goal against Iowa, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska's Dylan Raiola runs with the ball against Iowa on Friday at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. Nebraska's Isaac Gifford (left) rips the ball away from Iowa's Jarriett Buie on Friday at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. The Nebraska defense stops Iowa on fourth down on Friday at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. Nebraska's Jahmal Banks picks up a pass next to Iowa's Deshaun Lee, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska's Emmett Johnson escapes a tackle by Iowa's Deshaun Lee, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule looks on during the Iowa game, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska's Dante Dowdell tries to break a tackle from Iowa's Jay Higgins (left) and Koen Entringer (4), Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska's Emmett Johnson fumbles under pressure from Iowa's Sebastian Castro (top) and TJ Hall (bottom), Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Iowa's Drew Stevens (18) celebrates after making the game-winning kick against Nebraska, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Iowa's Drew Stevens (18) celebrates after making the game-winning kick against Nebraska, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Iowa's Luke Elkin (left) and Ty Nissen carry Heroes Game trophy after defeating Nebraska on Friday at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. Iowa's Drew Stevens (18) kicks a game-winning field goal through the arms of Nebraska's Ty Robinson (9) and Nash Hutmacher (0) on Friday at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. Nebraska's Dante Dowdell scores a touchdown against Iowa in the second quarter, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska's Dylan Raiola carries the ball against Iowa, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Iowa's Deontae Craig (bottom) pressures Nebraska's Dylan Raiola, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska's John Hohl (right) celebrates his field goal against Iowa, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska's Mikai Gbayor tips a pass by Iowa's Jackson Stratton on Friday at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. Iowa's Deontae Craig (left) and Aaron Graves (right) pressure Nebraska's Dylan Raiola on at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule (left) talks with Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz before the game, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Jesse Divis of David City, 17, braves the cold before the Nebraska game at Iowa, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule arrives before the Iowa game, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska special teams coordinator Ed Foley arrives before the Iowa game, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska's Dylan Raiola arrives before the Iowa game, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. The Nebraska football team arrives arrives at Kinnick Stadium before the Iowa game, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, in Iowa City, Iowa. The Nebraska football team arrives arrives at Kinnick Stadium before the Iowa game, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, in Iowa City, Iowa. Nebraska offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen arrives at Kinnick Stadium before the Iowa game, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, in Iowa City, Iowa. Subscribe for the best Husker news & commentary Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox!

By LARRY NEUMEISTER NEW YORK (AP) — The founder and former CEO of the failed cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius Network could face decades in prison after pleading guilty Tuesday to federal fraud charges, admitting that he misled customers about the business. Alexander Mashinsky , 58, of Manhattan, entered the plea in New York federal court to commodities and securities fraud. He admitted illegally manipulating the price of Celsius’s proprietary crypto token while secretly selling his own tokens at inflated prices to pocket about $48 million before Celsius collapsed into bankruptcy in 2022. In court, he admitted that in 2021 he publicly suggested there was regulatory consent for the company’s moves because he knew that customers “would find false comfort” with that. And he said that in 2019, he was selling the crypto tokens even though he told the public that he was not. He said he knew customers would draw false comfort from that too. “I accept full responsibility for my actions,” Mashinsky said of crimes that stretched from 2018 to 2022 as the company pitched itself to customers as a modern-day bank where they could safely deposit crypto assets and earn interest. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a release that Mashinsky “orchestrated one of the biggest frauds in the crypto industry” as his company’s assets purportedly grew to about $25 billion at its peak, making it one of the largest crypto platforms in the world. He said Mashinsky used catchy slogans like “Unbank Yourself” to entice prospective customers with a pledge that their money would be as safe in crypto accounts as money would be in a bank. Meanwhile, prosecutors said, Mashinsky and co-conspirators used customer deposits to fund market purchases of the Celsius token to prop up its value. Machinsky made tens of millions of dollars selling his own CEL tokens at artificially high prices, leaving his customers “holding the bag when the company went bankrupt,” Williams said. An indictment alleged that Mashinsky promoted Celsius through media interviews, his social media accounts and Celsius’ website, along with a weekly “Ask Mashinsky Anything” session broadcast that was posted to Celsius’ website and a YouTube channel. Celsius employees from multiple departments who noticed false and misleading statements in the sessions warned Mashinsky, but they were ignored, the indictment said. A plea agreement Mashinsky made with prosecutors calls for him to be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison and to forfeit over $48 million, which is the amount of money he allegedly made by selling his company’s token. Sentencing was scheduled for April 8.Report: Chargers expect WR Ladd McConkey, LB Khalil Mack to play vs. RavensWomen’s representation in the tech sector is improving across the country, even amid other drops in diversity. That’s according to a Wednesday report from the Vancouver-based Tech and People Network (TAP), which found that women’s representation in Canada’s tech sector made some progress over the last year, increasing from 36.9 per cent to 38.6 per cent among 149 employers surveyed. Nevertheless, the management-level gender pay gap still remains at 17 per cent, with all B.C. employers with over 50 employees required to report gender pay discrepancies by 2026, said the release. Women were represented most in tech companies’ human resources departments (84 per cent), while representation lacked in technology, design and support (27 per cent). Entry-level jobs for (45 per cent) had the highest representation, while women made up a meagre 5.8 per cent of jobs at the specialist level (5.8 per cent). Representation in those categories remain the same as last year, according to TAP’s 2024 Diversity in Tech Dashboard. But broader diversity in the tech sector has taken a considerable blow since 2023, with representation of persons of colour dropping by 4.4 percentage points to 33.1 per cent. The report found that the most significant proportion of people who self-identify as a person of colour were in the manufacturing sector (54 per cent), with the lowest being in the executive/corporate level (19 per cent) – those figures remain unchanged since 2023. Entry-level jobs (46 per cent) had the highest representation of this group, with the lowest being the specialist level (16 per cent). TAP Network CEO Stephanie Hollingshead said in Wednesday’s release that declining representation of people of colour and/or Black people is cause for concern, urging organizations to review recruitment/retention strategies. Underrepresented groups like persons with disabilities slightly increased by one percentage point from 4.2 per cent compared with 2023, with the largest numbers coming from those working in human resources. Representation of 2SLGBTQIA+ also increased annually by one percentage point to 9.9 per cent. However, representation for Indigenous persons was the lowest (0.8 per cent) and even saw a decrease of 0.1 percentage points in the last year. The tech sector experienced a mixed bag of improvements and declines over the last year – this was also the case for equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging (EDIB) policy building in the workplace. Just over half (57 per cent) of the 181 organizations who provided information stated they ask employees for their accessibility needs, with close to half providing EDIB training and analyzing pay gaps. However, only 18 per cent of senior leadership in these companies has set accountability to match these goals. While companies made progress in developing inclusive policies, significant steps forward in diversity and pay equity remain painfully slow, said Hollingshead. “Our 2024 findings serve as an urgent wake-up call for Canada's tech sector. We need decisive, bold action in 2025 to close these persistent representation and gender pay gaps in our sector." The data for TAP Network’s 2024 Diversity in Tech Dashboard was compiled from their tech salary and total rewards survey, which includes data from 27,000 participants at 202 Canadian tech companies.

Researchers from a local university are conducting a community-led research project to map the drug crisis in Surrey. Michael Ma, PhD and Tara Lyons, PhD from Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) are working with the Surrey Union of Drug Users (SUDU) to highlight "the lack of specific research on Surrey’s toxic drug supply crisis, harm reduction and the regulation of people who use drugs," notes a KPU news release Tuesday (Dec. 10). Surrey had the second-highest number of drug overdose deaths in the province for the first nine months of 2024, according to the B.C. Coroners Service . Gina Egilson, a board member at SUDU, said, "Surrey's losing more and more people to toxic drug overdoses, with at least four to five people dying every week." “There's a deep urgency to improve the system through more support and resources in Surrey. This research will be an empowering skill-building opportunity that will help guide SUDU's advocacy." In an October article for Oxford University Press , Ma noted that the majority of research on overdoses in B.C. is focused on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, even though most overdoses have occurred in Vancouver, Surrey and Victoria. “For too many years there hasn't been enough focus on the escalating drug crisis in Surrey,” Ma said. “So we want to try to build more capacity and support in Surrey through resources, funding and infrastructure.” The project will draw from people with lived experience of substance use, who will take an "active role as participants and collaborators in the research," notes the KPU release. “This research is just not for pure scholarly academic reasons. It’s a community development project that has a research component. It can be leveraged for social action to generate new social, economic and political policy that could benefit people who are suffering, being misunderstood or being under-researched,” Ma said. Pete Woodrow, a board member at SUDU, said, “I've never seen this kind of collaboration between people of lived experience and established researchers." “It not only creates a bridge of understanding between two groups that would not normally have contact, it also gives us an opportunity to gain a greater handle on where services are most needed. So often the intent of help falls short or misses the mark due to the lack of a proper map of marginalized population.” Lyons added, “We don’t see people as objects of study in the work we're doing. They're experts who are guiding the kind of questions we're going to ask and how we will communicate the information.” A $339,159 grant from the College and Community Social Innovation will help fund this project.Woolworths apology over bare shelves

NoneTo The New York Times, it was a standard journalistic practice done in the name of fairness — asking someone involved in a story for comment. To the mother of the nominee for secretary of defense, it constituted a threat. On Wednesday, Pete Hegseth's mother accused the Times of making “threats” by calling about its story on an email she had sent to her son six years earlier that criticized his treatment of women. Penelope Hegseth sought and received an interview on Fox News Channel to support her son, whose confirmation chances are threatened by a series of damaging stories about his personal conduct. At one point, she said she wanted to directly tell President-elect Trump that her son “is not that man he was seven years ago.” She also called the Times “despicable” and attacked a basic tenet of journalism: giving someone the chance to speak for a story about actions that could be seen in a negative light. The Times' story, published Saturday , quoted from a private email that Penelope Hegseth sent to her son in 2018 while he was in the midst of divorcing his second wife. She criticized his character and treatment of women, suggesting that he get some help. “I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego,” she wrote to her offspring. “You are that man (and have been for many years).” She told the Times for its story that she had sent the email in a moment of anger and followed it up two hours later with an apology. She disavows its content now. When the Times called her for comment on the story, Hegseth told Fox News that, at first, she did not respond. She said she perceived the calls as a threat — “they say unless you make a statement we will publish it as is and I think that's a despicable way to treat anyone,” she said. “I don't think a lot of people know that's the way they operate,” she said, speaking about the story. She accused the newspaper of being in it "for the money. And they don't care who they hurt, families, children. I don't believe that's the right way to do things.” Charles Stadtlander, a spokesman for the Times, said Hegseth's claim “is flatly untrue,” and she was in no way threatened. “The Times did what it always does in reporting out a story, simply reaching out and asking for a comment, which we included,” he said. Such a call is the opposite of a threat — it's an attempt to be fair, said Tom Rosenstiel, a University of Maryland professor and co-author of “Elements of Journalism: What News People Should Know and What the Public Should Expect.” “She's basically saying that brake lights are a threat because they alert you that the car ahead of you is about to stop," he said. But many Americans would perceive that call as a threat, or certainly as rude and a violation of privacy, said Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the conservative Media Research Center. “She didn't write that email to be on the front page of The New York Times,” he said. A secondary question is the newsworthiness of publishing the content of the private email, one that Hegseth said she almost immediately regretted sending and doesn't reflect how she perceives her son. Graham suggested that the newspaper wouldn't do the same for the nominee of a Democratic president-elect. “The New York Times is out to destroy these nominees,” he said. In its initial story, the Times wrote that it had obtained a copy of the email “from another person with ties to the Hegseth family.” “This was a piece of independently reported journalism published in the name of public awareness of the nominee to lead the largest department in the federal government,” Stadtlander said. “We stand behind it completely.” In many circumstances, an email from a mother to her son would be considered a private matter and out of bounds to a news organization, Rosenstiel said. But in this case, Hegseth, a former Fox News weekend host chosen by Trump to lead the Pentagon, has built himself into a public figure and is up for a very important job — and one that leads the military, which involves waging war and in which character is considered a fundamental trait. “It makes this news, honestly,” Stadtlander said. The Times wrote about Penelope Hegseth's Fox interview on Wednesday, leading with her saying her son “was not the same man he was in 2018 when she fired off an email accusing him of routinely abusing women and lacking decency and character.” There was some question about whether Hegseth would appear for an interview at his former network on Wednesday, after CNN's Kaitlan Collins posted on X the night before that “multiple people” said that was expected. A Fox News representative said that no such interview had been scheduled, and the nominee was on Capitol Hill meeting with senators. He has faced a flurry of other damaging reports, including stories about a sexual assault allegation reported to police in 2017. No charges were filed then, and Hegseth said the relationship was consensual. The New Yorker magazine wrote about reports of financial mismanagement , sexist behavior and excessive drinking when Hegseth ran a veterans' organization, and NBC News wrote about people at Fox News concerned about his alcohol use. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter.

Archaeologists dug up buried treasure full of gold and strange alien metalCHANTILLY, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 3, 2024-- Parsons Corporation (NYSE: PSN) and Globalstar (NYSE American: GSAT) announce their exclusive partnership to support the public, government, and defense sectors. The partnership also includes the successful demonstration of Parsons’ software-defined satellite communications solution using Globalstar’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation. As the demand for reliable global communication services continues to grow in complex and congested areas, the collaboration between Parsons and Globalstar provides an innovative solution designed to enhance resilience against disrupted communication pathways. Utilizing Globalstar’s LEO satellite constellation, the partnership aims to ensure resilient and diverse communication protocols to support a myriad of communication needs. "This successful demonstration is a significant step forward in how we can use satellite infrastructure to support mission-critical needs across various industries," said Mike Kushin, president of Defense and Intelligence for Parsons. "By leveraging Globalstar's advanced satellite technology, we are optimizing the Parsons capability solution to provide communications connectivity, especially in areas where radio frequency congestion poses challenges.” The Proof of Concept, which commenced earlier this year, is progressing through the necessary steps to enter commercial service. This successful demonstration of Parsons Corporation’s software-defined satellite communications solution using Globalstar’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation marks an important milestone as the first of its kind in North America. It unlocks previously impossible mission-critical solutions tailored for radio frequency (RF)-congested environments, setting a new standard for global communication services in complex and often challenging operating conditions. "Partnering with Parsons Corporation allows us to demonstrate the versatility and effectiveness of our satellite solutions in addressing crucial connectivity challenges," said Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, CEO of Globalstar. "This achievement exemplifies how global satellite systems can work collaboratively with advanced technologies to deliver essential services in dynamic and challenging environments. We see this as a milestone moment for not only the progress of our partnership but also another way that Globalstar is able to bring value from our satellite infrastructure in the commercialization of these new services.” The demonstration not only highlights the advanced functionality of Parsons' solution but also the benefits of collaborating closely on a technology solution at both the RF and system layer. For more information about the technologies showcased in the demonstration, please visit https://www.parsons.com/ and https://www.globalstar.com/en-us . About Parsons Parsons (NYSE: PSN) is a leading disruptive technology provider in the national security and global infrastructure markets, with capabilities across cyber and intelligence, space and missile defense, transportation, environmental remediation, urban development, and critical infrastructure protection. Please visit Parsons.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook to learn how we're making an impact. About Globalstar, Inc. Globalstar empowers its customers to connect, transmit, and communicate in smarter ways – easily, quickly, securely, and affordably – offering reliable satellite and terrestrial connectivity services as an international telecom infrastructure provider. The Company’s low Earth orbit ("LEO") satellite constellation ensures secure data transmission for connecting and protecting assets, transmitting critical operational data, and saving lives for consumers, businesses, and government agencies across the globe. Globalstar’s terrestrial spectrum, Band 53, and its 5G variant, n53, offer carriers, cable companies, and system integrators a versatile, fully licensed channel for private networks with a growing ecosystem to improve customer wireless connectivity, while Globalstar’s XCOM RAN product offers significant capacity gains in dense wireless deployments. In addition to SPOT GPS messengers, Globalstar offers next-generation internet of things ("IoT") hardware and software products for efficiently tracking and monitoring assets, processing smart data at the edge, and managing analytics with cloud-based telematics solutions to drive safety, productivity, and profitability. For more information, visit www.globalstar.com . View source version on businesswire.com : https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241203082409/en/ CONTACT: Alisa Moloney alisa.moloney@globalstar.com KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA VIRGINIA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: PUBLIC POLICY/GOVERNMENT SATELLITE NETWORKS DEFENSE OTHER DEFENSE OTHER POLICY ISSUES TECHNOLOGY MOBILE/WIRELESS SOURCE: Globalstar Copyright Business Wire 2024. PUB: 12/03/2024 04:09 PM/DISC: 12/03/2024 04:08 PM http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241203082409/en

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After Trump's Project 2025 denials he is tapping its authors influencers for key rolesQuest PharmaTech Inc. ( CVE:QPT – Get Free Report ) shot up 40% during mid-day trading on Friday . The company traded as high as C$0.04 and last traded at C$0.04. 1,172,033 shares were traded during trading, an increase of 1,485% from the average session volume of 73,952 shares. The stock had previously closed at C$0.03. Quest PharmaTech Stock Up 20.0 % The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.35, a quick ratio of 0.52 and a current ratio of 0.40. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is C$0.03 and its 200 day simple moving average is C$0.03. The stock has a market capitalization of C$5.07 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -1.50 and a beta of 0.14. About Quest PharmaTech ( Get Free Report ) Quest PharmaTech Inc, a pharmaceutical company, engages in the development of novel therapeutics for the treatment of targeted cancer. Its lead product candidate is Mab AR 9.6 against truncated O-glycan on MUC16, for targeted cancer therapy applications. The company also offers Oregovomab, which is in Phase III clinical trial for the treatment of ovarian cancer. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Quest PharmaTech Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Quest PharmaTech and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .

