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More than 50 years ago, the late Father David Bauer pointed out that studies and reports on problems in Canadian ice hockey have had a “characteristic ineffectiveness.” This was because they have “come from outside the structure of organized hockey and they have been isolated efforts.” Those inside the game tend to get “impatient with well-meaning outsiders” who often “oversimplify” the issues at hand. Bauer was born just over 100 years ago. Some have called him the moral conscience of hockey; others saw him as the father of Canada’s hockey team. There are arenas in Vancouver and Calgary named after him, while a major street in downtown Waterloo, Ont., is dedicated to him. Bauer’s 1973 depiction of Canadian hockey as “complex” and constantly in “rapid transition” feels remarkably similar to the state of the game today. As detailed in my recent book, Hockey Priest: Father David Bauer and the Spirit of the Canadian Game , Bauer brought change to the sport through his work as a coach, manager and philosopher. Today, Canadian hockey faces a number of challenges, from new eligibility rules in junior and college hockey to calls for greater inclusion across the sport and alleged cover-ups of abuse, to a decline in youth participation . With questions swirling about the state of hockey in Canada, it is valuable to hear from a central historical figure whose insights can help reshape its future. Bauer and the national team Bauer played junior hockey at St. Michael’s College-School in Toronto and went on to win a Memorial Cup championship as a player and later as a coach. Meanwhile, he became a priest of the Basilian Fathers and notably established Canada’s national hockey team . It was the first time Canada was represented internationally with a hockey team composed of players from across the nation. The national team played at three Winter Olympics and several international tournaments under Bauer’s leadership. He was also the longest-serving original member of the Hockey Canada Corporation board from 1969 to 1988. He was among the first recipients of the Order of Canada and was posthumously named to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1989. Although he was a celebrated hockey personality, Bauer had serious misgivings about the way hockey was run and organized. He argued about the educational needs of young men in junior hockey with Toronto Maple Leafs owner Conn Smythe. He advised top junior players, like Dave Keon and Gerry Cheevers, in contract negotiations, leading Maple Leafs general manager Punch Imlach to famously retort: “That man should no more be a priest than me.” Bauer set before the Canadian public a different vision of the game in contrast to overly commercialized hockey that was simply viewed as entertainment. He saw no need for fist-fighting in the game, especially goonism. He promoted a game of speed and checking without physical intimidation, and believed the game ought to be more of an art form than a crash-and-bang event on ice. He commented that “too much board-thumping hockey” became popular in the post-Second World War period and was pleased to see the rise of puck possession play. He learned from both his family and the Basilian sporting tradition that hockey is also an educational experience. He argued that sport properly directed could assist young people and strengthen communities. To a reporter, he added a not-so-subtle challenge to the status quo in Canadian hockey: “If we say economics are the only thing that counts, which the NHL keeps saying, we’re in serious trouble.” The national team and Bauer were early advocates for coaching clinics that could improve the level of play in Canada. This was something that later national team coaches actively promoted into the 1990s. Bauer’s motto — “ use technique, but let the spirit prevail ” — affirmed the importance of better skills, tactics and conditioning along with promoting the spirit and personality of the individual player. Solutions for Canadian hockey today Bauer was uneasy about any model that focused on skill development and neglected the development of the total person. His overarching goal for youth playing hockey was to instill them with what he saw as the virtues of the game. If a young player could improve “as a person through virtues of hockey — courage, judgment, prudence, fortitude, teamwork and fair play,” he said , they would improve as a hockey player. This perspective stood in contrast to the priorities of those who only cared about the final score and the bottom line. To “capture the fleeting idealism of our youth,” Bauer asked hockey coaches to learn from the young people playing the game, as if to reawaken the aspirations of their own childhood by supporting the dreams of youth. Bauer was not a dreamer, however. For him, economics should not be the sole standard by which to measure the sport. He also was critical of an overly violent form of the game. He questioned scientific and technological advancements that did not consider human values. “Know how” is meaningless by itself: “It is a means without an end,” he said. He demanded that coaches understand the values and spirit they wished to promote in hockey. His was an athlete-centred approach. He wanted the game to “be motivated by a habitual vision of greatness, to help each person we meet have a positive self-image, inner discipline, a sense of loyalty, and responsibility to themselves and society.” This vision of hockey is one that promotes unity of the body and spirit, where everyone in hockey should care about players’ physical development and the growth of their personality and inner life. As stated to a reporter prior to the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, he believed that “in a small way, hockey can improve the world.” Bauer’s way was to recognize the limitations of sport and put it in its proper perspective: to specify that hockey is not everything and, at the same time, that it could make a real contribution to the lives of Canadians. Hockey needs to state its values and organize itself accordingly. By having a Bauer-like approach to hockey, sporting bodies, coaches and players can reckon with the challenges facing the game. “Hockey is not the most important thing around...[but] it might be that it is the most Canadian thing,” he said. This statement reflects Bauer’s attempt to put hockey into its proper perspective: a Canadian sporting activity that in its own way can improve people’s lives.

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump offered a public show of support Friday for Pete Hegseth, his choice to lead the Defense Department, whose confirmation by the Senate is in doubt as he faces questions over allegations of excessive drinking, sexual assault and his views on women in combat roles. Hegseth, a former Fox News host, Army National Guard major and combat veteran, spent much of the week on Capitol Hill trying to salvage his Cabinet nomination and privately reassure Republican senators that he is fit to lead Trump's Pentagon. "Pete Hegseth is doing very well," Trump posted on his social media site. "He will be a fantastic, high energy, Secretary of Defense." The president added that "Pete is a WINNER, and there is nothing that can be done to change that!!!" The nomination battle is emerging not only as a debate about the best person to lead the Pentagon, but an inflection point for a MAGA movement that appears to be relishing a public fight over its hard-line push for a more masculine military and an end to the "woke-ism" of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be defense secretary, responds to reporters during a meeting with Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Military leaders are rattled by a list of “woke” senior officers that a conservative group urged Pete Hegseth to dismiss for promoting diversity in the ranks if he is confirmed to lead the Pentagon. The list compiled by the American Accountability Foundation includes 20 general officers or senior admirals and a disproportionate number of female officers. It has had a chilling effect on the Pentagon’s often frank discussions as leaders try to figure out how to address the potential firings and diversity issues under Trump. Those on the list in many cases seem to be targeted for public comments they made either in interviews or at events on diversity, and in some cases for retweeting posts that promote diversity. Tom Jones, a former aide to Republican senators who leads the foundation, said Friday those on the list are “pretty egregious” advocates for diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, policies, which he called problematic. “The nominee has been pretty clear that that has no place in the military,” Jones said of Hegseth. Hegseth embraced Trump’s effort to end programs that promote diversity in the ranks and fire those who reflect those values. Other Trump picks, like Kash Patel for FBI director, have suggested targeting those in government who are not aligned with Trump. Trump's allies forcefully rallied around Hegseth — the Heritage Foundation's political arm promised to spend $1 million to shore up his nomination — as he vows to stay in the fight, as long as the president-elect wants him to. Vice President-elect JD Vance offers a public show of support for Pete Hegseth, the embattled choice to lead the Defense Department. "We're not abandoning this nomination," Vance told reporters during a tour of western North Carolina. "We're not abandoning this nomination," Vice-President-elect JD Vance said as he toured post-hurricane North Carolina. He said he spoke with GOP senators and believes Hegseth will be confirmed. The effort became a test of Trump's clout and of how far loyalty for the president-elect goes with Republican senators who have concerns about his nominees. Two of Trump's other choices stepped aside as they faced intense scrutiny: former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., his first choice for attorney general, and Chad Chronister, a Florida sheriff who was Trump's first choice to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration. Thanking the president-elect for the support, Hegseth posted on social media, "Like you, we will never back down." Hegseth faces resistance from senators as reports emerged about his past, including the revelation that he made a settlement payment after being accused of a sexual assault that he denies. He promised not to drink on the job and told lawmakers he never engaged in sexual misconduct, even as his professional views on female troops came under intensifying scrutiny. He said as recently as last month that women "straight up" should not serve in combat. He picked up one important endorsement from Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, whose support was seen as a potentially powerful counterweight to the cooler reception Hegseth received from Sen. Joni Ernst, a former Army National Guard lieutenant colonel. Ernst, who is also a sexual assault survivor, stopped short of an endorsement after meeting with Hegseth this week. On Friday, Ernst posted on X that she would meet with him again next week. “At a minimum, we agree that he deserves the opportunity to lay out his vision for our warfighters at a fair hearing,” she wrote. On Friday, Trump put out the statement in response to coverage saying he lost faith in Hegseth, according to a person familiar with his thinking who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. The president-elect and his team were pleased to see Hegseth putting up a fight and his performance this week reiterates why he was chosen, the person said. They believe he can still be confirmed. Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be defense secretary, left, joined by his wife Jennifer Rauchet, attends a meeting with Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) If Hegseth goes down, Trump's team believes the defeat would empower others to spread what they cast as "vicious lies" against every candidate Trump chooses. Still, Trump's transition team is looking at potential replacements, including former presidential rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis plans to attend the Dec. 14 Army-Navy football game with Trump, according to a person familiar with the Florida governor's plans who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. DeSantis and Trump spoke about the defense secretary post Tuesday at a memorial service for sheriff deputies in West Palm Beach, Fla., according to people familiar with the matter who said Trump was interested in DeSantis for the post, and the governor was receptive. DeSantis is poised to select a replacement for the expected Senate vacancy to be created by Marco Rubio becoming secretary of state, and Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump is seen as the preferred choice by those in Trump's orbit. 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. President-elect Donald Trump tapped former Sen. David Perdue of Georgia to be ambassador to China, saying in a social media post that the former CEO “brings valuable expertise to help build our relationship with China.” Perdue lost his Senate seat to Democrat Jon Ossoff four years ago and ran unsuccessfully in a primary against Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Perdue pushed Trump's debunked lies about electoral fraud during his failed bid for governor. 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.

