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In November, the world's most powerful democracy elected as its next president a man who schemed to overturn its last presidential election. A month later, South Koreans swarmed their legislature to block their president's attempt to impose martial law. The contrast sums up a year that tested democracy on all sides. Incumbent parties and leaders were battered in elections that covered 60% of the world's population, a sign of widespread discontent in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. It also was a sign of democracy working well, as it continued its core function of giving citizens the opportunity to replace the people who govern them. That made 2024 a year in which the state of democracy is both a glass half full and half empty. From Asia to Africa to the Americas, it produced examples of democracy working and citizens standing up against attempted coups or authoritarians. At the same time, some of the new regimes ushered in are taking a distinctly authoritarian tack. And the year ends with fresh turmoil in three prominent democracies, Canada, France and Germany. Donald Trump ended his last term trying to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden and rallying an angry crowd of supporters, some of whom then stormed the U.S. Capitol in a violent attempt to block Congress from certifying Biden's victory. It was a shocking end to the U.S.'s long tradition of peacefully transferring power from one president to the next. Nonetheless, voters in November agreed to give Trump another term in the White House, even as he increasingly embraced authoritarian leaders and promised to seek retribution against those who defended democracy in 2020. Voters didn't heed warnings about Trump's threat to democracy and were driven more by frustration at inflation and a surge in migration during Biden's term. That, of course, is democracy in action: Voters can choose to throw out an incumbent party even if the establishment warns that it's dangerous. Indeed, the glass half full position on Trump is that his win was entirely democratic. Trump's 2016 victory was due to a quirk in the country's 18th century Constitution that awards the presidency not based on a majority of the popular vote, but to whoever wins a majority of state-based Electoral College votes. But in 2024, Trump won both the popular and Electoral College votes. He also expanded his margins among Latino and Black voters. He won with high turnout, debunking a long-held myth that U.S. conservatives struggle when many people vote. That belief has driven Republican attempts to make it tougher to cast a ballot. The quiet period after the election is to some extent an illusion. Had Trump lost, he and his allies were poised to contest a victory by his Democratic opponent, so it's not as if anti-democratic tendencies were erased by his win. Trump's victory helped trigger turmoil in Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government was rocked this week by the resignation of his prominent finance minister over disagreements on handling Trump's threatened tariffs. And Germany's government collapsed ahead of elections next year, sparking turmoil in Europe's largest economy less than two weeks after a similar political meltdown in France. The returning U.S. president is part of a wave of new leaders who have gained ground in Western countries, some of whom analysts warn are anti-democratic, even if popularly elected, because they seek to dismantle the system of checks and balances that has made it possible for voters to replace them or halt potentially dangerous policies. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a major Trump booster, is an icon of this movement after he revamped his country's judiciary, legislative maps and media to make it almost impossible for the opposition to win. Two years ago, European Union lawmakers declared that Orban had transformed his country from a democracy into “a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy.” Analysts warn that Slovakia's leftist, pro-Russian prime minister Robert Fico is headed in that direction. Conservative populist parties also gained ground in the European Union Parliamentary elections in June. Trump also highlights another worrying trend for democracy — a surge in violence around elections. The billionaire candidate, controversial for his own rhetoric urging violence on protesters or migrants, was the target of two assassination attempts. According to Washington, D.C.-based Freedom House, 26 of the year's 62 elections across the world featured violence, including attacks on local candidates in Mexico and South Africa and violence at polling places in Chad. Slovakia's Fico was targeted, as well. That comes as there is a notable dip in enthusiasm for democracy. A Pew poll of 24 countries released earlier this year found widespread dissatisfaction with democracy worldwide, with a median of 59% of voters concerned about how it is working in their country amid economic concerns and a sense of alienation from political elites. Still, there is a clear silver lining for democracy. The same Pew poll that found its appeal slipping also found that it remains by far the preferred system of government worldwide. And people turned out to demonstrate that, during elections and in protest of anti-democratic moves. South Korea was not the only foiled attempt to disband democracy. In Bolivia in June, the military tried to replace President Luis Arce, with armored vehicles ramming through the doors of the government palace. But the troops retreated after Arce named a new commander who ordered them back. In Bangladesh, protests over limits on who can work for the government expanded into public frustration with the 15-year reign of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, toppling her regime and forcing her to flee the country. In Senegal, the country's president tried to delay its March election but was overruled by the nation's top court, and voters replaced him with a largely-unknown opposition leader who had just been freed from prison. In Botswana and South Africa, parties that had ruled for decades stepped aside or shared power without incident after losing elections. Democracy isn't static. Its health always depends on the next election. The fall of Germany's government and possible collapse of Canada's could just be democracy in action, giving voters a chance to elect new leaders. Or they could usher in more authoritarian regimes. More will be revealed about how democracy did over the last year as its election results play out in 2025 and the years to come.