phwin9

phwin9 CANCUN, Mexico (AP) — Brayon Freeman had 26 points in Bethune-Cookman's 79-67 victory over North Dakota on Tuesday night. Freeman added three steals for the Wildcats (2-4). Tre Thomas added 17 points while shooting 4 for 12 (4 for 5 from 3-point range) and 5 of 6 from the free-throw line while he also had six rebounds. Daniel Rouzan went 5 of 10 from the field to finish with 10 points. The Fightin' Hawks (3-3) were led in scoring by Treysen Eaglestaff, who finished with 20 points. Mier Panoam added 19 points for North Dakota. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .

American and European stock markets mostly rose on Wednesday after inflation data cemented expectations that the US Federal Reserve will trim interest rates next month. While the Dow fell slightly, the other two major US indices advanced, led by the tech-rich Nasdaq, which piled on almost two percent to close above 20,000 points for the first time. The consumer price index (CPI) rose to 2.7 percent last month from a year ago, up slightly from 2.6 percent in October. "With the CPI numbers broadly in line, it is likely that the Fed will not be derailed and will cut rates again next week," Jochen Stanzl, chief market analyst at CMC Markets. "The data is not a showstopper for the current bull run on Wall Street," he added. Ahead of the data, investors priced in an 86 percent chance the Fed will cut interest rates next week by a quarter percentage point. That rose to more than 98 percent after the CPI data was published. Stocks in Paris and Frankfurt rose ahead of the European Central Bank's own interest rate announcement on Thursday, with analysts expecting another cut as it seeks to boost eurozone growth. Investors are also eyeing political developments in France, where officials said President Emmanuel Macron aims to name a new prime minister "within 48 hours" as he seeks to end political deadlock following the ouster of Michel Barnier. In company news, shares in German retail giant Zalando shed more than four percent on Frankfurt's DAX index, after it acquired domestic rival About You in a deal worth around 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion). Shares in Zara owner Inditex slid more than six percent after a record quarterly profit for the group fell short of market estimates. Among US companies, Google parent Alphabet earned 5.5 percent as it announced the launch of Gemini 2.0, its most advanced artificial intelligence model to date. That added to gains after Google also announced Tuesday details of a breakthrough quantum chip. Shares in Shanghai rose but Hong Kong gave up an early rally to end in the red. Traders were keeping tabs on China to see if it will announce further measures to support its struggling economy as leaders were to gather Wednesday for a conference to hammer out next year's agenda. President Xi Jinping and other top leaders on Monday announced their first major shift in policy for more than a decade, saying they would "implement a more active fiscal policy and an appropriately relaxed" strategy. Those remarks sparked hopes for more interest rate cuts and the freeing up of more cash for lending. New York - Dow: DOWN 0.2 percent at 44,148.56 (close) New York - S&P 500: UP 0.8 percent at 6,084.19 (close) New York - Nasdaq Composite: UP 1.8 percent at 20,034.89 (close) London - FTSE 100: UP 0.3 percent at 8,301.62 (close) Paris - CAC 40: UP 0.4 percent at 7,423.40 (close) Frankfurt - DAX: UP 0.3 percent at 20,399.16 (close) Tokyo - Nikkei 225: FLAT at 39,372.23 (close) Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.8 percent at 20,155.05 (close) Shanghai - Composite: UP 0.3 percent at 3,432.49 (close) Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.0498 from $1.0527 on Tuesday Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.2752 from $1.2771 Dollar/yen: UP at 152.40 yen from 151.95 yen Euro/pound: DOWN at 82.31 from 82.42 pence Brent North Sea Crude: UP 1.8 percent at $73.52 per barrel West Texas Intermediate: UP 2.4 percent at $70.29 per barrel burs-jmb/mlm Get any of our free email newsletters — news headlines, sports, arts & entertainment, state legislature, CFD news, and more.

