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is there a casino in omak washington ALL it took was three words: “Howay the lads!” for Britain to fall in love with President Jimmy Carter. He was in Newcastle when he won over a crowd of 20,000 with the Toon Army’s most famous chant. 7 Britain fell in love with President Jimmy Carter Credit: Getty - Contributor 7 The longest-living US leader ever has died aged 100 Credit: Getty - Contributor 7 The late President with his wife and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter Credit: Rex But it took the rest of the world many more years to appreciate the greatness of the longest-living US leader ever, who has died aged 100. In the wake of the Watergate scandal which saw Republican President Richard Nixon resign from office in disgrace, Carter the Democrat candidate was expected to narrowly win against Tricky Dicky’s replacement former Vice President Gerald Ford. But in an attempt to portray himself as a Washington outsider and man of the people Carter gave an interview to soft-porn magazine, Playboy, where he admitted that he had “committed adultery in his heart many times.” Carter’s reference to sex became all anyone could talk about. READ MORE WORLD NEWS SHARK HORROR Tourist killed and another injured in deadly shark attack at Red Sea resort CRASH MYSTERY Minute-by-minute breakdown of SK plane crash from ‘bird strike’ to fireball The interview shifted the entire dynamic of the election — and helped get the Republicans back on track. Many evangelical Christians in Carter’s southern heartland turned against him. Despite the setback, Carter won the 1976 election to become 39 th United States President at the age of 52. In his inaugural address the following January he told the American people: “Your strength can compensate for my weakness, and your wisdom can help to minimize my mistakes. Most read in The Sun ALL ROVER IT Barry Robson appointed manager of SPFL club - 11 months after Aberdeen axe HELL'S BELLS Hogmanay storm chaos as event AXED & travellers warned as snow to hit Scotland baby joy Mark Wright and Michelle Keegan announce she's pregnant with first baby FLIGHTMARE Moment Ryanair passengers cheer as yob is hauled off flight to Scotland by cops But his one term in the White House was notorious for fiascos ranging from a self-inflicted 444-day hostage crisis to an incident when he managed to get attacked in a pond by a swimming rabbit. It was seen as not only humiliating for the former peanut farmer, but for the entire United States. However, after losing office, he redefined what it meant to be an ex-President, becoming one of history’s great peacemakers. In fact the Nobel Peace Prize winner became one of the finest presidents in American history — after he left the White House. James Earl Carter Jr was born on October 1, 1924, in the one-street town of Plains, Georgia , in America’s Deep South. He grew up on his father’s peanut farm and worked on it from the time he was able to carry buckets of water. Jimmy set his sights on a career with the US Navy, in order to receive free college education to study engineering. And it was while at the Naval Academy that he fell in love with a former neighbour, Rosalynn, his sister’s best friend. They married on July 7, 1946, when he was 21 and she was 18, and they were together for the next 77 years until Rosalynn’s death last November, age 96. Marking their 75th wedding anniversary in 2021, Carter said: “I love her more now than I did to begin with — which is saying a lot, because I loved her a lot.” He vowed to stay alive so that Rosalynn would never have to live alone. Carter was relishing being part of the Navy’s brand-new nuclear submarine program in New York when his father died in 1953 changing the whole course of his life The 28-year-old felt duty-bound to quit the Navy and return to Plains with Rosalynn and their three sons to take over the family business. As a leading member of the evangelical Baptist Church, he quickly became a pillar of the community — until a ruling by the Supreme Court changed everything. Most spectacularly, he began trying to revive the Middle East peace process — and succeeded In 1954, judges declared racial segregation of schools unconstitutional and the South went into uproar. In Plains a White Citizens’ Council was set up and Carter was the only white man in town who refused to join. There was a boycott of the peanut business, and banishment from the country club. The attendant at the petrol station even refused to fill his car. But Jimmy Carter had not gone into politics — politics had come to him. The following year he joined the county’s school board and gradually became more outspoken on race . Then in 1962 he ran for Georgia’s state senate as a Democrat. After his senate stint, in 1970 he became Governor, declaring in his inaugural speech: “The time of racial discrimination is over.” 7 Jimmy Carter vowed to stay alive so that Rosalynn would never have to live alone Credit: Rex 7 Carter was sworn in as President on January 20, 1977 Credit: AP:Associated Press 7 Jimmy Carter pictured at the funeral service of his wife, Rosalynn Carter, on November 29, 2023 Credit: Getty By late 1974 he had become known for compassion and competency, in a United States despairing over crooked ex-President Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War. Still, he did not seem the White House type. Years later Carter recalled: “When I told my mother I was running for president, she said, ‘President of what?’” And when he announced his candidacy for the 1976 election, the reaction was: “Jimmy who?” With the reputation of Washington insiders at an all-time low, the outsider captured the public imagination It turned out to be a gift. With the reputation of Washington insiders at an all-time low, the outsider captured the public imagination. He was sworn as President on January 20, 1977, and things started well. One of his first acts was to declare an amnesty for Vietnam War draft evaders. He also installed solar panels on the White House and established the United States’ first federal Department of Education. Most spectacularly, he began trying to revive the Middle East peace process — and succeeded. Patient negotiations led to a secret summit in September 1978 between the leaders of warring Israel and Egypt at Camp David, the presidential retreat. It was meant to last three days and ended up taking 12. