Shares of industrial and transportation companies ticked down as traders digested the implications of strong jobs data. U.S. employers added 227,000 workers to payrolls in November, significantly more than the 214,000 tally anticipated by economists. German industrial production fell again in October as the sector continued to struggle, with swathes of layoffs and potential trade tariffs threatening to compound the problem. Investors balked somewhat at the strong data as it could The European Union struck a preliminary deal with a group of South American countries to cut tariffs and other trade barriers, bucking a global backlash against free trade. The political deal between the EU and the four countries that founded the Mercosur customs union -- Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay -- would become the EU's largest free-trade agreement if it's ratified, The Wall Street Journal reported. Write to Rob Curran at rob.curran@dowjones.comMastering WP SEO to Boost Your eCommerce Business’s Visibility
PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Newly married and sworn as a Naval officer, Jimmy Carter left his tiny hometown in 1946 hoping to climb the ranks and see the world. Less than a decade later, the death of his father and namesake, a merchant farmer and local politician who went by “Mr. Earl,” prompted the submariner and his wife, Rosalynn, to return to the rural life of Plains, Georgia, they thought they’d escaped. The lieutenant never would be an admiral. Instead, he became commander in chief. Years after his presidency ended in humbling defeat, he would add a Nobel Peace Prize, awarded not for his White House accomplishments but “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” The life of James Earl Carter Jr., the 39th and longest-lived U.S. president, ended Sunday at the age of 100 where it began: Plains, the town of 600 that fueled his political rise, welcomed him after his fall and sustained him during 40 years of service that redefined what it means to be a former president. With the stubborn confidence of an engineer and an optimism rooted in his Baptist faith, Carter described his motivations in politics and beyond in the same way: an almost missionary zeal to solve problems and improve lives. Carter was raised amid racism, abject poverty and hard rural living — realities that shaped both his deliberate politics and emphasis on human rights. “He always felt a responsibility to help people,” said Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend of Carter’s in Plains. “And when he couldn’t make change wherever he was, he decided he had to go higher.” Defying expectations Carter’s path, a mix of happenstance and calculation , pitted moral imperatives against political pragmatism; and it defied typical labels of American politics, especially caricatures of one-term presidents as failures. “We shouldn’t judge presidents by how popular they are in their day. That’s a very narrow way of assessing them,” Carter biographer Jonathan Alter told the Associated Press. “We should judge them by how they changed the country and the world for the better. On that score, Jimmy Carter is not in the first rank of American presidents, but he stands up quite well.” Later in life, Carter conceded that many Americans, even those too young to remember his tenure, judged him ineffective for failing to contain inflation or interest rates, end the energy crisis or quickly bring home American hostages in Iran. He gained admirers instead for his work at The Carter Center — advocating globally for public health, human rights and democracy since 1982 — and the decades he and Rosalynn wore hardhats and swung hammers with Habitat for Humanity. Yet the common view that he was better after the Oval Office than in it annoyed Carter, and his allies relished him living long enough to see historians reassess his presidency. “He doesn’t quite fit in today’s terms” of a left-right, red-blue scoreboard, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the former president multiple times during his own White House bid. At various points in his political career, Carter labeled himself “progressive” or “conservative” — sometimes both at once. His most ambitious health care bill failed — perhaps one of his biggest legislative disappointments — because it didn’t go far enough to suit liberals. Republicans, especially after his 1980 defeat, cast him as a left-wing cartoon. It would be easiest to classify Carter as a centrist, Buttigieg said, “but there’s also something radical about the depth of his commitment to looking after those who are left out of society and out of the economy.” ‘Country come to town’ Indeed, Carter’s legacy is stitched with complexities, contradictions and evolutions — personal and political. The self-styled peacemaker was a war-trained Naval Academy graduate who promised Democratic challenger Ted Kennedy that he’d “kick his ass.” But he campaigned with a call to treat everyone with “respect and compassion and with love.” Carter vowed to restore America’s virtue after the shame of Vietnam and Watergate, and his technocratic, good-government approach didn’t suit Republicans who tagged government itself as the problem. It also sometimes put Carter at odds with fellow Democrats. The result still was a notable legislative record, with wins on the environment, education, and mental health care. He dramatically expanded federally protected lands, began deregulating air travel, railroads and trucking, and he put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. As