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Timothée Chalamet’s turn as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown earned praise from critics, including Rolling Stone’s David Fear , but like any biopic, some details and facts get left out or rearranged . The notoriously mercurial Dylan, who had input in the James Mangold biopic, even slipped a made-up scene into the movie. The movie is based on the 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric! , which documents Dylan’s pivotal 1965 performance at the Newport Folk Festival . His plugged-in performance of “Like A Rolling Stone” was controversial among festival attendees, who expected an acoustic set. The Timothée Chalamet film isn’t the first time this iconic era for Bob Dylan’s career has been documented — here’s what Dylan fans should read (and watch) after seeing A Complete Unknown . $12.79 $18.99 33% off Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric! is the direct inspiration for A Complete Unknown . The book delves deep into Bob Dylan’s Newport Folk Festival performance, in which he performed with an electric guitar and was backed by an amplified band, signaling a shift away from his politically focused acoustic folk music. Filmed the same year that A Complete Unknown is set, Bob Dylan: Don’t Look Back is an intimate portrait of Dylan on tour. Directed by D. A. Pennebaker, the 1967 documentary is streaming on Max and Hulu. It’s also available as a Blu-Ray or DVD from the Criterion collection . Martin Scorsese’s love of classic rock runs deep, and the director has made two documentaries about Bob Dylan since 2005. No Direction Home focuses on the same era as A Complete Unknown (in fact, both films take their titles from “Like a Rolling Stone” lyrics). Scorsese’s most acclaimed film to feature Dylan is The Last Waltz , which is about The Band (which had a stint as Dylan’s backing band during his electric era). His most recent is Rolling Thunder Revue , released in 2019 and available on Netflix . No Direction Home is not widely available on streaming services, but Prime members can stream it with a free trial to Quello Concerts, and the movie is available with a free standalone trial to the service . $19.99 The 1967 film Festival chronicles the Newport Folk Festival from 1963-1966, including the infamous 1965 Bob Dylan performance at the heart of A Complete Unknown . It features performances from other musicians featured in A Complete Unknown , including Pete Seeger and Joan Baez. For a decidedly more experimental take on Dylan’s life, I’m Not There stars six actors from different eras of Dylan’s career. The film, directed by Todd Haynes, embraces Dylan’s penchant for reinvention and obfuscation by casting actors as varied as Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger as characters inspired by Dylan and his influences. The film is streaming on Prime , for free with a library card with Kanopy , or free with ads on Pluto .Former US President Jimmy Carter has died aged 100. Photo: Reuters “My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said Chip Carter, the former president’s son. “My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.” A Democrat, he served as president from January 1977 to January 1981 after defeating incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford in the 1976 US election. Carter was swept from office four years later in an electoral landslide as voters embraced Republican challenger Ronald Reagan, the former actor and California governor. Carter lived longer after his term in office than any other US president. Along the way, he earned a reputation as a better former president than he was a president - a status he readily acknowledged. His one-term presidency was marked by the highs of the 1978 Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt, bringing some stability to the Middle East. But it was dogged by an economy in recession, persistent unpopularity and the embarrassment of the Iran hostage crisis that consumed his final 444 days in office. In recent years, Carter had experienced several health issues including melanoma that spread to his liver and brain. Carter decided to receive hospice care in February 2023 instead of undergoing additional medical intervention. His wife, Rosalynn Carter, died on November 19, 2023, at age 96. He looked frail when he attended her memorial service and funeral in a wheelchair. Carter left office profoundly unpopular but worked energetically for decades on humanitarian causes. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 in recognition of his "untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." Carter had been a centrist as governor of Georgia with populist tendencies when he moved into the White House as the 39th US president. He was a Washington outsider at a time when America was still reeling from the Watergate scandal that led Republican Richard Nixon to resign as president in 1974 and elevated Ford from vice president. "I'm Jimmy Carter and I'm running for president. I will never lie to you," Carter promised with an ear-to-ear smile. Asked to assess his presidency, Carter said in a 1991 documentary: "The biggest failure we had was a political failure. I never was able to convince the American people that I was a forceful and strong leader." Despite his difficulties in office, Carter had few rivals for accomplishments as a former president. He gained global acclaim as a tireless human rights advocate, a voice for the disenfranchised and a leader in the fight against hunger and poverty, winning the respect that eluded him in the White House. Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to promote human rights and resolve conflicts around the world, from Ethiopia and Eritrea to Bosnia and Haiti. His Carter Center in Atlanta sent international election-monitoring delegations to polls around the world. A Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher since his teens, Carter brought a strong sense of morality to the presidency, speaking openly about his religious faith. He also sought to take some pomp out of an increasingly imperial presidency - walking, rather than riding in a limousine, in his 1977 inauguration parade. The Middle East was the focus of Carter's foreign policy. The 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, based on the 1978 Camp David accords, ended a state of war between the two neighbors. Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland for talks. Later, as the accords seemed to be unraveling, Carter saved the day by flying to Cairo and Jerusalem for personal shuttle diplomacy. The treaty provided for Israeli withdrawal from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and establishment of diplomatic relations. Begin and Sadat each won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1978. By the 1980 election, the overriding issues were double-digit inflation, interest rates that exceeded 20% and soaring gas prices, as well as the Iran hostage crisis that brought humiliation to America. These issues marred Carter's presidency and undermined his chances of winning a second term. HOSTAGE CRISIS On November 4, 1979, revolutionaries devoted to Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, seized the Americans present and demanded the return of the ousted shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was backed by the United States and was being treated in a US hospital. The American public initially rallied behind Carter. But his support faded in April 1980 when a commando raid failed to rescue the hostages, with eight US soldiers killed in an aircraft accident in the Iranian desert. Carter's final ignominy was that Iran held the 52 hostages until minutes after Reagan took his oath of office on January 20, 1981, to replace Carter, then released the planes carrying them to freedom. In another crisis, Carter protested the former Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by boycotting the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. He also asked the US Senate to defer consideration of a major nuclear arms accord with Moscow. Unswayed, the Soviets remained in Afghanistan for a decade. Carter won narrow Senate approval in 1978 of a treaty to transfer the Panama Canal to the control of Panama despite critics who argued the waterway was vital to American security. He also completed negotiations on full US ties with China. Carter created two new US Cabinet departments - education and energy. Amid high gas prices, he said America's "energy crisis" was "the moral equivalent of war" and urged the country to embrace conservation. "Ours is the most wasteful nation on earth," he told Americans in 1977. In 1979, Carter delivered what became known as his "malaise" speech to the nation, although he never used that word. "After listening to the American people I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can't fix what's wrong with America," he said in his televised address. "The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America." As president, the strait-laced Carter was embarrassed by the behavior of his hard-drinking younger brother, Billy Carter, who had boasted: "I got a red neck, white socks, and Blue Ribbon beer." 'THERE YOU GO AGAIN' Jimmy Carter withstood a challenge from Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination but was politically diminished heading into his general election battle against a vigorous Republican adversary. Reagan, the conservative who projected an image of strength, kept Carter off balance during their debates before the November 1980 election. Reagan dismissively told Carter, "There you go again," when the Republican challenger felt the president had misrepresented Reagan's views during one debate. Carter lost the 1980 election to Reagan, who won 44 of the 50 states and amassed an Electoral College landslide. James Earl Carter Jr was born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, one of four children of a farmer and shopkeeper. He graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1946, served in the nuclear submarine program and left to manage the family peanut farming business. He married his wife, Rosalynn, in 1946, a union he called "the most important thing in my life." They had three sons and a daughter. Carter became a millionaire, a Georgia state legislator and Georgia's governor from 1971 to 1975. He mounted an underdog bid for the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination, and out-hustled his rivals for the right to face Ford in the general election. With Walter Mondale as his vice presidential running mate, Carter was given a boost by a major Ford gaffe during one of their debates. Ford said that "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration," despite decades of just such domination. Carter edged Ford in the election, even though Ford actually won more states - 27 to Carter's 23. Not all of Carter's post-presidential work was appreciated. Former President George W Bush and his father, former President George HW Bush, both Republicans, were said to have been displeased by Carter's freelance diplomacy in Iraq and elsewhere. In 2004, Carter called the Iraq war launched in 2003 by the younger Bush one of the most "gross and damaging mistakes our nation ever made." He called George W Bush's administration "the worst in history" and said Vice President Dick Cheney was "a disaster for our country." In 2019, Carter questioned Republican Donald Trump's legitimacy as president, saying "he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf." Trump responded by calling Carter "a terrible president." Carter also made trips to communist North Korea. A 1994 visit defused a nuclear crisis, as President Kim Il Sung agreed to freeze his nuclear program in exchange for resumed dialogue with the United States. That led to a deal in which North Korea, in return for aid, promised not to restart its nuclear reactor or reprocess the plant's spent fuel. But Carter irked Democratic President Bill Clinton's administration by announcing the deal with North Korea's leader without first checking with Washington. In 2010, Carter won the release of an American sentenced to eight years hard labor for illegally entering North Korea. Carter wrote more than two dozen books, ranging from a presidential memoir to a children's book and poetry, as well as works about religious faith and diplomacy. His book "Faith: A Journey for All," was published in 2018.
