WASHINGTON (AP) — One year after the , U.S. Capitol attack, Attorney General Merrick Garland the Justice Department was committed to holding accountable all perpetrators “at any level” for “the assault on our democracy.” That bold declaration won’t apply to at least one person: Donald Trump. Special counsel Jack Smith’s move on Monday to abandon the against Trump means jurors will likely never decide whether the president-elect is criminally responsible for his attempts to cling to power after losing the 2020 campaign. The decision to walk away from the election charges and the separate against Trump marks an abrupt end of the Justice Department’s unprecedented legal effort that once threatened his liberty but appears only to have galvanized his supporters. The abandonment of the cases accusing Trump of endangering American democracy and national security does away with the most serious legal threats he was facing as he returns to the White House. It was the culmination of a monthslong defense effort to delay the proceedings at every step and use the criminal allegations to Trump’s political advantage, putting the final word in the hands of voters instead of jurors. “We always knew that the rich and powerful had an advantage, but I don’t think we would have ever believed that somebody could walk away from everything,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor and former Justice Department official. “If there ever was a Teflon defendant, that’s Donald Trump.” While prosecutors left the door open to the possibility that federal charges could be re-filed against Trump after he leaves office, that seems unlikely. Meanwhile, Trump’s presidential victory has thrown into question the future of the two state criminal cases against him in New York and Georgia. Trump was supposed to be sentenced on Tuesday after his , but it’s possible the sentencing could be delayed until after Trump leaves office, and the defense is pushing to dismiss the case altogether. Smith’s team stressed that their decision to abandon the federal cases was not a reflection of the merit of the charges, but an acknowledgement that they could not move forward under longstanding Justice Department policy that says sitting presidents cannot face Trump’s presidential victory set “at odds two fundamental and compelling national interests: On the one hand, the Constitution’s requirement that the President must not be unduly encumbered in fulfilling his weighty responsibilities . . . and on the other hand, the Nation’s commitment to the rule of law,” prosecutors wrote in court papers. The move just weeks after Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris underscores the immense personal stake Trump had in the campaign in which he turned his legal woes into a political rallying cry. Trump accused prosecutors of bringing the charges in a bid to keep him out of the White House, and he promised revenge on his perceived enemies if he won a second term. “If Donald J. Trump had lost an election, he may very well have spent the rest of his life in prison,” Vice President-elect JD Vance, wrote in a social media post on Monday. “These prosecutions were always political. Now it’s time to ensure what happened to President Trump never happens in this country again.” After the Jan. 6 attack by Trump supporters that left more than 100 police officers injured, Republican leader Mitch McConnell and several other Republicans said it was up to the justice system to hold Trump accountable. The Jan. 6 case brought last year in Washington alleged an increasingly desperate criminal conspiracy to subvert the will of voters after Trump’s 2020 loss, accusing Trump of using the angry mob of supporters that attacked the Capitol as “a tool” in his campaign to pressure then-Vice President and obstruct the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. Hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters — many of whom have said they felt called to Washington by Trump — have pleaded guilty or been convicted by juries of federal charges at the same courthouse where Trump was supposed to stand trial last year. As the trial date neared, officials at the courthouse that sits within view of the Capitol were busy making plans for the crush of reporters expected to cover the historic case. But Trump’s argument that he from prosecution quickly tied up the case in appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court. The high court ruled in July that , and sent the case back to the trial court to decide which allegations could move forward. But the case was dismissed before the trial court could get a chance to do so. The other indictment brought in Florida accused Trump of at his Mar-a-Lago estate sensitive documents on nuclear capabilities, enlisting aides and lawyers to help him hide records demanded by investigators and cavalierly showing off a Pentagon “plan of attack” and classified map. But U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon . Smith appealed to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but abandoned that appeal on Monday. Smith’s team said it would continue its fight in the appeals court to revive charges against Trump’s two co-defendants because “no principle of temporary immunity applies to them.” In New York, jurors spent weeks last spring hearing evidence in a state case alleging a Trump scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through who said the two had sex. New York prosecutors recently expressed openness to delaying sentencing until after Trump’s second term, while Trump’s lawyers are fighting to have the conviction dismissed altogether. In Georgia, a trial while Trump is in office seems unlikely in a state case charging him and more than a dozen others with conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. The case has been on hold since an appeals court agreed to review whether to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over her with the special prosecutor she had hired to lead the case.New Orleans mayor launches own ‘news’ service for the city
By REBECCA SANTANA WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump has promised to end birthright citizenship as soon as he gets into office to make good on campaign promises aiming to restrict immigration and redefining what it means to be American. But any efforts to halt the policy would face steep legal hurdles. Birthright citizenship means anyone born in the United States automatically becomes an American citizen. It’s been in place for decades and applies to children born to someone in the country illegally or in the U.S. on a tourist or student visa who plans to return to their home country. It’s not the practice of every country, and Trump and his supporters have argued that the system is being abused and that there should be tougher standards for becoming an American citizen. But others say this is a right enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, it would be extremely difficult to overturn and even if it’s possible, it’s a bad idea. Here’s a look at birthright citizenship, what Trump has said about it and the prospects for ending it: What Trump has said about birthright citizenship During an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Trump said he “absolutely” planned to halt birthright citizenship once in office. “We’re going to end that because it’s ridiculous,” he said. Trump and other opponents of birthright citizenship have argued that it creates an incentive for people to come to the U.S. illegally or take part in “birth tourism,” in which pregnant women enter the U.S. specifically to give birth so their children can have citizenship before returning to their home countries. “Simply crossing the border and having a child