a fiscal hawk, Carter added a relative pittance to the national debt, unlike successors from both parties. Carter nonetheless struggled to make his achievements resonate with the electorate he charmed in 1976. Quoting Bob Dylan and grinning enthusiastically, he had promised voters he would “never tell a lie.” Once in Washington, though, he led like a joyless engineer, insisting his ideas would become reality and he’d be rewarded politically if only he could convince enough people with facts and logic. This served him well at Camp David, where he brokered peace between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Epypt’s Anwar Sadat, an experience that later sparked the idea of The Carter Center in Atlanta. Carter’s tenacity helped the center grow to a global force that monitored elections across five continents, enabled his freelance diplomacy and sent public health experts across the developing world. The center’s wins were personal for Carter, who hoped to outlive the last Guinea worm parasite, and nearly did. As president, though, the approach fell short when he urged consumers beleaguered by energy costs to turn down their thermostats. Or when he tried to be the nation’s cheerleader, beseeching Americans to overcome a collective “crisis of confidence.” Republican Ronald Reagan exploited Carter’s lecturing tone with a belittling quip in their lone 1980 debate. “There you go again,” the former Hollywood actor said in response to a wonky answer from the sitting president. “The Great Communicator” outpaced Carter in all but six states. Carter later suggested he “tried to do too much, too soon” and mused that he was incompatible with Washington culture: media figures, lobbyists and Georgetown social elites who looked down on the Georgians and their inner circle as “country come to town.” A ‘leader of conscience’ on race and class Carter carefully navigated divides on race and class on his way to the Oval Office. Born Oct. 1, 1924 , Carter was raised in the mostly Black community of Archery, just outside Plains, by a progressive mother and white supremacist father. Their home had no running water or electricity but the future president still grew up with the relative advantages of a locally prominent, land-owning family in a system of Jim Crow segregation. He wrote of President Franklin Roosevelt’s towering presence and his family’s Democratic Party roots, but his father soured on FDR, and Jimmy Carter never campaigned or governed as a New Deal liberal. He offered himself as a small-town peanut farmer with an understated style, carrying his own luggage, bunking with supporters during his first presidential campaign and always using his nickname. And he began his political career in a whites-only Democratic Party. As private citizens, he and Rosalynn supported integration as early as the 1950s and believed it inevitable. Carter refused to join the White Citizens Council in Plains and spoke out in his Baptist church against denying Black people access to worship services. “This is not my house; this is not your house,” he said in a churchwide meeting, reminding fellow parishioners their sanctuary belonged to God. Yet as the appointed chairman of Sumter County schools he never pushed to desegregate, thinking it impractical after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board decision. And while presidential candidate Carter would hail the 1965 Voting Rights Act, signed by fellow Democrat Lyndon Johnson when Carter was a state senator, there is no record of Carter publicly supporting it at the time. Carter overcame a ballot-stuffing opponent to win his legislative seat, then lost the 1966 governor’s race to an arch-segregationist. He won four years later by avoiding explicit mentions of race and campaigning to the right of his rival, who he mocked as “Cufflinks Carl” — the insult of an ascendant politician who never saw himself as part the establishment. Carter’s rural and small-town coalition in 1970 would match any victorious Republican electoral map in 2024. Once elected, though, Carter shocked his white conservative supporters — and landed on the cover of Time magazine — by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” Before making the jump to Washington, Carter befriended the family of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whom he’d never sought out as he eyed the governor’s office. Carter lamented his foot-dragging on school integration as a “mistake.” But he also met, conspicuously, with Alabama’s segregationist Gov. George Wallace to accept his primary rival’s endorsement ahead of the 1976 Democratic convention. “He very shrewdly took advantage of his own Southerness,” said Amber Roessner, a University of Tennessee professor and expert on Carter’s campaigns. A coalition of Black voters and white moderate Democrats ultimately made Carter the last Democratic presidential nominee to sweep the Deep South. Then, just as he did in Georgia, he used his power in office to appoint more non-whites than all his predecessors had, combined. He once acknowledged “the secret shame” of white Americans who didn’t fight segregation. But he also told Alter that doing more would have sacrificed his political viability – and thus everything he accomplished in office and after. King’s daughter, Bernice King, described Carter as wisely “strategic” in winning higher offices to enact change. “He was a leader of conscience,” she said in an interview. Rosalynn was Carter’s closest advisor Rosalynn Carter, who died on Nov. 