Amorim enjoyed the perfect start when Marcus Rashford poked the visitors ahead after 81 seconds at Portman Road following excellent play by makeshift right wing-back Amad Diallo. The 39-year-old would have expected United to kick on, but the opposite occurred as Ipswich roared back and claimed a deserved leveller via Omari Hutchinson’s deflected 43rd-minute strike. In the end the visitors were indebted to goalkeeper Andre Onana, who produced two outstanding saves either side of half-time to deny Liam Delap from close-range and ensure they did not taste defeat on Amorim’s big day. While the former Sporting Lisbon boss was happy with the effort of his players, especially in his favoured 3-4-3 system for the first time, he provided a damning assessment of their immediate prospects. “It is hard to expect anything now. It is like not a surprise but you have to see it in the game. That is why I was a little bit anxious, because you cannot understand what will happen in the game. I felt that,” Amorim reflected. “What I understood today is that they are trying, they are really trying. They stay in the positions, they receive information and they try to use it in the game. That is very important. “Even in the difficult moments, I felt they were doing the things we said for them to do. “I know it is frustrating for the fans, but we are changing so much in this moment with a lot of games. We are going to suffer for a long period and we will try to win games. This will take time, but I know we have to win games. “We could lose if it was not (for) Onana. We have to understand that and think and be pragmatic that these guys had two days training to change so much.” The early big calls by Amorim paid off as Diallo, in an unorthodox wing-back role, burst forward past Jens Cajuste’s lunging tackle and set up Rashford, who had been preferred down the middle over Rasmus Hojlund. Something to build on for Ruben's Reds 🧱 #MUFC || #IPSMUN pic.twitter.com/GuzuP6KrHW — Manchester United (@ManUtd) November 24, 2024 Christian Eriksen fizzed an effort wide soon after but Ipswich enjoyed the better of the first half and after Onana produced a miraculous save to deny Delap – following a Leif Davis pass – Town got their reward when Hutchinson turned Casemiro and his left-footed strike deflected in off Noussair Mazraoui. A frantic start to the second period, where Onana denied Delap again after he produced a back flick to Wes Burns’ cross, was followed by a lull before late chances for both teams were squandered as it finished all square in Suffolk. Amorim added: “We started very well but then we should have more possession with the ball. “When we make a new structure and you are so clear on that, they need time to have some fluidity in the game. I felt that but it is two trainings (sessions after the international break) and they did OK.” What also left an impression on Amorim was a buoyant Portman Road. “The atmosphere, you are lucky guys,” he said with a smile. “You have the best, by far, the best league in the world and you see this every weekend, but to tell you the truth, when the game started, it is the same thing since the (Portuguese) third division, I am so focused on the game and I am playing with my players inside the pitch.” Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna, who used to manage United’s Under-18s side, felt his newly-promoted team could have beat his old club and paid tribute to Onana’s sensational two saves to deny Delap. “I thought it was his head to be honest, but if he’s saved that from that range, it’s an incredible save,” McKenna admitted. 🗣️ "Lots of good things and another point." Kieran McKenna's full interview following #IPSMUN is now available on TownTV. ⤵️ — IPSWICH TOWN (@IpswichTown) November 24, 2024 “The save in the second half was probably a big one. I’ve not seen it back but that was maybe the clearest chance in the second half, so that’s a really good save. “We probably had the better chances, but it was an even game. “We certainly felt we could have won it but there is big positives in how we played.”

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.Stock market today: Tech stocks and AI pull Wall Street to more records

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DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Toby Fournier scored a season-high 27 points and collected nine rebounds to lead No. 8 Duke to an 81-59 victory over Virginia Tech on Sunday in the Atlantic Coast Conference opener for both teams. Fournier, a freshman forward, shot 12 of 17 from the floor in an off-the-bench effort to power the Blue Devils (9-2, 1-0 ACC). Oluchi Okananwa added 12 points and 12 rebounds, while Delaney Thomas chipped in 14 points. Reigan Richardson finished with just five points but dished out a career-high-tying seven assists. Carleigh Wenzel paced the Hokies (7-3, 0-1) with 19 points, while Carys Baker had 11 points and six rebounds. Takeaways Duke: The Blue Devils bounced back from with a decisive victory and improved to 24-4 when opening ACC play at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Virginia Tech: Duke’s stingy defense kept the Hokies from getting to their offensive actions consistently, leading them to turn the ball over 18 times while shooting a season-worst 14.3% from 3-point range. Key moment After trailing by three points early, Duke outscored Virginia Tech 32-10 on a run that bled into the second quarter. Fournier kickstarted the spurt for the Blue Devils with a layup in traffic, totaling 10 points and five rebounds over the 12-minute stretch. Key stat Duke entered this game ranking 15th nationally in 3-point shooting with a 38.8% clip and 18th nationally in assists per game with an average of 18.5. The Blue Devils had a positive assist-turnover ratio for the eighth time this season, and they improved to 5-0 when shooting north of 40% from behind the arc. Up next Duke hosts Wofford on Dec. 18. Virginia Tech hosts Radford on Sunday. ___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up . AP women’s college basketball: andCOLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) — Victims' families and others affected by crimes that resulted in federal death row convictions shared a range of emotions on Monday, from relief to anger, after President Joe Biden commuted dozens of the sentences . Biden converted the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The inmates include people who were convicted in the slayings of police, military officers and federal prisoners and guards. Others were involved in deadly robberies and drug deals. Three inmates will remain on federal death row: Dylann Roof , convicted of the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; the 2013 Boston Marathon Bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of life Synagogue in 2018 , the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history. Opponents of the death penalty lauded Biden for a decision they'd long sought. Supporters of Donald Trump , a vocal advocate of expanding capital punishment, criticized the move as an assault to common decency just weeks before the president-elect takes office. Donnie Oliverio, a retired Ohio police officer whose partner was killed by one of the men whose death sentence was commuted, said the execution of “the person who killed my police partner and best friend would have brought me no peace.” “The president has done what is right here,” Oliverio said in a statement also issued by the White House, “and what is consistent with the faith he and I share.” Heather Turner, whose mother, Donna Major, was killed in a bank robbery in South Carolina in 2017, called Biden's commutation of the killer's sentence a “clear gross abuse of power” in a Facebook post, adding that the weeks she spent sitting in court with the hope of justice were now “just a waste of time.” “At no point did the president consider the victims,” Turner wrote. “He, and his supporters, have blood on their hands.” There has always been a broad range of opinions on what punishment Roof should face from the families of the nine people killed and the survivors of the massacre at the Mother Emanuel AME Church. Many forgave him, but they can’t forget and their forgiveness doesn’t mean they don’t want to see him put to death for what he did. Felicia Sanders survived the shooting shielding her granddaughter while watching Roof kill her son, Tywanza, and her aunt, Susie Jackson. Sanders brought her bullet-torn bloodstained Bible to his sentencing and said then she can’t even close her eyes to pray because Roof started firing during the closing prayer of Bible study that night. In a text message to her lawyer, Andy Savage, Sanders called Biden’s decision to not spare Roof’s life a wonderful Christmas gift. Michael Graham, whose sister, Cynthia Hurd, was killed, told The Associated Press that Roof’s lack of remorse and simmering white nationalism in the country means he is the kind of dangerous and evil person the death penalty is intended for. “This was a crime against a race of people," Graham said. “It didn’t matter who was there, only that they were Black.” But the Rev. Sharon Richer, who was Tywanza Sanders’ cousin and whose mother, Ethel Lance, was killed, criticized Biden for not sparing Roof and clearing out all of death row. She said every time Roof’s case comes up through numerous appeals it is like reliving the massacre all over again. “I need the President to understand that when you put a killer on death row, you also put their victims' families in limbo with the false promise that we must wait until there is an execution before we can begin to heal,” Richer said in a statement. Richer, a board member of Death Penalty Action, which seeks to abolish capital punishment, was driven to tears by conflicting emotions during a Zoom news conference Monday. “The families are left to be hostages for the years and years of appeals that are to come,” Richer said. “I’ve got to stay away from the news today. I’ve got to turn the TV off — because whose face am I going to see?” Biden is giving more attention to the three inmates he chose not to spare, something they all wanted as a part of what drove them to kill, said Abraham Bonowitz, Death Penalty Action’s executive director. “These three racists and terrorists who have been left on death row came to their crimes from political motivations. When Donald Trump gets to execute them what will really be happening is they will be given a global platform for their agenda of hatred,” Bonowitz said. Two of the men whose sentences were commuted were Norris Holder and Billie Jerome Allen, on death row for opening fire with assault rifles during a 1997 bank robbery in St. Louis, killing a guard, 46-year-old Richard Heflin. Holder’s attorney, Madeline Cohen, said in an email that Holder was sentenced to death by an all-white jury. She said his case “reflects many of the system’s flaws,” and thanked Biden for commuting his sentence. “Norris’ case exemplifies the racial bias and arbitrariness that led the President to commute federal death sentences,” Cohen said. “Norris has always been deeply remorseful for the pain his actions caused, and we hope this decision brings some measure of closure to Richard Heflin’s family.” Swenson reported from Seattle. Associated Press writer Jim Salter in O'Fallon, Missouri, contributed to this report.Court orders phone co to pay Rs 5k for not providing user manual

BIRMINGHAM, Mich. , Nov. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- OneStream, Inc. ("OneStream") (Nasdaq: OS) announced today that in connection with the previously announced underwritten public offering of 15,000,000 shares of its Class A common stock, which closed on November 18, 2024 , the underwriters have exercised in full their option to purchase an additional 2,250,000 shares of Class A common stock at the public offering price of $31.00 per share, less underwriting discounts and commissions. Of the additional shares, 1,351,043 shares were sold by selling stockholders and 898,957 shares were sold by OneStream as part of a non-dilutive "synthetic secondary" transaction (the "Synthetic Secondary"). OneStream did not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares by the selling stockholders in the public offering. OneStream used all of the net proceeds to it from the public offering to purchase LLC units of OneStream Software LLC (and purchase and cancel an equal number of shares of Class C common stock) from KKR Dream Holdings LLC in the Synthetic Secondary, at a purchase price per unit equal to the public offering price per share of Class A common stock sold in the public offering, net of underwriting discounts and commissions. Accordingly, OneStream did not retain any proceeds from the public offering and, upon the closing of the public offering and the Synthetic Secondary, the total number of outstanding shares of common stock of OneStream and LLC units of OneStream Software LLC remained the same. Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and KKR acted as lead book-running managers for the offering. Citigroup, BofA Securities and Guggenheim Securities acted as book-running managers and Mizuho, Raymond James , Scotiabank, Truist Securities, BTIG, Piper Sandler, TD Cowen and Wolfe | Nomura Alliance acted as additional book-running managers for the offering. Amerivet Securities, Blaylock Van , LLC, Cabrera Capital Markets LLC, Drexel Hamilton and Loop Capital Markets acted as co-managers for the offering. A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and was declared effective on November 14, 2024 . The offering was made only by means of a prospectus. Copies of the prospectus relating to this offering may be obtained from: Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Prospectus Department, 180 Varick Street, New York, New York 10014, or email: prospectus@morganstanley.com ; and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, or email: prospectus-eq_fi@jpmchase.com and postsalemanualrequests@broadridge.com . This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy these securities, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. About OneStream OneStream is how today's Finance teams can go beyond just reporting on the past and Take Finance Further by steering the business to the future. It's the leading enterprise finance platform that unifies financial and operational data, embeds AI for better decisions and productivity, and empowers the CFO to become a critical driver of business strategy and execution. We deliver a comprehensive cloud-based platform to modernize the Office of the CFO. Our Digital Finance Cloud unifies core financial and broader operational data and processes and embeds AI for better planning and forecasting, with an extensible architecture, so customers can adopt and develop new solutions, achieving greater value as their business needs evolve. With over 1,500 customers, including 15% of the Fortune 500, more than 250 go-to-market, implementation, and development partners and over 1,400 employees, our vision is to be the operating system for modern finance. Disclaimer "Wolfe | Nomura Alliance " is the marketing name used by Wolfe Research Securities and Nomura Securities International, Inc. in connection with certain equity capital markets activities conducted jointly by the firms. Both Nomura Securities International, Inc. and WR Securities, LLC are serving as underwriters in the offering described herein. In addition, WR Securities, LLC and certain of its affiliates may provide sales support services, investor feedback, investor education, and/or other independent equity research services in connection with this offering. Investor Relations Contacts INVESTOR CONTACT Anne Leschin VP, Investor Relations and Strategic Finance OneStream investors@onestreamsoftware.com MEDIA CONTACT Victoria Borges Media Relations Contact OneStream media@onestreamsoftware.com View original content: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/onestream-announces-full-exercise-of-underwriters-option-to-purchase-additional-shares-in-secondary-offering-of-class-a-common-stock-302317890.html SOURCE OneStream, Inc.

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court should overturn Mississippi’s Jim Crow-era practice of removing voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies, including nonviolent crimes such as forgery and timber theft, attorneys say in new court papers. Most of the people affected are disenfranchised for life because the state provides few options for restoring ballot access. “Mississippi’s harsh and unforgiving felony disenfranchisement scheme is a national outlier,” attorneys representing some who lost voting rights said in an appeal filed Wednesday. They wrote that states “have consistently moved away from lifetime felony disenfranchisement over the past few decades.” This case is the second in recent years — and the third since the late 19th century — that asks the Supreme Court to overturn Mississippi’s disenfranchisement for some felonies. The cases use different legal arguments, and the court rejected the most recent attempt in 2023. The new appeal asks justices to reverse a July ruling from the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said Mississippi legislators, not the courts, must decide whether to change the laws. Stripping away voting rights for some crimes is unconstitutional because it is cruel and unusual punishment, the appeal argues. A majority of justices rejected arguments over cruel and unusual punishment in June when they cleared the way for cities to enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outside in public places. Attorneys who sued Mississippi over voting rights say the authors of the state’s 1890 constitution based disenfranchisement on a list of crimes they thought Black people were more likely to commit. A majority of the appeals judges wrote that the Supreme Court in 1974 reaffirmed constitutional law allowing states to disenfranchise felons. About 38% of Mississippi residents are Black. Nearly 50,000 people were disenfranchised under the state’s felony voting ban between 1994 and 2017. More than 29,000 of them have completed their sentences, and about 58% of that group are Black, according to an expert who analyzed data for plaintiffs challenging the voting ban. Related Articles National Politics | Trump convinced Republicans to overlook his misconduct. But can he do the same for his nominees? National Politics | Beyond evangelicals, Trump and his allies courted smaller faith groups, from the Amish to Chabad National Politics | Trump gave Interior nominee one directive for a half-billion acres of US land: ‘Drill.’ National Politics | Trump’s team is delaying transition agreements. What does it mean for security checks and governing? National Politics | Judge delays Trump hush money sentencing in order to decide where case should go now To regain voting rights in Mississippi, a person convicted of a disenfranchising crime must receive a governor’s pardon or win permission from two-thirds of the state House and Senate. In recent years, legislators have restored voting rights for only a few people. The other recent case that went to the Supreme Court argued that authors of Mississippi’s constitution showed racist intent when they chose which felonies would cause people to lose the right to vote. In that ruling, justices declined to reconsider a 2022 appeals court decision that said Mississippi remedied the discriminatory intent of the original provisions in the state constitution by later altering the list of disenfranchising crimes. In 1950, Mississippi dropped burglary from the list. Murder and rape were added in 1968. The Mississippi attorney general issued an opinion in 2009 that expanded the list to 22 crimes, including timber larceny, carjacking, felony-level shoplifting and felony-level writing bad checks. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a 2023 dissent that Mississippi’s list of disenfranchising crimes was “adopted for an illicit discriminatory purpose.”

A construction executive involved in illegal contributions to New York City Mayor Eric Adams' campaign is poised to plead guilty, according to court documents revealed on Monday. As the Democrat prepares for a pivotal April trial amidst his re-election bid, the development could impact the legal proceedings significantly. Erden Arkan, under federal scrutiny for orchestrating 'straw' donations to Adams' 2021 campaign, has signaled his intent to admit conspiracy to commit wire fraud. This plea could strengthen the prosecution's case set to commence on April 21. Despite repeated requests, representatives for Adams and Arkan declined to comment. Earlier, Adams pleaded not guilty to charges linked to high-value gifts from Turkish officials, aimed at influencing city decisions. As former President-elect Donald Trump suggests a potential pardon post-inauguration, the political ramifications of this case continue to unfold. (With inputs from agencies.)Shocking Increase! Massive Moves in Semiconductor Stocks