should not entitle anyone to citizenship,” said Eric Ruark, director of research for NumbersUSA, which argues for reducing immigration. The organization supports changes that would require at least one parent to be a permanent legal resident or a U.S. citizen for their children to automatically get citizenship. Others have argued that ending birthright citizenship would profoundly damage the country. “One of our big benefits is that people born here are citizens, are not an illegal underclass. There’s better assimilation and integration of immigrants and their children because of birthright citizenship,” said Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the pro-immigration Cato Institute. In 2019, the Migration Policy Institute estimated that 5.5 million children under age 18 lived with at least one parent in the country illegally in 2019, representing 7% of the U.S. child population. The vast majority of those children were U.S. citizens. The nonpartisan think tank said during Trump’s campaign for president in 2015 that the number of people in the country illegally would “balloon” if birthright citizenship were repealed, creating “a self-perpetuating class that would be excluded from social membership for generations.” What does the law say? In the aftermath of the Civil War, Congress ratified the 14th Amendment in July 1868. That amendment assured citizenship for all, including Black people. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” the 14th Amendment says. “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” But the 14th Amendment didn’t always translate to everyone being afforded birthright citizenship. For example, it wasn’t until 1924 that Congress finally granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S. A key case in the history of birthright citizenship came in 1898, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants, was a U.S. citizen because he was born in the states. The federal government had tried to deny him reentry into the county after a trip abroad on grounds he wasn’t a citizen under the Chinese Exclusion Act. But some have argued that the 1898 case clearly applied to children born of parents who are both legal immigrants to America but that it’s less clear whether it applies to children born to parents without legal status or, for example, who come for a short-term like a tourist visa. “That is the leading case on this. In fact, it’s the only case on this,” said Andrew Arthur, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports immigration restrictions. “It’s a lot more of an open legal question than most people think.” Some proponents of immigration restrictions have argued the words “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the 14th Amendment allows the U.S. to deny citizenship to babies born to those in the country illegally. Trump himself used that language in his 2023 announcement that he would aim to end birthright citizenship if reelected. So what could Trump do and would it be successful? Trump wasn’t clear in his Sunday interview how he aims to end birthright citizenship. Asked how he could get around the 14th Amendment with an executive action, Trump said: “Well, we’re going to have to get it changed. We’ll maybe have to go back to the people. But we have to end it.” Pressed further on whether he’d use an executive order, Trump said “if we can, through executive action.” He gave a lot more details in a 2023 post on his campaign website . In it, he said he would issue an executive order the first day of his presidency, making it clear that federal agencies “require that at least one parent be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident for their future children to become automatic U.S. citizens.” Related Articles National Politics | Trump has flip-flopped on abortion policy. His appointees may offer clues to what happens next National Politics | In promising to shake up Washington, Trump is in a class of his own National Politics | Election Day has long passed. In some states, legislatures are working to undermine the results National Politics | Trump taps his attorney Alina Habba to serve as counselor to the president National Politics | With Trump on the way, advocates look to states to pick up medical debt fight Trump wrote that the executive order would make clear that children of people in the U.S. illegally “should not be issued passports, Social Security numbers, or be eligible for certain taxpayer funded welfare benefits.” This would almost certainly end up in litigation. Nowrasteh from the Cato Institute said the law is clear that birthright citizenship can’t be ended by executive order but that Trump may be inclined to take a shot anyway through the courts. “I don’t take his statements very seriously. He has been saying things like this for almost a decade,” Nowrasteh said. “He didn’t do anything to further this agenda when he was president before. The law and judges are near uniformly opposed to his legal theory that the children of illegal immigrants born in the United States are not citizens.” Trump could steer Congress to pass a law to end birthright citizenship but would still face a legal challenge that it violates the Constitution. Associated Press reporter Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.
New Delhi : External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar is set to embark on a three-day official visit to the State of Qatar from December 30, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Sunday. The MEA in an official statement said that during his visit, the EAM would meet with Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani. The visit also aims to review various aspects of bilateral relations between India and Qatar with discussion on key areas, which include political, trade, investment, energy, security, cultural, and people-to-people relations. “EAM’s visit will enable both sides to review various aspects of bilateral relations, including political, trade, investment, energy, security, cultural, and people-to-people, as well as the regional and international issues of mutual interest,” the MEA said. EAM Jaishankar will depart from Qatar on January 1. India and Qatar share warm and friendly relations, marked by regular high-level interactions to further strengthen their partnership. Their most recent interaction occurred during EAM Jaishankar’s official tour to Qatar and Bahrain from December 6 to 9. During the visit, he met Qatar’s Minister of Commerce and Industry, Faisal bin Thani Al Thani, and Minister of State, Ahmed Al Sayed, on the sidelines of the Doha Forum. In late October, the two countries held the fifth round of Foreign Office Consultations. Both sides comprehensively reviewed the entire spectrum of India-Qatar bilateral relations, including high-level exchanges, trade, investment, energy, education, culture, and people-to-people ties. Discussions also explored avenues to deepen the relationship in areas such as renewable energy, fintech, start-ups, and technology. They exchanged perspectives on important regional and global issues of mutual interest, as noted by the MEA in a press statement. Earlier, on September 9, EAM Jaishankar met Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Saudi Arabia to discuss advancing bilateral ties. According to the MEA, cooperation between India and Qatar has been steadily growing within an excellent framework provided by their historically close ties and regular, substantive engagement at the highest levels of government. The large, diverse, and accomplished Indian community in Qatar significantly contributes to the country’s progress while nurturing the bonds of deep-rooted friendship and multifaceted cooperation between the two nations.