19 at the age of 96, was identified by both husband and wife as the “more political” of the pair; she sat in on Cabinet meetings and urged him to postpone certain priorities, like pressing the Senate to relinquish control of the Panama Canal. “Let that go until the second term,” she would sometimes say. The president, recalled her former aide Kathy Cade, retorted that he was “going to do what’s right” even if “it might cut short the time I have.” Rosalynn held firm, Cade said: “She’d remind him you have to win to govern.” Carter also was the first president to appoint multiple women as Cabinet officers. Yet by his own telling, his career sprouted from chauvinism in the Carters’ early marriage: He did not consult Rosalynn when deciding to move back to Plains in 1953 or before launching his state Senate bid a decade later. Many years later, he called it “inconceivable” that he didn’t confer with the woman he described as his “full partner,” at home, in government and at The Carter Center. “We developed a partnership when we were working in the farm supply business, and it continued when Jimmy got involved in politics,” Rosalynn Carter told AP in 2021. So deep was their trust that when Carter remained tethered to the White House in 1980 as 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, it was Rosalynn who campaigned on her husband’s behalf. “I just loved it,” she said, despite the bitterness of defeat. Reevaluating his legacy Fair or not, the label of a disastrous presidency had leading Democrats keep their distance, at least publicly, for many years, but Carter managed to remain relevant, writing books and weighing in on societal challenges. He lamented widening wealth gaps and the influence of money in politics. He voted for democratic socialist Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and later declared that America had devolved from fully functioning democracy to “oligarchy.” Yet looking ahead to 2020, with Sanders running again, Carter warned Democrats not to “move to a very liberal program,” lest they help re-elect President Donald Trump. Carter scolded the Republican for his serial lies and threats to democracy, and chided the U.S. establishment for misunderstanding Trump’s populist appeal. He delighted in yearly convocations with Emory University freshmen, often asking them to guess how much he’d raised in his two general election campaigns. “Zero,” he’d gesture with a smile, explaining the public financing system candidates now avoid so they can raise billions. Carter still remained quite practical in partnering with wealthy corporations and foundations to advance Carter Center programs. Carter recognized that economic woes and the Iran crisis doomed his presidency, but offered no apologies for appointing Paul Volcker as the Federal Reserve chairman whose interest rate hikes would not curb inflation until Reagan’s presidency. He was proud of getting all the hostages home without starting a shooting war, even though Tehran would not free them until Reagan’s Inauguration Day. “Carter didn’t look at it” as a failure, Alter emphasized. “He said, ‘They came home safely.’ And that’s what he wanted.” Well into their 90s, the Carters greeted visitors at Plains’ Maranatha Baptist Church, where he taught Sunday School and where he will have his last funeral before being buried on family property alongside Rosalynn . Carter, who made the congregation’s collection plates in his woodworking shop, still garnered headlines there, calling for women’s rights within religious institutions, many of which, he said, “subjugate” women in church and society. Carter was not one to dwell on regrets. “I am at peace with the accomplishments, regret the unrealized goals and utilize my former political position to enhance everything we do,” he wrote around his 90th birthday. Pilgrimages to Plains The politician who had supposedly hated Washington politics also enjoyed hosting Democratic presidential contenders as public pilgrimages to Plains became advantageous again. Carter sat with Buttigieg for the final time March 1, 2020, hours before the Indiana mayor ended his campaign and endorsed eventual winner Joe Biden. “He asked me how I thought the campaign was going,” Buttigieg said, recalling that Carter flashed his signature grin and nodded along as the young candidate, born a year after Carter left office, “put the best face” on the walloping he endured the day before in South Carolina. Never breaking his smile, the 95-year-old host fired back, “I think you ought to drop out.” “So matter of fact,” Buttigieg said with a laugh. “It was somehow encouraging.” Carter had lived enough, won plenty and lost enough to take the long view. “He talked a lot about coming from nowhere,” Buttigieg said, not just to attain the presidency but to leverage “all of the instruments you have in life” and “make the world more peaceful.” In his farewell address as president, Carter said as much to the country that had embraced and rejected him. “The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language,” he declared. “Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity and who suffer for the sake of justice — they are the patriots of this cause.” Carter pledged to remain engaged with and for them as he returned “home to the South where I was born and raised,” home to Plains, where that young lieutenant had indeed become “a fellow citizen of the world.” —- Bill Barrow, based in Atlanta, has covered national politics including multiple presidential campaigns for the AP since 2012.
