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HUNTINGTON, W.V. (AP) — Marshall has withdrawn from the Independence Bowl after a coaching change resulted in much of its roster jumping into the transfer portal. The Thundering Herd were slated to play Army on Dec. 28 in Shreveport, Louisiana. But the Independence Bowl and Louisiana Tech announced on Saturday that the Bulldogs will take on the 19th-ranked Black Knights instead. Marshall said it pulled out “after falling below the roster minimum that was deemed medically safe.” The Herd (10-3) beat Louisiana-Lafayette 31-3 last weekend to win the Sun Belt Conference Championship for the first time. The program has won seven games in a row in the same season for the first time since 2020. “We apologize for the nature and timing of this announcement and for the turmoil it has brought to bowl season preparations for Army, the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl, the American Athletic Conference and ESPN,” Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill said in a statement. Coach Charles Huff left Marshall for Southern Miss last Sunday, and Tony Gibson, the defensive coordinator at North Carolina State, was announced as his replacement less than an hour later. By Thursday, at least 25 Marshall players had entered the transfer portal. Gibson held a meeting shortly after arriving on campus in Huntington to introduce himself to the team. He followed that up with phone calls, text messages and more meetings Friday and Saturday. “Any time coaches leave to take other jobs, it is emotional,” Gibson said at a news conference Thursday. “And kids that are 18-to-22 years old are going to make emotional decisions instead of just breathing for a day or two.” It's the first bowl for Louisiana Tech (5-7) since 2020. The Bulldogs have won two of their last three games, but they haven't played since a 33-0 victory over Kennesaw State on Nov. 30. “We are excited to accept the opportunity to play in the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl against a fantastic and storied program as Army,” Louisiana Tech athletic director Ryan Ivey said in a release. “I believe our football program is moving toward positive structure and the opportunity to play in this bowl adds to that momentum. We are looking forward to being in Shreveport for this matchup.” Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-footballThis article contains spoilers for Squid Game. Netflix’s Squid Game isn’t a particularly subtle TV show. It’s a screed against capitalism and wealth inequity to the point that characters say this all out loud, in the dialogue, in the very first episode. Yet since it premiered in 2021, both viewers and even Netflix itself have been gleefully engaging with the show as a capitalist enterprise. So why does everyone keep missing the point of Squid Game? Squid Game first hit Netflix on September 17, 2021 – and it might be hard to remember now, given the show is a global sensation, but at the time at least in America, it was one of those classic “drop it on Netflix and see what happens” series that wasn’t really promoted by the streamer. No screeners for the press, no rabid red carpets full of screaming fans... And yet it caught on and grew almost immediately. On Nielsen’s report for the week of September 20-26, the show clocked 1.9 billion minutes – and that was only on TV screens, and only in the US. The next week, it garnered over 3.2 billion minutes on Nielsen’s chart , growing to become a clear viral success. The show itself didn’t seem like a likely breakout hit, given its ultra-violence and dark subject matter. Squid Game (in case you forgot over the past three years, or have yet to check out Season 2) revolves around a death game played by 456 players competing for cold, hard cash. Run by the mysterious Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), the games are framed as a way for the players to even the playing field. They can by majority vote decide to leave at any time – and even do, in Season 1, Episode 2, before promptly returning to the game – but whoever wins gets a sum of cash equal to the amount of people who died playing. Time and again, it’s clear the game is rigged for the enjoyment of the billionaire VIPs who bet on it from the safety of their cushy lounge. And in the middle of this all? The sometimes good-hearted, perhaps naive loser Seong Gi-hun ( Lee Jung-jae ), who goes on to – spoilers here – win the game, though perhaps at the cost of his basic belief in the goodness of humanity. Season 2 widens things out further . We get to see what economically drives one of the Squid Game guards to join up and become a stone-faced murderer. We see a lot more of the outside world in Korea, and how every interaction, no matter how small, is a game driven by commerce. And the Squid Game itself changes to allow a majority vote to leave after every challenge. That latter tweak allows Hwang Dong-hyuk, throughout the season’s seven episodes, to dig into how capitalism controls even the existence of democracy and freedom of choice, and our divides (political, gender, monetary) are exacerbated by the very existence of money dangling over our heads. In this case, literally, thanks to the omnipresent piggy bank hanging over the room where the Squid Game contestants sleep and eat. While there was some international promotion for the series when it first launched, including an appearance by the Red Light/Green Light doll in a mall in the Philippines, and a replica of the jungle gym set in a Seoul subway station, for the most part, the show traveled by word of mouth. Netflix had to play catch-up over the next few months. In an interview with the New York Times in advance of Season 2, Marian Lee, Netflix’s chief marketing officer, copped to as much. “Everything we did outside of Korea was reactive, because we didn’t know,” she said. “Even the content executives didn’t anticipate that it would be such a global phenomenon.” By the time Squid Game had become the most-watched Netflix launch in the streamer’s history a month after release (one month later, it would become the most-watched show of all time , period), there was a pop-up store in Paris , and a Red Light/Green Light game complete with actors dressed as Squid Game guards in the Netherlands . What followed was total Squid Game domination. Dalgona, the honeycomb candy at the center of one of the games in the series, began showing up at homegrown candy stores and even official Netflix pop-ups in malls everywhere, alongside costumes from the show, just in time for Halloween. The press tour eventually caught up, too, leading to the stars of the series growing to international sensations “overnight” (check with your local Korean TV and movie viewer to hear them furiously explain how many of these “overnight sensations” have been celebrities in non-US countries for years). Then came the Golden Globes wins, SAG Award wins, and 14 Emmy nominations, of which the show won five. The Funko Pop!s followed the next year, and as Netflix proudly includes in all of its press releases about Season 2 of the series, based on the footwear of the mostly deceased contestants in the show, “Vans slip-on sneakers sales increased 8,000%.” While Dong-hyuk was mulling plans for a second, and third season of the series, Netflix began referring to a Squid Game “universe” as early as January of 2022. And they paid off on that promise. Squid Game: The Challenge, a reality game show that reproduced the initial TV series without all the killing hit the service in November 2023, though it was marred by multiple safety and health issues , as well as (per the point of this article) critics pointing out it vastly missed the whole thesis of Squid Game. Similarly, the online multiplayer game Squid Game: Unleashed is a 32-player party game for Netflix subscribers (currently free for everyone in time for the release of Squid Game Season 2) which the streamer’s own press outlet, TUDUM , describes as “takes all the thrills of the hit Netflix show and puts them in your pocket.” To be clear, there is no option in the game to hang yourself in anguish and shame after you’re forced to take your wife’s life in a deadly game of marbles, so perhaps not all the thrills. Why do people keep engaging with Squid Game as something “fun?” Why is Netflix able to make a cottage industry out of products sold around the show? How are there corporate retreats where actors dress up as the Front Man and Squid Game guards and have employees run through games from the show, ostensibly for team-building purposes? There’s even an official Netflix Squid Game Experience that claims it’s perfect for “School and Camp Visits,” and if the thought of children playing the games from the hyperviolent TV show Squid Game doesn’t make you viscerally uncomfortable, you may be entirely devoid of human empathy. Part of the issue is that Squid Game, for all its cultural cache, is nothing new. Gladiatorial battles go back millennia. More to the point, everything from Battle Royale to Hunger Games thrives on the idea of people – usually children – fighting to the death for a possible prize, and rich people’s amusement. Those, too, are often misinterpreted by the public (see any of the Hunger Games theme park rides worldwide). Like how society gets dulled by repeated violence in the real world, so too are we inured to it on screen. Squid Game is perhaps not as shocking as it could be, because it’s not the first out of the gate; it’s just another death games series in a long line of series and movies. And like any genre, it has its fans, detractors, and culture that surrounds it. There’s the question of why we like to watch these things, though, with at least two major reasons. One is the broad sense of why we watch horror movies, violent action spectacles, or even ride rollercoasters: to confront our own real fear of death and overcome it. But to the point of the death game genre, it raises the question of what you would do in the situation, something that Squid Game confronts head-on. There’s a deeper, more horrifying reason why both viewers and Netflix are