TC Energy Co. ( NYSE:TRP – Get Free Report ) (TSE:TRP) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, November 7th, Zacks Dividends reports. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be paid a dividend of 0.822 per share by the pipeline company on Friday, January 31st. This represents a $3.29 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 7.11%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 31st. This is an increase from TC Energy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.70. TC Energy has increased its dividend payment by an average of 5.0% per year over the last three years. TC Energy has a dividend payout ratio of 84.5% indicating that its dividend is currently covered by earnings, but may not be in the future if the company’s earnings decline. Research analysts expect TC Energy to earn $2.71 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.29 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 84.5%. TC Energy Price Performance Shares of NYSE:TRP opened at $46.26 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.31, a quick ratio of 1.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.78. TC Energy has a twelve month low of $31.83 and a twelve month high of $50.37. The company’s 50 day moving average is $47.68 and its 200 day moving average is $44.72. The company has a market cap of $48.02 billion, a PE ratio of 12.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.88 and a beta of 0.82. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of analysts have recently commented on TRP shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded TC Energy from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, October 14th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price objective on shares of TC Energy from $38.00 to $42.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a research note on Monday, October 21st. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of TC Energy from an “underweight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, October 25th. UBS Group upgraded shares of TC Energy from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on shares of TC Energy from $66.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 20th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $55.67. Read Our Latest Research Report on TRP About TC Energy ( Get Free Report ) TC Energy Corporation operates as an energy infrastructure company in North America. It operates through five segments: Canadian Natural Gas Pipelines; U.S. Natural Gas Pipelines; Mexico Natural Gas Pipelines; Liquids Pipelines; and Power and Energy Solutions. The company builds and operates a network of 93,600 kilometers of natural gas pipelines, which transports natural gas from supply basins to local distribution companies, power generation plants, industrial facilities, interconnecting pipelines, LNG export terminals, and other businesses. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for TC Energy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for TC Energy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .The 2024 BMW i7 eDrive50 EV all electric RWD sedan
How Jimmy Carter spent his final years building houses for the poor as he continued life of public service
A recent advisory from the United States Surgeon General has made it clear — parents and caregivers are burned out. In a 2023 poll of more than 3,100 American parents, nearly 50 per cent reported experiencing debilitating levels of stress most days. Other recent surveys from Canada and the U.S. also found between 20 to 30 per cent of parents are experiencing moderate to severe levels of anxiety that could warrant a clinical diagnosis. When the tasks of the holidays are piled onto this baseline stress, it’s easy to see how the “season of joy” may feel more like the “season of overwhelm.” How can both our society as a whole and parents as individuals dial back the pressure? Structural changes are essential. But scientific insights about child development can also help parents prioritize what matters most and shift how they respond to things that may otherwise trigger anxiety. Much of what is making parents stressed these days is structural in nature: things are more expensive, it’s hard to find affordable child care, parents are more isolated, work is taking up more of parents’ time and children’s engagement with ever-evolving technology brings a range of serious health and safety concerns . These factors disproportionately affect parents who experience poverty, racism, violence or trauma. Addressing them will require substantial political and cultural shifts . But there are smaller factors to tackle as well. Parents today have more access to information than ever before. It’s not just a pediatrician or family member they can turn to for advice, but endless blogs, forums and social media platforms. While online sources can build community and confidence, they can also contribute to information overload as panic headlines and contradictory advice often compound parents’ feelings of anxiety and being overwhelmed. These platforms also tend to showcase idyllic situations that lead parents to create unhelpful comparisons and unrealistic expectations, contributing to feelings of shame and guilt . To counteract these feelings, it’s helpful to remember a few things: children’s development is influenced by many things parents can’t control, there are many benefits to imperfect parenting and independent play and parent wellness matters more than most else. It’s common for people who haven’t experienced discrimination or unexpected challenges to attribute children’s behaviours and outcomes to parents’ choices and efforts. This