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Dez White scores 26 and Missouri State beats UCSB 68-56
Friday essay: Ukraine is the world’s most heavily mined country. Meet some of the people cleaning up this deadly messSaquon Barkley becomes ninth running back to rush for 2,000 yards in a season
Bills cornerback Ja'Marcus Ingram eager for his shot to start if Rasul Douglas can't play vs. Lions
Seattle Seahawks receiver is DK Metcalf is just fine when he doesn't have the the ball because it means he gets to showcase his blocking skills. “I just look at it as a sign of respect that I’ve gained from other defensive coordinators and just continue to do my job with it as blocking or being a decoy,” the two-time Pro Bowler said. While opposing defenses have keyed in on Metcalf, other aspects of Seattle's offense have surfaced during its four-game winning streak. The run has the Seahawks (8-5) sitting atop the NFC West heading into Sunday night's game against the visiting Green Bay Packers (9-4). Geno Smith's new top target is second-year receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who needs 89 receiving yards for his first career 1,000-yard season. Smith-Njigba has 75 catches for 911 yards and five touchdowns, while Metcalf, often dealing with double coverage, has 54 catches for 812 yards and two scores. Metcalf says he feels the pride of a “proud parent or a big brother” when it comes to Smith-Njigba's success. Seattle's offense also got a boost from the ground game in a 30-18 victory over the Arizona Cardinals last weekend . Zach Charbonnet, filling in for the injured Kenneth Walker III, ran for a career-best 134 yards and two touchdowns. The Seahawks face another hot team in the Packers (9-4), who have won seven of nine. Green Bay's two losses over that stretch have come against NFC-best Detroit (12-1), including a 34-31 victory by the Lions on Dec. 5, which means the NFC North title is likely out of reach for the Packers. The Packers are well-positioned for a playoff berth, but that almost certainly won't come this weekend. They would need a win, a loss or tie by the Atlanta Falcons and a tie between the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers. Metcalf, who learned to block from his father, former Chicago Bears offensive lineman Terrence Metcalf, says he tries to take blocking seriously to set himself apart from other receivers. His priorities are simple when he's getting double-teamed and the ball goes elsewhere. “Trying to block my (butt) off and trying to get pancakes on defensive backs,” he said. When the Packers surged their way into the playoffs last season, quarterback Jordan Love was a major reason why. He had 18 touchdown passes and one interception during Green Bay's final eight games. During the last four games of this season, Love ranks third in the NFL with a 118.9 passer rating with six touchdowns, one interception and a league-best 10.3 yards per attempt. “I always feel like I can put the ball where I want to — and that’s part of it, too, having that confidence to be able to throw those passes,” Love said. “There’s always like I said a handful of plays that might not come off or be in the exact spot that you wanted it to or the throw might be a little bit off. So, that’s where you’ve just got to try to be at your best every play, be consistent and accurate as possible.” Green Bay’s pass defense has been picked apart the last two weeks. First, it was torched by Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins in a Packers win. Next, it allowed Jared Goff to complete his final 13 passes as the Lions rallied to victory. It won’t get any easier this week. Smith is second in the NFL in attempts, completions and passing yards and is fifth in completion percentage. “It’s been a remarkable turnaround for him in terms of just where he started,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said. “It’s not always where you start, but where you finish. And it tells me a lot about the person in terms of his resiliency and ability to fight through some adversity. He’s a dangerous quarterback.” The potential return of former All-Pro cornerback Jaire Alexander (knee) could help the Packers. Will the Packers break out their head-to-toe white uniforms? The last time Green Bay wore the winter white look was in a 24-22 win over Houston in October. The Packers asked fans to weigh in on social media . As for the Seahawks, they'll be sporting their “Action Green” uniforms. Metcalf is a fan. “I would say this about the Action Green, I love them personally in my opinion, but the big guys hate them. I don’t know why, don’t ask me," he said. “Hopefully, the Packers wear all white, so it’ll be a fun-looking game.” AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nflHow Did NASA Improve The F-15's Life Support Systems For Flight Testing of the Supersonic X-59?