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — First it was Canada , then the Panama Canal . Now, Donald Trump again wants Greenland . The president-elect is renewing unsuccessful calls he made during his first term for the U.S. to buy Greenland from Denmark, adding to the list of allied countries with which he's picking fights even before taking office on Jan. 20. In a Sunday announcement naming his ambassador to Denmark, Trump wrote that, “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity." Trump again having designs on Greenland comes after the president-elect suggested over the weekend that the U.S. could retake control of the Panama Canal if something isn't done to ease rising shipping costs required for using the waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He's also been suggesting that Canada become the 51st U.S. state and referred to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “governor” of the “Great State of Canada.” Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, said Trump tweaking friendly countries harkens back to an aggressive style he used during his days in business. “You ask something unreasonable and it’s more likely you can get something less unreasonable,” said Farnsworth, who is also author of the book “Presidential Communication and Character.” Greenland, the world’s largest island, sits between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. It is 80% covered by an ice sheet and is home to a large U.S. military base. It gained home rule from Denmark in 1979 and its head of government, Múte Bourup Egede, suggested that Trump’s latest calls for U.S. control would be as meaningless as those made in his first term. “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale,” he said in a statement. “We must not lose our years-long fight for freedom.” The Danish Prime Minister’s Office said in its own statement that the government is “looking forward to welcoming the new American ambassador. And the Government is looking forward to working with the new administration.” “In a complex security political situation as the one we currently experience, transatlantic cooperation is crucial,” the statement said. It noted that it had no comment on Greenland except for it “not being for sale, but open for cooperation.” Trump canceled a 2019 visit to Denmark after his offer to buy Greenland was rejected by Copenhagen, and ultimately came to nothing . He also suggested Sunday that the U.S. is getting “ripped off” at the Panama Canal. Story continues below video “If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America, in full, quickly and without question,” he said. Panama President José Raúl Mulino responded in a video that “every square meter of the canal belongs to Panama and will continue to,” but Trump fired back on his social media site, “We’ll see about that!” The president-elect also posted a picture of a U.S. flag planted in the canal zone under the phrase, “Welcome to the United States Canal!” The United States built the canal in the early 1900s but relinquished control to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999, under a treaty signed in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter . The canal depends on reservoirs that were hit by 2023 droughts that forced it to substantially reduce the number of daily slots for crossing ships. With fewer ships, administrators also increased the fees that shippers are charged to reserve slots to use the canal. The Greenland and Panama flareups followed Trump recently posting that “Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State" and offering an image of himself superimposed on a mountaintop surveying surrounding territory next to a Canadian flag. Trudeau suggested that Trump was joking about annexing his country, but the pair met recently at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to discuss Trump's threats to impose a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods. “Canada is not going to become part of the United States, but Trump’s comments are more about leveraging what he says to get concessions from Canada by putting Canada off balance, particularly given the precarious current political environment in Canada,” Farnsworth said. “Maybe claim a win on trade concessions, a tighter border or other things.” He said the situation is similar with Greenland. “What Trump wants is a win," Farnsworth said. "And even if the American flag doesn’t raise over Greenland, Europeans may be more willing to say yes to something else because of the pressure.” Associated Press writers Gary Fields in Washington and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.Garrett's comments about his future add wrinkle to Browns' worst season since 0-16 in 2017

Biden calls Bashar Assad's fall in Syria a 'fundamental act of justice' — but warns of 'moment of risk'The Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — What a wonderful year 2024 has been for investors. U.S. stocks ripped higher and carried the S&P 500 to records as the economy kept growing and the Federal Reserve began cutting interest rates. The year featured many familiar winners, such as Big Tech, which got even bigger as their stock prices kept growing . But it wasn’t just Apple, Nvidia and the like. Bitcoin , gold and other investments also drove higher. Here’s a look at some of the numbers that defined the year. All are as of Dec. 20. Remember when President Bill Clinton got impeached or when baseball’s Mark McGwire hit his 70th home run against the Montreal Expos? That was the last time the U.S. stock market closed out a second straight year with a leap of at least 20%, something the S&P 500 is on track to do again this year. The index has climbed 24.3% so far this year, not including dividends, following last year’s spurt of 24.2%. The number of all-time highs the S&P 500 has set so far this year. The first came early, on Jan. 19, when the index capped a two-year comeback from the swoon caused by high inflation and worries that high interest rates instituted by the Federal Reserve to combat it would create a recession. But the index was methodical through the rest of the year, setting a record in every month outside of April and August, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. The latest came on Dec. 6. The number of times the Federal Reserve has cut its main interest rate this year from a two-decade high, offering some relief to the economy. Expectations for those cuts, along with hopes for more in 2025, were a big reason the U.S. stock market has been so successful this year. The 1 percentage point of cuts, though, is still short of the 1.5 percentage points that many traders were forecasting for 2024 at the start of the year. The Fed disappointed investors in December when it said it may cut rates just two more times in 2025, fewer than it had earlier expected. That’s how many points the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by the day after Election Day, as investors made bets on what Donald Trump’s return to the White House will mean for the economy and the world . The more widely followed S&P 500 soared 2.5% for its best day in nearly two years. Aside from bitcoin, stocks of banks and smaller winners were also perceived to be big winners. The bump has since diminished amid worries that Trump’s policies could also send inflation higher. The level that bitcoin topped to set a record above $108,000 this past