CONWAY, South Carolina – Owen McCown ran for a touchdown and threw for another to help guide the University of Texas San Antonio to a 44-15 win over Coastal Carolina University Monday at Brooks Stadium in Conway, South Carolina. McCown, a Rusk High School product, scored on a 25-yard touchdown run that came with 10:36 to play in the first half and tossed a 6-yard scoring strike to Patrick Overmyer later in the period. McCown completed 23-of-30 pass attempts for 254 yards. In addition to the touchdown pass he also gave up one interception. He also rushed for 46 yards in four carries. McCown, who started his collegiate career at Colorado University, is a red shirt sophomore. A pair of Jacksonville High School graduates also got into the action in sunny South Carolina. Sophomore Devin McCuin had five catches for 63 yards. Senior Chris Carpenter hauled in two passes for 16 yards and returned four kicks for 13 yards. Carpenter, a senior, has declared for the NFL Draft; hence Monday was the final time that the three former Cherokee County standouts would suit up for the Roadrunners of the American Athletic Conference. UTSA, who finish the year with a 7-6 record, were in command from start to finish and led 27-0 going into the fourth frame. UTSA has now qualified for bowl games for five-consecutive seasons. The Chanticleers, who were playing on their home field, end the year with a 6-7 worksheet.Kraken play the Ducks, look to break road skid
Leonardo DRS executive sells $784,810 in stock
The BGL Automotive Aftermarket Insider – AAPEX/SEMA Show Recap CHICAGO , Dec. 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Investor interest in automotive aftermarket M&A will remain high in 2025 as favorable tailwinds, including an increasingly aging car parc, more miles traveled, and the proliferation of new technologies, continue to drive the industry forward, according to an industry report released by the Automotive Aftermarket investment banking team at Brown Gibbons Lang & Company (BGL). Download and read the latest BGL Automotive Aftermarket Insider : https://bit.ly/BGLAutomotiveAftermarketInsider Inside the report, BGL shares its annual recap of the 2024 AAPEX and SEMA Shows in Las Vegas . The automotive aftermarket M&A environment and strategies impacting current and future deal activity are discussed, and optimism and interest in the sector remain high. Political discussion pervaded conversations more than ever before among company owners and investors, largely due to the unique timing of the show and our U.S. Presidential Election. Through discussions with owners and other industry leaders, BGL identified key strategies that companies are employing to navigate uncertainty and challenges facing the industry. Key takeaways include: How the scarcity of quality assets in 2023 and 2024 has sparked fierce competition among buyers Why owners and investors should act soon to seize the opportunities in the non-discretionary aftermarket segment The factors behind a surging M&A interest in suppliers of replacement parts and mission-critical services Why more miles, older vehicles, and a growing car parc are creating continued value of non-discretionary parts and service providers BGL's Automotive & Aftermarket investment banking team maintains coverage of the broad automotive sector, including the automotive supply chain, automotive aftermarket, and the on- and off-highway commercial vehicle sectors. Our team has executed numerous transactions for private, public, or institutionally-backed companies in the automotive industry, including M&A sell-side advisory, financial restructuring advisory, and capital markets advisory. About Brown Gibbons Lang & Company Brown Gibbons Lang & Company (BGL) is a leading independent investment bank and financial advisory firm focused on the global middle market. The firm advises private and public corporations and private equity groups on mergers and acquisitions , capital markets , financial restructurings , business valuations and opinions , and other strategic matters. BGL has investment banking offices in Boston , Chicago , Cleveland , Los Angeles , and New York , and real estate offices in Chicago , Cleveland , and San Antonio . The firm is also a founding member of REACH Cross-Border Mergers & Acquisitions, enabling BGL to service clients in more than 30 countries around the world. Securities transactions are conducted through Brown, Gibbons, Lang & Company Securities, LLC, an affiliate of Brown Gibbons Lang & Company LLC and a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC . For more information, please visit www.bglco.com . View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/automotive-aftermarket-ma-will-continue-to-attract-high-investor-interest-in-2025-302338625.html SOURCE Brown Gibbons Lang & CompanyJim Montgomery was hired as coach of the NHL's St. Louis Blues on Sunday, five days after being fired as coach of the Boston Bruins. The 55-year-old Canadian, who guided Boston to an NHL record for wins and points in a season but never got past the second round of the playoffs, replaced Drew Bannister, who was fired after a 9-12-1 start by the Blues this season. An 8-9-3 start this season by the Bruins led to Montgomery's firing, but he signed a five-year contract with the Blues. "This was more an