JuJu Watkins started counting wins weeks before her Southern California team takes the court for the start of college basketball season. Watkins signed an endorsement deal, announced Tuesday, with Gatorade, the latest global NIL agreement for the point guard that puts her on a world-class athlete roster headlined by Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers. USC advanced to the Elite Eight behind Watkins' phenomenal freshman season in 2023-24. She set the NCAA women's basketball record for points by a freshman with 920. Rich Paul of Klutch Sports, the prominent agency fronting for LeBron James, represents Watkins. Days after her endorsement deal with Nike was extended, Watkins served up official word she's joining the Gatorade brand. "Gatorade has been a part of my life for years, especially after being named the Gatorade National Girls Basketball Player of the Year in 2023, so I'm excited to officially be a member of the family," Watkins said in a statement. "Gatorade partners with the best athletes in the world, so joining this roster is a huge milestone for me as I look towards the future." Bueckers, a redshirt senior, opted to return to UConn for the upcoming season after being eliminated from the NCAA Tournament by Clark and Iowa in the Final Four. She has NIL agreements with Bose, Crocs, Gatorade, Nike, U.S. Army, Dunkin' Donuts, Nerf and StockX. The week of massive deals for Watkins adds to a burgeoning NIL portfolio and underscores her position as the heir to the women's college basketball throne that Clark and Angel Reese (LSU) occupied in recent seasons. Her current paid agreements and endorsements also include Dove, NerdWallet, Wells Fargo, Poppi and Celsius. "Our Gatorade roster is the most elite in sport. We're proud to have signed many of our long-term athlete partners early in their careers," added Jeff Kearney, Gatorade's global head of sports marketing. "Having a dynamic young talent like JuJu join the family is an exciting opportunity to build on the incredible impact she's already made and leverage our combined platforms to continue moving the game forward." Watkins was the second-leading scorer in the NCAA last season, trailing only Clark. For the sake of production comparison, Watkins is on pace to score 3,680 points if she plays four seasons. Clark became the all-time leading scorer in NCAA Division I women's basketball with 3,951 season for the Hawkeyes. Clark took the mark from Kelsey Plum, who had 3,527 points at Washington. --Field Level MediaSee some of the most expensive celebrity divorce of all time
A project which uses birdsong as a key to unlocking the secrets of wildlife has been launched in a collaboration between the UK Agri-Tech Centre and Chirrup.ai. Chirrup.ai launched the technology to help make nature monitoring an affordable solution for measuring and managing biodiversity. The project, ‘ChirrupNano’, with funding from Innovate UK, uses birdsong to monitor wildlife previously unseen in nature reserves and back garden bird counts. Hayley Gerry, project manager at the UK Agri-Tech Centre, said: “The expanse of knowledge we can gain about biodiversity in an area using the bioacoustics of bird song is extremely impressive. “To enable sustainable farming, we need to encourage multi-species habitats to enrich the areas, which in turn makes the farming of livestock and arable products sustainable. “In order to do this we need to be able to measure the baseline of the current situation, and that is where this project comes in.” The project will be put to the test in the spring of 2025 across the UK.Swaths of Pennsylvania and many other states are honeycombed with old, unstable mines that can cause the earth to suddenly give way — a phenomenon known as “ ” that poses a threat to people and property. That’s what searchers in Westmoreland County, just southeast of Pittsburgh, fear led to the disappearance of . Pollard and a young granddaughter were looking for a lost cat when she went missing Monday evening. At about the same time, appeared roughly 20 feet (6 meters) from where she had parked her car, in an area above an old coal mine. The granddaughter was found safe inside the car hours later, while the difficult and potentially dangerous search for Pollard continues. Mine subsidence has caused billions of dollars in damage in areas of the U.S. where mining once took place. In Pennsylvania alone, coal was mined in nearly half of the state’s 67 counties and there are at least 5,000 abandoned underground mines, leaving behind hazards that officials say can arise at any time. The Marguerite Mine that authorities believe resulted in the sinkhole was last operated in 1952 by the H.C. Frick Coke Co., according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. The coal seam in the area is about 20 feet (6 meters) beneath the surface. The state Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation will examine the scene when the search concludes to see if the sinkhole was indeed caused by mine subsidence, spokesperson Neil Shader said. There are as many as 500,000 abandoned mines in the U.S. — far outnumbering those that are still active, according to the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. In many cases their owners simply walked away from coal or precious metals mines when they became uneconomical to operate and declared bankruptcy, leaving behind safety hazards and costly that public agencies must handle. Old mines , with 381 people killed and 152 injured at abandoned mine sites nationwide between 2000 and 2013, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Victims can fall into hidden shafts, get lost in underground tunnels or perish from poisonous gases present in many old coal mines. Mine shafts can extend hundreds of feet beneath the surface and often are unmarked. State and federal agencies have sealed off many old mines. But more are discovered every year and officials have yet to conduct basic risk analyses on most of the abandoned mines on federal land. Besides the safety hazards, millions of gallons of water loaded with arsenic, lead and other toxic metals flows daily from contaminated mine sites without being treated.
