
DETROIT (AP) — For most of a century, the Detroit Lions making the playoffs was a banner day. Suddenly, it has become old hat. After winning their last NFL championship in 1957 , the Lions only played 13 playoff games in the next 75 seasons. They only won one of them — a 38-6 rout of the Dallas Cowboys in 1991. That all changed last season. The Lions beat the Rams 24-23 on Jan. 14 and then defeated Tampa Bay 31-23 a week later. They led the NFC championship game 24-7 at halftime, but the San Francisco 49ers rallied to win 34-31. This year, things have been even better. A week after a Thanksgiving win over the Chicago Bears, the Lions beat Green Bay 34-31 to move to 12-1 and clinch a second straight postseason berth — the first time they've done that since going three years in a row from 1993-95. Coach Dan Campbell didn't even notice his team had secured a playoff spot after beating the Packers. “I just found that out — I didn't even realize,” he said after the game. “It's good. It's good, but it's like, man, we've got four (games) left and we want to get in a different way. We want to go in on our terms and find a way to get this one seed. That's the priority.” Campbell was so oblivious to locking up a spot that he didn't even mention it to the team after the game — although they might have seen “Playoffs Clinched” plastered all over the scoreboards. “I wish I had told the team, but I had no idea,” he said. “Honestly, I think they know. They feel like I feel. We can do the old golf clap, but we know what we want to do.” Jared Goff, who followed Campbell into the interview room, agreed with his coach. “I just heard that,” he said. “It's pretty cool, but it is certainly not what our ultimate goal is. We want to win this division, and we've still got some work to do.” At 12-1 and on an 11-game winning streak, it is hard to find something that isn't working. The Lions offense, though, has been remarkable. They have scored at least 23 points in 10 straight games, including six games over 30, four over 40 and two over 50. They are leading the league in scoring at 32.1 points per game and are fourth in both passing touchdowns (27) and rushing touchdowns (22). The Lions are second in the league in scoring defense (18.0 ppg), but injuries are starting to catch up to them. Jordan Love averaged 10.3 yards per attempt and 17.2 yards per completion on Thursday — both season-worsts for Detroit's defense — and the Packers were the first team this season to score 30 points against them. Seven Lions defenders registered a quarterback hit on Thursday night. Linebacker Jack Campbell was a first-round pick in 2023 and has been a fixture on the Detroit defense, but the other six — Al-Quadin Muhammad, Myles Adams, Trevor Nowaske, Za'Darius Smith, Ezekiel Turner and Jonah Williams — have joined the team during the regular season to replace injured players. Rookie CB Terrion Arnold had a rough day, including yet another pass-interference penalty in the end zone, this one wiping out a Lions interception. He hasn't recorded an interception in his 12-game career and is averaging 0.6 passes defended per game. The Lions were missing 11 defensive linemen and linebackers against the Packers, then lost key defensive tackle Alim McNeill to a head injury. Most of those players are on injured reserve, but it isn't clear if McNeill, Levi Onwuzurike (hamstring), Josh Paschal (knee) or D.J. Reader (shoulder) will be available to face Buffalo on Dec. 15. 18 — the number of Lions on injured reserve, more than any other team in the NFL. If anything can derail them between now and the Super Bowl, it is going to be running out of healthy players in places other than the defensive front seven. Get as much rest and healing as possible with a long week ahead. ___ AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl'Someone will kill you soon': Taylor Fritz exposes online abuse after loss to Felix Auger-Aliassime in United Cup
Worried that President-elect Donald Trump will curtail federal efforts to take on the nation’s medical debt problem, patient and consumer advocates are looking to states to help people who can’t afford their medical bills or pay down their debts. “The election simply shifts our focus,” said Eva Stahl, who oversees public policy at Undue Medical Debt, a nonprofit that has worked closely with the Biden administration and state leaders on medical debt. “States are going to be the epicenter of policy change to mitigate the harms of medical debt.” New state initiatives may not be enough to protect Americans from medical debt if the incoming Trump administration and congressional Republicans move forward with plans to scale back federal aid that has helped millions gain health insurance or reduce the cost of their plans in recent years. Comprehensive health coverage that limits patients’ out-of-pocket costs remains the best defense against medical debt. But in the face of federal retrenchment, advocates are eyeing new initiatives in state