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The lopsided game was not particularly notable, but it was played on one of the nights the Mid-American Conference has made its own: A weeknight. “A lot of the general public thinks we play all of our games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, not just some of them in November,” MAC Commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said in a telephone interview this week. “What it has done is help take what was a pretty darned good regional conference and has given it a national brand and made it a national conference.” When the conference has played football games on ESPN or ESPN2 over the last two seasons, the linear television audience has been 10 times larger than when conference schools meet on Saturdays and get lost in the shuffle when viewers have many more choices. The most-watched MAC game over the last two years was earlier this month on a Wednesday night when Northern Illinois won at Western Michigan and there were 441,600 viewers, a total that doesn’t include streaming that isn’t captured by Nielsen company. During the same span, the linear TV audience has been no larger than 46,100 to watch two MAC teams play on Saturdays. “Having the whole nation watching on Tuesday and Wednesday night is a huge deal for the MAC,” Eastern Michigan tight end Jere Getzinger said. “Everybody wants to watch football so if you put it on TV on a Tuesday or Wednesday, people are going to watch.” ESPN has carried midweek MAC football games since the start of the century. ESPN and the conference signed a 13-year extension a decade ago that extends their relationship through at least the 2026-27 season. The conference has made the most of the opportunities, using MACtion as a tag on social media for more than a decade and it has become a catchy marketing term for the Group of Five football programs that usually operate under the radar in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and New York. Attendance does tend to go down with weeknight games, keeping some students out of stadiums because they have class or homework and leading to adults staying away home because they have to work the next morning. “The tradeoff is the national exposure,” Buffalo coach Pete Lembo said. “You know November nights midweek the average fan is going to park on the couch, have a bowl of chips and salsa out in front, and watch the game from there." When the Bulls beat Ball State 51-48 in an overtime thriller on a Tuesday night earlier this month, the announced attendance was 12,708 and that appeared to be generous. There were many empty seats after halftime. “You watch the games on TV, the stadiums all look like this,” Buffalo fan Jeff Wojcicki said. “They are not packed, but it’s the only game on, and you know where to find it.” Sleep and practice schedules take a hit as well, creating another wave of challenges for students to attend class and coaches to prepare without the usual rhythm of preparing all week to play on Saturday. “Last week when we played at Ohio in Athens, we had a 4-four bus ride home and got home at about 3:30 a.m.,” Eastern Michigan center Broderick Roman said. “We still had to go to class and that was tough, but it's part of what you commit to as an athlete.” That happens a lot in November when the MAC shifts its unique schedule. During the first two weeks of the month, the conference had 10 games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays exclusively. This week, there were five games on Tuesday and Wednesday while only one was left in the traditional Saturday slot with Ball State hosting Bowling Green. Next week, Toledo plays at Akron and Kent State visits Buffalo on Tuesday night before the MAC schedule wraps up with games next Friday and Saturday to determine which teams will meet in the conference title game on Dec. 7 in Detroit. In all, MAC teams will end up playing about 75% of their games on a Saturday and the rest on November weeknights. When the Eagles wrapped up practice earlier this week, two days before they played the Bulls, tight end Jere Getzinger provided some insight into the effects of the scheduling quirk. “It's Monday, but for us it's like a Thursday,” he said. Bowling Green coach Scot Loeffler said he frankly has a hard time remembering what day it is when the schedule shift hits in November. “The entire week gets turned upside down,” Loeffler said. “It’s wild, but it’s great for the league because there’s two days a week this time of year that people around the country will watch MAC games.” AP freelance writer Jonah Bronstein contributed to this report. Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-footballRegarding docking solutions for your MacBook, iVANKY’s FusionDock lineup is like your tech sidekick, helping you level up your workspace. Whether you’re a power user juggling multiple displays or just need a reliable dock to expand your MacBook’s capabilities, FusionDock has your back. 