Subscribe to our newsletter Privacy Policy Success! Your account was created and you’re signed in. Please visit My Account to verify and manage your account. An account was already registered with this email. Please check your inbox for an authentication link. Support Independent Arts Journalism As an independent publication, we rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. If you value our coverage and want to support more of it, consider becoming a member today . Already a member? Sign in here. We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. If you value our coverage and want to support more of it, please join us as a member . Cameroonian curator Koyo Kouoh will be the first African woman to oversee the Venice Biennale for its 61st edition in 2026, the organization announced yesterday, December 3. Since May 2019, Kouoh has served as the executive director and chief curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town, South Africa, one of the continent’s largest contemporary art museums. During her tenure, she has organized solo shows centering on African and African diasporic artists like Otobong Nkanga, Mary Evans, and Tracey Rose. Prior to this role, she was the founding artistic director of RAW Material Company , an artist residency, exhibition space, and experimental study academy in Dakar, since 2008. In addition, she played a significant role in the development of the London and New York-based 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair when it initially launched in 2013, leading its curation for eight editions in a row. She was also the curator of the 37th EVA International, Ireland’s biennial of contemporary art, in 2016; titled Still (the) Barbarians , the exhibition centered on post-colonial legacies and the enduring impact of colonialism. Beyond her curatorial work, Kouoh has authored several books of art criticism and history centered on pan-African and Black art, including Word! Word? Word!: Issa Samb and the Undecipherable Form (2013) and When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting (2022), which accompanied an eponymous show she curated at Zeitz MOCAA. Get the latest art news, reviews and opinions from Hyperallergic. Daily Weekly Opportunities In a statement, Kouoh said it was a “once-in-a-lifetime honor and privilege” to lead the next Venice Biennale. “Artists are the visionaries and social scientists who allow us to reflect and project in ways afforded only to this line of work,” she added. Established in 1895, the Venice Biennale is the world’s longest-running contemporary art show. Its attendance peaked in 2022 when the festival drew over 800,000 visitors , and this year’s edition, curated by Brazilian museum director Adriano Pedrosa, saw another strong turnout of nearly 700,000 visitors . But in its roughly 130-year history, the Biennale has only had one other African-born artistic director: the late Nigerian curator Okwui Enwezor, who led the event in 2015. “The appointment of Koyo Kouoh as the director of the Visual Arts Sector is the acknowledgment of a broad horizon of vision at the dawn of a day profuse with new words and eyes,” the Biennale’s President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco said. We hope you enjoyed this article! Before you keep reading, please consider supporting Hyperallergic ’s journalism during a time when independent, critical reporting is increasingly scarce. Unlike many in the art world, we are not beholden to large corporations or billionaires. Our journalism is funded by readers like you , ensuring integrity and independence in our coverage. We strive to offer trustworthy perspectives on everything from art history to contemporary art. We spotlight artist-led social movements, uncover overlooked stories, and challenge established norms to make art more inclusive and accessible. With your support, we can continue to provide global coverage without the elitism often found in art journalism. If you can, please join us as a member today . Millions rely on Hyperallergic for free, reliable information. By becoming a member, you help keep our journalism free, independent, and accessible to all. Thank you for reading. Share Copied to clipboard Mail Bluesky Threads LinkedIn FacebookAuthored by Philip Wegmann via RealClearPolitics , Sen. Joni Ernst has not made up her mind about Pete Hegseth’s nomination to be secretary of defense, but despite the suggestion of some of her colleagues, the Iowa Republican told RealClearPolitics during a Thursday interview that she is not pursuing that role for herself. “I am not seeking to be secretary of defense,” Ernst said after some on the left suggested she would make a better candidate than Hegseth and after critics on the right accused her of trying to sink his nomination for personal gain. A combat veteran herself, she explained that while “I absolutely have interest in the military,” her focus is on continuing her work in the Armed Services committee, not joining President-elect Trump’s cabinet. Ernst, a senior member of the committee with jurisdiction over