AMHERST — In the midst of trying to hire a new head football coach, the University of Massachusetts athletic department can’t seem to get out of its own way. While Director of Athletics Ryan Bamford hasn’t addressed the fanbase since firing former head coach Don Brown on Nov. 18, the athletic department has been involved in a pair of controversies that received blowback from not only football fans, but players, too. The first occurred just days after Brown got the boot, when an email to players stated, “the athletics department has decided they will not be individually recognizing players or holding a traditional ceremony due to the number of players who are completing their eligibility and graduating from school.” Instead of a traditional senior day, UMass offered the option for graduating Minutemen players’ families to be on the field for pregame warmups with a photographer available for pictures. After an overwhelming amount of backlash received on social media regarding that decision, the Minutemen football Twitter/X account posted a statement backtracking the plan. “We regret the miscommunication with our team regarding the Senior Day activities planned for [the UConn game],” it read. “To be clear, the Senior Day ceremony was never canceled, instead we planned to amend the pregame ceremony due to the large number of seniors this year.” And after meeting with the team and discussing how they wanted to be recognized for their senior day, an agreement was finally reached. The festivities would eventually go on as initially planned – a standard ceremony with each player announced individually – prior to the Minutemen’s 47-42 loss to UConn in the final game of the year on Saturday. After a large group of UMass fans were displeased with the timing and nature of Brown’s firing, the senior day see-saw was an added distraction for the athletic department. The day of the season finale didn’t just feature a pregame question mark however, it featured a post-game one as well. Corey Schneider, head of The Midnight Ride Collective – UMass football’s former NIL collective prior to UMass deciding to bring NIL money in-house – helped create a trophy for the UMass-UConn rivalry – naming it “The Southwick Jug.” Both teams rightfully believed that the winner of the game would bring home the first-ever trophy in the long, storied 78-game rivalry (series tied 36-36-2). But after the Huskies took down the Minutemen, they never received the trophy. A 127-year old rivalry that crowns a champion of New England needed a trophy.... The Midnight Ride Collective looked to honor tradition while embracing the future. Our goal was to create a symbol unique to our region... pic.twitter.com/6fSxXdZp5e UConn head coach Jim Mora responded to a post on Twitter/X that accused both teams of neglecting the trophy, saying he “specifically asked for the trophy at the end of the game” and “was told point blank you folks weren’t giving it up.” Mora was referring to the UMass athletic department when saying “you folks.” In response to Mora’s comments, UMass athletics again released a statement, this time saying: “Prior to the game the two schools had not discussed awarding the trophy to the winning team or using the trophy in general as a symbol of our long-standing series. The trophy was provided to UMass for the first time earlier in the week, not leaving a lot of time to properly consider an official name, secure a mutually beneficial sponsor or execute a marketing plan.” Article continues after... Cross|Word Flipart Typeshift SpellTower Really Bad Chess For the second time in as many weeks, a UMass athletics statement received backlash – as once again Minutemen fans blasted the athletic department for not awarding UConn with the trophy over reasons including a lack of a sponsor and marketing plan. Schneider then responded to the statement, saying UMass athletics has actually known about the trophy for over a year, which means they indeed had time to find what it felt was necessary to legitimize The Southwick Jug. Despite the controversy, Schneider and Executive Director of The UConn NIL Collective Jared Guy Thomas were able to get The Southwick Jug back from the UMass athletic department, and Schneider said on Sunday the Huskies would be presented with it in the near future. Both instances – the senior day and trophy debacles – garnered national attention across social media. And to emphasize, UMass is currently looking for its next football coach. While it may not have a huge impact, the recent decisions from the athletic department are definitely not making that search any easier.
