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Analysis: After Juan Soto's megadeal, could MLB see a $1 billion contract? Probably not soonDAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria's prime minister said Monday that most cabinet ministers were back at work after rebels overthrew President Bashar Assad , but some state workers failed to return to their jobs, and a United Nations official said the country's public sector had come “to a complete and abrupt halt." Meanwhile, streams of refugees crossed back into Syria from neighboring countries, hoping for a more peaceful future and looking for relatives who disappeared during Assad's brutal rule. There were already signs of the difficulties ahead for the rebel alliance now in control of much of the country. The alliance is led by a former senior al-Qaida militant who severed ties with the extremist group years ago and has promised representative government and religious tolerance. The rebel command said Monday they would not tell women how to dress. “It is strictly forbidden to interfere with women’s dress or impose any request related to their clothing or appearance, including requests for modesty,” the command said in a statement on social media. Nearly two days after rebels entered the capital, some key government services had shut down after state workers ignored calls to go back to their jobs, the U.N. official said, causing issues at airports and borders and slowing the flow of humanitarian aid. Rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was long known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, also met for the first time with Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi Jalali, who stayed in Syria when Assad fled. “You will see there are skills" among the rebels, al-Sharaa said in a video shared on a rebel messaging channel. Israel said it carried out airstrikes on suspected chemical weapons sites and long-range rockets to keep them from falling into the hands of extremists. Israel also seized a buffer zone inside Syria after Syrian troops withdrew. In northern Syria, Turkey said allied opposition forces seized the town of Manbij from Kurdish-led forces backed by the United States, a reminder that even after Assad's departure, the country remains split among armed groups that have fought in the past. The Kremlin said Russia has granted political asylum to Assad , a decision made by President Vladimir Putin . Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on Assad’s specific whereabouts and said Putin did not plan to meet with him. Damascus was quiet Monday, with life slowly returning to normal, though most shops and public institutions were closed. In public squares, some people were still celebrating. Civilian traffic resumed, but there was no public transport. Long lines formed in front of bakeries and other food stores. There was little sign of any security presence though in some areas, small groups of armed men were stationed in the streets. Across swathes of Syria, families are now waiting outside prisons , security offices and courts, hoping for news of loved ones who were imprisoned or who disappeared. Just north of Damascus in the feared Saydnaya military prison, women detainees, some with their children, screamed as rebels broke locks off their cell doors. Amnesty International and other groups say dozens of people were secretly executed every week in Saydnaya, and they estimate that up to 13,000 Syrians were killed between 2011 and 2016. “Don’t be afraid," one rebel said as he ushered women from packed cells. "Bashar Assad has fallen!” In southern Turkey , Mustafa Sultan was among hundreds of Syrian refugees waiting at border crossings to head home. He was searching for his older brother, who was imprisoned under Assad. “I haven’t seen him for 13 years," he said. "I am going to go see whether he’s alive.” Jalali, the prime minister, has sought to project normalcy since Assad fled. “We are working so that the transitional period is quick and smooth,” he told Sky News Arabia TV on Monday, saying the security situation had already improved from the day before. At the court of Justice in Damascus, which was stormed by the rebels to free detainees, Judge Khitam Haddad, an aide to the justice minister in the outgoing government, said Sunday that judges were ready to resume work quickly. “We want to give everyone their rights,” Haddad said outside the courthouse. “We want to build a new Syria and to keep the work, but with new methods.” But a U.N. official said some government services had been paralyzed as worried state employees stayed home. The public sector “has just come to a complete and abrupt halt," said U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria Adam Abdelmoula, noting, for example, that an aid flight carrying urgently needed medical supplies had been put on hold after aviation employees abandoned their jobs. “This is a country that has had one government for 53 years and then suddenly all of those who have been demonized by the public media are now in charge in the nation’s capital,” Abdelmoula told The Associated Press. "I think it will take a couple of days and a lot of assurance on the part of the armed groups for these people to return to work again.” Britain and the U.S. are both considering whether to remove the main anti-Assad rebel group from their lists of designated terrorist organizations. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham began as an offshoot of al-Qaida but cut ties with the group years ago and has worked to present a more moderate image. The group's leader, al-Sharaa, “is saying some of the right things about the protection of minorities, about respecting people’s rights,” British Cabinet minister Pat McFadden said, adding that a change would be considered “quite quickly.” But British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, speaking later during a visit to Saudi Arabia, said it was "far too early” to make that decision. In Washington, a Biden administration official noted that HTS will be an “important component” in Syria's future and that the U.S. needs to “engage with them appropriately.” Another administration official said the U.S. remains in a “wait and see” mode on whether to remove the designation. Both officials requested anonymity to discuss the ongoing internal deliberations. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that such designations are constantly under review. Even while it is in place, the designation does not bar U.S. officials from speaking with members or leaders of the group, he said. The U.S. also announced it was sending its special envoy for hostage affairs to Beirut to seek information about the whereabouts of Austin Tice, a journalist who vanished in Syria 12 years ago and who President Joe Biden has said is believed to be alive. Israelis welcomed the fall of Assad, who was a key ally of Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, while expressing concern over what comes next. Israel says its forces temporarily seized a buffer zone inside Syria dating back to a 1974 agreement after Syrian troops withdrew in the chaos. “The only interest we have is the security of Israel and its citizens," Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters Monday. Saar did not provide details about the targets, but the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said they included weapons warehouses, research centers, air defense systems and aircraft squadrons. Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria in recent years, targeting what it says are military sites related to Iran and Hezbollah . Israeli officials rarely comment on individual strikes. Syria agreed to give up its chemical weapons stockpile in 2013, after the government was accused of launching an attack near Damascus that killed hundreds of people . But it is widely believed to have kept some of the weapons and was accused of using them again in subsequent years. Officials in Turkey, which is the main supporter of the Syrian opposition to Assad, say its allies have taken full control of the northern Syrian city of Manbij from a U.S.-supported and Kurdish-led force known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. The SDF said a Turkish drone struck in the village of al-Mistriha in eastern Syria, killing 12 civilians, including six children. Turkey views the SDF, which is primarily composed of a Syrian Kurdish militia, as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey. The SDF has also been a key ally of the United States in the war against the Islamic State group. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Monday warned against allowing Islamic State or Kurdish fighters to take advantage of the situation, saying Turkey will prevent Syria from turning into a “haven for terrorism.” Mroue reported from Beirut and Goldenberg from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, Mehmet Guzel at the Oncupinar border crossing in Turkey, Jamey Keaten in Geneva, and Aamer Madhani and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report. Follow the AP's Syria coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/syria
'The View' co-host Joy Behar lamented that the U.S. has gone from trusting broadcast news host Walter Cronkite in the past to podcaster Joe Rogan today. Podcast host Joe Rogan mocked "The View" by changing his description on social media after they claimed he believes in dragons. "The View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg opened a segment on Thursday by discussing a recent poll showing many young Americans get their news from social media influencers who skew towards the political-right. Co-host Sara Haines responded with a "PSA" urging viewers to be skeptical, particularly in this era of misinformation and AI, and that "when you see something that really pisses you off, you should triple-check that one." "I think that’s why people like our show," co-host Joy Behar replied. "Because they know that we are checked by ABC News." "The View" co-host Joy Behar lamented that modern young people listen to podcasters like Joe Rogan. VANCE TELLS ROGAN HE INITIALLY THOUGHT TRUMP HAD BEEN KILLED IN JULY ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: 'I WAS SO PISSED' "We’re checked by everybody," Goldberg agreed. "Yeah. If we’re wrong, we have, you know, the legal note here," Behar added, referring to co-host Sunny Hostin’s legal background. Behar went on to lament that as a country, "we went from Walter Cronkite, basically, to this guy Joe Rogan who believes in dragons. I checked it." "Did you triple source that?" Haines asked. "Yes I did," Behar responded. "And he also thinks that they— dragons-like, I guess, dinosaur-y type of animals — roamed the Earth when people did. So this is a type of really, really bad information that’s going out there. But it’s possible Donald Trump did roam the Earth when dinosaurs were here." The podcaster responded by sharing a clip of the conversation and wrote, "That’s my new official X description." His bio/description on the X platform, at the time this article was written, reads, "Dragon Believer." Podcaster Joe Rogan changed his description on X to "Dragon believer" to poke fun at "The View" host Joy Behar. (Getty) JOE ROGAN ENDORSES DONALD TRUMP ON THE EVE OF THE ELECTION Rogan, who talks with a wide variety of guests about hot-button issues and esoteric theories, has talked about dragons on his podcast numerous times. Noting that stories about dragons are something found in multiple cultures around the world, he has spoken with some guests about whether they were based on some large, reptilian creature or a late-surviving pterodactyl that didn’t necessarily breathe fire like the dragons of myth. In one episode, Rogan recalled when a past guest, adventurer Forrest Galante, mentioned a theory that the creature dragons were based on had hollow bones like modern birds do, and therefore "if there were lizards big enough to fly around and eat people, they didn’t have bones that could fossilize." "It’s so possible that something that flew like a pterodactyl, like we think of pterodactyls as being like bat wings, maybe they had feathers, maybe that was a gigant [sic] predatory bird and maybe some of those things looked like dragons," he said to a later guest, later adding, "Think of all these different cultures, ancient, medieval Europe, China, Japan, all of them had dragons, there’s so many dragons, it might have been a real thing, and I think most of them didn’t have dragons that could spit fire either, I think that was like Hollywood movie Godzilla type deal." Alexander Hall is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Alexander.hall@fox.com.
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Antonio Portales is keen to pledge his future to Dundee. The Mexican defender is and will be free to talk to other clubs about a pre-contract deal in the coming weeks. However, he hopes to extend his stay beyond two years. The 28-year-old joined the in the summer of 2023 alongside compatriot Diego Pineda. And there could be more Mexicans turning out in dark blue in the near future after . The here and now, though, has Portales and the Dark Blues in need of points. A poor run of two wins and nine defeats in the last nine matches brings Saturday’s evening clash with bottom side Hibs into sharp focus. “I think we had been playing well, but some mistakes changed the games,” Portales said. “Right now, we know about that. “We are working hard and we have been watching videos to help us improve our game. “The team looks strong, looks well. We have a very good chance to change the results in future games and to play better for our fans. “Everyone is working in their job to play better for the team, to be the best version of all Dundee.” Recent matches have seen Portales in the unaccustomed role of substitute, including the most recent at Aberdeen. That, though, has made the Mexican more determined to prove himself. “Yeah, it’s football,” he added. “I don’t like it. Any player doesn’t like to be on the bench, but it’s football. “The most important thing is the team. “I support my team-mates because when I’ve been in the XI, they support me. “It’s a team, it’s a family. “Of course, I work hard to play again in the XI and hopefully on Saturday I can do that. “Here for me it’s a dream to play in Scotland with Dundee in Europe because I’m from Mexico and it’s very hard to play in Europe. “For me it’s a dream and I will try to give my all for Dundee.” And he hopes that dream will continue into the next campaign. Asked about his expiring contract, Portales said: “Right now we have been talking with the club about an extension. “Yeah, hopefully we will do it. We’re talking about that.”