Losses for Big Tech pull U.S. stock indexes lowerPope Francis kicks off a yearlong Jubilee that will test his stamina and Rome's patience VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has opened the great Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica. The ceremony kicks off the 2025 Holy Year. It's a celebration of the Catholic Church that is expected to draw some 32 million pilgrims to Rome. And it will test the pope’s stamina and the ability of the Eternal City to welcome them. This begins the Christmas Eve Mass. The ceremony inaugurates the once-every-25-year tradition of a Jubilee. Francis has dedicated the 2025 Jubilee to the theme of hope. Bethlehem marks a second subdued Christmas during the war in Gaza BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Bethlehem is marking another somber Christmas Eve under the shadow of war in Gaza. Manger Square lacked its usual festive lights and crowds of tourists on Tuesday. Instead, the area outside the Nativity Church was quiet. The church was built atop the spot where Jesus is believed to have been born. The war, the violence in the occupied West Bank it has spurred and the lack of festivities has deeply hurt Bethlehem's economy. The town relies heavily on Christmas tourism. The economy in the West Bank was already reeling because of restrictions placed on laborers preventing them from entering Israel during the war. Heavy travel day off to a rough start after American Airlines briefly grounds all flights WASHINGTON (AP) — American Airlines briefly grounded flights nationwide due to a technical problem just as the Christmas travel season kicked into overdrive and winter weather threatened more potential problems for those planning to fly or drive. Government regulators cleared American flights to get airborne Tuesday about one hour after the Federal Aviation Administration ordered a national ground stop, which prevented planes from taking off. American said in an email that the problem was caused by an issue with a vendor technology that maintains its flight operating system. The flight-tracking site FlightAware reported that more than 3,200 flights entering or leaving the U.S., or serving domestic destinations, were delayed. Twenty-eight flights were canceled. Middle East latest: Israel expels patients from a hospital in Gaza TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The Palestinian Health Ministry says Israeli soldiers raided a hospital in isolated northern Gaza after forcing all the patients and most of the doctors to leave. The Israeli military confirmed its troops had entered the Indonesian Hospital in the town of Jabaliya on Tuesday, as part of an operation searching for Hamas fighters. Winter is hitting the Gaza Strip and many of the nearly 2 million Palestinians displaced by the devastating 15-month war are struggling to protect themselves from the wind, cold and rain. In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian city of Bethlehem was marking a somber Christmas Eve under the shadow of war in Gaza, with most festivities cancelled and crowds of tourists absent. Caitlin Clark honored as AP Female Athlete of the Year following her impact on women's sports Caitlin Clark has been named the AP Female Athlete of the Year after raising the profile of women’s basketball to unprecedented levels in both college and the WNBA. She led Iowa to the national championship game, was the top pick in the WNBA draft and captured rookie of the year honors in the league. Fans packed sold-out arenas and millions of television viewers followed her journey on and off the court. Clark's exploits also put other women's sports leagues in the spotlight. A group of 74 sports journalists from AP and its members voted on the award. Other athletes who received votes included Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles and boxer Imane Khelif. Clark’s only the fourth women’s basketball player to win the award since it was first given in 1931. Major storm pounds California's central coast, blamed for man's death and partially collapsing pier SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — A major storm has pounded California’s central coast bringing flooding and high surf that was blamed for fatally trapping a man beneath debris on a beach and later partially collapsing a pier, tossing three people into the Pacific Ocean. The storm was expected to bring hurricane-force winds and waves up to 60 feet Monday as it gained strength from California to the Pacific Northwest. Some California cities have ordered beachfront homes and hotels to evacuate early Monday afternoon. Forecasters have warned that storm swells would continue to increase throughout the day. Medellin Cartel victims demand truth and justice as cartel boss Fabio Ochoa walks free in Colombia BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AP) — The return of the notorious drug trafficker Fabio Ochoa to Colombia, following his deportation from the United States, has reopened old wounds among the victims of the Medellin cartel, with some expressing their dismay at the decision of Colombian authorities to let the former mafia boss walk free.Some of the cartel victims said on Tuesday that they are hoping the former drug lord will at least cooperate with ongoing efforts by human rights groups to investigate one of the most violent periods of Colombia’s history, and demanded that Colombian prosecutors also take Ochoa in for questioning. Man arraigned on murder charges in NYC subway death fanned flames with a shirt, prosecutors say NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors say a man accused of burning a woman to death inside a New York City subway train used a shirt to fan the flames, causing her to become engulfed. The suspect, identified by police as Sebastian Zapeta, was arraigned in Brooklyn criminal court on Tuesday. He faces murder charges that could put him in prison for life. Federal immigration officials say 33-year-old Zapeta is a Guatemalan citizen who entered the U.S. illegally after being deported in 2018. The apparently random attack occurred Sunday morning on a stationary F train at the Coney Island station in Brooklyn. Amsterdam court sentences 5 men over violence linked to Ajax-Maccabi soccer game THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — An Amsterdam District Court has issued sentences of up to six months in jail against 5 men who were involved in violent disorder after a soccer match between the Dutch club Ajax and Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv in November. The riots caused an international outcry and accusations of deliberate anti-Semitic attacks. The violence following a UEFA Europa League match left 5 people in hospital. More than 60 suspects were detained. The court on Tuesday sentenced one man to 6 months in prison, another to 2 1/2 months, two to 1 month and one to 100 hours of community service.Lamar Jackson takes on Philadelphia's top-ranked defense when the Ravens host the Eagles

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In a significant breakthrough, Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) has arrested two more people involved in the question paper leak of UPPSC Review Officer/Assistant Review Officer (RO/ARO) (Preliminary) Exam 2023, which was conducted on February 11 of this year, it said. The arrested men were identified as Rajneesh Kumar from Azamgarh and Dharmesh Seth from Prayagraj. The arrests took place on December 22, 2024 in Kanpur and Gorakhpur, according to STF. While Kumar was detained in Gorakhpur, Seth was apprehended at Har Sahai Jagdamba College in Kanpur. The leak was first detected when the question paper went viral on social media before the exam. This led to the state government cancelling the examination and asking the STF to investigate the matter. A case was registered at the Civil Lines police station in Prayagraj. The STF probe revealed that the accused had received the question paper from Sandeep Pandey, who had arranged for the exam material to be delivered in Bhopal. Sandeep Pandey, along with several accomplices, had reportedly sold the paper for ₹ 12-15 lakh. Pandey and his associates were arrested earlier in June. The arrested suspects face charges under multiple sections of the IPC, including cheating, forgery, and conspiracy, as well as violations of the Uttar Pradesh Public Examination Act. Further legal proceedings are underway.KENT, Ohio (AP) — Jalen Sullinger led Kent State with 25 points and secured the victory with a 3-pointer with 43 seconds remaining as the Golden Flashes knocked off Heidelberg 84-80 on Sunday night. Sullinger shot 9 of 20 from the field, including 4 for 10 from 3-point range, and went 3 for 4 from the line for the Golden Flashes (9-3). VonCameron Davis scored 21 points while shooting 8 for 13 (1 for 3 from 3-point range) and 4 of 4 from the free-throw line and added five rebounds and five assists. Mike Bekelja had 14 points and shot 4 for 5 from beyond the arc and 2 of 4 from the free-throw line. Eric Panning finished with 18 points, seven rebounds and two steals for the Student Princes. Manny Hill added 15 points and seven rebounds for Heidelberg. Elijah Harden had 15 points. Sullinger scored 11 points in the first half and Kent State went into halftime trailing 42-36. Davis scored 15 points in the second half. Kent State outscored Heidelberg by 10 points over the final half. Kent State hosts Ball State in its next matchup on Saturday. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .

Maybe it’s because there are so many games, or maybe it’s because the rise of digital distribution and subscriptions means there are more sub-groups of game-players and fewer massive mainstream hits, but it feels like this year the “best games” lists are more diverse and individual than ever. Even as someone who tries to play broadly across all platforms, there are some games cropping up on end-of-year lists that I didn’t play, and some of the best ones I did play draw blank looks when I discuss them with others. So, while it’s impossible to make anything approaching an objective list of the best, I’ve attempted it anyway. Here they are in no particular order. I didn’t have ‘help a rapping tree’ on my 2024 bingo card, but I’m glad it happened. Astro Bot PS5 At once a celebration of PlayStation’s 30-year history and a whimsical Nintendo-style platformer the likes of which the brand has never seen before, Astro Bot is a beautiful theme park of running and jumping, filled with hidden depth, incredible gimmicks and great music. I’m not a huge fan of the emotionless robot protagonist or the Sony branding, but the combination of flawless gameplay design, hilarious environments, oodles of nostalgia and cutting-edge tech puts this on par with some of Mario’s most memorable outings. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox Side-scrolling platform adventure games are ubiquitous and there were heaps of good ones this year, but the best was also a return to relevance for a beloved franchise. The fictional Mount Qaf is a wonderful setting that blends Iranian history and Arabian mythology with the series’ penchant for vicious traps and time distortion, while new protagonist Sargon brings a fresh and edgy vibe that marries the acrobatic focus of the Sands of Time trilogy with the methodical platforming of older Prince adventures. By invoking familiar poker hands, Balatro brings the satisfying hook of a rougelite game to a wider pool of players who have no idea what that is. Balatro Android, Apple Arcade, iOS, PC, PS5, Switch Xbox In an industry plagued by gambling disguised as play, it’s gratifying that one of this year’s most successful games employs the aesthetic of cards and casinos with no gambling to be found. Upgrade and augment your deck with special powers and tarot effects, stack up game-changing jokers to synergise with your favourite cards, and try to break the game with impossibly powerful poker hands. The work of one individual developer, it’s incredible, and arguably addictive, but you’ll pay no more than the purchase price.CAMBRIDGE, MA - OCTOBER 10: Massachusetts Institute of Technology students play football outside ... [+] the Maclaurin building October 10, 2003 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Photo by William B. Plowman/Getty Images) In some of the most interesting use cases for artificial intelligence, the digital processes are applied to a physical supply chain. At MIT’s Engine, an incubator and co-working space with many teams working on various inventions, Ashley Beckwith does research for a startup called Foray Bioscience, with the goal of disrupting conventional manufacturing of wood products, and pursuing targeted reforestation. Estimating that the world has lost a half million acres of forest in the last quarter of a century, Foray is looking at the possibility of getting live cells from plants to develop synthetic products. Beckwith is pursuing cell culture and tissue engineering: in a recent Planet Action presentation, she talked about how to envision and then tackle the problem. “Our forests are under strain,” she said. “Forest cover and biodiversity are declining at alarming rates. One third of our tree species are on the verge of extinction, and practically, forest cover loss means less natural regeneration - with fewer seed producers and bigger open stretches in between, forests are slower to bounce back, and biodiversity loss means less resilience. Less variation within a population means greater susceptibility to pests, pathogens, disasters, and these two forces feed off of each other, with forest cover loss driving biodiversity loss, leading to poor resilience and further forest loss. And this, my friends, is what we call a downward spiral, and it's driven by extreme climate events. But today I want to talk to you about solutions, because we can jump-start forest recovery and break out of this cycle with targeted reforestation.” Part of this, she explained, has to do with initiatives like commitments to plant trees, but also, along with the will to do this, there’s a need for seed. Beckwith cited a seed supply problem where U.S. Forest Services only meets about about 6% of wildfire restoration targets, where seed availability is a significant factor. Why? “Sourcing seed is like trying to move a pile of sand with a fork,” she said. “It’s painfully effective.” FBI Warns iPhone, Android Users—Change WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Signal Apps What To Know About The UnitedHealthcare CEO Murder—As NYPD Releases New Photos Of Suspect iOS 18.2 Release Date: iPhone’s New Upgrade Is Hours Away Also, Beckwith added, just because you have a seed doesn’t mean you get a tree: 90% of seeds will die after being planted. The solution? Beckwith is looking into how much we can make up for deforestation with new science. “If we can’t grow it, let’s build it with biology,” she said. That means applying AI and big data to the problem, along with doing the biological research that provides a viable scaling pathway. Beckwith outlined three steps: revamping planning capabilities, building the seed, and then establishing a framework for scaling. She also mentioned the pace of climate change, which we all know has to be factored in. “In 60 years, the climate in Boston is going to feel a lot like Memphis feels today, and that’s a big shift for our northeastern forests,” she said. In responding to the rapid phenomena showing us how quickly climate change is happening, Beckwith urged the audience to aim not at the present, but at the future, citing a remark attributed to hockey player Wayne Gretzky: “to skate where the puck will be, not where it has been.” “We’re interested in building a complex ecosystem, not a monoculture,” she added. For reference, the MIT Technology Review piece describes Foray Bioscience efforts this way: “Foray’s process involves extracting live cells from the leaves of plants such as the black cottonwood, a popular species for making fiber products, which is used as a model plant for testing the company’s methods. Leaves are first cultured into a kind of liquid broth until the cells reproduce. Then cells are transferred into a gel containing two plant hormones, auxin and cytokinin, allowing researchers to coax the cells to grow into wood-like structures. In this phase, the cell cultures can also be tweaked to produce secondary products such as aromatics for making perfumes and embryos to generate seeds.” Will it Work? There are differing opinions on the efficacy of offsetting deforestation with this kind of cell production. In the MIT Technology Review, writer Abdullahi Tsanni covers Shawn Mansfield at University of British Columbia suggesting that it’s unlikely to have that effect... On the other hand, as reported, Beckwith says tree cells can grow 100 times faster in the lab than they can with conventional methods. “Reforestation is a huge job,” she said, “so let’s bring a bigger fork.” For sure, reforestation is important. And AI has a role to play. But so do humans. Sometimes, it ends up being largely a matter of buy-in, of political will to handle a problem. Where do we go from here? It’s up to you and me.

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Former national security adviser John Bolton warned Tuesday that there is a “much higher chance” of a major international crisis in the upcoming second administration of President-elect Donald Trump. The prominent foreign policy hawk said Trump’s lack of focus and inability to stick to policy decisions could trigger an overseas disaster. “The risk of an international crisis ... is much more likely in a second Trump term,” Bolton said in a Christmas Eve interview with the Guardian. “Given Trump’s inability to focus on coherent decision making, I’m very worried about about how that might look.” Bolton, who served for 17 months in the first Trump administration, scoffed at Trump’s vow to quickly end conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. “It’s typical Trump: it’s all braggadocio,” Bolton said. Bolton, 76, a longtime foreign policy hardliner who also served in the George W. Bush administration, was a big supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and has called for U.S. military action against Iran, North Korea and other countries over the years. Trump regularly derides his ex-aide as a “warmonger” and worse. Bolton said he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin feels he can manipulate Trump, while Trump is oblivious to the danger of being used. “(Putin) believes he knows how to play Trump, that Trump’s an easy mark,” Bolton said. “If you don’t understand how the person you’re talking about on the other side views you, that’s a real lack of situational awareness that can only cause trouble.” Bolton admitted that he wrongly believed Trump would become a more disciplined leader after he was first elected to the White House in 2016. Those hopes were dashed once Bolton started working alongside Trump and observed him firsthand. “He doesn’t know much about foreign policy. He’s not a big reader,” Bolton said. “He doesn’t think these facts are important. He thinks he looks the other guy across the table in the eye and they make a deal and that’s what’s important.” During the presidential campaign, Bolton said he couldn’t support Trump but refused to endorse Kamala Harris either. Despite the harsh criticism, Bolton praised Trump’s picks of Sen. Marco Rubio to be Secretary of State and Rep. Mike Waltz for national security adviser. He slammed ex-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, as “really dangerous.” Bolton has been isolated in Republican power circles as Trump has pushed the party far away from his muscular foreign policy views. But Bolton predicted that the GOP as a whole will eventually return to its hawkish roots. “Trump is an aberration and, when he leaves the political scene, the party will snap back,” Bolton said. ------- ©2024 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.The dismissal of the case of a Knoxville, Iowa, man accused of robbing Clinton National Bank in Delmar in March has been denied. A new trial for Jeffrey Brian Bettis, 37, is scheduled to begin Dec. 9. Bettis’s defense attorney, Eric Dale, had motioned to have the case dismissed after Judge Jeffrey McDaniel declared a mistrial on Oct. 14. At the beginning of jury selection, McDaniel mistakenly read aloud language in the charging information that could be viewed as prejudicial — that Bettis is charged with possession of a firearm as a felon as a habitual offender, a Class D felony. McDaniel was appointed as Seventh Judicial District Court Judge by Gov. Kim Reynolds in June. Bettis is also charged with four counts of first-degree robbery and one count of first-degree burglary, each Class B felonies. The defense for Bettis argued for dismissal on the grounds that a retrial would violate Bettis’s Constitutional right against double jeopardy. Documents filed after the Oct. 30 dismissal hearing presided over by McDaniel state that the mistrial occurred during opening remarks to potential jurors. A jury had not yet been questioned, selected or sworn in. McDaniel ruled that double jeopardy did not attach and denied the motion. Bettis was identified by video surveillance as the suspect in the bank robbery after he had entered Clinton National Bank on Western Avenue in Delmar at approximately 12:30 p.m. on March 8. Documents state that with a stocking cap pulled down over his face that had holes cut into it at his eyes and mouth, Bettis pointed a handgun at two female bank tellers, walked behind the counter and demanded money, then told the tellers to give him their car keys. Bettis then exited the bank and drove south in a red 2020 Ford Explorer that belonged to one of the tellers. The vehicle was located unoccupied on Ridge Avenue in Delmar two blocks east of the bank. Clinton County Sheriff’s Office deputies learned from video surveillance footage that Bettis had left the area instead in a 2014 white Ford Escape about which all local law enforcement agencies were notified. The Iowa State Patrol stopped a vehicle matching the description of the Ford Escape with Bettis being the only occupant in the vehicle at about 1:13 p.m. near Eldridge. After Bettis had been taken into custody, a search of the vehicle by law enforcement on March 12 resulted in the recovery of a bag containing $52,710, a 9mm Hi-Point handgun with six rounds of ammunition in the magazine but an empty chamber, and a turquoise stocking cap with eye and mouth holes cut into it. Court documents state that in an interview following his arrest, Bettis admitted to robbing the bank and brandishing a firearm during the robbery to scare the tellers. Bettis, however, then entered a plea of not guilty to the charge of first-degree robbery, a Class B felony, and was held in Clinton County Jail on a $100,000 cash-only bond. The amount was lessened to $75,000 after a bond review hearing held in June. The hearing to consider the dismissal of the case was held in conjunction with a review of Bettis’s bond. McDaniel declared the bond amount to remain as set. Later in March Bettis was charged with an additional count of first-degree robbery and possession of a firearm as a felon as a habitual offender, a Class D felony. He was then charged in April with two more counts of first-degree robbery and first-degree burglary, a Class B felony. Bettis pleaded not guilty to the added charges. Documents filed Oct. 3 state Bettis rejected a proposed plea agreement and confirmed the desire to proceed to a trial.