the nomination, met with Hegseth Wednesday as allegations about professional and sexual misconduct continue to dim his hopes of confirmation. “I’ve known Pete for a very long time,” Ernst said of Hegseth, a former Fox News host and decorated veteran, adding, “I really appreciated the time that he took to sit down with me and walk through a number of issues.” The senator described the conversation as “thorough” and the nominee as “very forthcoming.” A sexual assault survivor, she confirmed that the two discussed the misconduct allegations during their 45-minute sit-down. Hegseth denied all allegations of wrongdoing in a Wednesday interview with Megyn Kelly and vowed to fight on so long as he has Trump’s blessing. While Republicans control the Senate, the margins are slim. They hold the upper chamber with just a three-seat majority and are expected to have just a one-seat majority on the committee next year that will handle Hegseth’s nomination. This makes Ernst a critical swing vote, and her initial hesitation over the nominee has made her a MAGA pariah. Complained Donald Trump Jr., the son of the president-elect, in a social media post Thursday, “If you're a GOP Senator who voted for Lloyd Austin but criticize Pete Hegseth then maybe you’re in the wrong political party!” Charlie Kirk, a confidant of the Trump family, noted that Ernst had supported Austin, the current secretary of defense, and accused the senator of “leading the charge against Hegseth.” “No, no,” Ernst said of the accusation that she was working behind the scenes to sink the nominee, “and believe me, I have been feeling this.” The senator insisted that “there is absolutely no campaign against Pete,” adding that her focus remains strictly on ensuring a thorough and fair confirmation process. The candidates change, she said, but the process ought to remain consistent. “If there had been allegations made against Gen. Austin,” she said of the current defense secretary who was confirmed with broad bipartisan support four years ago, “we would have gone through that process as well. I think anyone that comes in front of our committee deserves a fair hearing.” “ I don’t have a campaign against Pete ,” she reiterated. “ I just want to make sure the process is able to play out and that we’re thoroughly vetting him. I do believe that Pete deserves to have a hearing. All the rumblings out there are absolutely false. My role as a senator is to make sure that we are putting to bed any rumors, any anonymous whatever,” she continued. “We just need to make sure that he is thoroughly vetted and that he has his opportunity to go in front of the committee, recount his service, and rebut any allegations,” she concluded. Democrats have already made their own conclusions. They think the nominee is already sunk. Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine said as much before telling the Washington Examiner that if Trump swapped Ernst for Hegseth, Democrats would begin with “a very favorable inclination” to confirm her. Added Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, “she would have significant bipartisan support.” Ernst is not entertaining those suggestions, and even as Trump reportedly seeks a potential backup plan should Hegseth withdraw, the senator said she isn’t seeking out an alternative. Asked about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose name has been floated as a Plan B, Ernst replied, “I do think he would be a good candidate for this position. But as I’ve told reporters, as they ask me in the hallway, Hegseth is the nominee, and the president will determine who that nominee is.” Trump will assume office in January of next year, and confirmation hearings are not expected until the end of that month. The former, and now future, president believes he has a historic mandate after becoming the first Republican to win the popular vote in two decades. John McLaughlin, Trump’s longtime pollster, told RCP that opposition to his nominees incurs inherent risk and a potential primary challenge. “Republicans are totally behind his agenda and are totally supportive of him putting the right people in place so he can solve the country’s problems,” McLaughlin said in a Thursday interview. “If certain Republican senators side with the Democrats, they do so at their own peril.” Ernst insisted that her focus is not on politics and only on discovering “what the truth is.” “It’s all about making sure that the nominee is properly vetted,” she said of the process that will begin in earnest early next year. Added the senator, “That’s why it’s important that we continue through the hearing, and he’ll have his day in front of the public, and all of this can be sorted out.” There will be plenty of time, Ernst said, to go back and sort through “all the anonymous this-and-that-and the-other.” She noted that thus far, all the allegations have been made anonymously in the press and that no accuser has come forward publicly. “I mean, people need to really come forward if they have information,” she said. “They need to be willing to put their name to it.”