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli PM Menachem Begin started out refusing to even be in the same room. By the end, they were watching movies together and had the framework for a treaty that ended the war. It remains the only meaningful peace in the Middle East. But Carter’s standing tended to be higher abroad than at home. Especially in Newcastle. The President had come to London for a summit in May 1977, and Labour PM Jim Callaghan asked if there was any where he would like to visit. Carter said he would love to see Laugharne in Carmarthenshire, where his favourite poet Dylan Thomas had lived. But wily Callaghan confided that choosing Tyneside instead would be helpful in shoring up Labour support. Air Force One headed north. On the drive to the city centre, Carter noticed a newspaper poster reading “Howay Jimmy”, and another one referring to “the lads”. He asked what all this meant and got a history of Newcastle United’s call to arms. By the time he took to the stage outside the Civic Centre, he had decided on his opening words. The Sun reported that the President’s “Howay the lads!” was greeted with “the sort of roar you get for a five-goal win at Newcastle’s St James’ Park”. Carter would later say: “The expected friendly and polite welcome became a love fest. “This was one of the high points of my first year as president.” That UK visit also had an unlikely impact at Westminster Abbey. Because he could not get to Laugharne, Carter visited the Abbey to see Dylan Thomas’s memorial in Poets’ Corner. But when the President asked an archdeacon to point out the stone, he was told: “We couldn’t have Dylan Thomas commemorated here — you know he was a drunkard.” Carter replied: “Well look, there’s Lord Byron who was gay. There’s Edgar Allan Poe, who was a drug addict.” Still fuming, back home he wrote a letter outlining the poet’s case. In 1982 a memorial was finally unveiled. But in the US, inflation and a petrol shortage were uppermost in voters’ minds. Carter appeared weak, summed up in September 1979, when he collapsed gasping for air into the arms of minders half-way through a six-mile jog. But worse was to come in October that year when in a misguided humanitarian gesture, Carter invited the embattled Shah of Iran to have cancer treatment in the US. Iranians who had been trying to overthrow the royal’s rule and establish a republic were enraged. On November 4, 1979 students stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, taking those inside hostage. Fifty-two Americans would be held for the next 444 days. Carter’s inability to win their release scuppered his reputation for negotiation. A rescue mission also failed, and Carter refused popular calls to simply bomb Tehran. He was awarded 2002’s Nobel Peace Prize – the only US President to ever get the honour after leaving office All this unfolded in the run-up to the November 1980 election, with macho Republican challenger Ronald Reagan branding Carter a “wimp”. The President lost to Reagan in a landslide. Minutes after the new President was sworn in, the hostages in Iran were released. Meanwhile Carter and Rosalynn, along with 13-year-old daughter Amy, moved back to the bungalow in Plains that the family had built in 1961. The political outcast announced that he would not take jobs on corporate boards or pile up money on the lecture circuit. Instead, he went back to teaching Sunday school, and quietly set about changing the world. In 1986 he announced his life goal was to help eradicate Guinea worm disease, which was striking 3.5million people in Africa each year. In 2021, that was down to 14 cases. It is on track to being only the second human disease in history to be eradicated after smallpox. Then in 1994, when it seemed war was about to erupt between North and South Korea , President Bill Clinton remembered Carter’s magical touch with the Middle East. Carter flew in to meet with leader Kim Il Sung, and got on so well they ended up hugging. The intervention helped to seal a nuclear disarmament agreement that lasted nearly a decade. He was awarded 2002’s Nobel Peace Prize – the only US President to ever get the honour after leaving office. Despite his age he carried on building homes for the poor – often working on them himself but the Secret Service banned him from going on the roof because he was at risk of assassination by snipers. And at home in their two-bedroom bungalow, he and Rosalynn read a chapter of the Bible to each other each night, as they had done for more than 40 years. During the day the couple rode around on three-wheeled scooter the former president said "gives you a workout all the way from your ankles up to your shoulders" — for up to 2.5 miles a day. Read more on the Scottish Sun GHOST TOWN Former Scots shopping hotspot 'decaying' as multimillion pound revamp ‘failing’ VAX HORROR Striken Scots 'gaslit' by health bosses after complications from Covid vaccine In accordance with his wishes, President Carter will be buried in front of his smallholding worth £150,000 – less than the value of the Secret Service car that always parked outside for his protection. He explained: “Plains is where our hearts have always been.” 7 Jimmy Carter, Rosalynn Carter and their children during the 1980 Democratic National Convention in New York City Credit: Getty - Contributor RABBIT INCIDENT JIMMY CARTER did not always have the best luck — but it was never worse than one day in April 1979 when he went out fishing on a boat and got attacked by a swimming rabbit. News reports quoted a witness as saying the animal was “hissing menacingly, its teeth flashing and nostrils flared, and making straight for the President.” The Washington Post’s front-page headline was “Rabbit attacks President”. The Associated Press went with “Carter Fights ‘Killer Rabbit’ with Paddle on Fishing Trip”. Carter later insisted that what actually happened that day on a pond in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, was that “a rabbit was being chased by hounds and he jumped in the water and swam towards my boat. When he got almost there, I splashed some water with a paddle and the rabbit turned.” But his press secretary Jody Powell always swore that the animal was “enraged” and “perhaps beserk” and “intent upon climbing into the presidential boat”. He ((OK, he)) said it was also far larger than normal rabbits so the President was frightened, with good reason. Cartoons and novelty songs followed, and political enemies who wanted to paint Carter as ridiculous and hapless had a field day. For the rest of his time in office, Carter avoided being photographed with the Easter Bunny.Ishiba to meet with Nobel-winning A-bomb survivor group

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West Ham surprise Newcastle with 2-0 away winATLANTA (AP) — Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who won the presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, endured humbling defeat after one tumultuous term and then redefined life after the White House as a global humanitarian, has died. He was 100 years old. The longest-lived American president died on Sunday, more than a year after entering hospice care , at his home in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died at 96 in November 2023 , spent most of their lives, The Carter Center said. “Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia,” the center said in posting about his death on the social media platform X. It added in a statement that he died peacefully, surrounded by his family. As reaction poured in from around the world, President Joe Biden mourned Carter’s death, saying the world lost an “extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian” and he lost a dear friend. Biden cited Carter’s compassion and moral clarity, his work to eradicate disease, forge peace, advance civil and human rights, promote free and fair elections, house the homeless and advocacy for the disadvantaged as an example