LOS ANGELES (AP) — Eric Dailey Jr. scored 18 points, making four 3-pointers, and No. 22 UCLA edged 14th-ranked Gonzaga 65-62 on Saturday in the first college basketball game played at Intuit Dome, the new home of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers. Ryan Nembhard’s basket tied it at 60 before the Bruins (11-2) scored five points in a row. Nembhard then drove the length of the court and scored while getting fouled. After a timeout, he missed the potential tying free throw with 8 seconds remaining. Graham Ike fouled Skyy Clark, who made both free throws for a 65-62 lead with 5 seconds left. Nembhard's 3-point heave from halfcourt missed at the buzzer. Ike led the Bulldogs (9-4) with 24 points and eight rebounds. Nembhard had 16 points and eight assists. Graham was 11 of 16 from the floor on a day when both teams struggled offensively in the 18,000-seat arena. It was a tough shooting day for UCLA's Tyler Bilodeau, who was limited to seven points — well under his team-leading 15.1 average — while going against Ike. Gonzaga: The Zags fell to 3-4 on neutral courts. UCLA: The Bruins improved to 2-2 on neutral courts. They were coming off a two-point loss to North Carolina in New York City last weekend. The Zags lost starter Khalif Battle (five points) when he was ejected with 4:12 remaining in the first half for a flagrant-2 foul against Dailey. Before it was reviewed, UCLA coach Mick Cronin tore off his jacket. Early in the second half, Dailey and Nembhard were called for double technicals when things got heated between the teams. The Zags went 2 of 11 on 3-point attempts in the first half, when they trailed by 11. They made five 3s in the second half. Gonzaga stays in the Los Angeles area to visit Pepperdine on Monday. UCLA visits Nebraska on Jan. 4 in Big Ten play. Get poll alerts and updates on AP Top 25 basketball throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college basketball: and
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GUJRANWALA: Federal Minister for Information, Broadcasting, National Heritage, and Culture Attaullah Tarar categorically stated on Saturday that the events of May 9 are unpardonable and will not be compromised or forgiven due to ongoing negotiations with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). During a media interaction in Rahwali, Gujranwala the minister stressed that overlooking PTI’s anti-state activities would be tantamount to opening the gates of jails (and releasing the culprits). Letting PTI’s anti-state activities go unpunished would render the country’s jails meaningless. While acknowledging the seriousness of the crimes, the government is negotiating with PTI to prioritize national stability. Criticizing PTI, he said the party was promoting an incomprehensible false narrative about military court convictions, often changing its stance with remarks like “Are we slaves?” He stressed the importance of adhering to the correct narrative and avoiding politicization of state affairs, particularly in matters of international relations. PTI often makes statements and then reverses its position. Tarar stated that 85 PTI activities responsible for the violence on May 9 were convicted by military courts following a thorough legal process. The evidence proving their involvement in the attacks on army installations was considered irrefutable. While the cases of the remaining individuals involved in sabotage activities were being processed in various Anti-Terrorism Courts. Negotiations among political parties were crucial for addressing the country’s pressing issues. Referring to the ISPR DG’s recent press conference as comprehensive, Tarar stated that the DG addressed topics including the May 9 violence, the war on terrorism, and the military trials of miscreants. He noted that trying individuals who attack military installations in military courts is a common global practice. He stated that those convicted for the May 9 violence were given a fair trial, the right to appeal within military and high courts, access to case records, contact with their families, and were not tried in absentia. The Federal Information Minister explained that, just as drug cases are handled by Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) courts, terrorism cases by Anti-Terrorism Courts (ATCs), mega corruption cases by NAB and attacks on railway facilities by the Railway Police, attacks on military installations are prosecuted in military courts. He said the convictions were not rushed, taking two years to reach verdicts against the culprits. All were prosecuted in accordance with relevant laws, and stressed the need to prosecute the planners and masterminds behind the May 9 violence. He said that even the harshest opponents of government were acknowledging the economy was on the right track, exports were rising, foreign currency reserves were increasing, and the rupee was stable against the dollar. He acknowledged PTI’s role in the passage of the 26th Amendment, working together with JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman to have various clauses removed from the draft amendment package.In the wee hours Sunday at the United Nations climate talks, to support poor countries in the face of climate change. It's a far-from-perfect arrangement, with many parties still deeply unsatisfied but some hopeful that the deal will be a step in the right direction. World Resources Institute president and CEO Ani Dasgupta