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DULUTH — Friends and colleagues took to social media to remember Mary Murphy upon the news of her death on Wednesday, Dec. 25. Murphy was the longest-serving female legislator and second-longest-serving member of the Minnesota House. Murphy died at the age of 85 on Christmas Day, just days after suffering a stroke . ADVERTISEMENT House Speaker Melissa Hortman (DFL-Fridley) announced Murphy’s death in a post on Facebook, which read: “She was a wonderful state representative and human being. So many people will miss her, and remember her and her accomplishments fondly.” “Mary was in so many ways ahead of her time and was often the only woman at the table in northern Minnesota,” U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar said in a statement. “That’s changed now thanks to her trailblazing legacy.” Murphy was first elected to serve House District 14B from 1977-1982 and went on to serve District 8A from 1983-2002, District 6B from 2003-2012 and District 3B from 2013-2022. In 2022, Murphy lost the District 3B race against Republican Natalie Zeleznikar by a mere 33 votes. Zeleznikar, who retained the seat in the 2024 election, expressed condolences in a Facebook post, writing: “Mary worked hard for northern Minnesota, a place she called home her entire lifetime. Her dedication, service and hard work can be witnessed in multiple projects across the communities she served. I was honored to know her, and work with her on senior care issues during my nursing home administrator years.” A Hermantown High School graduate, Murphy earned a bachelor's degree in history and economics from the College of St. Scholastica and attended graduate school at multiple universities. Before retiring from the classroom in 1997, Murphy also served as a history and social studies teacher at Central High School in Duluth for more than three decades, a career Klobuchar cited in her tribute. ADVERTISEMENT “As a former teacher, she was a strong advocate for improving education for our children and she also fought to protect victims of domestic violence and stalking,” Klobuchar’s statement said. Murphy had championed programs like Head Start and DARE, as well as initiated legislation to fund statewide juvenile correction facilities. Last January, St. Louis County commissioners honored Murphy by renaming the Environmental Trust Fund in her honor. Having worked alongside Murphy during the redistricting process in 2010, Deputy Mayor of St. Paul Jaime Tincher commented: “Mary didn’t raise her voice, she didn’t engage in political sparring. Instead, she led with the quiet power of earned trust and deep credibility. Her effectiveness was rooted in the respect she had built over decades of service, and her ability to bring people together in ways that made them feel heard and valued, no matter their political affiliation.” During Murphy’s time in the House, she chaired multiple committees, including the judiciary finance, ethics, energy, and state government and veterans affairs committees. “As chair of bonding and later the Ways and Means Committee, she demonstrated an unwavering dedication to institutional support, always willing to offer her wisdom and advice on how best to approach the financial needs of our zoos,” State Rep. John Huot (DFL-Rosemount) posted on Facebook. “Mary was a remarkable legislator and a compassionate friend and mentor to many,” State Rep. Jay Xiong (DFL-St. Paul) said in a Facebook post. “Her unwavering commitment to her community and tireless advocacy for those in need have left an indelible mark on our state. Mary's legacy will continue to inspire us all as we strive to uphold the values she championed.” ADVERTISEMENT Murphy left a legacy of advocacy for women’s rights, health care, criminal justice, and labor and advocacy issues. Gov. Tim Walz spoke of Murphy as a “true champion for the Northland” in his post on Facebook and said “Gwen (his wife) and I are sending our love to her family.”AP News Summary at 6:01 p.m. ESTUbisoft is officially discontinuing XDefiant in 2025, the publisher announced Tuesday , with all new purchases and registrations being discontinued immediately. As part of the shutdown, the publisher plans to shut down its production studios in San Francisco and Osaka while ramping down its site in Sydney, with up to 177 employees losing their jobs. Roughly half of the XDefiant team will be assigned roles elsewhere. Chief Studios and Portfolio Officer Marie-Sophie de Waubert revealed the news in an email sent to Ubisoft employees that was subsequently posted online, saying that the shooter was "not able to attract and retain enough players in the long run to compete at the level we aim for in the very demanding free-to-play FPS market." The full message can be found below. Today, I wanted to share with you that we’ve made the difficult decision to discontinue development on XDefiant. Despite an encouraging start, the team’s passionate work, and a committed fan base, we’ve not been