Forthright and fearless, the Nobel Prize winner took pot-shots at former prime minister Tony Blair and ex-US president George W Bush among others. His death came after repeated bouts of illness in which images of the increasingly frail former president failed to erase memories of his fierce spirit. Democrat James Earl “Jimmy” Carter Jr swept to power in 1977 with his Trust Me campaign helping to beat Republican president Gerald Ford. Serving as 39th US president from 1977 to 1981, he sought to make government “competent and compassionate” but was ousted by the unstoppable Hollywood appeal of a certain Ronald Reagan. A skilled sportsman, Mr Carter left his home of Plains, Georgia, to join the US Navy, returning later to run his family’s peanut business. A stint in the Georgia senate lit the touchpaper on his political career and he rose to the top of the Democratic movement. But he will also be remembered for a bizarre encounter with a deeply disgruntled opponent. The president was enjoying a relaxing fishing trip near his home town in 1979 when his craft was attacked by a furious swamp rabbit which reportedly swam up to the boat hissing wildly. The press had a field day, with one paper bearing the headline President Attacked By Rabbit. Away from encounters with belligerent bunnies, Mr Carter’s willingness to address politically uncomfortable topics did not diminish with age. He recently said that he would be willing to travel to North Korea for peace talks on behalf of US President Donald Trump. He also famously mounted a ferocious and personal attack on Tony Blair over the Iraq war, weeks before the prime minister left office in June 2007. Mr Carter, who had already denounced George W Bush’s presidency as “the worst in history”, used an interview on BBC radio to condemn Mr Blair for his tight relations with Mr Bush, particularly concerning the Iraq War. Asked how he would characterise Mr Blair’s relationship with Mr Bush, Mr Carter replied: “Abominable. Loyal, blind, apparently subservient. “I think that the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world.” Mr Carter was also voluble over the Rhodesia crisis, which was about to end during his presidency. His support for Robert Mugabe at the time generated widespread criticism. He was said to have ignored the warnings of many prominent Zimbabweans, black and white, about what sort of leader Mugabe would be. This was seen by Mr Carter’s critics as “deserving a prominent place among the outrages of the Carter years”. Mr Carter has since said he and his administration had spent more effort and worry on Rhodesia than on the Middle East. He admitted he had supported two revolutionaries in Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, and with hindsight said later that Mugabe had been “a good leader gone bad”, having at first been “a very enlightened president”. One US commentator wrote: “History will not look kindly on those in the West who insisted on bringing the avowed Marxist Mugabe into the government. “In particular, the Jimmy Carter foreign policy... bears some responsibility for the fate of a small African country with scant connection to American national interests.” In recent years Mr Carter developed a reputation as an international peace negotiator. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his commitment to finding peaceful solutions to international conflicts, his work with human rights and democracy initiatives, and his promotion of economic and social programmes. Mr Carter was dispatched to North Korea in August 2008 to secure the release of US citizen Aijalon Mahli Gomes, who had been sentenced to eight years of hard labour after being found guilty of illegally entering North Korea. He successfully secured the release of Mr Gomes. In 2010 he returned to the White House to greet President Barack Obama and discuss international affairs amid rising tensions on the Korean peninsula. Proving politics runs in the family, in 2013 his grandson Jason, a state senator, announced his bid to become governor in Georgia, where his famous grandfather governed before becoming president. He eventually lost to incumbent Republican Nathan Deal. Fears that Mr Carter’s health was deteriorating were sparked in 2015 when he cut short an election observation visit in Guyana because he was “not feeling well”. It would have been Mr Carter’s 39th trip to personally observe an international election. Three months later, on August 12, he revealed he had cancer which had been diagnosed after he underwent surgery to remove a small mass in his liver. Mr Obama was among the well-wishers hoping for Mr Carter’s full recovery after it was confirmed the cancer had spread widely. Melanoma had been found in his brain and liver, and Mr Carter underwent immunotherapy and radiation therapy, before announcing in March the following year that he no longer needed any treatment. In 2017, Mr Carter was taken to hospital as a precaution, after he became dehydrated at a home-building project in Canada. He was admitted to hospital on multiple occasions in 2019 having had a series of falls, suffering a brain bleed and a broken pelvis, as well as a stint to be treated for a urinary tract infection. Mr Carter spent much of the coronavirus pandemic largely at his home in Georgia, and did not attend Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration in 2021, but extended his “best wishes”. Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, the closest adviser to Mr Carter during his term as US president, died in November 2023. She had been living with dementia and suffering many months of declining health. “Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” Mr Carter said in a statement following her death. “She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”