called it “an important down payment toward a safer, more equitable future,” but added that the poorest and most vulnerable nations are “rightfully disappointed that wealthier countries didn’t put more money on the table when billions of people’s lives are at stake.” The summit was supposed to end on Friday evening but negotiations spiraled on through early Sunday. With countries on opposite ends of a massive chasm, tensions ran high as delegations tried to close the gap in expectations. Here's how they got there: Rich countries have agreed to pool together at least $300 billion a year by 2035. It’s not near the full amount of $1.3 trillion that developing countries were asking for, and that experts said was needed. But delegations more optimistic about the agreement said this deal is headed in the right direction, with hopes that more money flows in the future. The text included a call for all parties to work together using “all public and private sources” to get closer to the $1.3 trillion per year goal by 2035. That means also pushing for And it means, hopefully, that companies and private investors will follow suit on channeling cash toward climate action. The agreement is also a critical step toward helping countries on the receiving end create more ambitious targets to limit or cut emissions of heat-trapping gases that are due early next year. It’s part of the plan to keep cutting pollution with new targets every five years, which the world agreed to at the U.N. talks in Paris in 2015. The Paris agreement set the system of regular ratcheting up climate fighting ambition as away to keep warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The world is already at 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) and carbon emissions keep rising. The deal decided in Baku replaces a previous agreement from 15 years ago that charged rich nations $100 billion a year to help the developing world with climate finance. The new number has similar aims: it will go toward the developing world's long laundry list of to-dos to prepare for a warming world and keep it from getting hotter. That includes paying for the transition to clean energy and away from fossil fuels. Countries need funds to build up the infrastructure needed to deploy technologies like wind and solar power on a large scale. Communities hard-hit by extreme weather also want money to adapt and prepare for events like floods, typhoons and fires. Funds could go toward improving farming practices to make them more resilient to weather extremes, to building houses differently with storms in mind, to helping people move from the hardest-hit areas and to help leaders improve emergency plans and aid in the wake of disasters. The Philippines, for example, has been hammered , bringing to millions of people howling wind, massive storm surges and catastrophic damage to residences, infrastructure and farmland. “Family farmers need to be financed," said Esther Penunia of the Asian Farmers Association. She described how many have already had to deal with millions of dollars of storm damage, some of which includes trees that won't again bear fruit for months or years, or animals that die, wiping out a main source of income. “If you think of a rice farmer who depends on his or her one hectare farm, rice land, ducks, chickens, vegetables, and it was inundated, there was nothing to harvest,” she said. Election results around the world that herald a change in climate leadership, a few key players with motive to stall the talks and a disorganized host country all led to a final crunch that left few happy with a flawed compromise. The ending of COP29 is "reflective of the harder geopolitical terrain the world finds itself in,” said Li Shuo of the Asia Society. He cited Trump's recent victory in the US — with his promises to pull the country out of the Paris Agreement — as one reason why the relationship between China and the EU will be more consequential for global climate politics moving forward. Developing nations also faced some difficulties agreeing in the final hours, with one Latin American delegation member saying that their group didn't feel properly consulted when small island states had last-minute meetings to try to break through to a deal. Negotiators from across the developing world took different tacks on the deal until they finally agreed to compromise. Meanwhile, activists ramped up the pressure: many urged negotiators to stay strong and asserted that no deal would be better than a bad deal. But ultimately the desire for a deal won out. Some also pointed to the host country as a reason for the struggle. Mohamed Adow, director of climate and energy think tank Power Shift Africa, said Friday that “this COP presidency is one of the worst in recent memory,” calling it “one of the most poorly led and chaotic COP meetings ever.” The presidency said in a statement, “Every hour of the day, we have pulled people together. Every inch of the way, we have pushed for the highest common denominator. We have faced geopolitical headwinds and made every effort to be an honest broker for all sides.” Shuo retains hope that the opportunities offered by a green economy “make inaction self-defeating” for countries around the world, regardless of their stance on the decision. But it remains to be seen whether the UN talks can deliver more ambition next year. In the meantime, “this COP process needs to recover from Baku,” Shuo said.