opportunity to get someone of Jim's caliber more than anything else," Blues president of hockey operations Doug Armstrong said. "We've had to deal with our situations off the ice with injuries and everyone deals with that, but this decision was based 100% on having someone of Jim's caliber becoming available when I didn't know that was going to happen." Montgomery is 180-84-33 as an NHL coach, having guided Dallas for two seasons and Boston for just over two campaigns, going 120-41-23 with the Bruins. In the 2022-23 season, the Bruins won an NHL record 65 games and compiled a record 135 points under Montgomery, who was named the NHL's Coach of the Year, but were upset by Florida in the first round of the playoffs. Boston also lost to the eventual 2024 Stanley Cup champions in last year's playoffs. Montgomery was dropped by the Bruins last Tuesday and replaced by Joe Sacco. "He certainly has a very positive demeanour, works well with the top players in the organizations that he's been with," Armstrong said. "He has a wealth of experience and he's at the prime of his coaching career." The Blues, who won the 2019 Stanley Cup, have missed the playoffs the past two seasons. Bannister went 39-31-6 as the Blues coach after replacing Craig Berube last December. Montgomery gets his first test with the Blues on Monday when they visit the New York Rangers. js/sev
None
The great National Hockey League contradiction of sports, celebration and politics is upon us. We have already begun the daily Alexander Ovechkin watch, the giant leap as he makes his way toward the career goal-scoring lead in hockey history. This all comes at a time when the league couldn’t — or wouldn’t — find a place for a Russian team in its major in-house tournament in February. It will be Ovechkin — yay — in the days and months to come, game by game, as he chases down Wayne Gretzky for a record none of us thought was possible. It will be Ovechkin — yay and Russia boo. All in the same convoluted sentence. All happening in a season in which Kirill Kaprizov of Minnesota and Nikita Kucherov of Tampa Bay are among the leading candidates for the Hart Trophy as the most valuable player in the NHL and the Rangers’ Igor Shesterkin signing a contract making him the highest paid goaltender in hockey history. Russian hockey is alive and well, individually. But it’s not alive in any team concept internationally. Ovechkin has been a long-time supporter of Russian president Vladimir Putin. So has the Stanley Cup-winning goaltender, Sergei Bobrovsky, who was just named Russian athlete of the year. We like their hockey but don’t care much for their politics or the war that continues in Ukraine. Ovechkin has had an incredible run since entering the NHL in 2005. His 868 goals are 266 more than anyone who has played during his time. Sidney Crosby is second in goals at 602, as of Saturday. Steven Stamkos and another Russian, Evgeni Malkin, are the only others within 300 goals of Ovie’s totals. In Gretzky’s career, he finished 186 goals ahead of Mike Gartner, 281 and 284 ahead of Mario Lemieux and Mark Messier. Ovechkin, in his time, is individually more of a dominant goal-scorer than Gretzky was in his time. And there’s a certain discomfort that goes along with it all in current times. I can cheer for Ovechkin the hockey player, while at the same time feel disdain for his politics and those of his leader and country. Sports and politics mix, whether we want them to or not. Rarely are they as separate as they should be or as they seem right now while Ovechkin works his way to a mark that may never be equalled. There is nothing wrong with Mitch Marner that a playoff series against Detroit or Buffalo or Pittsburgh wouldn’t solve. Marner has 13 goals this season, 10 of them against teams that won’t be in the playoffs. He has six playoff goals in his past 37 playoff games ... Marner, having a terrific season, still ranks below Mikko Rantanen and Kucherov in scoring among right wingers ... The Florida Panthers’ second line has Sam Bennett centring Matthew Tkachuk and Carter Verhaeghe. Not sure anyone would relish playing against them in a best-of-seven series in April ... If Auston Matthews doesn’t play for Team USA in the 4 Nations Face-Off, the Americans will still have Jack Hughes, Jack Eichel and Dylan Larkin at centre. But it becomes a tougher matchup, depending on what Canada does with Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid and Crosby as either their first three centres, or two of the top three with one of Crosby or MacKinnon going to the wing ... Nearing the halfway point of the NHL season, Cale Makar leads all defencemen in scoring. But he’s also been on the ice for 37 even-strength goals-against. That’s significantly more than Victor Hedman and Gustav Forsling with 24, and Darnell Nurse, if you can believe this one, at just 15 ... A Canadian network would be wise to snap up fired Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde for panel work, at least for the short term. Lalonde was sharp on TV in the playoffs between periods a few years back ... Outdoor hockey games are wonderful spectacles for the city in which they take place. But as a must-see TV event, they’ve kind of lost their way. I can’t imagine there are a lot of people waiting for this Chicago-St. Louis outdoor