fishing bait
The Detroit Lions have equaled the franchise record for most consecutive victories and stand alone atop the NFC standings. They still have plenty of obstacles to clear to remain at that perch. Even the NFC North remains up for grabs and they'll try to create a little more separation when they host the Green Bay Packers on Thursday night. The Lions (11-1), who have won 10 straight, haven't been able to shake free from Minnesota (10-2) or Green Bay (9-3). Detroit will host Minnesota, which has won five straight, in the regular-season finale next month. The Packers have remained in contention by winning seven of their last eight, with the only loss coming at the hands of the Lions. Detroit opened up a 21-point lead early in the third quarter and held on for a 24-14 victory. Lions coach Dan Campbell says the fun really begins now. "The best part of all of this -- we're in playoff football right now, that's where we're at," he said. "We're in December, and our schedule says that. Man, we play tough opponent after tough opponent -- we've got plenty coming up. So, man, this is the type of stuff that you live for and it's also the type of stuff that gets you ready for the tournament. "So, yeah, we're a resilient bunch and nothing's going to change that. We've just got to worry about the one in front of us." Detroit is coming off a 23-20 win over Chicago on Thanksgiving Day in which it nearly blew a 16-point lead. The Bears' poor clock management cost them an opportunity to send the game into overtime and led to coach Matt Eberflus' firing. The Lions have been hit with a wave of injuries, particularly on the defensive side. They signed four players over the past week to fortify their depth. "I know the elephant in the room is all the injuries that have happened with us on the defensive side," defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn said. "Our personnel staff does a really good job of acquiring players that fit exactly who we are. I would say this, it's not the playbook that's the most important thing for these guys to come in and learn. It's the style of play that we have and that's easy to learn." Jared Goff has thrown for six touchdowns and zero interceptions in the past three games after tossing five picks against the Houston Texans on Nov. 10. The Packers also played on Thanksgiving, defeating Miami 30-17. Green Bay opened up a 24-3 halftime lead as Jordan Love threw two touchdown passes to Jayden Reed. Now the Packers face a Detroit team that has defeated them in five of the last six meetings. "With most good teams, they play the game the right way," Green Bay coach Matt LaFleur said. "Certainly, Detroit's been doing that for a couple years now. That's who they are and that's who we are as well. It should be a great game on Thursday night." The Packers might have to win via a shootout, considering the Lions are averaging a league-best 31.9 points per game (Green Bay ranks eighth at 26.5). Stopping the running game will be key, according to LaFleur. "They're two very dynamic backs. (David) Montgomery, he's going to beat you up physically and the other guy (Jahmyr Gibbs), you've got to try to corral because he can take it the distance," he said. "Jared (Goff) is playing at an MVP level, so they've got a really potent offense." Lions offensive tackle Taylor Decker (knee) and three defensive linemen -- DJ Reader (shoulder), Josh Paschal (knee) and Levi Onwezurike (hamstring) -- didn't practice on Tuesday. Offensive guard Elgton Jenkins (knee), Linebacker Edgerrin Cooper (hamstring) and cornerback Corey Ballentine (knee) missed the Packers' practice. --Field Level Media
Pitt running back Desmond Reid and linebacker Kyle Louis were difficult to miss on the football field this season, and their names were equally prominent on the All-ACC football team revealed Tuesday on the ACC Network. Reid was a first-team selection as an all-purpose back and return specialist. Plus, he was named honorable mention at running back, his main position, where he led the Panthers in yards rushing (797). He averaged 150.9 all-purpose yards per game (sixth in the nation), and he led the ACC with an average of 12.3 yards per punt return (ninth in the nation). Louis was named first-team linebacker after collecting 150 voting points — the highest of any linebacker on the All-ACC team and 18 more than the second-highest vote getter. He compiled an impressive stat line with 96 tackles, 15 1/2 for a loss, seven sacks, four interceptions and a forced fumble. He also intercepted a pass on a two-point conversion attempt. The most recent FBS player to achieve that stat line was Utah consensus All-America linebacker Devin Lloyd in 2021. Reid and Louis were among five Pitt players named to the All-ACC team, joining safety Donovan McMillon (second team) and linebacker Rasheem Biles and kicker Ben Sauls (third team). McMillon had back-to-back 100-tackle seasons, getting 108 this season and 105 in 2023. He is the first Pitt player to do so since linebacker Scott McKillop in 2007 and 2008. Biles recorded 77 tackles, 14 1/2 for a loss, 5 1/2 sacks and an interception that he returned for a touchdown against Syracuse. He finished 10th in the nation wiht an average of 1.3 TFLs per game. Sauls led the team in scoring with 95 points while converting a nation-leading three field goals of 55-plus yards among his 18 on 21 attempts. He also was perfect on all 41 extra-point kicks. His five field goals of 50-plus yards represent a school record for a season and his 58-yarder ties Alex Kessman (2020) for the longest in Pitt history. Along with Reid, tight end Gavin Bartholomew, defensive tackle Nick James and wide receiver Konata Mumpfield received All-ACC honorable mention.