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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Commerce Department's efforts to curb China's and Russia's access to American-made advanced computer chips have been “inadequate” and will need more funding to stymie their ability to manufacture advanced weapons, according to a report published Wednesday by the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The Biden administration imposed export controls to limit the ability of China and Russia ability to access U.S.-made chips after Russia's invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago. The agency's Bureau of Industry and Security, according to the report, does not have the resources to enforce export controls and has been too reliant on U.S. chip makers voluntarily complying with the rules. But the push for bolstering Commerce's export control enforcement comes as the incoming Trump administration says it is looking to dramatically reduce the size and scope of federal government . President-elect Donald Trump has tapped entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency” to dismantle parts of the federal government. The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. BIS’s budget, about $191 million, has remained essentially flat since 2010 when adjusted for inflation. “While BIS’ budget has been stagnant for a decade, the bureau works diligently around the clock to meet its mission and safeguard U.S. national security,” Commerce Department spokesperson Charlie Andrews said in a statement in response to the report. Andrews added that with “necessary resources from Congress” the agency would be "better equipped to address the challenges that come with our evolving national security environment.” In a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Wednesday, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, chair of the subcommittee, pointed to an audit of Texas Instruments that showed the Russian military continued to acquire components from Texas Instruments through front companies in Hong Kong to illustrate how the export controls are failing as an effective tool. The committee's findings, Blumenthal said, suggest that Texas Instruments “missed clear warning signs” that three companies in its distribution chain had been diverting products to Russia. Texas Instruments did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “While Congress must provide BIS more resources to undertake its critical mission, it is long past time for BIS to make full use of the enforcement powers Congress has conferred upon it and take aggressive steps to cut the flow of U.S. semiconductors into the Russian war machine,” Blumenthal wrote. It's not just Texas Instruments that's the issue. The subcommittee in September published a report that found aggregated exports from four major U.S. advanced chip manufacturers nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022 to Armenia and Georgia. Both of those countries are home to front companies known to assist Russia in acquiring advanced chips made in the U.S. despite export controls. China, meanwhile, has created “vast, barely disguised smuggling networks which enable it to continue to harness U.S. technology,” the subcommittee report asserts. Washington has been gradually expanding the number of companies affected by such export controls in China, as President Joe Biden’s administration has encouraged an expansion of investments in and manufacturing of chips in the U.S. But Chinese companies have found ways to evade export controls in part because of a lack of China subject matter experts and Chinese speakers assigned to Commerce's export control enforcement. The agency's current budget limits the number of international end-use checks, or physical verification overseas of distributors or companies receiving American-made chips that are the supposed end users of products. Currently, Commerce has only 11 export control officers spread around the globe to conduct such checks. The committee made several recommendations in its report, including Congress allocating more money for hiring additional personnel to enforce export controls, imposing larger fines on companies that violate controls and requiring periodic reviews of advanced chip companies’ export control plans by outside entities. Boak reported from West Palm Beach, Florida.President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday nominated Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, as the US ambassador to France, in the latest of several controversial picks. Kushner "is a tremendous business leader, philanthropist, & dealmaker, who will be a strong advocate representing our Country & its interests," Trump said on his Truth Social website, adding that Jared "worked closely with me in the White House." The choice is in keeping with Trump's pattern, so far, of selecting people, often wealthy, who are close to his family or of proven loyalty. Kushner is a multimillionaire real estate executive and former attorney; his son was a senior adviser during Trump's first term. Trump did not mention, however, that the elder Kushner once served jail time -- a two-year sentence, most of it served in a federal prison. Kushner, who is now 70, pleaded guilty in 2004 to 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign contributions. The case, which was prosecuted by then US attorney Chris