able to engage with Squid Game on the most surface level possible, though, and it’s that Hwang Dong-hyuk... Is right. We are under the yoke of corporations and billionaires. They inure us into thinking that capitalism is a game we can win, but it’s rigged to their benefit, and not ours. Think about how the central action of the show features humans, reduced to numbers instead of names, forced to kill each other playing children’s games. Dong-hyuk distills it down even more simply in Seong Gi-hun’s first encounter with the Squid Game in the series premiere. Penniless, defeated, and beaten up, he encounters a clean-cut man in a business suit (Gong Yoo) on the subway. The man tells Seong Gi-hun he can play a simple children’s game (called ddakji), and after losing the first round is told that if Seong Gi-hun wins, he gets money. If he loses, the businessman gets to slap him. What follows is a series of increasingly harder, more humiliating slaps as the businessman beats down Seong Gi-hun. When he finally wins, Seong Gi-hun goes to slap the businessman back – but no, the game is over. He gets paid. It’s done. In Season 2, Dong-hyuk drives this home even harder, throwing any sort of subtly out the window in a desperate attempt to get his point across to the section of the audience who saw “die for money” as too opaque a metaphor. The businessman has graduated from ddakji to giving hungry homeless people the choice between bread, and a lottery ticket. Would you rather eat, or have the chance for money you’ll likely never receive? Guess which most of them choose (and lose)? As the second season continues, in small ways and big Seong Gi-hun is as controlling of the men he sends on a treasure hunt city-wide to find that businessman as anyone running the Squid Game. There’s a major sequence early in the season set on Halloween that is clearly pointed at anyone who thinks it might be fun to dress as a Squid Game guard. Once Seong Gi-hun is back in the game, his seeming heroism turns self-centered, and his vision of bringing down the game is less about saving people than redeeming himself for his own complicated actions. It muddies the waters of the conversation, but also turns the camera towards the audience, practically screaming that if you thought you were a hero like Seong Gi-hun... Well, you’re bad, too. But what can you do about it? The game is rigged. The billionaires are in charge of it all. Netflix is able to sell you those Funko Pop!s, the Vans, and the Red Light/Green Light Mattel doll for kids because the alternative – you cannot beat the system, we will all die in here – is too horrifying to contemplate. Netflix is worth nearly $400 billion. They are the VIPS in this scenario, seeing no repercussions for their actions. While they’re not literally making us walk a glass bridge until we plummet to our deaths, they are hiding behind their golden animal masks, and reducing us to streaming numbers controlled by the algorithm. As the Front Man explains early in Season 2 when Seong Gi-hun tells him he wants to end Squid Game once and for all, the key isn’t killing one man, or even multiple men, as Seong Gi-hun has planned. It’s so much bigger than that. “If the world doesn’t change, the game doesn’t end,” the Front Man says. So how do you change the world? How can anyone? To grasp that in any fashion is to know the system is everywhere, and it’s overwhelming. That’s what the contestants in the show realize during their brief sojourn back to Seoul in Season 1, that dying playing a children’s game is essentially the same as living in society. For us here in the real world, it’s easier to giggle about the actor dressed as the Front Man telling everyone on our corporate team that the Squid Games have begun, taking selfies and eventually heading back to our safe, identical hotel rooms, than contemplate we’re all trapped in one, large Squid Game ourselves, every day of our lives.ubaguio ams 。

Weekly Horoscope Taurus, November 24 to 30, 2024 predicts a secure week ahead - Hindustan Times

HUNTINGTON, W.V. — Marshall has withdrawn from the Independence Bowl after a coaching change resulted in much of its roster jumping into the transfer portal. The Thundering Herd were slated to play Army on Dec. 28 in Shreveport, Louisiana. But the Independence Bowl and Louisiana Tech announced on Saturday that the Bulldogs will take on the 19th-ranked Black Knights instead. Marshall said it pulled out “after falling below the roster minimum that was deemed medically safe.” The Herd (10-3) beat Louisiana-Lafayette 31-3 last weekend to win the Sun Belt Conference Championship for the first time. The program has won seven games in a row in the same season for the first time since 2020. “We apologize for the nature and timing of this announcement and for the turmoil it has brought to bowl season preparations for Army, the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl, the American Athletic Conference and ESPN,” Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill said in a statement. Coach Charles Huff left Marshall for Southern Miss last Sunday, and Tony Gibson, the defensive coordinator at North Carolina State, was announced as his replacement less than an hour later. By Thursday, at least 25 Marshall players had entered the transfer portal. Gibson held a meeting shortly after arriving on campus in Huntington to introduce himself to the team. He followed that up with phone calls, text messages and more meetings Friday and Saturday. “Any time coaches leave to take other jobs, it is emotional,” Gibson said at a news conference Thursday. “And kids that are 18-to-22 years old are going to make emotional decisions instead of just breathing for a day or two.” It's the first bowl for Louisiana Tech (5-7) since 2020. The Bulldogs have won two of their last three games, but they haven't played since a 33-0 victory over Kennesaw State on Nov. 30. “We are excited to accept the opportunity to play in the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl against a fantastic and storied program as Army,” Louisiana Tech athletic director Ryan Ivey said in a release. “I believe our football program is moving toward positive structure and the opportunity to play in this bowl adds to that momentum. We are looking forward to being in Shreveport for this matchup.” Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

A new way of treating serious asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) attacks could be a “game-changer” and is the first leap in treatment for 50 years, researchers say. Offering patients an injection is more effective than the current care of steroid tablets and cuts the need for further treatment by 30%, according to a study. Benralizumab is a monoclonal antibody that targets specific white blood cells, called eosinophils, to reduce lung inflammation. It is currently used as a repeat treatment for severe asthma at a low dose, but a new clinical trial has found that a higher single dose can be very effective if injected at the time of a flare-up. The findings, published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine, included 158 people who needed medical attention in A&E for their asthma or COPD attack (COPD is a group of lung conditions that cause breathing difficulties). Patients were given a quick blood test to see what type of attack they were having, with those suffering an “eosinophilic exacerbation” involving eosinophils (a type of white blood cell) being suitable for treatment. Around 50% of asthma attacks are eosinophilic exacerbations, as are 30% of COPD ones, according to the scientists. The clinical trial, led by King’s College London and carried out at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, saw patients randomly split into three groups. One group received the benralizumab injection and dummy tablets, another received standard care (prednisolone steroids 30mg daily for five days) and a dummy injection, and the third group received both the benralizumab injection and steroids. After 28 days, respiratory symptoms of cough, wheeze, breathlessness and sputum were found to be better in people on benralizumab. And after 90 days, there were four times fewer people in the benralizumab group who failed treatment compared with those receiving steroids. Treatment with the benralizumab injection also took longer to fail, meaning fewer visits to a GP or hospital for patients, researchers said. Furthermore, people also reported a better quality of life on the new regime. Scientists at King’s said steroids can have severe side-effects such as increasing the risk of diabetes and osteoporosis, meaning switching to benralizumab could provide huge benefits. Lead investigator Professor Mona Bafadhel, from King’s, said: “This could be a game-changer for people with asthma and COPD. “Treatment for asthma and COPD exacerbations have not changed in 50 years, despite causing 3.8 million deaths worldwide a year combined. “Benralizumab is a safe and effective drug already used to manage severe asthma. “We’ve used the drug in a different way – at the point of an exacerbation – to show that it’s more effective than steroid tablets, which is the only treatment currently available.” Researchers said benralizumab could also potentially be administered safely at home or in a GP practice, as well as in A&E. First author Dr Sanjay Ramakrishnan, clinical senior lecturer at the University of Western Australia, said: “Our study shows massive promise for asthma and COPD treatment. “COPD is the third leading cause of death worldwide but treatment for the condition is stuck in the 20th century. “We need to provide these patients with life-saving options before their time runs out.” Dr Samantha Walker, director of research and innovation at Asthma and Lung UK, welcomed the findings but said: “It’s appalling that this is the first new treatment for those suffering from asthma and COPD attacks in 50 years, indicating how desperately underfunded lung health research is.” AstraZeneca provided the drug for the study and funded the research, but had no input into trial design, delivery, analysis or interpretation.