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SUPERINTENDENT’S MESSAGE ENT In an age when specialized skills and education are the keys to career success, Boerne ISD has established two innovative opportunities through Pathways to Technology Early College High School (P-TECH). With programs in cybersecurity and health science, Boerne ISD offers a dual enrollment opportunity that allows students from Boerne and Champion high schools to gain both a high school diploma and college credits in two of the most in-demand fields today. The cybersecurity program housed at Champion is equipping students with the knowledge and experience necessary to tackle some of the most pressing issues of the digital age. The demand for cybersecurity professionals has never been greater, and our P-TECH students are already well on their way to becoming experts in the field. The program has 181 students enrolled for this school year. Students in the cybersecurity program are working toward an associate of applied science in cybersecurity and information assurance. Students have the opportunity to earn industry-based certifications, and possible careers in this field include network administrator, systems analyst and cybersecurity consultant. The health science program housed at Boerne High is another vital area of focus, offering students a comprehensive education in the healthcare field. The program provides students the opportunity to earn either an associate of science or an associate of applied science in health Science. Careers in this field include nursing, medical assisting, and other healthcare-related fields. Currently, the health science program has 201 students enrolled, with the majority of the students in ninth grade. Students in this program have the opportunity to earn industry-based certifications such as phlebotomy, EKG, and clinical medical assistant. Recruitment for both programs begins in eighth grade, with teachers and advisors meeting with interested students and hosting parent information sessions. The ultimate goal of both programs is for students to complete an associate’s degree prior to high school graduation. Students earning an associate’s degree and/or industry-based certification have the potential to save thousands of dollars in college expenses. To support students in achieving their goals, the district provides a variety of resources and support systems such as college entrance exam preparation, routine tutorials, and advisory meetings. The P-TECH program’s commitment to preparing students for success doesn’t stop at graduation. Administrators and faculty provide work-based learning opportunities, ensuring that students gain real-world experience in their chosen fields before they even complete their degrees. As the 2025-2026 recruitment efforts continue, the future looks brighter than ever for students in the cybersecurity and health science programs. For those interested in applying, the deadline to submit applications is Feb. 7, 2025. If you’re an eighth grader or the parent of one, don’t miss out on this transformative opportunity to jumpstart a career in cybersecurity or health science.Home sellers in a string of popular sea- and tree-change towns are discounting pandemic boom-time price expectations to get a deal done, new data reveals. Buyers can expect to pay about 4 to 6 per cent less than the original listing price as fewer city dwellers move to the regions and homes listed for sale pile up. Byron Bay tops the list in NSW with a median discount of 6.7 per cent in the year to October, according to the latest CoreLogic Regional Market Update. It is followed by Kempsey and Ulladulla, which both had a median discount of 5.8 per cent in the same period. In Victoria, Gisborne had the highest median discount of 5.8 per cent in the same period, followed by Portland, which had a median discount of 5.5 per cent. It comes as most of these areas recorded a notable increase in homes listed for sale and their days on market blowout. CoreLogic Australia economist and report author Kaytlin Ezzy said vendor discounting pointed to a market in favour of buyers. “It means there’s more supply. That means there’s more choice out there for buyers,” Ezzy said. “They don’t have to compete with other buyers for that property, and instead it’s the vendor who is competing for that buyer and therefore has to be willing to negotiate.” She said most of these towns have stronger discounting than during lockdowns due to fewer buyers in regional areas. “Generally not as many people are moving to the regions. So as homes are listed they’re not being as easily absorbed by the market,” Ezzy said. “That means stock has been able to accumulate and puts downward pressure on values and vendors have to compete more and be negotiable. “Byron Bay has about 17 per cent more listings in October than what we usually see this time of year and Gisborne is about 45 per cent above what we usually see.” KPMG regional economist Terry Rawnsley said not only were there fewer buyers, but those remaining had reduced purchasing power, which was putting downward pressure on prices. “Byron Bay is probably a good case study. During COVID lockdowns, people shifted to Byron – they were happy to pay a premium to secure a property,” Rawnsley said. “Then in the last two years, the return to the office and higher interest rates have hampered buyers. It’s reduced the pool of people looking to move to a regional location. Vendors have to offer a bit of a discount to meet the market.” He said many of the Victorian regional towns at lower price points were discounting because they were first home buyers’ markets, feeling the pinch from higher interest rates the most. “[Gisborne’s] probably a dual market. It’s acreage living in that part of the world and there’s also people searching for affordable housing. It’s got both ends of that market feeling the pinch,” Rawnsley said. Ray White Byron Bay’s Damien Smith said sellers in his region had unrealistic boom-time expectations of the lockdown years. “If anyone bought in the past three years, they’re trying to get that ‘let’s get our money back’ price rather than market price,” Smith said. “They’ve all got in their head what they’ve paid for it, and it’s a lot more than what it’s worth.” “There are fewer buyers. If you’re borrowing money, especially entry-level, it’s a lot of money. “The ratio [of capital city and local buyers] is still similar, but the volume is not there. The buyer pool has thinned out. It’s definitely reduced.” Connect Real Estate’s Helen Sankey said it was very much a buyer’s market in the Gisborne area. “We’re the first regional town out of metropolitan Melbourne. So post-COVID obviously that demand backed off, and then it was exacerbated by the increase in interest rates,” Sankey said. “It’s very much a buyer’s market and since April 2022, it’s had a huge adjustment.” Sankey said there were more homes than buyers, which was hurting sellers with strong expectations. “If it’s priced right, the houses will move quickly. If it is deemed high, then it sits on the market – the days on market is extended out,” she said. She said while there was not a lot of distressed selling among owner occupiers, it was investors who were most affected by the weaker conditions in the market. “But investors, with the increase in land tax, are the people who are most distressed. The disparity between rental income and mortgage repayments plus the increased land tax there is no cream off the top left.”

11 years, 950 million users ... Telegram reports its first ever profitWILLIAMSPORT, Pa., Nov. 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Richard A. Grafmyre CFP®, Chief Executive Officer of Penns Woods Bancorp, Inc., PWOD has announced that the Company's Board of Directors declared a fourth quarter 2024 cash dividend of $0.32 per share. The dividend is payable December 23, 2024 to shareholders of record December 10, 2024. About Penns Woods Bancorp, Inc. Penns Woods Bancorp, Inc. is the bank holding company for Jersey Shore State Bank and Luzerne Bank. The banks serve customers in North Central and North Eastern Pennsylvania through their retail banking, commercial banking, mortgage services and financial services divisions. Penns Woods Bancorp, Inc. stock is listed on the NASDAQ National Market under the symbol PWOD. Previous press releases and additional information can be obtained from the company's website at www.pwod.com . Contact: Richard A. Grafmyre, Chief Executive Officer 300 Market Street, Williamsport, PA, 17701 (570) 322-1111 (888) 412-5772 pwod@pwod.com www.pwod.com © 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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LONDON (AP) — A suspected Chinese spy with business ties to Prince Andrew has been barred from the U.K. because of concerns he poses a threat to national security. A British immigration tribunal upheld the decision on Thursday in a ruling that revealed the Chinese national had developed such a close relationship with Andrew that he was invited to the prince’s birthday party. Government officials were concerned the man could have misused his influence because the prince was under “considerable pressure” at the time, according to the ruling. British authorities believe the Chinese national, whose name wasn’t released, was working on behalf of the United Front Work Department, an arm of the Chinese Communist Party that is used to influence foreign entities. The government determined that the businessman “was in a position to generate relationships between senior Chinese officials and prominent U.K. figures which could be leveraged for political interference purposes by the Chinese State,” according to the tribunal's decision. In a statement from his office, Andrew, also known as the Duke of York, said he accepted government advice and ceased all contact with the Chinese national as soon as concerns were raised. “The Duke met the individual through official channels with nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed,′′ his office said. “He is unable to comment further on matters relating to national security.” Prince Andrew, the younger brother of King Charles III, has been repeatedly criticized for his links to wealthy foreigners, raising concerns that those individuals are trying to buy access to the royal family. Andrew’s finances have been squeezed in recent years after he was forced to step away from royal duties and give up public funding amid concerns about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein , the American financier and convicted pedophile who committed suicide in prison in 2019. British intelligence chiefs have become increasingly concerned about China’s efforts to influence U.K. government policy. In 2022, Britain’s domestic intelligence service, known as MI5, warned politicians that a British-Chinese lawyer had been seeking to improperly influence members of Parliament for years. A parliamentary researcher was arrested in 2023 on suspicion of providing sensitive information to China. The 50-year-old Chinese national covered by this week’s ruling was described as a man who worked as a junior civil servant in China before he came to the U.K. as a student in 2002. He earned a master’s degree in public administration and public policy at the University of York before starting a business that advises U.K.-based companies on their operations in China. He was granted the right to live and work in the U.K. for an indefinite period in 2013. Although he didn’t make Britain his permanent home, the man told authorities that he spent one to two weeks a month in the country and considered it his “second home.” He was stopped while entering the U.K. on Nov. 6, 2021, and ordered to surrender his mobile phone and other digital devices on which authorities found a letter from a senior adviser to Andrew confirming that he was authorized to act on behalf of the prince in relation to potential partners and investors in China. The letter and other documents highlighted the strength of the relationship between Andrew, his adviser and the Chinese national. “I also hope that it is clear to you where you sit with my principal and indeed his family,” the adviser wrote. “You should never underestimate the strength of that relationship. Outside of his closest internal confidants, you sit at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on.” The letter went on to describe how they had found a way to work around former private secretaries to the prince and other people who weren’t completely trusted. “Under your guidance, we found a way to get the relevant people unnoticed in and out of the house in Windsor,” the adviser wrote. Andrew lives at the Royal Lodge, a historic country estate near Windsor Castle, west of London.NEW YORK , Dec. 5, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Report with market evolution powered by AI - The global green data center (GDC) market size is estimated to grow by USD 202.4 billion from 2024-2028, according to Technavio. The market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 27.17% during the forecast period. Increase in electricity consumption and cost is driving market growth, with a trend towards increased use of dcim and automation. However, cost of building green data center poses a challenge. Key market players include ABB Ltd., Carrier Global Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., CommScope Holding Co. Inc., Dell Technologies Inc., Delta Electronics Inc., Eaton Corp. Plc, Fujitsu Ltd., Green Revolution Cooling Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., International Business Machines Corp., Modine Manufacturing Co., Panduit Corp., Rittal GmbH and Co. KG, Schneider Electric SE, Siemens AG, STULZ GmbH, Sunbird Inc., and Vertiv Holdings Co.. AI-Powered Market Evolution Insights. Our comprehensive market report ready with the latest trends, growth opportunities, and strategic analysis- View Free Sample Report PDF Key Market Trends Fueling Growth The Green Data Center (GDC) market is thriving as businesses prioritize energy efficiency and environmental stewardship. GDCs use energy-efficient components like Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) and cooling systems in ECO mode or Active Standby. AI and ML enable predictive modeling and thermal optimization, while Eco-friendly solutions include renewable energy integration and hardware innovations. Media and entertainment, OTT platforms, and large data centers drive CapEx in GDCs. Cloud computing's green initiatives offer energy-efficient data processing and storage. Digital transformation, environmental regulations, and tax benefits push corporations towards net carbon neutrality. Renewable energy sources like solar panels, wind turbines, and hydroelectric plants power GDCs. Virtualization, intelligent cooling systems, and power management reduce carbon footprint. Consultation services and monitoring systems help businesses navigate this transition. Large enterprises embrace CSR, risk management, and 5G technology. Big data analytics, IoT, healthcare, e-commerce, and colocation providers join the movement towards energy-efficient solutions. Greenhouse gas emissions are minimized through resource management and power systems. Networking systems and colocation data centers adopt renewable energy integration and modular infrastructure. Environmental laws mandate carbon emissions reduction, driving the demand for green data center solutions. Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software is a crucial tool for managing modern data center facilities. This software enables remote monitoring of various aspects of the data center, including temperature, humidity, and power consumption. Vendors in the Green Data Center (GDC) market offer advanced DCIM systems, which come with higher Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) compared to traditional systems. The importance of energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions has made DCIM a necessary investment for data center operators. Colocation data center providers are particularly focusing on integrating advanced DCIM systems to effectively manage their facilities and ensure optimal energy usage. Insights on how AI is driving innovation, efficiency, and market growth- Request Sample! Market Challenges Green Data Centers (GDCs) are essential for businesses seeking energy-efficient and eco-friendly solutions for their data processing and storage needs. GDCs use energy-efficient components like Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) and cooling systems in ECO mode or Active Standby to minimize energy consumption. AI and ML enable predictive modeling and thermal optimization for power efficiency. Media and entertainment, OTT platforms, and large data centers require significant capital expenditure, making GDCs a priority for businesses. Green initiatives, such as renewable energy integration and carbon footprint reduction, are crucial for Corporate Social Responsibility and risk management. Cloud computing, digital transformation, and IoT also benefit from GDCs' energy efficiency. Consultation services and monitoring systems help businesses navigate environmental regulations and tax benefits. Hardware and software innovations, like server virtualization, intelligent cooling systems, and power management, reduce carbon emissions and improve resource management. Renewable energy sources like solar panels, wind turbines, and hydroelectric plants power GDCs, contributing to net carbon neutrality. Colocation providers offer modular infrastructure and cooling technologies to accommodate various industries, including healthcare, e-commerce, and 5G technology. GDCs are essential for businesses aiming to reduce their carbon footprint, comply with environmental laws, and adopt sustainable practices. By integrating renewable energy and optimizing power systems and networking, businesses can save costs and enhance their environmental stewardship. Leading organizations in the Americas, including Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Intel, and Apple, have established data centers that utilize renewable energy sources. Current data centers in the US consume vast amounts of electricity, emitting millions of tons of carbon annually. Building a data center facility can cost up to 25% of an organization's IT budget, including IT equipment. The business requirement for data usage is growing yearly, leading to an 8%-10% increase in servers installed. Renewable energy adoption in data centers is crucial to reduce environmental impact and manage escalating costs. Insights into how AI is reshaping industries and driving growth- Download a Sample Report Segment Overview This green data center (gdc) market report extensively covers market segmentation by 1.1 IT infrastructure 1.2 Power solutions 1.3 General construction 1.4 Cooling solutions 1.5 Monitoring and management 2.1 BFSI 2.2 Energy 2.3 IT and telecom 2.4 Others 3.1 Europe 3.2 North America 3.3 APAC 3.4 South America 3.5 Middle East and Africa 1.1 IT infrastructure- The digital transformation of businesses is driving the adoption of cloud services among small and medium enterprises (SMEs), with 90% expected to operate through cloud storage by 2025. Cloud computing requires substantial computational power but offers flexible, scalable, and efficient business operations. This has led to an increase in data center construction worldwide. Virtualization, a key enabler, has increased IT infrastructure usage in data centers while reducing energy consumption. For instance, Supermicro's MicroBlade systems helped Fortune 100 companies achieve energy efficiency of around 90%. Data center consolidation projects have also reduced server usage, while Open Compute Projects optimize infrastructure for workload and energy consumption. Techniques like direct-to-chip cooling and liquid-immersion cooling have significantly reduced cooling needs. In storage, replacing HDDs with SSDs and virtual networking applications have lowered power consumption. Vendors like Dell, HPE, Cisco, Huawei, Lenovo, and IBM offer energy-efficient, density-optimized infrastructures. Innovations in energy-efficient IT infrastructure will continue to fuel the growth of the global green data center market during the forecast period. Download complimentary Sample Report to gain insights into AI's impact on market dynamics, emerging trends, and future opportunities- including forecast (2024-2028) and historic data (2018 - 2022) Research Analysis Green Data Centers (GDCs) are advanced computing facilities designed to minimize energy consumption and reduce carbon footprint. They utilize energy-efficient components such as Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) and cooling systems in ECO mode or Active Standby, which save energy by optimizing power usage. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are integrated for cooling power management, enhancing energy efficiency. GDCs comply with Environmental Regulations and offer tax benefits for net carbon neutrality. Renewable Energy integration is a key feature, making GDCs eco-friendly and reducing carbon emissions. Digital Services, IoT, Healthcare, E-commerce, and various industries benefit from GDCs' energy-efficient solutions. Cooling Technologies and Renewable Energy are integral to GDC infrastructure, with modular designs allowing for scalability and flexibility. The integration of digital transformation and carbon footprint reduction is essential for businesses aiming for a sustainable future. Market Research Overview The Green Data Center (GDC) market is witnessing significant growth due to the increasing demand for energy-efficient components in data centers. GDCs utilize Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems, cooling systems with ECO mode, Active Standby, and Economy mode for power efficiency. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are used for predictive modeling and thermal optimization. Energy efficiency is a top priority with the integration of renewable energy sources like Solar Panels, Wind Turbines, and Hydroelectric Plants. Large data centers in media and entertainment, OTT platforms, and content delivery require green initiatives for Capital Expenditure reduction and Net Carbon Neutrality. Greenhouse Gas Emissions are minimized through hardware and software innovations, virtualization, and intelligent cooling systems. Consultation services, monitoring systems, and colocation providers offer eco-friendly solutions for large enterprises focusing on Corporate Social Responsibility, Risk Management, and Digital Transformation. Environmental Regulations and tax benefits drive the adoption of GDCs in various industries, including 5G Technology, Big Data Analytics, Healthcare, E-commerce, and IoT. Renewable Energy Integration, Modular Infrastructure, and Power Management are essential components of GDCs, reducing Carbon Emissions and adhering to Environmental Laws. Table of Contents: 1 Executive Summary 2 Market Landscape 3 Market Sizing 4 Historic Market Size 5 Five Forces Analysis 6 Market Segmentation Component IT Infrastructure Power Solutions General Construction Cooling Solutions Monitoring And Management End-user BFSI Energy IT And Telecom Others Geography Europe North America APAC South America Middle East And Africa 7 Customer Landscape 8 Geographic Landscape 9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 10 Company Landscape 11 Company Analysis 12 Appendix About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. Contacts Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media & Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 Email: [email protected] Website: www.technavio.com/ SOURCE Technavio

LION ELECTRIC REACHES DEFINITIVE AGREEMENT IN RESPECT OF THE SALE OF INNOVATION CENTER LOCATED IN MIRABEL, QUÉBECKyverna Therapeutics, Inc. Stockholder Alert: Robbins LLP Reminds Investors of the KYTX Class Action Lawsuit

The controversy around a religious Christmas sign that was taken down in downtown Kelowna continues. Two days after a sign stating 'Keep Christ in Christmas' was removed from the nativity scene display at Stuart Park, Kelowna-Centre MLA Kristina Loewen went to social media to express her opinion on the matter. "We believe that it's an important detail that Christmas is a Christian holiday," said Loewen in her video, referring to 'we' as all of the MLAs for the Central Okanagan. "We will be standing united and defending all British Columbians rights to religion and freedom of expression, speech, thought, belief," she added. "Canada is an incredible country full of diverse cultures and religions, and a wide variety of views, and I think that's one of the things that makes us so incredible." Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream MLA Tara Armstrong agreed with her fellow Conservative, quote-tweeting the video and saying "a great message from a colleague and friend. I'm proud to be part of a team that stands for what's right." Macklin McCall, MLA for West Kelowna, also quote-tweeted Loewen's post. However, Kelowna-Mission MLA Gavin Dew appears to not have commented on social media. The nativity scene is put up by the Knights of Columbus every year and a permit is given from the City of Kelowna to do so. When the 'Keep Christ in Christmas' sign was displayed beside the scene on Monday, Dec. 9, some people in the community, including the Kelowna Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists Association (KASHA) took issue. A letter by KASHA to Black Press Media on Dec. 9, stated the nativity scene is part of Christmas, just as "lights, festive trees, and other decorative displays" are also. "This message is not merely festive—it is political, advocating for a specific religious interpretation of the holiday," said KASHA about the sign. The next day, the sign was taken down and the City of Kelowna confirmed that the sign was not part of the Knights of Columbus' permit for the nativity scene. The Knights of Columbus had no comment regarding the matter. Capital News reached out to Loewen for further comment but was met with an automatic e-mail reply. Additionally, the City of Kelowna stated it had no comment on Loewen's video. However, Ian Bushfield the executive director of the B.C. Humanist Association did have a comment. "Freedom of religion in Canada includes freedom from religion," said Bushfield in an e-mailed statement. "Ms. Loewen and all Christians are obviously free to celebrate Christmas as a Christian holiday but our governments have a clear duty of religious neutrality. That means neither endorsing nor prohibiting any religion over any other. That sign, and arguably even the nativity scene, being on public property breaches that duty. She can put the sign up at her church or at her own house but we do not live in a theocracy." Bushfield has previously stated that BCHA is an organization committed to secular values. “Part of that is the separation of religion and government," said Bushfield. The City of Kelowna also said it received five letters on the matter when the sign was up but none since it's been taken down.