Christie, included sordid details, to which Kushner admitted: that he had hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, a man cooperating in a campaign finance inquiry, and then videotaped the encounter and sent it to the man's wife, Kushner's sister, to dissuade her from testifying against him. Christie, who worked on Trump's first presidential transition team and then opposed him in this year's Republican primary contests, later said Kushner had committed a "loathsome" and "disgusting crime." In 2020, Trump issued a pardon to Kushner, whose conviction had resulted in him being disbarred in three states. Nominees for key ambassadorships are often business associates of a president-elect, or major political donors. But it is rare, if not unprecedented, to name a convicted felon. The first two men to fill the prestigious Paris post were famed inventor and statesman Benjamin Franklin and a future president, Thomas Jefferson. If confirmed, Kushner would succeed Denise Bauer, a former ambassador to Belgium who was a major Democratic fundraiser and donor. md/bbk/mdYoung men swung to the right for Trump after a campaign dominated by masculine appeals
Taylor Swift thrills Toronto crowd, makes sly dig at Joe Jonas on night No. 4Mid-American Conference football goes all in on November weeknights for the TV viewersDALLAS (AP) — Boopie Miller scored 24 points and added seven assists and Yohan Traoire posted a double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds to help power SMU to its seventh straight win, closing out its nonconference schedule with a 98-82 victory over Longwood on Sunday. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * DALLAS (AP) — Boopie Miller scored 24 points and added seven assists and Yohan Traoire posted a double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds to help power SMU to its seventh straight win, closing out its nonconference schedule with a 98-82 victory over Longwood on Sunday. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? DALLAS (AP) — Boopie Miller scored 24 points and added seven assists and Yohan Traoire posted a double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds to help power SMU to its seventh straight win, closing out its nonconference schedule with a 98-82 victory over Longwood on Sunday. The Mustangs (11-2) shot 62% from the field for the game, knocking down 10 of 20 shots from behind the 3-point arc to earn their seventh win in eight home games. Longwood (11-4) stayed close by taking advantage of 20 SMU turnovers and 10 steals. Elijah Tucker’s jumper with 11:37 left pulled the Lancers within seven, 69-62, but the Mustangs answered with a 14-1 run to take a 20-point lead. Miller knocked down 6 of 7 shots from the field, including both of his 3-point attempts, and was 10 of 12 from the free-throw line. Traore was 7 of 10 from the floor, including 2 of 4 from deep, and was 4 for 4 at the line. Matt Cross added 19 points and Chuck Harris chipped in 12 points off the bench. Tucker finished with 20 points and six rebounds to lead Longwood. Coby Garland posted a double-double with 19 points and 11 assists and Emanuel Richards finished with 12 points off the bench. SMU, off to a 2-0 start in its first season of Atlantic Coast Conference play, hosts No. 4 Duke on Saturday. Longwood opens Big South Conference play Thursday at home against Presbyterian. ___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball Advertisement
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Doug Ford's Ontario Place plan will make traffic congestion worse: reportWASHINGTON (AP) — For years, Pat Verhaeghe didn’t think highly of Donald Trump as a leader. Then Verhaeghe began seeing more of Trump’s campaign speeches online and his appearances at sporting events. There was even the former president’s pairing with Bryson DeChambeau as part of the pro golfer’s YouTube channel series to shoot an under-50 round of golf while engaging in chitchat with his partner. “I regret saying this, but a while ago I thought he was an idiot and that he wouldn’t be a good president,” said the 18-year-old first-time voter. “I think he’s a great guy now.” Verhaeghe isn't alone among his friends in suburban Detroit or young men across America. Although much of the electorate shifted right to varying degrees in 2024, young men were one of the groups that swung sharply toward Trump. More than half of men under 30 supported Trump, according to AP VoteCast , a survey of more than 120,000 voters, while Democrat Joe Biden had won a similar share of this group four years earlier. White men under 30 were solidly in Trump’s camp this year — about 6 in 10 voted for Trump — while young Latino men were split between the two candidates. Most Black men under 30 supported Democrat Kamala Harris, but about one-third were behind Trump. Young Latino men’s views of the Democratic Party were much more negative than in 2020, while young Black men’s views of the party didn’t really move. About 6 in 10 Latino men under 30 had a somewhat or very favorable view of the Democrats in 2020, which fell to about 4 in 10 this year. On the other hand, about two-thirds of young Black men had a favorable view of the Democrats