is an example of “attribution bias,” a bias towards a particular kind of explanation . Developmental science helps dispel this bias by highlighting that children’s development is influenced by many factors other than parenting and beyond parents’ control. First among these is genetics. For example, twin studies have found that genetic factors explain 57-76 per cent of child/adolescent mental illness, 60-84 per cent of picky eating and 60-85 per cent of school achievement. Another is exposure to adverse or positive experiences , such as witnessing violence or being supported by friends and non-parental adults. These types of experiences have substantial effects on children’s physical and mental health. But they are inequitably distributed, based on factors such as income and race . There are big differences in children’s temperaments and how they respond to their environments . The same parenting strategy applied to two different children can lead to two very different outcomes, as you may have observed in siblings. This is why the next time you catch yourself feeling shame or judgment about a child’s behaviour, it’s important to remember parenting choices might not be to blame. Psychologists and pediatricians often recommend certain parenting strategies to support children’s development. But rarely do these providers suggest parents must follow their advice 100 per cent of the time to achieve the desired effects. It’s what happens most of the time that matters. Even when parenting “imperfections” happen, like breaking routines or uncharacteristically snapping at children, they can be seen as opportunities. When “rupture” is followed up by “repair” in the form of acknowledgement, apologies, explanations and/or moments for restoring connection, it can benefit the parent-child attachment relationship and help children build their emotion-regulation skills. By using repair after the overwhelming moments that often happen during the holidays, parents can transform these moments from sources of shame to reasons for pride. Over the past few decades, parents’ worries about children’s physical safety have grown , while children’s unsupervised play time has declined . Many parents are spending more time with their children , hovering or helicoptering over them rather than promoting independent play. No doubt, playing with the support of a responsive adult has many benefits for children’s learning and development . But when it comes to parent involvement in play, sometimes less is more. Research shows that unstructured play — play that isn’t organized by adults and doesn’t have defined goals — is a “ fundamental necessity ” for children’s well-being. Outdoor risky play has enormous benefits for children’s physical and mental health that outweigh many of the perceived safety risks. There are also many unique benefits of playing with peers for both academic and social skill development. With this in mind, if you are a parent who is regularly your child’s main playmate, it may be time to seek more opportunities to take a step back. The holidays can be a great time to start. News and social media feeds are full of panic headlines that can make it seem that certain foods, toys or parenting habits are what make or break children’s life outcomes. It’s easy for parents consuming this media to feel anxious or even want to change their purchases or behaviours in response to every new study. But most headlines overstate the findings of weak studies or small effects. And if following the headlines comes at the cost of parental well-being, it could be doing more harm than good. This is because one of the most consistent and strongest predictors of children’s well-being is having safe, stable and nurturing relationships with caregivers — as both the Canadian and American Pediatric Societies have stated. Children need present and responsive caregivers more than they need any specific foods, presents or new parenting fads. This is why it may be worth considering what you can do to support yourself or other parents’ well-being this year. This could mean providing practical or social support to the parents around you or just making them feel heard and understood . With high parental stress , it’s more important than ever for everyone to replace judgment with empathy and advice with real support. And for parents, let’s try to distinguish what we can and can’t control, practise self-forgiveness in tough times, allow ourselves moments to do less and focus in on what matters most. It might help us experience more moments of joy in this holiday season and through all the seasons of parenthood. Nina Sokolovic has worked in several roles at non-profit and government organizations that support the well-being of children and parents, including her current as a Senior Policy Analyst in the Ontario Public Service. She previously received funding for her research from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