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The name Hallmark is synonymous with the Christmas season with annual sentimental movies that flood television screens when Christmas time comes around. During this Christmas season, central Sask residents can keep their eyes peeled for Prince Albert local Patsy Tuba for her role in ‘Jingle Bell Run’, a Christmas movie that’s already airing on the Hallmark Channel as well as a number of streaming services, or on the W Network here in Canada. The movie stars Ashley Williams and Andrew Walker who become partners on a Christmas-themed reality competition similar to the Amazing Race, and after butting heads with each other initially, a budding romance starts to form between the two despite some challenges throughout the show. Tuba plays a car rental agent named Kimberly who helps them get the last rental car available. “I am the car rental agent that helps the two main actors get the very last car rental to extend their journey. They are in a race and that’s why it’s a Jingle Bell Run because they’re on almost like a reality race and they’re against other teams, and if they don’t make it to the next spot, they’re going to be eliminated. So during this during this incredible race that they’re on, they have to solve puzzles to locate the place that they’re going to. So I just play a little part in there and it’s actually a big step for me being in a Hallmark movie. I got to be in the background and now I got to actually speak, so I was really looking forward to that.” Jingle Bell Run hit the airwaves and streaming platforms last Friday for the first time, and it will be airing again this Friday at 9:00 p.m., and again at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday November 26 as it continues to cycle all the way until Christmas with the final currently scheduled run (according to Hallmark Channel’s website ) at 1:00 p.m. on December 14. Her experience working with director Lucie Guest as well as the two stars of the show is one Tuba won’t forget anytime soon. “She was wonderful to work with. She’s so much fun on set. She made things feel very welcoming, as did Ashley and Andrew, they are the two that I shared the scene with and they’re the two main characters in it.” Tuba grew up in Prince Albert and is part of the Lac La Ronge Cree Nation. She moved to Victoria when she was young to pursue her acting dreams but took a break to raise her kids. In 2013, she starting acting again and has had a number of roles in short films and background roles, including a recurring role on Alaska Daily. “They shoot a lot of Hallmark movies here, and I had the opportunity to be in the background of some of those. Also on the island, they’ve shot my very first TV series, The Resident Alien. They shoot that out of Lady Smith here on Vancouver Island, and that was the very first background role that I got and it’s quite nice there. They’re doing their fourth season, so I’m hoping they’re coming back to the island.” Along with the speaking role in a Hallmark movie, Tuba is also active on stage as an actor, and she’s excited for a chance to be performing in Saskatchewan soon. From February 27 – March 9, Tuba will be playing a role in ‘The Unplugging’, a play directed by Roxanne Dicke where two women work together to survive after being exiled from a society where the world’s technology has stopped working and the two women are deemed useless since they cannot bear children. For Tuba, the play offers a unique opportunity to showcase her acting skills close to home. It’s been about five years since the last time she performed in Prince Albert, but she did put on a play in Winnipeg that eventually came through Prince Albert later. “Actually the last time I was out in Winnipeg was my last play and we did Red Sisters, which was also production that was in Prince Albert as well. I got to redo that play and it was wonderful, but that’s a couple of years ago now. That was out in Winnipeg at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Company. In Canada, you can watch Jingle Bell Run on the W Network, and tickets for The Unplugging are on sale now at the Burnt Thicket Theatre in Saskatoon for their shows starting February 27. — nick.nielsen@pattisonmedia.com

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell says it was a really easy decision to sign with the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers and the presence of three-time MVP Shohei Ohtani played a part, too. Snell was introduced Tuesday at Dodger Stadium accompanied by his agent Scott Boras. The left-hander finalized a $182 million, five-year contract last Saturday. “It was really easy just cause me and Haeley wanted to live here, it’s something we’ve been talking about for a while,” Snell said, referring to his girlfriend. “Then you look at the team. You look at what they’ve built, what they’re doing. It’s just something you want to be a part of.” Last month, Snell opted out of his deal with San Francisco to become a free agent for the second consecutive offseason after he was slowed by injuries during his lone year with the San Francisco Giants. Snell gets a $52 million signing bonus, payable on Jan. 25, and annual salaries of $26 million, of which $13.2 million each year will be deferred . Because Snell is a Washington state resident, the signing bonus will not be subject to California income tax. “It just played out the way that people around me felt comfortable with, I felt comfortable with, they felt comfortable with,” Snell said. “We talked and found something that could work for both of us. You want your worth, you want your respect, and you want enough time to where you can really make a name for yourself. I've made a name for myself outside of LA, but I'm going to be invested.” Two-way star Ohtani, who signed a record $700 million, 10-year deal a year ago, had a historic first season with the Dodgers. He helped them win the franchise's eighth World Series while playing only as designated hitter and became MVP in the National League for the first time after twice winning the award while in the American League. “It helps with him in the lineup for sure. That’s big motivation,” Snell said. “You want to be around players like that when you’re trying to be one of the best in the game. Yeah, it played a big part.” Snell joins Ohtani and fellow Japanese right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto atop Los Angeles’ rotation. All-Star Tyler Glasnow will be back after having his first season in LA derailed by a sprained elbow. Ohtani didn’t pitch this year while recovering from right elbow surgery but is expected back on the mound in 2025. The rest of the rotation includes Tony Gonsolin, Landon Knack, Dustin May, Bobby Miller and Emmet Sheehan. “I pitched on six-man, five-man, four-man rotations,” Snell said. “I'm good with it all as long as we have a plan, we'll execute it.” Snell, who turns 32 on Wednesday, went 5-3 with a 3.12 ERA in 20 starts this year, throwing a no-hitter at Cincinnati on Aug. 2 for one of only 16 individual shutouts in the major leagues this season. He struck out 145 and walked 44 in 104 innings. He was sidelined between April 19 and May 22 by a strained left adductor and between June 2 and July 9 by a strained left groin. Snell won Cy Young Awards in 2018 with Tampa Bay and 2023 with San Diego. He is 76-58 with a 3.19 ERA in nine seasons with the Rays (2016-20), Padres (2021-23) and Giants. He has known Andrew Friedman, Dodgers president of baseball operations, since he was 18. In the aftermath of winning the World Series and discussing how the Dodgers could repeat next year, Friedman said, “All conversations kept coming back to Blake.” “Usually in major league free agency, you're buying the backside of a guy's career, the accomplishments that they have had,” he said. “With Blake, one thing that's really exciting for us is, as much success as he's had, we feel like there's more in there." Snell was 2-2 against the Dodgers in his career. “We couldn’t beat him, so we’re going to have him join us,” Friedman said. .___ AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB

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Beacon Biosignals, the global leader in at-home EEG and AI-powered brain health analytics, presented two scientific posters at the American Epilepsy Society (AES) annual meeting. These posters highlight groundbreaking work resulting from collaborations with both Longboard Pharmaceuticals and UCB, focusing on advancing understanding of sleep disturbances in individuals with Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome (LGS) and their caregivers. The first work, created in partnership with Longboard Pharmaceuticals, presents preliminary findings from the Dreem LGS Caregiver Study. This study leverages Beacon’s FDA-cleared Dreem 3S EEG headband to explore sleep disturbances in caregivers of children with LGS. The results demonstrate that caregivers successfully utilized the at-home EEG device over multi-night recordings, capturing high-quality data without technologist intervention. Findings revealed significant sleep fragmentation among caregivers, likely due to the demands of nocturnal care. The study found a significant increase in Wake After Sleep Onset (WASO) in LGS caregivers of 37.79 minutes vs. 24.70 minutes in controls (p Action Button . Swipe sideways to select and activate one of the available actions. For the Controls, Shortcut and Accessibility options, tap the Choose button to pick which specific action to run. iOS 18 now lets you program the Action Button with your favorite Control Center control. Give your home screen a radical new look You wouldn't think that putting icons where you want is a radical new feature, but that's because iOS has always had a locked arrangement. Apps get added from top to bottom, left to right. You could rearrange the order in which icons appear and move them to other screens, but that was about it. In iOS 18, apps can be positioned nearly anywhere. You no longer need to deal with a wallpaper image of your kids or pets being obscured by icons. They still adhere to a grid -- Apple isn't about to sanction anarchy -- but can be placed freely. Also, Dark mode finally applies to all of the iPhone's home screen, with options for coloring icons and affecting the brightness of the wallpaper image. Here's how to customize the looks. Arrange apps: Touch and hold the home screen to enter "jiggle mode," and then drag the icons to new positions. It will still slide them around to fill spaces, but with patience, you can move them into the spots you want. Position app icons where you want so this very good girl