NVIDIA Co. (NASDAQ:NVDA) is Riggs Asset Managment Co. Inc.’s 4th Largest PositionBERLIN -- Adam Pemble, an Associated Press video journalist who covered some of the biggest global news of the past two decades, from earthquakes and conflicts to political summits and elections, has died. He was 52. Pemble died Thursday in Minneapolis surrounded by friends and family, according to his friend Mike Moe, who helped care for him in the final weeks of his fight against cancer. Known for bringing stories alive with his camera, Pemble epitomized the best of television news traditions, casting a curious and compassionate lens onto the lives of the people and communities whose stories he told. He joined the AP in 2007 in New York before moving to Prague in 2011 to help launch AP’s first cross-format operation combining photography, text stories and video. He enhanced Eastern European news coverage, creating distinctive stories highlighting the region's culture and society. “Adam was an incredibly talented and passionate journalist and an empathetic storyteller. He had this amazing ability to get anyone to talk to him on camera, which I attribute to the Midwestern charm he embodied throughout his life." said Sara Gillesby, AP’s Director of Global Video and Pemble’s former manager in New York when he joined the AP. "He was the best of us.” Pemble was born in Saint Louis Park, Minnesota, in 1972 and grew up in Minneapolis. After graduating with a degree in mass communications from Minnesota State University Moorhead, he started his journalism career in 1997 at KVLY, a television station in Fargo, North Dakota, and later worked at WCCO in Minneapolis. “He had the skills of the old-school camera people to meet a deadline and turn a beautiful story,” said Arthur Phillips, a cameraman who worked with Pemble at WCCO. “But he had a calling for greater things.” Moving to New York, Pemble covered some of the biggest stories in the city, including the trial of Bernie Madoff, interviews with former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and with then-real estate developer, now U.S. president-elect, Donald Trump. He went to Haiti to cover the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, where he captured shocking images of devastation. A few weeks later he was in Vancouver, covering the Winter Olympics. With his transfer to Prague, Pemble quickly became the go-to video journalist deployed to the biggest news events in Europe, interviewing government leaders, covering violent protests, the aftermath of terror attacks and numerous national elections across the continent. “An inquiring mind, a keen eye and a healthy skepticism for those in power who tried to spin away from truth all combined to make Adam’s stories as rich in color as he was in character," said Sandy MacIntyre, former AP head of global video. "Time and again he was asked to do the impossible and without fail he delivered the exceptional.” ”But more than all of that, he was the colleague and friend you wanted by your side because if Adam was there we knew we were going to be the winning team.” As civil unrest rocked Ukraine in 2014, Pemble reported from Kyiv and later Donetsk, where he covered the first Russian-backed demonstrations before spending weeks in Crimea during Russia's annexation of the strategic peninsula. His video reports included the last remaining Ukrainian sailors loyal to Kyiv finally abandoning their ship and coming ashore. With the Russian national anthem playing from a car in the background, his final shot showed two distraught sailors heckled as they walked away. Pemble returned to Ukraine following Russia's invasion of the country in 2022. Among his many assignments was filming the exclusive March 2023 AP interview by Executive Editor Julie Pace with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a train shuttled them across Ukraine to cities near some of the fiercest fighting. “Adam showed up to every assignment with enthusiasm, creativity and commitment to his work and his colleagues. He loved what he did, and so many of us at AP are better for having worked alongside him,” Pace said. When not deployed overseas, Pemble set his camera's gaze on his new home in the Czech Republic, offering insight into the traditions and unique stories of Eastern Europe. From Christmas carp fishing at sunrise to graffiti artists in Prague, to the intimate story of a Slovak priest challenging the celibacy rules of the Catholic Church, he brought his unmistakable style. He worked with a traditional large broadcast camera in an era where many video shooters shifted to smaller, lighter cameras. He always put himself in the right place to let reality unfold like “an old school analog painter in an often fast and furious digital age,” former AP cameraman Ben Jary recalled. Pemble's interest in visual storytelling led to experimenting with new technologies, including aerial videography. In 2015, he was