legislatures to keep medical bills off people’s credit reports, a consumer protection that can boost credit scores and make it easier to buy a car, rent an apartment, or even get a job. Several states are looking to strengthen oversight of medical credit cards and other financial products that can leave patients paying high interest rates on top of their medical debt. Some states are also exploring new ways to compel hospitals to bolster financial aid programs to help their patients avoid sinking into debt. “There’s an enormous amount that states can do,” said Elisabeth Benjamin, who leads health care initiatives at the nonprofit Community Service Society of New York. “Look at what’s happened here.” New York state has enacted several laws in recent years to rein in hospital debt collections and to expand financial aid for patients, often with support from both Democrats and Republicans in the legislature. “It doesn’t matter the party. No one likes medical debt,” Benjamin said. Other states that have enacted protections in recent years include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington. Many measures picked up bipartisan support. President Joe Biden’s administration has proved to be an ally in state efforts to control health care debt. Such debt burdens 100 million people in the United States, a . Led by Biden appointee Rohit Chopra, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has , going after aggressive collectors and exposing problematic practices across the medical debt industry. Earlier this year, the agency proposed landmark regulations to from consumer credit scores. The White House also championed legislation to boost access to government-subsidized health insurance and to cap out-of-pocket drug costs for seniors, both key bulwarks against medical debt. Trump hasn’t indicated whether his administration will move ahead with the CFPB credit reporting rule, which was slated to be finalized early next year. Congressional Republicans, who will control the House and Senate next year, have as regulatory overreach that will compromise the value of credit reports. And Elon Musk, the billionaire whom Trump has tapped to lead his initiative to shrink government, last week . “Delete CFPB,” Musk posted on X. If the CFPB withdraws the proposed regulation, states could enact their own rules, following the lead of Colorado, New York, and other states that have passed credit reporting bans since 2023. Advocates in Massachusetts are pushing the legislature there to take up a ban when it reconvenes in January. “There are a lot of different levers that states have to take on medical debt,” said April Kuehnhoff, a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, which has helped lead national efforts to expand debt protections for patients. Kuehnhoff said she expects more states to crack down on medical credit card providers and other companies that lend money to patients to pay off medical bills, sometimes at double-digit interest rates. Under the Biden administration, the CFPB has been investigating amid warnings that many people may not understand that signing up for a medical credit card such as CareCredit or enrolling in a payment plan through a financial services company can pile on more debt. If the CFPB efforts stall under Trump, states could follow the lead of California, New York, and Illinois, which have all tightened rules governing patient lending in recent years. Consumer advocates say states are also likely to continue expanding efforts to get hospitals to provide more financial assistance to reduce or eliminate bills for low- and middle-income patients, a key protection that can keep people from slipping into debt. Hospitals historically have not made this aid readily available, prompting states such as California, Colorado, and Washington to set stronger standards to ensure more patients get help with bills they can’t afford. This year, North Carolina also won approval from the Biden administration to withhold federal funding from hospitals in the state unless they agreed to expand financial assistance. In Georgia, where state government is entirely in Republican control, officials have been discussing new measures to get hospitals to provide more assistance to patients. “When we talk about hospitals putting profits over patients, we get lots of nodding in the legislature from Democrats and Republicans,” said Liz Coyle, executive director of Georgia Watch, a consumer advocacy nonprofit. Many advocates caution, however, that state efforts to bolster patient protections will be critically undermined if the Trump administration cuts federal funding for health insurance programs such as Medicaid and the insurance marketplaces established through the Affordable Care Act. Trump and congressional Republicans have signaled their intent to roll back federal subsidies passed under Biden that make health plans purchased on ACA marketplaces more affordable. That could hike annual premiums by