$HAREHOLDER ALERT: The M&A Class Action Firm Investigates the Merger of Patterson Companies, Inc. - PDCOMcDONOUGH — “Kid-preneurs” Treandos and Noah Thornton have been combining their passion to help others with their business plan for seven years. This year, their eighth annual holiday food and toy drive is back to help collect donations for families in need. Treandos started wondering how he could help those less fortunate than himself when he was 5 years old. He partnered with United Food Force to host their first holiday food and toy drive in 2016, and it has grown every year since. This year, Treandros’ business, T&N Bow Ties & Apparel, has partnered with nine businesses throughout the community to be donation drop-off locations for canned food items, toys and new or gently-used books for children to enjoy. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. Cardlytics reports that card-linked cash-back offers represent a strategic stocking stuffer for smart shoppers navigating the expensive holiday landscape. Click for more. Holiday spending hacks: How to unwrap savings without sacrificing festive cheerOpinion Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News. “Never read the comments.” It’s advice you often hear being given to prospective newspaper columnists or occasional contributors to the opinion pages about the need to brace themselves for the free-wheeling mosh pit that is unfettered feedback from the general public. It’s a sentiment with which I have never agreed, nor one I have understood. The comments are often the best part of a column. As columnists we should be honoured that people take the time to comment, whether we agree with their feedback or not. The comments are often funny. They’re insightful. They are frequently completely over the top. They can be personally abusive. Bring it on. Bring all of it on. To the readers I say go your hardest; to the writers, toughen up, princesses. Occasionally you read comments which are completely moronic. Comments from people who have totally missed every point you have made, and need to have the column re-read to them by a sentient adult. You also read comments which are based on false information or lies. Covid was a good time for that if you were a columnist writing in support of vaccinations. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman It was a red rag to every wellness weirdo and conspiracy nut out there, and they had a jolly old time of it jumping online saying that people like me had been “got to” by the likes of Anthony Fauci, the WHO cabal, and the faceless millionaire monsters running Big Pharma. When you write about issues involving race or religion, you invite comments which are sometimes demonstrably untrue, based on crap that does the rounds of the internet. You could classify some of those comments as disinformation or misinformation. Here’s where things get interesting – and politically dangerous – for our federal government. The last thing the Albanese government needs, given the way it’s going, is a new political headache. If it is not careful it will end up with one with its misinformation Bill. Like many things this government has done, or tried to do, it has been poorly explained. It seems to be a triumph of good intentions over practical implementation. And it risks impinging on one of our most important freedoms of all, freedom of speech. Now a lot of people would say that Elon Musk is a power-hungry, egotistical whack job who has turned Twitter, as X, into a clearing house for crackpot and extreme content around politics, crypto, vaccinations, lockdowns, with the racy added extra of a significant increase in smut. Some say the blogosphere is dangerous as it has no barriers for entry and no checks or balances meaning any old bit of deluded or dangerous nonsense can find its way into print. I will tell you what is more dangerous than all of the above combined – the federal government Department of Misinformation and Disinformation. A state-owned entity hovering above us all, telling us what we can and cannot say. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaks at a campaign rally for US President-elect Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York on October 27. Picture: Angela Weiss/AFP Now, the federal government has said that news organisations are exempt from these proposed new rules. But what is a “news organisation” and what is “news”. Is news an article? Is it a letter to the editor? Is it any one of your comments published online on the bottom of this piece? These are not rhetorical or mischievous questions. They’re the same questions every major news organisation, and the Australian Press Council and the Human Rights Commission have all put in relation to the mystery surrounding Albo’s disinformation Bill. Frankly, I am not even sure what the difference is between mis- and dis-information either. There have clearly been issues where false information spread online has been linked to terrible social outcomes. Indeed much of the impetus for this discussion internationally came from the stabbing in England of young children at a Taylor Swift dance concert earlier this year, where false information was spread like wildfire online wrongly decrying this outrage as an act of Islamic extremism. A cynic might argue that such baseless conclusions become more tempting when the politically-correct