the first major news agency camera operator to film live drone footage when reporting on the migration crisis in the Balkans. An avid gardener who planted trees and chilis on his rooftop in Prague, he was adventurous in the kitchen and especially proud of his vegan “meatloaf,” friends said. He loved a seedy dive bar as much as a Michelin restaurant, and foods as varied as charcoal choux pastry with truffle creme and his favorite road trip junk food, Slim Jim’s jerky and Salted Nut Rolls. Pemble’s wit, wisdom, energy and positivity enriched the lives and experiences of those around him, friends and colleagues recalled. “If someone asked me to see a picture of quiet strength and courage, dignity and grace, and most of all kindness, I would show them a picture of a man for all seasons," said Dan Huff, a Washington-based AP video journalist, "I would show them a picture of Adam Pemble."
Assad granted asylum in Moscow after fleeing SyriaThe Vancouver Canucks got some coal in their stocking over the holiday break. Two of the team's biggest stars, Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson, were missing from Friday's practice and, according to head coach Rick Tocchet, will not play in Saturday afternoon's game against the Seattle Kraken. While the full scope of their injuries isn't yet known, with Tocchet saying he wasn't sure if they were day-to-day or week-to-week, but they want to play it safe. "Especially with a guy like Hughes, I don't think you want to put him in situations where he could really get hurt," said Tocchet. "I don't think you want to do that with any player. You've got to be careful of that." You definitely want to be careful to avoid turning a short-term injury into a long-term injury but it's hard to take Tocchet entirely seriously when he says the team wants to avoid putting players institutions where they could really get hurt because they already have. Hughes was questionable for December 23's game against the Sharks — a game-time decision. He not only played but also led the Canucks in ice time with 24:45. After the game, Hughes admitted that he needed the holiday break. "I think that the break's coming at a fortunate time," said Hughes. "I've got three days here just to recover and regroup and we'll see what's going on after that." If whatever injury he's dealing with is significant enough for him to miss Saturday's game perhaps it was serious enough that he should have missed the game against the Sharks as well. Was that not Hughes being in a position to get "really hurt?" Tocchet even praised Hughes for playing through his injury. "Obviously, our captain, dealing with some stuff, to play and get two points for us, I'm really proud of him," said Tocchet after the game. "He sucked it up tonight." As for Pettersson, he got “banged up” in the second period of that game against the Sharks according to Tocchet but then came back for the third period and played a shift before finally leaving the game. Should he have returned to the game? Did the medical staff miss something? Was that not a situation where he could have been further injured? Here’s the thing: I don’t even blame Tocchet or the Canucks’ medical staff for Hughes and Pettersson playing through injuries. Often, they can only go off what the players self-report in terms of how their body is feeling and how much pain is too much. Fundamentally, hockey players want to play and they'll push themselves through all sorts of pain to do it. For Pettersson in particular, he might not have even known the extent of what he was dealing with until he took the ice for the third period and pushed himself. It’s also part and parcel of hockey culture that players play through pain and injury. In fact, most players in the NHL are playing through something, whether it’s minor bumps and bruises that are merely uncomfortable or long-term issues that can’t really be fixed but can be managed. In all honesty, every time a player steps on the ice, they’re entering a situation where they could get "really hurt." That's a fundamental risk of a fast, physical sport like hockey. Playing through pain isn't unique to hockey either. All sports lionize athletes who grit their teeth and bear through the pain to accomplish something great. But you do have to wonder if playing through pain and injuries is really worth it in late December. It’s one thing to battle through pain in the playoffs in the quest for the Stanley Cup when every game is of the utmost importance; it’s quite another to risk causing a bigger issue for one of 82 games in the regular season. Perhaps it would have been wiser for Hughes to sit out against the Sharks to get a bit more rest for whatever injury is bothering him. Maybe Pettersson shouldn’t have pushed it by returning for the third period. And if the Canucks couldn’t beat the basement-dwelling Sharks without Hughes, maybe that says a lot about how the team is currently constructed. Without