isn't covered. You can also quickly turn compatible apps into widgets that display more information. Maps, for instance, can be a map of your current location with shortcut buttons to search for places or bring up a list of nearby places (such as dinner spots). Touch and hold the app icon and look for a row of resize buttons in the menu that appears. Once expanded beyond the standard icon size, you can drag the handle in the bottom-right corner of the new icon. To get it back to its single icon size you need to touch and hold again and choose the single-icon button Some apps can be expanded into larger icons that act like widgets. Set Dark mode: If you've ever subjected yourself to the retina blast of black text on a white background late at night in a darkened room, you will appreciate the new Dark mode option for the home and lock screens. iOS has previously included a Dark mode, where light backgrounds switch to black or dark gray, text switches to white or light gray and other interface elements are dimmed to coexist in a dark environment. That's never been applied to the home and lock screens in any significant way -- only the dock and some widgets -- until iOS 18. First, touch and hold the home screen to enter jiggle mode. Tap the Edit button in the top-left corner and choose Customize from the menu. At the bottom of the screen, choose a mode for the icons and background: Automatic , Dark or Light (I'll get to Tinted in a moment). In Dark mode, the icons gain black backgrounds, and folders and the Dock become dark gray. (Developers have the option of making Dark mode icons for their apps. In the meantime, apps not yet optimized get a generally darker appearance.) In the home screen's Dark mode, icons and the background are given a darker treatment. In Dark mode, the background image also changes. Apple's default iOS 18 wallpaper dynamically changes from light to dark as the day progresses, or you can choose colors that offer both a light and dark option. If you use a photo, its overall exposure is reduced to dim the light output. If you want dark icons but aren't a fan of the dimmed photo treatment, tap the sun icon in the corner of the options sheet at the bottom of the screen to toggle back to Light mode just for the background. Tinted icons: A new and different option is to tint all of the app icons so they share the same color. In the Customize options at the bottom of the screen, choose Tinted as the icon style. You can then adjust the Hue (the slider with the color spectrum) and Luminosity (the slider with the dark to light range) to choose the color tint you prefer. Apply a universal tint to all app icons, with controls for adjusting the hue and luminosity. What if you want to match a color from a background image? Tap the eyedropper button and then drag the reticle to pinpoint the color you want -- the border indicates the selected color. The tint is applied not only to icons but to widgets as well. For a widget such as Photos, the images it displays show up as duotones to match the theme. Large icons: Do the labels below each app icon seem redundant to you? Now you can remove the labels and increase the size of the icons with one setting. Open the Customize options as described above and tap the Large button. Make the home screen icons larger and hide the app labels. After making any of these changes, tap anywhere on the screen to apply them and exit the Customize interface. Change up how the Control Center looks Control Center was once a convenient place to quickly access controls such as playback volume and Airplane mode, but under iOS 18 it's a configurable playground. You can position controls where you want, resize many to reveal more information and add new controls on multiple screens. Swipe down from the top-right corner to reveal the Control Center (or swipe up from the bottom on the iPhone SE). To enter edit mode, touch and hold or press the + button at the top-left corner. Just as with moving apps, drag a control to another slot on the screen to reposition it. Many of the controls also include a bottom-right handle that can resize the control -- in most cases, it reveals the name of the control and its current status (such as Flashlight Off ). Rearrange the controls in Control Center and, for some, expand them to reveal more information (or just make the button a larger target for pressing). Control Center also now spans multiple screens. Swipe up to view controls for media currently playing, Home controls for smart lights and appliances and a page dedicated to the communication options that appear when you long-press the Connectivity block containing Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Cellular and others. Look closely and you'll see that those screens are actually individual controls expanded to occupy the entire Control Center area. You can rearrange the order of those screens by moving their controls. Suppose you want Home controls to be the first swipe instead of Now Playing: In the editing mode, drag the large Home control up to the previous screen (Now Playing will shift to the right to make room). Some controls get their own screens, such as Home. Normally it's on the third screen, but here it's been moved to the second screen. To remove controls, tap the – (minus) button that appears. You can also add other controls: Tap Add a Control and scroll through the available options ranging from starting a Screen Recording to a host of accessibility options. Read more : Best iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro cases Lock or hide any of your sensitive apps Our phones carry some of our most sensitive data, and yet it's not uncommon to hand a phone to a friend to view photos or look up something online. That doesn't mean they're going to snoop, but it doesn't not mean they might be more curious than you're comfortable with. For data you want to ensure stays out of sight or to add a layer of protection in front of sensitive information, iOS 18 adds the ability to lock and hide apps. For example, let's say you keep an ongoing set of lists of gift ideas for family members in the Notes app. You can lock individual notes, but that requires a separate step. Maybe a few ideas were made as individual quick notes or drawings. Instead of micromanaging access, you can lock the entire Notes app by doing the following: Touch and hold the app icon you want to lock and choose Require Face ID or Require Touch ID (or Require Passcode if Face ID or Touch ID are not enabled) from the menu that appears. Confirm your choice by tapping Require Face ID (or similar) in the next dialog. Lock individual apps. To remove the authentication step, touch and hold the app and choose Don't Require Face ID (or similar). Nothing outwardly indicates that an app is locked -- you'll find out when you try to open it. There's one more level of app security available, which is to hide apps in a special locked folder. Touch and hold the app and choose Require Face ID and then tap Hide and Require Face ID in the dialog. Confirm the action by tapping Hide App on the next screen. The app disappears from the home screen and gets slotted into a Hidden folder at the bottom of the App Library (swipe left beyond your last home screen to view the App Library). To access apps there, tap the Hidden folder and authenticate with Face ID. When you choose Hide and Require Face ID to protect an app, it gets put into the Hidden folder in App Library (top). Tap the folder and authenticate to access the app (bottom). iOS 18 imposes some limitations on hidden apps. Some, such as many of the built-in ones like Notes or Reminders, can only be locked and cannot be hidden at all. Also, the Hidden folder locks itself when you launch an app or swipe away from the App Library. Turn off Loop Videos in the Photos app Many apps have implemented a small but annoying (to me) feature, and now Photos under iOS 18.2 has it too: Videos automatically replay when you watch them until you tap the Pause button. That can be fun once or twice, or when viewing short clips. But I'm not a fan of having to take action to make them stop each time. Now I can take action once. Go to Settings > Photos , scroll down until you see Loop Videos and turn the option off. A video will play on its own, but then stop at the end as it should. Turn off Loop Videos to stop every video from replaying automatically. If you'd rather the video didn't play at all until you tap the Play button, also turn off Auto-Play Motion in the same Settings screen. Adjust the view of your calendar Big new features like locking and hiding apps are great additions but so are the tiny changes that you encounter every day. The Calendar app includes two new ways to view your schedule. In iOS 18, when you're in the Month view in portrait orientation, pinch with two fingers to view more or fewer details. As you "zoom in," individual events appear as colored bars and then as labeled events with times, all while keeping the monthly grid of days and weeks. In the Calendar app's Month view, pinch to zoom in and see more details. The Day view, which breaks down your day hour by hour, now has a new Multi Day view that shows two consecutive days to give you context for what's coming without turning the phone into landscape orientation and viewing the Week view. Tap the View button at the top of the Single Day view and choose Multi Day from the popup menu. The new Multi Day view in the Calendar shows two days at once (right). Improve movie and TV show dialogue in the TV app Trouble hearing dialogue in movies and television shows isn't a new problem -- for example, the Apple TV has had a feature for a while where you can ask Siri, "What did she say?" and it will automatically back up a few seconds, turn on subtitles and replay that section of the video. You can even buy soundbars that can overcome muffled TV speech . There are a lot of reasons it's harder to hear dialogue, but the TV app in iOS 18 includes a high-tech workaround to make dialog easier to discern. While you're watching a video in the TV app, tap the More ( ... ) button and then expand the Audio heading in the menu that appears; if the phone is in horizontal orientation, tap the Audio Adjustments button. Tap Enhance Dialogue and choose Enhance or Boost . They each dampen background noise and raise the dialogue's audio. Turn on Enhance Dialogue in the TV app to discern characters' speech better in noisy scenes. These are just a few new features and changes in iOS 18. Check out our broader coverage of Apple Intelligence , more impressions of the system after using it for months and how these all work together with the iPhone 16 models .