British Police has an ignoble history of trying to hush-up or airbrush genuine cases or Islamic terror from public discussion. It was a boy-who-cried-wolf scenario where the extreme right went hard on the basis of past PC silence in the face of uncomfortable truths. Riot police hold back protesters near a burning police vehicle after disorder broke out on July 30, 2024 in Southport, England. Picture: Getty Images/Getty Images Misinformation fighting an absence of honest information. Cans of worms don’t get larger than the one contained in this Albanese government brain bubble. The idea that the job can fall to government to decide what people can and cannot say is anathema in a democracy, end of story. And this isn’t some self-interested piece on my part, as my understanding of the Bill is that while columnists such as me could still write freely, the commentary pieces like this attracts may not. But to end in the joyful world of the comments section. The best argument against what the feds are considering comes from the comments section itself. It is the ultimate self-regulatory environment. If you get an accolade from a piece that’s been generally well-received, dozens of people will hit ‘like’ on that comment. If you get a powerfully-written counterargument from someone telling you you’ve missed the point, or are full of it, dozens of people will ‘like’ that too. But the truly nutty comments, the delusional comments pointing to conspiracies and making laughable claims – barely anyone (if anyone) ‘likes’ them because they are demonstrably stupid and absurd. Far better to let the readers judge for themselves than to go down the Orwellian path of filling some grey building in Canberra’s outer suburbs with an army of thought-police, making sure no-one is speaking impurely against the mandated strictures of the government of the day. More Coverage Labor trying to ‘ram through’ misinformation bill James Morrow Originally published as Governments deciding what we can and can’t say is anathema to democracy. End of story | David Penberthy David Penberthy Columnist David Penberthy is a columnist with The Advertiser and Sunday Mail, and also co-hosts the FIVEaa Breakfast show. He's a former editor of the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Mail and news.com.au. @penbo David Penberthy Join the conversation Add your comment to this story To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout More related stories Opinion Why trans U-turn is a ray of hope in woke US If the Democrats do their walk of shame, learn their lesson and start to listen to ordinary people instead of lecturing them, then people like AOC might just be AOK, writes Joe Hildebrand. Read more Opinion This is every parents’ worst nightmare but we have to let them go While many Aussie parents are freaking out about their teenagers’ first coming of age trip, we can’t wrap them in cotton wool for life, writes Julie Cross. Read more
Timberwolves didn’t turn to small ball to close last game, and those lineups don’t seem to be on the horizon
CHICAGO (AP) — Two-time NBA scoring champion Joel Embiid returned to the Philadelphia 76ers' starting lineup against the Chicago Bulls on Sunday. After missing his first seven shots and ambling deliberately in his left knee brace in the first quarter, the 2023 MVP went on a tear to propel the Sixers to a 108-100 win over the Chicago Bulls. Embiid connected on eight of his next 10 shots in the second quarter for his first 19 points of the game, which lifted Philadelphia to a 62-50 halftime lead. The Sixers stretched it to 19 before holding on for their fourth win in five games, and Embiid finished with 31. “I just got lucky and started making shots,” Embiid deadpanned when he talked to reporters almost 90 minutes after the game. “We just missed shots and we adjusted and we got them in.” Embiid, a seven-time All-Star, added 12 rebounds in his fifth game this season. The 7-foot center had missed the previous seven games because of knee injuries and a three-game suspension for pushing a sports columnist. Embiid finished slightly above his career average of nearly 27.8 points per game in 33 minutes. The Sixers don't play again until Friday thanks to the NBA Cup, so coach Nick Nurse planned to give his star ample work Sunday with a break and recovery time ahead. “All of a sudden he certainly caught fire there with a little bit of variety,” Nurse said. “I know a lot of it seemed like foul-line jumpers, which it was. He snuck in a roll or two and a couple of post-ups. It gave us a lot of confidence.” The Sixers trailed 33-23 after the first quarter. Behind Embiid and a 16-0 run in the second, they took the lead for good. Chicago got within four points twice in the fourth, but Philadelphia closed it out. “We guarded really well and we rebounded extremely well at both ends,” Nurse said. Tyrese Maxey got his first career triple-double as part of the winning formula and clicked with Embiid. Maxey finished with 25 points, 14 assists and 11 rebounds. “It was great, that's who he is,” Maxey said of Embiid. “After he got in the game it's easy, it was easier, man. There was a lot more space out there.” The All-Star trio of Embiid, Maxey and Paul George (12 points) played together for only the second game this season. “Obviously we've got the connection,” Embiid said. "We know when things are not going right, what we need to do. Now it's up to us to make the shots and the plays. “After that first quarter, it just felt like we needed to take more of an ownership as far as getting us back in the game. They're great players.” ___ AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba Matt Carlson, The Associated PressIran summons Swiss ambassador over US and Italy arrests
