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fd8888 Toll Brothers Releases New Home Sites in Aurora Ridge at Great Sky Community in Cherokee County, GeorgiaInsurgents reach gates of Syria’s capital, threatening to upend decades of Assad ruleTeam claims NASCAR rescinded approval to buy new charter unless federal antitrust suit is dropped

1,300 new staff up count to 23,000 nurses in MoH

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NoneHeisman Trophy finalist and two-way Colorado star Travis Hunter was named The Associated Press Big 12 defensive player of the year while also being a first-team selection at wide receiver on Thursday. Buffaloes quarterback Shedeur Sanders is the league's top offensive player. Kenny Dillingham, the 34-year-old in his second season at Arizona State, was the unanimous choice as Big 12 coach of the year after leading his alma mater to a championship and a spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff. The Sun Devils (11-2) went into their league debut as the preseason pick to finish last among the 16 teams. At cornerback, Hunter had 31 tackles, tied for the Big 12 lead with 11 pass breakups and was tied for second with four interceptions. On offense, he leads the Big 12 with 92 receptions and 14 receiving touchdowns, and is second with 1,152 yards receiving. His 21 catches of at least 20 yards are the most nationally. He is also the AP's player of the year. People are also reading... Sanders is the Big 12 passing leader, completing 337 of 454 passes (74.2%) for 3,926 yards and a school-record 35 touchdowns with eight interceptions for the Buffaloes (10-2) Arizona State freshman quarterback Sam Leavitt, who is 11-1 as a starter, is the league’s top newcomer. The Michigan State transfer has 2,663 yards passing with 24 touchdowns and only five picks in 304 attempts. AP source: Mullen picked as UNLV coach LAS VEGAS — Former Florida and Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen has agreed to lead UNLV's 24th-ranked football program, two people with knowledge of the hire said Wednesday. The people spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because no announcement has been made. The 52-year-old Mullen replaces Barry Odom, who left for Purdue on Sunday after going 19-8 and helping the Rebels receive back-to-back bowl invitations for the first time in program history. UNLV will play California in the LA Bowl on Wednesday. UNLV athletic director Erick Harper wasted little time in finding Odom's replacement. Mullen, most recently an ESPN college football analyst, went 103-61 at Florida and Mississippi State. Rich Rodriguez back at West Virginia Rich Rodriguez is returning to West Virginia for a second stint as head coach at his alma mater. Athletic director Wren Baker announced the hiring on Thursday, 17 years after Rodriguez made a hasty exit for what became a disastrous three-year experiment at Michigan. “We are thrilled to welcome Coach Rich Rodriguez and his family back home,” Baker said in a statement. “Coach Rodriguez understands what it takes to win at West Virginia, and I believe he will pour his heart, soul and every ounce of his energy into our program. I am convinced Coach Rodriguez wants what is best for West Virginia, WVU and West Virginia football, and I am excited about the future of our program.” Rodriguez, who is the current coach at Jacksonville State, an architect of the spread offense and a polarizing figure in his home state, replaces Neal Brown, who was fired on Dec. 1 after going 37-35 in six seasons, including 6-6 this year. Arizona WR McMillan declares for draft TUCSON, Ariz. — Arizona star receiver Tetairoa McMillan declared for the NFL draft following three stellar seasons. McMillan announced his decision Thursday on Instagram. “Now, it’s time to take the next step. ... I’m officially declaring for the 2025 NFL Draft,” McMillan posted. “This is only the beginning.” McMillian is Arizona's all-time leader in receiving yards, finishing with 3,423 in three seasons, and is projected to be a first-round NFL draft pick. BRIEFLY FCS: The NCAA is taking its Football Championship Subdivision title game back to Tennessee. The FCS championship games at the end of the 2025 and 2026 seasons will be played in Nashville on the Vanderbilt campus. This season’s game will be played Jan. 6 at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas, which will host the game for a record 15th season in a row and was set for at least two more. OC: UCLA announced Tino Sunseri’s hiring as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Sunseri replaces Eric Bieniemy, who was fired on Dec. 5 after fielding one of the nation’s worst offenses this season. Sunseri spent one season as Indiana’s co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach after following Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti from James Madison. Be the first to know