able to attract and retain enough players in the long run to compete at the level we aim for in the very demanding free-to-play FPS market. As a result, the game is too far away from reaching the results required to enable further significant investment, and we are announcing that we will be sunsetting it. Concretely, that means that as of today, new downloads, player registrations and purchases will no longer be available. Season 3 will still launch, and the servers will remain active until June 3, 2025, out of appreciation for both our dev teams who worked on it and for XDefiant’s active players. Unfortunately, the discontinuation of XDefiant brings difficult consequences for the teams working on this game. Even if almost half of the XDefiant team worldwide will be transitioning to other roles within Ubisoft, this decision also leads to the closing of our San Francisco and Osaka production studios and to the ramp down of our Sydney production site, with 143 people departing in San Francisco and 134 people likely to depart in Osaka and Sydney. To those team members leaving Ubisoft, I want to express my deepest gratitude for your work and contributions. Please know that we are committed to supporting you during this transition. Developing Games-as-a-Service experiences remains a pillar of our strategy, and we’ve achieved significant successes, like Rainbow Six, The Crew, and For Honor, among others. It’s a highly competitive market, and we will apply the lessons learned with XDefiant to our future live titles. Globally, we are determined to take the necessary steps to put the company back on a path to growth, innovation and creativity and make sure we can set you up for success. This means continuing to radically evolve our mindset for Production and Business practices, which we will share more about soon, and doing targeted restructuring when necessary. I know that the situation brings questions and expectations, and we will share regular and transparent updates. My sincere thanks for your continued dedication as we navigate these trying times together. XDefiant Executive Producer Mark Rubin also shared a message thanking fans and saying he was "heartbroken." He also shared refund details, saying that any purchases made within the last 30 days will be fully refunded and that those who purchases the Ultimate Founder's Pack will also get their money back. Refunds should happen automatically with 8 weeks, he said. I am unfortunately here today to announce that XDefiant will be shutting down. Starting today (December 3, 2024), new downloads and player registrations will no longer be available. We will still release our Season 3 content in the near future (exact date TBD) and the servers will remain active until June 3, 2025. More like this Maximize Efficiency, Minimize Hassle With UGREEN's Tech Accessories For those who purchased the Ultimate Founder’s Pack, you’ll receive a full refund. Players who made any purchases within the last 30 days will also be fully refunded. Those refunds should happen automatically within 8 weeks of today and you can find more details on our official website, http://XDefiant.com . A few years ago, Ubisoft and the SF Dev team embarked on a bold adventure to develop a new arcade shooter called XDefiant. It was from the start, an incredible challenge. Not only were we trying to shake up the genre by removing Skill-Based Matchmaking (SBMM) while bringing back a more “old-school” arcade shooter experience, but we were also diving into the high-risk, high-reward realm of free-to-play. And for that I want to applaud not only the Dev team but also Ubisoft leadership for taking that chance! Free-to-play, in particular, is a long journey. Many free-to-play games take a long time to find their footing and become profitable. It’s a long journey that Ubisoft and the teams working on the game were prepared to make until very recently. But unfortunately, the journey became too much to sensibly continue. I am, of course, heartbroken to have to be writing this post. Yes, this game has been a personal passion for me for years and yes, I know that not all challenges lead to victory, but I also want to recognize all of the developers who are being affected by this closure. Each and every one of them is a real person with a real life separate from our own and they have all put so much of their own passion into making this game. And I hope that they can be proud of what they did achieve. I know that I will always be proud and grateful to have worked with such a great team! A team that really punched above its weight class. And what they achieved is truly remarkable. The early response from players when XDefiant launched was amazing—we broke internal records for the fastest game to surpass 5 million users and in the end we had over 15 million players play our game! That is something to be extremely proud of, especially considering how tough this genre is. So, thank you to all of the developers who put their passion into making this game! If