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WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Christopher Wray told bureau workers Wednesday that he plans to resign at the end of President Joe Biden's term in January, an announcement that came a week and a half after President-elect Donald Trump said he would nominate loyalist Kash Patel for the job. Wray said at a town hall meeting that he would be stepping down “after weeks of careful thought,” roughly three years short of the completion of a 10-year term during which he tried to keep the FBI out of politics even as the bureau found itself entangled in a string of explosive investigations, including two that led to separate indictments of Trump last year as well as inquiries into Biden and his son. “My goal is to keep the focus on our mission — the indispensable work you’re doing on behalf of the American people every day,” Wray told agency employees. “In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray, while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work.” The intended resignation was not unexpected considering that Trump had settled on Patel to be director and had repeatedly aired his ire at Wray, whom he appointed during his first term. But his departure is nonetheless a reflection of how Trump's norm-breaking style has reshaped Washington, with the president-elect yet again flouting tradition by moving to replace an FBI director well before his term was up and Wray resigning to avert a collision with the incoming administration. “It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway — this is not easy for me," Wray said. “I love this place, I love our mission, and I love our people — but my focus is, and always has been, on us and doing what’s right for the FBI.” Wray received a standing ovation following his remarks before a standing-room-only crowd at FBI headquarters and some in the audience cried, according to an FBI official who was not authorized to discuss the private gathering by name and spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press. Trump applauded the news on social media, calling it “a great day for America as it will end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice" and saying that Patel's confirmation will begin “the process of Making the FBI Great Again.” If confirmed by the Senate, Patel would herald a radical leadership transformation at the nation's premier federal law enforcement agency. He has advocated shutting down the FBI's Washington headquarters and called for ridding the federal government of “conspirators," raising alarms that he might seek to wield the FBI's significant investigative powers as an instrument of retribution against Trump's perceived enemies. Patel said in a statement Wednesday that he was looking forward to "a smooth transition. I will be ready to serve the American people on day one.” It's extremely rare for FBI directors to be ousted from their jobs before the completion of their 10-year terms, a length meant to insulate the agency from the political influence of changing administrations. But Trump has done it twice, placing Wray in the job in 2017 after firing Director James Comey amid an investigation into ties between Russia and the Republican president’s campaign. Despite having appointed Wray, Trump had telegraphed his anger with the FBI director on multiple occasions throughout the years, including as recently as the past week. In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday, Trump said, “I can’t say I’m thrilled with him. He invaded my home,” a reference to the FBI search of his Florida property , Mar-a-Lago, two years ago for classified documents from Trump’s first term as president. That search, and the recovery of boxes of sensitive government records, paved the way for one of two federal indictments against Trump. The case, and another one charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 election, have both been dismissed by the Justice Department special counsel that brought them in light of Trump's November victory. Attorney General Merrick Garland praised Wray for having “served our country honorably and with integrity for decades.” He said: “Under Director Wray’s principled leadership, the FBI has worked to fulfill the Justice Department’s mission to keep our country safe, protect civil rights, and uphold the rule of law.” Natalie Bara, the president of the FBI Agents Association, said in a statement that Wray had led the FBI “through challenging times with a steady focus on doing the work that keeps our country safe. ” Throughout his seven years on the job, the self-professed "low-key, understated" Wray brought a workmanlike approach to the job, repeatedly preaching a “keep calm and tackle hard” mantra to bureau personnel despite a steady drumbeat of attacks from Trump and his supporters. He also sought to avoid public conflict when possible with the Trump White House, distancing himself and his leadership team from the FBI's Russia investigation over errors that took place before he took office and announcing dozens of corrective actions meant to prevent the recurrence of the surveillance abuses that plagued the inquiry. But there were other instances when he memorably broke from Trump — he did not agree, for instance, with Trump’s characterization of the Russia investigation as a “witch hunt." He made known his displeasure when the White House blessed the declassification of materials related to the surveillance of a former Trump campaign aide and contradicted a Trump talking point by stating that Ukraine had not interfered in the 2016 election. He repeatedly sought to keep the focus on the FBI's day-to-day work, using the bulk of his resignation announcement to praise the bureau's efforts in countering everything from violent crime and cyberattacks to Chinese espionage and terrorism. Yet