Hughes and Pettersson at practice on Friday, the Canucks had to shake up the forward lines and defence pairings. Here are the Canucks' projected lines: Just as Pettersson had to step up when J.T. Miller stepped away from the team for personal reasons, Miller will have to step up in Pettersson's absence. He'll centre the Canucks' two best wingers in Jake DeBrusk and Brock Boeser. Pius Suter filled in admirably as a second-line centre when Miller was gone, so he'll be back on the second line with Nils Höglander and Conor Garland, with hopes of creating some secondary offence behind Miller. The one forward line that remains intact is the fourth line — now third line — of Danton Heinen, Teddy Blueger, and Kiefer Sherwood. Finally, Max Sasson returns to the lineup, this time at centre between Dakota Joshua and Phil Di Giuseppe. The bigger question, of course, is how the Canucks will handle being without Hughes, especially with Filip Hronek already out long-term. At practice, the top pairing consisted of Derek Forbort and Tyler Myers, which is sobering. Erik Brännström will draw back into the lineup alongside Vincent Desharnais. Brännström will also quarterback the top power play unit and could play some bigger minutes as the only true puck-mover on the Canucks' blue line with Hughes out. The Canucks' starting goaltender will be Thatcher Demko. He has an .889 save percentage in five starts since returning from his popliteus injury but has helped the Canucks earn at least a point in four of those five starts with a 2-1-2 record. The Seattle Kraken are struggling this season, sitting just barely above the Anaheim Ducks in the Pacific Division with a 15-19-2 record. They lost five straight heading into the holiday break. Don't be surprised, then, if the Kraken shake up their lines and try something different against the Canucks on Saturday. Until they show us anything different, however, these are the projected lines: Jaden Schwartz - Matty Beniers - Kaapo Kakko Eeli Tolvanen - Chandler Stephenson - Oliver Bjorkstrand Jared McCann - Shane Wright - Yanni Gourde Tye Kartye - Ben Meyers - Daniel Sprong Vince Dunn - Adam Larsson Jamie Oleksiak - Brandon Montour Ryker Evans - Josh Mahura Philipp Grubauer Ales Stejka With the injured Joey Daccord not making the trip to Vancouver, expect the Kraken's starting goaltender to be Philipp Grubauer. He has an .877 save percentage this season and has picked up a win in just three of his 13 starts.Thousands of Syrians gathered Friday in Damascus' historic main mosque for the first Muslim Friday prayers since the ouster of President Bashar Assad, while giant crowds celebrated in the capital's largest square and across the country. The gatherings were a major symbolic moment for the dramatic change of power in Syria, nearly a week after insurgents swept into Damascus, ousting the Assad-led state that had ruled the country for a half century with an iron grip. It came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with allies around the region looking to shape the transition, calling for an “inclusive and non-sectarian” interim government. Blinken arrived in Iraq on a previously unannounced stop after talks in Jordan and Turkey — which backs some of the Syrian insurgent factions. So far, U.S. officials have not talked of direct meetings with Syria's new rulers. The main insurgent force, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has been working to establish security and start a political transition after seizing Damascus early Sunday. The group has tried to reassure a public both stunned by Assad's fall and concerned over extremist jihadis among the rebels. The insurgents' leadership says it has broken with its extremist past, though HTS is still labeled a terrorist group by the United States and European countries. HTS's leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, appeared in a video message Friday congratulating “the great Syrian people for the victory of the blessed revolution.” “I invite them to head to the squares to show their happiness without shooting bullets and scaring people,” he said. “And then after we will work to build this country and as I said in the beginning, we will be victorious by the help of God.” Huge crowds, including some insurgents, packed Damascus' historic Umayyad Mosque in the capital's old city, many waving the rebel opposition flag — with its three red stars — which has swiftly replaced the Assad-era flag with with its two green stars. According to Arab TV stations, the Friday sermon was delivered by Mohammed al-Bashir, the interim prime minister installed by HTS this week. The scene resonated on multiple levels. The mosque, one of the world's oldest dating back some 1,200 years, is a beloved symbol of Syria, and sermons there like all mosque sermons across Syria had been tightly controlled under Assad's rule. Also, in the early days of the anti-government uprising in 