A handful of Fresno Unified paraprofessional employees who work with autistic children at Ericson Elementary School returned Wednesday evening to tell the School Board that recent job reassignments are making their classrooms less safe and cutting into education time. It was their second trip this month to address the board at the Nutrition Center on Brawley Avenue, where trustees are meeting while their downtown headquarters is being renovated. And the paraprofessionals say they plan to keep coming until someone does something. Until this month, four Ericson staffers were teaming up with a teacher in a classroom where children from preschool through kindergarten age with moderate to severe autism get lessons on socialization and learning their ABCs. The sooner in life that children with autism can get the kind of intensive support that the Ericson team has been providing, the likelier that someday they will have the skills to be able to join general education classes and interact — and learn from — other youngsters as they progress through school. When they arrive at Ericson, many of the youngsters are still in diapers and require physical care as well as close supervision to keep them from physical altercations with other students or from hurting teachers and paraprofessionals. Unlike teachers, paraprofessionals do not have a teaching credential and are classified, not certificated, employees. But they participate in educational activities, augmenting the work of the classroom teachers. District Seeks ‘Baseline’ Staffing Levels But starting on Nov. 7, the dynamics of their Ericson class changed when two staffers were transferred to Mayfair Elementary School, at the same time that two new students were added to the class. It’s part of the district’s move toward “baseline” numbers of staffers across the district, district human resources officials told GV Wire. The district worked with the CSEA union this summer to conduct hiring fairs to fill 1,000 paraprofessional vacancies, some of whom were hired to work with special education students, and were able to fill about 85% of them, said Annarita Howell, assistant superintendent of labor relations. Once the school year began, the district began to examine assignments and staffing levels, including after classes were “leveled” and new rooms were opened, she said. When programs are moved, staff are moved with them, Howell said. The district has already moved about 20 to 25 staffers and may move more after the winter holiday break, she said. After the end of the COVID pandemic the district took a hard look at staffing and realized that some schools had more staffers than others, leading to the reassignments this year, Howell said. But Fresno Unified is not blind to the fact that some students need additional support, and HR officials are meeting with district staff to match enrollment needs to staffing assignments, she said. Student Needs, Not Staff Levels However, baseline staffing does not take into account the needs of students, say the paraprofessionals. The Ericson class added two students while losing one of the two staffers who went to Mayfair. “All they’re doing is looking at numbers. They’re just looking at how many staff we had compared to how many students we had,” said paraprofessional Janetta Routson. “They’re not coming into classrooms and looking at things and figuring out why we have so much staff.” The remaining staff is strapped and unable to do little more than provide daycare, said Brooke Acosta, one of the two staffers who was transferred to Mayfair. “It’s sad and disappointing that our room and other classrooms throughout the district are having to be run more like a daycare and not a school because we cannot run academics and keep the kids safe at the same time,” she said at Wednesday’s board meeting. After Wednesday’s board meeting, several staffers rolled up their sleeves to show bite marks and pinch marks that their young charges have given them. Parent Worried About Son Mai Xiong, an Ericson parent, said she’s concerned about the safety of her son, a transitional kindergartner now in his second year at Ericson. “Taking my son to school every day is like me putting my trust on the staff there and for them not going to have enough staff, it’s kind of, you know, it’s the unknown. You worry every day for the sake of their child,” she told the board. Staff is stretched so thin at Ericson that they no longer have the time to work with parents such as Xiong on how they can continue lessons from the classroom when they’re home with their kids. Doing so can help accelerate learning opportunities for children with autism, Routson said. “It helped parents to come in and see what we are doing with students and then they can take some of what we do home and use it at home as well, which I’ve seen Miss Mai do, and it’s amazing,” she said. “But now we can’t invite parents into the classroom because we don’t have the staff to hold events like that. So it’s really taking away from them as well.”Trump asks Supreme Court to delay TikTok ban so he can weigh in after he takes office
Be more transparent with yours data billings – NCC tells network providersCanada Carbon Inc. ( CVE:CCB – Get Free Report )’s share price was down 33.3% during mid-day trading on Friday . The company traded as low as C$0.01 and last traded at C$0.01. Approximately 859,726 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 283% from the average daily volume of 224,190 shares. The stock had previously closed at C$0.02. Canada Carbon Stock Performance The company has a market capitalization of C$2.05 million, a PE ratio of -1.00 and a beta of 0.69. The company’s 50-day moving average is C$0.02 and its 200 day moving average is C$0.02. About Canada Carbon ( Get Free Report ) Canada Carbon Inc engages in the acquisition, exploration, and evaluation of natural resource properties in Canada. The company primarily explores for graphite deposits. It holds interests in the Miller property that covers an area of approximately 100 square kilometers located to the west of Montreal in the Grenville Township; and the Asbury Graphite property, which includes 22 claims covering an area of approximately 1,205.9 hectares located in the Laurentides region of southern Quebec. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Canada Carbon Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Canada Carbon and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .