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Lil Wayne, GloRilla, Camila Cabello to perform at College Football National Championship

Noodles and wine are the secret ingredients for a strange new twist in China's doping sagaA drug checking service has warned festival goers that partaking in risky drug taking could put a downer on their fun. KnowYourStuffNZ general manager Casey Spearing said combining MDMA, also known as ecstasy, with alcohol was one the most widespread high-risk behaviours they saw at summer festivals. Spearing said a University of Otago study this year found most users were consuming 7 to 9 standard drinks while taking MDMA. "We know high-risk drug practices like mixing drugs or taking very high doses are going to cause harm at festivals this summer." She acknowledged there were risks involved in taking any substance, including alcohol. But she said there were measures people could take to look after themselves and their friends if taking drugs. "No drug use is completely safe. "But there are some ways of using drugs that are more safe than others." If taking MDMA, Spearing suggested substituting alcoholic drinks with flavoured fizzy water or non-alcoholic beer. "You won't miss the alcohol and you're reducing your risk when taking MDMA." She said the service was looking into what concerning substances might be circulating over the summer. "We're seeing MDMA being substituted for synthetic cathinones, sometimes called bath salts, some funky ketamine analogues, and a variety of other things." She said China recently banning the production of several novel psychedelic substances could have knock-on effects here. "When production stops there's usually stock left over. We'll probably see some of that entering the illicit market. "We can expect new compounds to be produced to get around that ban. So we could see some new and unexpected things arriving." About one in 10 drug samples KnowYourStuffNZ tested this year were not what they were sold as or thought to be. Spearing recommended always getting drugs checked by them or another drug checker even if purchased from a trusted person. She added that reagent tests were not always accurate. "Results from a reagent test are less reliable than visiting an actual drug checking service. "It's relatively easy to fool these tests and drug dealers know this." She told people to check High Alert , New Zealand's drug warning system, for the latest updates. At upcoming festivals, Spearing urged people to keep an eye on others. "Have a conversation with mates before taking anything; how are you feeling, what's going on in your life, are you on any medication that might interact? "Put a plan together and decide who is going to be your sober tripster. That person is invaluable if something goes wrong." She said it was also crucial to know the warning signs of any substance you are taking and when to get help. She said taking time to hydrate could save people from a gnarly hangover. "A lot of a hangover is sleep deprivation. "Buy electrolytes, watch your water intake, and watch your body temperature." The drug checking service is celebrating ten years of harm reduction in 2025. Spearing said the organisation had been operating in a "grey area" since 2015. "Our goal has always been to offer a confidential and non-judgemental conversation about drug use." Three years ago, New Zealand started allowing organisations such as KnowYourStuffNZ and the NZ Drug Foundation to legally operate drug checking services. This New Years, KnowYourStuffNZ are attending AUM, Northern Bass, and Twisted Frequency. The NZ Drug Foundation would be covering drug checking at Gisborne's Rhythm and Vines. But Spearing said there continued to be not enough testing equipment to meet demand. "We've had to turn away multiple New Years events, particularly in the South Island and the Bay of Plenty, where we are providing pre-festival clinics instead." The service planned to hold clinics in Mount Maunganui in conjunction with Tauranga City Council, and in the Wanaka Queenstown area in conjunction with Rhythm&Alps and the Queenstown Lakes District Council. Spearing said several spectrometers needed to remain in cities to serve non-festivalgoers. She said they there were 11 spectrometers in the drug checking organisations shared pool, and they borrowed another three over New Years from educational and scientific institutes. "The spectrometer issue always comes up over New Years. "All we need is another two or three spectrometers and we'd be able to go to very New Years festival." She said a spectrometer could cost upwards of $50,000. "We would love more spectrometers but it's quite a stretch to buy more without more funding."