for others. “To all of the young people in this nation and for anyone in search of what it means to live a life of purpose and meaning – the good life – study Jimmy Carter, a man of principle, faith, and humility,” Biden said in a statement. “He showed that we are a great nation because we are a good people – decent and honorable, courageous and compassionate, humble and strong.” Biden said he is ordering a state funeral for Carter in Washington. Businessman, Navy officer, evangelist, politician, negotiator, author, woodworker, citizen of the world — Carter forged a path that still challenges political assumptions and stands out among the 45 men who reached the nation’s highest office. The 39th president leveraged his ambition with a keen intellect, deep religious faith and prodigious work ethic, conducting diplomatic missions into his 80s and building houses for the poor well into his 90s. “My faith demands — this is not optional — my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference,” Carter once said. A president from Plains A moderate Democrat, Carter entered the 1976 presidential race as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad smile, outspoken Baptist mores and technocratic plans reflecting his education as an engineer. His no-frills campaign depended on public financing, and his promise not to deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and U.S. defeat in southeast Asia. “If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Carter repeated before narrowly beating Republican incumbent Gerald Ford, who had lost popularity pardoning Nixon. Carter governed amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets and social upheaval over racism, women’s rights and America’s global role. His most acclaimed achievement in office was a Mideast peace deal that he brokered by keeping Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the bargaining table for 13 days in 1978. That Camp David experience inspired the post-presidential center where Carter would establish so much of his legacy. Yet Carter’s electoral coalition splintered under double-digit inflation, gasoline lines and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His bleakest hour came when eight Americans died in a failed hostage rescue in April 1980, helping to ensure his landslide defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan. Carter acknowledged in his 2020 “White House Diary” that he could be “micromanaging” and “excessively autocratic,” complicating dealings with Congress and the federal bureaucracy. He also turned a cold shoulder to Washington’s news media and lobbyists, not fully appreciating their influence on his political fortunes. “It didn’t take us long to realize that the underestimation existed, but by that time we were not able to repair the mistake,” Carter told historians in 1982, suggesting that he had “an inherent incompatibility” with Washington insiders. Carter insisted his overall approach was sound and that he achieved his primary objectives — to “protect our nation’s security and interests peacefully” and “enhance human rights here and abroad” — even if he fell spectacularly short of a second term. And then, the world Ignominious defeat, though, allowed for renewal. The Carters founded The Carter Center in 1982 as a first-of-its-kind base of operations, asserting themselves as international peacemakers and champions of democracy, public health and human rights. “I was not interested in just building a museum or storing my White House records and memorabilia,” Carter wrote in a memoir published after his 90th birthday. “I wanted a place where we could work.” That work included easing nuclear tensions in North and South Korea, helping to avert a U.S. invasion of Haiti and negotiating cease-fires in Bosnia and Sudan. By 2022, The Carter Center had declared at least 113 elections in Latin America, Asia and Africa to be free or fraudulent. Recently, the center began monitoring U.S. elections as well. Carter’s stubborn self-assuredness and even self-righteousness proved effective once he was unencumbered by the Washington order, sometimes to the point of frustrating his successors . He went “where others are not treading,” he said, to places like Ethiopia, Liberia and North Korea, where he secured the release of an American who had wandered across the border in 2010. “I can say what I like. I can meet whom I want. I can take on projects that please me and reject the ones that don’t,” Carter said. He announced an arms-reduction-for-aid deal with North Korea without clearing the details with Bill Clinton’s White House. He openly criticized President George W. Bush for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He also criticized America’s approach to Israel with his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” And he repeatedly countered U.S. administrations by insisting North Korea should be included in international affairs, a position that most aligned Carter with Republican President Donald Trump. Among the center’s many public health initiatives, Carter vowed to eradicate the guinea worm parasite during his lifetime, and nearly achieved it: Cases dropped from millions in the 1980s to nearly a handful. With hardhats and hammers, the Carters also built homes with Habitat for Humanity. The Nobel committee’s 2002 Peace Prize cites his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” Carter should have won it alongside Sadat and Begin in 1978, the chairman added. Carter accepted the recognition saying there was more work to be done. “The world is now, in many ways, a more dangerous place,” he said. “The greater ease of travel and communication has not been matched by equal understanding and mutual respect.” ‘An epic American life’ Carter’s globetrotting took him to remote villages where he met little “Jimmy Carters,” so named by admiring parents. But he spent most of his days in the same one-story Plains house — expanded and guarded by Secret Service agents — where they lived before he became governor. He regularly taught Sunday School lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church until his mobility declined and the coronavirus pandemic raged. Those sessions drew visitors from around the world to the small sanctuary where Carter will receive his final send-off after a state funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral. The common assessment that he was a better ex-president than president rankled Carter and his allies. His prolific post-presidency gave him a brand above politics, particularly for Americans too young to witness him in office. But Carter also lived long enough to see biographers and historians reassess his White House years more generously. His record includes the deregulation of key industries, reduction of U.S. dependence on foreign oil, cautious management of the national debt and notable legislation on the environment, education and mental health. He focused on human rights in foreign policy, pressuring dictators to release thousands of political prisoners . He acknowledged America’s historical imperialism, pardoned Vietnam War draft evaders and relinquished control of the Panama Canal. He