JB Hunt CEO Shelley Simpson sells $1.1 million in stockThe request came as TikTok and the Biden administration filed opposing briefs to the court, in which the company argued the court should strike down a law that could ban the platform by January 19 while the government emphasised its position that the statute is needed to eliminate a national security risk. “President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute. Instead, he respectfully requests that the court consider staying the Act’s deadline for divestment of January 19 2025, while it considers the merits of this case,” said Mr Trump’s amicus brief, which supported neither party in the case. The filings come ahead of oral arguments scheduled for January 10 on whether the law, which requires TikTok to divest from its China-based parent company or face a ban, unlawfully restricts speech in violation of the First Amendment. Earlier this month, a panel of three federal judges on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the statute, leading TikTok to appeal to the Supreme Court. The brief from Mr Trump said he opposes banning TikTok at this junction and “seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office”.
Qatar tribune Zaki Kaf Al-Ghazal One of the earliest slogans of the 2011 revolutionaries in Syria was, “The Syrian people will not be humiliated.” They were right. In the end, it was their President, Bashar Al-Assad, who fled from Syria in the middle of the night without even notifying his loyalists. He made a quick exit knowing that all was lost. The Assad family mafia, which has been in power for 54 years, has collapsed. The president of Syria for 24 years is now apparently in Moscow. After an uprising that has lasted 13 years, the significance of this news cannot be understated. Syria is currently the only bastion of the 2011 Arab Spring with a live revolution left. Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain fell prey to the forces of the counter-revolution, whilst Libya and Yemen were engulfed totally by chaos. Russia and Iran have essentially kept the Assad regime in place over the past few years; the former with diplomatic protection at the UN and constant air support, and the latter with its militias and proxies, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, working on the ground to organise Assad’s forces. Russia has had access to Mediterranean ports for its navy, whilst Iran has used Syria to expand its hegemony in the region and supply arms to Hezbollah with ease. Even Israel has benefited from the Assad family, and has been advocating quietly for him to stay. The Golan Heights, occupied illegally by Israel since 1967, have been quiet since 1973 and Israel has craved the stability that the Assad regime has offered. Efforts to normalise and rehabilitate the Assad regime gained traction only 18 months ago as various Arab states rushed to readmit Bashar to the Arab League, with policymakers and pundits commenting that Assad has won and that the war is over. As mentioned on multiple occasions, though, Assad’s “victory” was both pyrrhic and short term. The swift collapse of his regime in a matter of days only lends credence to this view. The governance of Syria by Assad and his cronies has been an utter failure. Syria is recognised by experts as a failed state. The economy is moribund, and life there has come to a grinding halt for most of its citizens. Emigration and the fleeing of hundreds of thousands of working-age men who are refugees across the Middle East and Europe because they fear living under Assad’s rule has hit the regime hard. There are no opportunities for the young, and unless its citizens have access to remittances from abroad or have support from benefactors in the state or pro-government militias, then even buying bread and groceries are difficult due to rampant inflation. Syria is now also a narco-state, and it seems that the regime has collapsed under the weight of its own incompetence and brutality. Moreover, Assad’s allies have been unimpressed with him more recently.A number of senior Iranian army commanders have been killed in Syria in recent weeks and months, having been targeted by Israeli air strikes. The fact that this has been happening so often has led to questions about Assad’s officials leaking information to the occupation state. Whether intentional or a result of endemic corruption in the military, the Iranians are deeply unhappy that a regime that they have propped up for years can’t keep its benefactor’s commanders safe. Russia, meanwhile, has been unhappy about Assad’s reluctance to engage with the Astana Peace Process, which, ironically, happens to be weighted heavily in his favour. It is also worth mentioning that the issue of Syrian refugees in Turkiye has become a challenge for President Erdogan, who has been keen to find a solution and resettle them after coming under domestic pressure to do something. The Arab states which have pushed for normalisation with Assad over the past year and a half have not seen any fall in the captagon trade which his regime has fuelled, and are having to deal with the consequences. Assad has done nothing to show that he’s distanced himself from Iran which was part of the Arab states’ demand for normalising relations with Damascus again. And although Assad has claimed for years to be a part of the “Axis of resistance”, the regime has said and done nothing as Gaza burned and its people continue to face a genocide, even as thousands of Palestinian refugees are still in Assad’s prisons, and people still remember his massacres of them. The accumulation of all of these circumstances and events provided the opposition in Syria with the opportunity to strike now. The opposition forces today are a different proposition to those of the early revolutionary years, when they were loosely organised factions with little access to weapons. There seems to be a sense of unity amongst them which has been missing. Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), operating under the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG), and other factions — including Ahrar Al-Sham, the Sham Legion and the Nour Al–Din Al-Zenki Movement, for example — used the element of surprise to launch an attack on Aleppo which was more successful than people thought it would be. Assad’s forces, the Syrian Arab Army, are a hollow shell of their previous self; morale is low and funding has been cut for months due to economic problems. Even a last-minute attempt to raise the troops’ salaries didn’t offer any encouragement. The soldiers being called up were young men forced onto the front-line; professional troops were killed in combat years ago or had defected. These young men saw Israel as their enemy, not fellow Syrians. Moreover, there were tensions with the few Iranian units still on the ground, with Syrian soldiers feeling that they were looked down upon in their own country, which didn’t bode well. When this is factored in alongside the absence of Hezbollah due to the movement’s weakening in the war with Israel, it should have been no surprise that the Syrian regime forces collapsed as quickly as they did. The opposition forces in Idlib, meanwhile, were organising and preparing themselves over a longer period, had established a local governing system and had even managed to make and produce some of their own weapons, including the “Shaheen” drones which helped in their quick advance towards Aleppo and Damascus. When Aleppo was liberated, the Assad regime repeated the same tactics it has used over the course of the 13 year conflict, shelling the city and bombing hospitals to terrorise its citizens into submission. This time though, due to Russia’s preoccupation with Ukraine and its own exasperation with the regime, its support was much more limited, and Assad’s air strikes alone weren’t enough.He was arrogant and thought that he was his father, Hafez, who was well-known for the “hamburger trick”; he would toy with other leaders, pretending to offer something substantive (the “hamburger”), while actually just giving the bread. In the meantime, he kept playing political games, dragging his heels on the Astana Peace Process and barely pretending to engage with the Geneva Peace Process. Turkiye’s Erdogan has been trying to meet him and rekindle a normalisation process, but Assad in his arrogance refused. The US is going through a presidential transition, of course, and Biden is a lame duck who at this stage of his time in the White House won’t be making decisions of any strategic importance. Assad thought that he could play states off against each other and it seems to have blown up in his face. Given that he escaped any real punishment from the international community for repeated use of chemical weapons and years of dropping barrel bombs on hospitals and schools, it’s obvious why he became so arrogant. As opposition forces declare a Syria free from the Assad dynasty’s rule for the first time since 1971, there are a plethora of challenges to face. They will now need to build institutions and prove that they are serious about governing the country. They must be able to work with state bureaucracy and deliver basic services such as electricity and water. The early signs are encouraging, with reports from Aleppo that residents have access to electricity. The security situation is also crucial, and looting and chaos must be prevented. The fact that former Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Al-Jalali is supervising state bodies until a transition goes ahead to provide some continuity of service is good news. The north east region which has been ruled by the separatist Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and other Kurdish groups will require a delicate balancing act by the new authority in Damascus. The SDF worked tacitly with Assad in the past so must be convinced to work with the new government. Furthermore, the new authority must be wary of Israel’s cross-border incursions since Assad’s abrupt departure. It is imperative for HTS to kickstart a political transition as soon as possible. Ideally, the group will be dissolved, as promised, and an independent body will govern day to day as an election date is set and a constitution is drafted. HTS is designated as a terrorist organisation by the US, the UK, the UN and others, although its leader, Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani — real name Ahmed Al-Sharaa — has stressed the fact that it has long broken from Al-Qaeda. In a recent CNN interview, he promised that Syria’s minorities will be protected and that a proper legal system will be put in place. It is too early to tell whether this is just good PR or is genuine and, if it is the latter, if he can ensure that opposition groups on the ground will listen. The Syrian people rose up in 2011 against the Assad regime to demand a system that respects human rights and the rule of law and gives the people the dignity they deserve. If any authority does not do this, they can expect resistance quickly. Ideally, the International Criminal Court will charge Assad with committing war crimes and crimes against humanity and issue an arrest warrant. There has been movement towards this in the past, but it has moved at a glacial pace. This is the justice that the Syrian people crave. The finality of seeing Assad and his cronies in the dock will not bring back the dead or disappeared, but it would go some way to easing the pain of their families. Ultimately, it must be for the Syrian people to choose their next leader and take their next steps. Russia, Iran, the US, Israel, Turkey and the Gulf states should not have a say, and any international effort should only be to help coordinate the operations of a transitional government which can facilitate free and fair elections in the coming months. The Syrian people overthrew Assad themselves; all it took was for Assad’s backers to abandon him. The sacrifices that the people have made over the past decade are astonishing, and the stream of released detainees demonstrates this, as