Noodles and wine are the secret ingredients for a strange new twist in China's doping saga

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Toll Brothers Releases New Home Sites in Aurora Ridge at Great Sky Community in Cherokee County, GeorgiaKennedy High Gym: A legacy of basketball, community, and the coach who defined ItUS President-elect Donald Trump's promise to impose a 60% tariff on imports from China and a 10-20% tariff on all other imports has triggered a public debate about whether such policies are really so bad. After all, a tariff is a consumption tax, and most economists favour taxes on consumption over income taxes. But tariffs have significant drawbacks. Since they tax only imported products, they distort markets by shifting resources from more efficient foreign producers to less efficient domestic firms. This inefficiency comes at the expense of consumers, and like most consumption taxes, tariffs are regressive, placing a heavier burden on low-income households. Still, tariffs do have political appeal. Critics of globalisation in advanced economies have long argued that the efficiency gains from recent decades of trade liberalisation have been modest relative to the disruptions caused. While US consumers benefited from lower prices on imported goods, particularly from China, these widely dispersed gains were less salient than the concentrated pain of factory closures and job losses in regions exposed to import competition. The problem with such arguments is that they ignore the current macroeconomic context. Inflation over the last three years has increased consumer sensitivity to price changes. Voters today will be far more attuned to the inflationary pressures of tariffs than they were in the past. While proponents of new tariffs claim that China would bear the brunt of the financial burden, the evidence from the 2018-19 tariffs shows otherwise: US consumers bore most of the cost. Even if US prices remained unchanged, unintended consequences could follow. If broad-based tariffs led to a sharp depreciation of China's currency, the stronger dollar would make Chinese imports relatively cheaper. This may partly offset the higher prices caused by tariffs, but it would undermine the original goal of making US manufacturing more competitive. Meanwhile, the stronger dollar would hurt US exports, worsening the trade deficit. This suggests that the multiple goals currently advertised for tariffs -- reshoring manufacturing, reducing the trade deficit, generating revenue, lessening America's reliance on China, and forcing China into negotiations, all while minimising the impact on consumers -- often conflict with one another. This is because tariffs affect the US economy through prices. To boost US competitiveness or reduce the deficit, tariffs must raise import prices -- a politically toxic outcome today. Reducing America's reliance on China is also complex, given that Chinese-made intermediates are embedded in many goods exported to the US from third countries. Since 2018-19, China and several "bystander" countries have registered robust export growth despite tariffs. The proposed new tariffs might affect only direct Chinese exports to the US, not to other countries. The argument for tariffs as a revenue-generating mechanism is interesting and novel (in the sense that it has not been used for many centuries). But it does not hold up. Tariffs cannot possibly replace income taxes as a source of revenue: the scale of the income tax base is roughly an order of magnitude larger than the scale of imports. Still, tariffs could generate some government revenue, with China potentially bearing part of the cost. If used as a short-term negotiating tactic, they could apply some economic pressure on China. Strengthening the United States' negotiating leverage is the most compelling argument for tariffs. The 2018-19 tariffs led to the "phase one" agreement, a planned de-escalation in exchange for Chinese commitments to import more from the US and address concerns about intellectual property and technology transfers. But the 2018-19 tariffs were far from cost-free. They poisoned US-China relations, escalated tensions, pushed China into an alliance with Russia and Iran, and fueled anti-Asian sentiment domestically. They eroded America's relationships with allies who were not consulted and who found themselves also targeted by specific tariffs. And when all was said and done, the phase one deal's full impact was never realised. The disruption to trade from the pandemic meant that China fell far short of its commitments to purchase goods from the US. Today's tariff proposals risk repeating history, only on a grander scale. The incoming administration will face a wary, inflation-sensitive public and a Chinese regime that is well prepared to pursue large-scale retaliation. Whether tariffs become a negotiating tool or a source of greater economic disruption depends on how the administration balances competing objectives. Reason and strategic foresight will be crucial. ©2024 Project Syndicate Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, a former World Bank Group chief economist and editor-in-chief of the American Economic Review, is Professor of Economics at Yale University.