The 12-3 Boston Celtics , fresh off handing the Cleveland Cavaliers their first loss of the season, have a lot of momentum going into tonight’s matchup against the Washington Wizards . Both teams met up at the beginning of the season, with the Celtics winning 122-102. Since then, the two teams have had complete opposite seasons. While the Celtics own the second-best record in the NBA, the Wizards have the second-worst with a 2-11 record. In theory, the Celtics should be able to defeat the Wizards handily. However, it may prove a bit more difficult than expected as veteran big man Al Horford will not play. Horford reportedly has an illness and will miss Boston’s game against the Wizards. It is unknown the severity of his illness or if he will miss future games. Furthermore, the Celtics are still missing Kristaps Porzingis , who has yet to make his season debut. However, he recently progressed to the next phase of his recovery from his leg injury and should return in December. Boston Celtics Big Man to Miss Tonight’s Game vs. Washington Wizards How the Celtics Will Make Up for Al Horford’s Absence In his 18th season in the NBA, Horford has shown little signs of slowing down. The 38-year-old has played and started 13 games for Boston this season. In those games, he is averaging 10.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 2.2 assists. He is also shooting 51.6% from the field and 47.7% from beyond the arc. Horford is still making his presence felt on the defensive side of the ball and has come up clutch numerous times for the Celtics on both sides of the court. In his absence, the Celtics will likely start Neemias Queta at center. Queta, now in his second season with the Celtics, has gradually received an expanded role with the team. After entering the season with just 48 career games played and no starts, Queta has started four games for Boston this season. While he still needs time to polish his skills, there is a lot to like about the Portuguese native. He is athletic and brings great energy to the game. Additionally, his potential on both sides of the court is obvious. Even when Horford and Porzingis return, Queta could remain in the team’s rotation. The Last Word The Celtics once again look like one of the best teams in the league, even without Porzingis. Currently, they rank as the third-best offensive team and the second-best scoring team. Though they still lack defensively from a stats perspective, Porzingis’ return should help the Celtics improve in this area. A big reason for Boston’s success is the MVP-caliber season Jayson Tatum is having so far. Through 15 games, Tatum is averaging 29.9 points on 46.4% shooting from the field and 39.4% from the three-point line. He is also averaging 8.1 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 1.4 steals per game. Tatum is in line for potentially his best campaign yet. As his season continues to progress, it will be interesting to see if Tatum can remain in MVP consideration. Regardless, he and the Celtics have their eyes on a repeat, something that has not been done since the Golden State Warriors did it in 2018. This article first appeared on Last Word On Sports and was syndicated with permission.
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3 Artificial Intelligence Stocks That Lagged in 2024 but Are Set to Soar in 2025Jimmy Carter’s critics turned his name into a synonym for weakness over the Iranian hostage crisis. But by any measure, he also scored major achievements on the world stage through his mix of moralism and painstaking personal diplomacy. The 39th president of the United States, who died at age 100 on Sunday, transformed the Middle East by brokering the Camp David Accords, which established an enduring and once inconceivable peace between Israel and its most serious adversary at the time, Egypt. Carter again brought a sense of righteousness and nearly obsessive attention to detail to negotiate the return of the Panama Canal to Panama, defying furor by US conservatives. In two decisions with lengthy reverberations, Carter followed up on Richard Nixon’s opening by recognizing communist China, and he began arming jihadists in Afghanistan who fought back against the Soviet Union, which would collapse a decade later. But Carter was crushed by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election in no small part due to foreign affairs after religious hard-liners toppled Iran’s shah and seized US embassy staff, whose 444 days in captivity were broadcast nightly on US television. Carter ordered an aborted rescue mission in which eight US troops died in a helicopter crash. Asked at a 2015 news conference about his biggest regret, Carter replied: “I wish I’d sent one more helicopter to get the hostages — and we would have rescued them and I would have been reelected.” – Nagging ‘weak’ attack – The Iran debacle led to attacks that Carter was “weak,” an image he would struggle to shake off as Republicans cast him as the archetypal contrast to their muscular