By REBECCA SANTANA WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump has promised to end birthright citizenship as soon as he gets into office to make good on campaign promises aiming to restrict immigration and redefining what it means to be American. But any efforts to halt the policy would face steep legal hurdles. Birthright citizenship means anyone born in the United States automatically becomes an American citizen. It’s been in place for decades and applies to children born to someone in the country illegally or in the U.S. on a tourist or student visa who plans to return to their home country. It’s not the practice of every country, and Trump and his supporters have argued that the system is being abused and that there should be tougher standards for becoming an American citizen. But others say this is a right enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, it would be extremely difficult to overturn and even if it’s possible, it’s a bad idea. Here’s a look at birthright citizenship, what Trump has said about it and the prospects for ending it: During an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Trump said he “absolutely” planned to halt birthright citizenship once in office. “We’re going to end that because it’s ridiculous,” he said. Trump and other opponents of birthright citizenship have argued that it creates an incentive for people to come to the U.S. illegally or take part in “birth tourism,” in which pregnant women enter the U.S. specifically to give birth so their children can have citizenship before returning to their home countries. “Simply crossing the border and having a child should not entitle anyone to citizenship,” said Eric Ruark, director of research for NumbersUSA, which argues for reducing immigration. The organization supports changes that would require at least one parent to be a permanent legal resident or a U.S. citizen for their children to automatically get citizenship. Others have argued that ending birthright citizenship would profoundly damage the country. “One of our big benefits is that people born here are citizens, are not an illegal underclass. There’s better assimilation and integration of immigrants and their children because of birthright citizenship,” said Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the pro-immigration Cato Institute. In 2019, the Migration Policy Institute estimated that 5.5 million children under age 18 lived with at least one parent in the country illegally in 2019, representing 7% of the U.S. child population. The vast majority of those children were U.S. citizens. The nonpartisan think tank said during Trump’s campaign for president in 2015 that the number of people in the country illegally would “balloon” if birthright citizenship were repealed, creating “a self-perpetuating class that would be excluded from social membership for generations.” In the aftermath of the Civil War, Congress ratified the 14th Amendment in July 1868. That amendment assured citizenship for all, including Black people. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” the 14th Amendment says. “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” But the 14th Amendment didn’t always translate to everyone being afforded birthright citizenship. For example, it wasn’t until 1924 that Congress finally granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S. A key case in the history of birthright citizenship came in 1898, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants, was a U.S. citizen because he was born in the states. The federal government had tried to deny him reentry into the county after a trip abroad on grounds he wasn’t a citizen under the Chinese Exclusion Act. But some have argued that the 1898 case clearly applied to children born of parents who are both legal immigrants to America but that it’s less clear whether it applies to children born to parents without legal status or, for example, who come for a short-term like a tourist visa. “That is the leading case on this. In fact, it’s the only case on this,” said Andrew Arthur, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports immigration restrictions. “It’s a lot more of an open legal question than most people think.” Some proponents of immigration restrictions have argued the words “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the 14th Amendment allows the U.S. to deny citizenship to babies born to those in the country illegally. Trump himself used that language in his 2023 announcement that he would aim to end birthright citizenship if reelected. Trump wasn’t clear in his Sunday interview how he aims to end birthright citizenship. Asked how he could get around the 14th Amendment with an executive action, Trump said: “Well, we’re going to have to get it changed. We’ll maybe have to go back to the people. But we have to end it.” Pressed further on whether he’d use an executive order, Trump said “if we can, through executive action.” He gave a lot more details in a 2023 post on his campaign website . In it, he said he would issue an executive order the first day of his presidency, making it clear that federal agencies “require that at least one parent be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident for their future children to become automatic U.S. citizens.” Related Articles National Politics | Trump has flip-flopped on abortion policy. His appointees may offer clues to what happens next National Politics | Honor after exoneration: Port Chicago sailors’ fight for justice isn’t over National Politics | In promising to shake up Washington, Trump is in a class of his own National Politics | Election Day has long passed. In some states, legislatures are working to undermine the results National Politics | Trump taps his attorney Alina Habba to serve as counselor to the president Trump wrote that the executive order would make clear that children of people in the U.S. illegally “should not be issued passports, Social Security numbers, or be eligible for certain taxpayer funded welfare benefits.” This would almost certainly end up in litigation. Nowrasteh from the Cato Institute said the law is clear that birthright citizenship can’t be ended by executive order but that Trump may be inclined to take a shot anyway through the courts. “I don’t take his statements very seriously. He has been saying things like this for almost a decade,” Nowrasteh said. “He didn’t do anything to further this agenda when he was president before. The law and judges are near uniformly opposed to his legal theory that the children of illegal immigrants born in the United States are not citizens.” Trump could steer Congress to pass a law to end birthright citizenship but would still face a legal challenge that it violates the Constitution. Associated Press reporter Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.