normalized relations with China. “I am not nominating Jimmy Carter for a place on Mount Rushmore,” Stuart Eizenstat, Carter’s domestic policy director, wrote in a 2018 book. “He was not a great president” but also not the “hapless and weak” caricature voters rejected in 1980, Eizenstat said. Rather, Carter was “good and productive” and “delivered results, many of which were realized only after he left office.” Madeleine Albright, a national security staffer for Carter and Clinton’s secretary of state, wrote in Eizenstat’s forward that Carter was “consequential and successful” and expressed hope that “perceptions will continue to evolve” about his presidency. “Our country was lucky to have him as our leader,” said Albright, who died in 2022. Jonathan Alter, who penned a comprehensive Carter biography published in 2020, said in an interview that Carter should be remembered for “an epic American life” spanning from a humble start in a home with no electricity or indoor plumbing through decades on the world stage across two centuries. “He will likely go down as one of the most misunderstood and underestimated figures in American history,” Alter told The Associated Press. A small-town start James Earl Carter Jr. was born Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains and spent his early years in nearby Archery. His family was a minority in the mostly Black community, decades before the civil rights movement played out at the dawn of Carter’s political career. Carter, who campaigned as a moderate on race relations but governed more progressively, talked often of the influence of his Black caregivers and playmates but also noted his advantages: His land-owning father sat atop Archery’s tenant-farming system and owned a main street grocery. His mother, Lillian , would become a staple of his political campaigns. Seeking to broaden his world beyond Plains and its population of fewer than 1,000 — then and now — Carter won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating in 1946. That same year he married Rosalynn Smith, another Plains native, a decision he considered more important than any he made as head of state. She shared his desire to see the world, sacrificing college to support his Navy career. Carter climbed in rank to lieutenant, but then his father was diagnosed with cancer, so the submarine officer set aside his ambitions of admiralty and moved the family back to Plains. His decision angered Rosalynn, even as she dived into the peanut business alongside her husband. Carter again failed to talk with his wife before his first run for office — he later called it “inconceivable” not to have consulted her on such major life decisions — but this time, she was on board. “My wife is much more political,” Carter told the AP in 2021. He won a state Senate seat in 1962 but wasn’t long for the General Assembly and its back-slapping, deal-cutting ways. He ran for governor in 1966 — losing to arch-segregationist Lester Maddox — and then immediately focused on the next campaign. Carter had spoken out against church segregation as a Baptist deacon and opposed racist “Dixiecrats” as a state senator. Yet as a local school board leader in the 1950s he had not pushed to end school segregation even after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, despite his private support for integration. And in 1970, Carter ran for governor again as the more conservative Democrat against Carl Sanders, a wealthy businessman Carter mocked as “Cufflinks Carl.” Sanders never forgave him for anonymous, race-baiting flyers, which Carter disavowed. Ultimately, Carter won his races by attracting both Black voters and culturally conservative whites. Once in office, he was more direct. “I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over,” he declared in his 1971 inaugural address, setting a new standard for Southern governors that landed him on the cover of Time magazine. 'Jimmy Who?' His statehouse initiatives included environmental protection, boosting rural education and overhauling antiquated executive branch structures. He proclaimed Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the slain civil rights leader’s home state. And he decided, as he received presidential candidates in 1972, that they were no more talented than he was. In 1974, he ran Democrats’ national campaign arm. Then he declared his own candidacy for 1976. An Atlanta newspaper responded with the headline: “Jimmy Who?” The Carters and a “Peanut Brigade” of family members and Georgia supporters camped out in Iowa and New Hampshire, establishing both states as presidential proving grounds. His first Senate endorsement: a young first-termer from Delaware named Joe Biden. Yet it was Carter’s ability to navigate America’s complex racial and rural politics that cemented the nomination. He swept the Deep South that November, the last Democrat to do so, as many white Southerners shifted to Republicans in response to civil rights initiatives. A self-declared “born-again Christian,” Carter drew snickers by referring to Scripture in a Playboy magazine interview, saying he “had looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.” The remarks gave Ford a new foothold and television comedians pounced — including NBC’s new “Saturday Night Live” show. But voters weary of cynicism in politics found it endearing. Carter chose Minnesota Sen. Walter “Fritz” Mondale as his running mate on a “Grits and Fritz” ticket. In office, he elevated the vice presidency and the first lady’s office. Mondale’s governing partnership was a model for influential successors Al Gore, Dick Cheney and Biden. Rosalynn Carter was one of the most involved presidential spouses in history, welcomed into Cabinet meetings and huddles with lawmakers and top aides. The Carters presided with uncommon informality: He used his nickname “Jimmy” even when taking the oath of office, carried his own luggage and tried to silence the Marine Band’s “Hail to the Chief.” They bought their clothes off the rack. Carter wore a cardigan for a White House address, urging Americans to conserve energy by turning down their thermostats. Amy, the youngest of four children, attended District of Columbia public school. Washington’s social and media elite scorned their style. But the larger concern was that “he hated politics,” according to Eizenstat, leaving him nowhere to turn politically once economic turmoil and foreign policy challenges took their toll. Accomplishments, and ‘malaise’ Carter partially deregulated the airline, railroad and trucking industries and established the departments of Education and Energy, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He designated millions of acres of Alaska as national parks or wildlife refuges. He appointed a then-record number of women and nonwhite people to federal posts. He never had a Supreme Court nomination, but he elevated civil rights attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the nation’s second highest court, positioning her for a promotion in 1993. He appointed Paul Volker, the Federal Reserve chairman whose policies would help the economy boom in the 1980s — after Carter left office. He built on Nixon’s opening with