brand of foreign policy. The former peanut farmer’s public persona did little to help, from a widely panned speech pleading for shared sacrifice to an incident that went the pre-internet version of viral in which Carter shooed away a confrontational rabbit from his fishing boat. Robert Strong, a professor at Washington and Lee University who wrote a book on Carter’s foreign policy, said the late president had been inept in public relations by allowing the “weak” label to stick. “The people who worked with Carter said exactly the opposite — he was stubborn, fiercely independent and anything but weak,” Strong said. “That doesn’t mean he was always right, but he wasn’t someone who held his finger in the wind allowing whatever the current opinion was to win.” Strong said that Carter defied his political advisors and even his wife Rosalynn by pushing quickly on the Panama Canal, convinced of the injustice of the 1903 treaty that gave the meddlesome United States the zone in perpetuity. “Every president says, ‘I don’t care about public opinion, I’ll really do what’s right,'” Strong said. “Most of the time when they say that, it’s not true. To a surprising extent with Carter, it was true.” – Carter and Iran – Carter, a devout Christian, vowed to elevate human rights after the cold realpolitik of Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Years after the fact, he could name political prisoners freed following his intervention in their cases, and took pride in coaxing the Soviet Union to let thousands of Jewish citizens emigrate. But the rights focus came to a head on Iran when Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi — a Western ally whose autocratic rule by decree brought economic and social modernization — faced growing discontent. Reflecting debate throughout the administration, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s more hawkish national security advisor, believed the shah should crush the protests — a time-tested model in the Middle East. Secretary of state Cyrus Vance, who would later quit in opposition to the ill-fated helicopter raid, wanted reforms by the shah. Stuart Eizenstat, a top adviser to Carter, acknowledged mistakes on Iran, which the president had called an “island of stability” on a New Year’s Eve visit a little more than a year before the revolution that ultimately saw the shah flee the country. But Eizenstat said Carter could not have known how much the shah had lost support or that he was to die from cancer within months. “It was the single worst intelligence failure in American history,” Eizenstat said in 2018 as he presented a book assessing Carter as a success. – Peacemaker legacy – Uniquely among modern US presidents, much of Carter’s legacy came after he left the White House. He won the Nobel Peace Prize more than two decades after his defeat at the polls. The Carter Center, which he established in his home state of Georgia, has championed democracy and global health, observing elections in dozens of countries and virtually eradicating guinea worm, a painful infectious parasite. Carter also took risks that few others of his stature would. He paid a landmark visit to North Korea in 1994, helping avert conflict, and infuriated Israel by asking if its treatment of the Palestinians constituted “apartheid.” But the accusations of weakness never went away. Conservative academic William Russell Mead, in a 2010 essay in Foreign Policy magazine, called on then-president Barack Obama to avoid “Carter Syndrome,” which he described as “weakness and indecision” and “incoherence and reversals.” Carter personally responded in a letter that listed accomplishments on the Camp David accords, China, the Soviet Union and human rights, while describing the fall of Iran’s shah as “obviously unpredictable.” “Although it is true that we did not become involved in military combat during my presidency, I do not consider this a sign of weakness or reason for apology,” he wrote. With 2,400 staff representing 100 different nationalities, AFP covers the world as a leading global news agency. AFP provides fast, comprehensive and verified coverage of the issues affecting our daily lives.
JIMMY Carter, the 39th President of the United States, has died aged 100 surrounded by his loving family. Beloved President Carter was known for living a life of service to others and for his faith, love of country, and family. 3 Jimmy Carter was the 39th president of the United States Credit: Getty Who was President Jimmy Carter? Jimmy Carter was the oldest living US President after the death of George H.W. Bush in 2018. Carter was born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia - the same place where he ultimately died. According to his biography on the White House website: "Peanut farming, talk of politics, and devotion to the Baptist faith were mainstays of his upbringing." He was a naval officer for seven years and became a submariner. He rose to the rank of lieutenant before he left the Navy when his father died in 1953, and he saw it as his responsibility to take over the family farm. He soon jumped into politics after being elected to the Georgia State Senate. In 1970, with the help of his wife, Rosalynn, he was elected the Governor of Georgia. In 1976, Carter beat out then-President Gerald Ford for the Oval Office, which he occupied from 1977 to 1981. Most read in The US Sun baby