2011, protesters would leave Friday prayers to march in rallies against Assad — before he launched a brutal crackdown that turned the uprising into a long and bloody civil war. “I didn’t step foot in Umayyad Mosque since 2011," because of the tight security controls around it, said one worshipper, Ibrahim al-Araby. “Since 11 or 12 years, I haven’t been this happy.” Another worshipper, Khair Taha, said there was “fear and trepidation for what’s to come — but there is also a lot of hope that now we have a say and we can try to build.” Blocks away in Damascus' biggest roundabout, named Umayyad Square, thousands gathered, including many families with small children — a sign of how, so far at least, the country's transformation has not seen violent instability. “Unified Syria to build Syria,” the crowd chanted. Some shouted slurs against Assad and his late father, calling them pigs, an insult that would have previously led to offenders being hauled off to one of the feared detention centers of Assad’s security forces. One man in the crowd, 51-year-old Khaled Abu Chahine — originally from the southern province of Daraa, where the 2011 uprising first erupted — said he hoped for “freedom and coexistence between all Syrians, Alawites, Sunnis, Shiites and Druze.” The interim prime minister, al-Bashir, had been the head of a de facto administration created by HTS in Idlib, the opposition's enclave in northwest Syria. The rebels had been bottled up in Idlib for years before fighters broke out in a shock offensive and marched across Syria in 10 days. Similar scenes of jubilation took place in major cities across Syria, including in Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Latakia and Raqqa. Al-Sharaa, HTS' leader, has promised to bring a pluralistic government to Syria, seeking to dispel fears among many Syrians — especially its many minority communities — that the insurgents will bring a hard-line, extremist rule. Another key factor will be winning international recognition for a new government in Syria, a country where multiple foreign powers have their hands in the mix. The Sunni Arab insurgents who overthrew Assad did so with vital help from Turkey, a longtime foe of the U.S.-backed Kurds. Turkey controls a strip of Syrian territory along the shared border and backs an insurgent faction uneasily allied to HTS — and is deeply opposed to any gains by Syria's Kurds. The U.S. has troops in eastern Syria to combat remnants of the Islamic State group and supports Kurdish-led fighters who rule most of the east. Since Assad's fall, Israel has bombed sites all over Syria, saying it is trying to prevent weapons from falling into extremist hands, and has seized a swath of southern Syria along the border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, calling it a buffer zone. After talks with Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Blinken said there was “broad agreement” between Turkey and the U.S. on what they would like to see in Syria. That starts with an "interim government in Syria, one that is inclusive and non-sectarian and one that protects the rights of minorities and women” and does not “pose any kind of threat to any of Syria’s neighbors,” Blinken said. Fidan said the priority was “establishing stability in Syria as soon as possible, preventing terrorism from gaining ground, and ensuring that IS and the PKK aren’t dominant” — referring to the Islamic State group and the Kurdistan Workers Party. Ankara considers the PKK within Turkey's borders a terrorist group — as it does the Kurdish-backed forces in Syria backed by the U.S. A U.S. official said that in Ankara, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Fidan both told Blinken that Kurdish attacks on Turkish positions would have to be responded to. The official spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic talks. The U.S. has been trying to limit such incidents in recent days and had helped organize an agreement to prevent confrontations around the northern Syrian town of Manbij, which was taken by Turkey-backed opposition fighters from the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces earlier this week. In Baghdad, Blinken met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani, saying both countries wanted to ensure the Islamic State group — also known by its Arabic acronym Daesh — doesn't exploit Syria's transition to re-emerge. “Having put Daesh back in its box, we can’t let it out, and we’re determined to make sure that that doesn’t happen," Blinken said. The U.S. official who briefed reporters said that Blinken had impressed upon al-Sudani the importance of Iraq exercising its full sovereignty over its territory and airspace to stop Iran from transporting weapons and equipment to Syria, either for Assad supporters or onward to the militant Hezbollah group in Lebanon. Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser in Ankara contributed to this report.