Utah St. 41, San Diego State 20Topone Exchange: 1000x Leverage and Free Trading, All at the FingertipsOn Saturday night, Donald Trump announced he intends to appoint Kash Patel as director of the FBI. The news sparked an immediate frenzy from establishment figures across media and politics. Legal and national security “experts” were deployed to the Sunday morning news shows to characterize the move as evidence that Trump intends to politicize the FBI and use it as a weapon against his many political opponents. The political establishment’s concerns about what a Trump FBI could do mirror a lot of what we’ve heard from the right in recent years as they found themselves in the Bureau’s crosshairs. But almost all of these complaints and warnings have operated under the assumption that—with maybe the exception of a few bad episodes in the 1960s—the FBI has long been an essential crime-fighting force that has only recently become—or threatens to become—corrupted by politics. In truth, the FBI has always been used as a weapon against political movements and rivals of the established political class. That’s the reason it was created. At the end of the 1800s, left-wing anarchists were attacking heads of state all across Europe. In a few short years, the king of Italy, the prime minister of Spain, the empress of Austria, and the president of France were all assassinated by anarchists. While no communist or anarchist movement had yet to take over a country, the tenacity of these activists and revolutionaries was seriously concerning those in power in the United States. Then, in 1901, President William McKinley was shot and killed by an anarchist while attending a meet-and-greet in Buffalo, New York, which brought his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt, into office. It was President Roosevelt who tapped his Attorney General Charles Bonaparte—the grandnephew of Napoleon—to create the FBI. The AG was required by law to get congressional approval before creating this new “investigative” service of special agents within the Department of Justice. In the spring of 1908, Bonaparte officially requested the money and authority to create the FBI. Congress came back with an emphatic no. Members of the House saw through the innocuous language of the request and figured out exactly what the president and AG were doing—creating a secret police force that was answerable only to them. House Democrats like Joseph Swagar and John J. Fitzgerald and Republicans like Walter I. Smith and George Waldo all loudly condemned the proposal, saying it called for a “system of espionage” comparable to the Tsar’s secret police in Russia that stood in stark contrast to the very principles at the heart of the American system. Congress explicitly forbade the AG from creating this new Bureau. So what did Bonaparte do? He waited for Congress to break for the summer and then went ahead and created the FBI anyway. Congress was only notified about the new federal police force half a year later when Bonaparte included a quick throw-away line at the end of his annual report: “It became necessary for the department to organize a small force of special agents of its own.” So, the FBI was not created in response to out-of-control crime; its creation was a crime. Immediately, the new Bureau was unleashed on anyone and everyone who was perceived as a threat to those in power. That started with left-wing anarchists but quickly expanded to include many antiwar activists as President Wilson pulled the country into World War I. From the outset, the FBI operated primarily as a domestic intelligence agency—recruiting spies within groups they were targeting and breaking into offices and homes, intercepting mail, and tapping the phones of anyone they considered a threat. As the years wore on—like most other executive agencies—the Bureau evolved away from serving the direct interests of whoever happened to sit in the Oval Office to instead serve its own interest and the interest of the broader entrenched, permanent power structure in Washington. In the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, the FBI conducted covert operations aimed at inciting violence between domestic groups, breaking up political organizations it disapproved of, and, perhaps most famously, collecting blackmail on Martin Luther King Jr. that they then tried to use to drive him to commit suicide. Related Articles Commentary | A new Legislative session: Time for pocketbook pragmatism Commentary | Climate activists should pivot from costly pipe dreams to realistic solutions Commentary | Privacy agency oversteps authority, jeopardizes California’s opportunity to lead in AI Commentary | Newsom’s wrongheaded special session is a misuse of gubernatorial power Commentary | Scott Horton: Can Trump actually fend off the war hawks and bring peace? Although today’s FBI acknowledges and publicly disavows these past activities, they are still carrying out egregious operations that always seem to benefit the political class. The Bureau has taken up a kind of sting operation where, over and over again, agents find isolated, gullible, often mentally-handicapped young men, pretend to be political radicals