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A botched shot?Wall Street stocks finished a lackluster week on a muted note Friday as concerns about rising Treasury bond yields competed with enthusiasm over artificial intelligence equities. Of the major indices, only the Nasdaq mustered a gain in Friday's session. The tech-rich index was also the only of the three leading US benchmarks to conclude the week higher. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. Get the latest need-to-know information delivered to your inbox as it happens. Our flagship newsletter. Get our front page stories each morning as well as the latest updates each afternoon during the week + more in-depth weekend editions on Saturdays & Sundays.

IT was quite distressing to read on the front page of one of the Philippine broadsheets earlier this month an article with the headline "Are you not panicking?': DepEd urged to address 24,480 schools without principals." That came from a remark from a lawmaker serving as one of the co-chairmen of the Second Congressional Commission on Education, or Edcom 2. Such a story made me imagine a wide gaping hole that will stifle the efforts to reform the public education system in the country. It is a worrisome piece of news that is sure to aggravate the undesirable condition of Philippine education, which can dissipate the momentum for renewal. After enumerating the factors and needed actions to address this monumental problem, the article said: "In many schools we visited, it was clear that one of the main factors in improving the quality of education is having a good school principal." Any school depends on competent academic leadership, particularly the quality of school principalship, in order to excel, which should not only be considered "one of the main factors" but the very core factor in improving the quality of education in every school. Just like any corporation, institution or business venture, a school needs competent leadership to flourish. Aside from crafting the best policies for choosing school principals, training people to become school principals is likewise indispensable. The issue concerning school principals has once again clearly brought to mind how much I enjoyed reading this book by world-renowned educator and author Thomas Sergiovanni, titled "The Principalship: A Reflective Practice Perspective." The book, now on its sixth edition, is a must-read for those who wish to learn the ropes of being a school principal or being prepared to become one. One glowing review of the book says: "One of the best, if not the best, texts ever written for aspiring school administrators. The gentle blend of theory and practicality makes it a must-read for aspiring school administrators. I enjoyed teaching from this text more than any other." Another says: "These books began to define what I knew to be true about leadership in schools. It translates to the corporate world as well. I live by Sergiovanni's philosophy of leadership." In a nutshell, the book highlights the following: – It lays the foundation of any leadership with a moral basis as a means of navigating through contextual issues and constraints that principals routinely face. – Lessons about moral authority in the book abound. Such leadership should transcend bureaucratic leadership, which is timely for our public education to learn, as it is notoriously known to be enmeshed in too much bureaucracy. The author convinces readers that having moral leadership produces outcomes in terms of commitment and performance that far exceed expectations. – It emphasizes the technique of forming the appropriate school culture and standards and building a community of learners and teachers. Such aims are supposed to inform future principals about the decisions they make about their practice and how those decisions will affect students and teachers. The book also focuses on forming school character as an important ingredient for school effectiveness, the new definitions of school effectiveness, and a novel view of the process of change, which is demanded in the fast-evolving practices of learning institutions influenced by technology, diversity and inclusivity. In the Philippine context, preparing educators for school principalship can thrive in an environment that creates a support system for candidates' needs, such as ethical/moral leadership support amid the temptation of corruption, financial budget, well-formulated equitable policies, attractive compensation and the like. Not being mindful of these supports runs the danger of counterproductivity in preparing people for academic leadership. As William Edwards Deming, the father of quality management, once said, "A bad system will beat a good person every time." Jesus Jay Miranda, OP, is an organization and leadership studies resource person. He teaches at the Graduate School of the University of Santo Tomas and the Department of Educational Leadership and Management of the Bro. Andrew Gonzalez, FSC–College of Education of De La Salle University in Manila. [email protected] .Chris Pratt feels 'grateful' to have married Katherine Schwarzenegger

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Israeli-Moldovan rabbi living in UAE goes missing; Israeli officials fear he may have been kidnapped DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An Israeli-Moldovan rabbi living in the United Arab Emirates has gone missing, with Israeli authorities raising the suspicion he may have been kidnapped as tensions remain high with Iran. Zvi Kogan has been missing since noon Thursday. That's according to what the Israeli prime minister’s office said Saturday. The office said: "Since his disappearance, and against the backdrop of information that this was a terrorist incident, an extensive investigation has been opened in the country.” Emirati officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday. State-run media in the UAE, an autocratic federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula and home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, did not immediately report the incident. Alyssa Nakken, first full-time female coach in MLB history, leaving Giants to join Guardians CLEVELAND (AP) — Alyssa Nakken, the first woman to coach in an MLB game, is leaving the San Francisco Giants to join the Cleveland Guardians. Nakken made history in 2022 when she took over as first-base coach following an ejection. A former college softball star at Sacramento State, Nakken joined the Giants in 2014 and was promoted to a spot on manager Gabe Kapler’s staff in 2020, becoming the majors’ first full-time female coach. Nakken has been hired as an assistant director within player development for the Guardians, who won the AL Central last season under first-year manager Stephen Vogt. Nakken, 34, will work with former Giants coaches Craig Albernaz and Kai Correa. Officer kills pet dog mistaken for a coyote in Massachusetts town. The owner says it was unnecessary An animal control officer shot and killed a pet dog in a Massachusetts town after mistaking it for a coyote in an incident local police are describing as a sad mix-up. Police in Northbridge, Massachusetts, say the shooting happened on Tuesday after police received a call of a report of a coyote in a residential backyard. Police say the animal control officer went into the woods to look for the coyote and found what they thought was the animal in a threatening position and shot it. The incident happened as communities around Massachusetts and the country have dealt with an uptick in interactions between coyotes and people. Kendrick Lamar surprises with new album 'GNX' LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kendrick Lamar gave music listeners an early holiday present with a new album. The Grammy winner released his sixth studio album “GNX” on Friday. The 12-track project is the rapper’s first release since 2022’s “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers.” Lamar’s new album comes just months after his rap battle with Drake. The rap megastar will headline February's Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show in New Orleans. The 37-year-old has experienced massive success since his debut album “good kid, m.A.A.d city” in 2012. Since then, he’s accumulated 17 Grammy wins and became the first non-classical, non-jazz musician to win a Pulitzer Prize. NBA memo to players urges increased vigilance regarding home security following break-ins MIAMI (AP) — The NBA is urging its players to take additional precautions to secure their homes following reports of recent high-profile burglaries of dwellings owned by Milwaukee Bucks forward Bobby Portis and Kansas City Chiefs teammates Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. In a memo sent to team officials, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, the NBA revealed that the FBI has connected some burglaries to “transnational South American Theft Groups” that are “reportedly well-organized, sophisticated rings that incorporate advanced techniques and technologies, including pre-surveillance, drones, and signal jamming devices.” Ancient meets modern as a new subway in Greece showcases archaeological treasures THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, is opening a new subway system, blending ancient archaeological treasures with modern transit technology like driverless trains and platform screen doors. The project, which began in 2003, uncovered over 300,000 artifacts, including a Roman-era thoroughfare and Byzantine relics, many of which are now displayed in its 13 stations. Despite delays caused by preserving these findings, the inaugural line has been completed, with a second line set to open next year. Conor McGregor must pay $250K to woman who says he raped her, civil jury rules LONDON (AP) — A civil jury in Ireland has awarded more than $250,000 to a woman who says she was raped by mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor in a Dublin hotel penthouse after a night of heavy partying. The jury on Friday awarded Nikita Hand in her lawsuit that claimed McGregor “brutally raped and battered” her in 2018. The lawsuit says the assault left her heavily bruised and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. McGregor testified that he never forced her to do anything and that Hand fabricated her allegations after the two had consensual sex. McGregor says he will appeal the verdict. At least 19 people are sick in Minnesota from ground beef tied to E. coli recall U.S. health officials say at least 19 people in Minnesota have been sickened by E. coli poisoning tied to a national recall of more than 167,000 pounds of potentially tainted ground beef. Detroit-based Wolverine Packing Co. recalled the meat sent to restaurants nationwide. Minnesota state agriculture officials reported multiple illnesses and found that a sample of the product tested positive for E. coli, which can cause life-threatening infections. No illnesses have been reported outside of Minnesota. Symptoms of E. coli poisoning include fever, vomiting, diarrhea and signs of dehydration. Actor Jonathan Majors’ ex-girlfriend drops assault and defamation lawsuit against once-rising star NEW YORK (AP) — Jonathan Majors’ ex-girlfriend has dropped her assault and defamation lawsuit against the once-rising Hollywood star after reaching a settlement. Lawyers for Majors and Grace Jabbari agreed to dismiss the case with prejudice Thursday. Jabbari is a British dancer who had accused Majors of subjecting her to escalating incidents of physical and verbal abuse during their relationship. Representatives for Majors didn’t respond to emails seeking comment Friday. Jabbari’s lawyer said the suit was “favorably settled” and her client is moving on with “her head held high.” Majors was convicted of misdemeanor assault and harassment last December and sentenced to a yearlong counseling program. Hyundai, Kia recall over 208,000 electric vehicles to fix problem that can cause loss of power DETROIT (AP) — Hyundai and Kia are recalling over 208,000 electric vehicles to fix a pesky problem that can cause loss of drive power, increasing the risk of a crash. The recalls cover more than 145,000 Hyundai and Genesis vehicles including the 2022 through 2024 Ioniq 5, the 2023 through 2025 Ioniq 6, GV60 and GV70, and the 2023 and 2024 G80. Also included are nearly 63,000 Kia EV 6 vehicles from 2022 through 2024. The affiliated Korean automakers say in government documents that a transistor in a charging control unit can be damaged and stop charging the 12-volt battery. Dealers will inspect and replace the control unit and a fuse if needed. 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Don’t wait and see – identify and support. That’s the clear message from world-leading autism researcher Professor Andrew Whitehouse to parents who think their young children might be developing differently. The professor of child development at The Kids Research Institute Australia (The Kids) is the driving force behind Inklings, an innovative program built on science that demonstrates how supporting parents to engage and communicate with their babies can positively impact their child’s life. The program has been developed over a decade by an international team of health professionals and researchers, with clinical trials in the UK and Australia carried out by the University of Manchester and The Kids respectively. After initial success across Western Australia – where 150 families have entered into the program in its first year – Inklings is about to be introduced in South Australia. “The program has been rolled out across WA and across the north of England,” Professor Whitehouse says. “It’s really exciting that South Australia has now piloted the Inklings program, because it will make SA one of the leading jurisdictions in the world for supporting early childhood.” Perth-based Professor Whitehouse, who won the Professions Award in the 2023 Western Australian of the Year honours, says it is typical for clinicians in the area of child development to adopt a “wait and see approach”. Professor Andrew Whitehouse is a professor of child development at The Kids Research Institute Australia. Picture: Supplied “We can often identify that children are developing differently in the first year of life, but currently we wait until children get older before we start providing any type of systematic support,” he says. “Our science says that we shouldn’t wait, but act to provide support immediately. “We know that at the ages of six to 18 months, about 10 to 15 per cent of kids have social and communication differences or delays.” Professor Whitehouse says “much of the fireworks in early brain development occur during those first two years of life”. “Children are born with their brain at about 25 per cent of the size of an adult’s brain – by their third birthday, their brain will be at 90 per cent,” he says. “The early life experiences of the child during this period will influence which neuronal connections are formed, and these in turn will shape the child for the rest of their life.” Professor Whitehouse took the view that “based on what we know about brain science, our support of children needs to switch from ‘wait and see’ to ‘identify and act’.” “That’s what Inklings is and it’s fantastic that it’s being implemented to benefit South Australian families.” Inklings was the focus of two “very rigorous” clinical trials, which underscored the benefits of the program. “These showed that providing Inklings support very early in life – between the ages of six to 18 months – not only leads to better connection between parents and kids but that in turn leads to increased social and greater communication abilities when we reassess these children up to age three,” Professor Whitehouse says. A core part of the program is filming parents with their children – and then providing feedback on their interactions. “Video feedback is unparalleled in its ability to help give parents insight into their child – to stop and see their child and all the amazing things they can do,” Professor Whitehouse says. See the full interview with Professor Whitehouse here . Making the connection Inklings nurses Erin McSorley and Ashley Johnson. Picture: Russell Millard Up to 1300 South Australian families will benefit from a new, early support program for babies aged six to 18 months showing developmental differences in social communication and interaction. Developed by The Kids Research Institute (The Kids) and delivered in partnership with the South Australian Government, the Inklings program will help parents and carers understand and connect with the individual ways in which their infant is communicating and interacting. The Inklings program will be piloted in SA over three years to June 2027 through a joint investment from the Commonwealth and South Australian governments. Inklings will be rolled out across Adelaide metro and regional areas. Increased access to proactive, early supports for developmental vulnerabilities was a key recommendation of South Australia’s 2022 Royal Commission into Early Childhood Education and Care. The program will be available to eligible participants at no cost, and will focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, culturally and linguistically diverse families, and families of lower-socio economic backgrounds. The program has commenced with training of the first four Inklings practitioners, with a further 20 practitioners to be trained in 2025, with the program being fully implemented in March 2025. “The program will bring more awareness to developmental differences in this younger age group, the importance of health and developmental checks, and the benefits of seeking early interventions and supports,” says Ashley Johnson, an Inklings practitioner and registered nurse with CaFHS. “It’s an incredible opportunity for families who participate.” Inklings is a strengths-based program which is underpinned by decades of research in the UK and in Western Australia. The program uses short videos of the caregiver interacting with their baby. This helps caregivers to better understand their child’s thoughts and feelings, focusing on the different ways babies communicate, along with the importance of interaction and of following their baby’s focus of interest. “Sometimes the early developmental differences we are seeing in this age group are really subtle,” Johnson says. “With older children, developmental differences in communication and socialisation may be more obvious, such as a child not saying many words or talking; whereas with younger children, it’s about more subtle social and communication differences – such as reduced babble and back and forth interactions, reduced engagement in shared play and fleeting eye contact.” The Inklings program is delivered through 10 fortnightly sessions, with six core sessions followed by four sessions tailored to the individual babies’ needs. “The use of video is incredibly powerful in supporting parents to identify opportunities for understanding, communication and connection with their child,” Johnson says. “When you look at the video with the family, parents have the opportunity to observe their child and themselves in the moment, and often see things that they may not notice in day-to-day interactions. Examples of subtle communication attempts and connections, and powerful parental responses are highlighted. You can see in the parents’ faces as they suddenly recognise their baby’s communication cues – they think: ‘That was really great, I’m going to do that again’.” Research has shown early support through the Inklings program supports developmental gains in babies and caregiver confidence in understanding and responding to baby. “It’s amazing because you’re supporting these children to feel seen and heard,” says Erin McSorley, also an Inklings practitioner and registered nurse with CaFHS. “We know babies as young as six months are trying to tell their parents things. If they feel they’ve been heard, that’s going to keep them trying, and keep opening those avenues of communication. The Inklings program provides early opportunities for babies to develop positive communication strategies and strengthen connection with their caregivers.” Parents and caregivers will be able to access the Inklings program by a referral from a health professional or by self-referral through the Inklings website ( inklings.org.au/sa ). New practices help Lara get her smile back Patricia Macchiaverni and her daughter Lara. Picture: Supplied Patricia Macchiaverni felt like she was losing her daughter Lara. When Lara stopped smiling and making eye contact at the age of about six months, the Perth mother of two realised her daughter was developing differently. “One day she stopped smiling and then stopped (giving) me eye contact,” Macchiaverni, 41, says. “It was really hard to engage with Lara. She was a completely different kid. I could see I was literally losing Lara – I couldn’t interact with her any more, and there was nothing I could do.” Macchiaverni, the program manager at the Larsson Rosenquist Foundation Centre for Immunology and Breastfeeding, says she felt like she was “really failing as a mum”. “If you ask any mum, ‘What do you want for your kid?’, the universal answer would be happiness,” she says. “And for me, because I couldn’t know if Lara was happy or not – she wasn’t smiling – I couldn’t know what she wanted from me. “If she was crying, I couldn’t figure out what her needs were. So my feeling was that I was really failing as a mum – I couldn’t give her the joy of life, you know, the basic things that she needed. “So that’s when I said OK, I really want to understand what she wants to know. I know she has so much to say to me and I can’t understand what she needs.” Determined to find answers, she began to look into ways of better understand how Lara was communicating, which was how she discovered the innovative Inklings early support program. She says the “amazing” program has made a huge difference to Lara, now aged two years – and her interactions with her. “I love the program,” she says. “Honestly, I wasn’t expecting this program would change it so much – the way we interacted and how Lara would respond. But I think it changed the way we interact with Lara – not only during the sessions but this has extended to now.” When Macchiaverni started to incorporate the practices learnt at Inklings, she felt it sparked a series of steps in the right direction, with Lara’s desire to communicate increasing as her caregivers responded to her in a way she understood. She says the use of video to watch themselves interacting from a third person perspective made a huge difference. “I could notice that there were so many opportunities for her to communicate that I was missing,” she says. “Inklings increased her interest in communicating with me because I was responding in a way that she understands me. Then she just started to communicate more, in her way. Not the way maybe I was expecting her to communicate – but (in a way) I could understand. And now she’s vocalising and can point – so I can understand what she wants.” Macchiaverni urges any parents with concerns about their child’s development to seek professional guidance as soon as possible. “You are the one who knows your child best,” she says. Dicsover more about Patricia’s story here. Originally published as Inklings program supporting young South Australians showing developmental delays SA News Don't miss out on the headlines from SA News. Followed categories will be added to My News. More related stories SA News Watch: Terrifying moment truck runs red light into family car A truck driver ran a red light five seconds after it changed, crashing into a family and damaging their lives forever. See the video here. Read more SA News Meet 50 SA women thriving in the ‘cutthroat world’ of business From the loss of a child to menopause in the workplace, trailblazers in business share what inspired them to turn their entrepreneurial dreams into a reality. Read more