as he leaves office at a time of heightened threats , much of the public focus has been on the politically sensitive investigations of his tenure. Besides the inquiries into Trump, the FBI in recent years also investigated Biden's handling of classified information as well as Biden's son Hunter for tax and gun violations. Hunter Biden was pardoned by his father last week. A particular flashpoint came in August 2022, when FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago — an action officials defended as necessary given the boxes of documents that were being concealed at the Palm Beach property and the evidence of obstruction that the Justice Department said had been gathered. Trump railed against the FBI over that search and has kept up his criticism ever since. Trump was angered by Wray's comment at a congressional hearing that there was “some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel” that struck Trump's ear during an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania in July. The FBI later stated unequivocally that it was indeed a bullet. Before being named FBI director, Wray worked at a prestigious law firm, King & Spalding, where he represented former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during the “Bridgegate” scandal. He also led the Justice Department’s criminal division for a period during President George W. Bush’s administration.Rams claim CB Emmanuel Forbes off waivers from Washington

JAY Sneddon hopes Cardiff-Boolaroo can convert a strong start to the season now two-day fixtures have arrived as the top-six sides lock horns in a key round. Login or signup to continue reading CBs have barely put a foot wrong so far in 2024-2025, losing only once and sitting third on Newcastle District Cricket Association's first-grade ladder. And with the 50-over phase of the draw behind them, skipper Sneddon wants to continue the club's push towards a semi-final return after near misses (fifth in 2023-2024 and sixth in 2022-2023) the last two campaigns. "The last two years we've done a lot better in two-day cricket than one-day cricket, so hopefully that translates this year and puts us in a really good spot for top four," he told the Newcastle Herald . Sneddon has identified maturity, adaptability and responsibility as some of the key improvements made by Cardiff-Boolaroo this summer. "From our perspective we've been really good and especially as a young side we've shown big improvements from last year," he said. "We're more mature - turning starts into runs, being able to bowl to plans and starve a team rather than searching for wickets, building pressure. "We're starting to learn and adapt to play different conditions. Our home pitch is a little bit different to other grounds and being smart enough to change plans, lengths, lines to suit different conditions. "And last year it felt like nobody wanted to step up and be the one to take responsibility and get the job done, whereas this year there's 11 players chomping at the bit to take some responsibility and win us a game of cricket." Austin Berry has been away at the Under-17 State Challenge this week and replaces Cardiff-Boolaroo's opening bowler Dan Williams, representing Newcastle at the NSW Country Championships. Sneddon describes Saturday's clash with Merewether (6th) at Pasterfield Sports Complex as crucial in the context of the competition. "We realise how big a game it is, against Merewether it's really worth 12 points for us," he said. "They're another team who will be there and thereabouts for the top four come the end of the season, so we distance ourselves from them if we get a win on the weekend." Stockton (1st) and Wallsend (2nd), fresh from facing off in the Tom Locker Cup final on Sunday , have a top-of-the-table encounter at Lynn Oval while defending premiers Charlestown (5th) and City (4th) meet at Kahibah Oval in a replay of last season's two-day decider. Just seven points separate these half-a-dozen teams on the overall standings midway through round six. Wests v Hamwicks at Harker Oval and University v Toronto at Bernie Curran Oval also didn't get underway last weekend, leaving 90 overs available but still under two-day playing conditions. Waratah-Mayfield (8th) could be the big movers, with a first-innings result already in the bag and eyeing an outright against Belmont. They resume at 0-140 in dig number two and with a lead of 204 runs, initially rolling the visitors for 39 at Waratah Oval after making 103. My name is Josh Callinan and I'm a sports journalist at the Newcastle Herald. I started with the newspaper in 2016 after a decade at the Maitland Mercury. My name is Josh Callinan and I'm a sports journalist at the Newcastle Herald. I started with the newspaper in 2016 after a decade at the Maitland Mercury. DAILY Today's top stories curated by our news team. Also includes evening update. WEEKDAYS Grab a quick bite of today's latest news from around the region and the nation. WEEKLY The latest news, results & expert analysis. WEEKDAYS Catch up on the news of the day and unwind with great reading for your evening. WEEKLY Get the editor's insights: what's happening & why it matters. WEEKLY Love footy? We've got all the action covered. WEEKLY Every Saturday and Tuesday, explore destinations deals, tips & travel writing to transport you around the globe. WEEKLY Get the latest property and development news here. WEEKLY Going out or staying in? Find out what's on. WEEKDAYS Sharp. Close to the ground. Digging deep. Your weekday morning newsletter on national affairs, politics and more. WEEKLY Follow the Newcastle Knights in the NRL? Don't miss your weekly Knights update. TWICE WEEKLY Your essential national news digest: all the big issues on Wednesday and great reading every Saturday. WEEKLY Get news, reviews and expert insights every Thursday from CarExpert, ACM's exclusive motoring partner. TWICE WEEKLY Get real, Australia! Let the ACM network's editors and journalists bring you news and views from all over. AS IT HAPPENS Be the first to know when news breaks. DAILY Your digital replica of Today's Paper. Ready to read from 5am! DAILY Test your skills with interactive crosswords, sudoku & trivia. Fresh daily!PlayStation launches free-to-play version of ‘Gran Turismo’ December 6