event ... When I first met Scott Arniel, he was playing left wing on a line in Winnipeg with Dale Hawerchuk and Paul MacLean. All three of them became coaches, and Arniel is now a coach of the year candidate in the NHL with the Jets ... The last talk I had with Hawerchuk was when he was coaching Barrie of the OHL. He was telling me all about his underrated centre, Mark Scheifele. He said NHL scouts had him rated too low and he was going to be a good one. The great Hawerchuk, who passed away in 2020 at the age of 57, was right on Scheifele. I had this conversation with a Blue Jays front office man after they traded Teoscar Hernandez to Seattle following the 2022 season. “Would you pay Teoscar $20 million a year?” I was asked. I said I would not. He said neither would the Jays. Since then, Hernandez has won a World Series in Los Angeles and has recently signed to remain with the Dodgers for the next three years at an average of $22 million a season. And the Jays remain in need of a power bat for the outfield. Which means two things: 1) Don’t expect financial advice from me; 2) don’t trust whatever financial advice you might get from the Blue Jays front office, either ... A question to ask yourself, Mr. Edward Rogers. How is it the Blue Jays keep offering more money for free agents, but aren’t signing any? What does that say about the perception of the franchise around Major League Baseball and those operating it? ... This has not been the best of years for shareholders of Bell or Rogers Communications, the former majority owners of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. Bell stock is down 36.5% on the year. Rogers stock is down 35%. Netflix stock, by the way, is up 85% on the year and 227% over the past two years ... This was Thursday in the NBA: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 45 points for Oklahoma City and teammate Lu Dort had 13 against Indiana. Meanwhile, Andrew Nembhard and Ben Mathurin combined for 41 for the Pacers. That’s 99 points scored by four Canadians in the same game. Not sure that’s ever happened before ... Some things in life don’t make sense: The Raptors are a better three-point shooting team on the road than the 24-5 first-place Thunder is ... Simon Benoit is hardly a sexy name among NHL defencemen, but few are on the ice as much as he is while being scored upon so infrequently. My favourite sporting things of 2024, in no particular order: The Paris Olympics; Paris itself; Roland Garros Stadium; everything that is Summer McIntosh ; the American League Championship Series; the Patrick Mahomes comeback in the Super Bowl; the Stanley Cup final, never mind the result; Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani and Vladdy Guerrero Jr.; the unlikely Argos; Matthews’ almost 70-goal season; Andre De Grasse and his 100-metre teammates in the 4 x100 relay at the Olympics; Team USA vs. Serbia in men’s basketball, the greatest game I’ve ever seen; Steph Curry ... Terrible time to be a sports fan in Chicago. The Bears stink. The Blackhawks stink. The White Sox stink. The Bulls aren’t any good. Not much to care about in one of the great sporting towns in America ... It’s wonderful for the hammer thrower Ethan Katzberg to be named The Canadian Press male athlete of the year. But I don’t quite understand how you can compare a hammer thrower — a singular event in athletics with a very small competitive field — with an NBA star such as Gilgeous-Alexander, who plays 82 games, plus playoffs. Or McDavid or MacKinnon, who played more than 100 NHL games in the calendar year ... The challenge for Leafs coach Craig Berube in the second half of the NHL season: Finding the right defensive partner for Morgan Rielly. He hasn’t had the right partner since Ron Hainsey was a Leaf ... First baseman Pete Alonso, a good player, not a great one, seems to be pricing himself out of the free-agent market in baseball. Even the high-priced Mets seem to be willing to walk away from Alonso ... Brendan Shanahan takes a lot of heat for his time running the Leafs, but consider this: Steve Yzerman is six years in as GM in Detroit, nowhere near the playoffs; Buffalo hasn’t made the playoffs in a lifetime. Shanahan missed the playoffs once, hasn’t missed since drafting Matthews ... Don’t know where Darko Rajakovic rates as an all-time coach — probably near the bottom — but his tantrum in Memphis the other night is an all-time unforgettable Raptors moment ... So many tough questions this time of year. What presents to keep, which to return, which games to watch when you’re not screaming about junior hockey. Are you watching the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl or the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl? ... And good luck to all those playing fantasy football championship games on Sunday. I started the wrong kicker two weeks ago. Cost me and my partner a title shot. There are four sound candidates for MVP in the NFL, although if you watch enough television these days, you would think there is only one: Josh Allen. It’s a quarterback’s job to produce wins and Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City have the most in the league. Two-time MVP Lamar Jackson has combined yardage of 4,807 passing and rushing in Baltimore, which blows everyone else away. The giant Allen is