month. It’s been climbing as interest rates come down, and it got a particularly big boost following Trump’s election. He’s turned around and become a fan of crypto, and he’s named a former regulator who’s seen as friendly to digital currencies as the next chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, replacing someone who critics said was overly aggressive in his oversight. Bitcoin was below $17,000 just two years ago following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. Gold’s rise for the year, as it also hit records and had as strong a run as U.S. stocks. Wars around the world have helped drive demand for investments seen as safe, such as gold. It’s also benefited from the Fed’s cut to interest rates. When bonds are paying less in interest, they pull away fewer potential buyers from gold, which pays investors nothing. It’s a favorite number of Elon Musk, and it’s also a threshold that Tesla’s stock price passed in December as it set a record. The number has a long history among marijuana devotees, and Musk famously said in 2018 that he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 per share . Tesla soared this year, up from less than $250 at the start, in part because of expectations that Musk’s close relationship with Trump could benefit the company. That’s how much revenue Nvidia made in the nine months through Oct. 27, showing how the artificial-intelligence frenzy is creating mountains of cash. Nvidia’s chips are driving much of the move into AI, and its revenue through the last nine months catapulted from less than $39 billion the year before. Such growth has boosted Nvidia’s worth to more than $3 trillion in total. GameStop’s gain on May 13 after Keith Gill, better known as “Roaring Kitty,” appeared online for the first time in three years to support the video game retailer’s stock, which he helped rocket to unimaginable heights during the “ meme stock craze ” in 2021. Several other meme stocks also jumped following his post in May on the social platform X, including AMC Entertainment. Gill later disclosed a sizeable stake in the online pet products retailer Chewy, but he sold all of his holdings by late October . That’s how much the U.S. economy grew, at annualized seasonally adjusted rates, in each of the three first quarters of this year. Such growth blew past what many pessimists were expecting when inflation was topping 9% in the summer of 2022. The fear was that the medicine prescribed by the Fed to beat high inflation — high interest rates — would create a recession. Households at the lower end of the income spectrum in particular are feeling pain now, as they contend with still-high prices. But the overall economy has remained remarkably resilient. This is the vacancy rate for U.S. office buildings — an all-time high — through the first three quarters of 2024, according to data from Moody’s. The fact the rate held steady for most of the year was something of a win for office building owners, given that it had marched up steadily from 16.8% in the fourth quarter of 2019. Demand for office space weakened as the pandemic led to the popularization of remote work. That’s the total number of previously occupied homes sold nationally through the first 11 months of 2024. Sales would have to surge 20% year-over-year in December for 2024’s home sales to match the 4.09 million existing homes sold in 2023, a nearly 30-year low. The U.S. housing market has been in a sales slump dating back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. A shortage of homes for sale and elevated mortgage rates have discouraged many would-be homebuyers.

Couple’s intimate video from stolen phone circulated

'Rush the damn court!': Mizzou upsets No. 1 Kansas to earn Border War floor-stormingStock market today: Indexes close mixed as traders hold out hope for a Santa Claus rally

World Heritage Sites (WHS) are places of outstanding universal value recognized as such under the terms of the 1972 UNESCO convention concerning the protection of World Cultural and National Heritage. As a member state of the convention, Nigeria required to protect, conserve, present and transmit to future generations the WHS on its territory. Sukur Cultural Landscape was declared UNESCO world heritage site in November 1999 after declaring it as state monument in 1997. It is located on Mandara Mountains at the border of Nigeria and Cameroon. It is within the Sukur district of Madagali Local Government Area of Adamawa State. The site is situated about 1100 meters above sea level and accessed by natural stone paved footpaths that ascend the hall. Sukur is 270km from Yola, the capital of Adamawa State in North Eastern part of the country. The site is bound on the west by river Navu and on the east by Mazawat and Guska Streams. It is an ancient hill settlement with a rich history of iron technology, flourishing trade, strong political and cultural tractions. The location of the site provided protection to the people and their culture from physical attack and external influence that come with the meeting of cultures, which have transformed most Nigerian societies. The traditional ruler and king of Sukur, the Hidi in council gave his approval for the cultural site to be declared a state monument of Adamawa State and this was published in the Adamawa State gazette on 20th November, 1997. The site was nominated to the prestigious UNESCO World Heritage list in 1999 as a “cultural landscape” was the first of its kind in Nigeria and Africa. The area of land covered by the site is 764.40ha. The palace of Hidi is one of the most spectacular features of the site and forms the centre piece of this cultural landscape. The palace consists of the housing complex, extensive palace walls, huts and stone pave walkways. It is almost build up entirely of stone obtained from surrounding landscape. Local communities are customary owners and custodians of the land and waters on which designated world heritage sites and all other heritage resource are situated. Local activism belives in them that some of them become determined to have economic growth. Others are equally determined that this must take place in terms of acceptability in ways that sustains their natural resources and socio-religious values particularly those outstanding unique values which cause the site to be so established. The present day host community, owners of historic properties and indigenous custodians, are the players who should be concerned with preserving the significance of the heritage itself and building appropriate links to tourism. The host community and stakeholders alike are to ensure they employ best principles in traditional management and modern management using site management guidelines and tools. UNESCO must be at the forefront of monitoring the maintenance of the site at all times to achieve the purpose for which the site was established. The collaboration of the state government and Federal Government is key, as it will enable both parties attract more visitors to the site for a memorable experience.