Bajaj Finance Share Price Today Live Updates : On the last trading day, Bajaj Finance opened at 6830 and closed slightly lower at 6816.7. The stock reached a high of 6975 and a low of 6810 during the session. With a market capitalization of 427358.3 crore, Bajaj Finance's 52-week range highlights a high of 7829.95 and a low of 6190. The trading volume on the BSE was recorded at 37,529 shares. Bajaj Finance Share Price Live Updates: Consensus analysts rating is Buy Bajaj Finance Share Price Live Updates: The analyst recommendation trend is shown below with the current rating as Buy. These target price estimates are for the next 1 year. Bajaj Finance Share Price Live Updates: Bajaj Finance volume yesterday was 592 k as compared to the 20 day avg of 1063 k Bajaj Finance Share Price Live Updates: The trading volume yesterday was 44.23% lower than the 20 day average. Yesterday’s NSE volume was 555 k & BSE volume was 37 k. Bajaj Finance Share Price Live Updates: Bajaj Finance closed at ₹6816.7 on last trading day & the technical trend suggests Neutral near term outlook Bajaj Finance Share Price Live Updates: The stock traded in the range of 6975 & 6810 yesterday to end at 6910.1. While the stock is displaying initial signs of bottoming out, investors are advised to await confirmation of a bullish short-term trend before considering a reversal.Chris Hemsworth ‘s wife Elsa Pataky shared a rare family photo from the holidays! The 48-year-old model took to social media on Thursday (December 26) to offer a glimpse at her family’s Christmas celebration. The new photo featured all three of her and Chris ‘ kids – 12-year-old daughter India and 10-year-old twin sons Sasha and Tristan . Keep reading to find out more... Elsa shared the new picture on Instagram. In it, the entire family is wearing matching hooded pajamas that feature the Grinch. India , Sasha and Tristan are standing right behind her as she snaps the selfie, and Chris is in the background closer to their Christmas tree. “Hope you all had a great Christmas,” she wrote in the caption. This is the first time that Elsa has shared a pics of the family since September, when she uploaded adorable photos to celebrate Father’s Day in Australia . Sasha and Tristan have joined their parents at red carpet events, including the premiere of Transformers One and their dad’s Walk of Fame Star Ceremony . India attended the latter but opted out of taking photos. A post shared by Elsa Pataky (@elsapataky)Jayden Daniels did it again, leading another comeback to get the Commanders into the postseason for the first time since 2020. The rookie quarterback directed a 12-play, 75-yard touchdown drive in overtime, delivering a 30-24 win. The Commanders moved to 11-5 and wrapped up a wild-card berth, while the Falcons (8-8) fell a game behind the Bucs in the NFC South. Atlanta needs to beat the Panthers and have the Bucs lose to the Saints. The Commanders’ victory also clinched the NFC West for the Rams. Daniels threw a 2-yard touchdown pass to Zach Ertz on third-and-goal with 2:42 remaining in the extra period. Daniels ran for 42 yards on the drive and threw for 22, completing all five passes. The Commanders outgained the Falcons 412 to 337, with Daniels completing 24 of 36 passes for 227 yards with three touchdowns and an interception. He also ran for 127 yards on 16 carries, and in the process, set the NFL record for rushing yards by a rookie quarterback for a single season. Ertz caught six passes for 72 yards and two touchdowns, and Olamide Zaccheaus had eight receptions for 85 yards and a touchdown. The Falcons, who led 17-7 at halftime, had only nine plays for 14 yards on their first two drives of the second half as Washington controlled the ball and the clock. But they put together a 12-play, 68-yard tying touchdown drive late in the fourth quarter. Falcons center Drew Dalman snapped the ball over running back Bijan Robinson’s head on first-and-goal from the 5. Robinson picked up the ball but was tackled by Jalyn Holmes for a 21-yard loss. On second-and-26, Michael Penix completed a 13-yard pass to Drake London followed by an incompletion. That set up fourth-and-goal from the 13, and Penix threw a dart to tight end Kyle Pitts with Jeremy Chinn draped on him for a touchdown. Riley Patterson’s extra point tied the game with 1:19 left. Patterson had a chance to win it in regulation after Atlanta drove from its own 19 to its own 49. The Falcons drew a 13-yard pass interference penalty on Commanders defensive back Michael Davis on third-and-5 that left 2 seconds on the clock, but Patterson’s 56-yard field goal try was short. That sent the game to overtime, and the Commanders won the coin toss. Atlanta never saw the ball again. Penix was 19-of-35 for 223 yards with a touchdown and an interception, and Robinson rushed for 90 yards and two touchdowns on 17 carries. Drake London caught seven passes for 106 yards. Atlanta was 2-for-2 on fourth down and Washington 3-for-3. The Commanders are guaranteed of finishing with a winning record for the first time since 2016 when they went 8-7-1.

Manchester United criticised over ‘offensive’ price increase for match ticketsPHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Eagles were an unflappable force against a pitiful rival prone to such a pummeling. They were the pillar of dependency they’ve built themselves to be. They dismantled the Dallas Cowboys in a final score so demeaning, 41-7, that future researchers will be shocked to discover the backup quarterbacks played. They secured their second division title in three seasons, officially restoring their pursuit of the Super Bowl that’s eluded this regime of coaches and players, a team that’s weighing its records and trinkets against an ultimate trophy. Advertisement Saquon Barkley sat with his NFC East Champions hat backward and askew. He wasn’t wearing the T-shirt that came with it. “I didn’t even know that was a thing, to be honest,” the running back said of the swag. It certainly wasn’t a thing during the six years he spent with the New York Giants, a miserable team that may only avoid the indignity of experiencing Barkley breaking Eric Dickerson’s NFL single-season rushing record because next week’s regular season finale has been rendered meaningless. The Eagles are the NFC’s No. 2 seed in the playoffs. The Minnesota Vikings beating the Green Bay Packers eliminated any shot the Eagles had at a wild card-round bye and home-field advantage against any opponent. In a sense, that certainty supplies those inside the NovaCare Complex an opportunity at a quasi-bye. Nick Sirianni, who’s won his second division title in his fourth season as head coach, can rest a roster that’s somewhat battered. Jalen Hurts, who missed Sunday’s game in concussion protocol, doesn’t have to rush back. Barkley, whose 314 carries embody the bulk of a historic load, can take a well-deserved breather. A string of other starters can recover. Such a decision wouldn’t diminish this team’s resonance in history. Statistics verify greatness seen with gaping eyes. Barkley has accumulated 2,005 yards rushing by leaping over a defender backward , by rampaging the Rams with two 70-yard scores , by out-dueling Derrick Henry in a battle of contenders with a retro billing . Barkley already holds the Eagles’ single-season rushing record. He’d need 101 yards against the Giants to surpass Dickerson, a status that’s mostly important because our memories are futile and our arguments fickle. There will still be those, perhaps Dickerson himself, who’d point out Dickerson rushed for 2,105 yards in one fewer game. There will be Philly fans who’d never forgive Sirianni if anything unfortunate happened to the team’s MVP candidate in a completely avoidable setting. Barkley said, “it’s up to Nick.” Sirianni said, “I’ll think about it tonight at some point.” The intimation: if there’s not a No. 1 seed to play for, Barkley ain’t playing. “I came here to do something special,” said Barkley, who, with 167 yards, fielded his 11th 100-yard game of the season. “Obviously, breaking a record is special. But I want to be part of — I want a banner up there. I think we all do.” Saquon Barkley is just the 9th player in NFL history to reach 2,000+ rushing yards!!