Rollins Inc. stock remains steady Wednesday, underperforms market
If you're buzzing to get cracking with the Christmas pressies or just need to stock up the booze cabinet, Amazon's Black Friday sale has got you covered. Amazon is serving up a humongous 1.5L bottle of - that's down from £53.20. This legendary Irish nectar, famed for being triple distilled, delivers one smooth sip after another and has matured for at least four years. Whether you want to drink it neat, chuck it over rocks, or mix it into cocktails like an old fashioned, this massive bottle will sort you out for any festive events. Customers on Amazon can't get enough of , issuing an average score of 4.7 out of 5 based on 138 reviews. "You can not do wrong with this beautiful tasting whisky with a lovely aroma and smooth as silk and for the price when on offer this is a marvellous drink, best drunk neat with a little ice," raved one buyer. Another described it as a "great whisky" adding, "Love the taste of this Irish beauty.", reports . A third simply put it, "Just what the doctor ordered". While Amazon is typically flooded with positive reviews, a few more critical comments can be found on Sainsbury's site, where a 70cl whisky bottle retails for £25. One customer remarked, "Not bad for cocktails, but don't like it with ice. Smooth and oaky," while another noted a "hint of bitterness" in the drink. If you're pondering over a gift, Marks and Spencer offers the elegantly packaged Collection Islay Single Malt Whisky Gift for £50. Alternatively, if you have a preference for Irish whisky, the Bushmills 10 Year Old Irish Malt Whisky is available at Sainsbury's for £37.AP Trending SummaryBrief at 6:04 p.m. ESTSam Hicks, defense lead Abilene Christian over Northern Arizona 24-0 to extend 1st trip to playoffs
Liverpool boss Arne Slot hailed “special” Mohamed Salah after seeing him fire the Premier League leaders to the brink of victory at Newcastle. The Reds ultimately left St James’ Park with only a point after Fabian Schar snatched a 3-3 draw at the end of a pulsating encounter, but Salah’s double – his 14th and 15th goals of the season – transformed a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead before the Switzerland defender’s late intervention. The 32-year-old Egypt international’s future at Anfield remains a topic of debate with his current contract running down. Asked about Salah’s future, Slot said: “It’s difficult for me to predict the long-term future, but the only thing I can expect or predict is that he is in a very good place at the moment. Two goals and an assist for Mo tonight 👏 pic.twitter.com/tMXidgeA0P — Liverpool FC (@LFC) December 4, 2024 “He plays in a very good team that provides him with good opportunities and then he is able to do special things. “And what makes him for me even more special is that in the first hour or before we scored to make it 1-1, you thought, ‘He’s not playing his best game today’, and to then come up with a half-hour or 45 minutes – I don’t know how long it was – afterwards with an assist, two goals, having a shot on the bar, being a constant threat, that is something not many players can do if they’ve played the first hour like he did. “That is also what makes him special. If you just look at the goals, his finish is so clinical. He’s a special player, but that’s what we all know.” Salah did indeed endure a quiet opening 45 minutes by his standards and it was the Magpies who went in at the break a goal to the good after Alexander Isak’s stunning 35th-minute finish. Slot said: “The shot from Isak, I don’t even know if Caoimh (keeper Caoimhin Kelleher) saw that ball, as hard as it was.” Salah set up Curtis Jones to level five minutes into the second half and after Anthony Gordon has restored the hosts’ lead, levelled himself from substitute Trent Alexander-Arnold’s 68th-minute cross. He looked to have won it with a fine turn and finish – his ninth goal in seven league games – seven minutes from time, only for Schar to pounce from a tight angle in the 90th minute. Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe was delighted with the way his team took the game to the Reds four days after their disappointing 1-1 draw at Crystal Palace. Howe, who admitted his surprise that VAR official Stuart Attwell had not taken a dimmer view of a Virgil van Dijk shoulder barge on Gordon, said: “It’s mixed emotions. “Part of me feels we should have won it – a big part of me – but part of me is pleased we didn’t lose either because it was such a late goal for us. “Generally, I’m just pleased with the performance. There was much more attacking output, a much better feel about the team. “There was much better energy, and it was a really good performance against, for me, the best team we’ve played so far this season in the Premier League, so it was a big jump forward for us.”BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — A top Romanian court on Friday annulled the first round of the country's presidential election, days after allegations emerged that Russia ran a coordinated online campaign to promote the far-right outsider who won the first round. The Constitutional Court’s unprecedented decision — which is final — came after President Klaus Iohannis declassified intelligence on Wednesday that alleged Russia organized thousands of social media accounts to promote Calin Georgescu across platforms such as TikTok and Telegram. The court, without naming Georgescu, said that one of the 13 candidates in the Nov. 24 first round had improperly received “preferential treatment” on social media, distorting the outcome of the vote. Georgescu denounced the verdict as an “officialized coup” and an attack on democracy, as did the second-place finisher, reformist Elena Lasconi of the center-right Save Romania Union party. Despite being an outsider who declared zero campaign spending, Georgescu emerged as the frontrunner who was to face Lasconi in a runoff on Sunday. Some 951 voting stations had already opened abroad on Friday for the runoff for Romania’s large diaspora, but had to be halted. Iohannis said he would remain in office until a new presidential election could