The Israeli Justice Ministry made the announcement in a message late on Thursday, saying the investigation would focus on the findings of a recent report by the Uvda investigative programme into Sara Netanyahu. The programme uncovered a trove of WhatsApp messages in which Mrs Netanyahu appears to instruct a former aide to organise protests against political opponents and to intimidate Hadas Klein, a key witness in the trial. The announcement did not mention Mrs Netanyahu by name and the Justice Ministry declined further comment. Earlier on Thursday, Mr Netanyahu blasted the Uvda report as “lies”. It is the latest in a long line of legal troubles for the Netanyahus, highlighted by the PM’s ongoing corruption trial. Mr Netanyahu is charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a series of cases alleging he exchanged favours with powerful media moguls and wealthy associates. He denies the charges and says he is the victim of a “witch hunt” by overzealous prosecutors, police and the media.

LOS ANGELES — The NBA announced Monday afternoon that Cade Cunningham had been named the NBA’s Eastern Conference Player of the Week for games played from Dec. 16-22. Related Articles Detroit Pistons | Cunningham has 28 points, 13 assists to lead the Pistons past the Suns 133-125 Detroit Pistons | Hardaway’s hot shooting in OT helps Pistons nip Heat 125-124 Detroit Pistons | Pritchard scores 27 and hits 7 3-pointers to help Celtics earn 20th win, power past Pistons 123-99 Detroit Pistons | Cunningham has a triple-double to lead the Pistons to a 120-111 victory over the Knicks Detroit Pistons | Celtics withstand 3-point spree to beat the Pistons 130-120 Cunningham led the Pistons to a 2-1 record with averages of 27 points on 49.2% shooting from the field, 40.9% on 3-point shooting, 5.3 rebounds, 12.7 assists, 2.3 blocks and one steal. The Player of the Week honor comes two days after Cunningham led Detroit to a 133-125 win over the Phoenix Suns on Saturday night at the Footprint Center. He finished the game with 28 points, 13 assists, two blocks, and a pair of steals. His most impressive game was on Dec. 16, when the Pistons beat the Miami Heat 125-124 in overtime at Little Caesars Arena. Cunningham recorded his sixth triple-double of the season, scoring 20 points and 11 rebounds and posting a career-best 18 assists. With 33 seconds remaining, he scored a game-winning layup to give the Pistons the win. Detroit’s lone loss came Thursday night against the Utah Jazz . However, Cunningham still put on an All-Star-worthy performance, recording 33 points, four rebounds, seven assists, and four blocks in 38 minutes. This marks the first time Cunningham’s has received the Player of the Week award. The San Antonio Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama joins him from the Western Conference with averages of 36 points, 6.5 rebounds and four assists.How the stock market defied expectations again this year, by the numbers

NEW DELHI: Leaders across party lines and stalwarts across sectors hailed former prime minister Manmohan Singh as “one of India’s greatest sons” as they condoled his death on Thursday night. Singh, the architect of India’s economic reforms, breathed his last at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. He was 92. In a post on X, President Droupadi Murmu said Singh will always be remembered for his service to the nation, his unblemished political life besides his utmost humility. “His passing is a great loss to all of us. I pay my respectful homage to one of the greatest sons of Bharat and convey my heartfelt condolences to his family, friends and admirers,” she said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed his predecessor’s contributions to the country. “India mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished leaders, Dr Manmohan Singh Ji. Rising from humble origins, he rose to become a respected economist. He served in various government positions as well, including as Finance Minister, leaving a strong imprint on our economic policy over the years. His interventions in Parliament were also insightful. As our Prime Minister, he made extensive efforts to improve people’s lives,” he said in a post on X. Several Congress leaders hailed him as one of India’s tallest leaders and the party’s strongest icons. “India has lost a visionary statesman, a leader of unimpeachable integrity, and an economist of unparalleled stature. His policy of Economic Liberalisation and Rights-based welfare paradigm profoundly transformed the lives of crores of Indians, virtually creating a Middle Class in India and lifting crores out of poverty...,” Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said, as he recalled how he was a part of Singh’s cabinet as labour minister, railway minister and social welfare minister. “Undoubtedly, history shall judge you kindly, Dr Manmohan Singh ji!” he added. Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi said he has lost his mentor and guide. “Manmohan Singh Ji led India with immense wisdom and integrity. His humility and deep understanding of economics inspired the nation. My heartfelt condolences to Mrs. Kaur and the family,” he said in a post on X, adding that he has “lost a mentor and guide. Millions of us who admired him will remember him with the utmost pride”. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said Singh remained steadfast in his commitment to serve the nation despite being subjected to unfair and deeply personal attacks by his opponents. “Few people in politics inspire the kind of respect that Sardar Manmohan Singh ji did. His honesty will always be an inspiration for us and he will forever stand tall among those who truly love this country as someone who remained steadfast in his commitment to serve the nation despite being subjected to unfair and deeply personal attacks by his opponents,” she said in a post on X. Senior Congress leader and a minister in the UPA government P Chidambaram said Singh’s life and work as well as the period from 1991 till 2014 will be a golden chapter in the history of India. “His story has not been told fully. His achievements have not been recorded fully. I am sure when we look back upon the 23 years that Dr Singh was in active politics, we will realise his true contribution,” he said. Leaders from other parties also paid their respects. Union home minister Amit Shah prayed for peace to his soul and strength for his family to bear this grief. “From being the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India to the Finance Minister of the country and as the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh played an important role in the governance of the country.” West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said: “I had worked with him and saw him from very close quarters in the Union cabinet. His erudition and wisdom were unquestionable, and the depth of the financial reforms ushered in by him in the country are widely acknowledged.” The sentiment was echoed by captains of industry, many of whom were able to build on his vision in a liberalised economy post the 1991 reforms. Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra posted on X: “Farewell Dr. Manmohan Singh. You loved this nation. And your service to it will long be remembered.” Members of the sports fraternity, such as Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag and Vinesh Phogat remembered Singh’s “calm leadership and wisdom”.Facebook X Email Print Save Story For fifty-four years, generations of Syrians lived and died in a country that was colloquially known as Assad’s Syria. It was a place where children were taught that the walls had ears and that a misplaced word could lead to being disappeared. The regime had multiple branches of secret police, collectively called the Mukhabarat, which helped underpin its one-party, one-family, one-man rule. President Bashar al-Assad, and his late father and predecessor, Hafez, were omnipresent forces, glaring down from the many billboards, posters, and statues that were felled this week with all the exuberance, rage, and grief of the long-oppressed. The Lede Reporting and commentary on what you need to know today. The end of Assad’s Syria was as stunning as it was swift. It took eleven days for some of Assad’s armed opponents to bring down the regime. The fall of the capital, Damascus, on Sunday morning marked the climax of an almost fourteen-year campaign that began in March, 2011, when peaceful protests morphed into a messy war that pitted myriad armed rebel groups (and others, including foreign jihadi fighters) against the Syrian military and each other. Since about 2018, the conflict had been largely stalemated, and Syria has been a unified state in name only. Its northwestern province of Idlib was controlled by the Sunni Islamists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (H.T.S.), a coalition led by the group formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda. Its oil-rich northeast was dominated first by ISIS and then by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which are supported by the U.S. The northwest, around the town of Azaz, was home to the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. Jordanian-influenced rebel groups held sway in pockets of the south. The rest was what remained of Assad’s Syria. This year, on November 27th, the same day that a ceasefire took hold between Israel and Hezbollah, in neighboring Lebanon, H.T.S. and its allies abruptly pushed south from their stronghold in Idlib. Cities fell rapidly, one after another, with little resistance from the forces of a crumbling state that had been hollowed out by years of U.S.-imposed sanctions, endemic regime corruption, and Israeli air strikes on military infrastructure. By Sunday morning, Assad had fled on a private plane shortly before Damascus International Airport closed down. It was a remarkable abdication of power from the head of state, who just weeks earlier had attended a meeting of the Arab League in Saudi Arabia, where he had been welcomed back into the fold following years of bitter estrangement. Assad did not address the nation or issue a statement regarding his departure. His Prime Minister, Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali, extended his hand to the opposition. He said, in a short, prerecorded message, that he remained in Damascus and was ready to facilitate an orderly transition to whatever comes next. He called on citizens to protect public property, adding that he would be at work in his office the following morning. “We believe in a Syria for all Syrians,” he said. “This country deserves to be a normal state, with good relations with its neighbors.” (Earlier this week, as the opposition gained momentum , some of Syria’s neighbors—Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq—closed their borders with the country.) The peaceful handover of power in Damascus was marked by scenes of jubilation, of people cheering and tearing down posters of the Assads, and by scenes of fear: of tearful citizens hurrying through a deserted airport, of soldiers abandoning their posts, leaving military fatigues, equipment, and even tanks strewn in the streets. In the end, Assad’s exhausted army of conscripts wasn’t prepared to continue to fight and die for a dictatorship. A friend who lives in Damascus told me that he was hearing rampant gunfire—he wasn’t sure if it was all celebratory or not—and the sounds of explosions. Social media was flooded with videos of people emerging dazed and dishevelled from Assad’s state prisons, in many ways the most potent symbol of his rule, which had been flung open by opposition forces. In one clip, said to be from Sednaya, a facility near Damascus that was particularly notorious for executions and torture, a man dressed in plainclothes and carrying a Kalashnikov