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Published 4:50 pm Monday, November 25, 2024 By Data Skrive There are four games featuring a ranked team on the Tuesday college basketball schedule, including the Arizona State Sun Devils versus the Kentucky Wildcats. Watch women’s college basketball, other live sports and more on Fubo. What is Fubo? Fubo is a streaming service that gives you access to your favorite live sports and shows on demand. Use our link to sign up for a free trial. Catch tons of live women’s college basketball , plus original programming, with ESPN+ or the Disney Bundle.WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden kicked off his final holiday season at the White House on Monday by issuing the traditional reprieve to two turkeys who will bypass the Thanksgiving table to live out their days in southern Minnesota. Biden welcomed 2,500 guests to the South Lawn under sunny skies as he cracked jokes about the fates of “Peach” and “Blossom” and sounded wistful tones about the last weeks of his presidency after a half-century in Washington power circles. “It’s been the honor of my life. I’m forever grateful,” Biden said, taking note of his impending departure on Jan. 20, 2025. That's when power will transfer to Republican President-elect Donald Trump, the man Biden defeated four years ago and was battling again until he was pressured to bow out of the race amid concerns about his age and viability. Biden is 82. Until Inauguration Day, the president and first lady Jill Biden will continue a busy run of festivities that will double as their long goodbye. The White House schedule in December is replete with holiday parties for various constituencies, from West Wing staff to members of Congress and the White House press corps. Biden relished the brief ceremony with the pardoned turkeys, named for the official flower of the president's home state of Delaware. “The peach pie in my state is one of my favorites,” he said during remarks that were occasionally interrupted by Peach gobbling atop the table to Biden's right. “Peach is making a last-minute plea,” Biden said at one point, drawing laughter from an overflow crowd that included Cabinet members, White House staff and their families, and students from 4H programs and Future Farmers of America chapters. Biden introduced Peach as a bird who “lives by the motto, ‘Keep calm and gobble on.’” Blossom, the president said, has a different motto: “No fowl play. Just Minnesota nice.” Peach and Blossom came from the farm of John Zimmerman, near the southern Minnesota city of Northfield. Zimmerman, who has raised about 4 million turkeys, is president of the National Turkey Federation, the group that has gifted U.S. presidents Thanksgiving turkeys since the Truman administration after World War II. President Harry Truman, however, preferred to eat the birds. Official pardon ceremonies did not become an annual White House tradition until the administration of President George H.W. Bush in 1989. With their presidential reprieve, Peach and Blossom will live out their days at Farmamerica, an agriculture interpretative center near Waseca in southern Minnesota. The center's aim is to promote agriculture and educate future farmers and others about agriculture in America. Separately Monday, first lady Jill Biden received the official White House Christmas tree that will be decorated and put on display in the Blue Room. The 18.5 foot (5.64 meters) Fraser fir came from a farm in an area of western North Carolina that recently was devastated by Hurricane Helene . Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm lost thousands of trees in the storm “but this one remained standing and they named it ‘Tremendous’ for the extraordinary hope that it represents,” Jill Biden said at the event. The Bidens were also traveling to New York City on Monday for an evening “Friendsgiving” event at a Coast Guard station on Staten Island. Biden began his valedictory calendar Friday night with a gala for hundreds of his friends, supporters and staff members who gathered in a pavilion erected on the South Lawn, with a view out to the Lincoln Memorial. Cabinet secretaries, Democratic donors and his longest-serving staff members came together to hear from the president and pay tribute, with no evidence that Biden was effectively forced from the Democratic ticket this summer and watched Vice President Kamala Harris suffer defeat on Nov. 5. “I’m so proud that we’ve done all of this with a deep belief in the core values of America,” said Biden, sporting a tuxedo for the black-tie event. Setting aside his criticisms of Trump as a fundamental threat to democracy, Biden added his characteristic national cheerleading: “I fully believe that America is better positioned to lead the world today than at any point in my 50 years of public service.” The first lady toasted her husband with a nod to his 2020 campaign promise to “restore the soul of the nation,” in Trump’s aftermath. With the results on Election Day, however, Biden’s four years now become sandwiched in the middle of an era dominated by Trump's presence on the national stage and in the White House. Even as the first couple avoided the context surrounding the president's coming exit, those political realities were nonetheless apparent, as younger Democrats like Maryland Gov. Wes Moore , Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Biden's Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg not only raised their glasses to the president but held forth with many attendees who could remain in the party's power circles in the 2028 election cycle and beyond. ___ Associated Press writer Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis contributed to this report.
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Menendez brothers' bid for freedom delayed until JanuaryThe Republican-controlled chamber recently agreed without opposition to update its conflict of interest rule to clearly exclude from voting any member who has a direct personal or pecuniary interest in a proposed new law. Senate rules previously set guidelines for senators to consider when evaluating potential conflicts of interest. But the rules did not explicitly require senators to sit out votes on those matters. The updated rules state that a senator "is precluded" from voting on legislation when his or her personal interest in it is "so substantial as to affect the senator's independent legislative judgment." "When that is the case, we feel it's appropriate that member of the body not vote," said Senate President Rod Bray, R-Martinsville. The new conflict of interest rule, similar to the old one , allows a senator with a conflict to still participate in committee and floor debate on the legislation, so long as the senator openly discloses his or her conflict prior to speaking. Senators may also continue to request an opinion from the Senate Ethics Committee to determine whether a potential conflict of interest is sufficiently substantial as to require the senator to sit out a vote, according to the rules. The Senate's updated conflict of interest rule more closely aligns with the longstanding Indiana House rule that specifies any representative with a direct personal or pecuniary interest "shall" ask to be excused on any vote related to that interest — except the state budget or general revenue legislation. "Any member requesting to be excused from voting may make a brief statement of the reasons for making such request and the question then shall be taken without further debate," according to the House rules. In general, both state senators and state representatives are expected to vote on every question that comes up when they are physically present in their chamber at the Statehouse and not otherwise ineligible to vote due to a conflict of interest or another excuse permitted by the Senate or House rules. The four-month regular session of the Indiana General Assembly is set to begin Jan. 8 when the 100 representatives and 50 senators return to Indianapolis focused primarily on devising a new, two-year state budget, while also potentially tackling property tax reform, education policy, health care costs, and gambling expansion, among other issues.