be rerun from scratch. On Dec. 1, one week after the first round of the presidential race, Romania also held a parliamentary election , which saw pro-Western parties win the most votes but also gains for far-right nationalists. Iohannis said that once the new government is formed, the date of the new presidential vote would be set. On Wednesday the president had released intelligence files from the Romanian Intelligence Service, the Foreign Intelligence Service, the Special Telecommunication Service and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In a televised statement Friday, Iohannis said he was “deeply concerned” by the contents of the intelligence reports. “Intelligence reports revealed that this candidate’s campaign was supported by a foreign state with interests contrary to Romania’s. These are serious issues," he said. The Constitutional Court in its published decision cited the illegal use of digital technologies including artificial intelligence, as well as the use of “undeclared sources of funding.” It said one candidate received “preferential treatment on social media platforms, which resulted in the distortion of voters’ expressed will." Georgescu slammed the verdict as putting “democracy is under attack.” “I have only one pact ... with the Romanian people and God,” he said in a video statement. “We are no longer talking about fairness but rather about a mockery that betrays the principles of democracy ... It is time to show that we are a courageous people who know that the destiny and rights of the Romanian nation are in our hands.” Lasconi also strongly condemned the court's decision, saying it was “illegal, immoral, and crushes the very essence of democracy" and that the second round should have gone forward. “Whether we like it or not, from a legal and legitimate standpoint, 9 million Romanian citizens, both in the country and the diaspora, expressed their preference for a particular candidate through their votes," she said. “I know I would have won. And I will win because the Romanian people know I will fight for them, that I will unite them for a better Romania,” she added. Some 9.4 million people — about 52.5% of eligible voters — had cast ballots in the first round in this European Union and NATO member country. The president serves a five-year term and has significant decision-making powers in national security, foreign policy and judicial appointments. Most surveys had predicted the top candidate would be Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu of the ruling center-left Social Democrats. They indicated that second place would be claimed by either Lasconi or the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, George Simion. As the surprising results came in with Georgescu on top, and Lasconi narrowly beating Ciolacu, it plunged the political establishment into turmoil. The same court last week ordered a recount of the first-round votes, which added to the myriad controversies that have engulfed a chaotic election cycle. Following a recount, the court then validated the first-round results on Monday. Many observers have expressed concerns that annulling the vote could trigger civil unrest. The court said Friday that its decision was meant “to restore citizens’ trust in the democratic legitimacy of public authorities, in the legality and fairness of elections.” Simion, of the far-right party, said the development was a “coup d’état in full swing” but urged people not to take to the streets. “We don’t let ourselves be provoked, this system has to fall democratically,” he said. Cristian Andrei, a political consultant based in Bucharest, said the court's decision amounts to a “crisis mode situation for Romanian democracy.” “In light of the information about the external interference, the massive interference in elections, I think this was not normal but predictable, because it’s not normal times at all, Romania is an uncharted territory,” he told The Associated Press. “The problem is here, do we have the institutions to manage such an interference in the future?” Georgescu’s surprising success left many political observers wondering how most local surveys were so far off, putting him behind at least five other candidates before the vote. Many observers attributed his success to his TikTok account, which now has 6 million likes and 541,000 followers. But some experts suspected Georgescu’s online following was artificially inflated while Romania’s top security body alleged he was given preferential treatment by TikTok over other candidates. In the intelligence release, the secret services alleged that one TikTok user paid more $381,000 (361,000 euros) to other users to promote Georgescu content. Intelligence authorities said information they obtained “revealed an aggressive promotion campaign” to increase and accelerate his popularity. Georgescu, when asked by the AP in an interview Wednesday whether he believes the Chinese-owned TikTok poses a threat to democracy, defended social media platforms. “The most important existing function for promoting free speech and freedom of expression is social media,” he said.Aquarius Daily Horoscope Today, December 05, 2024 predicts a positive energy'We have more levels than players': This indie dev's game was a complete flop, but he's powering through with his plan to release 20 seasons of new content anyway
Jason Zucker and Tage Thompson each had a goal and an assist to lead the visiting Buffalo Sabres past the St. Louis 4-2 on Sunday. Peyton Krebs and Juri Kulich also scored for the Sabres, who won their third straight game following a 13-game winless stretch. Jack Quinn had two assists for Buffalo and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 35 saves. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. As property values continue to outpace inflation, property taxes are taking a bigger bite out of homeowners’ wallets. A new analysis from Construction Coverage breaks down property tax rates by state, county, and city to reveal where homeowners have the greatest burden. Click for more. Where Are U.S. Property Taxes Highest and Lowest? A State, County, and City Analysis