Adam Pemble, AP journalist whose compassionate lens brought stories to life, dies at 52First 12-team College Football Playoff set, Oregon seeded No. 1 and SMU edges Alabama for last spot SMU captured the last open spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff, bumping Alabama to land in a bracket that placed undefeated Oregon at No. 1. The selection committee preferred the Mustangs (11-2), losers of a heartbreaker in the Atlantic Coast Conference title game, who had a far less difficult schedule than Alabama (9-3) of the SEC but one fewer loss. The first-of-its-kind 12-team bracket marks a new era for college football, though the Alabama-SMU debate made clear there is no perfect formula. The tournament starts Dec. 20-21 with four first-round games. It concludes Jan. 20 with the national title game in Atlanta. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. Get any of our free email newsletters — news headlines, obituaries, sports, and more.OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment
President-elect Donald Trump entered the fray in a debate over immigration policy that’s dividing his supporters, telling the New York Post he favors a visa program for highly skilled workers that Elon Musk has strongly defended. Musk is among tech leaders stoking a social-media storm this week over how to bring top talent to the US — revealing friction between Trump’s Silicon Valley supporters and anti-immigration sentiment that helps fuel his base. “I’ve always been in favor of the visas,” Trump told the Post in a phone interview. “I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times.” Many employees at Trump properties have H-1B visas, which allow companies to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations. “It’s a great program,” Trump told the outlet. Trump’s stance may indicate an emerging alignment with Musk, whose backing for the former and future president made him the largest single donor in the US election. “There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley,” Musk, who used an H-1B visa to work in the US, wrote previously on X. Vivek Ramaswamy, whom Trump has tapped along with Musk to run a government efficiency initiative, also weighed in. He drew particular attention for a post arguing that “American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence.” Trump during his first term restricted several visa types including H-1B, citing the need to protect American workers as the Covid-19 pandemic led to job losses in the US. President Joe Biden let the measures expire. Trump’s comments on Saturday hint at his malleability on policy specifics and penchant for letting supporters battle over issues before stepping in. The dispute began after Laura Loomer, a far-right activist with longstanding ties to the president-elect, criticized his decision to name Indian-born investor Sriram Krishnan as a senior policy adviser on artificial intelligence. Loomer assailed previous comments by Krishnan advocating for increased access to green cards and skilled worker visas, calling it antithetical to Trump’s “America First” stance. That prompted pushback from Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who argued that US companies needed to recruit top talent from across the world to remain competitive. The clash may frame how the incoming administration approaches immigration, which has long bedeviled US policymakers, including Trump’s first administration. Trump himself offered a more open approach to visas when prompted during a podcast interview with venture capitalists David Sacks, Chamath Palihapitiya and Jason Calacanis and entrepreneur David Friedberg. “You graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically as part of your diploma a green card to be able to stay in this country and that includes junior colleges too,” Trump said. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
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