Deere ( DE 8.04% ) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Nov 21, 2024 , 10:00 a.m. ET Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks: Operator Good morning and welcome to the Deere & Company fourth quarter earnings conference call. Your lines have been placed on listen-only until the question-and-answer session of today's conference. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Josh Beal, director of investor relations. And thank you, sir. You may begin. Josh Beal -- Director, Investor Relations Hello. Welcome and thank you for joining us on today's call. Joining me on the call today are John May, chairman and chief executive officer; Josh Jepsen, chief financial officer; Cory Reed, president, worldwide agriculture and turf division, production and precision ag, Americas and Australia; and Josh Rohleder, manager, investor communications. Today, we'll take a closer look at Deere's fourth quarter earnings, then spend time talking about our markets and our current outlook for fiscal 2025. After that, we'll respond to your questions. Please note that slides are available to complement the call this morning. They can be accessed on our website at johndeere.com/earnings. First, a reminder. This call is broadcast live on the internet and recorded for future transmission and use by Deere & Company. Any other use, recording, or transmission of any portion of this copyrighted broadcast without the expressed written consent of Deere is strictly prohibited. Participants in the call, including the Q&A session, agree that their likeness and remarks on all media may be stored and used as part of the earnings call. This call includes forward-looking statements concerning the company's plans and projections for the future that are subject to uncertainties, risks, changes in circumstances, and other factors that are difficult to predict. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially is contained in the company's most recent Form 8-K, risk factors in the annual Form 10-K as updated by reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This call also may include financial measures that are not in conformance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America, GAAP. Additional information concerning these measures, including reconciliations to comparable GAAP measures, is included in the release and posted on our website at johndeere.com/earnings, under quarterly earnings and events. I will now turn the call over to Josh Rohleder. Josh Rohleder -- Manager, Investor Communications Good morning and an early happy holidays to everyone joining us today. John Deere finished the year with a better-than-expected fourth quarter that included 13.1% margins for equipment operations. Full year operating margins came in at 18.2%, reflecting solid proactive execution throughout our organization amid a challenging and rapidly changing market environment. Our ability to generate just over 6.9 billion in operating cash flow from equipment operations at shipment volumes below midcycle levels is indicative of the structural improvements we've made, enabling continued reinvestment in the business and significant cash return to shareholders. Looking ahead to 2025, we expect continued contraction of ag markets globally to result in ag and turf equipment demand at or below trough levels. Additionally, construction and forestry market demand is expected to be down as healthy end markets are offset by continued uncertainty in equipment purchases. Slide 3 begins with results for fiscal year 2024. Net sales and revenues were down 16% to 51.7 billion, while net sales for equipment operations were down 19% to 44.8 billion. Net income attributable to Deere & Company was 7.1 billion or $25.62 per diluted share. Next, fourth quarter results are on Slide 4. Net sales and revenues were down 28% to 11.1 billion, while net sales for the equipment operations were down 33% to 9.3 billion. Net income attributable to Deere & Company decreased to 1.2 billion or $4.55 per diluted share. Diving into our individual business segments on Slide 5, we'll review our fourth quarter results, starting with our production and precision ag business. Net sales of 4.305 billion were down 38% compared to the fourth quarter last year, primarily due to lower shipment volumes. Price realization in the quarter was flat, in line with expectations. Currency translation was negative by about 1 point. Operating profit was 657 million, resulting in a 15.3% operating margin for the segment. The year-over-year decrease in operating profit was primarily due to lower shipment volumes and sales mix, which was partially offset by lower production costs. As a reminder, we anticipated tougher year-over-year comps for PPA in the fourth quarter due to extended factory shutdown days associated with planned underproduction at several facilities. Turning to small ag and turf on Slide 6. Net sales were down 25%, totaling 2.306 billion in the fourth quarter, primarily due to lower shipment volumes. Although this was partially offset by price realization. Price realization in the quarter was positive by approximately 2.5 points. Currency was also positive by approximately half a point. For the quarter, operating profit declined year over year to 234 million, resulting in a 10.1% operating margin. The decrease was primarily due to lower shipment volumes and mix, along with special nonrecurring items. These items were partially offset by price realization and lower warranty expenses. Slide 7 details our fiscal year 2025 ag and turf industry outlook. We expect industry sales of large ag equipment in the U.S. and Canada to decline approximately 30% as demand further moderates amid weak farm fundamentals, high interest rates, elevated used inventory levels, and short-term farm liquidity concerns heading into next year's growing season. For small ag and turf in the U.S. and Canada, industry demand is estimated to be down around 10%. The dairy and livestock segment continues another year of strong profitability as elevated protein and hay prices are further enhanced by low input feed costs. This is offset by restrained demand in the turf and compact utility tractor markets as single-family home sales and home improvement spending remain stagnant amid high interest rates. In Europe, the industry is projected to be down between 5% and 10%. Farm fundamentals in the region continue to deteriorate. Lingering headwinds include depressed yields from unfavorable weather, reduced regional commodity prices, and persistently elevated input costs. Confluence of these issues, coupled with high interest rates, are expected to keep industry equipment demand at low levels throughout 2025. Within South America, we anticipate industry sales of tractors and combines to be roughly flat as headwinds from 2024 stabilize but persist. Looking forward to 2025, while crop prices are expected to decline, input costs are also decreasing, with yields improving as drought concerns abate. Coupled with continued soybean acreage expansion, overall sentiment has improved. Although this has yet to translate into additional equipment demand. Additionally, recent appreciation of the U.S. dollar against the Brazilian real offers further profitability tailwinds as -- to farmers as commodity prices are typically quoted in dollars, while many input costs are denominated in real. Across the rest of South America, strong yields are offset by low commodity prices and elevated interest rates. Argentina, however, is experiencing some favorable tailwinds as government actions begin to stabilize the currency amid a recovery in the ag industry. Finally, industry sales in Asia are projected to be down slightly as foundational technology adoption and improving ag fundamentals in India provide moderate demand tailwinds. Moving to our segment forecasts on Slide 8. We anticipate production and precision ag net sales to be down approximately 15% in fiscal year 2025. The forecast assumes roughly 1 point of positive price realization and half a point of negative currency translation. Segment operating margin forecasts for the full fiscal year is between 17% and 18%, reflecting strong execution amid tough geographic and product mix headwinds. Slide 9 provides our forecasts for the small ag and turf segment. We expect fiscal year '25 net sales to be down around 10%. This includes about half a point of positive price realization, as well as half a point of positive currency translation. The segment's operating margin is projected to be between 13% and 14%. Shifting now to construction and forestry on Slide 10. Net sales for the quarter were down 29% year over year to 2.664 billion due to lower shipment volumes. Both price realization and currency translation were slightly positive in the quarter by less than half a point. Operating profit decreased to 328 million, resulting in a 12.3% operating margin. Lower shipment volumes and sales mix were partially offset by lower production costs and proceeds from special nonrecurring items. Slide 11 outlines our 2025 construction and forestry industry outlook. Industry sales for earthmoving equipment in the U.S. and Canada are expected to be down around 10%, while compact construction equipment in the U.S. and Canada is expected to be down 5%. Mixed end markets in 2025 are expected to temper equipment demand across both construction and compact construction equipment. Modest growth in single-family housing starts, and U.S. government infrastructure spending will be more than offset by further slowdowns in multifamily housing developments, still softening nonresidential building investments, and muted capex spending in oil and gas. Additional headwinds from historically low levels of earthmoving rental refleeting and somewhat elevated used inventories will further pressure equipment sales as market uncertainty persists into the start of fiscal 2025. Global forestry markets are expected to be flat to down 5% as challenged global markets stabilize at low demand levels in 2025. Global roadbuilding markets are forecasted to be roughly flat as the modest recovery in Europe compensates for modest slowdowns in other geographies. Continuing with our C&F segment outlook on Slide 12. 2025 net sales are forecasted to be down around 10% and 15%. Our net sales guidance for the year includes about 1 point of positive price realization and flat currency translation. The segment's operating margin is projected to be between 11.5% and 12.5%. Switching to our financial services operations on Slide 13. Worldwide financial services net income attributable to Deere & Company was 173 million for the fourth quarter. The year-over-year decline was mainly due to a higher provision for credit losses, partially offset by income earned on a higher average portfolio balance, a reduction in derivative valuation adjustments, and lower SA&G expenses. Results were also negatively impacted by the increased valuation allowance on assets held for sale of Banco John Deere. For fiscal year 2025, the net income forecast is 750 million. Results are expected to be higher year over year, primarily due to a lower provision for credit losses, partially offset by less favorable financing spreads. Additionally, 2024 results were affected by the valuation allowance on assets held for sale of Banco John Deere. Slide 14 concludes with our guidance for net income, effective tax rate, and operating cash flow. For fiscal year 2025, our full year net income forecast is expected to be in the range of $5 billion and $5.5 billion, highlighting structural improvements over previous cycles. Next, our guidance incorporates an effective tax rate between 23% and 25%. Lastly, cash flow from equipment operations is projected to be in the range of $4.5 billion to $5.5 billion. It is important to emphasize that our implied guidance of around $19 in earnings per share is at sub-trough levels, with expected sales for fiscal '25 below 80% of midcycle, underscoring our commitment to operational excellence as we focus on proactive management to drive customer value at all points in the business cycle. This concludes our formal remarks. We'll now cover a few key topics before opening the line to Q&A. But before we get into this detail, John, would you like to share your thoughts on the year? John C. May -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Yes. Thanks, Josh. 2024 was characterized by our resiliency in the face of significant challenges. The pullback we experienced in global markets this year provided our organization with an opportunity to showcase the structural improvements we've made since announcing the Smart Industrial operating model in 2020. Starting with our