unstoppable, having run for 11 touchdowns and passed for 3,549 yards with the Bills. And Saquon Barkley is in contention for all-time numbers as a running back, leading the Philadelphia Eagles. In any given year, any one of the four could, or should, be MVP. This year it will come down to Allen or Jackson, and a sound case could be made right now for either quarterback ... It drives me a little batty when I see Tkachuk or Steelers wide receiver George Pickens dangling or chewing on their mouthguard, rather than keeping it where it should be. We try to convince kids about the necessity of mouthguard usage. This kind of example doesn’t help ... Wonder how many owners in sports are paying attention to what the Suns are doing in Phoenix, charging $2 at concession stands for water, soda, hotdogs, and popcorn? A small popcorn at Cineplex is $9 now. And you wonder why people don’t go to movies anymore ... It’s highly possible that Cody Bellinger will be batting next to Giancarlo Stanton in the Yankees batting order this coming season. Bellinger, by the way, is married to Stanton’s old girlfriend ... The NBA was excited to have five million people watching games on Christmas Day on television, especially those up against NFL games on Netflix for the first time. But follow me here for a second: The U.S. is 10 times the size of Canada. A five-million-person audience in the U.S. is about half a million Canadians. By my translation, the NBA audience in the U.S. at Christmas is basically equal to the average CFL audience in Canada throughout the season ... Happy birthday to Ray Bourque (64), Myles Garrett (29), Bill Lee (78), George Parros (45), Julio Rodriguez (24), Sean Payton (61) Theo Epstein (51), Adam Vinatieri (52) and B.J. Ryan (49) ... And hey, whatever became of Jonathan Toews? ssimmons@postmedia.com twitter.com/simmonssteve
Colorado Avalanche (12-9, in the Central Division) vs. Tampa Bay Lightning (10-7-2, in the Atlantic Division) Tampa, Florida; Monday, 7 p.m. EST BOTTOM LINE: The Colorado Avalanche are looking to extend a three-game win streak with a victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Tampa Bay has a 10-7-2 record overall and a 6-2-1 record in home games. The Lightning have scored 68 total goals (3.6 per game) to rank 10th in NHL play. Colorado is 12-9 overall and 6-3-0 on the road. The Avalanche have an 8-5-0 record in games they have fewer penalties than their opponent. The teams play Monday for the second time this season. The Lightning won 5-2 in the previous matchup. Anthony Cirelli led the Lightning with two goals. TOP PERFORMERS: Nikita Kucherov has 11 goals and 17 assists for the Lightning. Emil Martinsen Lilleberg has scored goals over the past 10 games. Nathan MacKinnon has scored seven goals with 28 assists for the Avalanche. Sam Malinski has over the last 10 games. LAST 10 GAMES: Lightning: 4-4-2, averaging 3.4 goals, six assists, 3.4 penalties and 9.3 penalty minutes while giving up 2.8 goals per game. Avalanche: 7-3-0, averaging 3.5 goals, 6.2 assists, 2.9 penalties and 5.8 penalty minutes while giving up 2.6 goals per game. INJURIES: Lightning: None listed. Avalanche: None listed. ___ The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar . The Associated Press‘Have considered it’: star Roosters flyer responds to rugby union code switch rumours
Democracy and Protests
North Korea receives air defense systems from RussiaAutomotive Aftermarket M&A will Continue to Attract High Investor Interest in 2025Ghanaian Activist Oliver Barker-Vormawor Critiques President-Elect’s Plan to Appoint 60 Ministers
(Bloomberg) -- Treasury yields rose on Monday as traders continue to see a slower pace of interest rate reductions by the Federal Reserve next year and the potential worsening of country’s fiscal backdrop under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration. The rise in longer-term Treasury yields outstripped that of shorter maturities, adding to the yield-curve steepening momentum of recent weeks. The gap between 10-year yields and those that mature in two years is hovering at about 25 basis points, up from nearly zero at the start of the month. Two-year yields were at one point 51 basis points above those of 10-year notes earlier this year in late June, in a so-called inverted yield curve pattern. The moves Monday built on a rise in yields last week following US central bank officials latest quarterly projections — dubbed the dot plot — in which they halved estimates for the total amount of rate reductions next year. The forecasts, according to the median level, also notched higher the outlook for the Fed’s long-run rate, taken in the market as a proxy for the central bank’s neutral policy level. “The long-end has been kind of flexing its muscles, with investors lifting risk-premium they see in the debt,” said Andrew Brenner, head of international fixed income at NatAlliance Securities. “The fiscal situation is one factor behind the rise in long-end risk premium as well as the outlook for more supply. Overall what we are seeing is a normalization of the yield curve.” Interest-rate swaps contracts show that traders are betting on less than the two-quarter point cuts officials signaled in their dot plot. Through the end of 2025, the contracts are pricing in just 0.33 percentage points of rate