️ @saquon | #FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/3o7SCoMWO0 — Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) December 29, 2024 No, as nearly everyone in the Eagles locker room on Sunday said, their goals are so much bigger. Send in the backups in Week 18. Send in the special team role players. Send in security chief Dom DiSandro if possible. It’s still probable that such a squad can still stifle the Giants, who, at 3-13, shouldn’t be assembling any further plans to diminish their draft stock. Let a young Eagles team once again demonstrate why its depth is so valuable. Let Kenny Pickett start a second time after seizing a 24-7 lead in relief of Hurts. Let Pickett, a New Jersey native who grew up an Eagles fan, gain more experience after getting knocked out of the game with a rib injury in the third quarter. Or let Tanner McKee build on an NFL debut in which the 2023 sixth-round pick completed 3-of-4 passes for 54 yards and two touchdowns. Advertisement Hell, let McKee take his shot at a second game ball for his living room. A.J. Brown nearly lost McKee’s first by chucking the quarterback’s first-ever touchdown ball deep into the stands after a 20-yard, back-shoulder strike. Brown grinned at the mistake. He hadn’t thought about the ball’s significance until Sirianni told him on the sideline. “I felt so bad,” Brown said. With the help of DiSandro, and the willingness of the good-spirited fan who caught the ball, Brown retrieved it for McKee by exchanging his game-worn (and autographed) jersey with the fan after the game. “We’ve got great fans here,” Brown said. Lincoln Financial Field echoed “M-V-P” chants in the third quarter, when Barkley, on a 23-yard run, became the ninth running back in NFL history to surpass 2,000 yards. Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” blared from the stadium speakers. Each member of the offensive line embraced Barkley. So did Tyler Steen, a backup guard, like several backups on Sunday, fulfilled a key role in unbalanced formations that supplied another Barkley 23-yard run earlier in the third quarter Sirianni got emotional at the podium talking about the team’s depth players. Pickett. McKee. Steen. Oren Burks led the team with eight tackles after starting “Mike” linebacker Nakobe Dean was ruled inactive with an abdominal injury. Fifth-round rookie Jeremiah Trotter Jr. logged a half-sack. Third-round rookie Jalyx Hunt platooned significantly at edge rusher after Bryce Huff, returning from wrist surgery, exited the game with a shoulder injury. Veteran safety Avonte Maddox contributed to a second-half shutout while replacing both C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Reed Blankenship in different stages of the game — a backup role Maddox embraced after backup cornerback Isaiah Rodgers usurped his role in Dime packages that were again deployed on Sunday. “We deep,” said Milton Williams, who starts and rotates often along the defensive line. “We got guys that’s hungry, playing with a chip on their shoulder. We know what we can do.” Advertisement “I think we do have an unbelievable team,” McKee said. “Guys obviously know that it is a next-man-up mentality. Everybody has each other’s back. When I heard, ‘Hey, I’m going in,’ all those guys had a ton of confidence in me. I know we have a ton of confidence in all the other guys that are second-, third-string, whatever it is that when they get out there and when they get called on, they’re going to go out and make a play. And it’s just going to keep rolling.” GO DEEPER Eagles clinch NFC East, Barkley hits 2K yards in win vs. Cowboys: Takeaways The Eagles embody the confidence, identity and swagger they spent the offseason pursuing. They spent the last few months of last season wondering where it all went. It’s partly why general manager Howie Roseman signed Gardner-Johnson to a three-year, $27 million contract. Foremost, the 27-year-old forces the turnovers last year’s system failed to frequently produce. Gardner-Johnson intercepted Cowboys quarterback Cooper Rush twice on Sunday. On the first possession of the game, Gardner-Johnson snagged a deep pass up the left seam and house it for a 69-yard pick-six. Gardner-Johnson’s six interceptions in 2024 are now tied for the career-high he set in his last stint with the Eagles, a 2022 campaign that ended in Super Bowl LVII. Only five other teams have forced more turnovers than the Eagles (25). They scored 24 points off four Cowboys turnovers. Zack Baun and Nolan Smith both forced fumbles. Gardner-Johnson’s play redeemed his ejection after two unsportsmanlike penalties last week when the Eagles blew a two-score lead to the Washington Commanders. It’s a persona the defense must learn to contain. Backup safety Sydney Brown was ejected after throwing Cowboys cornerback Troy Pride to the ground near the tunnel. Pride and wide receiver Jalen Brooks were also tossed for their involvement in the scuffle that boiled over. “I think it was a learning lesson,” Gardner-Johnson said of his ejection. “I’ve got to grow the hell up.” Maturation is arriving when the Eagles need it most. They’ve distanced themselves from worse teams. DeVonta Smith logged six catches for 120 yards and two touchdowns, often roasting a mismatch with Andrew Booth, the eighth-string cornerback for the Cowboys who’d been signed from the practice squad last week. They’ll close out 2024 against an organization nearing rock bottom. They’re aware of the more consequential factors beyond their division title that’s on their T-shirts. “It’s cool,” Barkley said. “I’m not going to downplay it. But, at the end of the day, you know, you’re not going to be remembered for being the 2024 NFC East Division champs. ... I’m happy to be a part of it, and we did it as a team. But we all know what the goal is.” (Top photo of Saquon Barkley: Bill Streicher / Imagn Images)Mumbai, December 30: Every day brings something new to the stock market. The share market experiences highs and lows every day, with several stocks taking the upper hand while others trade in the negative. Hence, it is crucial to stay informed in the ever-evolving financial world. On Monday, December 30, traders and investors should keep an eye on several key stocks to buy and sell, including small-cap stocks like NHPC (NSE: NHPC), Infibeam Avenues (NSE: INFIBEAM), Cupid (NSE: CUPID), NACL Industries (NSE: NACLIND), MMTC (NSE: MMTC), and Meghmani Organics (NSE: MOL). Stocks such as Tata Chemicals Ltd (NSE: TATACHEM), HDFC Bank Ltd (NSE: HDFCBANK), Tata Motors Ltd (NSE: TATAMOTORS), Can Fin Homes (NSE: CANFINHOME), Dr Reddy's Laboratories (NSE: DRREDDY), and Mahindra & Mahindra (NSE: M&M) should also remain in focus on December 30. Stay informed on the latest developments influencing your investments and the economy with our curated list of stocks to buy or sell as of December 26. From significant index movements and corporate earnings reports to key economic indicators and geopolitical events shaping the market, LatestLY provides you with the essential information that matters most in today’s dynamic financial landscape. Adani Enterprises Share Expected To Rise by 57.8% in 24 Months: Ventura Securities . Small-Cap Stocks To Buy or Sell Under INR 100 on December 30 According to the Livemint , Sugandha Sachdeva suggested buying NHPC (NSE: NHPC) at INR 80, targeting INR 84.50 with a stop loss at INR 78, and Infibeam Avenues (NSE: INFIBEAM) at INR 26, with a target of INR 28.40 and a stop loss at INR 24.60. Mahesh M Ojha recommended buying MMTC (NSE: MMTC) between INR 72-INR 73, with targets of INR 77, INR 82, INR 85, and INR 88, and a stop loss at INR 68, along with Meghmani Organics (NSE: MOL) between INR 76-INR 77.50, targeting INR 82, INR 85, INR 88, and INR 92, and a stop loss at INR 74. Anshul Jain’s picked under INR 100 include Cupid (NSE: CUPID) at INR 77.50, targeting INR 83.50 with a stop loss at INR 74.50, and NACL Industries (NSE: NACLIND) at INR 65, with a target of INR 70 and stop loss at INR 63. Stock Market Today: Share Market Ends Flat, Sensex Settles at 78,472.48, Nifty at 23,750.20; Adani Ports Top Gainer . Shares to Buy or Sell on December 30 As per the media outlet , Ganesh Dongre of Anand Rathi recommended buying Tata Chemicals Ltd (NSE: TATACHEM) at INR 1,050, with a target of INR 1,150 and a stop loss at INR 1,010, HDFC Bank Ltd (NSE: HDFCBANK) at INR 1,800, targeting INR 1,860 with a stop loss at INR 1,760, and Tata Motors (NSE: TATAMOTORS) Ltd at INR 750, with a target of INR 795 and a stop loss at INR 730. While talking to the outlet , Sumeet Bagadia suggested buying Can Fin Homes (NSE: CANFINHOME) at INR 750.55, targeting INR 810 with a stop loss at INR 720, Dr Reddy's Laboratories (NSE: DRREDDY) at INR 1,389.45, with a target of INR 1,500 and a stop loss at INR 1,340, and Mahindra & Mahindra (NSE: M&M) at INR 3,049.45, targeting INR 3,300 with a stop loss at INR 2,900. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 30, 2024 08:00 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com ).