The Miami Hurricanes, who once appeared to be a near-lock for the College Football Playoff, are not playing for a national title. Instead, they will play in the Pop-Tarts Bowl in Orlando. That bowl berth against Iowa State is a let-down for fans with dreams of a sixth national title in their minds, as well as players hoping to compete for a championship. However, Miami’s trip to Orlando and the lead-up to it are still crucial periods for the Hurricanes for multiple reasons. First, it’s a chance for the program to achieve something it has not done in more than two decades: win 11 games. Although the 11th win won’t get them closer to a championship, it is a good sign of the program’s progress over Mario Cristobal’s tenure. It would also end UM’s five-game losing streak in bowls. “We’re not satisfied,” Cristobal said. “We want to win every single game. We won 10. We were close on the other two, but close isn’t good enough. We want progress. We’re hungry and driven to get better, and so that’s what our focus is on: to improving as a football program, to getting better, to moving into the postseason with an opportunity against a great football team like this and putting our best on the field.” People are also reading... There are signs the Hurricanes will show up at close to full strength for the bowl game. Running back Damien Martinez announced he was going to play, and star quarterback Cam Ward said in a video call posted on social media that he intends to play, as well. “We’re trying to win our first bowl game in 20 years,” Ward said in the video, mistaking the length of UM’s long bowl losing streak. “We’re going hard.” Playing in the bowl game also provides the opportunity for the Hurricanes to get in several practices between now and the game. That means Miami can develop its young players and prepare them for next season during both the practices and the bowl game itself. “It’s extremely valuable,” Cristobal said. “You really don’t have many opportunities throughout the course of the year — time is limited more and more each season with your student-athletes. I want to state this and be very clear: it’s very important, it’s ultra-important for the University of Miami to continue to develop and grow and progress by stressing the importance of offseason opportunities ... You learn a lot about your team and learn a lot about your people and your program when you head to the postseason.” Of course, there are potential negatives. Players can get hurt; Mark Fletcher Jr. suffered a foot injury in the Pinstripe Bowl last year that cost him all of spring practice. A poor performance can also potentially set the tone for next season, like how Florida State, fresh off a playoff snub last year, suffered a devastating loss against Georgia in the Orange Bowl and went on to a dismal 2-10 season this year. “This is the ending of ’24 and the beginning of ’25,” Cristobal said. “This is the last opportunity to be on the field and carry some momentum into the offseason. So it is, in essence, it is the most important game because it’s the next game. “There’s a lot of excitement in the form of opportunity for our guys. Our guys love to play football. The chance to play one more time with this special group — this is a special group of guys now. They’ve worked hard to really change the trajectory of the University of Miami, and they want to continue to elevate the status and the culture at the University of Miami. So certainly a ton to play for.” ____ Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox!
THE drums of war are beating. Vladimir Putin is threatening to incinerate all of us in a nuclear conflagration. In response, the feeble, cash-strapped European Union is struggling to raise an army after decades of feasting on an imaginary peace dividend. 11 Donald Trump wants to turn the world order on its head Credit: Getty 11 Ukraine’s war is now unwinnable for President Volodymyr Zelensky Credit: Getty 11 Even Mad Vlad Putin is not mad enough to go nuclear Credit: Reuters Alarm bells are sounding for the first time since the Cold War as Ukraine unleashes UK and US missiles deep inside Russia, raising the risk of pan-European conflict. Scary times. But are we really facing World War Three? To quote Dad’s Army’s Lance Corporal Jones: “Don’t panic!” Read More on World News EMPTY THREAT Ukraine vows to SHOOT DOWN Vlad’s new missile that he's used to threaten UK ROCKET BLAST Moment Brit pilot films Russian ROCKET soar past his plane en route to space At least, not yet. Still, frontline states such as Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland are taking the threat seriously. Peacenik Germany has finally woken up to the Russian menace and invited 800,000 Nato troops to carry out war games on its soil. In America, you can buy “affordable bunkers to survive the apocalypse now — fallout shelters that won’t break the bank” — at $140,000 a pop. Most read in The Sun CASE RULING McGregor sexually assaulted rape accuser in Dublin hotel, civil case jury rules LIGHTS OFF Scots city cancels annual Christmas festival amid amber weather warning TAN CAM RAID Scots Turkish barbers raided after 'sunbed spy cam' discovered in shop SNATCH PLOT Shocking moment man escapes being bundled into white van by thugs in kidnap bid Here in Britain, an online newspaper captures the mood with survival tips such as: “How to stop your skin melting” and “Why you should keep your mouth open so your eardrums don’t burst . . .” One misstep away from global conflict Nothing sells better than a horror story. Watch explosive moment 'British Storm Shadow missiles strike inside Russia' The truth is that the world is paying dearly for the absurd 76-day power gap between Donald Trump’s election as US President on November 5 and his inauguration on January 20. The vacuum is being filled by sabre-rattling as both sides in the Ukraine conflict strive to make irreversible gains before Trump enters the White House . The crisis has been stoked by doddery Joe Biden, who belatedly handed Ukraine the long-range missiles it might have previously used to end the war. Instead, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s attacks deep inside Russia have provoked the Kremlin into threatening nuclear retaliation. On Thursday, after hitting the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a nuke-capable hypersonic Oreshnik missile, Putin declared the UK and US could now be targets for Russia. We need to calm down. Even Mad Vlad is not crazy enough to nuke the West. And if he were, China wouldn’t let him. Moscow and Beijing may be joined at the hip in seeking to hobble the mighty American colossus. But Beijing dictator Xi Jinping intends to achieve this by stealth and coercion — not by letting his junior partner unleash Apocalypse Now. This is not to understate the unnervingly sinister risk to world peace. We have learned from two catastrophic world wars — and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis — that we are always just one hideous misstep away from global conflict. Amid this crisis, we find ourselves in the hands of the most unpredictable and erratic world leader of modern times. Donald Trump has stoked tensions by threatening to turn the world’s economic, diplomatic and military order on its head. 11 11 Beijing dictator Xi Jinping wants to KO the US by stealth and coercion Credit: AFP 11 Doddery