hundreds or even thousands of dollars for many enrollees, by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank. And during Trump’s first term, he backed efforts in Republican-led states to restrict enrollment in their Medicaid safety net programs through rules that would require people to work in order to receive benefits. GOP state leaders in Idaho, Louisiana, and other states have to renew such efforts. “That’s all a recipe for more medical debt,” said Stahl, of Undue Medical Debt. Jessica Altman, who heads the Covered California insurance marketplace, warned that federal cuts will imperil initiatives in her state that have limited copays and deductibles and curtailed debt for many state residents. “States like California that have invested in critical affordable programs for our residents will face tough decisions,” she said.We commend Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for standing firm and opposing the dismissal of the hush money/Stormy Daniels case that resulted in Donald Trump’s 34 felony convictions in New York last spring. Now Acting Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan should do the right thing and stay Trump’s sentence until he serves out his second term in the White House — but let the conviction stand. We find Trump’s argument that the verdict delivered by the electorate on Election Day should render moot the verdict delivered in Manhattan criminal court unpersuasive. Trump’s lawyers argue that it is ridiculous to have a state criminal sentence overhanging a president for the entirety of his term, and we agree that it is a bizarre situation, but one borne of a bizarre situation that this president — who hid campaign-related payments to a porn actress he had an affair with — and the country that elected him have put themselves in. It is even more ridiculous, we believe, to have this conviction — not a politically-enacted one, not a frivolous finding, but the result of a full trial and unanimous jury — disappear because Trump is now on his way back to the White House. The three other Trump criminal cases, a federal indictment and Georgia indictment related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and his illegal retention and hiding of classified documents, are, in fact, disappearing. The reason is mostly the calendar and an overly broad immunity decision about “official acts” from the U.S. Supreme Court. Had there been sufficient time, those were strong cases with more than a possibility of resulting in convictions and prison time for the former president if they’d been allowed to mature. The Manhattan counts were about actions with fewer national and national-security implications than these cases, but these are no less crimes for having been lower-profile. Almost none of the public defenses of Trump have actually argued that he did not do what he was convicted of; they largely land on the idea that we shouldn’t care, that Trump should effectively be allowed to violate the law because of his imminent return to the Oval Office. The latest push to have the case dismissed doesn’t center really at all on the relevant facts or the case law, but entirely on the premise that Trump is now past the point of being held criminally responsible, even post-conviction. Trump’s past cannot be erased. In truth, the mark of a democracy in crisis is not when a leader faces criminal liability, but when a leader cannot. Even if this case truly has to wait until 2029 until it sees a resolution in the form of sentencing — which, as we’ve noted before, is not likely to be jail time in any case — then so be it. We hope, too, that one day Trump really can be held accountable for Jan. 6 and all his other machinations to suspend the peaceful transfer of power, and for his dangerous retention of some of the country’s most sensitive records. At the very least, we can impose punishment for the crimes for which he was already convicted. Even if it happens four years from now. — New York Daily News
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — Barrington Hargress scored 24 points and Nate Pickens made two free throws with less than a second remaining to help UC Riverside slip past St. Thomas-Minnesota 81-79 in overtime on Sunday. Pickens' foul shots came after Nolan Minessale made a free throw on both sides of a timeout to tie the game with 13 seconds to go. Isaiah Moses made two free throws for UC Riverside with 17 seconds left to force OT tied at 73. Hargress shot 10 for 20, including 4 for 10 from beyond the arc for the Highlanders (9-5, 2-0 Big West Conference). Kaleb Smith added 18 points and 10 rebounds. Pickens scored 10. The Tommies (10-5), who had a six-game win streak snapped, were led by Minessale with 27 points. Drake Dobbs added 19 points and Miles Barnstable scored 10. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .Only about 2 in 10 Americans approve of Biden's pardon of his son Hunter, poll finds
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