financial scorecard, we continued to demonstrate better performance across the cycle. Notably, our margins in 2024 exceeded 18%, reflecting nearly 700 bips of improvement from 2020, which was the last time we were at this point in the cycle. This margin expansion has enabled us to invest record levels back into the business this year. More important than the numbers, I couldn't be prouder of the resilience demonstrated by our John Deere employee team this year. The velocity at which markets slowed tested our discipline and our agility. However, in the face of these difficulties, we emerged more focused than ever on our mission to help our customers do more with less. Our dedicated teams across factories, engineering centers, dealerships, branches, offices, and in the field showed remarkable fortitude as we made proactive decisions based on hard-learned lessons from the past. We maintained our focus on the customer, ensuring we not only retain but also actively seek out the best talent with the skills and experience necessary to help us solve the significant challenges facing our customers. This year also brought about a range of new and exciting solutions as we furthered our progress on many of our Leap Ambitions, including connected machines, engaged acres, and autonomous acres. Our flagship Sense & Act technology, See & Spray, covered 1 million acres this year alone, reducing herbicide use by an average of nearly 60%. This solution and many other similar technologies we've developed have not only positively impacted our customers' operations but the environment as well. And we've only begun to scratch the surface. Our employees come to work every day, driven by a higher purpose that extends beyond merely solving a problem or completing a task. At the end of the day, we can confidently step back and reflect on the fact that our products are making a meaningful difference for our customers and the world. Josh Rohleder -- Manager, Investor Communications Thanks, John. I'd like to continue our discussion about the past year before we dive into '25. This past fiscal year clearly represented a very dynamic market, characterized by significant demand declines following peak levels in '23. Nevertheless, as you noted, John, we ended the year with over 7 billion in net income. Josh Beal, can you provide a breakdown of what happened during the quarter and throughout the fiscal year? Josh Beal -- Director, Investor Relations Yeah. Happy to, Josh, and it's best to start off with the quarter, which came in better than expected. We targeted field inventory reductions by pulling back production and shipping at our factories across the globe. Large ag retail sales of new equipment generally came in line -- came in as expected across most geographies and product lines, especially in North America. As a result, field inventory of new equipment, particularly North American tractors and combines, ended the year at extremely low levels on both an absolute and inventory to sales basis. We managed this underproduction while controlling costs, delivering year-over-year improvements in production costs and SA&G and R&D. Additionally, we successfully reduced in-process inventory levels, which drove much of the cash flow outperformance relative to our third quarter guide. Turning to the full year. John previously highlighted that our performance was marked by resiliency in the face of challenging market conditions, which necessitated tough operational decisions that required significant flexibility and adaptability from everyone: our employees, dealers, and suppliers. As a result, we successfully managed operations to lower levels of demand this year. Production costs for the full year came in favorable, primarily due to year-over-year improvements in material and freight costs across all business segments. Despite muted sales, we remained disciplined and committed to our investments in the business, maintaining record levels of R&D spending. We recognize that many of the new product introductions this year stemmed from investments that we made throughout the previous cycle, and we will continue to prioritize these value-creating investments moving forward. Overall, the decisive actions we took this year resulted in a solid finish. We closed fiscal year 2024 delivering strong returns while successfully reducing new field inventory levels, ultimately positioning the business to effectively execute on what are expected to be challenging market conditions in 2025. Josh Rohleder -- Manager, Investor Communications Thanks, Josh. That's great color on '24. Let's pivot directions now and discuss our fiscal 2025 outlook for ag and turf. The commodity price is down. Albeit partially offset by bumper crops across the U.S., farmer margins have been compressed. Our guide implies a challenging year for farmers in 2025. Josh, could you help us unpack what we're seeing here and what to expect by segment and geography? Josh Beal -- Director, Investor Relations Sure. It's definitely going to be another dynamic year across the ag industry. Let's start with large ag in North America. We expect farm fundamentals to remain depressed globally in 2025, putting additional pressure on farm profitability. Given the strong yields from U.S. harvest this past year, we've seen a rebuilding of global stocks, with the USDA forecasting global stocks to reach the fourth-highest level on record. Anticipated record production in South America, particularly in Brazil and Argentina, is likely to further pressure global commodity prices in 2025. And with input costs relatively flat year over year, farm net incomes will remain compressed globally. Conversely, dairy and livestock margins remain elevated, supported by significantly lower input feed costs and positive market demand. However, machinery demand for this segment has lagged the margin gains and positive sentiment as interest rates and slow herd expansion continue to be the primary headwinds. Broadly across the ag sector and despite significant macro headwinds, farm balance sheets remain strong, with land values supporting healthy debt to equity ratios. That said, as cash receipts have slowed and credit conditions in the industry have tightened, many growers are keeping a greater focus on the liquidity of their operations. As we look at the impact on equipment sales in the coming year, it's important to highlight the varying dynamics across each of our primary regions. As a reminder, our goal for 2024 was to underproduce global large ag retail by a high single digit. In North American large ag, we successfully achieved our underproduction goals for the fourth quarter, reaching targeted inventory levels on most of our key products. For example, new combine inventory was down mid-teens year over year on a unit basis and finished the year at 4% inventory to sales, in line with 2023 year-end levels. In 220-horsepower and above large tractors, we reduced field inventory by nearly 50% year over year, resulting in a year-end inventory to sales ratio of 10%, a 500-basis-point reduction year over year. In the last 10 years, inventory to sales ratios for 220-horsepower tractors for Deere have only been this low twice: in April 2014, just prior to the last down cycle; and in January 2022, due to post-pandemic supply constraints. Given the inventory reductions we've achieved, we expect to produce in line with retail demand in North America in 2025. We're encouraged by the progress we've made on this front, particularly as industry inventory to sales ratios for new equipment are more than double Deere's ratios for both 100-horsepower and above tractors and combines. Despite our proactive inventory management, macro factors continue to be a headwind for equipment demand in 2025, resulting in subdued early order program results. As a reminder, during our last earnings call in August, we were partway through the early order programs for sprayers and planters in North America and our combine early order program had just begun. As an update, our sprayer program concluded down from 2024, declining in line with our industry guide for North American large ag and setting 2025 production levels for sprayers below midcycle. Planters, on the other hand, experienced a more significant decline, closing with a year-over-year reduction greater than what we saw in sprayers. Finally, combines will complete the second of three early order program phases next week. And when this program closes at the end of January, we expect the product line to be down in a range similar to the reduction we've seen in sprayers. North American tractors are managed on a rolling basis, with row crop tractor order books full through the middle of the second quarter. Demand for row crop tractors in 2025 is expected to be down less than the overall industry forecast, with Deere shipments decreasing even less as production levels rebound to align with retail demand following our high single-digit underproduction for row crop tractors in 2024. Conversely, demand for four-wheel drive tractors in 2025 is expected to decline year over year more than the industry guide. But as a reminder, that product line actually saw increased demand in 2024. It's worth noting here that our order books for our newest tractor, the high-horsepower 9RX, which we introduced last February at Commodity Classic, are currently full through the middle of the fourth quarter, underscoring the value that we're bringing to the market and the importance of continued investment in our core product lines. Cory J. Reed -- President, Worldwide Agriculture and Turf Division Hey, Josh. This is Cory. I'd like to jump in here to highlight the efforts of our Canadian team and customers. We've seen significant competitive conversions in this market post our Smart Industrial redesign, which is focused on supporting the production steps that our customers take over the course of the year in their specific crop types and the geography. In Canada, the majority of broad acre farming occurs in the western half of the country. This primary production system means small grains, which is wheat, canola, and barley, and the operations tend to be large scale. Many of the new product introductions over the past few years have been tailor-made for solving our Canadian small grains customers' toughest challenges and doing so at the system level. From X9 combines to high-horsepower 9RX tractors to our C-Series air carts, coupled with our integrated technology solutions in the John Deere Operations Center, these customers are experiencing significant increases in productivity, in profitability, and in quality of life. And finally, when you layer in a dealer network that's committed to investing in their customers and ensuring they get the most out of their Deere equipment while delivering uptime and reliability, the result is exceptional system-level value for our Canadian customers. Josh Rohleder -- Manager, Investor Communications Thanks for that call out, Cory. Clearly, a great story with our team up there that should continue into the next year. And, Josh, thanks for the update on EOPs and the North American market. Now, can you walk us through what's happening in South America and maybe more specifically Brazil? Josh Beal -- Director, Investor Relations Of course. As you recall, Brazil represented our largest targeted underproduction in 2024 as we worked to correct excess new field inventory resulting from the market slowdown at the end of 2023. Our factory and marketing teams in the region worked diligently over the last year to adjust production and shipping in the midst of a dynamic retail sales environment. As a result, we've driven significant reductions in new field inventory units and have reached targeted levels for most product lines, enabling us to produce in line with retail demand in 2025 across most equipment categories. Given our flat guide for industry retails in 2025 and the significant underproduction to retail in 2024, producing in line with retail in 2025 will represent a double-digit increase in Deere shipments year over year in the region. The one product where we still have some work to do is combines, where inventories remain elevated following slightly weaker-than-anticipated retail sales in the fourth quarter. As a result, we're planning another year of underproduction for combines in Brazil in 2025, although to a much lesser extent, and with the majority of the inventory drawdown occurring in the first half of the year. Joshua Jepsen -- Chief Financial Officer Hey. This is Jepsen. I wanted to take a moment to express how proud we are of our South American team and the exceptional work they've done to efficiently and resourcefully rightsize