Joe Biden took too long to OK the missiles to Ukraine Credit: Getty 11 Why is Sir Keir Starmer axing defence projects? Credit: PA He is ready to crack heads together in the Middle East, sink China’s exports and launch trade wars with Europe. But first up, Ukraine. The 47th President-elect is ready to walk away from a European conflict which he insists has absolutely nothing to do with the US. Yet while European Union leaders have dithered and wrung their hands, American taxpayers forked out £140BILLION in aid and arms to Ukraine. Enough is enough, says Trump. This might be a bluff by the world’s biggest bluffer. But only a fool would call it. Which explains why Kyiv leader Zelensky is grabbing every weapon he can lay hands on to beat off the Russian bear while he still has time. They include the long-range American ATACMS and, thanks to PM Keir Starmer , Britain’s lethal Storm Shadow cruise missiles , already deployed with devastating effect this week. And yet, admirable as this may be in defence of brave Ukraine, it merely prolongs an unwinnable war. Putin, himself a formidable negotiator, has raised the stakes by insisting foreign-made weapons used against Russia are grounds for nuclear retaliation . This leaves the EU dangerously exposed. Despite the overlapping membership of Nato, the EU’s 27 member states have become flabbily impotent. For half a century, taxpayers’ trillions have been lavished on social-welfare spending while mere pennies have been set aside for the military. Armies are depleted while naval and air defences are running on fumes. In the face of the biggest threat to peace since World War Two, Europe today stands effectively defenceless. During his first term of office, President Trump put a bomb under EU leaders, making them cough up more cash for military spending. But not enough. Germany, which once armed its troops with broomsticks instead of rifles, is the worst culprit. Despite its role as the EU’s economic dynamo, the Ukraine conflict has shown it was totally dependent on Russian oil and gas. Now, with the heat on, Berlin is offering to host 800,000 Nato troops on its soil to defend the Fatherland if Russia invades Finland or the Baltic states. Under Article 51 of the Nato alliance, an attack on any of its 32 member nations is deemed an attack on all. Formerly pacifist regimes now understand the only way to preserve peace is to prepare for war. In 1960s, we practised diving under the table Late in the day, Europe’s liberal elites in countries such as Sweden and Holland have ordered industrial and agricultural interests to stockpile food, fuel and vital equipment including diesel generators. Which underscores the madness of Keir Starmer’s declaration of war on Britain’s hard-pressed farmers. We may soon need every acre to plant crops and dig for victory. Nor can Labour now justify its decision to mothball our coal, gas and oil resources at a time of soaring energy prices in pursuit of Ed Miliband’s insane Net Zero deadline. Voters will also ask why this Government is scrapping five Royal Navy warships, dozens of military helicopters and drones and perhaps even our two brand-new aircraft carriers. If our plodding PM has learned anything from his never-ending overseas meetings with world leaders, it is surely that socialism is no substitute for a proper defence policy. We have been through similar crises in the past, not least the decades-long Cold War when the Kremlin really did pose a nuclear threat to our survival. In the 1960s we lived with the possibility of imminent attack, heralded only by a “four-minute warning” on old war-time sirens. 11 Government advice booklets from the 1970s Credit: Alamy 11 A nuclear device known as The Badger, a 2,000-kiloton bomb, tiny by today’s standards, detonated at the US Defense Dept’s Nevada test site in 1953 Credit: Alamy 11 Zelensky is grabbing every weapon he can lay his hands on to beat off the Russian bear while he still has time including the long-range American ATACMS Credit: Alamy 11 Britain’s lethal Storm Shadow cruise missiles have already been deployed with devastating effect this week We practised diving under the dining room table, or standing in doorways which are more likely to survive a blast. The best-selling book On The Beach portrayed Aussies awaiting their “last days on Earth” after a nuclear war in the northern hemisphere. Peter Sellers made us laugh nervously in Dr Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb. Women protesting against Polaris missiles camped out for years at RAF Greenham Common, while “Red Ken” Livingstone fatuously declared London a “nuclear-free zone”. By the 1980s, East-West negotiations reached the basis for an uneasy truce. It was literally MAD — “Mutually Assured Destruction”. Press the red button and we all die. In my early days as The Sun’s Political Editor, I accompanied PM Margaret Thatcher to Moscow for various talks with Soviet leaders. I had a ringside seat at one of the most significant disarmament summits between Russia’s Mikhail Gorbachev and American President Ronald Reagan . The superpower leaders agreed on huge, if symbolic, missile cuts, captured on Page One of The Sun by an image of nukes launched harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean. “We reaffirmed our solemn conviction that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” said the two world leaders in 1988. The Berlin Wall fell one year later, marking the so-called End Of History. But nuclear weapons cannot be disinvented. Mutually Assured Destruction remains the only bulwark against Armageddon. Luckily, Donald Trump is a master of The Art Of The Deal. Putin is desperate to be treated with respect on the world stage, not as a global pariah. For all his bombast, he knows his country has suffered disastrous losses in blood and treasure from his blundering assault on Ukraine. Tough call for so-called European superstate Sanctions have blocked Russia’s stagnant economy from Western advances in technology. A permanent ceasefire is negotiable, but only if Putin is not humiliated. There could be deals which revive Russia’s lucrative trade in oil and gas. Putin will want to be re-admitted to the top table of the world’s most powerful economies, making the G7 into the G8 once again. Brave Ukraine cannot fight on without allied support. Nor should it be abandoned to exist in a “frozen war”, perpetually intimidated by Russia. Which is where the European Union must step in. Ukraine is now Europe’s responsibility, not America’s. The EU’s member states must find the resources to guard their own borders. They can rely on Nato — which includes the US and UK — but only if they raise defence spending by billions. This is a tough call for the so-called European superstate, which has spent the past five decades effectively disarming. Read more on the Scottish Sun COMIC'S CASTLE Still Game star takes £150,000 hit to offload luxury £4m Scots castle HITTING THE HIGH NOTES Much-loved pub named best music bar in Scotland A failure of will at this crucial point would be disastrous. If Putin digs his heels in on Ukraine, we might yet find ourselves buying “affordable bunkers to survive the apocalypse”.For over a month now, my mother has been pestering me about her missing passport. It was in her closet, she said, and suddenly it was gone. It was expired, and renewing would be easier