unbolted the door of a cell full of women. Another man, off camera, said, “Get out, get out! Don’t be afraid!” A woman asked who the men were. “Revolutionaries,” one of them responded. “Syria is ours.” Some of the women shrieked. “Why are you afraid?” a man told one. “Bashar al-Assad has fallen! He’s gone! He’s left Syria! . . . The brother of a whore has gone!” The offensive came at a time when Assad’s key backers were tied down or weakened by other conflicts: the Russians in Ukraine, and Iran and Hezbollah with Israel. The push was spearheaded by Abu Mohammad al-Julani, the founder and leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, which he rebranded as part of H.T.S. a few years ago, claiming to disavow ties to Al Qaeda and casting himself as a fatigues-clad statesman. Other groups, most notably the Syrian National Army, were also involved in the blitz, as were foreign fighters from factions including the Turkistan Islamic Party, which has long been present in rebel-held territories. On Syria’s exceedingly complicated battlefield, H.T.S. and its earlier Al Qaeda incarnation opposed both Assad and various rebel groups, defeating many during years of intra-opposition infighting. If anything, H.T.S. and its hard-line conservatism represented a counter-revolution that was rejected by the more secular, pro-democratic opposition. They weren’t so much “the rebels” but rather the factions that defeated the rebels. Since late November, Julani has issued statements aimed at reassuring Syria’s many religious minorities, including the Alawites, of which the Assads are members, that his group has embraced pluralism and religious tolerance. (The overtures have been made to Christians, and others, too.) The coming hours, days, and weeks will be a test of those stated intentions. Julani has said that he’s a changed man, but at least one of his fellow-fighters, a man I’ve known for years who held leadership positions in Jabhat al-Nusra, told me that the changes were cosmetic. Before dawn on Sunday, I reached a former emir of Jabhat al-Nusra, who knows Julani well, by phone. He told me, “The man hasn’t changed at all, but there’s a difference between being in battle, at war, killing, and running a country.” Julani had seen the sectarian bloodlust of other Salafi-jihadi groups—before coming to Syria, in 2011, to form Jabhat al-Nusra, he was a member of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State of Iraq—and he’d noted those mistakes. Julani, the former emir went on, “now considers himself a statesman.” He remains, however, a U.S.-designated terrorist with a ten-million-dollar bounty on his head, which will surely complicate any state-building plans. The challenges facing a new Syria are many, not least the anti-Assad opposition’s history of bloody infighting. But the former emir was hopeful. He anticipated that Julani would dissolve H.T.S. and incorporate it and other factions into a new defense ministry. “He can’t punish every Syrian,” he said. “Julani has subdued the northern factions, which won’t dare to take him on, especially now that he has about forty thousand fighters.” He went on, “The fear, to be honest, is from the southern factions, one of which is supported under the table by the Israelis. But it has about two thousand or two thousand five hundred fighters. There is no local military power to stand or compete with Julani.” If he fails, the alternative scenario is Libya, a state torn apart by rival armed militias. What happens to Syria’s Alawite communities, in particular, will indicate the direction the new state may take. On Sunday, videos circulated of Assad statues being knocked down to much fanfare by unarmed people in predominantly Alawite areas, a reminder that belonging to the group was never a ticket to greater status or even a guarantee of safety—the Assads detained Alawite opponents, too. It remains to be seen whether Julani’s troops have the discipline to avoid committing violence against members of a community that was collectively branded a bedrock of the regime. Any confidence, or lack thereof, that the Alawites have regarding their place in a new Syria will likely also be made clear whenever borders reopen, potentially precipitating a mass exodus across the nearest frontier, into Lebanon, a state already reeling from its own economic woes and that hosts some two million Syrian refugees. Until recently, hundreds of thousands of them, along with many Lebanese, were moving back into Syria to escape the war between Hezbollah and Israel. Now, for some communities, the directions may reverse, even as many Syrians in the diaspora were giddily planning their return to what they termed “Free Syria.” Uncertainties remain about the territorial integrity of this Free Syria. Turkey has long backed various rebel groups and has de-facto control of swaths of the north. The U.S. has some nine hundred troops in the country, supporting Kurdish-led groups in the northeast. And then there is Israel, which, within hours of Assad’s departure, invaded the Syrian city of Quneitra near the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights. The geopolitical fallout of Assad’s—and Syria’s—exit from Iran’s hobbled Axis of Resistance will also be seismic. The alliance, comprising Syria, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, some Iraqi armed factions, Yemen’s Houthis, and the Palestinian Hamas, has taken a clobbering since Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel in October of 2023. Syria was a crucial strategic supply route for Hezbollah, which now finds itself landlocked by enemies: Israel, and a Syrian opposition that it fought to shore up Assad’s regime. For now, though, among many Syrians, euphoria, and a great sense of potential, reigns. On Sunday, thousands poured into cities across the country, celebrating along with the millions scattered throughout the vast diaspora. “Our joy is huge, huge, huge!” a