On Tuesday, December 3, 2024, the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana destroyed ballot papers that had been previously distributed to the Eastern Region. The recall and destruction of the ballots followed the discovery of a defective Presidential election ballot paper. The recall of the ballots for all 33 constituencies in the region came after a tip-off from National Security, alerting the EC to a single defaced ballot paper that had been mistakenly removed from the printing house. The printing of these ballots was carried out by Rocheck Limited, under the supervision of the National Investigation Bureau, National Security, and representatives from the political parties and the EC. The destruction of the recalled ballots took place with the presence of EC officials, police officers, and party agents, who witnessed the procedure to ensure transparency. As a result of the issue, the EC had earlier announced the postponement of special voting in the Eastern and Western Regions. The special voting, initially scheduled to take place on December 3, will now be held on Thursday, December 5, 2024, with new ballots set to be reprinted. The Commission has assured the public that the integrity of the election process remains a priority.

Beirut: Syrian rebels announced they had gained full control over the key city of Homs early on Sunday after only a day of fighting, leaving President Bashar al-Assad’s 24-year rule dangling by a thread as insurgents marched on the capital, Damascus. Thousands of Homs residents poured onto the streets after the army withdrew from the central city, dancing and chanting “Assad is gone, Homs is free” and “Long live Syria and down with Bashar al-Assad”. A giant portrait of Bashar al-Assad sits on a building in Damascus. Credit: AP Rebels fired guns into the air in celebration, and youths tore down posters of the Syrian president, whose territorial control has collapsed in a dizzying week-long retreat by the military. The fall of Homs gives the insurgents control over Syria’s strategic heartland and a key highway crossroads, severing Damascus from the coastal region that is the stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect and where his Russian allies have a naval base and air base. Homs’ capture is also a powerful symbol of the rebel movement’s dramatic comeback in the 13-year-old conflict. Swaths of Homs were destroyed by gruelling siege warfare between the rebels and the army years ago. The fighting ground down the insurgents, who were forced out. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham commander Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the main rebel leader, called the capture of Homs a historic moment and urged fighters not to harm “those who drop their arms”. Syrian opposition fighters on a seized Syrian air force fighter plane at the Hama military airport on Friday. Credit: AP Rebels freed thousands of detainees from the city prison. Security forces left quickly after burning their documents. Syrian rebel commander Hassan Abdul Ghani said in a statement early on Sunday that operations continued to “completely liberate” the countryside around Damascus and rebel forces were looking towards the capital. In one suburb, a statue of Assad’s father, the late former president Hafez al-Assad, was toppled and torn apart. The Syrian army said it was reinforcing around Damascus, and state television reported on Saturday that Assad remained in the city. People arrive at the Jordanian side of the border as others wait in their cars on Saturday, after a ban on crossings into Syria. Credit: Getty Images The lightning rebel advance suggests Assad’s government could fall within the next week, US and other Western officials said. Since the rebels’ sweep into Aleppo a week ago , government defences have crumbled at a dizzying speed as insurgents seized a string of major cities and rose in places where the rebellion had long seemed over. The twin threats to Damascus and the strategically vital city of Homs now pose an existential danger to the Assad dynasty’s five-decade reign over Syria and the continued influence in the country of its main regional backer, Iran. The rebels’ moves around Damascus, reported by an opposition war monitor and a rebel commander, came after the Syrian army withdrew from much of the southern part of the country, leaving more areas, including several provincial capitals, under the control of opposition fighters. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is backed by Russia and Iran, but both are bogged down in separate conflicts. Credit: Saudi Press Agency/AP The advances in the past week were among the largest in recent years by opposition factions led by a group that has its origins in al-Qaeda and is considered a terrorist organisation by the US and the United Nations. In their push to overthrow Assad’s government, the insurgents, led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, have met little resistance from the Syrian Army. The UN’s special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, on Saturday called for urgent talks in Geneva to ensure an “orderly political transition”. Speaking to reporters at the annual Doha Forum in Qatar, Pedersen said the situation in Syria was changing by the minute. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whose country is Assad’s chief international backer, said he felt “sorry for the Syrian people”. In Damascus, people rushed to stock up on supplies. Thousands went to Syria’s border with Lebanon, trying to leave the country. Many shops in the city were shuttered, a resident told the Associated Press, and those still open had run out of staples such as sugar. Some were selling items at three times the normal price. “The situation is very strange. We are not used to that,” the resident said, insisting on anonymity, fearing retributions. “People are worried whether there will be a battle [in Damascus] or not.” It was the first time that opposition forces reached the outskirts of Damascus since 2018 when Syrian troops recaptured the area following a years-long siege. The UN said it was moving non-critical staff outside the country as a precaution. Assad rumours Syria’s state media denied social media rumours that Assad had left the country, saying the president was performing his duties in Damascus. Assad has had little, if any, help from his allies. Russia is busy with its war in Ukraine, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which at one point sent thousands of fighters to shore up Assad’s forces, has been weakened by a year-long conflict with Israel. Iran has had its proxies across the region degraded by regular Israeli airstrikes. US President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday posted on social media that the US should avoid engaging militarily in Syria. A Syrian opposition fighter holds a rocket launcher in front of the provincial government office. Credit: AP Pedersen said a date for talks in Geneva on implementing a 2015 UN resolution calling for a Syrian-led political process would be announced later. The resolution calls for the establishment of a transitional governing body, followed by the drafting of a new constitution and ending with UN-supervised elections. Foreign ministers and senior diplomats from eight key countries, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Egypt, Turkey and Iran, along with Pedersen, gathered on the sidelines of the Doha summit on Saturday to discuss the situation. No details were immediately available. The insurgents’ march Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said insurgents were in the Damascus suburbs of Maadamiyah, Jaramana and Daraya. Opposition fighters were also marching toward the Damascus suburb of Harasta, he said. An insurgent commander, Hassan Abdul Ghani, posted on the Telegram messaging app that opposition forces had begun the “final stage” of their offensive by encircling Damascus. Syrian rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani. Credit: Al Jazeera HTS controls much of north-west Syria and, in 2017, set up a “salvation government” to run daily affairs in the region. In recent years, HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani has sought to remake the group’s image, cutting ties with al-Qaeda, ditching hardline officials and vowing to embrace pluralism and religious tolerance. Syria’s military, meanwhile, sent large numbers of reinforcements to defend the key central city of Homs, Syria’s third-largest, as insurgents approached its outskirts. The shock offensive began on November 27, during which rebel fighters captured the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, and the central city of Hama, the country’s fourth-largest city. Opposition activists on Friday said insurgents entered Palmyra, which is home to invaluable archaeological sites that had been in government hands since being taken from the Islamic State group in 2017. To the south, Syrian troops left much of the province of Quneitra, including the main Baath City, activists said. The Syrian Observatory said government troops had withdrawn from much of the two southern provinces and were sending reinforcements to Homs, where a battle loomed. If the insurgents were to capture Homs, they would cut the link between Damascus, Assad’s seat of power, and the coastal region where the president enjoys wide support. The army said in a statement that it had carried out redeployment and repositioning in Sweida and Daraa after its checkpoints came under attack by “terrorists”. The army said it was setting up a “strong and coherent defensive and security belt in the area”, apparently to defend Damascus from the south. The Syrian government has referred to opposition gunmen as terrorists since the conflict broke out in March 2011. Diplomacy in Doha The foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey, meeting in Qatar, called for an end to the hostilities. Turkey is the main backer of the rebels. Qatar’s top diplomat, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, criticised Assad for failing to take advantage of the lull in fighting in recent years to address the country’s underlying problems. “Assad didn’t seize this opportunity to start engaging and restoring his relationship with his people,” he said. Sheikh Mohammed said he was surprised by how quickly the rebels have advanced and said there was a real threat to Syria’s “territorial integrity”. He said the war could “damage and destroy what is left if there is no sense of urgency” to start a political process. AP, Reuters Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter .