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TAMPA, Fla. — Tampa Bay's surest path to the NFL playoffs is a division championship. The Buccaneers will need help to repeat in the NFC South, but only if they first and foremost give themselves a chance. That means winning their remaining games at home against Carolina and New Orleans, while the Atlanta Falcons lose at least once in the final two weeks of the regular season. The Bucs (8-7) and Falcons share the best record in the division, however Atlanta holds the tiebreaker after sweeping the season series between the teams. Tampa Bay, which has won three consecutive division titles, is the only NFC team that has made the playoffs each of the past four seasons. “We’ve got to take care of business or else we’ve got no shot,” quarterback Baker Mayfield said after a 26-24 loss at Dallas cost the Bucs control of the NFC South race. “This one, we've got to take it on the chin,” Mayfield added. “It's a short week. It's Christmas week. We've got to focus on Carolina and figure out a way to win.” Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles, center, watches play against the Dallas Cowboys in the second half of an NFL football game in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024. Credit: AP/Jerome Miron If Atlanta is able to maintain its lead, Tampa Bay could make the postseason as a wild card if the Bucs win out and the Commanders lose twice. Coach Todd Bowles sounds confident that his players understand the challenge ahead and will clean up mistakes that contributed to the end of their four-game win streak. “We’ve got to win a ballgame (this week). If we don’t win a ballgame, we don’t give ourselves a chance,” Bowles said Monday. “We have to focus on us like we’ve been doing,” the coach added. “We have to correct the mistakes, and we have to go out and win Sunday, and we’ve got to win the next week, and then we’ll see what happens after that.” What's working The offense, which ranks third in the NFL at 389.8 yards per game, isn't a fluke. Despite losing to the Cowboys, Tampa Bay finished with 410 yards total offense. It was the team's fifth straight game — as well as an NFL-high ninth overall — with 400-plus yards. The Bucs are seventh in rushing (143.7 yards per game) after ranking 32nd each of the past two seasons. What needs helps The defense yielded 292 yards passing against the Cowboys, 226 of it in the first half when Cowboys WR CeeDee Lamb had six catches for 100 yards and a touchdown. Bowles said shoddy tackling was the biggest issue — not poor coverage. Lamb had one reception for 5 yards after halftime. Stock up Mayfield's chemistry with rookie WR Jalen McMillan, who has 27 receptions for 336 yards and five TDs, continues to grow. McMillan had five catches for 57 yards and a touchdown — his fourth in the past three games — against Dallas. He was also the intended receiver on Mayfield's deep throw that CB Jourdan Lewis intercepted in the end zone to help the Cowboys hold off the Bucs in the closing minutes. Stock down Turnovers were costly against Dallas. The end-zone interception stopped the Bucs from cutting into a 26-17 deficit with 6:22 remaining in the fourth quarter. Rachaad White's fumble with 1:31 left ended any hope for a last-minute victory. On both plays, defenders ripped the ball out of the grasp of the offensive player. “We knew they were going to rake at the ball going into the ballgame," Bowles said. "We just have to have two hands on the ball, and we have to fight for it. We have to take better care of the football. That’s priority No. 1.” Injuries Bowles said it's too early to project the status of several starters for coming games, including S Antoine Winfield Jr. (knee), who has missed the past two games. TE Cade Otton (knee) and LB K.J. Britt (ankle) were inactive against the Cowboys, while reserve WR Sterling Shepard left during the game with a hamstring injury. Key number 80. Bucky Irving leads all NFL rookie RBs with 920 yards rushing. He needs 80 over the next two games to reach 1,000. He scored his seventh rushing touchdown against Dallas. That tied Errict Rhett and Lars Tate for the second-most rushing TDs by a rookie running back in franchise history. Doug Martin set the record of 11 in 2012. Next up Host Carolina on Sunday.Canada ordered to address Jordan's Principle backlog, find new solutionsThe Allan government was urged to fast-track major electricity transmission line projects or risk years of substantial increases to household bills if the state’s coal-fired power stations closed before the projects were completed. A Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action report warned that current trends of delays to the high-voltage projects along with early closures of coal power exposed Victorians to significant bill shock. A protest against the KerangLink transmission project was mowed into a field last year. Credit: Glenden Watts It made the case for accelerating Marinus Link, a new connection to Tasmania due for completion in 2030, and KerangLink, which provides a new connection between Victoria and NSW that is due to be finished in 2032. KerangLink will mean power stored by the Snowy 2.0 hydropower project can be siphoned to Victoria and power generated by Victoria’s new wind farms can be sent north, improving the reliability of the grid. The 2022 report, obtained by the state opposition under freedom-of-information laws and provided to The Age, found if the projects were completed even one year later, the increase to household energy bills would be $48 annually, or $717 over 15 years between 2026 and 2040. A four-year delay would add $321 annually to power bills or $4816 over 15 years, according to the Endgame Economics modelling. Since the report was written, Marinus Link is now expected to be delivered by 2032 — two years later than modelled. KerangLink is still forecast to be finalised by the end of this decade but has been beset by community and political opposition. The extra costs for consumers would largely be driven by the cost of having to import more energy from interstate. The department said this showed “the importance of accelerating against KerangLink to protect against unexpected project delays and provide the best chance of delivery before all coal is closed in Victoria”. Although at least one generator in Victoria has indicated it will stay open until 2035, the Australian Energy Market Operator expects coal to exit the grid sooner and has warned that premature closures pose a serious danger. The Victorian department’s report noted many transmission projects in Australia were running behind schedule, with delays of at least a year since they were included in AEMO’s 2018 reports. Accelerating KerangLink, also known as Victoria to NSW Interconnector West, could provide a buffer for any project delays or the earlier exit of coal, it said. Because Victoria is home to the nation’s largest and oldest brown coal stations, the bill impacts of this “shock scenario” were more than double compared with those in other states in the National Electricity Market — NSW, Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia – and in the ACT. The report noted that bringing the project forward would also reduce the time available for early community engagement and warned that those consequences should be minimised. State opposition energy spokesman David Davis said the Allan government should have better planned for the risks, including allowing time for consultation. “Instead, Labor has botched energy policy in Victoria and now, in a rush, is seeking to cover its own tracks by shortcuts on consultation and bulldozing landowners,” Davis said. “By dithering and through their incompetence, Labor have got themselves in a corner and Victorian families are being asked to pay the price.” The Coalition has not formally said it would scrap the KerangLink project, but it has previously tried to block planning laws that paved the way for it. Last year Nationals leader Peter Walsh called for it to be abandoned as his party argued it was unnecessary and expensive. The Nationals recently urged landholders to hold out when negotiating deals for compensation. Stephanie Bashir, chief executive of energy advisory firm Nexa Advisory, said the high-voltage transmission line projects started off on the wrong foot with communities through a false assumption they would accept them. “That was a very wrong assumption, and it’s been basically paddling ever since to try and get communities and the broader public on board with the transition,” she said. Bashir said planning and approvals now needed to be urgently expedited so the transmission lines could be shovel-ready within 12 months to ensure renewables could be built and connected before coal power plant closures. “The key thing to manage the impact on consumer bills is to get the transition done on time,” Bashir said. “Unplanned outages and sudden closures of coal mean high prices.” She said it was not viable to keep extending the life of ageing coal-powered stations and that delays would mean importing expensive gas as a back-up. Victoria is expected to contribute $1.6 billion towards KerangLink, which would add $9 a year to household bills. Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said Victoria’s coal-fired power stations were increasingly unreliable. “That’s why we’re building renewable energy projects for our future and the transmission needed to deliver cheaper, more reliable power to all Victorians. “The Liberal-Nationals energy policy is the same anti-renewables plan they implemented when they were last in government.” Through VicGrid, the government is creating funds for landowners and communities that host new renewable energy infrastructure such as KerangLink. The Australian Energy Market Operator received more than 500 submissions while consulting on KerangLink options for six weeks. Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter .
JERUSALEM — Israel approved a United States-brokered with Lebanon's Hezbollah on Tuesday, setting the stage for an end to nearly 14 months of fighting linked to the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. In the hours leading up to the Cabinet meeting, Israel carried out its most intense wave of strikes in Beirut and its southern suburbs and issued a record number of evacuation warnings. At least 24 people were killed in strikes across the country, according to local authorities, as Israel signaled it aims to keep pummeling Hezbollah in the final hours before any ceasefire takes hold. Israel's security Cabinet approved the ceasefire agreement late Tuesday after it was presented by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his office said. U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking in Washington, called the agreement “good news” and said his administration would make a renewed push for a ceasefire in Gaza. An Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire would mark the first major step toward ending the regionwide unrest triggered by Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. But it does not address the devastating war in Gaza. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to bring peace to the Middle East, but neither he nor Netanyahu have proposed a postwar solution for the Palestinian territory, where Hamas is still holding dozens of hostages and the conflict is more intractable. Still, any halt to the fighting in Lebanon is expected to reduce the likelihood of war between Israel and Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas and exchanged direct fire with Israel on two occasions earlier this year. Israel says it will ‘attack with might’ if Hezbollah breaks truce Netanyahu presented the ceasefire proposal to Cabinet ministers after a televised address in which he listed a series of accomplishments against Israel’s enemies across the region. He said a ceasefire with Hezbollah would further isolate Hamas in Gaza and allow Israel to focus on its main enemy, Iran, which backs both groups. “If Hezbollah breaks the agreement and tries to rearm, we will attack,” he said. “For every violation, we will attack with might.” Netanyahu's office later said Israel appreciated the U.S. efforts in securing the deal but "reserves the right to act against every threat to its security.” It was not immediately clear when the ceasefire would go into effect, and the exact terms of the deal were not released. The deal calls for a two-month initial halt in fighting and would require Hezbollah to end its armed presence in a broad swath of southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops would return to their side of the border. would deploy in the south, and an international panel headed by the United States would monitor all sides’ compliance. But implementation remains a major question mark. Israel has demanded the right to act should Hezbollah violate its obligations. Lebanese officials have rejected writing that into the proposal. Biden said Israel reserved the right to quickly resume operations in Lebanon if Hezbollah breaks the terms of the truce, but that the deal "was designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities.” Hezbollah has said it accepts the proposal, but a senior official with the group said Tuesday that it had not seen the agreement in its final form. “After reviewing the agreement signed by the enemy government, we will see if there is a match between what we stated and what was agreed upon by the Lebanese officials,” Mahmoud Qamati, deputy chair of Hezbollah’s political council, told the Al Jazeera news network. “We want an end to the aggression, of course, but not at the expense of the sovereignty of the state” of Lebanon, he said. “Any violation of sovereignty is refused.” Warplanes bombard Beirut and its southern suburbs Even as Israeli, U.S, Lebanese and international officials have expressed growing optimism over a ceasefire, Israel has continued its campaign in Lebanon, which it says aims to cripple Hezbollah’s military capabilities. An Israeli strike on Tuesday leveled a residential building in the central Beirut district of Basta — the second time in recent days warplanes have hit the crowded area near the city’s downtown. At least seven people were killed and 37 wounded, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. Strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs killed at least one person and wounded 13, it said. Three people were killed in a separate strike in Beirut and three in a strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon. Lebanese state media said another 10 people were killed in the eastern Baalbek province. Israel says it targets Hezbollah fighters and their infrastructure. Israel also struck a building in Beirut's bustling commercial district of Hamra for the first time, hitting a site that is around 400 meters (yards) from Lebanon’s Central Bank. There were no reports of casualties. The Israeli military said it struck targets in Beirut and other areas linked to Hezbollah's financial arm. The evacuation warnings covered many areas, including parts of Beirut that previously have not been targeted. The warnings, coupled with fear that Israel was ratcheting up attacks before a ceasefire, sent residents fleeing. Traffic was gridlocked, and some cars had mattresses tied to them. Dozens of people, some wearing their pajamas, gathered in a central square, huddling under blankets or standing around fires as Israeli drones buzzed loudly overhead. Hezbollah, meanwhile, kept up its rocket fire, triggering air raid sirens across northern Israel. Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee issued evacuation warnings for 20 buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a major presence, as well as a warning for the southern town of Naqoura where the U.N. peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL, is headquartered. UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told The Associated Press that peacekeepers will not evacuate. Israeli forces reach Litani River in southern Lebanon The Israeli military also said its ground troops clashed with Hezbollah forces and destroyed rocket launchers in the Slouqi area on the eastern end of the Litani River, a few kilometers (miles) from the Israeli border. Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah would be required to move its forces north of the Litani, which in some places is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border. Hezbollah began firing into northern Israel, saying it was showing support for the Palestinians, a day after Hamas carried out its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, triggering the Gaza war. Israel returned fire on Hezbollah, and the two sides have been exchanging barrages ever since. Israel escalated its campaign of bombardment in mid-September and later sent troops into Lebanon, vowing to put an end to Hezbollah fire so tens of thousands of evacuated Israelis could return to their homes. More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon the past 13 months, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The bombardment has driven 1.2 million people from their homes. Israel says it has killed more than 2,000 Hezbollah members. Hezbollah fire has forced some 50,000 Israelis to in the country’s north, and its rockets have reached as far south in Israel as Tel Aviv. At least 75 people have been killed, more than half of them civilians. More than 50 Israeli soldiers have died in the ground offensive in Lebanon.Pizza delivery drivers check house numbers. Bank tellers, pharmacists and airline workers check IDs. Far too often, however, the police act first and worry about accuracy later. They don’t have to worry about consequences because the court system shields them from accountability. Jennifer Heath Box is trying to change this. After a family cruise, sheriff’s deputies were waiting for her at Port Everglades in Broward County, Florida. The deputies insisted they had a warrant for her arrest on suspicion of child endangerment in Texas, and they ignored Box when she explained they had the wrong woman. Red flags were obvious. The suspect was 23 years younger than Box, lived at a different address, had a different Social Security number and was 5 inches shorter with different color eyes, hair and skin tone. “How could police think I am 26 when I have a 30-year-old child?” Box asked in an interview. The names did not match. The suspect was Jennifer Delcarmen Heath. This was close enough for the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. The deputies took Box to jail on Christmas Eve 2022 and kept her locked up for three days. She did not just miss the holidays with her family; she was strip-searched and forced to endure horrible conditions. Officers blasted death metal over the speakers, and they purposely pumped freezing air into her cell, making it so cold she had to sleep back-to-back with another inmate to keep warm. “You just felt like you weren’t a human anymore,” Box says. She is now suing to hold her abusers accountable. Our public interest law firm, the Institute for Justice, represents her in a case filed in September. If the pattern of similar lawsuits continues, Box will have to fight to get her case in front of a jury. Courts have created a web of different, sometimes overlapping, legal doctrines to prevent victims of government abuse from receiving compensation. In many cases, the police are untouchable. It often takes years — sometimes more than a decade — to navigate these doctrines, only to find no relief. Michigan college student James King discovered this in 2014 after two plainclothes officers beat him unconscious on his way to work. King was innocent and looked nothing like the suspect in the case. However, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that a particular rule against bringing multiple lawsuits prevented King from bringing numerous claims in a single suit. Ten years later, his fight for justice is still in the courts. Florida resident David Sosa has been arrested twice since 2014 because of an out-of-state warrant for a different David Sosa with a different age, height, weight and Social Security number — even different tattoos. When the innocent Sosa sued, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held in 2023 that officers do not violate the Constitution when they put the wrong person in jail as long as they hold the victim for only three days. Trina Martin and her family faced a different nightmare in Atlanta. The FBI raided their home by mistake in 2017 and held them at gunpoint after breaking open their front door and launching flashbang grenades through the windows in the middle of the night. So far, a lawsuit against the FBI has gone nowhere. The 11th Circuit ruled in April 2024 that agents have discretion to decide how to prepare for a SWAT raid — including by not preparing. In Texas, meanwhile, Waxahachie police went to the wrong address — twice — before raiding the home of Karen Jimerson and her family in March 2019. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided this was OK because the lieutenant in charge did some preparation for the raid before leaving his office. King, Sosa, Martin and Jimerson all ran into different judge-made barriers. Our firm represents Martin and Jimerson as they ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. And Box’s case will challenge the rule that denied Sosa relief. It should not be this difficult for people to get their day in court. At some point, judges must step up and hold police officers responsible for their mistakes. Just because the police have a warrant to arrest someone or raid a house does not mean they can terrorize anyone who has a similar name or lives nearby. People make mistakes. Throwing someone in jail or storming their home is far more serious than a botched pizza delivery. Jared McClain is an attorney at the Institute for Justice in Arlington, Va., and Daryl James is a writer at the institute. They wrote this for InsideSources.com .
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