The team that President-elect Donald Trump has selected to lead federal health agencies in his second administration includes a retired congressman, a surgeon and a former talk-show host. All could play pivotal roles in fulfilling a political agenda that could change how the government goes about safeguarding Americans' health — from health care and medicines to food safety and science research. In line to lead the Department of Health and Human Services secretary is environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine organizer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump's choices don't have experience running large bureaucratic agencies, but they know how to talk about health on TV . People are also reading... ‘I don’t care who’s played': Nebraska’s Dana Holgorsen on personnel changes at tight end Search warrants lead to arrest of man in narcotics investigation At the courthouse, Nov. 23, 2024 La Segoviana finds new home in Court Street Plaza Streaming review: 'Landman' gives Billy Bob Thornton a real gusher of a series Amie Just: Bring out the tissues — and the brooms — for Nebraska volleyball's emotional win Clabaugh family presents Outstanding Educator award Fall Farmers Market and Brunch planned for Saturday Dale G. Lunsford Amie Just: Could the Big 12 be left out of CFP? And, is Ohio State better than Oregon? Bowling over Badgers: Nebraska finally solves Wisconsin to snap bowl game drought They fell in love with Beatrice. So they opened a store in downtown. Courthouse lighting ceremony planned for Sunday No change in bond amounts in child abuse death case Video of postgame encounter between Luke Fickell, Donovan Raiola circulates online Centers for Medicare and Medicaid pick Dr. Mehmet Oz hosted a talk show for 13 years and is a well-known wellness and lifestyle influencer. The pick for the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Marty Makary, and for surgeon general, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, are frequent Fox News contributors. Many on the list were critical of COVID-19 measures like masking and booster vaccinations for young people. Some of them have ties to Florida like many of Trump's other Cabinet nominees: Dave Weldon , the pick for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, represented the state in Congress for 14 years and is affiliated with a medical group on the state's Atlantic coast. Nesheiwat's brother-in-law is Rep. Mike Waltz , R-Fla., tapped by Trump as national security adviser. Here's a look at the nominees' potential role in carrying out what Kennedy says is the task to “reorganize” agencies, which have an overall $1.7 trillion budget, employ 80,000 scientists, researchers, doctors and other officials, and effect Americans' daily lives: The Atlanta-based CDC, with a $9.2 billion core budget, is charged with protecting Americans from disease outbreaks and other public health threats. Kennedy has long attacked vaccines and criticized the CDC, repeatedly alleging corruption at the agency. He said on a 2023 podcast that there is "no vaccine that is safe and effective,” and urged people to resist the CDC's guidelines about if and when kids should get vaccinated . The World Health Organization estimates that vaccines have saved more than 150 million lives over the past 50 years, and that 100 million of them were infants. Decades ago, Kennedy found common ground with Weldon , 71, who served in the Army and worked as an internal medicine doctor before he represented a central Florida congressional district from 1995 to 2009. Starting in the early 2000s, Weldon had a prominent part in a debate about whether there was a relationship between a vaccine preservative called thimerosal and autism. He was a founding member of the Congressional Autism Caucus and tried to ban thimerosal from all vaccines. Kennedy, then a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, believed there was a tie between thimerosal and autism and also charged that the government hid documents showing the danger. Since 2001, all vaccines manufactured for the U.S. market and routinely recommended for children 6 years or younger have contained no thimerosal or only trace amounts, with the exception of inactivated influenza vaccine. Meanwhile, study after study after study found no evidence that thimerosal caused autism. Weldon's congressional voting record suggests he may go along with Republican efforts to downsize the CDC, including to eliminate the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, which works on topics like drownings, drug overdoses and shooting deaths. Weldon also voted to ban federal funding for needle-exchange programs as an approach to reduce overdoses, and the National Rifle Association gave him an “A” rating for his pro-gun rights voting record. Kennedy is extremely critical of the FDA, which has 18,000 employees and is responsible for the safety and effectiveness of prescription drugs, vaccines and other medical products, as well as overseeing cosmetics, electronic cigarettes and most foods. Makary, Trump’s pick to run the FDA, is closely aligned with Kennedy on several topics . The professor at Johns Hopkins University who is a trained surgeon and cancer specialist has decried the overprescribing of drugs, the use of pesticides on foods and the undue influence of pharmaceutical and insurance companies over doctors and government regulators. Kennedy has suggested he'll clear out “entire” FDA departments and also recently threatened to fire FDA employees for “aggressive suppression” of a host of unsubstantiated products and therapies, including stem cells, raw milk , psychedelics and discredited COVID-era treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Makary's contrarian views during the COVID-19 pandemic included questioning the need for masking and giving young kids COVID-19 vaccine boosters. But anything Makary and Kennedy might want to do when it comes to unwinding FDA regulations or revoking long-standing vaccine and drug approvals would be challenging. The agency has lengthy requirements for removing medicines from the market, which are based on federal laws passed by Congress. The agency provides health care coverage for more than 160 million people through Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act, and also sets Medicare payment rates for hospitals, doctors and other providers. With a $1.1 trillion budget and more than 6,000 employees, Oz has a massive agency to run if confirmed — and an agency that Kennedy hasn't talked about much when it comes to his plans. While Trump tried to scrap the Affordable Care Act in his first term, Kennedy has not taken aim at it yet. But he has been critical of Medicaid and Medicare for covering expensive weight-loss drugs — though they're not widely covered by either . Trump said during his campaign that he would protect Medicare, which provides insurance for older Americans. Oz has endorsed expanding Medicare Advantage — a privately run version of Medicare that is popular but also a source of widespread fraud — in an AARP questionnaire during his failed 2022 bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania and in a 2020 Forbes op-ed with a former Kaiser Permanente CEO. Oz also said in a Washington Examiner op-ed with three co-writers that aging healthier and living longer could help fix the U.S. budget deficit because people would work longer and add more to the gross domestic product. Neither Trump nor Kennedy have said much about Medicaid, the insurance program for low-income Americans. Trump's first administration reshaped the program by allowing states to introduce work requirements for recipients. Kennedy doesn't appear to have said much publicly about what he'd like to see from surgeon general position, which is the nation's top doctor and oversees 6,000 U.S. Public Health Service Corps members. The surgeon general has little administrative power, but can be an influential government spokesperson on what counts as a public health danger and what to do about it — suggesting things like warning labels for products and issuing advisories. The current surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, declared gun violence as a public health crisis in June. Trump's pick, Nesheiwat, is employed as a New York City medical director with CityMD, a group of urgent care facilities in the New York and New Jersey area, and has been at City MD for 12 years. She also has appeared on Fox News and other TV shows, authored a book on the “transformative power of prayer” in her medical career and endorses a brand of vitamin supplements. She encouraged COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic, calling them “a gift from God” in a February 2021 Fox News op-ed, as well as anti-viral pills like Paxlovid. In a 2019 Q&A with the Women in Medicine Legacy Foundation , Nesheiwat said she is a “firm believer in preventive medicine” and “can give a dissertation on hand-washing alone.” As of Saturday, Trump had not yet named his choice to lead the National Institutes of Health, which funds medical research through grants to researchers across the nation and conducts its own research. It has a $48 billion budget. Kennedy has said he'd pause drug development and infectious disease research to shift the focus to chronic diseases. He'd like to keep NIH funding from researchers with conflicts of interest, and criticized the agency in 2017 for what he said was not doing enough research into the role of vaccines in autism — an idea that has long been debunked . Associated Press writers Amanda Seitz and Matt Perrone and AP editor Erica Hunzinger contributed to this report. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. This story has been corrected to reflect that the health agencies have an overall budget of about $1.7 trillion, not $1.7 billion. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Sign up here to get the latest health & fitness updates in your inbox every week!A WALMART Christmas tree is back in stores for the holiday season. The mega-retailer offers a variety of artificial trees for Christmas, but one viral favorite is in stock. A design influencer, Simply Staged and Styled shared their Walmart find on Facebook . O CHRISTMAS TREE... The fake tree is sold under the brand name “ My Texas House .” It has a relatively sparse design that sets it apart from many other fake trees, which typically look very full and dense. Simply Staged and Styled said the "viral" tree was “back and better than ever.” Read More about Walmart “This year [it] comes with twinkle lights. It’s so pretty!” the account said. They said the sparse design is more realistic, and warned that they may sell out quick. “I would hurry!” they said. THE DESIGN The tree comes in various sizes. Most read in Money A 4-foot mini tree goes for $59 on Walmart’s website. The larger version is 7.5 feet. That one sells for $179. However, the influencer said there is also a 9 foot option, though it does not currently appear on Walmart’s website. It’s not clear the price of that largest size. The influencer said they would send links to anyone who commented “Christmas Tree” on their post. This engagement strategy seemed to work — dozens of Facebook users commented with the key phrase. MORE WALMART Walmart offers a variety of deals on its products, partly because of the scale of the business. For example, the store recently offered a sale on a usually pricey cologne. But those looking for discounts in the near future must plan their shopping carefully. Walmart will be closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving. Read More on The US Sun The chain started shutting its doors for turkey day a few years back, but the decision has not been without controversy . Some competitors are planning to stay open for the holiday.