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NoneThe Denver Center for the Performing Arts puts on a wonderful performance of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” every year, and is now celebrating its 30th year of doing so. Denver Center for the Performing Arts uses Richard Hellesen’s 1987 stage adaptation, which sticks to the original story while extending and enhancing some parts. One of my favorite moments that improves upon the original story occurs when the Ghost of Christmas Present takes Ebenezer Scrooge to visit the home of Scrooge’s employee Bob Cratchit, and they hear Cratchit deliver a dinnertime toast to Scrooge’s health. Instead of the short toast to Scrooge from Dickens’ story, Hellesen gives us a wonderful speech from Cratchit to his family. In the Denver Center for the Performing Arts performance, Geoffrey Kent’s Bob Cratchit has the perfect mix of casual delivery and deliberate pause as he searches for words and finds the exact language needed for the moment. The speech is masterful and stirring, starting with Cratchit pointing out that Christmas is not a static event. “When I listen to you talk about your hopes, I can’t but think about how Christmas changes as we grow older,” he says. Cratchit was talking about his own experience with Christmas, but I often think about that line with how the holiday changes each year for society as a whole. One marker of modernization is mail delivery, that under-appreciated yet absolutely crucial part of Christmas for so many families hoping to have presents delivered to loved ones across the country. The first people to make skis and use them regularly in the West were mail carriers. Among the best-known was Norway native John Tostensen, better known as Snowshoe Thompson, who braved avalanches, bears and blizzards to deliver the mail over the Sierra Nevada mountain range between California and Nevada in the 1860s. Today, a monument exists in his honor in Soda Springs, California, with an inscription describing him as “probably the first skier of the West.” Snowshoe Thompson’s counterpart in Colorado was Snowshoe Johnson, a man who used homemade skis to deliver mail from Crystal to Crested Butte in the 1880s. In a description of an exhibit that once adorned the Colorado Snowsports Museum in Vail, Al Johnson was said to have “learned to ski fast by outrunning avalanches.” In the decades to come, technological improvements would make the job much safer and easier. The Rocky Mountain News, in December of 1926, ran a story with the headline “Air Mail is newest recruit among aids of Santa Claus,” describing how the Christmas rush had ushered in a new era of night flight, in which lights would be used to illuminate runways to allow for more packages to be delivered out of Denver to meet holiday demands. By the 1930s, skis had gone from being homemade tools built for utility to mass-produced gadgets crafted for recreation, and that fact was reflected in the letters to Santa published in area newspapers. Skis, bindings and boots began popping up in those letters by the mid-to-late 1930s (along with, somewhat disturbingly, machine guns), before disappearing altogether decades later as skis became everyday items given to children automatically as a way of life each winter, like a jacket or a pair of shoes. (Thankfully, machine guns have also disappeared from local kids’ Christmas lists.) From the Steamboat Pilot: Dec. 13, 1935, from Jay Outsen: “Dear Santa — Please bring me a pair of skis and bindings and please bring me a machine gun that shoots sparks and my sister would like you to bring her a sewing machine and a piano.” Dec. 15, 1938, from Ralph Yates: “Dear Santa — I would like a pair of skis and a pair of ice skates and a machine gun and a train and a tool set.” Dec. 14, 1939, from Maynard Smith: “Dear Santa — I want a pair of skis and a machine gun. Don’t try to come down my chimney or you will land in the basement.” Dec. 12, 1940, from Ted Kolb: “Dear Santa — I want a cowboy set. I want a machine gun. I want some skis.” In thinking about those letters to Santa, the post office and mail carriers, and all the other details where I find meaning in Cratchit’s speech about the way Christmas changes, an old joke comes to mind. I will attempt to retell it here, adapting it to our area and enhancing it slightly like Hellesen did with “A Christmas Carol.” In addition to the newspaper editor receiving many of the letters to Santa each Christmas, the other person who gets piles of them is your local postman. Oftentimes, in the back offices and break rooms of mail carriers’ workplaces, those letters would be opened and read aloud for the entertainment and enjoyment of the workers, as there’s no real place to deliver a letter addressed to the “North Pole.” As I mentioned earlier, skis and boots and bindings in mountain towns went from a common request 85 years ago to being almost nonexistent in letters to Santa in recent decades as skis started becoming regarded as parental responsibility rather than a special gift. But one year, not long ago, the post office workers here received a letter from a local third grader with beautiful handwriting who said she would love to learn how to ski. Her dad might even be able to get her a ski pass through his work, she said, but there’s no way her parents would ever be able to afford skis and bindings and boots. “If I could just get those three items, Santa — skis, bindings and boots — then I could join my friends on the mountain, where they seem to have so much fun every weekend,” she said. The post office workers, all skiers themselves, felt terrible. No child who wants to learn to ski should be held back by a lack of equipment, they said. So they passed a collection cup around among themselves, seeing if they could raise enough money to buy her the equipment she needed. Some donated $50, some $100, and at the end of the day, they had raised enough to get her a nice pair of skis with bindings in a size that she would be able to use for several seasons. But there wasn’t enough money left over for ski boots, and they didn’t know what size she was anyway, so they figured if they delivered the skis and bindings to the return address on the letter, someone would find a way to get the child a pair of boots so she could get on the mountain. A week went by and another envelope addressed to the North Pole was received, a rare post-Christmas letter to Santa. The workers immediately recognized the beautiful handwriting and opened it to see what the girl had to say. “Dear Santa — thank you so much for the skis and bindings,” the letter said. “I know you got me a pair of ski boots also, but the stupid idiots at the post office must have lost them.”fish river sun casino 。

The world according to Jim: • As we approach the latest edition of USC vs. UCLA – in other words, a 5-5 team against a 4-6 team, their game Saturday at the Rose Bowl shunted to a 7:30 Pacific time slot so people in the Eastern half of the country who don’t have a bet on the game need not bother – the question must be asked: Are there people in those athletic departments who have buyers’ remorse over the move to the Big Ten? And will that remorse only increase as the travel horror stories involving non-football programs’ conference travel pile up? ... • Here’s a reminder of the reason for this displacement, as well as the only thing that seemingly makes it make sense: The L.A. schools are getting full shares of the Big Ten media pie, somewhere in the neighborhood of $60 million a year, as the first programs to jump the Pac-12 ship on the final day of June, 2022. Given the way former Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff subsequently botched the conference’s media rights negotiations, which began the mass exodus, the L.A. schools’ move in retrospect was understandable if regrettable. ... • Hey, it is more expensive to live in L.A., right? ... • Oregon and Washington, among the last to defect, get half shares for the balance of the Big Ten contract, which runs through the spring of 2030 (although Phil Knight’s largesse almost certainly helps offset the difference at Oregon). The teams that scattered to the Big XII and Atlantic Coast Conference similarly received reduced shares from their new conferences. Oregon State and Washington State have been living off the Pac-12’s surplus and a stopgap TV deal and teamed with Octagon this week in search of a new media rights agreement for the rebuilding conference. ... • On the football field, at least, it has been an unqualified triumph for Oregon, undefeated and currently at the top of the College Football Playoff pecking order. Washington is 6-5 overall and 4-4 in the Big Ten. The L.A. schools are reduced to playing for bowl scraps. And the idea that Washington, USC and UCLA are respectively eighth, 12th and 13th in their conference is its own special kind of culture shock. ... • We’ve had more than a year to get used to it, but I still miss the old Pac-12 and its regional rivalries. That’s not going to change for a good, long while. ... • Meanwhile, Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin said the quiet part out loud the other day, as he is prone to do. His team’s on a heater – 8-2 overall, 4-2 in the SEC, No. 9 in the last College Football Playoff rankings and winner of three in a row, including a 28-10 thumping of then-No. 3 Georgia. Yet in an expanded SEC that – like the Big Ten – no longer has divisions and sends its first- and second-place teams to the conference championship game, Kiffin said he wanted no part of that 13th game and a potential third loss that would knock his team out of playoff contention. He indicated other SEC coaches had similar feelings. ... • In other words: The bloated nature of the current Power Four conferences – and, as former colleague Mark Whicker noted in his Substack column, the realization that contenders don’t all play each other because of that bloat – has already made the 12-team playoff unwieldy and borderline obsolete. Nice work, guys. ... • And let the empha$i$ on the bottom line, both among athletic programs and among those players getting NIL money, be one more reminder that the NCAA’s insistent reference to “student athletes,” parroted by its member schools, is as big a fallacy as ever and maybe more so. Reverse the order of that phrase and it’s closer to the truth. ... • The other aspect of what at first glance seems to be a diminished crosstown rivalry – at least until the game starts and the emotions on the field take over – is that one coach, UCLA’s DeShaun Foster, is digging out from the Chip Kelly era, and his team has already displayed progress this season. The other, USC’s Lincoln Riley, is drawing comparisons to predecessor Clay Helton among some alumni – and that’s not good. ... • The Rams will be honoring their 1999 team, which won the franchise’s first Super Bowl for St. Louis, at Sunday evening’s game against Philadelphia at SoFi Stadium. And if you are an L.A. Rams fan, all in on the team once again, do you really care about the ’99 champs, never mind willing to celebrate them? Or is there still a void between the team’s departure for St. Louis in 1995 and its return to Los Angeles in 2016? ( The Reddit conversation from this past May, “What Is Your Opinion of Georgia Frontiere,” indicates where longtime L.A. Rams fans stand on this.) ... • From the “things I wish I’d written” file, Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins’ wonderful description of the monstrosity that was the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson “fight” a week ago: “Was Jake Paul’s not the most punchable face in the history of punched faces? It was a face with all the character and lived experience of a canned ham. It was the consummate face of an influencer, with all the smirky grifting in search of the lux life that term suggests. There wasn’t a hint of true toughness — much less truth — in it. Just blandness cloaked in a poseur-pharaoh’s beard and topped by some box-color bleached curls, and God did you ever want Mike Tyson to put his very real fist in it.” Priceless. ... Related Articles • The ball from Freddie Freeman’s World Series Game 1 walkoff grand slam, grabbed by 10-year-old Zachary Ruderman of Venice – who was told he was leaving school early that Friday to go to a orthodontist’s appointment only to have his dad take him to Dodger Stadium instead – is going to be auctioned off by SCP Auctions from Dec. 4-14. It should fetch seven figures, easy, maybe even more than the $4.392 million top bid last month for Shohei Ohtani’s 50th home run (which is currently held up by a dispute over who actually had the right to auction it). ... • If I could afford to make the winning bid on Freeman’s ball – and if I actually could, you wouldn’t be reading this column – I’d lend it to the Dodgers to prominently display among their MVP and Cy Young and Silver Slugger trophies, with the stipulation that it would eventually go to the Hall of Fame. That’s where it belongs. Now if someone could just find the Kirk Gibson ball from 1988. ... jalexander@scng.comQatar tribune Agencies OpenAI on Friday outlined plans to revamp its structure, saying it would create a public benefit corporation to make it easier to “raise more capital than we’d imagined,” and remove the restrictions imposed on the startup by its current nonprofit parent. The acknowledgement and detailed rationale behind its high-profile restructuring confirmed a Reuters report in September, which sparked debate among corporate watchdogs and tech moguls including Elon Musk. At issue were the implications such a move might have on whether OpenAI would allocate its assets to the nonprofit arm fairly, and how the company would strike a balance between making a profit and generating social and public good as it develops AI.Under the proposed plan, the ChatGPT maker’s existing for-profit arm would become a Delaware-based PBC - a structure designed to consider the interests of society in addition to shareholder value. OpenAI has been looking to make changes to attract further investment, as the expensive pursuit of artificial general intelligence, or AI that surpasses human intelligence, heats up.Its latest $6.6 billion funding round at a valuation of $157 billion was contingent on whether the ChatGPT-maker could upend its corporate structure and remove a profit cap for investors within two years, Reuters reported in October.The nonprofit, meanwhile, will have a “significant interest” in the PBC in the form of shares as determined by independent financial advisers, OpenAI said in a blog post, adding that it would be one of the “best resourced nonprofits in history.” OpenAI started in 2015 as a research-focused nonprofit but created a for-profit unit four years later to secure funding for the high costs of AI development. Its unusual structure gave control of the for-profit unit to the nonprofit and was in focus last year when Sam Altman was fired as CEO only to return days later after employees rebelled. “We once again need to raise more capital than we’d imagined. Investors want to back us but, at this scale of capital, need conventional equity and less structural bespokeness,” the Microsoft-backed startup said on Friday.“The hundreds of billions of dollars that major companies are now investing into AI development show what it will really take for OpenAI to continue pursuing the mission.” Its plans to create a PBC would align the startup with rivals such as Anthropic and the Musk-owned xAI, which use a similar structure and recently raised billions in funding. Copy 30/12/2024 10

By Maayan Lubell and Nidal al-Mughrabi JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) - Israelis and Palestinians are signaling new efforts to forge a ceasefire deal, even a limited one, for the first time in a year that would pause the fighting in Gaza and return to Israel some of the hostages still held in the Palestinian enclave. Israel Defence Minister Israel Katz told his U.S. counterpart Lloyd Austin in a phone call on Wednesday there was now a chance for a new deal that would allow the return of all the hostages, including U.S. citizens, Katz's office said. A Western diplomat in the region, however, said a deal was taking shape, but it would likely be limited in scope, involving the release of only a handful of hostages and a short pause in hostilities. Such a truce and release would be only the second since the start of the war in October 2023. The guarded optimism emerges as U.S. President Joe Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan heads to Israel for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and then to Egypt and Qatar, co-mediators with the U.S. on a deal. Separately, President-elect Donald Trump has demanded that militants of the Palestinian Hamas group release the hostages held in Gaza before he takes over from Biden on Jan. 20. Otherwise, Trump has said, there will be “hell to pay.” Trump's designated hostage envoy Adam Boehler has said he too is involved, having spoken already to Biden and to Netanyahu. Israel says 100 hostages remain captive in Gaza. Seven are believed to be U.S. citizens. Citing Trump's threat of "hell to pay," Boehler told Israel's Channel 13 news last week: "I would appeal to those people that have taken hostages: Make your best deal now. Make it now because every day that passes, it is going to get harder and harder and more Hamas lives will be lost." Although Biden and Trump are working separately, their efforts overlap and both stand to gain from a deal. A U.S. official said Trump's public statements about the need for a swift ceasefire “have not been harmful.” The official said the priority is to get the hostages home, whether it is at the end of the Biden term or the start of the Trump term. Steve Witkoff, Trump's designated Middle East envoy, met separately in late November with Netanyahu and Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said a source briefed on the talks. TIMING IS APT FOR NETANYAHU The timing for a deal may never have been better politically for Netanyahu. The prime minister told reporters on Monday that Hamas' increasing isolation following the collapse of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad's rule opened the door to a possible hostage deal even if it was too early to claim success. Israel's military chief and the head of the Shin Bet internal security service were in Cairo on Tuesday to discuss post-war Gaza border crossings and administration, according to three Israeli security sources. The public optimism of Israeli leaders over the past week has matched the general tone in internal discussions behind closed doors, according to an Israeli official. For Netanyahu, concessions would be far easier now with Israel having reestablished its reputation as the most powerful Middle East force and its Iran-backed enemies in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria now posing less of a threat. Netanyahu's once-fragile coalition has been strengthened by the addition of Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and his more centrist faction. Netanyahu, having achieved a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, can complete the picture with the return of the hostages in a deal with Hamas. Over the past year, some of the far-right ministers in his cabinet had voiced objections, even threatening to bring down the government, should the war in Gaza end. But with Israel's enemies weakened, and his coalition strengthened, Netanyahu is far less vulnerable politically. Saar said on Monday that Israel was now more optimistic about a possible hostage deal amid reports Hamas had asked other Gaza factions to help it compile a list of Israeli and foreign hostages in their custody, whether dead or alive. A Palestinian official close to the talks and familiar with the positions of all the parties involved described what he called "a fever of negotiations" with ideas emerging on all sides, including among mediators in Egypt and Qatar. Trump's involvement had given the talks a boost, even if the sides have yet to present lists of Palestinian prisoners and hostages to be exchanged or to complete plans for a temporary or phased truce, the Palestinian official said. He said Hamas was willing to show some flexibility should there be guarantees Israel would not resume the fighting. It is unclear how the sides can bridge the largest gap that has persisted through numerous rounds of failed negotiations; Hamas demands an end to the war, while Israel says the war will not end before Hamas no longer rules Gaza. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed to Jordan and Turkey on Wednesday for talks on Syria, the State Department said. Israel is not in his official itinerary but there is always a possibility he might add the stop. (Reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Andrew Mills and Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by Howard Goller; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

Saturday, November 23, 2024 The Hampton Inn & Suites Cleveland-Beachwood is excited to announce the completion of a major renovation. Located at 3840 Orange Place, this 6-story hotel with 139 rooms has undergone a full transformation, blending modern design elements with functional upgrades to enhance the guest experience. The hotel’s lobby has been reimagined with contemporary colors, new furniture, updated flooring, and stylish wall treatments. The exterior has also been refreshed with a new coat of paint and a redesigned patio area featuring a pergola and fire pit, perfect for relaxing outdoors. The fitness center has been expanded with cutting-edge equipment, new flooring, and a more efficient layout to provide an improved workout space. All guest rooms have been fully renovated, now offering upgraded bathrooms, fixtures, tiles, carpeting, furniture, bedding, and artwork. This extensive renovation ensures a contemporary and welcoming environment for every guest. “We’re excited to introduce our newly renovated hotel at Hampton Inn & Suites Cleveland-Beachwood, where every element has been thoughtfully designed to deliver an exceptional experience for our guests,” said Jearamy Klinger, Area General Manager. “Guests can count on enjoying comfortable, well-appointed accommodations, all backed by our brand’s satisfaction guarantee. The Hampton Inn & Suites Cleveland-Beachwood is conveniently located just off I-271, within walking distance of the vibrant Pinecrest area, offering a variety of shops, dining options, and entertainment. Visitors can easily access top attractions in both Cleveland and Beachwood, such as the JACK Thistledown Racino, MGM Northfield Park, and the famous Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in downtown Cleveland, just a short 25-minute drive away. Whether you’re enjoying Cleveland’s iconic sports venues, cultural landmarks, or the picturesque charm of Chagrin Falls, the area offers something for everyone. This welcoming hotel offers a variety of amenities to ensure a comfortable stay. Guests can enjoy a hot breakfast served daily, along with convenient breakfast-to-go bags. Complimentary Wi-Fi is available throughout the hotel, and the 100% Hampton Guarantee promises satisfaction or a free night’s stay.Every guest room is carefully crafted for relaxation, offering the signature clean and fresh Hampton bedTM, a flat-screen cable TV, an in-room coffee maker, a mini-fridge, and a microwave. For those seeking extra space, studio suites are available with a wet bar, additional mini-fridge, microwave, and sleeper sofa. The hotel also boasts a fully equipped fitness center, an indoor heated pool, and a whirlpool spa for guests to unwind. Pet owners will be happy to know that the hotel is pet-friendly, making it an ideal choice for those traveling with their furry companions. As part of Hilton Honors®, the hotel offers exclusive benefits to members, including access to flexible payment options when booking directly through Hilton channels. Members can combine Points and money to book a stay, enjoy special discounts, and take advantage of free standard Wi-Fi. The Hilton Honors mobile app also offers contactless check-in, room selection, and access through Digital Key, ensuring a seamless and convenient experience for all guests.