AP Sports SummaryBrief at 6:08 p.m. EST
Paul Annacone , former coach of Roger Federer , believes Carlos Alcaraz lost some of his joy after his loss in the gold medal match at the Paris Olympics. The 21-year-old Spaniard is already seen as one of the top players in men’s tennis, alongside stars like Italy’s Jannik Sinner . Alcaraz had a remarkable 2024 season, winning two of the four Grand Slam titles for the first time in his career. He claimed the French Open by defeating Germany’s Alexander Zverev in a thrilling five-set final. He then defended his Wimbledon title, beating Novak Djokovic in straight sets, 6-2, 6-2, 7-6. You have to find what motivates you and stick with it. And I think Carlos Alcaraz is a joyful player. I think this year he lost a little bit of that joy, for a multitude of reasons. I think one of his greatest accomplishments was one of the biggest obstacles he had to overcome this year, which was getting ‘only’ a silver medal. That’s a great accomplishment, but I think it broke his heart a little bit at the Olympics, and I think it messed him up a little bit for the rest of the summer. Despite his strong start, Alcaraz struggled in the second half of the season. His form became inconsistent, and he ended the year with a disappointing performance at the ATP Finals. There, he failed to reach the semifinals after losing two of his three group-stage matches. In the second half of the season, Alcaraz only won one title, which was at the China Open. The Spaniard beat Sinner in three high-quality sets in the final to secure his fourth title of the season. However, despite the two Grand Slams and an Olympic medal , he wasn’t able to secure a top 2 finish in the ATP rankings. Former American tennis player makes bold prediction about Carlos Alcaraz in 2025 Former tennis player Sam Querrey recently shared his thoughts on Carlos Alcaraz ’s 2024 season during the Nothing Major Podcast. He found it surprising that the four-time major champion ended the year outside the top two, despite winning two Grand Slam titles. Querrey praised the 21-year-old for already having four Grand Slam victories and expressed confidence that Alcaraz would continue to add to that tally in the coming years. This might sound crazy but I am selling a bit of my Alcaraz stock. I have lost a little faith in him, he has thrown in some bad losses. I can see him ending next year at like five in the world. Not like two or three, five! Alcaraz had a strong season overall, with notable wins at the French Open and Wimbledon. These achievements showcased his skill and solidified his status as one of the best players on the ATP Tour. However, inconsistency in the latter part of the year hurt his rankings and momentum. The Spaniard finished third in the year-end rankings, behind Jannik Sinner and Alexander Zverev . At the ATP Finals in Turin, he managed a win against Andrey Rublev but suffered losses to Zverev and Casper Ruud , resulting in an early exit. Meanwhile, Sinner claimed the title and cemented his position as the world No. 1. Querrey noted that Alcaraz faces a tough challenge ahead, with Sinner showing no signs of slowing down. While the Spaniard has already accomplished a lot at a young age, staying competitive in a field that includes rising stars like Sinner will require even greater consistency and focus in 2025. This article first appeared on FirstSportz and was syndicated with permission.
By BILL BARROW, Associated Press PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Newly married and sworn as a Naval officer, Jimmy Carter left his tiny hometown in 1946 hoping to climb the ranks and see the world. Less than a decade later, the death of his father and namesake, a merchant farmer and local politician who went by “Mr. Earl,” prompted the submariner and his wife, Rosalynn, to return to the rural life of Plains, Georgia, they thought they’d escaped. The lieutenant never would be an admiral. Instead, he became commander in chief. Years after his presidency ended in humbling defeat, he would add a Nobel Peace Prize, awarded not for his White House accomplishments but “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” The life of James Earl Carter Jr., the 39th and longest-lived U.S. president, ended Sunday at the age of 100 where it began: Plains, the town of 600 that fueled his political rise, welcomed him after his fall and sustained him during 40 years of service that redefined what it means to be a former president. With the stubborn confidence of an engineer and an optimism rooted in his Baptist faith, Carter described his motivations in politics and beyond in the same way: an almost missionary zeal to solve problems and improve lives. Carter was raised amid racism, abject poverty and hard rural living — realities that shaped both his deliberate politics and emphasis on human rights. “He always felt a responsibility to help people,” said Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend of Carter’s in Plains. “And when he couldn’t make change wherever he was, he decided he had to go higher.” Carter’s path, a mix of happenstance and calculation , pitted moral imperatives against political pragmatism; and it defied typical labels of American politics, especially caricatures of one-term presidents as failures. “We shouldn’t judge presidents by how popular they are in their day. That’s a very narrow way of assessing them,” Carter biographer Jonathan Alter told the Associated Press. “We should judge them by how they changed the country and the world for the better. On that score, Jimmy Carter is not in the first rank of American presidents, but he stands up quite well.” Later in life, Carter conceded that many Americans, even those too young to remember his tenure, judged him ineffective for failing to contain inflation or interest rates, end the energy crisis or quickly bring home American hostages in