Despite what you may have heard, the 2024 election was pretty close . President-elect Donald Trump won a clear victory in the Electoral College, but he leads outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris in the national popular vote by only 1.5 percentage points, 49.8 percent to 48.3 percent* — one of the smallest margins ever in a presidential race. Nonetheless, the magnitude of Trump's triumph may appear much larger because it featured a major swing to the right from where the nation voted in 2020. As President Joe Biden defeated Trump by about 4.5 points nationally four years ago, Trump's 2024 advantage represents about a 6-point shift to the right, which is the largest swing toward either party since 2008. Back then, Barack Obama's 7.3-point edge represented a nearly 10-point swing to the left from George W. Bush's 2.5-point win in 2004. Yet the national swing only tells part of the story. What particularly stands out this year is the breadth of the swing in Trump's direction across not only the 50 states and the District of Columbia, but also an overwhelming majority of the more than 3,000 counties or their equivalents in the United States. Compared with his showing in 2020, Trump didn't pick up a huge amount of ground in many places, but he did gain at least a little bit nearly everywhere. We can see this by drilling into the state-level and county-level data below. Every state swung to the right in 2024 From one presidential election to the next, more states usually swing toward the party that gains ground compared with how it performed four years earlier. However, it's rare for every state to move in the same direction, even in elections where one candidate wins decisively. After all, changes in the makeup of the party coalitions and the varying appeal of individual candidates can lead different states to move in opposite directions. Plus, at least in a few historical cases, a third-party candidate may have won a meaningful share of the vote that cut more into one party's coalition than another. But in 2024, all 50 states and D.C. swung to the right to varying degrees based on their margins versus the 2020 race. This marked the first presidential election since 1976 in which all 51 components of the Electoral College moved in the same direction relative to how they voted four years earlier. Unlike 1976, though, all 50 states and D.C. moved to the right in 2024 even though the previous election was also highly competitive. That wasn't the case in the closely fought 1976 race won by Jimmy Carter: His victory came four years after a landslide result in 1972 , when Richard Nixon carried 49 states and won by 23 points nationally — the largest popular vote edge a candidate has earned in the post-World War II era — making 1976's leftward swing more of a return to a highly competitive baseline. Although six other elections since 1976 featured larger swings than in 2024, at least one state in each of those contests still moved toward the party that lost ground. In 1980, Vermont was the only state where Carter's margin improved even as he lost reelection badly to Ronald Reagan. In 1984, Reagan built significantly on his 1980 margins while winning the only definite landslide since Nixon's 1972 victory, but seven states and D.C. still voted more Democratic than they had four years earlier. Republicans lost ground in 49 states while winning again in 1988, but George H.W. Bush's margin grew very slightly over Reagan's in Tennessee and D.C. When the elder Bush lost reelection in 1992, he did worse in nearly every state, but still managed to improve his margin slightly in Iowa. And when Obama won by the largest margin in recent years in 2008, five now-dark red states trended right (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia). While every state swung to the right in 2024, the extent of that swing did vary quite a bit. Weighted by each state's share of the national popular vote, the average state shifted 5.6 points to the right by margin from its 2020 result. Leading the way was New York, which Harris only won by about 13 points after Biden carried it by 23 points — a swing of more than 10 points. Other populous blue states like New Jersey (10 points) and California (9 points) also swung notably to the right, as did large red states like Florida (10 points) and Texas (8 points). Conversely, 36 states and D.C. shifted to the right by less than the weighted average. Those states tended to be less populous and therefore more rural, but also include most of the seven principal swing states in the 2024 race, which had the most concentrated campaign attention and spending during the election. Of those, only Arizona had a larger-than-average shift to the right of 5.8 points, while Nevada's 5.5-point rightward shift was about the same as the weighted average. Beyond that, Michigan swung just 4.2 points to the right, and the other four swing states — Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — all swung right by fewer than 3 points. Of all the states, Washington state had the smallest swing to the right, going from Biden +19 to Harris +18. The Washington outcome serves as yet another reminder that you should never rely on one data point as an indicator of things to come. After all, Washington's blanket and top-two primary results have often served as a decent predictor for the national political environment in the ensuing November election. But in 