this year, which was almost identical to how they saw the party four years ago. “Young Hispanic men, and really young men in general, they want to feel valued," said Rafael Struve, deputy communications director for Bienvenido, a conservative group that focused on reaching young Hispanic voters for Republicans this year. “They're looking for someone who fights for them, who sees their potential and not just their struggles.” Struve cited the attempted assassination of Trump during a July rally in Pennsylvania as one of the catalyzing moments for Trump’s image among many young men. Trump, Struve said, was also able to reach young men more effectively by focusing on nontraditional platforms like podcasts and digital media outlets. “Getting to hear from Trump directly, I think, really made all the difference," Struve said of the former president's appearances on digital media platforms and media catering to Latino communities, like town halls and business roundtables Trump attended in Las Vegas and Miami. Not only did Trump spend three hours on Joe Rogan's chart-topping podcast, but he took up DeChambeau's “Break 50” challenge for the golfer's more than 1.6 million YouTube subscribers. Trump already had an edge among young white men four years ago, although he widened the gap this year. About half of white men under 30 supported Trump in 2020, and slightly less than half supported Biden. Trump's gains among young Latino and Black men were bigger. His support among both groups increased by about 20 percentage points, according to AP VoteCast — and their feelings toward Trump got warmer, too. It wasn’t just Trump. The share of young men who identified as Republicans in 2024 rose as well, mostly aligning with support for Trump across all three groups. “What is most alarming to me is that the election is clear that America has shifted right by a lot,” said William He, founder of Dream For America, a liberal group that works to turn out young voters and supported Harris’ presidential bid. With his bombastic demeanor and a policy agenda centered on a more macho understanding of culture , Trump framed much of his campaign as a pitch to men who felt scorned by the country’s economy, culture and political system. Young women also slightly swung toward the former president, though not to the degree of their male counterparts. It's unclear how many men simply did not vote this year. But there's no doubt the last four years brought changes in youth culture and how political campaigns set out to reach younger voters. Democrat Kamala Harris' campaign rolled out policy agendas tailored to Black and Latino men, and the campaign enlisted a range of leaders in Black and Hispanic communities to make the case for the vice president. Her campaign began with a flurry of enthusiasm from many young voters, epitomized in memes and the campaign's embrace of pop culture trends like the pop star Charli XCX's “brat” aesthetic . Democrats hoped to channel that energy into their youth voter mobilization efforts. “I think most young voters just didn’t hear the message,” said Santiago Mayer, executive director of Voters of Tomorrow, a liberal group that engages younger voters. Mayer said the Harris campaign’s pitch to the country was “largely convoluted” and centered on economic messaging that he said wasn’t easily conveyed to younger voters who were not already coming to political media. “And I think that the policies themselves were also very narrow and targeted when what we really needed was a simple, bold economic vision,” said Mayer. Trump also embraced pop culture by appearing at UFC fights, football games and appearing alongside comedians, music stars and social media influencers. His strategists believed that the former president’s ability to grab attention and make his remarks go viral did more for the campaign than paid advertisements or traditional media appearances. Trump's campaign also heavily cultivated networks of online conservative platforms and personalities supportive of him while also engaging a broader universe of podcasts, streaming sites, digital media channels and meme pages open to hearing him. “The right has been wildly successful in infiltrating youth political culture online and on campus in the last couple of years, thus radicalizing young people towards extremism,” said He, who cited conservative activist groups like Turning Point USA as having an outsize impact in online discourse. “And Democrats have been running campaigns in a very old fashioned way. The battleground these days is cultural and increasingly on the internet.” Republicans may lose their broad support if they don't deliver on improving Americans' lives, Struve cautioned. Young men, especially, may drift from the party in a post-Trump era if the party loses the president-elect's authenticity and bravado. Bienvenido, for one group, will double down in the coming years to solidify and accelerate the voting pattern shifts seen this year, Struve said. “We don’t want this to be a one and done thing,” he said. Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, and AP polling editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux contributed to this report.