reductions. There are no Fed officials slated to speak this week. Treasuries remained under selling pressure Monday despite a weaker-than-expected report on US consumer confidence and solid demand at an auction of two-year notes. Confidence unexpectedly sank in December for the first time in three months on concerns over politics and the outlook for tariffs and economy. What Bloomberg Strategists Say ... “In its latest dot plot, the Fed has implicitly outlined a real neutral policy rate of 100 basis points, a rate it has raised successively this year. While the real neutral rate may not be that high, Treasury 10-year yields need to reflect both the skepticism that the Fed policy is on auto pilot and that the real neutral rate may be more elevated than its dot plot estimate.” — Ven Ram, Cross-Assets Strategist, Dubai Click here to read the full report Treasury securities received solid demand at a $69 billion sale of two-year notes on Monday and ahead of the sale of $70 billion in five-year notes on Tuesday and $44 billion in seven-year notes on Thursday. “Despite the suggestion from the dot plot that the Fed may decelerate the pace of easing over the course of 2025, the 2-year versus 10-year yield curve did not re-flatten,” said Chris Ahrens, a strategist at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. “This may be signaling that there is a transition occurring whereby fiscal concerns and general policy uncertainty will lead investors to demand a higher term premium on long-term Treasuries,” he said. Tuesday will be a shortened trading session for both bonds and stocks in the US ahead of Wednesday’s Christmas holiday. Equity markets will shutter on Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. New York time while bond trading will end an hour later. Trading will resume on Thursday when focus turns to economic releases and the weekly jobless claims report. (Updates rates throughout.) More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com ©2024 Bloomberg L.P.Jim Montgomery was hired as coach of the NHL's St. Louis Blues on Sunday, five days after being fired as coach of the Boston Bruins. The 55-year-old Canadian, who guided Boston to an NHL record for wins and points in a season but never got past the second round of the playoffs, replaced Drew Bannister, who was fired after a 9-12-1 start by the Blues this season. An 8-9-3 start this season by the Bruins led to Montgomery's firing, but he signed a five-year contract with the Blues. "This was more an opportunity to get someone of Jim's caliber more than anything else," Blues president of hockey operations Doug Armstrong said. "We've had to deal with our situations off the ice with injuries and everyone deals with that, but this decision was based 100% on having someone of Jim's caliber becoming available when I didn't know that was going to happen." Montgomery is 180-84-33 as an NHL coach, having guided Dallas for two seasons and Boston for just over two campaigns, going 120-41-23 with the Bruins. In the 2022-23 season, the Bruins won an NHL record 65 games and compiled a record 135 points under Montgomery, who was named the NHL's Coach of the Year, but were upset by Florida in the first round of the playoffs. Boston also lost to the eventual 2024 Stanley Cup champions in last year's playoffs. Montgomery was dropped by the Bruins last Tuesday and replaced by Joe Sacco. "He certainly has a very positive demeanour, works well with the top players in the organizations that he's been with," Armstrong said. "He has a wealth of experience and he's at the prime of his coaching career." The Blues, who won the 2019 Stanley Cup, have missed the playoffs the past two seasons. Bannister went 39-31-6 as the Blues coach after replacing Craig Berube last December. Montgomery gets his first test with the Blues on Monday when they visit the New York Rangers. js/sev
New York takes on St. Louis after Panarin's 2-goal showing
Bank of America renueva acuerdo de patrocinio con la FIFA para Mundial de Clubes82,000 Apartments, $5 Billion: NYC's Rezoning Goldmine For Real Estate Investors
PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Newly married and sworn as a Naval officer, left his tiny hometown in 1946 hoping to climb the ranks and see the world. Less than a decade later, the death of his father and namesake, a merchant farmer and local politician who went by “Mr. Earl,” prompted the submariner and his wife, Rosalynn, to return to the rural life of Plains, Georgia, they thought they’d escaped. The lieutenant never would be an admiral. Instead, he became commander in chief. Years after his presidency ended in humbling defeat, he would add a Nobel Peace Prize, awarded not for his White House accomplishments but “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” The life of James Earl Carter Jr., the 39th and longest-lived U.S. president, ended Sunday at the age of 100 where it began: Plains, the town of 600 that fueled his political rise, welcomed him after his fall and sustained him during 40 years of service that redefined what it means to be a former president. With the stubborn confidence of an engineer and an optimism rooted in his Baptist faith, Carter described his motivations in politics and beyond in the same way: an almost missionary zeal to solve problems and