( MENAFN - AFP) The Indian-born head of one of Japan's most famous snack brands has warned that the country must change its mindset and admit more immigrants to get the Economy back to the glory of its boom years. Politicians have struggled for years to recover from the so-called lost decades as a range of differing programmes have failed to kickstart growth, including an ultra-loose monetary policy and trillions of dollars in stimulus measures. And as the new government of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba eyes a fresh drive to bring back the heyday of its global tech domination Lekh Juneja, the head of rice cracker giant Kameda Seika, said he worries his adopted country has lost its edge. "Forty years ago I came to Japan because it was close to number one in GDP... it was booming," the biotech scientist told AFP at Kameda's headquarters in Japan's rice heartland of Niigata. But at some point "Japan thought 'we have everything now'. And I think that the hungry spirit to (have) the guts to go global started disappearing a bit". Kameda's expansion mirrored Japan's postwar boom, increasing revenues tenfold between 1965 and 1974 and becoming synonymous with the nationally adored "senbei" crackers in the process. But the country that gave the world the Sony Walkman, the bullet train and Super Mario is no longer setting the pace in technology, overtaken by Silicon Valley, South Korea and China. In the late 1980s, Japanese firms dominated the world's top 10 companies by market capitalisation. Today not one makes the list. The population is ageing and projected to drop by almost a third in the next 50 years, and firms are already having problems filling vacancies. Although it has relaxed the rules in recent years, Japan has not turned in a big way to immigration as a solution. The country "has no choice" but to allow in more immigrants, said Juneja, 72, who first came to Japan in 1984 and previously worked for a food ingredients maker and a pharmaceuticals firm. "It's not only the numbers. It's also the mindset, the culture. We have to go global," he said. According to a recent study, Japan needs to more than triple its number of foreign workers to 6.88 million by 2040. Currently it's on track to be almost a million short. - 'Rice innovation' - Since joining the firm Juneja has been trying to make Kameda more international as well as a "rice innovation company". In the testing centre for new products the employees rolling out dough and trying out new recipes and flavours include an American and a Vietnamese. Language "is a big barrier. You bring people to Niigata and they don't speak Japanese and it's very difficult for them", Juneja said. "We need to change that. (If we employ people) who only speak and write Japanese we have very limited resources, very limited choices," he warned. Japan has very few foreign-born CEOs, and boardrooms are overwhelmingly male. There are 13 female CEOs in Japan's 1,600 top-listed firms, a Kyodo News survey showed in September. "It's very rare (for a foreigner) to become a CEO in a Japanese company," Juneja said. "But look at the US." "There is Microsoft, there is Google, all these companies have Indian CEOs," he said. "I think Japan has to change... We are proud (in Japan) of our backgrounds. But I think flexibility and having people from overseas would be very critical for Japan." Not all the non-Japanese CEOs have had a smooth ride. In November the German chief of Olympus resigned after allegedly buying illegal drugs. And in 2018 Carlos Ghosn, the Franco-Lebanese-Brazilian chief of Nissan, was arrested on suspicion of financial misconduct. He then escaped, in part by hiding in an audio equipment box. "He didn't generate a very good image for foreign CEOs here," Juneja said. "But the difference between him and me is that I have got a Japanese passport." MENAFN14122024000143011026ID1108993526 Legal Disclaimer: MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.NEW YORK (AP) — A number of President-elect Donald Trump 's most prominent Cabinet picks and appointees have been targeted by bomb threats and “swatting attacks," Trump's transition team said Wednesday. The FBI said it was investigating. “Last night and this morning, several of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees and Administration appointees were targeted in violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them," Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. The attacks ranged from bomb threats to swatting, in which attackers initiate an emergency law enforcement response against a target victim under false pretenses, she said. The tactic has become a popular one in recent years. Leavitt said law enforcement and other authorities acted quickly to ensure the safety of those who were targeted and Trump and his transition team are grateful. Among those targeted were New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, Trump’s pick to serve as the next ambassador to the United Nations ; Matt Gaetz, Trump’s initial pick to serve as attorney general ; Oregon Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, whom Trump chose to lead the Department of Labor , and former New York congressman Lee Zeldin, who has been tapped to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Law enforcement officials are also looking into whether Susie Wiles, Trump’s incoming chief of staff, and Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general whom Trump has chosen as Gaetz’s replacement, and other incoming administration officials were also victims — as well as how each was targeted, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity as the investigation continues. Wiles and Bondi did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The FBI said in a statement that it was “aware of numerous bomb threats and swatting incidents targeting incoming administration nominees and appointees" and was investigating with its law enforcement partners. White House spokesperson Saloni Sharma said President Joe Biden had been briefed and the White House is in touch with federal law enforcement and Trump's transition team. Biden “continues to monitor the situation closely," Sharma said, adding the president and his administration “condemn threats of political violence.” Stefanik's office said that, on Wednesday morning, she, her husband, and their 3-year-old son were driving home from Washington for Thanksgiving when they were informed of a bomb threat to their residence in Saratoga County. Police swept Stefanik’s home on Wednesday morning in response to the bomb threat but did not locate any explosive devices, New York State Police said. Zeldin said in a social media post that he and his family had also been threatened. “A pipe bomb threat targeting me and my family at our home today was sent in with a pro-Palestinian themed message,” he wrote on X . “My family and I were not home at the time and are safe." In Florida, the Okaloosa County sheriff’s office said on Facebook that it “received notification of a bomb threat referencing former Congressman Matt Gaetz’s supposed mailbox at a home in the Niceville area" Wednesday. While a family member resides at the address, the office said, Gaetz “is NOT a resident.” No threatening devices were found. Gaetz was Trump’s initial pick to serve as attorney general, but he withdrew from consideration after allegations that he paid women for sex and slept with underage women. Gaetz has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, and a Justice Department investigation into sex trafficking allegations ended with no charges against him. The threats follow a political campaign marked by disturbing and unprecedented violence. In July, a gunman opened fire at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, grazing the then-candidate in the ear with a bullet and killing one of his supporters. The Secret Service later thwarted a subsequent assassination attempt at Trump's West Palm Beach, Florida, golf course when an agent spotted the barrel of a gun poking through a perimeter fence while Trump was golfing. Trump was also the subject of an Iranian murder-for-hire plot , with a man saying he had been tasked with planning the assassination of the Republican president-elect. Also this week, authorities arrested a man they say posted videos on social media threatening to kill Trump, according to court documents. In one video posted on Nov. 13, Manuel Tamayo-Torres threatened to shoot the former president while holding what appeared to be an AR-15 style rifle, authorities said Among the other videos he posted was one from an arena in Glendale, Arizona on Aug. 23, the same day Trump held a campaign rally there, according to court papers. An attorney for Tamayo-Torres did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Public figures across the political spectrum have been targeted in recent years by hoax bomb threats and false reports of shootings at their homes. About a year ago the FBI responded to an uptick in such incidents at the homes of public officials, state capitols and courthouses across the country around the holidays. Many were locked down and evacuated in early January after receiving bomb threats. No explosives were found and no one was hurt. Some of those targeted last year were Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. The judges overseeing the civil fraud case against Trump in New York and the criminal election interference case against him in Washington were both targeted earlier this year. Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, who recently abandoned the two criminal cases he brought against Trump, was also the subject of a fake emergency call on Christmas Day last year. Earlier this year, schools, government buildings and the homes of city officials in Springfield, Ohio, received a string of hoax bomb threats after Trump falsely accused members of Springfield’s Haitian community of abducting and eating cats and dogs. And in 2022, a slew of historically Black colleges and universities nationwide were targeted with dozens of bomb threats, with the vast majority arriving during the celebration of Black History Month. The U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement Wednesday that anytime a member of Congress is the victim of a swatting' incident, “we work closely with our local and federal law enforcement partners.” The force declined to provide further details, in part to “minimize the risk of copy-cats.” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called the threats “dangerous and unhinged.” “This year, there was not just one but TWO assassination attempts on President Trump," he wrote on X . “Now some of his Cabinet nominees and their families are facing bomb threats.” He added: “It is not who we are in America.” ___ Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Colleen Long and Eric Tucker in Washington, Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York, contributed to this report.