A musical inspired by viral Olympic breakdancer Raygun was shut down hours before it was due to open on Saturday, after lawyers representing the athlete threatened legal action, the show's creator said on social media. Steph Broadbridge, an Australian comedian who wrote and intended to star in "Raygun: The Musical," said in a video posted on Instagram that the breakdancer's "lawyers got in touch with the venue and threatened legal action." In its debut performance at Sydney venue Kinselas, the parody musical intended to retell the story of Australian breaker Rachael Gunn, widely known as Raygun, whose performance at the Paris Olympics spawned countless memes on social media as well as a backlash against her and the sport itself. The 37-year-old dancer's routine consisted of moves including a kangaroo hop, a backward roll and various contortions with her body while lying or crawling on the floor. She did not register a single point across her Olympic battles against breakers from the United States, France and Lithuania in August, losing 18-0 in all three rounds. "They were worried I was damaging her brand, which I would never do," said Broadbridge, adding: "They were very concerned that people would think that Rachael Gunn was affiliated with the musical. "I want to assure everyone that she will not be part of the show. She's very welcome to come; I would love for her to see it." Broadbridge said that anyone who had bought a ticket would be refunded their 10 Australian dollars ($6.45). The proceeds from the event were originally intended to be donated to the Women's and Girls Emergency Centre - a charity that supports women and children affected by homelessness, domestic violence and systemic disadvantage. She added that Gunn's lawyers trademarked the musical's poster, which featured a silhouette of the breakdancer's famous kangaroo hop and said she couldn't perform that dance as Gunn "owns" it. "That one did puzzle me - I mean, that's an Olympic-level dance. How would I possibly be able to do that without any formal breakdancing training?" Broadbridge said. The musical was advertised as including songs like "You May Be a B-girl But You'll Always Be an A-girl To Me," "I'm Breaking Down," and "I Would Have Won But I Pulled a Muscle," according to its Eventbrite listing. That listing now says the show is called "Breaking: The Musical." CNN has contacted Gunn's management team at the agency Born Bred for comment. In a statement to CNN affiliate 7news, the agency said that "Gunn's management and legal team is committed to protecting her intellectual property and ensuring that her brand remains strong and respected." "While we have immense respect for the credible work and effort that has gone into the development of the show, we must take necessary steps to safeguard Rachael's creative rights and the integrity of her work," it said. "This action is not intended to diminish the contributions of others, but rather to ensure her brand is properly represented and protected in all future endeavours." After the furor, Broadbridge apologized to Gunn for "any negativity" she had received as a result of the musical and told The Project that this was "supposed to be me trying to make you feel like the icon I believe that you can be in Australia." The-CNN-Wire & 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un vows the toughest anti-US policy before Donald Trump takes office

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Jaipur: Addressing the long-pending issue of a gem bourse in Jaipur, industry minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore on Friday said the state BJP govt will support the industry in setting up the facility. Rathore also said the govt is planning to develop Rajasthan Mandapam, on the lines of Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, over 100 acre near Jaipur airport. Inaugurating the Jaipur Jewellery Show at JECC, Rathore said the sector, which accounts for 17% of Rajasthan's GDP, needs these key infrastructure supports to strengthen its leadership position in the country. "The industry needs to focus on international markets alongside domestic opportunities. It should leverage technology to align production with global market demands," added Rathore. Exports in the sector have been under a weather since the breakout of wars and global tension, leading to demand erosion. However, Rajiv Jain, honorary secretary of JJS, said, "The record number of booths, over 1200 in the show, indicates that there is buoyancy in the domestic market and jewellers in Jaipur are optimistic about the growth outlook." He said with 95% of exhibitors returning year after year, JJS stands as a testament to their trust and commitment. "Brand Jaipur is growing stronger with each passing day. But there are challenges like labour shortage which need to be addressed," added Jain. Regional chairman of the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC), Nirmal Kumar Bardiya, revealed that the upcoming gem bourse will span an area of 43,828 sq metres, with a total construction area of 30 lakh sq ft. "Once operational, it is expected to generate employment opportunities for over 60,000 persons," added Bardiya. This year, the show returned to promote ruby, but JJS spokesperson Ajay Kala said it comprehensively showcases a range of precious and vibrant coloured gemstones. Promotion of Jaipur's gems and jewellery across India has significantly strengthened the city's brand image, added Kala. Stay updated with the latest news on Times of India . Don't miss daily games like Crossword , Sudoku , and Mini Crossword .Another Dow Record Helps Make Week a Winner

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fish table casino Ange Postecoglou has revealed Tottenham are looking into why so many players have suffered injury setbacks this season. Ben Davies is the latest to fall into that category, with the Welsh international initially primed to return for Sunday’s visit of Wolves but no longer available. Davies suffered a setback in training this week, which means Spurs could be without a fit centre-back after Radu Dragusin was forced off in the latter stages of Thursday’s 1-0 loss at Nottingham Forest with an ankle issue. Ange with a team news update ahead of Wolves on Sunday 🗣️ — Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) Postecoglou is already without first-choice central defenders Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven after both failed to make it through their comeback fixture against Chelsea on December 7. “Yeah, that’s been our major problem this year. Guys who are coming back from injury rather than us losing players as such,” Postecoglou said. “We’re looking at those things and why they’re happening. It’s certainly happened too often this year where guys have come back and they’re the ones who are missing. “I think just about all of them, apart from Vic (Guglielmo Vicario), are recurrences of an injury. “Even with Romero, it was a different injury but it’s still a guy coming back, so it’s something we’re looking at.” There could be good news on the horizon with attackers Mikey Moore and Richarlison expected to return to training next week. Richarlison suffered his own setback in November when his short-lived return after a calf issue was cut short when he injured the same area against Aston Villa. Moore, meanwhile, has been sidelined by a virus for the best part of two months but the 17-year-old could provide a much-needed spark in the new year when Newcastle visit on January 4. Postecoglou said: “Him and Richy are in the final phases. Next week they can start training. We’ve got a bit of a gap before the Newcastle game. “The plan is Mikey and Richy come back into first-team training next week.” Anticipated returns for Moore and Richarlison will fail to help Postecoglou against Wolves, with makeshift centre-back Archie Gray potentially set to partner up with fellow midfielder Yves Bissouma if Dragusin cannot recover. Pressed on the issue of fixture scheduling, with Spurs definitely missing eight players for Sunday’s fixture, Postecoglou said: “It is challenging. “All clubs are going to have to get their heads around it and authorities are going to have to get their heads around it. “One of two things need to happen: either you somehow change the fixture schedule, which doesn’t seem feasible, or you allow clubs bigger squads. Then you have other issues with that, as well. “The attrition rate you’re seeing and it’s not just us. We’re going through a particularly badly moment. Newcastle went through it last year and it affected them pretty badly. They were obviously in the Champions League as well and probably didn’t have the squad to cope with it. “It hits certain clubs at different times and is probably becoming more prevalent, and for all of us it’s a challenge as to how we navigate this process to keep our players healthy. “It’s not just a physical thing, it’s a mental thing. For us it’s been constant since August and we’re not even halfway through the year. And they’re not going to get a break now, so these things we’re constantly assessing.”

A 9th telecoms firm has been hit by a massive Chinese espionage campaign, the White House saysKip Fonsh: Now is not the time for the soft of heart

Singapore, Nov. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- What is QUANTUM and what does it solve? QUANTUM is designed to overhaul the financial transaction systems by replacing outdated, centralized methods with a quantum-safe and AI-compliant decentralized blockchain solution that offers enhanced security and efficiency. It addresses the inherent limitations of traditional financial messaging systems like SWIFT, which suffers from issues such as slow transaction times, high costs, opaque fees, and susceptibility to cyber threats and geopolitical influences. QUANTUM introduces a next-generation financial framework that leverages post-quantum cryptography and trapping techniques to safeguard against advanced cyber threats and integrates AI to automate compliance checking with international financial regulations, aiming to streamline and secure financial transactions for banks, broker-dealers, investment managers, and market infrastructures globally. QUANTUM is also at the heart of all transactions underpinning the new financial institutions being built on Quantum Chain, forming the Quantum Ecosystem. Token Overview - Token name: Quantum - Token symbol: $Q - Total Issue Supply : USD $1,000,000,000 What are the utilities of $Q? The QUANTUM token serves as a multifunctional utility within the Quantum Chain network, fulfilling several key roles: 1. Transaction Fees: QUANTUM tokens are used to pay for transaction fees within the network, compensating validators and nodes for processing transactions and maintaining the blockchain. 2. Governance: Token holders can participate in governance decisions, influencing the development and operational aspects of the Quantum Chain network. This includes voting on protocol changes, upgrades, and proposals that affect the network. 3. Staking: Users will be able to stake QUANTUM tokens to participate in the network's consensus mechanism. Staking tokens helps secure the network by providing the necessary collateral to validate transactions. In return, stakers receive rewards proportional to their stake. 4. Reward Distribution: The network rewards participants, such as validators and certain users, with QUANTUM tokens for their contributions to network security, development, and community engagement. 5. Access to Services: Tokens might be used to access specific services within the QUANTUM ecosystem, such as advanced financial reporting tools, artificial intelligence-driven analytics, and other premium features. 6. Interoperability and Cross-Chain Services: QUANTUM may facilitate or manage cross-chain transactions, enabling interoperability with other blockchain networks, with the token potentially being used as a bridging asset. These utilities are designed to ensure the active participation of users, maintain the network's security, and encourage the ongoing development of the QUANTUM ecosystem. 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Smart Contracts: QUANTUM integrates smart contract functionalities that allow incorporated developers to create automated, self-executing contracts with the terms directly written into code, facilitating trustless agreements and automated processes. 4. Interoperability Features: The platform includes L2 features designed to ensure interoperability with other blockchains, allowing for seamless cross-chain communications and transactions. This is crucial for enhancing the utility of QUANTUM in a broader blockchain environment. 5. Staking and Governance: Token holders can stake their tokens to participate in network governance, influencing decisions related to the network's future development, upgrades, and changes in protocols. 6. Validator Nodes: The network relies on validator nodes, which are responsible for validating transactions and maintaining the integrity and security of the blockchain. Participants can run validator nodes by staking QUANTUM tokens. 7. Security Services: The ecosystem includes advanced security protocols to protect against common vulnerabilities and attacks, ensuring the safety of transactions and data stored on the blockchain. 8. Quantum Wallet: A proprietary wallet for managing QUANTUM tokens and interacting with the network. The wallet facilitates token storage, transactions, staking, and participation in governance. 9. Educational and Community Support: The ecosystem also focuses on education and community engagement to encourage adoption and foster a supportive environment for users and developers. This includes documentation, tutorials, workshops, and active community forums. 10. Platform Integration: Additionally, the QUANTUM project ecosystem will feature a dedicated "Quantum" column on the Coinstore platform. This column will serve as a focal point for all related activities and updates, providing users with direct access to information on QUANTUM's market movements, trading opportunities, and educational content. This integration into Coinstore will enhance visibility and accessibility, making it easier for users to engage with QUANTUM directly from the trading platform. These components work synergistically to create a comprehensive ecosystem that supports a wide range of blockchain applications and services, driving forward the adoption and utilization of blockchain technology across different sectors. QUANTUM Official Media Website | Twitter | Telegram About Coinstore Accessibility. Security. Equity. As a leading global platform for cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, Coinstore seeks to build an ecosystem that grants everyone access to digital assets and blockchain technology. With over 9.5 million users worldwide, Coinstor e aims to become the preferred cryptocurrency trading platform and digital service provider worldwide. Coinstore Social Media Twitter | Discord | Facebook | Instagram | Youtube | Telegram Discussion | Telegram Announcement CONTACT: Alvin Lee Project Management Cryptocurrency alvin-at-coinstore.comPresident-elect Donald Trump has announced key cabinet nominations ahead of his January 20 inauguration. In November, he nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), with a mission to implement a “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, which includes plans to eliminate chemical additives from the U.S. food supply. Recent social media posts have sparked rumors that Kennedy intends to ban Hershey’s chocolate. “BREAKING: Effective January 20th, Hershey’s Chocolate will be BANNED in the United States. Make America Healthy Again,” reads a post on X, featuring a screenshot purportedly from Kennedy’s account. This post claims the ban is part of Kennedy’s “war on bioengineered food.” Commenters questioned whether these claims are true. THE QUESTION Has Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced plans to ban Hershey’s chocolate? THE SOURCES Parody account that made the original Diet Coke ban post Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s real X , Instagram and Facebook accounts Review of Hershey’s website and social media accounts THE ANSWER No, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has not announced plans to ban Hershey's chocolate. WHAT WE FOUND Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has not announced plans for a ban on Hershey’s chocolate. The claim originated from a parody account with the display name “ Robert F. Kennedy Jr - Health Secretary Parody .” The account has since been suspended on X, but it previously spread a similar false claim about Kennedy wanting to ban Diet Coke. Social media posts sharing screenshots from the parody account cropped out the word “parody,” making it appear as if the posts were from Kennedy’s official account. Kennedy’s real X account , with the display name “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” has 5 million followers and doesn’t include the dash mark and ellipsis seen in the screenshots about a Hershey’s ban. Kennedy has not posted anything about a possible Hershey’s chocolate ban on his real account, nor on his Instagram or Facebook pages. VERIFY found no credible news articles supporting claims of a Hershey’s chocolate ban. Additionally, Hershey’s websites and social media accounts do not indicate any plans to halt chocolate sales in the U.S. after Inauguration Day. We reached out to Kennedy and Hershey’s for comment but did not hear back at the time of publication. Related Articles Yes, it’s illegal for a candidate to promise a political appointment in exchange for an endorsement No, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has not announced plans to ban Diet Coke No, the original Congressional stopgap bill didn’t allocate $3B for an NFL stadium The VERIFY team works to separate fact from fiction so that you can understand what is true and false. Please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter , text alerts and our YouTube channel . You can also follow us on Snapchat , Instagram , Facebook and TikTok . Learn More » Follow Us YouTube Snapchat Instagram Facebook TikTok Want something VERIFIED? Text: 202-410-8808