Syrian refugee in Germany, who is a former political prisoner, told me in the early hours of Sunday morning. It was a day of joy for a fervently nationalistic people, for the detainees finally freed, but also of pain and sadness for the hundreds of thousands killed and disappeared not only in the recent brutal war but in the many decades that preceded it. An exiled Syrian named Maysaara, who has been living in Belgium and featured prominently in my first book , was already packing his bags after a sleepless night glued to his screen. He’d spent the morning coördinating with others from his home town of Saraqib, in Idlib, trying to locate and determine the fate of its many detainees. “I can’t describe my happiness and God’s great justice that lifted this oppression off us,” he told me through tears. “Raise your head high. You are a free Syrian!” he sang, repeating a chant from the earliest days of the 2011 revolution. “I feel like I’ve been born again. We, the Syrians, have all been born again today. I prayed to live long enough to see this day.” ♦ New Yorker Favorites A man was murdered in cold blood and you’re laughing ? The best albums of 2024. Little treats galore: a holiday gift guide . How Maria Callas lost her voice . An objectively objectionable grammatical pet peeve . What happened when the Hallmark Channel “ leaned into Christmas .” Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .Prominent brands struggle to adapt to an e-bike industry dominated by cheap, direct-to-consumer sales

New rules stipulating minimum spaces for running laboratories could affect hundreds of laboratories in rural and urban Tamil Nadu, according to the Paramedical Laboratory Educational and Welfare Association. Referring to a Government Order (G.O.) issued by the Health Department recently, P. Kalidasan, national president of the association, said rules mandated a minimum space of 300 sq.ft in rural areas and 500 sq.ft to 700 sq.ft in urban areas to run a clinical laboratory. As per the order, this included clinical, pathological, and genetic laboratories. There are about 15,000 diagnostic centres in the private sector in the State. If this norm is implemented, at least 50% of small laboratories in rural and urban parts will be affected. Many of these centres function in 100 to 200 sq.ft spaces, he said. “These rules seem to favour corporate diagnostic centres. About 100 of our laboratories have obtained certification under the NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration) Medical Entry Level Testing Labs Programme. This is proof of the quality of services offered. The State government should also look at the quality of the services. We are demanding that the stipulated minimum spaces should be reduced to 100 sq.ft to 150 sq.ft,” he said. G.R. Ravindranath, general secretary, Doctors Association for Social Equality, in a statement, said this move could affect the livelihood of laboratory technicians who had set up small centres. The Health Department should fix 150 sq.ft area for laboratories doing blood investigations in urban areas and 100 sq.ft for centres in rural areas. A demonstration will be held in Chennai on January 19, 2025 to put forward their demands. Published - December 27, 2024 12:32 am IST Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp RedditOusted Syria President Bashar al-Assad Spotted In Moscow? Fact-Checking Viral Image

Katz’s confirmation on Monday about Israel's involvement in the killing of Haniyeh marks the first public admission of responsibility for the assassination drive on Iranian soil. "We will strike hard at the Huthis... and decapitate their leadership -- just as we did with Haniyeh, (Yahya) Sinwar, and (Hassan) Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon, we will do so in Hodeida and Sanaa," Katz was quoted as saying during an event at the war ministry. "Anyone who raises a hand against Israel will have his hand cut off, and the long arm of the Israeli military will strike him and hold him accountable," Katz warned Yemen’s Ansarullah by stating that Sana’a and Hudaydah will have a similar fate to Gaza and Lebanon. Until now Israel had never admitted to killing Haniyeh, but Iran and Hamas had blamed it for the Hamas political leader's assassination. However, a US media report had broken a story before that Israel while declined to publicly comment on Haniyeh's killing had informed the US administration that it was behind the assassination of the Hamas leader in the Iranian capital n. Haniyeh, who was seen as leading Hamas's negotiation efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza, was killed along his bodyguard in a guesthouse in Tehran on July 31, reportedly by an explosive device that had been placed by Israeli agents there. A day before his martyrdom, Haniyeh had attended the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. On September 27, Israel also assassinated Lebanon’s Hezbollah chief Nasrallah in a Beirut bombing, which was followed by the assassination of Haniyeh's successor Yahya Sinwar on October 16 in Gaza. 4399