joy Mark Wright and Michelle Keegan announce she's pregnant with first baby NEIL BY MOUTH Moment Rangers hero says he needs RESCUED on live TV during Motherwell clash GER OUT Moment raging Rangers fans BOO their own players and say 'go away' at Motherwell WELL 2 GERS 2 Shambolic display leaves Clement on brink as horror Christmas week continues During his presidency, Carter was known for his compassionate approach to politics. Domestically, he created 8 million jobs, many of which went to women, African Americans, and Hispanics. He expanded the national park system and created the Department of Education and the Department of Energy. Internationally, he soared and, in 2002, was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in helping to create the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. After his presidency, Jimmy and Rosalynn founded the Carter Center , a non-profit center that helps humanitarian causes around the globe. They also were heavily involved with Habitat for Humanity. What was Jimmy Carter's cause of death? Jimmy Carter died on Sunday 29, December, 2024 nearly two years after going into hospice care. His official cause of death is yet to be announced but his son Chip released a heartfelt statement confirming the death of his father. He said: “My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love. “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.” 3 Jimmy Carter signs a copy of his book in 2015 Credit: AFP/Getty Carter, the beloved Democrat and Nobel Peace Prize winner, had experienced several health issues in recent years including melanoma that spread to his liver and brain. In 2015, he beat brain and liver cancer, but in 2019, his health began to suffer again. He chose hospice care over continuing medical treatment, the Carter Center announced on Saturday, February 18, 2023. Carter leaves behind his four children with his late wife Rosalynn, and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Rosalynn passed away on November 19, 2023, at 96 years old. Will Jimmy Carter's casket lie in wait? Public events will commemorate Carter in Atlanta and Washington, D.C. and a state funeral will be held, The Carter Center confirmed. Whether Carter and his family decided to go through with the double funeral and how much of it will be public will be disclosed in the coming days. Read more on the Scottish Sun GHOST TOWN Former Scots shopping hotspot 'decaying' as multimillion pound revamp ‘failing’ VAX HORROR Striken Scots 'gaslit' by health bosses after complications from Covid vaccine Carter will likely opt for burial in his home state of Georgia. However, like President H. W. Bush, he could have a state funeral in Washington DC and a personal funeral in his beloved hometown. 3 Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter and their four children Credit: GettyNoneThe Jacksonville Jaguars entered Week 14 in the driver’s seat for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, but that changed following Sunday’s 10-6 win over the Tennessee Titans at Nissan Stadium in Nashville. Jacksonville improved to 3-10 and slid from No. 1 to No. 5 in the reverse NFL standings after Sunday’s early window. The Jags now have the same record as the Titans, Panthers, Patriots, Jets and Browns in what has become a serious logjam at the bottom of the NFL standings. Only a pair of two-win teams remain atop the reverse NFL standings: the Las Vegas Raiders and New York Giants . Reverse NFL Standings (thru Week 14 early window) — Source: www.tankathon.com/nfl Jacksonville’s remaining schedule is truly a toilet bowl. The Jags get the Jets in Week 15 (home), the Raiders in Week 16 (road) and the Titans again in Week 17 (home). If they lose all three of those games —which is a real possibility with the uninspiring Mac Jones under center — they’ll be right back in the hunt for No. 1 overall. The story of Sunday’s game was Jacksonville’s defense, which allowed no touchdowns and just 272 total yards on the road. The team continues to show fight under embattled head coach Doug Pederson, which is likely why Pederson is getting the chance to keep his dignity and finish out the season on the sideline. Fans tend to latch onto the draft when their team’s season goes into the toilet, but Jaguars fans also know well from experience: Drafting No. 1 overall guarantees absolutely nothing as your team enters a rebuild. MORE: Rams $5.9 million former Super Bowl champ predicted to leave L.A. for Jaguars
NoneHONOLULU (AP) — Michael Rataj had 16 points in Oregon State's 74-65 win over Charleston at the Diamond Head Classic on Sunday. Rataj also had 12 rebounds for the Beavers (9-2). Damarco Minor also scored 16 points, going 5 of 11 from the floor, including 2 for 5 from 3-point range, and 4 for 4 from the line. Parsa Fallah shot 6 of 7 from the field and 2 for 3 from the line to finish with 14 points. The Cougars (8-3) were led by Lazar Djokovic, who recorded 13 points, eight rebounds and two steals. Derrin Boyd added 13 points for Charleston. Deywilk Tavarez also had 10 points. Oregon State took the lead with 15:29 to go in the first half and never looked back. The score was 35-26 at halftime, with Fallah racking up 13 points. Oregon State closed out the victory in the final half, while Minor led the way with a team-high 14 second-half points. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .
Jimmy Carter’s ascent to the White House was something few people could have predicted when he was governor of the US state of Georgia. It was no different for Jimmy Carter in the early 1970s. It took meeting several presidential candidates and then encouragement from an esteemed elder statesman before the young governor, who had never met a president himself, saw himself as something bigger. He announced his White House bid on December 12 1974, amid fallout from the Vietnam War and the resignation of Richard Nixon. Then he leveraged his unknown, and politically untainted, status to become the 39th president. That whirlwind path has been a model, explicit and otherwise, for would-be contenders ever since. Mr Carter’s journey to high office began in Plains, Georgia where he received end-of-life care decades after serving as president. David Axelrod, who helped to engineer Mr Obama’s four-year ascent from state senator to the Oval Office, said Mr Carter’s model is about more than how his grassroots strategy turned the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary into his springboard. “There was a moral stain on the country, and this was a guy of deep faith,” Mr Axelrod said. “He seemed like a fresh start, and I think he understood that he could offer something different that might be able to meet the moment.” “In 1976, it was just Jimmy Carter’s time,” she said. Of course, the seeds of his presidential run sprouted even before Mr Nixon won a second term and certainly before his resignation in August 1974. In Mr Carter’s telling, he did not run for governor in 1966, he lost, or in 1970 thinking about Washington. Even when he announced his presidential bid, neither he nor those closest to him were completely confident. “President of what?” his mother, Lillian, replied when he told her his plans. But soon after he became governor in 1971, Mr Carter’s team envisioned him as a national player. They were encouraged in part by the May 31 Time magazine cover depicting Mr Carter alongside the headline “Dixie Whistles a Different Tune”. In October 1971, Carter ally Dr Peter Bourne, an Atlanta physician who would become US drug tsar, sent his politician friend an unsolicited memo outlining how he could be elected president. On October 17, a wider circle of advisers sat with Mr Carter at the Governor’s Mansion to discuss it. Mr Carter, then 47, wore blue jeans and a T-shirt, according to biographer Jonathan Alter. The team, including Mr Carter’s wife Rosalynn, who died aged 96 in November 2023, began considering the idea seriously. “We never used the word ‘president’,” Mr Carter recalled upon his 90th birthday, “but just referred to national office”. Mr Carter invited high-profile Democrats and Washington players who were running or considering running in 1972, to one-on-one meetings at the mansion. He jumped at the chance to lead the Democratic National Committee’s national campaign that year. The position allowed him to travel the country helping candidates up and down the ballot. Along the way, he was among the Southern governors who angled to be George McGovern’s running mate. Mr Alter said Mr Carter was never seriously considered. Still, Mr Carter got to know, among others, former vice president Hubert Humphrey and senators Henry Jackson of Washington, Eugene McCarthy of Maine and Mr McGovern of South Dakota, the eventual nominee who lost a landslide to Mr Nixon. Mr Carter later explained he had previously defined the nation’s highest office by its occupants immortalised by monuments. “For the first time,” Mr Carter told The New York Times, “I started comparing my own experiences and knowledge of government with the candidates, not against ‘the presidency’ and not against Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. It made it a whole lot easier”. Adviser Hamilton Jordan crafted a detailed campaign plan calling for matching Mr Carter’s outsider, good-government credentials to voters’ general disillusionment, even before Watergate. But the team still spoke and wrote in code, as if the “higher office” were not obvious. It was reported during his campaign that Mr Carter told family members around Christmas 1972 that he would run in 1976. During another private confab in Atlanta, Mr Rusk told Mr Carter plainly: “Governor, I think you should run for president in 1976.” That, Mr Carter wrote, “removed our remaining doubts.” Mr Schale said the process is not always so involved. “These are intensely competitive people already,” he said of governors, senators and others in high office. “If you’re wired in that capacity, it’s hard to step away from it.” “Jimmy Carter showed us that you can go from a no-name to president in the span of 18 or 24 months,” said Jared Leopold, a top aide in Washington governor Jay Inslee’s unsuccessful bid for Democrats’ 2020 nomination. “For people deciding whether to get in, it’s a real inspiration,” Mr Leopold continued, “and that’s a real success of American democracy”.