Iran. He gained admirers instead for his work at The Carter Center — advocating globally for public health, human rights and democracy since 1982 — and the decades he and Rosalynn wore hardhats and swung hammers with Habitat for Humanity. Yet the common view that he was better after the Oval Office than in it annoyed Carter, and his allies relished him living long enough to see historians reassess his presidency. “He doesn’t quite fit in today’s terms” of a left-right, red-blue scoreboard, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the former president multiple times during his own White House bid. At various points in his political career, Carter labeled himself “progressive” or “conservative” — sometimes both at once. His most ambitious health care bill failed — perhaps one of his biggest legislative disappointments — because it didn’t go far enough to suit liberals. Republicans, especially after his 1980 defeat, cast him as a left-wing cartoon. It would be easiest to classify Carter as a centrist, Buttigieg said, “but there’s also something radical about the depth of his commitment to looking after those who are left out of society and out of the economy.” Indeed, Carter’s legacy is stitched with complexities, contradictions and evolutions — personal and political. The self-styled peacemaker was a war-trained Naval Academy graduate who promised Democratic challenger Ted Kennedy that he’d “kick his ass.” But he campaigned with a call to treat everyone with “respect and compassion and with love.” Carter vowed to restore America’s virtue after the shame of Vietnam and Watergate, and his technocratic, good-government approach didn’t suit Republicans who tagged government itself as the problem. It also sometimes put Carter at odds with fellow Democrats. The result still was a notable legislative record, with wins on the environment, education, and mental health care. He dramatically expanded federally protected lands, began deregulating air travel, railroads and trucking, and he put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. As a fiscal hawk, Carter added a relative pittance to the national debt, unlike successors from both parties. Carter nonetheless struggled to make his achievements resonate with the electorate he charmed in 1976. Quoting Bob Dylan and grinning enthusiastically, he had promised voters he would “never tell a lie.” Once in Washington, though, he led like a joyless engineer, insisting his ideas would become reality and he’d be rewarded politically if only he could convince enough people with facts and logic. This served him well at Camp David, where he brokered peace between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Epypt’s Anwar Sadat, an experience that later sparked the idea of The Carter Center in Atlanta. Carter’s tenacity helped the center grow to a global force that monitored elections across five continents, enabled his freelance diplomacy and sent public health experts across the developing world. The center’s wins were personal for Carter, who hoped to outlive the last Guinea worm parasite, and nearly did. As president, though, the approach fell short when he urged consumers beleaguered by energy costs to turn down their thermostats. Or when he tried to be the nation’s cheerleader, beseeching Americans to overcome a collective “crisis of confidence.” Republican Ronald Reagan exploited Carter’s lecturing tone with a belittling quip in their lone 1980 debate. “There you go again,” the former Hollywood actor said in response to a wonky answer from the sitting president. “The Great Communicator” outpaced Carter in all but six states. Carter later suggested he “tried to do too much, too soon” and mused that he was incompatible with Washington culture: media figures, lobbyists and Georgetown social elites who looked down on the Georgians and their inner circle as “country come to town.” Carter carefully navigated divides on race and class on his way to the Oval Office. Born Oct. 1, 1924 , Carter was raised in the mostly Black community of Archery, just outside Plains, by a progressive mother and white supremacist father. Their home had no running water or electricity but the future president still grew up with the relative advantages of a locally prominent, land-owning family in a system of Jim Crow segregation. He wrote of President Franklin Roosevelt’s towering presence and his family’s Democratic Party roots, but his father soured on FDR, and Jimmy Carter never campaigned or governed as a New Deal liberal. He offered himself as a small-town peanut farmer with an understated style, carrying his own luggage, bunking with supporters during his first presidential campaign and always using his nickname. And he began his political career in a whites-only Democratic Party. As private citizens, he and Rosalynn supported integration as early as the 1950s and believed it inevitable. Carter refused to join the White Citizens Council in Plains and spoke out in his Baptist church against denying Black people access to worship services. “This is not my house; this is not your house,” he said in a churchwide meeting, reminding fellow parishioners their sanctuary belonged to God. Yet as the appointed chairman of Sumter County schools he never pushed to desegregate, thinking it impractical after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board decision. And while presidential candidate Carter would hail the 1965 Voting Rights Act, signed by fellow Democrat Lyndon Johnson when Carter was a state senator, there is no record of Carter publicly supporting it at the time. Carter overcame a ballot-stuffing opponent to win his legislative seat, then lost the 1966 governor’s race to an arch-segregationist. He won four years later by avoiding explicit mentions of race and campaigning to the right of his rival, who he mocked as “Cufflinks Carl” — the insult of