China, and though he tolerated autocrats in Asia, pushed Latin America from dictatorships to democracy. But he couldn’t immediately tame inflation or the related energy crisis. And then came Iran. After he admitted the exiled Shah of Iran to the U.S. for medical treatment, the American Embassy in Tehran was overrun in 1979 by followers of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Negotiations to free the hostages broke down repeatedly ahead of the failed rescue attempt. The same year, Carter signed SALT II, the new strategic arms treaty with Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union, only to pull it back, impose trade sanctions and order a U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Hoping to instill optimism, he delivered what the media dubbed his “malaise” speech, although he didn’t use that word. He declared the nation was suffering “a crisis of confidence.” By then, many Americans had lost confidence in the president, not themselves. Carter campaigned sparingly for reelection because of the hostage crisis, instead sending Rosalynn as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy challenged him for the Democratic nomination. Carter famously said he’d “kick his ass,” but was hobbled by Kennedy as Reagan rallied a broad coalition with “make America great again” appeals and asking voters whether they were “better off than you were four years ago.” Reagan further capitalized on Carter’s lecturing tone, eviscerating him in their lone fall debate with the quip: “There you go again.” Carter lost all but six states and Republicans rolled to a new Senate majority. Carter successfully negotiated the hostages’ freedom after the election, but in one final, bitter turn of events, Tehran waited until hours after Carter left office to let them walk free. 'A wonderful life' At 56, Carter returned to Georgia with “no idea what I would do with the rest of my life.” Four decades after launching The Carter Center, he still talked of unfinished business. “I thought when we got into politics we would have resolved everything,” Carter told the AP in 2021. “But it’s turned out to be much more long-lasting and insidious than I had thought it was. I think in general, the world itself is much more divided than in previous years.” Still, he affirmed what he said when he underwent treatment for a cancer diagnosis in his 10th decade of life. “I’m perfectly at ease with whatever comes,” he said in 2015 . “I’ve had a wonderful life. I’ve had thousands of friends, I’ve had an exciting, adventurous and gratifying existence.” Sanz is a former Associated Press reporter.

KISS PR Brand Story Leads Innovation: Now Accepting Bitcoin Payments for Press Release ServicesBefore he was president, candidate Jimmy Carter stopped in Hickory in 1976

Cuban Minimalist Zilia Sánchez , whose erotic shaped canvases offered a warm rebuttal to the often chilly work of her male counterparts, has died. She was ninety-eight. Her death was announced by the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, which did not specify a cause. Long a resident of Puerto Rico, where she settled following the Cuban Revolution, Sánchez gained recognition only near the end of her life, as feminist oeuvres finally began to be reconsidered. The artist over her long career brought to bear her early training as a set designer in spare, three-dimensional works that, on close looking, frequently evoked female anatomy. Stretched over complex wooden frameworks and swelling with protuberances, these canvases were almost sculptural in appearance, their subdued blue or gray hues lending them a dim sultriness. “A voluptuous sensuality is never far away,” wrote Barry Schwabsky in a 2014 issue of Artforum . “Touch is as important as vision, and the paintings seem to want to touch themselves.” “I paint with feeling,” she told an interviewer for the Phillips Collection in 2019, “and the feeling is inside. That’s how art is.” Zilia Sánchez was born in Havana on July 12, 1928, to a Cuban mother and a Spanish father. After graduating from Havana’s Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes de San Alejandro, she began her career amid a politically radical milieu, working as a set designer and an abstract painter for Cuban theater groups. During this time, she gained renown as a painter in Havana and exhibited abroad, representing Cuba in the Bienal de México in 1958 and the Bienal de São Paulo in 1959. Following the rise to power of Fidel Castro, Sánchez traveled through Europe, in Spain encountering the work of Antoni Tàpies, which would prove influential to her own practice. In 1962, she moved to New York, where she studied printmaking at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and honed the shaped canvases that would become her trademark. In the early 1970s, having enjoyed solo exhibitions at the Universidad de Puerto Rico, in 1966 and 1970, she settled permanently San Juan, Puerto Rico, where she designed the avant-garde literary journal Zona Carga y Descarga (Zone of Charging and Discharging), and continued to produce the shaped paintings for which she would eventually become known. Works such as Troyanas (Trojan Women), 1964; Topología erótica (Erotic Topology), 1968; Antigone , 1970; and Lunar (Moon), 1985; variously evoked sensuality and struggle beneath their smooth surfaces, tantalizing clefts, and inviting valleys. “Her work blatantly evokes the female body—nipples, lips (vaginal or otherwise), and so on—but it is not representational,” wrote Schwabsky. “That it can be at once so in-your-face and so indirect is probably its greatest strength.” Sánchez’s work was well known in Puerto Rico, where she not only painted but taught for decades, from the 1990s working as professor at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico. She also taught at the Art Students League of San Juan. It wasn’t until the 2010s that Sánchez finally began receiving her due internationally. A 2013 exhibition at Artists Space in New York prompted New York Times critic Holland Cotter to wonder, “Why wasn’t this artist included in the Venice Biennale?” Sánchez went on to exhibit in the 2017 Biennale. A major survey of her work originated at the Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, in 2019, before traveling to the Museo de Arte Ponce in San Juan and El Museo del Barrio, New York. Her work is held in the collections of major institutions around the world including the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey; the Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine; the Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; the Pérez Art Museum, Miami; the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, Santurce; Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan; the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Argentina; and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. Though some might have marveled at Sánchez’s persistence as she for decades continued to create work that might never be widely seen, or seen at all, for the artist there was no mystery. “Why am I still making work?” she replied to her Phillips Collection interlocutor in 2019. “Because I need it.”