improve lives. Carter was raised amid racism, abject poverty and hard rural living — realities that shaped both his deliberate politics and emphasis on human rights. “He always felt a responsibility to help people,” said Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend of Carter’s in Plains. “And when he couldn’t make change wherever he was, he decided he had to go higher.” Carter’s path, , pitted moral imperatives against political pragmatism; and it defied typical labels of American politics, especially caricatures of one-term presidents as failures. “We shouldn’t judge presidents by how popular they are in their day. That’s a very narrow way of assessing them,” Carter biographer Jonathan Alter told the Associated Press. “We should judge them by how they changed the country and the world for the better. On that score, Jimmy Carter is not in the first rank of American presidents, but he stands up quite well.” Later in life, Carter conceded that many Americans, even those too young to remember his tenure, judged him ineffective for failing to contain inflation or interest rates, end the energy crisis or quickly bring home American hostages in Iran. He gained admirers instead for his work at The Carter Center — advocating globally for public health, human rights and democracy since 1982 — and the decades he and Rosalynn wore hardhats and swung hammers with Habitat for Humanity. Yet the common view that he was better after the Oval Office than in it annoyed Carter, and his allies relished him living long enough to see historians reassess his presidency. “He doesn’t quite fit in today’s terms” of a left-right, red-blue scoreboard, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the former president multiple times during his own White House bid. At various points in his political career, Carter labeled himself “progressive” or “conservative” — sometimes both at once. His most ambitious health care bill failed — perhaps one of his biggest legislative disappointments — because it didn’t go far enough to suit liberals. Republicans, especially after his 1980 defeat, cast him as a left-wing cartoon. It would be easiest to classify Carter as a centrist, Buttigieg said, “but there’s also something radical about the depth of his commitment to looking after those who are left out of society and out of the economy.” Indeed, Carter’s legacy is stitched with complexities, contradictions and evolutions — personal and political. The self-styled peacemaker was a war-trained Naval Academy graduate who promised Democratic challenger Ted Kennedy that he’d “kick his ass.” But he campaigned with a call to treat everyone with “respect and compassion and with love.” Carter vowed to restore America’s virtue after the shame of Vietnam and Watergate, and his technocratic, good-government approach didn’t suit Republicans who tagged government itself as the problem. It also sometimes put Carter at odds with fellow Democrats. The result still was a notable legislative record, with wins on the environment, education, and mental health care. He dramatically expanded federally protected lands, began deregulating air travel, railroads and trucking, and he put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. As a fiscal hawk, Carter added a relative pittance to the national debt, unlike successors from both parties. Carter nonetheless struggled to make his achievements resonate with the electorate he charmed in 1976. Quoting Bob Dylan and grinning enthusiastically, he had promised voters he would “never tell a lie.” Once in Washington, though, he led like a joyless engineer, insisting his ideas would become reality and he’d be rewarded politically if only he could convince enough people with facts and logic. This served him well at Camp David, where he brokered peace between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Epypt’s Anwar Sadat, an experience that later sparked the idea of The Carter Center in Atlanta. Carter’s tenacity helped the center grow to a global force that monitored elections across five continents, enabled his freelance diplomacy and sent public health experts across the developing world. The center’s wins were personal for Carter, who hoped to outlive the last Guinea worm parasite, and nearly did. As president, though, the approach fell short when he urged consumers beleaguered by energy costs to turn down their thermostats. Or when he tried to be the nation’s cheerleader, beseeching Americans to overcome a collective “crisis of confidence.” Republican Ronald Reagan exploited Carter’s lecturing tone with a belittling quip in their lone 1980 debate. “There you go again,” the former Hollywood actor said in response to a wonky answer from the sitting president. “The Great Communicator” outpaced Carter in all but six states. Carter later suggested he “tried to do too much, too soon” and mused that he was incompatible with Washington culture: media figures, lobbyists and Georgetown social elites who looked down on the as “country come to town.” Carter carefully navigated divides on race and class on his way to the Oval Office. , Carter was raised in the mostly Black community of Archery, just outside Plains, by a progressive mother and white supremacist father. Their home had no running water or electricity but the future president still