even women and children were amongst those detained unjustly. Syria will now be what is meant to be: a republic. It is no longer one of just two states with a hereditary presidency. History tells us that empires rise and fall, and that nothing is guaranteed forever. The uprising of the Syrian people demonstrated this. Once-powerful states can crumble quicker than expected, and what was achieved in Syria can be an example for others. As we think about the aggression of Israel against the Palestinian people, we see that it’s sowing the seeds for its own demise in the future. As we learn from history, oppressive regimes set themselves up to fail, and the status quo which benefits the oppressor crumbles. (Zaki Kaf Al-Ghazal is the Media and Advocacy Officer of the Syrian Association of Yorkshire having completed an LLM in Legal and Political Theory at the University of York, he is currently a PhD candidate at the same university’s Law School.) Copy 10/12/2024 10Washington recovers from upset, rolls past NJIT
President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Friday to pause the potential TikTok ban from going into effect until his administration can pursue a “political resolution” to the issue. The request came as TikTok and the Biden administration filed opposing briefs to the court, in which the company argued the court should strike down a law that could ban the platform by Jan. 19 while the government emphasized its position that the statute is needed to eliminate a national security risk. “President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute. Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Act’s deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case,” said Trump’s amicus brief, which supported neither party in the case and was written by D. John Sauer, Trump’s choice for solicitor general. The argument submitted to the court is the latest example of Trump inserting himself in national issues before he takes office. The Republican president-elect has already begun negotiating with other countries over his plans to impose tariffs, and he intervened earlier this month in a plan to fund the federal government, calling for a bipartisan plan to be rejected and sending Republicans back to the negotiating table. Trump has also reversed his position on the popular app, having tried to ban it during his first term in office over national security concerns. He joined the app during his 2024 presidential campaign and his team used it to connect with younger voters, especially male voters, by pushing content that was often macho and aimed at going viral. He said earlier this year that he still believed there were national security risks with TikTok, but that he opposed banning it. This month, Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Chew at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. The filings Friday come ahead of oral arguments scheduled for Jan. 10 on whether the law, which requires TikTok to divest from its China-based parent company or face a ban, unlawfully restricts speech in violation of the First Amendment. Earlier this month, a panel of three federal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the statute , leading TikTok to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. The brief from Trump said he opposes banning TikTok at this junction and “seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.” In their brief to the Supreme Court on Friday, attorneys for TikTok and its parent company ByteDance argued the federal appeals court erred in its ruling and based its decision on “alleged ‘risks’ that China could exercise control” over TikTok’s U.S. platform by pressuring its foreign affiliates. The Biden administration has argued in court that TikTok poses a national security risk due to its connections to China. Officials say Chinese authorities can compel ByteDance to hand over information on TikTok’s U.S. patrons or use the platform to spread or suppress information. But the government “concedes that it has no evidence China has ever attempted to do so,” TikTok’s legal filing said, adding that the U.S. fears are predicated on future risks. In its filing Friday, the Biden administration said because TikTok “is integrated with ByteDance and relies on its propriety engine developed and maintained in China,” its corporate structure carries with it risk. Haleluya Hadero And Michelle Price, The Associated Press
Letter: Credentials not enough to lead America
Hassan: Minister for minor irrigation and science and technology, NS Boseraju, instructed officials to prioritise providing electricity connections to borewells drilled under the Special Component Plan (SCP) and Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) schemes for the benefit of the underprivileged. He directed the officials concerned that they should submit bills immediately after completing the works and monitor repairs to tank bunds to ensure they are stable. IPL 2025 mega auction IPL Auction 2025: Who got whom IPL 2025 Auction: Updated Full Team Squads Officials were also instructed to expedite check dam projects. Boseraju emphasised completing old projects and paying attention to ongoing ones. He urged officials to address the reasons for work delays and take steps to complete projects. The minister directed officials to initiate tenders as soon as projects are approved and to start work promptly to benefit the public without delay. Despite widespread rainfall this time, some tanks have not filled up. He emphasised identifying the reasons and focusing on tank conservation. Karnataka State Housing Board chairman and MLA KM Shivalingegowda stated that many tanks are encroached upon and constructing check dams would benefit villages. Atal Bhujal Yojana director Kiran Masuti, chief engineer Prakash Shreehari, superintendent engineer Prashant, executive engineer TN Ramachandra, and other officials were present.China develops recoil-free AK-47 for drones to advance unmanned warfare
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