Veteran forward Bruce Brown's return a boost to flagging Toronto Raptors' lineupA major PR and advertising shakeup is looming for several big CE and appliance brands with the tipped acquisition of the Interpublic Group by the Omnicom Group, the move would challenge WPP the owner of Ogilvy & Mather and their Ogilvy PR operations in Australia. According to the Wall street Journal Omnicom is in advanced talks to acquire Interpublic Group a deal that would create the world’s largest advertising company, according to people familiar with the matter, among their clients are Apple, Mastercard, LG Electronics and Panasonic. The all-stock deal is likely to value Interpublic at between $13 billion and $14 billion, excluding debt, some of the people said. Interpublic had a market value of nearly $11 billion as of Friday. At this stage it’s not known whether the deal will lead to job cuts. If the deal is concluded the combined entity would have net revenue of more than A$31 billion, based on their 2023 financials. A transaction could be announced as early as this week, according to insiders. Among the PR agencies that could be impacted by the deal Webber Shandwick and Porter Novelli as well as Fleishman Hillard. The WSJ claim that by combining Omnicom, the world’s third-largest ad company, and Interpublic Group, the fourth-biggest ad company, would topple WPP as the industry’s biggest player. WPP’s net revenue last year was about $15.1 billion. A deal would bring together some of the world’s best-known ad brands under one roof, following decades of consolidation on Madison Avenue. A handful of conglomerates are the power players behind the majority of ads people come across on TV sets, before they can play YouTube clips and on roadside billboards. In addition to producing advertisements, the companies own firms that buy ad space, develop loyalty programs, analyse shopper data, handle crisis communications and tap influencers for marketing campaigns. Omnicom and Interpublic have helped create some of history’s most iconic ads, including “Think Different” for Apple, “Priceless” for Mastercard, “Because I’m Worth It” for L’Oreal and “Got Milk” for the California Milk Processor Board. Omnicom, led by Chief Executive John Wren, includes agencies BBDO, TBWA, Fleishman Hillard, and ad buyer Omnicom Media Group and works for companies including Disney, AT&T and PepsiCo. Interpublic, which CEO Philippe Krakowsky leads, owns agencies such as McCann World group, Weber Shandwick, FCB and ad-buying firm Mediabrands, and has a client roster including L’Oréal, Johnson & Johnson and Geico. Observers claim that merger could help Omnicom and Interpublic become better equipped to deal with an industry increasingly driven by technology, data and artificial intelligence. UKRAINE – 2021/12/20: In this photo illustration, The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. logo seen displayed on a smartphone and in the background. (Photo Illustration by Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) Currently the advertising industry is under siege with companies such as Alphabet’s Google and Meta Platforms using AI to drive deeper into advertising and media agencies business models. In Australia several media Companies have also lost traffic this year due to Google and big tech Companies changing algorithms so that they can go after media Company business directly. Research Companies claim that Generative AI threatens to disrupt how agencies get paid and could potentially diminish demand for copywriters, graphic designers and the ad buyers, who decide where to place ads to target the right audiences for CE and appliance Companies. Research firm Forrester said last year that automation could eliminate some 33,000 jobs, or almost 8% of the workforce, at ad agencies by 2030, with various forms of AI being responsible for a significant portion of these losses. Currently Interpublic and WPP are struggling to keep pace with rival Publicis, which adapted faster to the technological shifts that reshaped how brands connect with consumers Publicis list Samsung as one of their clients via Leo Burnett. The Paris-based firm has spent billions on buying data and e-commerce companies. It has also targeted companies that specialize in digital transformation advisory work to better position it against consulting firms with a growing presence in the advertising and marketing business. Interpublic has trailed its rivals, losing business from big clients such as Spotify, and BMW. It most recently lost the bulk of its most lucrative account, Amazon ad buying assignment, which was split between Omnicom and WPP. Krakowsky has been actively shopping Interpublic and parts of the conglomerate for more than a year and talking to a range of parties, including private-equity firms Apollo and KKR, according to people familiar with the talks. The company has also enlisted McKinsey to help with a restructuring and cost-cutting initiative, according to people familiar with the matter. The WSJ claims that a deal between Interpublic and Omnicom would likely face government scrutiny, as the combined company would be a dominating force in the ad-buying space. Global ad spending is expected to top $1.03 trillion, excluding political advertising, according to GroupM, the ad buying arm of WPP.