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Estonia And The UAE Strengthen Cooperation And Innovation In Digital HealthThe Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — What a wonderful year 2024 has been for investors. U.S. stocks ripped higher and carried the S&P 500 to records as the economy kept growing and the Federal Reserve began cutting interest rates. The year featured many familiar winners, such as Big Tech, which got even bigger as their stock prices kept growing . But it wasn’t just Apple, Nvidia and the like. Bitcoin , gold and other investments also drove higher. Here’s a look at some of the numbers that defined the year. All are as of Dec. 20. Remember when President Bill Clinton got impeached or when baseball’s Mark McGwire hit his 70th home run against the Montreal Expos? That was the last time the U.S. stock market closed out a second straight year with a leap of at least 20%, something the S&P 500 is on track to do again this year. The index has climbed 24.3% so far this year, not including dividends, following last year’s spurt of 24.2%. The number of all-time highs the S&P 500 has set so far this year. The first came early, on Jan. 19, when the index capped a two-year comeback from the swoon caused by high inflation and worries that high interest rates instituted by the Federal Reserve to combat it would create a recession. But the index was methodical through the rest of the year, setting a record in every month outside of April and August, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. The latest came on Dec. 6. The number of times the Federal Reserve has cut its main interest rate this year from a two-decade high, offering some relief to the economy. Expectations for those cuts, along with hopes for more in 2025, were a big reason the U.S. stock market has been so successful this year. The 1 percentage point of cuts, though, is still short of the 1.5 percentage points that many traders were forecasting for 2024 at the start of the year. The Fed disappointed investors in December when it said it may cut rates just two more times in 2025, fewer than it had earlier expected. That’s how many points the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by the day after Election Day, as investors made bets on what Donald Trump’s return to the White House will mean for the economy and the world . The more widely followed S&P 500 soared 2.5% for its best day in nearly two years. Aside from bitcoin, stocks of banks and smaller winners were also perceived to be big winners. The bump has since diminished amid worries that Trump’s policies could also send inflation higher. Related Articles Holiday shoppers increased spending by 3.8% despite higher prices Debut Rockin’ Around The Block holiday party offers family-friendly festivities Heavy travel day starts with brief grounding of all American Airlines flights Are religious people more generous than non-religious people? What new study finds Amazon and Starbucks workers are on strike. Trump might have something to do with it The level that bitcoin topped to set a record above $108,000 this past month. It’s been climbing as interest rates come down, and it got a particularly big boost following Trump’s election. He’s turned around and become a fan of crypto, and he’s named a former regulator who’s seen as friendly to digital currencies as the next chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, replacing someone who critics said was overly aggressive in his oversight. Bitcoin was below $17,000 just two years ago following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. Gold’s rise for the year, as it also hit records and had as strong a run as U.S. stocks. Wars around the world have helped drive demand for investments seen as safe, such as gold. It’s also benefited from the Fed’s cut to interest rates. When bonds are paying less in interest, they pull away fewer potential buyers from gold, which pays investors nothing. It’s a favorite number of Elon Musk, and it’s also a threshold that Tesla’s stock price passed in December as it set a record. The number has a long history among marijuana devotees, and Musk famously said in 2018 that he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 per share . Tesla soared this year, up from less than $250 at the start, in part because of expectations that Musk’s close relationship with Trump could benefit the company. That’s how much revenue Nvidia made in the nine months through Oct. 27, showing how the artificial-intelligence frenzy is creating mountains of cash. Nvidia’s chips are driving much of the move into AI, and its revenue through the last nine months catapulted from less than $39 billion the year before. Such growth has boosted Nvidia’s worth to more than $3 trillion in total. GameStop’s gain on May 13 after Keith Gill, better known as “Roaring Kitty,” appeared online for the first time in three years to support the video game retailer’s stock, which he helped rocket to unimaginable heights during the “ meme stock craze ” in 2021. Several other meme stocks also jumped following his post in May on the social platform X, including AMC Entertainment. Gill later disclosed a sizeable stake in the online pet products retailer Chewy, but he sold all of his holdings by late October . That’s how much the U.S. economy grew, at annualized seasonally adjusted rates, in each of the three first quarters of this year. Such growth blew past what many pessimists were expecting when inflation was topping 9% in the summer of 2022. The fear was that the medicine prescribed by the Fed to beat high inflation — high interest rates — would create a recession. Households at the lower end of the income spectrum in particular are feeling pain now, as they contend with still-high prices. But the overall economy has remained remarkably resilient. This is the vacancy rate for U.S. office buildings — an all-time high — through the first three quarters of 2024, according to data from Moody’s. The fact the rate held steady for most of the year was something of a win for office building owners, given that it had marched up steadily from 16.8% in the fourth quarter of 2019. Demand for office space weakened as the pandemic led to the popularization of remote work. That’s the total number of previously occupied homes sold nationally through the first 11 months of 2024. Sales would have to surge 20% year-over-year in December for 2024’s home sales to match the 4.09 million existing homes sold in 2023, a nearly 30-year low. The U.S. housing market has been in a sales slump dating back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. A shortage of homes for sale and elevated mortgage rates have discouraged many would-be homebuyers.

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