an ascendant politician who never saw himself as part the establishment. Carter’s rural and small-town coalition in 1970 would match any victorious Republican electoral map in 2024. Once elected, though, Carter shocked his white conservative supporters — and landed on the cover of Time magazine — by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” Before making the jump to Washington, Carter befriended the family of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whom he’d never sought out as he eyed the governor’s office. Carter lamented his foot-dragging on school integration as a “mistake.” But he also met, conspicuously, with Alabama’s segregationist Gov. George Wallace to accept his primary rival’s endorsement ahead of the 1976 Democratic convention. “He very shrewdly took advantage of his own Southerness,” said Amber Roessner, a University of Tennessee professor and expert on Carter’s campaigns. A coalition of Black voters and white moderate Democrats ultimately made Carter the last Democratic presidential nominee to sweep the Deep South. Then, just as he did in Georgia, he used his power in office to appoint more non-whites than all his predecessors had, combined. He once acknowledged “the secret shame” of white Americans who didn’t fight segregation. But he also told Alter that doing more would have sacrificed his political viability – and thus everything he accomplished in office and after. King’s daughter, Bernice King, described Carter as wisely “strategic” in winning higher offices to enact change. “He was a leader of conscience,” she said in an interview. Rosalynn Carter, who died on Nov. 19 at the age of 96, was identified by both husband and wife as the “more political” of the pair; she sat in on Cabinet meetings and urged him to postpone certain priorities, like pressing the Senate to relinquish control of the Panama Canal. “Let that go until the second term,” she would sometimes say. The president, recalled her former aide Kathy Cade, retorted that he was “going to do what’s right” even if “it might cut short the time I have.” Rosalynn held firm, Cade said: “She’d remind him you have to win to govern.” Carter also was the first president to appoint multiple women as Cabinet officers. Yet by his own telling, his career sprouted from chauvinism in the Carters’ early marriage: He did not consult Rosalynn when deciding to move back to Plains in 1953 or before launching his state Senate bid a decade later. Many years later, he called it “inconceivable” that he didn’t confer with the woman he described as his “full partner,” at home, in government and at The Carter Center. “We developed a partnership when we were working in the farm supply business, and it continued when Jimmy got involved in politics,” Rosalynn Carter told AP in 2021. So deep was their trust that when Carter remained tethered to the White House in 1980 as 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, it was Rosalynn who campaigned on her husband’s behalf. “I just loved it,” she said, despite the bitterness of defeat. Fair or not, the label of a disastrous presidency had leading Democrats keep their distance, at least publicly, for many years, but Carter managed to remain relevant, writing books and weighing in on societal challenges. He lamented widening wealth gaps and the influence of money in politics. He voted for democratic socialist Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and later declared that America had devolved from fully functioning democracy to “oligarchy.” Related Articles Yet looking ahead to 2020, with Sanders running again, Carter warned Democrats not to “move to a very liberal program,” lest they help re-elect President Donald Trump. Carter scolded the Republican for his serial lies and threats to democracy, and chided the U.S. establishment for misunderstanding Trump’s populist appeal. He delighted in yearly convocations with Emory University freshmen, often asking them to guess how much he’d raised in his two general election campaigns. “Zero,” he’d gesture with a smile, explaining the public financing system candidates now avoid so they can raise billions. Carter still remained quite practical in partnering with wealthy corporations and foundations to advance Carter Center programs. Carter recognized that economic woes and the Iran crisis doomed his presidency, but offered no apologies for appointing Paul Volcker as the Federal Reserve chairman whose interest rate hikes would not curb inflation until Reagan’s presidency. He was proud of getting all the hostages home without starting a shooting war, even though Tehran would not free them until Reagan’s Inauguration Day. “Carter didn’t look at it” as a failure, Alter emphasized. “He said, ‘They came home safely.’ And that’s what he wanted.” Well into their 90s, the Carters greeted visitors at Plains’ Maranatha Baptist Church, where he taught Sunday School and where he will have his last funeral before being buried on family property alongside Rosalynn . Carter, who made the congregation’s collection plates in his woodworking shop, still garnered headlines there, calling for women’s rights within religious institutions, many of which, he said, “subjugate” women in church and society. Carter was not one to dwell on regrets. “I am at peace with the accomplishments, regret the unrealized goals and utilize my former political position to enhance everything we do,” he wrote around his 90th birthday. The politician who had supposedly hated Washington politics also enjoyed hosting Democratic presidential contenders as public pilgrimages to Plains became advantageous again. Carter sat with Buttigieg for the final time March 1, 2020, hours before the Indiana mayor ended his campaign and endorsed eventual winner Joe Biden. “He asked me how I thought the campaign was going,” Buttigieg said, recalling that Carter flashed his signature