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Zanu-PF Politburo member and Secretary for Security, Lovemore Matuke, has issued a stern warning to party members against misusing social media to undermine the ruling party’s leadership. Speaking at a Zanu-PF Provincial Coordinating Committee meeting in Masvingo on Friday, Matuke, who also serves as Minister of State for National Security, emphasized that the party will not tolerate divisive behavior and will take action against members who use social platforms to attack the leadership. “All party WhatsApp groups should be created with the blessings of the Zanu-PF provincial chairperson,” Matuke said. “We will easily track errant individuals who originate messages that attack the leadership and undermine party unity and cohesion.” He further stated that while public WhatsApp groups remain unrestricted, party-affiliated groups must adhere to strict guidelines to ensure discipline and unity. “We will deal with those who abuse Zanu-PF WhatsApp groups using the party constitution,” Matuke added. Unity and Leadership Support Matuke urged members to uphold unity and loyalty, reminding them of the party’s current leadership under President Emmerson Mnangagwa. “No new sun can rise before another one has set, and currently, our President is ED Mnangagwa,” he said. “These other names we are hearing are the work of disloyal and divisive members with their agendas.” Call for Loyalty Deputy Secretary for Youth Affairs John Paradza echoed Matuke’s sentiments, stressing the importance of loyalty to President Mnangagwa’s leadership and cautioning against succession discussions that could create divisions. “All Zanu-PF structures have reaffirmed their support for President Mnangagwa’s continued leadership,” Paradza said. The party has pledged to introduce measures to curb social media misuse while maintaining discipline and safeguarding its internal cohesion as it navigates key political and governance challenges. Source – the heraldUN nuclear watchdog board passes resolution chiding Iran

ISTANBUL/DAMASCUS, Dec 9 (Reuters) - After 13 years of civil war, Syria's opposition militias sensed an opportunity to loosen President Bashar al-Assad's grip on power when, about six months ago, they communicated to Turkey plans for a major offensive and felt they had received its tacit approval, two sources with knowledge of the planning said. Launched barely two weeks ago, the operation's speedy success in achieving its initial goal - seizing Syria's second city, Aleppo - took almost everybody by surprise. From there, in a little more than a week, the rebel alliance reached Damascus and on Sunday put an end to five decades of Assad family rule. The lightning advance relied on an almost perfect alignment of stars for the forces opposed to Assad : his army was demoralised and exhausted; his main allies, Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah, were severely weakened by conflict with Israel; and his other key military supporter, Russia, was distracted and losing interest. There was no way the rebels could go ahead without first notifying Turkey, which has been a main backer of the Syrian opposition from the war's earliest days, said the sources, a diplomat in the region and a member of the Syrian opposition. Turkey has troops on the ground in northwest Syria, and provides support to some of the rebels who were intending to take part, including the Syrian National Army (SNA) - though it considers the main faction in the alliance, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), to be a terror group. The rebels' bold plan was the brainchild of HTS and its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani , the diplomat said. Because of his former ties to al Qaeda, Golani is designated as a terrorist by Washington, Europe and Turkey. However, over the past decade, HTS, previously known as the Nusra Front, has tried to moderate its image , while running a quasi-state centered on Idlib, where, experts say, it levied taxes on commercial activities and the population. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's government, which struck a deal with Russia in 2020 to de-escalate fighting in northwestern Syria, has long opposed such a major rebel offensive, fearing it would lead to a new wave of refugees crossing its border. However, the rebels sensed a stiffening of Ankara's stance towards Assad earlier this year, the sources said, after he rebuffed repeated overtures from Erdogan aimed at advancing a political solution to the military stalemate, which has left Syria divided between the regime and a patchwork of rebel groups with an array of foreign backers. The Syrian opposition source said the rebels had shown Turkey details of the planning, after Ankara's attempts to engage Assad had failed. The message was: "That other path hasn't worked for years - so try ours. You don't have to do anything, just don't intervene." Reuters was unable to determine the exact nature of the communications.Hadi Al-Bahra, head of the internationally-recognized Syrian opposition abroad, told Reuters last week that HTS and SNA had had "limited" planning together ahead of the operation and agreed to "achieve cooperation and not clash with each other". He added that Turkey's military saw what the armed groups were doing and discussing. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking in Doha on Sunday, said Erdogan’s effort in recent months to reach out to Assad failed and Turkey "knew something was coming". However, Turkey's deputy minister for foreign affairs, Nuh Yilmaz, told a conference on Middle Eastern affairs in Bahrain on Sunday that Ankara was not behind the offensive, and did not provide its consent, saying it was concerned about instability. Turkey's foreign and defence ministries did not respond directly to Reuters questions about an HTS-Ankara understanding about the Aleppo operation. In reply to questions about Turkey's awareness of battlefield preparations, a Turkish official told Reuters that the HTS "does not receive orders or direction from us (and) does not coordinate its operations with us either." The official said that "in that sense" it would not be correct to say that the operation in Aleppo was carried out with Turkey's approval or green light. Turkish intelligence agency MIT did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Reuters was unable to reach a representative for HTS. The rebels struck when Assad was at his most vulnerable. Distracted by wars elsewhere, his military allies Russia, Iran, and Lebanon's Hezbollah failed to mobilise the kind of decisive firepower that had propped him up for years. Syria's weak armed forces were unable to resist. A regime source told Reuters that tanks and planes were left with no fuel because of corruption and looting - an illustration of just how hollowed out the Syrian state had become. Over the past two years morale had severely eroded in the army, said the source, who requested anonymity because of fear of retribution. Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International, a Middle-East focused think-tank, said the HTS-led coalition was stronger and more coherent than any previous rebel force during the war, "and a lot of that is Abu Mohammed al-Golani’s doing". But, he said, the regime's weakness was the deciding factor. "After they lost Aleppo like that, regime forces never recovered and the more the rebels advanced, the weaker Assad’s army got," he said. The pace of the rebel advances, with Hama being captured on Dec. 5 and Homs falling on or around Sunday at the same time government forces lost Damascus, exceeded expectations. "There was a window of opportunity but no one expected the regime to crumble this fast. Everyone expected some fight," said Bassam Al-Kuwatli, president of the Syrian Liberal Party, a small opposition group, who is based outside Syria. A U.S. official said on condition of anonymity that while Washington had been aware of Turkey’s overall support for the rebels, it was not informed of any tacit Turkish approval for the Aleppo offensive. The White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Turkey's role. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday said that Russia's abandonment of Assad led to his downfall, adding that Moscow never should have protected him in the first place and then lost interest because of a war in Ukraine that never should have started. Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday noted his country's role in weakening Hezbollah, which sources told Reuters withdrew its remaining troops from Syria on Saturday. Sources familiar with Hezbollah deployments said the Iran-backed group, which propped up Assad early in the war, had already withdrawn many of its elite fighters from Syria over the last year to support the group as it waged hostilities with Israel - a conflict that spilled over from the Gaza war. Israel dealt Hezbollah heavy blows, particularly after launching an offensive in September, killing the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah and many of its commanders and fighters. The rebel offensive in Syria began the same day as a ceasefire came into effect in the Lebanon conflict on Nov. 27. The sources familiar with Hezbollah said it did not want to engage in big battles in Syria as the group focused on starting a long road to recovery from the heavy blows. For the rebel alliance, the withdrawal of Hezbollah presented a valuable opportunity. "We just wanted a fair fight between us and the regime," the Syrian opposition source said. Assad's fall marks a major blow to Iranian influence in the Middle East, coming so swiftly after the killing of Nasrallah and the damage done by Israel to Hezbollah. Turkey, on the other hand, now appears to be Syria's most powerful external player, with troops on the ground and access to the rebel leaders. In addition to securing the return of Syrian refugees, Turkey's objectives include curbing the power of Syrian Kurdish groups that control wide areas of northeast Syria and are backed by the United States. Ankara deems them to be terrorists. As part of the initial offensive, the Turkey-backed SNA seized swathes of territory, including the city of Tel Refaat, from U.S.-backed Kurdish forces. On Sunday, a Turkish security source said the rebels entered the northern city of Manbij after pushing the Kurds back again. "Turkey is the biggest outside winner here. Erdogan turned out to be on the right - or at least winning - side of history here because his proxies in Syria won the day," said Birol Baskan, Turkey-based political scientist and former non-resident scholar at Middle East Institute. Sign up here. Additional reporting by Laila Bassam in Beirut, Tuvan Gumrukcu and Matt Spetalnick in Washington in Ankara; Writing by Tom Perry; editing by Frank Jack Daniel Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tab Thomson Reuters Turkey Bureau Chief overseeing political, economic and foreign policy coverage. Work spans the country's diplomatic balancing act, landmark elections, historic earthquakes and the mainstream media, as well as reporting on Syria, Lebanon and Ukraine. Previously covered the U.S. economy, Federal Reserve and Wall Street including award-winning work on financial-market trading and a global cyber heist.Kevin Kingston: SECURE Act changes the way people inherit moneyA family of killer whales has made a rare trip into waters off downtown Vancouver for what an expert says was likely a “grocery shopping” hunt for harbour seals. Video shared on social media by False Creek Ferries shows the whales cruising past highrise towers at the entrance to False Creek on Sunday. Andrew Trites, director of the University of British Columbia’s marine mammal research unit, has identified the whales as a family group of transient orcas consisting of a mother and her three offspring. He says it’s the first time the 26-year-old mother, known as T35A, has shown up in downtown Vancouver with her children aged six, 11 and 14. Trites says the well documented family has previously been seen by marine researchers from Alaska to the Strait of Juan de Fuca south of Vancouver Island. He attributes the pod’s surprising downtown appearance to seals also changing their habits as they hide from orcas, forcing killer whales to hunt in backwater areas like False Creek. Trites says the video shows the whales moving quietly like “ghosts” to avoid alerting their prey. Killer whales have previously been spotted in False Creek, including in 2019, and in 2010 a grey whale swam all the way to the end of the inlet, near Science World. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 25, 2024.

Special Counsel Jack Smith on Monday moved to dismiss the federal cases against US President-elect Donald Trump -- including one for election subversion -- citing an official policy of not prosecuting a sitting president. Trump, 78, was accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden and mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House, but neither case ever came to trial. Smith, in a filing with the district judge in Washington presiding over the election case, said it should be dropped in light of the long-standing Justice Department policy of not indicting or prosecuting a sitting president. He cited the same reasoning in withdrawing his appeal of a ruling by a district judge, a Trump appointee, who dismissed the classified documents case earlier this year. Smith asked District Judge Tanya Chutkan to dismiss the election interference case "without prejudice" -- leaving open the possibility it could be revived after Trump leaves office four years from now. The special counsel paused the election interference case this month after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 5 presidential election. "The Government's position on the merits of the defendant's prosecution has not changed," Smith said in the filing with Chutkan. "But the circumstances have." "It has long been the position of the Department of Justice that the United States Constitution forbids the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting President," Smith said. "As a result this prosecution must be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated." In a separate filing, Smith said he was withdrawing his appeal of the dismissal of the classified documents case against Trump but pursuing the case against his two co-defendants, Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira. Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said the cases were "empty and lawless, and should never have been brought." "Over $100 Million Dollars of Taxpayer Dollars has been wasted in the Democrat Party's fight against their Political Opponent, ME," he said. "Nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before." Trump is accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding -- the session of Congress called to certify Biden's win, which was violently attacked on January 6, 2021 by a mob of the then-president's supporters. Trump is also accused of seeking to disenfranchise US voters with his false claims that he won the 2020 election. The former and incoming president also faces two state cases -- in New York and Georgia. He was convicted in New York in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election to stop her from revealing an alleged 2006 sexual encounter. Judge Juan Merchan has postponed sentencing while he considers a request from Trump's lawyers that the conviction be thrown out in light of the Supreme Court ruling in July that an ex-president has broad immunity from prosecution. In Georgia, Trump faces racketeering charges over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results in the southern state, but that case will likely be frozen while he is in office. cl/bgs Get any of our free email newsletters — news headlines, sports, arts & entertainment, state legislature, CFD news, and more.In keeping with a long-standing Thanksgiving tradition, President Joe Biden recently pardoned a pair of turkeys . During a ceremony at the White House, the birds — named Peach and Blossom — were spared from the dinner table and given a new lease on life. While it was an act of pure political pageantry, it highlights the president’s expansive pardon powers — which could be used liberally during his final two months in office. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. Get the latest news, sports, weather and more delivered right to your inbox.