grew up with the relative advantages of a locally prominent, land-owning family in a system of Jim Crow segregation. He wrote of President Franklin Roosevelt’s towering presence and his family’s Democratic Party roots, but his father soured on FDR, and Jimmy Carter never campaigned or governed as a New Deal liberal. He offered himself as a small-town peanut farmer with an understated style, carrying his own luggage, bunking with supporters during his first presidential campaign and always using his nickname. And he began his political career in a whites-only Democratic Party. As private citizens, he and Rosalynn supported integration as early as the 1950s and believed it inevitable. Carter refused to join the White Citizens Council in Plains and spoke out in his Baptist church against denying Black people access to worship services. “This is not my house; this is not your house,” he said in a churchwide meeting, reminding fellow parishioners their sanctuary belonged to God. Yet as the appointed chairman of Sumter County schools he never pushed to desegregate, thinking it impractical after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board decision. And while presidential candidate Carter would hail the 1965 Voting Rights Act, signed by fellow Democrat Lyndon Johnson when Carter was a state senator, there is no record of Carter publicly supporting it at the time. Carter overcame a ballot-stuffing opponent to win his legislative seat, then lost the 1966 governor’s race to an arch-segregationist. He won four years later by avoiding explicit mentions of race and campaigning to the right of his rival, who he mocked as “Cufflinks Carl” — the insult of an ascendant politician who never saw himself as part the establishment. Carter’s rural and small-town coalition in 1970 would match any victorious Republican electoral map in 2024. Once elected, though, Carter shocked his white conservative supporters — and landed on the cover of Time magazine — by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” Before making the jump to Washington, Carter befriended the family of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whom he’d never sought out as he eyed the governor’s office. Carter lamented his foot-dragging on school integration as a “mistake.” But he also met, conspicuously, with Alabama’s segregationist Gov. George Wallace to accept his primary rival’s endorsement ahead of the 1976 Democratic convention. “He very shrewdly took advantage of his own Southerness,” said Amber Roessner, a University of Tennessee professor and expert on Carter’s campaigns. A coalition of Black voters and white moderate Democrats ultimately made Carter the last Democratic presidential nominee to sweep the Deep South. Then, just as he did in Georgia, he used his power in office to appoint more non-whites than all his predecessors had, combined. He once acknowledged “the secret shame” of white Americans who didn’t fight segregation. But he also told Alter that doing more would have sacrificed his political viability – and thus everything he accomplished in office and after. King’s daughter, Bernice King, described Carter as wisely “strategic” in winning higher offices to enact change. “He was a leader of conscience,” she said in an interview. Rosalynn Carter, who at the age of 96, was identified by both husband and wife as the “more political” of the pair; she sat in on Cabinet meetings and urged him to postpone certain priorities, like pressing the Senate to relinquish control of the Panama Canal. “Let that go until the second term,” she would sometimes say. The president, recalled her former aide Kathy Cade, retorted that he was “going to do what’s right” even if “it might cut short the time I have.” Rosalynn held firm, Cade said: “She’d remind him you have to win to govern.” Carter also was the first president to appoint multiple women as Cabinet officers. Yet by his own telling, his career sprouted from chauvinism in the Carters’ early marriage: He did not consult Rosalynn when deciding to move back to Plains in 1953 or before launching his state Senate bid a decade later. Many years later, he called it “inconceivable” that he didn’t confer with the woman he described as his “full partner,” at home, in government and at The Carter Center. “We developed a partnership when we were working in the farm supply business, and it continued when Jimmy got involved in politics,” Rosalynn Carter told AP in 2021. So deep was their trust that when Carter remained tethered to the White House in 1980 as 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, it was Rosalynn who campaigned on her husband’s behalf. “I just loved it,” she said, despite the bitterness of defeat. Fair or not, the label of a disastrous presidency had leading Democrats keep their distance, at least publicly, for many years, but Carter managed to remain relevant, writing books and weighing in on societal challenges. He lamented widening wealth gaps and the influence of money in politics. He voted for democratic socialist Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and later declared that America had devolved from fully functioning democracy to “oligarchy.” Yet looking ahead to 2020, with Sanders running again, Carter warned Democrats not to lest they help re-elect President Donald Trump. Carter scolded the Republican for his serial lies and threats to democracy, and chided the U.S. establishment for misunderstanding Trump’s populist appeal. He delighted in yearly convocations with Emory University freshmen, often asking them to guess how much he’d raised in his two general election campaigns. “Zero,” he’d gesture with a smile, explaining the public financing system candidates now avoid so they can raise billions. Carter still remained quite practical in partnering with wealthy corporations and foundations to advance Carter Center programs. Carter recognized that economic woes and the Iran crisis doomed his presidency, but offered no apologies for appointing Paul Volcker as the Federal Reserve chairman whose interest rate hikes would not curb inflation until Reagan’s presidency. He was proud of getting all the hostages home without starting a shooting war, even though Tehran would not free them until Reagan’s Inauguration Day. “Carter didn’t look at it” as a failure, Alter emphasized. “He said, ‘They came home safely.’ And that’s what he wanted.” Well into their 90s, the Carters greeted visitors at Plains’ Maranatha Baptist Church, where he taught Sunday School and where he will have his last funeral before being buried on . Carter, who made the congregation’s collection plates in his woodworking shop, still garnered headlines there, calling for women’s rights within religious institutions, many of which, he said, “subjugate” women in church and society. Carter was not one to dwell on regrets. “I am at peace with the accomplishments, regret the unrealized goals and utilize my former political position to enhance everything we do,” he wrote around his 90th birthday. The politician who had supposedly hated Washington politics also enjoyed hosting Democratic presidential contenders as again. Carter sat with Buttigieg for the final time March 1, 2020, hours before the Indiana mayor ended his campaign and endorsed eventual winner Joe Biden. “He asked me how I thought the campaign was going,” Buttigieg said, recalling that Carter flashed his signature grin and nodded along as the young candidate, born a year after Carter left office, “put the best face” on the walloping he endured the day before in South Carolina. Never breaking his smile, the 95-year-old host fired back, “I think you ought to drop out.” “So matter of fact,” Buttigieg said with a laugh. “It was somehow encouraging.” Carter had lived enough, won plenty and lost enough to take the long view. “He talked a lot about coming from nowhere,” Buttigieg said, not just to attain the presidency but to leverage “all of the instruments you have in life” and “make the world more peaceful.” In his farewell address as president, Carter said as much to the country that had embraced and rejected him. “The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language,” he declared. “Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity and who suffer for the sake of justice — they are the patriots of this cause.” Carter pledged to remain engaged with and for them as he returned “home to the South where I was born and raised,” home to Plains, where that young lieutenant had indeed become “a fellow citizen of the world.” —-
Cavaliers NBA championship, Eastern Conference winner odds: Should we believe in Cleveland?Celebrity-inspired Thanksgiving recipes, plus last-minute holiday meal ideasHillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister, nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), withdrew his name from consideration on Tuesday. In a post on X, Chronister described the nomination as "the honor of a lifetime." "Over the past several days, as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in, I’ve concluded that I must respectfully withdraw from consideration. There is more work to be done for the citizens of Hillsborough County and a lot of initiatives I am committed to fulfilling," Chronister continued. "I sincerely appreciate the nomination, outpouring of support by the American people, and look forward to continuing my service as Sheriff of Hillsborough County." Following Chronister’s withdrawal, rumors began circulating on social media that his nomination was suggested by Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick for attorney general. "I have a feeling Pam Bondi was part of this recommendation to Trump. She should be pulled as well if that is true," one person claimed on X. Another wrote, "Potential that Pam Bondi recommended him. If true, not a good look for her." A third person commented, "Pam Bondi needs to have her nomination withdrawn over that recommendation." As of now, these rumors remain unconfirmed. Pam Bondi replaced Matt Gaetz as Trump's attorney general nominee after Gaetz withdrew his candidacy. A former Florida attorney general, Bondi is the first woman to hold that role in the state. Announcing her nomination, Trump said, "For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans - Not anymore. "Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again. I have known Pam for many years - She is smart and tough, and is an AMERICA FIRST Fighter, who will do a terrific job as Attorney General!" Get Latest News Live on Times Now along with Breaking News and Top Headlines from US News, World and around the world.