inventory levels while maintaining strong operating margins. Our optimism in the region's prospects remains strong, demonstrated by our continued local investments focused on developing solutions in the region for the region. A great example is our investment in Brazil, in our new R&D center in Indaiatuba, which will be opened in December. This center will focus on developing the products our Brazilian customers need to tackle challenges specific to tropical agriculture. Josh Rohleder -- Manager, Investor Communications That's great, Josh. Now, let's finish it out with Europe. What are the dynamics over there? Josh Beal -- Director, Investor Relations 2024 was a tough year for the region. We really saw a perfect storm of factors, depressed commodity prices, lower yields, regional conflicts, and frustration with ag policy, that ultimately drove a retail sales decline much greater than normal for a market that is traditionally less volatile than North and South America. We expect this atypical trend to continue in 2025, with another year of declines as uncertainty, interest rates, pressure on cash crop receipts, and elevated field inventory levels weigh on equipment demand. To illustrate this challenge, harvest yields in France, the largest grain producer in Western Europe, came in this fall at multidecade lows, placing significant strain on many growers in that region. Similar to other regions, we had success in reducing Deere new field inventory units in Europe in 2024, driving levels down over 20% from the start of the year. However, due to the ongoing and greater-than-expected declines in retail demand, our field inventory targets have continued to adjust downward, in line with the market softening. We finished 2024 with inventory to sales ratios for both midsize tractors and combines at or slightly above the upper end of our targeted bands, which we feel necessitates further underproduction in those product lines in 2025. Order books in the region remain healthy, with orders for Manheim tractors extending into the second quarter of the year. One additional point to highlight for the ag outlook broadly is that our implied 2025 decrementals are impacted by product and geographic mix as North American large ag equipment like combines and row crop tractors experienced larger reductions compared to the rest of the world. This is particularly noteworthy in the first quarter given the year-over-year comparison to strong North American large ag sales in the first quarter of 2024. Now, when we think about the first quarter of 2025, we expect top-line sales for the equipment operations to be down 15% to 20% sequentially from 4Q '24, with margins 300 basis points to 400 basis points lower than the full year guide. Additionally, we are forecasting production costs to be favorable again in 2025 for the equipment operations, driven primarily by improved material costs and lower overhead expenses, all despite significant volume reductions. Overall, we expect to see positive price costs for the full fiscal year, yet another example of the structural improvements our teams continue to deliver. Josh Rohleder -- Manager, Investor Communications Thanks, Josh. That's a great walk around the world, as well as good additional insight into where we're projecting production costs for 2025. Now, we've talked extensively about 2025 order books and new inventories, but a significant concern heading into next year is North American used inventories. Last quarter, we discussed the levers we were pulling to return to long-term averages. Cory, this next question is for you. Can you give us an update on where we stand in North America and what steps we're taking to manage used inventory levels? Cory J. Reed -- President, Worldwide Agriculture and Turf Division Yeah. Sure, Josh. As you just heard, our team has done an excellent job proactively managing new inventories, and we're seeing the benefits of those decisions play out in 2025. But as you noted, our primary focus over the last few quarters and now heading into the new fiscal year is to diligently work to bring down used levels, especially late-model harvesting equipment and row crop tractors. Broadly speaking, we're seeing used inventory to new sales ratios starting to plateau, just above the long-term average. And while it's too early to call an inflection point on used equipment, we are encouraged by the slowdown in growth that we saw during the fourth quarter. As we look at used inventory by model year, we're seeing a similar phenomenon in both row crop tractors and combines. When compared to long-term average distributions, the current mix of used is heavier than normal in one- to two-year-old equipment and correspondingly lighter in model year 19 to 21 equipment. This correlates closely to a trade ladder in which second owners who typically buy late-model equipment every three to five years will be looking to come back into the market for this first time since pre-inflationary pricing and significant interest rate increases. This backdrop, along with compression in farm net incomes, is putting pressure on trade differentials and has slowed in this part of the trade ladder. As a result, we're hyper-focused on helping these farmers transition to this next generation of equipment, which is needed based on today's even tighter harvesting windows and transition to precision applications like high-speed planting. In turn, this will help the used market return to a more normal distribution mix by vintage of machine. Our approach to reducing used inventories is three-pronged. First and foremost, we've managed new inventory levels to ensure we don't flood the market as equipment demand moderates. Second, we're working closely with our dealers to drive targeted programs and engagement with each customer to understand their needs and what's most impactful to their bottom line. One example of the changes we made in 2024 as a result of this engagement is the offering of new financing programs, which have been greatly appreciated by both our customers and the dealers supporting them. Finally, we're further elevating pool fund contributions to ensure dealers have the necessary funds to drive new sales. Stepping back, despite the softer end markets, our dealers remain healthy. They're not only focused on managing used inventories in the near term but are also committed to continuing to invest in our technology journey. At the end of the day, our dealers are focused on one goal: consistently delivering greater value to our customers. John C. May -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Cory, I wanted to add a comment on the current state of our dealer network. Our dealers are in a structurally better position today versus previous cycles as we continue to work in close partnership with them to stay ahead of inventory demand changes. We recognize that we wouldn't have made the progress that we've seen in the field inventory without the execution of our dealers. They have and continue to invest in specialized capabilities while remaining strongly capitalized. This strength and our aligned purpose enhance the level of service and support that our customers receive, which remains our primary goal. Josh Rohleder -- Manager, Investor Communications Thanks, Cory and John. That's a great perspective. Let's shift now to construction and forestry. 2024 was a dynamic year and really a story of two halves, starting with solid stable demand in the first two quarters, consistent with the strong levels that we saw in '23. The second half, however, gave way to softening retails and tougher competition, which ultimately pressured margins as we proactively shifted to underproducing retail demand and the earthmoving segment in the fourth quarter. Josh Beal, can you walk us through what happened and how this will impact 2025? Josh Beal -- Director, Investor Relations Yeah, definitely. As you noted, we saw ongoing strength in retail demand for earthmoving equipment in the first half of 2024, but that shifted to a softening market in both our third and fourth quarters. We're seeing that trend continue this next year. And as reflected in our industry guides for both construction and compact construction, we expect further softening in 2025. Construction work is still robust, and government infrastructure spending associated with the IIJA is still less than 50% awarded. Our customers continue to see a strong backlog of work, albeit alongside stiffer competition, which is driving down bids and overall project margins. Compounded by elevated interest rates and a recently refleeted rental industry, there's less near-term appetite for new equipment purchases. Despite these pressures, it's worth reiterating that we continue to see robust utilization of equipment in the field. Josh Rohleder, earlier, you mentioned our decision to underproduce earthmoving retail demand in the fourth quarter of 2024, which successfully drove down field inventories over the past three months. Given the additional softening in retail demand that we're anticipating in 2025, we've made the decision to continue to underproduce retail in the first half of next year to ensure inventory levels are appropriately sized to respond to demand changes in the back half of 2025. In fact, much like large ag this past quarter, earthmoving lines at our North American factories will be shut down for approximately half of the total production days in the first quarter of the year. This will have a material impact on our quarterly decremental margins, as well as overall profitability for the segment in the quarter. Given the steady outlook for roadbuilding, combined with demand in global forestry being flat to down 5%, we expect these product lines to provide stability to our overall construction and forestry segment. Joshua Jepsen -- Chief Financial Officer Hey. This is Josh. Maybe just to summarize here, we feel good about our C&F business. However, we're being proactive, learning lessons from previous cycles, as well as our ag business. It's important to note that even with this underproduction, we're weathering the demand reduction and competitive environment better than we have in the past. This is a testament to the efforts of our team to drive structural improvements, alongside differentiated customer value, as we continue to concentrate our investments in margin accretive opportunities. Josh Rohleder -- Manager, Investor Communications Yeah, that's a great insight into what appears to be a dynamic market right now, Josh. Given the tougher competition and uncertainties surrounding long-term end market demand, our underproduction should put us in the best position to generate strong returns in the back half of the year. Now, for our last topic, I'd like to focus on our technology progress. Josh and Cory, there have been quite a few new product releases and milestones achieved over the last 12 months. Could you walk us through some of those key highlights and what it means for the business going forward? Cory J. Reed -- President, Worldwide Agriculture and Turf Division Sure, I can start. '24 represented a year of significant new product introductions and technological advancements available in our model year '25 equipment. These releases, ranging from our most powerful tractor ever designed to new seating equipment to the most advanced harvesting technology to date, are a testament to the success we've seen in our production systems approach. At the top end of our tech stack, we're seeing record adoption of some of our most advanced features. For example, over 75% of combine EOP orders have opted for our highest level of harvest settings automation because of the immediate value this technology will bring to their operations. In fact, we expect our customers will experience up to 20% boost, on average, in harvest productivity from this feature alone. Another great example would be large ag equipment in Brazil. We brought our new inventory levels down to target over the course of the year while managing to both maintain and grow market share. And this means that we not only grow the share of acres covered by equipment but also the number of acres connected to our John Deere Operations Center, which ultimately means more productive, more profitable farmers. Josh Beal -- Director, Investor Relations Yeah, that's right, Cory. And to put that statistic in perspective, we saw our global engaged acres grow by nearly 20% this past year, reaching 455 million acres, with South America up nearly 30%. And growth in highly engaged acres, which currently make up over 25% of our total engaged acres, is outpacing the overall growth trend in engaged acres as we see deeper and broader utilization. Global