there’s one thing, I hope we can all take away from this experience, it’s the importance of open, honest communication between developers and players. This “player-first” mentality along with respectful, non-toxic conversations between developers and players has been one of the standout differences that made XDefiant so special. From my very first post about XDefiant, this was the vision I wanted to champion, and I hope it leaves a positive mark on how the game industry treats its players and communities. To our players, THANK YOU! From the bottom of my heart, I want to express my deepest gratitude for the incredible community that has grown around XDefiant. Your passion, creativity, and dedication have inspired us every step of the way. With the utmost of love and respect, Mark XDefiant joins Concord as the latest service game to abruptly shutter not long after launch. Unlike Concord, though, XDefiant will be given a bit of grace, with its servers not due to shut down until June 3, 2025. Ubisoft also plans to go forward with releasing Season 3, though downloads and purchases will no longer be available. Hello XDefiant Fans, I am unfortunately here today to announce that XDefiant will be shutting down. Starting today (December 3, 2024), new downloads and player registrations will no longer be available. We will still release our Season 3 content in the near future (exact date...— Mark Rubin (@PixelsofMark) December 3, 2024 First announced in 2021, XDefiant endured several delays before finally launching in May. We wrote in our review , "XDefiant joins the free-to-play shooter crowd as a respectable competitive FPS built around various Ubisoft franchises, but little makes it really stand out." Despite middling reviews, XDefiant got off to a fast start, pulling in a million unique players within two and a half hours, but its momentum soon dissipated. In October, Rubin acknowledged that players numbers were down while denying persistent shutdown rumors . XDefiant's impending shutdown adds to Ubisoft's woes in 2024 , which has included lower-than-expected sales for major releases , delays , and other setbacks. Its share price collapse reportedly has the Guillemot family and Tencent considering taking the company private . It's far from the only publisher to struggle in 2024 though as game developers of all sizes have been racked by abrupt shutdowns and layoffs . Kat Bailey is IGN's News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
South Korea’s oppn moves to impeach acting presidentStock indexes drifted to a mixed finish on Wall Street as some heavyweight technology and communications sector stocks offset gains elsewhere in the market. The S&P 500 slipped less than 0.1 percent Thursday, its first loss after three straight gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.1 percent, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.1 percent. Gains by retailers and health care stocks helped temper the losses. Trading volume was lighter than usual as U.S. markets reopened following the Christmas holiday. The Labor Department reported that U.S. applications for unemployment benefits held steady last week, though continuing claims rose to the highest level in three years. Treasury yields fell in the bond market. On Thursday: The S&P 500 fell 2.45 points, or 0.04 percent, to 6,037.59. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 28.77 points, or 0.1 percent, to 43,325.80. The Nasdaq composite fell 10.77 points, or 1 percent, to 19,764.89. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 20.34 points, or 0.9 percent, to 2,280.19. For the week: The S&P 500 is up 106.74 points, or 1.80 percent. The Dow is up 485.54 points, or 1.1 percent. The Nasdaq is up 447.76 points, or 2.3 percent. The Russell 2000 is up 37.82 points, or 1.7 percent. For the year: The S&P 500 is up 1,267.76 points, or 26.6 percent. The Dow is up 5,636.26, or 15 percent. The Nasdaq is up 5,009.01 points, or 33.4 percent. The Russell 2000 is up 253.12 points, or 12.5 percent. The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors. They are meant for general informational purposes only and should not be construed or interpreted as a recommendation or solicitation. The Epoch Times does not provide investment, tax, legal, financial planning, estate planning, or any other personal finance advice. The Epoch Times holds no liability for the accuracy or timeliness of the information provided.
NEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump’s lawyers formally asked a judge Monday to throw out his hush money criminal conviction, arguing that continuing the case would present unconstitutional “disruptions to the institution of the Presidency.“ In a filing made public Tuesday, Trump’s lawyers told Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan that anything short of immediate dismissal would undermine the transition of power, as well as the “overwhelming national mandate” granted to Trump by voters last month. They also cited President Biden’s recent pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, who had been convicted of tax and gun charges. “President Biden asserted that his son was ‘selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,’ and ‘treated differently,’” Trump’s legal team wrote. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, they claimed, had engaged in the type of political theater “that President Biden condemned.” Prosecutors will have until Dec. 9 to respond. They have said they will fight any efforts to dismiss the case but have indicated a willingness to delay the sentencing until after Trump’s second term ends in 2029. In their filing Monday, Trump’s attorneys dismissed the idea of holding off sentencing until Trump is out of office as a “ridiculous suggestion.” Following Trump’s election victory last month, Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed his sentencing, previously scheduled for late November, to allow the defense and prosecution to weigh in on the future of the case. He also delayed a decision on Trump’s prior bid to dismiss the case on immunity grounds. Trump has been fighting for months to reverse his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to suppress her claim that they had sex a decade earlier. He says they did not and denies any wrongdoing. The defense filing was signed by Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who represented Trump during the trial and have since been selected by the president-elect to fill senior roles at the Justice Department. Taking a swipe at Bragg and New York City, as Trump often did throughout the trial, the filing argues that dismissal would also benefit the public by giving him and “the numerous prosecutors assigned to this case a renewed opportunity to put an end to deteriorating conditions in the City and to protect its residents from violent crime.” Clearing Trump, the lawyers added, would also allow him to “to devote all of his energy to protecting the Nation.” Merchan hasn’t yet set a timetable for a decision. He could decide to uphold the verdict and proceed to sentencing, delay the case until Trump leaves office, wait until a federal appeals court rules on Trump’s parallel effort to get the case moved out of state court or choose some other option. An outright dismissal of the New York case would further lift a legal cloud that at one point carried the prospect of derailing Trump’s political future. Last week, special counsel Jack Smith told courts that he was withdrawing both federal cases against Trump – one charging him with hoarding classified documents at his Florida estate, the other with scheming to overturn the 2020 presidential election he lost – citing longstanding Justice Department policy that shields a president from indictment while in office. The hush money case was the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments to go to trial, resulting in a historic verdict that made him the first former president to be convicted of a crime. Prosecutors had cast the payout as part of a Trump-driven effort to keep voters from hearing salacious stories about him. Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels. Trump later reimbursed him, and Trump’s company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses – concealing what they really were, prosecutors alleged. Trump has said the payments to Cohen were properly categorized as legal expenses for legal work. A month after the verdict, the Supreme Court ruled that ex-presidents can’t be prosecuted for official acts – things they did in the course of running the country – and that prosecutors can’t cite those actions to bolster a case centered on purely personal, unofficial conduct. Trump’s lawyers cited the ruling to argue that the hush money jury got some improper evidence, such as Trump’s presidential financial disclosure form, testimony from some White House aides and social media posts made during his first term. Prosecutors disagreed and said the evidence in question was only “a sliver” of their case. If the verdict stands and the case proceeds to sentencing, Trump’s punishments would range from a fine to probation to up to four years in prison — but it’s unlikely he’d spend any time behind bars for a first-time conviction involving charges in the lowest tier of felonies. Because it is a state case, Trump would not be able to pardon himself once he returns to office. We invite you to add your comments. We encourage a thoughtful exchange of ideas and information on this website. By joining the conversation, you are agreeing to our commenting policy and terms of use . More information is found on our FAQs . You can modify your screen name here . Comments are managed by our staff during regular business hours Monday through Friday as well as limited hours on Saturday and Sunday. Comments held for moderation outside of those hours may take longer to approve. Please sign into your Press Herald account to participate in conversations below. 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