or higher-ups in a terrorist organization, and then convince the young men to plan and carry out a terrorist attack with FBI-funds and resources. Agents then step in at the end and act like they heroically stopped a real plot. The FBI did this relentlessly with young Muslim men after 9/11. The arrests helped prolong the perception that the global war on terror and extreme measures like the Patriot Act were necessary. In recent years, the FBI has conducted a number of similar schemes with right-wing groups—advancing the establishment’s narrative that Donald Trump is radicalizing “uneducated” middle Americans and turning them into violent insurrectionists. And then there are, of course, all the ways the FBI directly tried to undermine and hinder Trump’s first term. Right-wingers are correctly deriding the establishment for panicking about Trump’s FBI doing to them what they have tried to do to him. But many—on both sides—go wrong when they present the Bureau as only recently, or imminently, being corrupted into serving the interests of those in power. That’s been its role since the beginning. Connor O’Keeffe ( @ConnorMOKeeffe ) produces media and content at the Mises Institute. This commentary is republished from the Mises Institute.
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The Calgary Board of Education said overall attendance rates are up across the board, which the district said is a key predictor of learning excellence. According to the CBE’s Annual Education Results Report (AERR), students were absent 11.7 per cent of the time in the 2023-2024 school year. This is 0.7 percentage points lower than the 2022-2023 school year, which saw 12.4 per cent absenteeism. Students who are English As Additional Language Learners (EALs) were absent around 11.4 per cent of the time in the 2023-2024 school year, while those with special education needs were absent 15.6 per cent of the time. Mike Nelson, a superintendent of school improvement, said the overall improvement in attendance rates indicates that current processes for addressing student absenteeism are providing positive outcomes. According to the AERR, the CBE’s Attendance Team supported 174 schools with 658 students experiencing attendance concerns, the report said. Less than 10 per cent of students who were consulted needed additional intervention through the Provincial Attendance Board. Nelson also said that the improvement is a key indicator of learning excellence at the CBE. According to the National Center for Education Statistics in the U.S. students who attend school regularly have been shown to achieve at higher levels compared with peers who chronically miss school. Kindergartners who constantly miss school were associated with greater absenteeism in subsequent years and lower achievement in reading math and general knowledge. Children with higher levels of absenteeism throughout their childhood also have higher high school dropout rates. A 2023 study published in Frontiers In Education also suggests that chronic absenteeism is associated with deficits in academic and social-emotional functioning and the effects can last several years. “We, of course, will continue monitoring attendance data and collaboration with students, parents, community partners, and this will help build to the success,” he told trustees at a Nov. 26 board meeting. However, Grade 10 to 12 students continued to see the highest rates of absenteeism. More than six per cent of these students were missing more than half of their high school classes, and many were absent for reasons that aren’t clear because the school didn’t receive contact from legal guardians. Grades 1 to 3 and Grades 4 to 6 students tend to miss less school than Grade 7 to 9 and Grade 10 to 12 students, the report added. Jennifer Turner, another superintendent of school improvement, said the district will continue to work with parents to drive home the importance of regular school attendance. “We know that we do have robust processes in our schools. They may work with our Attendance Team, but [mostly] through our assistant principals, guidance counselors and teachers,” she said. “If a student misses a certain number of days, [Attendance Team members] either connect with that independent student or their parent and if it continues, they use guidance counselors to try to leverage those relationships to improve attendance.” Turner also noted that students with identified special education needs are often absent from school due to medical appointments, treatment and therapy outside of the school environment. Staff are working with families to better understand the reason for the absence and the duration of the absence, as well as making plans to ensure that the student can keep up with school work during their absence. “We are not aware of any legal concerns as a result of [the absence] not being identified, although school staff do take a consistent relational approach with those families to ensure that we are understanding and finding ways to pull them back prior to moving forward through the more formalized attendance process,” she added.
South Korea lifts president's martial law decree after lawmakers vote against it