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'Bas ab. Nahi lag raha zor': Jasprit Bumrah exhausted after Rohit Sharma tells him to bowl 'one more over'If you're buying a new TV this Black Friday, there's a chance you'll be settling with an operating system that's not the best. By that, I mean one that's filled with pop-up ads, can be difficult to navigate, or simply doesn't support all the streaming services and apps that you desire. That's where the Roku streaming stick comes in play. Also: The best Black Friday deals live now Available in HD, 4K, and other configurations, the streaming device plugs into your TV's HDMI port and essentially takes over its user interface, replacing the current version with Roku TV. For Black Friday, you can pick up the standard HD version of the device for just $18, the cost of a salad here in New York. For my in-laws Hisense TV that runs on Xumo OS, this was a no-brainer purchase for me. Why did I opt for the standard Express model over the 4K ? Well, my in-laws simply don't watch much 4K content to justify the higher cost. However, if you're subscribed to 4K streaming services like Netflix and Disney, then paying the extra $12 is justifiable. (The HDMI dongle for the 4K version is also slimmer, for what it's worth.) Also: Roku vs Fire Stick: Which one is best for your streaming needs in 2024? When plugged in, the Roku Express dongle gives you access to popular streaming services like Hulu, Max, Disney+, Netflix, and YouTube, as well as 400+ free live TV channels. For the free channels, you'll have to watch a few ads here and there, but it's a price most people are willing to pay. You also get a standard remote with the Express, with quick access buttons to streaming services and the usual playback controls. What you won't get with this version is a built-in mic for voice controls. Depending on your needs, I'd recommend either the Roku Express for $18 or the Roku 4K Streaming Stick for $29. For less than $30, you'll have a much more enjoyable TV software experience without losing access to your favorite channels and services. When will this deal expire? Deals are subject to sell out or expire at any time, though ZDNET remains committed to finding, sharing, and updating the best product deals for you to score the best savings. Considering this offer is for a refurbished product, inventory is even more important than timing, so keep an eye out for the stock of the model that interests you the most. Our team of experts regularly checks in on the deals we share to ensure they are still live and obtainable. We're sorry if you've missed out on this deal, but don't fret -- we're constantly finding new chances to save and sharing them with you at ZDNET.com . When is Black Friday? Black Friday takes place on Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. However, expect retailers to begin early discounts and sales weeks before. Best Black Friday deals Black Friday phone deals Black Friday TV deals Black Friday laptop deals

Moana 2: Dwayne Johnson Teases Daughter’s Inclusion in Disney SequelHUNTINGTON, W.V. (AP) — Marshall has withdrawn from the Independence Bowl after a coaching change resulted in much of its roster jumping into the transfer portal. The Thundering Herd were slated to play Army on Dec. 28 in Shreveport, Louisiana. But the Independence Bowl and Louisiana Tech announced on Saturday that the Bulldogs will take on the 19th-ranked Black Knights instead. Marshall said it pulled out “after falling below the roster minimum that was deemed medically safe.” The Herd (10-3) beat Louisiana-Lafayette 31-3 last weekend to win the Sun Belt Conference Championship for the first time. The program has won seven games in a row in the same season for the first time since 2020. “We apologize for the nature and timing of this announcement and for the turmoil it has brought to bowl season preparations for Army, the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl, the American Athletic Conference and ESPN,” Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill said in a statement. Coach Charles Huff left Marshall for Southern Miss last Sunday, and Tony Gibson, the defensive coordinator at North Carolina State, was announced as his replacement less than an hour later. By Thursday, at least 25 Marshall players had entered the transfer portal. Gibson held a meeting shortly after arriving on campus in Huntington to introduce himself to the team. He followed that up with phone calls, text messages and more meetings Friday and Saturday. “Any time coaches leave to take other jobs, it is emotional,” Gibson said at a news conference Thursday. “And kids that are 18-to-22 years old are going to make emotional decisions instead of just breathing for a day or two.” It's the first bowl for Louisiana Tech (5-7) since 2020. The Bulldogs have won two of their last three games, but they haven't played since a 33-0 victory over Kennesaw State on Nov. 30. “We are excited to accept the opportunity to play in the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl against a fantastic and storied program as Army,” Louisiana Tech athletic director Ryan Ivey said in a release. “I believe our football program is moving toward positive structure and the opportunity to play in this bowl adds to that momentum. We are looking forward to being in Shreveport for this matchup.” Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-footballSacramento State knocks off Air Force 63-61

Polish-Hungarian relations have reached an all-time low after Hungary granted "asylum" to a Polish ex-minister wanted for embezzlement as a "political refugee." Prime Minister Viktor Orban is open to more similar cases. For more than 150 years, Poland and Hungary have been linked in a remarkable way. Both nations supported each other in their efforts for independence. Freedom fighters from both countries rushed to help each other in existential historical moments, such as during the anti-Habsburg revolution of 1848. In 1956, when Hungary underwent an anti-communist revolution, Poles spontaneously organized blood drives for the victims of the Soviet invasion. "Pole and Hungarian brothers be" is a well-known proverb in both countries. Since 2007, there has even been an official day dedicated to Polish-Hungarian friendship, March 23. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban admired the Poles' deep desire for freedom and their anti-communist struggle so much that he wrote his thesis as law student in 1987 on "Polish social self-organization using the example of the Solidarity trade union." However, Orban of all people has now caused an all-time low in the countries' relations. On December 19, he granted asylum to the former Polish Deputy Justice Minister Marcin Romanowski, who is wanted on a European arrest warrant . Political collision between Warsaw, Budapest This decision promptly led to a political head-on clash between Poland and Hungary, whose relations have already been dire since the change of power in Poland in December 2023. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski described the move as "an action contrary to the fundamental principle of loyal cooperation" as laid out in the EU treaties. He also recalled the Polish ambassador to Hungary for "indefinite consultations" and summoned the Hungarian ambassador in Warsaw to give him a protest note. This kind of diplomatic escalation is extremely rare between EU countries . Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk also compared Orban's Hungary to the regime of dictator Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus. In May, a Polish judge who is under investigation for abuse of office and leaking state secrets fled to Belarus . "I did not expect corrupt politicians escaping justice would be able to choose between [Belarusian President Alexander] Lukashenko and Orban," Tusk said. 'Liberal rainbow coalition' The Hungarian prime minister had already indicated on December 19 that he would grant asylum to "Polish political refugees." In an interview with the conservative pro-government Hungarian news portal Mandiner , he also called the current Polish government a "liberal rainbow coalition" that "uses the rule of law and legal means to get even with its political opponents." Polish-Hungarian relations are "at a low point because the liberal Polish rainbow coalition is unable to distinguish between party and state politics," Orban said. In reality, however, the governing coalition of the liberal-conservative Polish prime minister is trying to do exactly the opposite. It wants to untangle the nexus of party and state politics that existed under the previous national-conservative government and to investigate its corruption scandals. One of the people at the center of the investigation is the former deputy justice minister, Romanowski. Romanowski charged with 11 criminal offenses Between 2019 and 2023, Romanowski was in charge of the Justice Fund which was designed to support victims of crime. However, the public prosecutor has charged the politician with 11 criminal offenses, including membership of a criminal organization, embezzlement and manipulation in the allocation of money from the fund. The sum of the disputed funds amounts to around 112 million Polish zloty (approx. €25 million/$27.3 million). The 48-year-old lawmaker from the former ruling and now opposition Law and Justice party (PiS) was briefly arrested in July, but was later released. As a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, he enjoyed immunity. However, this immunity was lifted by the body in October. On December 9, a court in Warsaw ordered Romanowski to be remanded in custody for three months. Only, by then, he had already gone into hiding and fled to Hungary . On December 20, Romanowski posted on social media that asylum for a member of the Polish opposition was a "strong warning signal for Tusk's regime." He said he wanted to continue working from Budapest for a "sovereign, Christian and strong Poland," with his goal being to "abolish the Tusk regime." 