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NEW YORK — What a wonderful year 2024 has been for investors. U.S. stocks ripped higher and carried the S&P 500 to records as the economy kept growing and the Federal Reserve began cutting interest rates. The year featured many familiar winners, such as Big Tech, which got even bigger as their stock prices kept growing . But it wasn’t just Apple, Nvidia and the like. Bitcoin , gold and other investments also drove higher. Here’s a look at some of the numbers that defined the year. All are as of Dec. 20. 1998 Remember when President Bill Clinton got impeached or when baseball’s Mark McGwire hit his 70th home run against the Montreal Expos? That was the last time the U.S. stock market closed out a second straight year with a leap of at least 20%, something the S&P 500 is on track to do again this year. The index has climbed 24.3% so far this year, not including dividends, following last year’s spurt of 24.2%. 57 The number of all-time highs the S&P 500 has set so far this year. The first came early, on Jan. 19, when the index capped a two-year comeback from the swoon caused by high inflation and worries that high interest rates instituted by the Federal Reserve to combat it would create a recession. But the index was methodical through the rest of the year, setting a record in every month outside of April and August, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. The latest came on Dec. 6. The number of times the Federal Reserve has cut its main interest rate this year from a two-decade high, offering some relief to the economy. Expectations for those cuts, along with hopes for more in 2025, were a big reason the U.S. stock market has been so successful this year. The 1 percentage point of cuts, though, is still short of the 1.5 percentage points that many traders were forecasting for 2024 at the start of the year. The Fed disappointed investors in December when it said it may cut rates just two more times in 2025, fewer than it had earlier expected. 1,508 That’s how many points the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by the day after Election Day, as investors made bets on what Donald Trump’s return to the White House will mean for the economy and the world . The more widely followed S&P 500 soared 2.5% for its best day in nearly two years. Aside from bitcoin, stocks of banks and smaller winners were also perceived to be big winners. The bump has since diminished amid worries that Trump’s policies could also send inflation higher. $100,000 The level that bitcoin topped to set a record above $108,000 this past month. It’s been climbing as interest rates come down, and it got a particularly big boost following Trump’s election. He’s turned around and become a fan of crypto, and he’s named a former regulator who’s seen as friendly to digital currencies as the next chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, replacing someone who critics said was overly aggressive in his oversight. Bitcoin was below $17,000 just two years ago following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. 26.7% Gold’s rise for the year, as it also hit records and had as strong a run as U.S. stocks. Wars around the world have helped drive demand for investments seen as safe, such as gold. It’s also benefited from the Fed’s cut to interest rates. When bonds are paying less in interest, they pull away fewer potential buyers from gold, which pays investors nothing. $420 It’s a favorite number of Elon Musk, and it’s also a threshold that Tesla’s stock price passed in December as it set a record. The number has a long history among marijuana devotees, and Musk famously said in 2018 that he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 per share . Tesla soared this year, up from less than $250 at the start, in part because of expectations that Musk’s close relationship with Trump could benefit the company. $91.2 billion That’s how much revenue Nvidia made in the nine months through Oct. 27, showing how the artificial-intelligence frenzy is creating mountains of cash. Nvidia’s chips are driving much of the move into AI, and its revenue through the last nine months catapulted from less than $39 billion the year before. Such growth has boosted Nvidia’s worth to more than $3 trillion in total. 74% GameStop’s gain on May 13 after Keith Gill, better known as “Roaring Kitty,” appeared online for the first time in three years to support the video game retailer’s stock, which he helped rocket to unimaginable heights during the “ meme stock craze ” in 2021. Several other meme stocks also jumped following his post in May on the social platform X, including AMC Entertainment. Gill later disclosed a sizeable stake in the online pet products retailer Chewy, but he sold all of his holdings by late October . 1.6%, 3.0% and 3.1% That’s how much the U.S. economy grew, at annualized seasonally adjusted rates, in each of the three first quarters of this year. Such growth blew past what many pessimists were expecting when inflation was topping 9% in the summer of 2022. The fear was that the medicine prescribed by the Fed to beat high inflation — high interest rates — would create a recession. Households at the lower end of the income spectrum in particular are feeling pain now, as they contend with still-high prices. But the overall economy has remained remarkably resilient. 