if she had the old one. She had no immediate travel plans, just a vague desire to visit Ethiopia, the country where she was born and raised, at some point in the future. As we often do with our elders, I gently brushed off her insistent requests for help. She lives in Maryland; I live in New York. It hardly felt urgent. She misplaces things all the time. It would turn up, I was sure. When I woke up the morning after Donald Trump had been swept back to the presidency by a slim but decisive margin, I was seized by a sudden, cold panic with the thought, "Where is Mom's passport?" What if Trump's administration made good on its deportation promises and she suddenly needed to prove that she is, indeed, a naturalised US citizen? Did my frail, 73-year-old mother have her papers in order should the knock come on her door? This feeling caught me by surprise, much more so than Mr Trump's victory, which, after all, was a possibility. I am not given to panic. I think catastrophic thinking is almost always overblown. Panic and alarm: These are feelings that a lifetime of observing the world from a sanguine, journalistic remove, always taking the long view, had taught me to extinguish the moment they flared. What good can come from such strong emotion? After all, we've been here before. Mr Trump was president once before, and even though he managed to bungle a pandemic, most of us survived. He was never that popular with voters, but even an uninspiring candidate like Joe Biden managed to defeat him in 2020. Yet, as I've tried to summon that sanguine self over the past two weeks, she has stubbornly refused to show up. I have a sense that many other people are feeling similarly abandoned by their more resilient selves, instead finding a new, excruciating sense of vulnerability. The sensation has only deepened as Mr Trump's cabinet announcements have rolled out and his cruel policy plans for grotesque campaigns of deportation, vengeful prosecution and heedless budget slashing come into view. Despite myself, I am panicking. It is hard not to ask what clues I might have missed along the way. For instance, why hadn't I paid more attention to what my mother's fixation on finding her passport might have told me? She was asking about it in part because she was considering returning to Ethiopia permanently in search of a lower cost of living. Like a lot of Americans, she has been very worried about money. She lives on the Social Security and veteran's benefits my father earned. Groceries are expensive, even for an older woman living alone who doesn't have much of an appetite. The electricity bill for her tiny apartment, her cable TV and internet: These things seem, as a portion of her meagre income, obscenely expensive, never mind the escalating costs of medication. Another blow came a couple of months ago when the giant corporation that owns the apartment complex where she lives hiked her rent by nearly 10%. When I saw the amount, I felt a wave of nausea. I assured her that, of course, my brothers and I would help, but how would a person who did not have an affluent child with no children of her own manage such a sudden, sharp hike in the cost of something as essential as shelter? And in any case, she hated the idea of being a burden on her children. Looking now at her situation, indeed around my neighbourhood and city, our country, this world, I can see that we are clearly on the wrong track. Thinking about this election has felt a bit like staring into the sun. The blaze blinds rather than illuminates. Most especially at times of confusion and overwhelm, I have found it useful to turn towards similar but more distant stars for understanding. It is useful to ask: Where have I seen this particular shade of light? When have I felt the scorch of this particular form of heat? My mind instantly went to the first time I became acutely acquainted with my own vulnerability, almost 20 years ago. I was 29 and had just started a job as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times in West Africa. Many of my friends in New York were envious because I was moving overseas right after George W Bush had been reelected, this time winning both the popular vote and the Electoral College, despite the moral atrocity of the Iraq War and so much else. But all that hardly crossed my mind. I was thrilled to start my dream job. I was so insulated from worry by my youthful cloak of invincibility that I brushed aside strange things that were happening with my body. Usually, I had a big appetite, but somehow, I was never hungry. Despite this, my trousers kept getting snugger even as my watch band got looser. A sharp, jangling pain rattled in my belly when driving across potholed streets. One day at the beach, a woman congratulated me on my pregnancy. I was not pregnant, but it was undeniable that I looked as if I was. Shaken from my complacency, I went to the doctor. Within a couple of days, I was on a plane headed back to New York, where I would be diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. It was a disease that typically struck much older women, and I had no family history to explain its early arrival. It was, my oncologist assured me, just dumb luck. Six months later, after surgery and chemotherapy, I returned to my dream job. But I had been unmistakably altered by the experience. Once, I feared almost nothing. Not in a reckless way, but through the cool, rational assessment of odds. I had once been able to say, when boarding rickety commercial aeroplanes in impoverished countries, what are the odds of this plane crashing? Travelling by road, I knew, was, statistically speaking, much more dangerous. Cancer demolished this equanimity. If that random, extremely unlikely diagnosis could happen to me, anything could. For a time, this fear was all-consuming and paralysing. Eventually, I learned to integrate this new uncertainty into my risk calculus and got on with my life and work. What that experience taught me is that none of us know the direction or velocity of our vulnerability. It is, mercifully, unimaginable to us. The best-case scenario for the luckiest among us is a gentle drift into frailty and old age. We will all die, one way or another, and so will everyone we love. Thankfully, I have remained cancer-free. I was both wildly unlucky and incredibly lucky at the same time. Mr Trump's win feels like a diagnosis, though Americans disagree profoundly on whether he is the disease, symptom or cure. Anyone who has faced mysterious symptoms knows that diagnosis brings its own bleak satisfactions, even or especially if the news is very bad. Cancer, with apologies to Susan Sontag, is an irresistible metaphor for our current moment. If 2016 felt like a fluke, a bolt of lightning akin to a freak accident, this feels systemic. What is cancer, after all, but something mysterious and unconstrained that our own body builds within itself? America is about to undergo a radical course of treatment. My mother hoped Kamala Harris' promises to take on corporate landlords, to lower prescription drug prices and protect Medicare and Social Security would help her live a better life. Ultimately, what appears to be at best a very narrow majority of Americans decided to vote for Mr Trump's hard medicine. nyt Lydia Polgreen is an Opinion columnist and a co-host of the 'Matter of Opinion' podcast for The Times.