year-over-year growth in highly engaged acres is over 30%, with South America notably up nearly 50%. And while you noted that the adoption of some of our latest technologies has exceeded expectations, we're also continuing to see significant growth and adoption of some of our more established solutions during this downturn as farmers seek ways to enhance productivity and improve margins. For example, the adoption of ExactApply technology on model year '25 sprayers increased by over 10% year over year, reaching a nearly 80% take rate in this year's early order program. On See & Spray, as John mentioned, we've covered over 1 million acres in 2024, but just a few hundred units in the field. For 2025, across both factory-installed options and retrofit precision upgrades, we have currently taken over 1,000 orders for new See & Spray Premium and Ultimate units. As a result, we expect to see a significant increase in the number of acres covered by See & Spray technology in the 2025 season. Cory J. Reed -- President, Worldwide Agriculture and Turf Division Exactly. When you have technology that you know is going to save money for your customers, you want to get that solution in their equipment as quickly as possible. We recognize this is a revolutionary technology that requires our customers to invest time and effort to transform their crop care programs. But we also know that, typically, when we have a customer see it work in their field or in their operation, they see the value. Our goal is to enable more customers to experience the impact of our See & Spray technology by leveraging a different business model to unlock that value, which is more crucial than ever in the current macro environment. Joshua Jepsen -- Chief Financial Officer And, Cory, this is Jepsen. Maybe one thing to add on to that. There's been quite a bit of discussion about our pay-per-use model and if it's the right go-to-market strategy for some of our latest tech offerings. The reality is that we're seeing higher levels of adoption using this model compared to our traditional upfront pricing approach, but only when it makes sense. For example, take our precision ag Essentials Kit, which includes three foundational pieces of technology, guidance, connectivity, and onboard compute, needed to run any of our other precision technology solutions. We recently changed the pricing model from a one-time cost to a recurring license that allows customers to access the vital technology at a fraction of the traditional upfront investment. In the first year alone, we sold over 8,000 kits. And these kits are being installed on equipment with an average model year vintage of 2012. This example highlights the importance of finding new ways to meet our customers at every stage of their precision tech journey. It also emphasizes our commitment to providing cost-scaling solutions that enable all customers to adopt precision technology regardless of the size of their operations. Josh Rohleder -- Manager, Investor Communications Thanks, all. It's great to see so many proof points demonstrating how our continuous through-the-cycle investment in the business is driving significant innovation and differentiated value for our customers. Now, before we open up the line for questions, Josh Jepsen, do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share? Joshua Jepsen -- Chief Financial Officer Yeah, that'd be great. I'd start by echoing John's comments from earlier. 2024 marked a year of resiliency, resiliency in our business and resiliency in our employees who, in the face of significant challenges throughout the year, still performed at the highest level and with the utmost determination. And as a result, we delivered strong performance, including over $25 in EPS, marking the second-best level in company history, and returned over $5.6 billion to shareholders via dividends and share buybacks. It's noteworthy that our earnings per share and cash returned to shareholders not only surpassed historical midcycle levels but also historical peaks. This performance is yet another proof point of the structural performance improvement that we've made in the business and will build upon going forward. And possibly even more important is the fact that we were able to do all of this while maintaining significant investment in the business across both R&D and new product capital spending. As we look forward, we're encouraged by the significant pipeline of opportunities ahead, opportunities that we believe will drive even greater levels of customer productivity and profitability. Whether it's our continued rollout of differentiated, high-quality hard iron or our increasing breadth of precision technology solutions, our focus is on making sure that each dollar unlocks the most incremental value because, at the end of the day, the only way we succeed is if our customers succeed. As we look ahead to 2025, we're excited and confident as ever that we can perform at step function levels better than previous cycles. Our proactive decisions in 2024 have positioned us well to achieve structurally better margins in what we anticipate will be a sub-80% of midcycle year for our equipment operations. Said more simply, we expect to deliver higher margins at trough than we did during the previous peak in 2013. We're proud of what we've accomplished this year, but we're never satisfied. We come to work every day focused on solving the challenges our customers face. 2025 will be another year of discipline, hard work, and renewed focus to ensure our customers can achieve more tomorrow than they did today. Josh Rohleder -- Manager, Investor Communications Thanks, Josh. Now, let's open up the line to questions from our investors. We're now ready to begin the Q&A portion of the call. The operator will instruct you on the polling procedure. In consideration of others and our hope to allow more of you to participate in the call, please limit yourself to one question. If you have additional questions, we ask that you rejoin the queue. Operator. Questions & Answers: Operator Thank you. [Operator instructions] And our first question is from Kristen Owen with Oppenheimer. Your line is now open. Kristen Owen -- Oppenheimer and Company -- Analyst Hi. Good morning. Thank you so much for taking the question. Lots of color commentary, particularly around some of the cadence in Q1. But I'm just wondering if we could get a little bit of a cleaner bridge on what the margin expectations are for 2025, what are the puts and takes in terms of productivity costs that you're carrying over, raw materials, and the headwinds from the production in the first half. Josh Beal -- Director, Investor Relations Yeah. Good to see you, Kristen, and good to hear you. I'll take a shot and, team, jump in. I think as we think about margin, there's a few things at play here as we look at 2025. You know, first and foremost and notably, I think it's just the continued volume declines that we're seeing in the market. You know, expectations, as you look at the individual guides, would be that total equipment operations, you know, would be down in kind of around 13%, you know, for the full year. And certainly, that continued level of volume reduction, you know, is weighing on the margins. You know, as we mentioned, we expect pricing to be positive across all three segments. And Josh Jepsen mentioned, you know, favorable production costs as well. So, you know, we're seeing favorable price cost. And in addition to that, obviously, some of the decisions we've made in terms of reducing costs this year will carry over into next year as well, you know, providing a lift. And so, overall, you know, it's -- as we mentioned, you know, margin expectations relative to history, very strong. I think maybe lastly, as you think about decrementals, you know, probably a little bit higher than normal on the large ag business. That's really a mix-driven impact. You know, as we think about, you know, the large ag business in North America being down around 30%, you know, our sales reduction will be less than that given the comp to 2024 and the underproduction that we did this year. But still, the outsized reduction, you know, in one of our most profitable regions and in some of our most profitable product lines will weigh on decrementals next year. Thanks, Kristen. Operator Our next question is from Jerry Revich with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Jerry Revich -- Analyst Yes. Hi. Good morning, everyone. I'm wondering if you could just expand on the pool funds program and the use of pool funds to help the trade-ins for the late-model-year equipment. I know you can move around pool funds year to year. And given the incentives last year from the rebates to dealers, there's quite a bit that you're able to deploy to get those inventory levels down. Can you just flesh it out for us and if you don't mind just share the order of magnitude on how much you can put in that direction? Josh Beal -- Director, Investor Relations Yeah. Hey, Jerry. Yeah, as you think about pool funds, and maybe it's best to first put it in context where we started, you know, the year and really the past couple of years, you know, the strong equipment demand that we saw in 2022 and 2023 and the associated sales there really drove a record level of pool fund balance entering this downturn. And that's by design. You know, that's how we structured the program. You know, it provides stability in the used market when we see a downturn. And we've seen that play out, you know, in 2024 as those pool funds are being deployed by our dealers to help drive, you know, reductions in used inventory. You know, because of that, and again by design, we've seen pool fund balances, you know, decline over the course of the year as dealers are using those funds. You know, we put some additional incentives at work to help support that balance. That's what you saw with pricing in the fourth quarter for large ag as we talk about really flat pricing for the quarter. That was really some specific work targeted toward used and to help shore up the pool funds. And that's actually contemplated, you know, in our pricing guide for 2025 as well. You know, we're talking about net price of 1% for the segment. You know, that's inclusive if you think about, you know, list price increases for next year in the range of 2% to 3%. We are expecting a little bit higher incentive rate in 2025. And that higher incentive rate is really driven by a focus on continuing to, you know, put funds to work in the pool fund area. So, again, supporting the reduction in used that we're driving toward, and we'll continue to do that. And again, we can continue to do that with positive price. Joshua Jepsen -- Chief Financial Officer Hey, Jerry. This is Josh. The only other thing I'd add, I mean, on top of just the pool funds on used, you know, we had a good finish to the year from a retail perspective on new. You know, Josh Beal laid out the -- where we ended from a -- from an inventory perspective, whether it's, you know, large ag in North America or South America. We also had a really strong retail October in the construction division. So, you know, we've talked about the trend, which has been pretty negative the back half of the year. October was a turn for us. We -- you know, as noted in pricing, you know, we had a little more incremental incentives in the market. But we had a good month and really brought down inventory, upper teens reduction in inventory in earthmoving in 4Q. So, I think, you know, overall, between deploying incentives in the right places, whether it's for new or used, you know, we're seeing that impact and like how we're positioned as we step into '25. Thanks, Jerry. Operator Our next question is from Kyle Menges with Citigroup. Your line is open. Kyle Menges -- Citi -- Analyst Thank you. I was hoping if you could just unpack the full year guidance a little bit. Sounds like it is back half-weighted. Would just love to hear if that's kind of baking in any assumed improvement in retail demand in some of these end markets in ag and construction. Josh Beal -- Director, Investor Relations It's more so, Kyle, related to, I think, year-over-year comps. If you think about, you know, our segments, and I'll look at large ag and construction and forestry and just look at it by half, you know, in 2024, large ag in the first half of the year was down 10% year over year compared to '23. In the back half, it was down 30%. Similarly, in construction and forestry, first half of 2024, down 4% year over year; back half, down 20%. You know, so as you look at how that's going to play out in year-over-year comps for 2025, you know, we would expect greater year-over-year