20.1% This is the vacancy rate for U.S. office buildings — an all-time high — through the first three quarters of 2024, according to data from Moody’s. The fact the rate held steady for most of the year was something of a win for office building owners, given that it had marched up steadily from 16.8% in the fourth quarter of 2019. Demand for office space weakened as the pandemic led to the popularization of remote work. 3.73 million That’s the total number of previously occupied homes sold nationally through the first 11 months of 2024. Sales would have to surge 20% year-over-year in December for 2024’s home sales to match the 4.09 million existing homes sold in 2023, a nearly 30-year low. The U.S. housing market has been in a sales slump dating back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. A shortage of homes for sale and elevated mortgage rates have discouraged many would-be homebuyers.China seeks balance of books and sports for children’s fitter futureMDB Capital ( NASDAQ:MDBH – Get Free Report ) and Bakkt ( NYSE:BKKT – Get Free Report ) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, institutional ownership, earnings, profitability, risk, analyst recommendations and dividends. Analyst Ratings This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for MDB Capital and Bakkt, as provided by MarketBeat. Bakkt has a consensus target price of $13.13, indicating a potential downside of 55.22%. Given Bakkt’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Bakkt is more favorable than MDB Capital. Volatility and Risk Profitability This table compares MDB Capital and Bakkt’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Earnings and Valuation This table compares MDB Capital and Bakkt”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation. MDB Capital has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Bakkt. MDB Capital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Bakkt, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks. Institutional and Insider Ownership 0.4% of MDB Capital shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 11.1% of Bakkt shares are owned by institutional investors. 55.5% of MDB Capital shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.8% of Bakkt shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term. Summary Bakkt beats MDB Capital on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks. About MDB Capital ( Get Free Report ) MDB Capital Holdings, LLC, through its subsidiaries, primarily operates as a broker-dealer. The company operates through two segments, Broker Dealer & Intellectual Property Service, and Technology Development. The Broker Dealer & Intellectual Property Service segment operates as a full-service broker dealer that focuses on conducting private and public securities offerings, as well as providing research services for investment banking due diligence. The Technology Development segment engages in the synthetic biology technology development business. The company was founded in 1997 and is based in Addison, Texas. About Bakkt ( Get Free Report ) Bakkt Holdings, Inc. offers software as a service and application programming interface solutions for crypto and loyalty, powering engagement, and performance. The company operates Bakkt Marketplace, a platform that enables consumers to buy, sell, and store crypto in an embedded web experience; Bakkt Crypto, a platform that supports clients with a range of crypto solutions; and Bakkt Trust, institutional-grade qualified custody solution for market participants. Its platform also offers a range of loyalty solutions, including redemption solutions for various rewards categories comprising travel, gift cards, and merchandise; travel solutions that offer a retail e-commerce booking platform, as well as live-agent booking and servicing; and unified shopping experience. The company was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia. Receive News & Ratings for MDB Capital Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for MDB Capital and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .
Jimmy Carter, the 39th US president, has died at 100The AP Top 25 men’s college basketball poll is back every week throughout the season! Get the poll delivered straight to your inbox with AP Top 25 Poll Alerts. Sign up here . COMMERCE, Texas (AP) — Scooter Williams Jr. had 19 points in East Texas A&M’s 68-67 victory over Abilene Christian on Wednesday. Williams added six rebounds and three steals for the Lions (2-10). Khaliq Abdul-Mateen added 17 points while going 3 of 8 and 11 of 12 from the free-throw line while he also had five assists and three steals. The Lions snapped a seven-game slide. Quion Williams led the Wildcats (7-5) in scoring, finishing with 17 points and seven assists. Leonardo Bettiol added 16 points and seven rebounds for Abilene Christian. Hunter Jack Madden had 13 points. ___ The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .
China seeks balance of books and sports for children’s fitter futureCOMMERCE, Texas (AP) — Scooter Williams Jr. had 19 points in East Texas A&M's 68-67 victory over Abilene Christian on Wednesday. Williams added six rebounds and three steals for the Lions (2-10). Khaliq Abdul-Mateen added 17 points while going 3 of 8 and 11 of 12 from the free-throw line while he also had five assists and three steals. The Lions snapped a seven-game slide. Quion Williams led the Wildcats (7-5) in scoring, finishing with 17 points and seven assists. Leonardo Bettiol added 16 points and seven rebounds for Abilene Christian. Hunter Jack Madden had 13 points. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .
YPSILANTI, Mich. (AP) — On a damp Wednesday night with temperatures dipping into the 30s, fans in sparsely filled stands bundled up to watch Buffalo beat Eastern Michigan 37-30 on gray turf. The lopsided game was not particularly notable, but it was played on one of the nights the Mid-American Conference has made its own: A weeknight. “A lot of the general public thinks we play all of our games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, not just some of them in November,” MAC Commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said in a telephone interview this week. “What it has done is help take what was a pretty darned good regional conference and has given it a national brand and made it a national conference.” When the conference has played football games on ESPN or ESPN2 over the last two seasons, the linear television audience has been 10 times larger than when conference schools meet on Saturdays and get lost in the shuffle when viewers have many more choices. The most-watched MAC game over the last two years was earlier this month on a Wednesday night when Northern Illinois won at Western Michigan and there were 441,600 viewers, a total that doesn’t include streaming that isn’t captured by Nielsen company. During the same span, the linear TV audience has been no larger than 46,100 to watch two MAC teams play on Saturdays. “Having the whole nation watching on Tuesday and Wednesday night is a huge deal for the MAC,” Eastern Michigan tight end Jere Getzinger said. “Everybody wants to watch football so if you put it on TV on a Tuesday or Wednesday, people are going to watch.” ESPN has carried midweek MAC football games since the start of the century. ESPN and the conference signed a 13-year extension a decade ago that extends their relationship through at least the 2026-27 season. The conference has made the most of the opportunities, using MACtion as a tag on social media for more than a decade and it has become a catchy marketing term for the Group of Five football programs that usually operate under the radar in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and New York. Attendance does tend to go down with weeknight games, keeping some students out of stadiums because they have class or homework and leading to adults staying away home because they have to work the next morning. “The tradeoff is the national exposure,” Buffalo coach Pete Lembo said. “You know November nights midweek the average fan is going to park on the couch, have a bowl of chips and salsa out in front, and watch the game from there." When the Bulls beat Ball State 51-48 in an overtime thriller on a Tuesday night earlier this month, the announced attendance was 12,708 and that appeared to be generous. There were many empty seats after halftime. “You watch the games on TV, the stadiums all look like this,” Buffalo fan Jeff Wojcicki said. “They are not packed, but it’s the only game on, and you know where to find it.” Sleep and practice schedules take a hit as well, creating another wave of challenges for students to attend class and coaches to prepare without the usual rhythm of preparing all week to play on Saturday. “Last week when we played at Ohio in Athens, we had a 4-four bus ride home and got home at about 3:30 a.m.,” Eastern Michigan center Broderick Roman said. “We still had to go to class and that was tough, but it's part of what you commit to as an athlete.” That happens a lot in November when the MAC shifts its unique schedule. During the first two weeks of the month, the conference had 10 games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays exclusively. This week, there were five games on Tuesday and Wednesday while only one was left in the traditional Saturday slot with Ball State hosting Bowling Green. Next week, Toledo plays at Akron and Kent State visits Buffalo on Tuesday night before the MAC schedule wraps up with games next Friday and Saturday to determine which teams will meet in the conference title game on Dec. 7 in Detroit. In all, MAC teams will end up playing about 75% of their games on a Saturday and the rest on November weeknights. When the Eagles wrapped up practice earlier this week, two days before they played the Bulls, tight end Jere Getzinger provided some insight into the effects of the scheduling quirk. “It's Monday, but for us it's like a Thursday,” he said. Bowling Green coach Scot Loeffler said he frankly has a hard time remembering what day it is when the schedule shift hits in November. “The entire week gets turned upside down,” Loeffler said. “It’s wild, but it’s great for the league because there’s two days a week this time of year that people around the country will watch MAC games.” AP freelance writer Jonah Bronstein contributed to this report. Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday nominated Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, as the US ambassador to France, in the latest of several controversial picks. Kushner "is a tremendous business leader, philanthropist, & dealmaker, who will be a strong advocate representing our Country & its interests," Trump said on his Truth Social website, adding that Jared "worked closely with me in the White House." The choice is in keeping with Trump's pattern, so far, of selecting people, often wealthy, who are close to his family or of proven loyalty. Kushner is a multimillionaire real estate executive and former attorney; his son was a senior adviser during Trump's first term. Trump did not mention, however, that the elder Kushner once served jail time -- a two-year sentence, most of it served in a federal prison. Kushner, who is now 70, pleaded guilty in 2004 to 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign contributions. The case, which was prosecuted by then US attorney Chris Christie, included sordid details, to which Kushner admitted: that he had hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, a man cooperating in a campaign finance inquiry, and then videotaped the encounter and sent it to the man's wife, Kushner's sister, to dissuade her from testifying against him. Christie, who worked on Trump's first presidential transition team and then opposed him in this year's Republican primary contests, later said Kushner had committed a "loathsome" and "disgusting crime." In 2020, Trump issued a pardon to Kushner, whose conviction had resulted in him being disbarred in three states. Nominees for key ambassadorships are often business associates of a president-elect, or major political donors. But it is rare, if not unprecedented, to name a convicted felon. The first two men to fill the prestigious Paris post were famed inventor and statesman Benjamin Franklin and a future president, Thomas Jefferson. If confirmed, Kushner would succeed Denise Bauer, a former ambassador to Belgium who was a major Democratic fundraiser and donor. md/bbk/md
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Report: UCF HC Gus Malzahn to become Florida State OCKwara state government has reiterated its commitment to supporting tech startups and entrepreneurs in building a robust tech ecosystem. Speaking during the closing ceremony of the three-day seventh edition of the Kwarabuild Tech conference in Ilorin on Saturday, the state commissioner for Business, Innovation, and Technology, Mrs. Damilola Yusuf-Adelodun, said that the state government has invested in youth development and technological advancement. The commissioner said that the conference provided startups with an opportunity to network and grow their businesses. Mrs. Yusuf-Adelodun also reiterated her ministry’s commitment to engaging with tech experts, professionals, and entrepreneurs to address key areas such as funding, policy formulation, and innovative programmes. The Managing Director of the Ilorin Innovation Hub, Temi Kolawole, lauded Kwarabuild for organizing what he described as one of the largest youth-focused tech gatherings in the state. “The Kwara government consistently supports individuals and groups committed to tackling youth challenges. We are focused on empowering our youth on a massive scale,” Kolawole said. Panel discussions featured experts such as Engineer Taofik Abdulkareem of Plat Technology Limited, Temi Kolawole of the Ilorin Innovation Hub, and Yahyah Olushola Gegele of Premium Blue Economy Innovation and Investment Limited, where they enlightened participants on exploring opportunities in technology, agriculture, and commerce. In his opening remarks, Kwarabuild Co-Founder Ibraheem Zulkifli revealed that approximately 1,500 youths from the North Central region and beyond participated in the two-day pre-conference workshop, saying that the training was aimed at fostering technological self-reliance and economic empowerment. “Our goal is to uncover hidden talents among these participants and equip them with the tools to achieve self-dependence,” Zulkifli stated. He called for greater collaboration with the state government and key stakeholders to provide easier access to resources for youths eager to escape poverty and unemployment. Zulkifli added that participants were trained in identifying and solving various technological challenges during the workshop held on Thursday and Friday. He also commended the state government for creating an enabling environment for youth development, saying “Kwara State has never experienced this level of support before. We are truly grateful,”. Another Co-Founder of Kwarabuild, Kamaldeen Kehinde, highlighted the significance of the event, which he said spared Kwarans the inconvenience of traveling to Lagos or neighboring states for similar programs. Adeola Olaleye, an Abuja-based Co-Founder, noted, “Our platform provides an avenue for youths to discover and harness their talents.” Participants, including Salahudeen AbdulRauf and Kulepa Boluwatife, expressed gratitude for the program, stating that it significantly improved their knowledge of technology and computer software development. READ MORE FROM: NIGERIAN TRIBUNE Get real-time news updates from Tribune Online! Follow us on WhatsApp for breaking news, exclusive stories and interviews, and much more. Join our WhatsApp Channel now