2024, Democrats running for the U.S. House of Representatives did better in the state's top-two primaries than they performed in 2020 or 2022, yet the November results saw Republicans nationally do much better than in 2020 and similar to their 2022 result in the national popular vote for the House. Most counties swung right to a small or medium degree Naturally, as one party gains more compared to the last election, it tends to gain a larger share of voters across the nation's counties, and county-level data can help us understand the depth and breadth of the swing behind an election's outcome. But a simple count of the number of counties that moved in one direction isn't especially helpful in painting this picture. After all, most counties are rural (and consistently conservative-leaning), but rocks and trees can't vote. Carter's 1976 victory was the last time a Democratic presidential nominee won more counties than the Republican did, yet Democrats have won five of the 12 White House contests since then. To get a read on the scope of county-level swings, it's more useful to consider the share of the nation's overall vote found in counties that moved toward one party or the other. That way, we better account for the vast differences in population across counties. By this measure, the rightward swing of Trump's 2024 victory featured substantial breadth. Compared with the 2020 election, 92 percent of voters lived in counties (or their equivalents) that swung toward Trump, while only 8 percent lived in places that moved toward Harris. The only recent election to rival that span is Obama's 2008 win, when 92 percent of voters lived in counties that swung to the left from the 2004 election. Now, the depth of Trump's swing was somewhat shallower than Obama's 2008 win, which isn't necessarily surprising considering 2008 saw a bigger overall swing nationally (9.7 points to the left). More than half of all votes in 2008 came from places that swung at least 10 points to the left by margin. By comparison, only 11 percent of 2024 votes hailed from counties that swung more than 10 points to the right, while 81 percent overall came from counties that shifted between zero and 10 points to the right. Compared to recent contests besides 2008, though, the broad scope of Trump's gains across much of the country seem striking. The third-biggest swing in the past quarter century after 2008 and 2024 came in 2012, when Obama won reelection but the country as a whole swung 3.4 points to the right. Yet even as much of the country swung slightly to the right that year, about 1 in 4 votes still came from counties that moved at least somewhat to the left. In 2020, we saw a similar story: Biden swung the country about 2.4 points to the left from 2016, but a tad more than 1 in 4 votes came from counties that swung right toward Trump. Another data point further suggests that the shift from 2020 to 2024 was not just broad, but especially consistent in its impacts across the country. Overall, the correlation between each county's margin in 2020 compared with 2024 was .995 on a scale of -1 to 1 — a near-perfect positive association between the two elections, and the strongest between the results in any two consecutive presidential elections dating back to 2000. To be clear, this does not mean that the results were the same in each county in 2020 and 2024. Rather, it broadly means that the more Republican a county voted in 2020, the more Republican it tended to vote in 2024. Although results in other recent pairs of elections have been highly correlated as well, the 2020-24 comparison is particularly notable because such an incredibly strong association happened even while the country swung 6 points to the right. This suggests that, broadly speaking, this ample national swing did not vary massively across the country. By contrast, the sizable 10-point swing to the left in 2008 from 2004 had a county-level correlation of .933, meaning that while the margins across counties were relatively similar, more places still saw some substantial movement that didn't correspond as closely. And in 2016, which saw particularly large county-level swings from 2012 because of the shifting nature of the Democratic and Republican coalitions at the start of the Trump era, the correlation between the two contests was .945. *** The breadth of the nation's rightward swing could suggest a couple of larger possibilities. Considering 2008 saw the only similarly large national shift in recent times amid financial and global turmoil, the broad swing in 2024 seems to be another point in favor of larger fundamentals-based reasons for the shifts in this election. Dissatisfaction with the economic status quo and immigration, along with high disapproval of the incumbent president, were all clear boons for Trump's candidacy. At the same time, Trump's gains may have greater resonance moving forward. The relative consistency of the county-level shifts suggests that there weren't major coalition shifts this year, but even minor swings could be a harbinger. Notably, Trump improved most in more urban and more racially diverse places . Odds are that the 2028 election results will be highly correlated with the 2024 results, so even small coalition changes in this election could have a long-term impact on the makeup of the parties and the preferences of voters as we look ahead to future elections. Footnote * 2024 data is based on unofficial election results from ABC News as of 12 p.m. Eastern on Dec. 10, 2024.None

With technical prowess and considerable style, Marta danced around two sliding defenders, outwitted a goalkeeper and calmly scored as another player rushed forward in desperation to stop her. It was more Marta Magic. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. Get any of our free email newsletters — news headlines, obituaries, sports, and more.