Every December, as it has since 1927 with Charles Lindbergh, Time magazine selects and features the most consequential Person of the Year (13 United States presidents, other world leaders, popes). Sometimes it has not been a person, as such, but a tectonic societal shift (the personal computer, the #MeToo movement). Donald Trump, just named Time’s 2024 Person of the Year , was first elevated to that title after his 2016 election victory. He is consequential because he has returned to power even after attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, even after supporting the insurrection on January 6, 2021, and notwithstanding being twice impeached and convicted of a felony. President-elect Donald Trump speaks during Time magazine’s Person of the Year announcement at the New York Stock Exchange. Credit: AP This year, no one else was on so many people’s minds as Trump. In Time’s judgment , Trump was “the person who had the greatest influence, for better or worse, on the events of the year”. Time might have conferred the accolade jointly on Trump and Elon Musk, given Musk’s astonishing fusion of more than $US250 million in campaign contributions with his dominance over his X platform to help make Trump president. If influence is power, Musk has it. With ceaseless hours at Trump’s side to help shape his presidency, and his establishment and funding of a Musk think tank that will generate edicts for Trump to impose to re-sculpt the government, Musk has effectively supplanted JD Vance to become Trump’s vice president. Musk’s power is second only to Trump’s. For the next two years, Trump will be at his zenith. He will never have to face the voters again, which means he can act with impunity as he makes decisions to advance Trumpism and all that he wants to accomplish. Trump’s Republican Party, which he now owns, controls both houses of Congress, so there will be no more impeachments. His attorney-general and chief of the FBI will go after his political enemies . His secretary of defence will ensure that his generals follow his orders – overseas and in the streets of America’s cities. Loading Public servants will take loyalty oaths or be purged. Trump will take money appropriated by the Congress away from programs he does not like and divert it to his priorities. On the world stage, Trump will present more like Putin, Xi and Orban than Starmer, Macron and Albanese. Trump has already broken the norm of the US having “one president at a time” with his pre-inaugural threats to Mexico, Canada and China on trade and his forays into concluding the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East on his terms. His first inaugural address eight years ago featured the dystopian theme of “American carnage”. We will see how deep he wallows in that dark pool on January 20, 2025. Immediately after his address, when he arrives in the Oval Office, Trump’s march through the first 100 days will formally begin. Political newsletter Axios reports that “Trump advisers are running out of words to describe what’s coming in January”. “They say he feels empowered and emboldened, vindicated and validated, and eager to stretch the boundaries of power.” Trump will sign dozens of executive orders repealing everything he can that Biden did with his executive démarches four years ago, such as on climate, abortion rights, immigration, gun control and student loans. Loading Trump’s nominees will face confirmation hearings and votes in the Senate. There will be firestorms around Kash Patel to head the FBI, who wants to close the FBI’s building, expel its agents around the country and prosecute Trump’s enemies; Robert Kennedy Jr as secretary of health and human services, who wants to take a baseball bat to how Anthony Fauci practises medicine, but is opposed by 75 Nobel laureates ; Pete Hegseth at Defence, under fire for sexual misconduct, alcohol abuse and financial mismanagement; and Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, who many see as an asset to Putin. Any who are knocked back will be replaced by other loyal Trumpists with the same mandates. They will do all that Trump wants. Trump will move to pardon and release from jail hundreds of his foot soldiers who stormed the Capitol on January 6. After Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter, Trump will not even be singed by the critics. Trump will begin the detention and process of deporting hundreds of thousands of immigrants across the country. He will unveil legislation to get his budget, close the borders, cut taxes and fight over the public debt limit to avoid a default of the United States. Loading Trump will begin to implement his campaign promises – over and above the threats against Mexico, Canada and China – to impose across-the-board tariffs of up to 20 per cent on all goods coming into the US and up to 60 per cent for imports from China. Will Australia be in these crosshairs? There is absolutely no basis on which Trump’s tariffs on Australia can be justified. Trump loves a trade surplus. Australia has a structural trade deficit with the US. Australia has a free trade agreement with the US. New higher tariffs are incompatible with the letter and spirit of that trade pact. But there is a real threat here. Trump has just ripped up the trade agreement he negotiated in his first term with Canada and Mexico. If Trump can do that to those allies he can do it to Australia. This could be the first hard test in the Australia-US, Albanese-Trump relationship. Trump – let’s call him Person of the Century, so far – is on a high. The year ahead will be savage. The waves of Trump’s first 100 days will hit Australia’s shores too. Bruce Wolpe is a senior fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre. He has served on the Democratic staff in the US Congress and as chief of staff to former prime minister Julia Gillard. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. License this article Trump's America Opinion Trump diplomacy Donald Trump Elon Musk FBI More... Bruce Wolpe is a senior fellow at the University of Sydney's United States Studies Centre. He has served on the Democratic staff in the US Congress and as chief of staff to former prime minister Julia Gillard. Most Viewed in World Loading