declines in the first half of the year for both segments, you know, particularly construction and forestry, where we talked about, you know, significant underproduction in the first half of the year. And then those comps will get progressively better as we move through the year, you know, when you're comparing to the back half of 2024. Thanks, Kyle. Operator Our next question is from David Raso with Evercore ISI. Your line is open. David Raso -- Analyst Hi. I'm going to slide in two quick ones if you don't mind, just sort of piggybacking off the last comment. So, the first quarter, just using midpoints, right, it's around $3 of earnings, sales down over 27%, EPS down about 50. But the rest of the year that is implied, you know, sales are only down 9, earnings down about 15. Just curious, I'm not trying to pin you to a quarterly cadence, but just so we have a sense of how the underproduction ceasing later in the year, at least, how you're interpreting it, are we back to growth year over year by the third quarter? And then second, not to get you in trouble, just curious your thoughts, I'll give you the platform to answer, with the new administration coming in, just how are you thinking about the impact of tariffs? You maybe compare it to last time the immigration question and obviously the appointment of the new secretary of Health and Human Services, just how to think about, framework-wise, how that could impact how farmers are thinking about their business? Thank you. Josh Beal -- Director, Investor Relations Yeah. Thanks, David. Thanks for the questions. You know, starting with the first one on the year, yeah, I mean, as Josh Jepsen mentioned, you know, as we think about Q1 particularly, you know, and sequentially, you know, that's going to be down 15% to 20% compared to the fourth quarter. And as Josh mentioned, if you look at the margin expectations for the first quarter, you know, 300 basis points to 400 basis points below the full year guide, you know, for equipment ops. So, certainly, you're going to see, you know, more of that decline in Q1, particularly, again, you know, noting construction and forestry, which will be at the top end of that range -- top-line sequential decline. And then actually margins, if you think about like decrementals for construction and forestry in the first quarter, it'll be higher than the implied guide for the full year, again given the underproduction. And then, you know, to your question, as you move throughout the course of the year, those year-over-year comps get better, you know, particularly in the back half, and you get to kind of flattish, if not up a little bit, you know, as you look at 2020 -- at Q3, Q4 of 2025. On the new administration, I mean, obviously, we're thinking about that in terms of how it impacts our customers, you know, how it impacts our suppliers, and certainly how it impacts our operations as well. You know, I think too early at this point to know exactly what that means in terms of enacted policy and what the impact will be on those three stakeholder groups. But certainly, we're engaging, and we will monitor that as we go forward. John C. May -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Yeah. And the other thing I'd like to add is we're -- this is John May, by the way -- we're positioned really well. We rely heavily on our highly skilled employees in the U.S. to design and build high-quality, the most technologically advanced equipment in the world. And as a result of that, greater than 75% of all products that we sell in the U.S. are assembled here in the U.S. and they're assembled by highly skilled employees, 30,000 employees in the U.S. that are located in 60 different facilities across 16 different states. And the result of all of their hard efforts and frankly manufacturing leadership results in John Deere ag and turf division being a net exporter of our products manufactured in the U.S. exporting it to other countries. So, we feel really positioned well. We've been at this for nearly 200 years, building product in the U.S. And I'm very, very proud of our team and what they're able to accomplish. Josh Beal -- Director, Investor Relations Thanks for the question, David. Operator Our next question is from Angel Castillo with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Angel Castillo -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst Hi. Thanks for taking my question. And I just wanted to maybe follow up a little bit more on the price dynamic, particularly in construction, where you noted, you know, some bigger underproduction in the first quarter here. It seems like there's a little bit of a broadening of the softness. I think we had talked about rental fleets as being a factor. And now, it sounds like a little bit broader than that. So, with that in mind, can you just give us a little bit of color on what drives the price guide for the year being positive in construction and/or maybe how to think about that in the first kind of half of the year versus the second half, and then, yeah, just maybe more color on the trends that you're seeing outside of rental? Josh Beal -- Director, Investor Relations Yeah. Thanks for the question, Angel. I mean, yeah, certainly, as we've mentioned, you know, I think the price dynamic in construction and forestry, you know, is competitive. And as we've talked, you know, it's a balance that we're maintaining, you know, between price and share as we look at the environment going ahead. In terms of the cadence of price, I mean, really nothing of significance there as you look at the layout of the year. And the other thing I'd remind you, too, is that if you think about our construction and forestry business and the different elements of that business, that includes roadbuilding, you know, which makes up 35% to 40% of that business as well. It's been a lot more stable and there's opportunity to get price, you know, there as well. And so, that adds into the mix, which is helpful, but certainly, it's -- it's dynamic. Thanks, Angel. Operator Our next question is from Rob Wertheimer with Melius Research, and your line is open. Robert Wertheimer -- Analyst Hi. Thanks, everybody, and thanks for the commentary around so many of the topics, including used equipment. I'm curious if you can talk any more about that. I don't know if you're seeing already the kind of early bow wave of people who would be trading up, you know, nibbling at some of the higher priced, higher valued used equipment. I don't know what -- if anything you can say about where you expect dealer used inventory balances to kind of progress throughout the year. Do we get to midyear and you've worked them down, you know, based on your production levels and how trade-ins work? Any further commentary on that would be great because that seems to be a sticking point still. Josh Beal -- Director, Investor Relations Yeah. Hey, Rob. Thanks for the question. Yeah, I mean, we feel good about the progress we've made. And I think, you know, as you think about where used inventory sits in North America, you know, it's going to be levels that we're going to work on here over the next few quarters. It's not something you turn overnight. I think we feel good about the stabilized level that we saw in the fourth quarter. You know, keep in mind, as you think about quarterly cadence on used, you know, Q4 for us is a big quarter from a retail standpoint of new equipment. That drives trade-ins, you know, coming in into the pipeline. And so, to be able to, you know, maintain and kind of mitigate the increase we've seen in the quarter, we feel good about. You know, Q1 provides a really good opportunity for us as we think about, you know, year-end tech buying. You know, production level is a little bit lower typically in the first quarter. You know, sequentially, this next quarter in Q1 provides an opportunity to continue to drive that down. But we'll be working over that again over the course of the next couple of quarters. Cory J. Reed -- President, Worldwide Agriculture and Turf Division Yeah. Rob, this is Cory. You know, we've seen -- as we closed out the harvest this year, we saw better-than-expected yields. Obviously, price has been a concern, but we've seen more profitability than was likely expected. Pricing activity in the market has been good. We said we're not ready to call the inflection point, but we have seen used levels plateau. Even though we had strong retail in the fourth quarter, you know, we continue -- we underproduced the demand, and we saw the effects of that on the new side. But it's also showing up in what we do in used, the dealers' tactical focus on being able to rightsize the value of these machines, rightsize the value of the trades. We're seeing people come back into the market. The bottom line is if you take a late-model used row crop tractor, those products are needed as people expand high-speed planting in the market. You know, we're taking high-speed down further into the marketplace. As they go out to plant in tighter windows, late-model, high-horsepower row crops are needed, and we're seeing people come back into the market for them. Josh Rohleder -- Manager, Investor Communications We probably time for one more question. Thank you. Operator Our last question is from Jamie Cook with Truist Securities. Your line is open. Jamie Cook -- Analyst Hey. Good morning and thanks for letting me ask the question. Just back to the decrementals on PP&A, you know, a little worse probably than I would have thought. And so, my question is to what degree is pricing? I know you said positive pricing for the year. But, like, with North America down 30%, can pricing be positive in that region? And then just the follow-up, I know you said equipment operations will be 80% of midcycle for 2025. Just your thoughts are on where large ag is going to be relative to midcycle as we exit the year and obviously what that means for '26? Thanks. Joshua Jepsen -- Chief Financial Officer Yeah. Hey, Jamie. Thanks for the question. Yeah, we expect to maintain, you know, positive pricing North America. And again, you know, taking production costs as well. So, price cost will be positive. You know, more muted, you know, than we've seen. We talk about 1% price realization. And how do we do that? I mean, it starts with the new inventory levels that we talked about. You know, again, kind of reiterate, you know, 220-horsepower tractors and above, you know, we reduced the units in the field by 50% over the course of the year. Inventory to sales ratios for 220-horsepower and above, like a 10%. So, very, very low. You know, combines at 4%. You know, because of those tight levels, you know, that allows us to maintain that price. And again, as I mentioned, we've contemplated some increased level of incentives next year. That increased level is going toward used, it's going toward pool funds. You know, as Cory described, we'll continue to work that down, continue to support our dealers in helping to make those trades. But net-net, given all those ingredients, we still believe we can deliver positive price in the year. Josh Beal -- Director, Investor Relations Hey, Jamie. It's Josh. The one other thing I'd point out is, you know, Brazil in '24, you know, given kind of all the challenges, there was negative from a price perspective. We see that bounce back, and we see it as positive price, you know, in '25, I think reflective of, you know, a flatter environment. Inventory is in better shape. So, we expect that to turn favorably. So, I think as you walk across the globe, we would expect positive price from PPA in every region of the world. Thank you. Josh Rohleder -- Manager, Investor Communications Thanks, all. That concludes our call for today. We appreciate everyone's time. And for those of us in the U.S., I hope you have a great Thanksgiving holiday. Have a great day. Operator [Operator signoff] Duration: 0 minutes Call participants: Josh Beal -- Director, Investor Relations Josh Rohleder -- Manager, Investor Communications John C. May -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Cory J. Reed -- President, Worldwide Agriculture and Turf Division Joshua Jepsen -- Chief Financial Officer Cory Reed -- President, Worldwide Agriculture and Turf Division John May -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Josh Jepsen -- Chief Financial Officer Kristen Owen -- Oppenheimer and Company -- Analyst Jerry Revich -- Analyst Kyle Menges -- Citi -- Analyst David Raso -- Analyst Angel Castillo -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst Robert Wertheimer -- Analyst Jamie Cook -- Analyst More DE analysis All earnings call transcripts

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