grin and nodded along as the young candidate, born a year after Carter left office, “put the best face” on the walloping he endured the day before in South Carolina. Never breaking his smile, the 95-year-old host fired back, “I think you ought to drop out.” “So matter of fact,” Buttigieg said with a laugh. “It was somehow encouraging.” Carter had lived enough, won plenty and lost enough to take the long view. “He talked a lot about coming from nowhere,” Buttigieg said, not just to attain the presidency but to leverage “all of the instruments you have in life” and “make the world more peaceful.” In his farewell address as president, Carter said as much to the country that had embraced and rejected him. “The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language,” he declared. “Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity and who suffer for the sake of justice — they are the patriots of this cause.” Carter pledged to remain engaged with and for them as he returned “home to the South where I was born and raised,” home to Plains, where that young lieutenant had indeed become “a fellow citizen of the world.” —- Bill Barrow, based in Atlanta, has covered national politics including multiple presidential campaigns for the AP since 2012.LINCOLN — Another Blackshirt is headed into the transfer with Nebraska linebacker Stefon Thompson joining the growing list of Huskers to seek playing opportunities elsewhere, according to multiple reports Thompson, a junior who began his career at Syracuse, played one season for the Huskers, playing in 11 games and making one start against Northern Iowa. He finished with 27 tackles, one fumble recovery and two pass deflections this season. Thompson is the fifth Husker player expected to be in the transfer portal when it opens on Dec. 9, joining defensive linemen Jamari Butler and Vincent Jackson, running back Gabe Ervin Jr. and wideout Malachi Coleman. Nebraska has also seen the departure of defensive coordinator Tony White, who signed a three-year contract on Monday to take the same position at Florida State. Nebraska, who finished its regular season with a 13-10 loss at Iowa on Friday, is awaiting its bowl game assignment, its first postseason game in eight seasons, which will be revealed on Dec. 8 following this weekend’s conference championship games.
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NoneNew spiking offence aims to bring law up to date, minister saysHome | Former US President, Jimmy Carter dies at 100 Jimmy Carter, the earnest Georgia peanut farmer who as US president struggled with a bad economy and the Iran hostage crisis but brokered peace between Israel and Egypt and later received the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, died at his home in Plains, Georgia, on Sunday, the Carter Center said. He was 100. “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 programme 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 H.W. 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 labour 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. SABC © 2024
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REGINA — Premier Scott Moe's Saskatchewan Party government introduced Monday its promised legislation to lower personal income taxes. The Saskatchewan Affordability Act states it will raise personal income tax exemptions while indexing tax brackets to match inflation, saving an average family of four more than $3,400 over four years. Finance Minister Jim Reiter told reporters an estimated 54,000 residents will not pay provincial income tax once the changes are in place. The Saskatchewan Party had proposed the measures during the October election campaign. "We want to get this done as quickly as we can," Reiter said. "Obviously that was a big campaign commitment for us. People want affordability and we would like to deliver on that." The legislation also includes a tax credit for first-time homebuyers, along with a credit for home renovations that would provide savings of up to $420 per year. The bill also promises a 25-per-cent increase in tax credits for children under 18 with disabilities and for caregivers. It keeps the small business tax rate at one per cent while doubling benefits for families to put their children in sports and arts. Opposition NDP finance critic Trent Wotherspoon told reporters his party is prepared to support the legislation. "We certainly won't hold this up, but what we need is much more than that," Wotherspoon said. "We need action now to save families' hard-earned dollars as they head into the holiday season." The Opposition has been pushing Moe to suspend the provincial 15-cent-a-litre fuel tax and axe the provincial sales tax on ready-to-eat grocery items. Two of their emergency motions on those issues have failed to pass in the house. While speaking with reporters, Wotherspoon stood behind a table of groceries that have sales taxes imposed on them, including a rotisserie chicken, granola bars, pre-made salads and cut fruit and vegetables. "Oftentimes people are going to (the grocery store) picking up a rotisserie chicken. This fruit (platter) is taxed, same with a veggie platter," he said. "These are the kinds of staples that families are relying on. We need to provide some relief." Reiter said the province won't support the NDP's proposals, arguing the government needs revenues for services. "I don't like taxes. I'd love to cut taxes everywhere but we have to have revenue to operate," he said. Reiter said he is to write a letter to the federal government to fast-track the approval of the personal income tax changes so residents can start seeing a break in January. He said the tax reduction is to cost $140 million in the first year. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 2, 2024. Jeremy Simes, The Canadian Press
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