'Hungarian government using refugee protection to save political allies' The affair exemplifies the severe level of problems the Tusk government faces in restoring the rule of law in Poland. Poland's judiciary, including the Constitutional Court, remain heavily dominated by PiS supporters. And President Andrzej Duda, who is close to the PiS, continues to delay all government reforms as much as possible. It's not the first time that a prominent corruption suspect has been granted asylum in Hungary . In 2018, the former Macedonian head of government Nikola Gruevski fled to Hungary where he received asylum. In more recent years, the Hungarian government has also granted temporary refuge to several politicians from the Hungarian minority in Romania. For Poland, however, the escape of a member of parliament is a precedent, commented the conservative Polish daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita . "Romanowski has asked an ally of Putin for help. It is a disgrace to be an ally of Putin's ally ," the paper wrote. In Hungary, the left-wing portal Merce ran the headline "The Hungarian government is using refugee protection to save political allies." Open for more Polish politicians Both Polish and Hungarian media outlets are now speculating which PiS politician will be the next to leave for Hungary. It may well be MEP Daniel Obajtek, former head of the Polish oil company Orlen, who has been involved in numerous corruption scandals.Among other charges, he is facing prosecution for manipulating Orlen tenders. Hungary's Orban vows to defy ICC's Netanyahu arrest warrant To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The speculation about Obajtek was fueled by Orban on December 22 during his annual end-of-year press conference. After a female journalist specifically asked about the former head of Orlen, Hungary's prime minister — who is known for his misogynistic remarks — said: "I don't know if we're thinking of the same man because you never know which man is in a woman's head." However, as Obajtek is a member of the European Parliament, there is no need to deal with him, Orban said, referring to the man's immunity. "Generally speaking, we have to be prepared for the fact that there will and could be more cases like this," he added. This article was originally written in German.HUNTINGTON, W.V. (AP) — Marshall has withdrawn from the Independence Bowl after a coaching change resulted in much of its roster jumping into the transfer portal. The Thundering Herd were slated to play Army on Dec. 28 in Shreveport, Louisiana. But the and announced on Saturday that the Bulldogs will take on the 19th-ranked Black Knights instead. Marshall said it pulled out “after falling below the roster minimum that was deemed medically safe.” The Herd (10-3) beat Louisiana-Lafayette 31-3 last weekend to win the for the first time. The program has won seven games in a row in the same season for the first time since 2020. “We apologize for the nature and timing of this announcement and for the turmoil it has brought to bowl season preparations for Army, the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl, the American Athletic Conference and ESPN,” Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill said in a statement. Coach Charles Huff left Marshall for last Sunday, and Tony Gibson, the defensive coordinator at North Carolina State, less than an hour later. By Thursday, at least 25 Marshall players had entered the transfer portal. Gibson held a meeting shortly after arriving on campus in Huntington to introduce himself to the team. He followed that up with phone calls, text messages and more meetings Friday and Saturday. “Any time coaches leave to take other jobs, it is emotional,” Gibson said at a news conference Thursday. “And kids that are 18-to-22 years old are going to make emotional decisions instead of just breathing for a day or two.” It's the first bowl for Louisiana Tech (5-7) since 2020. The Bulldogs have won two of their last three games, but they haven't played since a 33-0 victory over Kennesaw State on Nov. 30. “We are excited to accept the opportunity to play in the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl against a fantastic and storied program as Army,” Louisiana Tech athletic director Ryan Ivey said in a release. “I believe our football program is moving toward positive structure and the opportunity to play in this bowl adds to that momentum. We are looking forward to being in Shreveport for this matchup.” ___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up . AP college football: and The Associated PressAP 12:47 JST, December 30, 2024 TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republicans made claims about illegal voting by noncitizens a centerpiece of their 2024 campaign messaging and plan to push legislation in the new Congress requiring voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship. Yet there’s one place with a GOP supermajority where linking voting to citizenship appears to be a nonstarter: Kansas. That’s because the state has been there, done that, and all but a few Republicans would prefer not to go there again. Kansas imposed a proof-of-citizenship requirement over a decade ago that grew into one of the biggest political fiascos in the state in recent memory. The law, passed by the state Legislature in 2011 and implemented two years later, ended up blocking the voter registrations of more than 31,000 U.S. citizens who were otherwise eligible to vote. That was 12% of everyone seeking to register in Kansas for the first time. Federal courts ultimately declared the law an unconstitutional burden on voting rights, and it hasn’t been enforced since 2018. Kansas provides a cautionary tale about how pursuing an election concern that in fact is extremely rare risks disenfranchising a far greater number of people who are legally entitled to vote. The state’s top elections official, Secretary of State Scott Schwab, championed the idea as a legislator and now says states and the federal government shouldn’t touch it. “Kansas did that 10 years ago,” said Schwab, a Republican. “It didn’t work out so well.” Steven Fish, a 45-year-old warehouse worker in eastern Kansas, said he understands the motivation behind the law. In his thinking, the state was like a store owner who fears getting robbed and installs locks. But in 2014, after the birth of his now 11-year-old son inspired him to be “a little more responsible” and follow politics, he didn’t have an acceptable copy of his birth certificate to get registered to vote in Kansas. “The locks didn’t work,” said Fish, one of nine Kansas residents who sued the state over the law. “You caught a bunch of people who didn’t do anything wrong.” Kansas’ experience appeared to receive little if any attention outside the state as Republicans elsewhere pursued proof-of-citizenship requirements this year. Arizona enacted a requirement this year, applying it to voting for state and local elections but not for Congress or president. The Republican-led U.S. House passed a proof-of-citizenship requirement in the summer and plans to bring back similar legislation after the GOP won control of the Senate in November. In Ohio, the Republican secretary of state revised the form that poll workers use for voter eligibility challenges to require those not born in the U.S. to show naturalization papers to cast a regular ballot. A federal judge declined to block the practice days before the election. Also, sizable majorities of voters in Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina and the presidential swing states of North Carolina and Wisconsin were inspired to amend their state constitutions’ provisions on voting even though the changes were only symbolic. Provisions that previously declared that all U.S. citizens could vote now say that only U.S. citizens can vote — a meaningless distinction with no practical effect on who is eligible. To be clear, voters already must attest to being U.S. citizens when they register to vote and noncitizens can face fines, prison and deportation if they lie and are caught. “There is nothing unconstitutional about ensuring that only American citizens can vote in American elections,” U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, of Texas, the leading sponsor of the congressional proposal, said in an email statement to The Associated Press. After Kansas residents challenged their state’s law, both a federal judge and federal appeals court concluded that it violated a law limiting states to collecting only the minimum information needed to determine whether someone is eligible to vote. That’s an issue Congress could resolve. The courts ruled that with “scant” evidence of an actual problem, Kansas couldn’t justify a law that kept hundreds of eligible citizens from registering for every noncitizen who was improperly registered. A federal judge concluded that the state’s evidence showed that only 39 noncitizens had registered to vote from 1999 through 2012 — an average of just three a year. In 2013, then-Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican who had built a national reputation advocating tough immigration laws, described the possibility of voting by immigrants living in the U.S. illegally as a serious threat. He was elected attorney general in 2022 and still strongly backs the idea, arguing that federal court rulings in the Kansas case “almost certainly got it wrong.” Kobach also said a key issue in the legal challenge — people being unable to fix problems with their registrations within a 90-day window — has probably been solved. “The technological challenge of how quickly can you verify someone’s citizenship is getting easier,” Kobach said. “As time goes on, it will get even easier.” The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the Kansas case in 2020. But in August, it split 5-4 in allowing Arizona to continue enforcing its law for voting in state and local elections while a legal challenge goes forward. Seeing the possibility of a different Supreme Court decision in the future, U.S. Rep.-elect Derek Schmidt says states and Congress should pursue proof-of-citizenship requirements. Schmidt was the Kansas attorney general when his state’s law was challenged. “If the same matter arose now and was litigated, the facts would be different,” he said in an interview. But voting rights advocates dismiss the idea that a legal challenge would turn out differently. Mark Johnson, one of the attorneys who fought the Kansas law, said opponents now have a template for a successful court fight. “We know the people we can call,” Johnson said. “We know that we’ve got the expert witnesses. We know how to try things like this.” He predicted “a flurry — a landslide — of litigation against this.” Initially, the Kansas requirement’s impacts seemed to fall most heavily on politically unaffiliated and young voters. As of fall 2013, 57% of the voters blocked from registering were unaffiliated and 40% were under 30. But Fish was in his mid-30s, and six of the nine residents who sued over the Kansas law were 35 or older. Three even produced citizenship documents and still didn’t get registered, according to court documents. “There wasn’t a single one of us that was actually an illegal or had misinterpreted or misrepresented any information or had done anything wrong,” Fish said. He was supposed to produce his birth certificate when he sought to register in 2014 while renewing his Kansas driver’s license at an office in a strip mall in Lawrence. A clerk wouldn’t accept the copy Fish had of his birth certificate. He still doesn’t know where to find the original, having been born on an Air Force base in Illinois that closed in the 1990s. Several of the people joining Fish in the lawsuit were veterans, all born in the U.S., and Fish said he was stunned that they could be prevented from registering. Liz Azore, a senior adviser to the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab, said millions of Americans haven’t traveled outside the U.S. and don’t have passports that might act as proof of citizenship, or don’t have ready access to their birth certificates. She and other voting rights advocates are skeptical that there are administrative fixes that will make a proof-of-citizenship law run more smoothly today than it did in Kansas a decade ago. “It’s going to cover a lot of people from all walks of life,” Avore said. “It’s going to be disenfranchising large swaths of the country.”

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.