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Buchanan scores 28 off the bench, Boise State downs South Dakota State 83-82
A cross-section of Ireland’s historical buildings and the materials that went into making themFormer President Jimmy Carter , the longest-living U.S. president at 100 years old, passed away on Sunday, December 29 . The Carter Center confirmed he died in Plains, Georgia, surrounded by his family. He had laid his wife, Rosalynn Carter , to rest on November 28, 2023. Rosalyn’s memorial service came nine months after it was announced that the former president would receive hospice care in February. Jimmy “decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention” after a series of short hospital stays, according to a statement from The Carter Center . Rosalyn’s passing was announced shortly after she began hospice care herself earlier in November, following a dementia diagnosis . Following her death, the former president paid tribute to her in a statement shared by the Carter Center. “Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” he said. “She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.” The former Georgia senator had an incredible career as a humanitarian following his four years in the White House from 1977 to 1981. He became synonymous with Habitat for Humanity and worked tirelessly as an ambassador to impoverished countries, earning himself the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. “When I was president of the most powerful and influential nation on earth, I had more total influence over peace and progress and things like that,” Jimmy said in a 2017 interview with Oprah Winfrey . “But the last 35 years since I’ve left the White House has been the most challenging and interesting and adventurous and unpredictable and gratifying times of my life. ... And the things that I tried and didn’t quite accomplish because of change in circumstances and so forth. But, I did the best I could. As my vice president said, ‘We told the truth, we obeyed the law and we kept the peace.'” Along with his incredible career, Carter had an extremely successful personal life. He married his childhood sweetheart, Rosalyn Smith, on July 7, 1946 and they welcomed four wonderful children. In a 2015 interview with CNN , the former politician said his wife and children are “the foundation for my entire enjoyment of life.” He added, “We have a big family now, we have 22 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, 38 of us in all. So, we try to hold our family together and just enjoy the family life.” Learn more about Carter’s kids, below. Jack Carter The Carter’s eldest child, son Jack Carter , was born on July 3, 1947 at Portsmouth, Virginia during his father’s naval service, according to The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library . After attending Georgia Tech, Emory University, and Georgia Southwestern, Jack joined the Navy. He returned to Georgia in 1971, where he married Judy Langford , and they had two children: Jason James born August 7, 1975 and Sarah Rosemary born on December 19, 1978. Jack then earned a degree in nuclear physics at Georgia Tech and a law degree at the University of Georgia. However, he entered the political arena in 2006, when he ran as the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Nevada before losing to the Republican incumbent. Jack remarried in 1992, and his second wife, Elizabeth Brasfield , had two children from a previous relationship: John Chuldenko and Sarah Reynold , per Country Living . James ‘Chip’ Carter Born April 12, 1950, in Honolulu, James “Chip” Carter is the second child of Jimmy and Roselyn. He is an attorney and served as a state senator in Georgia from 1995 to 1999. On June 23, 1973, Chip married Caron Griffin , whom he had met while working on his father’s campaign for Georgia governor, per People . They welcomed a son named James Earl Carter IV on Feb. 25, 1977. After Chip and Caron split in 1979, Chip married Ginger Hodges and had a daughter named Margaret Alicia Carter with her on Sept. 23, 1987. However, that marriage ended in divorce in 2001, and Chip would go on to marry his third wife, Becky Payne . Following his mother’s death, Chip released his own statement, honoring the former first lady. “Her life of service and compassion was an example for all Americans. She will be sorely missed not only by our family but by the many people who have better mental health care and access to resources for caregiving today,” he said. Chip also confirmed his father’s death on Dec. 29 in a statement, “My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love. My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.” Donnel ‘Jeff’ Carter Donnel “Jeff” Carter was born on Aug. 18, 1952, in New London, Connecticut. He graduated from George Washington University in 1978 with a geography degree and a specialty “in computer cartography,” per Time . Jeff and his former professor co-founded the company Computer Mapping Consultants the same year of his graduation. He and his wife, Annette Jene Davis , welcomed three sons together: Joshua, Jeremy, and James . Sadly, Jeremy passed away at the age of 28 in 2015. He was found unresponsive after taking a nap at his home and later died in a hospital, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution . Annette died on Sept. 19, 2021, at age 68. Amy Lynn Carter The youngest child and only daughter of Jimmy and Rosalynn, Amy Carter , arrived on Oct. 19, 1967. She was only 10 years old when her family moved into the White House. She became known for her political activism during her 20s. Amy then went on to get her bachelor’s degree from the Memphis College of Art in 1991. Four years later, Amy illustrated her father’s children’s book, The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer . She would go on to get her master’s in art history from Tulane University in 1996. That same year, Amy married computer consultant James Wentzel and the couple welcomed son Hugo in July 1999.