Toledo City, Cebu – In a quiet barangay in Toledo City, a groundbreaking partnership is rewriting the narrative of women empowerment and inclusive livelihood opportunities. Housewives are breaking through the digital divide, balancing family duties with meaningful work opportunities powered by technology. The Elevate AIDA Project, a collaboration between Connected Women and AboitizPower subsidiary Therma Visayas Inc. (TVI), is transforming the lives of rural women, equipping them with the skills they need to thrive in the digital economy – all from the comfort of their homes. Launched in June 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Elevate AIDA offers training in Artificial Intelligence and Data Annotation (AIDA), a process that involves classifying images and labeling data for machine learning systems. Beyond the technical training, the initiative provides women with the flexibility to work remotely while caring for their families—a game-changer for many in these rural communities. Technology as the Great Equalizer Jessa, a college graduate and mother of two, shares how the program has opened new doors. “I once had to leave my job to care for my youngest child, who was often sick. With just one income—only my husband was working—it was tough for us financially,” she recalls. “When TVI offered this opportunity, I seized it. The training was challenging but incredibly rewarding. It equipped me with skills that now allow me to contribute to our family income from home.” (“ Actually sir ako kasi graduate po ako ng college pero kasi nung nagkasakit yung anak ko, noong pinanganak ko yung bunso ko po, masyado kasi siyang sakitin. Sobrang napilitan po talaga ako na magstop po ng pagtatrabaho kaya naging full time na lang ako na mag alaga sa kanya. Then nung syempre po isa na lang yung nagtatrabaho (asawa ko), hindi naman po ganun yung ano (kalaki) yung income namin so nung pumasok po itong opportunity/livelihood from Aboitiz, gin-rab ko siya.”) For Heidi, another program beneficiary, the flexibility of the work has been life-changing. “Elevate AIDA has been a huge help because of its flexible working hours. I can work at any time that suits me, especially since I’m also busy with community activities in our village,” she explains. Heidi, who also participates in baking training provided by TVI, now juggles multiple sources of income. “Thanks to TVI, we have various ways to earn. I hope they continue to bring more programs like this to our community.” (“Para sakin po nakatulong po talaga siya kasi walang oras kung kailan mo gusto mag trabaho (flexitime). Kasi ma’am nagtatrabaho ako sa barangay tumutulong ako sa pag monitor ng mga tao, meron din kaming training na baking so marami pa kaming trabaho po dahil sa nahahati ang oras so yan po ang na achieve na tulong sa TVI. ... Walang sawang pasasalamat po sa TVI po na may ganitong project para samin. malaking tulong po kasi siya kasi hindi lang naman po ako ang nabigyan, marami po kaming mga mother na nabigyan po nung opportunity na yun so sana po marami pang mga opportunity na darating from TVI po.”) Great Transformation 2025 Participants of Elevate AIDA are provided with essential tools, including training, internet access, and computers. These resources enable them to join the digital workforce and contribute to their households while remaining present for their families. The Elevate AIDA initiative aligns seamlessly with Aboitiz Group’s broader commitment to driving inclusive growth through innovation. This vision is encapsulated in the Aboitiz Group’s Great Transformation 2025 strategy, which seeks to position the company as the Philippines’ first “techglomerate.” By combining technology with social impact, AboitizPower and TVI are creating pathways for economic opportunities that transcend geographic and economic barriers. Beyond digital empowerment, TVI has consistently rolled out high-impact livelihood projects through high impact corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs. These initiatives, which range from waste-to-value initiatives like eco-brick production to community-based skills training, demonstrate TVI’s dedication to sustainable socio-economic development. “As a responsible corporate citizen, TVI co-creates sustainable and meaningful livelihood opportunities,” said Noel Cabahug, Facility Head at TVI. “Our partnerships with communities, such as Elevate AIDA, allow us to uplift lives while promoting long-term development. We will continue to uphold this commitment as we collaborate with our stakeholders in building more impactful and sustainable projects.” Building confidence, opening up a world of possibilities TVI was one of the first partners of the Elevate AIDA project in 2020, a pioneering effort that has since been adopted across various Aboitiz Group business units nationwide. The AIDA training program has also since been implemented by the Technological Education and Skills Development Authority or TESDA to engage more Filipino women in the field of ICT and in particular provide them with skills that are relevant and needed in today’s digital economy. With a goal of training 300,000 women by 2025, Elevate AIDA is not just a livelihood initiative—it’s a movement for empowerment and equality. By providing employable digital skills, the project uplifts household incomes while promoting a culture of innovation and independence. “This is more than just about having income; it’s about giving women the tools to secure their own futures,” said Connected Women Co-Founder Ruth Yu-Owen. “Through this program, we’re not just building skills; we’re building confidence and opening up a world of possibilities for women in our communities.” For Jessa, Heidi, and hundreds of other women in Toledo City, the digital economy is no longer a distant concept—it’s a tangible reality, powered by the vision of organizations determined to bridge the gap. Through programs like Elevate AIDA, technology proves once again that it can be the great equalizer, leveling the playing field and creating opportunities where none existed before. Being business-savvy should be fun, attainable and A+. BMPlus is BusinessMirror's digital arm with practical tips & success stories for aspiring and thriving millennial entrepreneurs.https://arab.news/mrc8k JEDDAH: Despite ongoing regional challenges, the UAE is expected to maintain strong economic resilience in 2025, fueled by robust consumer spending, record-breaking foreign direct investment, and successful diversification efforts, according to a new industry report. The UAE’s strategic position as a global trade hub connecting Europe, Africa, and Asia, along with its status as a prime real estate destination, continues to drive its growth trajectory. The report, from FOREX.com, a subsidiary of StoneX Group Inc., a global US-based financial services firm, emphasizes that these factors will help sustain the country’s economic momentum. One key indicator of this resilience is the UAE’s thriving real estate market. In October, the country saw a record 19,390 residential transactions, bringing the year-to-date total to 140,000 units — an increase of 36 percent compared to the previous year. “The UAE is on track to maintain robust economic growth in 2025, with GDP growth forecasts ranging from 6.2 percent by the Central Bank of the UAE, 5.1 percent by the International Monetary Fund, and 4.1 percent by the World Bank,” said Razan Hilal, market analyst and chartered market technician at FOREX.com. Hilal further noted that inflation in the UAE has been steadily decreasing, dropping to 2.4 percent year on year in October, the slowest pace since August 2023. “With the Federal Reserve’s ongoing monetary easing, mirrored by the Central Bank of the UAE, interest rates are expected to decline further, which should help stimulate economic growth in 2025,” she added. While the outlook remains positive, the report does acknowledge potential risks stemming from local, regional, and global factors. These include pressures on oil revenues due to falling oil prices, challenges from oversupply risks from non-OPEC countries, and the economic slowdown in China. On the global stage, China’s anticipated shift to a more accommodative monetary policy in 2025 — the first such move since 2011 — could stabilize demand. Meanwhile, the UAE’s non-oil sectors, aligned with the country’s ambitious D33 Agenda, are expected to continue driving economic expansion. These sectors include trade, tourism, and technology, with the UAE aiming for foreign trade worth 25.6 trillion dirhams ($6.97 trillion) and FDI inflows of 60 billion dirhams annually by 2033. Hilal also highlighted that Dubai’s role as a global innovation hub will be further reinforced by initiatives like the 2030 artificial intelligence and sustainable development strategies, along with the launch of “Sandbox Dubai,” which aims to foster the testing and commercialization of new technologies. These efforts will strengthen Dubai’s leadership in technological advancements and further fuel the UAE’s economic growth. The report also touched on the potential impact of a future US presidential term under Donald Trump, predicting that fiscal spending, tax cuts, a stronger US dollar, and rising geopolitical uncertainties could have mixed effects. While US stock indices have reached record highs in anticipation of Trump’s policies, the UAE’s MSCI index is also nearing its 2024 peaks. However, these market gains remain vulnerable to volatility, particularly given the increasing geopolitical tensions and potential disruptions in global trade caused by Trump’s policies, tariffs, and regional decisions. Furthermore, gold prices are expected to remain crucial in 2025, with potential gains reflecting heightened demand for safe haven assets amid global uncertainties. This presents a challenge for the UAE, which must navigate these global economic and political risks while maintaining its status as a regional safe haven. In conclusion, the report emphasizes that staying attuned to global political and economic developments will be vital for shaping an accurate perspective on the UAE's financial performance in the years ahead.

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DIH Appoints Sheltering Arms Institute as a DIH Center of ExcellenceNEW YORK (AP) — Angelina Jolie never expected to hit all the notes. But finding the breath of Maria Callas was enough to bring things out of Jolie that she didn’t even know were in her. “All of us, we really don’t realize where things land in our body over a lifetime of different experiences and where we hold it to protect ourselves,” Jolie said in a recent interview. “We hold it in our stomachs. We hold it in our chest. We breathe from a different place when we’re nervous or we’re sad. “The first few weeks were the hardest because my body had to open and I had to breathe again,” she adds. “And that was a discovery of how much I wasn’t.” In Pablo Larraín’s “Maria,” which Netflix released in theaters Wednesday before it begins streaming on Dec. 11, Jolie gives, if not the performance of her career, then certainly of her last decade. Beginning with 2010’s “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” Jolie has spent recent years directing films while prioritizing raising her six children. “So my choices for quite a few years were whatever was smart financially and short. I worked very little the last eight years,” says Jolie. “And I was kind of drained. I couldn’t for a while.” But her youngest kids are now 16. And for the first time in years, Jolie is back in the spotlight, in full movie-star mode. Her commanding performance in “Maria” seems assured of bringing Jolie her third Oscar nomination. (She won supporting actress in 2000 for “Girl, Interrupted.”) For an actress whose filmography might lack a signature movie, “Maria” may be Jolie's defining role. Jolie's oldest children, Maddox and Pax, worked on the set of the film. There, they saw a version of their mother they hadn't seen before. “They had certainly seen me sad in my life. But I don’t cry in front of my children like that,” Jolie says of the emotion Callas dredged up in her. “That was a moment in realizing they were going to be with me, side by side, in this process of really understanding the depth of some of the pain I carry.” Jolie, who met a reporter earlier this fall at the Carlyle Hotel, didn't speak in any detail of that pain. But it was hard not to sense some it had to do with her lengthy and ongoing divorce from Brad Pitt, with whom she had six children. Just prior to meeting, a judge allowed Pitt’s remaining claim against Jolie, over the French winery Château Miraval, to proceed. On Monday, a judge ruled that Pitt must disclose documents Jolie’s legal team have sought that they allege include “communications concerning abuse.” Pitt has denied ever being abusive. The result of the U.S. presidential election was also just days old, though Jolie — special envoy for the United Nations Refugee Agency from 2012 to 2022 – wasn’t inclined to talk politics. Asked about Donald Trump’s win , she responded, “Global storytelling is essential,” before adding: “That’s what I’m focusing on. Listening. Listening to the voices of people in my country and around the world.” Balancing such things — reports concerning her private life, questions that accompany someone of her fame — is a big reason why Jolie is so suited to the part of Callas. The film takes place during the American-born soprano’s final days. (She died of a heart attack at 53 in 1977.) Spending much of her time in her grand Paris apartment, Callas hasn’t sung publicly in years; she’s lost her voice. Imprisoned by the myth she’s created, Callas is redefining herself and her voice. An instructor tells her he wants to hear “Callas, not Maria." The movie, of course, is more concerned with Maria. It’s Larrain’s third portrait of 20th century female icon, following “Jackie” (with Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy) and “Spencer” (with Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana). As Callas, Jolie is wonderfully regal — a self-possessed diva who deliciously, in lines penned by screenwriter Steven Knight, spouts lines like: “I took liberties all my life and the world took liberties with me.” Asked if she identified with that line, Jolie answered, “Yeah, yeah.” Then she took a long pause. “I’m sure people will read a lot into this and there’s probably a lot I could say but don’t want to feed into,” Jolie eventually continues. “I know she was a public person because she loved her work. And I’m a public person because I love my work, not because I like being public. I think some people are more comfortable with a public life, and I’ve never been fully comfortable with it.” When Larraín first approached Jolie about the role, he screened “Spencer” for her. That film, like “Jackie” and “Maria,” eschews a biopic approach to instead intimately focus on a specific moment of crisis. Larraín was convinced Jolie was meant for the role. “I felt she could have that magnetism,” Larraín says. “The enigmatic diva that’s come to a point in her life where she has to take control of her life again. But the weight of her experience, of her music, of her singing, everything, is on her back. And she carries that. It’s someone who’s already loaded with a life that’s been intense.” “There’s a loneliness that we both share,” Jolie says. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I think people can be alone and lonely sometimes, and that can be part of who they are.” Larraín, the Chilean filmmaker, grew up in Santiago going to the opera, and he has long yearned to bring its full power and majesty to a movie. In Callas, he heard something that transfixed him. “I hear something near perfection, but at the same time, it’s something that’s about to be destroyed,” Larraín says. “So it’s as fragile and as strong as possible. It lives in both extremes. That’s why it’s so moving. I hear a voice that’s about to be broken, but it doesn’t.” In Callas’ less perfect moments singing in the film, Larraín fuses archival recordings of Callas with Jolie’s own voice. Some mix of the two runs throughout “Maria.” “Early in the process,” Jolie says, “I discovered that you can’t fake-sing opera.” Jolie has said she never sang before, not even karaoke. But the experience has left her with a newfound appreciation of opera and its healing properties. “I wonder if it’s something you lean into as you get older,” Jolie says. “Maybe your depth of pain is bigger, your depth of loss is bigger, and that sound in opera meets that, the enormity of it.” If Larraín’s approach to “Maria” is predicated on an unknowingness, he's inclined to say something similar about his star. “Because of media and social media, some people might think that they know a lot about Angelina,” he says. “Maria, I read nine biographies of her. I saw everything. I read every interview. I made this movie. But I don’t think I would be capable of telling you who she was us. So if there’s an element in common, it’s that. They carry an enormous amount of mystery. Even if you think that you know them, you don’t.” Whether “Maria” means more acting in the future for Jolie, she's not sure. “There's not a clear map,” she says. Besides, Jolie isn't quite ready to shake Callas. “When you play a real person, you feel at some point that they become your friend,” says Jolie. “Right now, it’s still a little personal. It’s funny, I’ll be at a premiere or I’ll walk into a room and someone will start blaring her music for fun, but I have this crazy internal sense memory of dropping to my knees and crying.” Jake Coyle, The Associated Press

By ERIC TUCKER WASHINGTON (AP) — A ninth U.S. telecoms firm has been confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and phone conversations of an unknown number of Americans, a top White House official said Friday. Biden administration officials said this month that at least eight telecommunications companies , as well as dozens of nations, had been affected by the Chinese hacking blitz known as Salt Typhoon. But Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, told reporters Friday that a ninth victim had been identified after the administration released guidance to companies about how to hunt for Chinese culprits in their networks. The update from Neuberger is the latest development in a massive hacking operation that has alarmed national security officials, exposed cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the private sector and laid bare China’s hacking sophistication. The hackers compromised the networks of telecommunications companies to obtain customer call records and gain access to the private communications of “a limited number of individuals.” Though the FBI has not publicly identified any of the victims, officials believe senior U.S. government officials and prominent political figures are among those whose whose communications were accessed. Neuberger said officials did not yet have a precise sense how many Americans overall were affected by Salt Typhoon, in part because the Chinese were careful about their techniques, but a “large number” were in the Washington-Virginia area. Officials believe the goal of the hackers was to identify who owned the phones and, if they were “government targets of interest,” spy on their texts and phone calls, she said. The FBI said most of the people targeted by the hackers are “primarily involved in government or political activity.” Neuberger said the episode highlighted the need for required cybersecurity practices in the telecommunications industry, something the Federal Communications Commission is to take up at a meeting next month. “We know that voluntary cyber security practices are inadequate to protect against China, Russia and Iran hacking of our critical infrastructure,” she said. The Chinese government has denied responsibility for the hacking.

Arsenal up to second after Kai Havertz goal sees off struggling IpswichLAGOS – In the ever-evolving world of social media, where content is king, one personality stands out for his ability to connect with audiences through humor and relatability: Abdul BK. Hailing from the northern part of Nigeria, Abdul has established himself as a prominent comedy creator with a verified presence on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. His unique approach to comedy not only entertains but also fosters a sense of community, making him a beloved figure in the digital entertainment landscape. Abdul BK’s rise to fame can be attributed to his keen observational skills and his talent for transforming everyday experiences into comedic gold. He has a remarkable ability to tap into the nuances of daily life, crafting sketches that resonate with a wide audience. Whether he is portraying the dynamics of family life, the quirks of social interactions, or the peculiarities of cultural traditions, Abdul’s content reflects the realities of many, making it easy for viewers to see themselves in his stories. This relatability is a cornerstone of his comedic style, allowing him to bridge the gap between different experiences and backgrounds. What truly sets Abdul apart is not just his comedic prowess but also his dedication to spreading positivity through his work. In a time when negativity often overshadows the digital space, Abdul BK offers a refreshing counter-narrative. His videos are infused with a sense of joy and lightheartedness, aimed at uplifting spirits and encouraging laughter. By focusing on the humorous aspects of life, he creates a safe space for his audience to escape from their daily struggles and find solace in shared laughter. This commitment to positivity has endeared him to many, making him a source of inspiration and joy. Moreover, Abdul BK’s influence extends beyond just entertainment. He has become a cultural ambassador for northern Nigeria, showcasing the rich traditions and values of his region through his comedic lens. By incorporating local dialects, customs, and humor into his content, he not only entertains but also educates his audience about the beauty of his heritage. This cultural representation is essential in a globalized world, where understanding and appreciation of diverse backgrounds are crucial for fostering unity and respect. As Abdul BK continues to create and share his content, his impact on the comedy scene in Nigeria and beyond is undeniable. He embodies the spirit of creativity and resilience, proving that laughter can transcend boundaries and bring people together. With each new video, Abdul invites us to celebrate our shared humanity, reminding us that in a world filled with challenges, a good laugh can be the best remedy. As he forges ahead on his journey, one can only imagine the heights he will reach and the joy he will continue to spread across social media platforms.

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Bhubaneswar, Dec 29 (IANS): Krishna Chandra Nag, a farmer from the Golamunda block in Odisha's Kalahandi district, expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for mentioning his efforts towards self-reliance in the PM's monthly programme ‘Mann Ki Baat’ on Sunday. Krishna Chandra, who uses modern agricultural techniques, grows large quantities of tomatoes and other vegetables, providing employment to over 100 farmers. His achievements were recognised by PM Modi during the ‘Mann Ki Baat’ programme. PM Modi lauded his efforts resulting in employment generation as well. Along with other farmers in the region, Krishna Chandra has formed a Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO) and created a highly profitable business model, contributing to the local economy. His annual turnover is approximately Rs 1.5 crore, and he has urged more farmers to adopt modern agricultural techniques with the support of the government. Krishna Chandra shared that he has been involved in farming since 2006, and currently, he cultivates crops on 16 acres of land, with an annual turnover of Rs 1.5 crore and a profit of about Rs 75-80 lakh. He was thrilled by PM Modi's recognition of his village, calling it a hub for vegetables, and said, "It feels great to have the name of my block, village, and district mentioned in front of the people of the country." The farmer highlighted that the NABARD and Mahashakti Foundation provide significant support for modern farming practices, offering various subsidies. He emphasised that individual efforts alone won't suffice, and his goal is for farmers across the district and Odisha to progress together. Krishna Chandra urged fellow farmers to embrace modern technology in agriculture for better outcomes. Experts believe that such efforts in the farming sector would pave the way for marginal cultivators to progress by being associated with successful farmers like Krishna Chandra. They can also write their own success stories.