Mayfield throws 5 TD passes and Bucs keep playoff, NFC South hopes alive with 48-14 rout of PanthersTitle: South Korea to Swiftly Arrest Yoon Suk-yeol Resolution; President Faces Pressure to Step DownOne of the most surprising differences was the sense of community in the two neighborhoods. In the East, we knew our neighbors by name, and there was always a buzz of activity on the streets. In the West, the neighbors were more reserved but genuinely friendly, and there was a strong sense of unity and support among residents.
Everton striker Neal Maupay has sparked outrage among Toffees fans by taking a swipe at his parent club in a post on social media. Maupay also had a dig at Everton when he departed on loan to Marseille in the summer and his latest taunt has further angered the Premier League club’s supporters. The 28-year-old said on X after Sean Dyche’s side had lost 2-0 to Nottingham Forest at Goodison Park on Sunday: “Whenever I’m having a bad day I just check the Everton score and smile.” Whenever I’m having a bad day I just check the Everton score and smile 🙂 — Neal Maupay (@nealmaupay_) Former boxer Tony Bellew was among the Toffees’ supporters who responded to Maupay, with the ex-world cruiserweight champion replying on X with: “P****!” Maupay endured a miserable spell at Everton, scoring just one league goal in 29 appearances after being signed by the Merseysiders for an undisclosed fee in 2022. He departed on a season-long loan to his former club Brentford for the 2023-24 season and left Goodison for a second time in August when Marseille signed him on loan with an obligation to make the deal permanent. After leaving Everton in the summer, Maupay outraged their fans by posting on social media a scene from the film Shawshank Redemption, famous for depicting the main character’s long fight for freedom.
By BILL BARROW, Associated Press 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.” 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.” 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.” 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 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. 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. 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.
The government is today demanding "immediate, mandatory" housing targets from councils as part of its plans to build 1.5 million houses by the next general election. During its election campaign Labour promised to build swathes of new to address lack of affordability and supply. And it will today release its latest version of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), setting out the government's homebuilding plans. Under the NPPF, councils will have just 12 weeks to commit to a timetable for providing new homes in their area. And if they fail to do so, ministers will "not hesitate" to impose a plan upon them, the government said, after less than a third of local authorities accepted a plan in the past five years. Prime Minister said: "Our Plan for Change will put builders not blockers first, overhaul the broken planning system and put roofs over the heads of working families and drive the growth that will put more money in people's pockets. "We're taking immediate action to make the dream of homeownership a reality through delivering 1.5 million homes by the next parliament and rebuilding Britain to deliver for working people." Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary said: "I will not hesitate to do what it takes to build 1.5 million new homes over five years and deliver the biggest boost in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation. "We must all do our bit and we must all do more. We expect every local area to adopt a plan to meet their housing need. The question is where the homes and local services people expect are built, not whether they are built at all." Labour's plans involve an annual target of 370,000 new homes in England, in a bid to find living space for 1.3 million households on social housing waiting lists. Councils with the most unaffordable housing and "greatest potential for growth" will have increased targets for building - and "stronger action" will be used to make sure plans are up to date. Part of the plans also includes a presumption that building on brownfield land will be approved. However, Labour is also looking to target building on the green belt - including on the so-called "grey belt". According to Ms Rayner, this includes "disused car parks, petrol stations and low quality green belt". Councils will also be required to "review their green belt boundaries to meet targets, identifying and prioritising lower quality 'grey belt' land". Building on the green belt will have to abide by Labour's so-called "golden rules": Brownfield first, grey belt second, affordable homes, boost public services and infrastructure, improve genuine green spaces. As part of the scheme, there will be an extra £100m available for local authorities to hire staff and consultants - and more resources to carry out studies and site assessments. This comes on top of a previous increase in planning fees to cover extra planning officers. Councillor Adam Hug, the housing spokesperson for the Local Government Association, said housebuilding must take a "collaborative approach". He called for "any national algorithms and formulas" to be "supplemented with local knowledge". Mr Hug added that housing reform needs to be supported with work to "tackle workforce challenges" as well as the costs of construction. Kevin Hollinrake, the Conservative's shadow housing secretary, says Labour have "consistently failed to deliver on housebuilding". "Labour will bulldoze through the concerns of local communities," he said. "If Labour really want homes to be built where they are needed, they must think again."Prime minister Narendra Modi on Sunday gave a clarion call for unity and brotherhood in the country in his final Mann ki Baat episode of the year, and urged people to “annihilate the feeling of division and hatred in the society” while he hailed the upcoming Kumbh Mela as a unique scene of unity in diversity. Modi also announced that a special website named constitution75.com has been created to connect the citizens of the country with the legacy of the Constitution. As the Prime Minister informed his audience of the preparations for the Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj from January 13, he hailed the spiritual festival as a manifestation of India’s diversity where there is no discrimination against anyone and everyone is treated equally. “The speciality of the Maha Kumbh is not only in its vastness. The speciality of the Kumbh is also in its diversity. Crores of people congregate for this event. Lakhs of saints, thousands of traditions, hundreds of sects, many akharas, everyone becomes a part of this event. There is no discrimination anywhere, no one is big, no one is small. Such a scene of unity in diversity will not be seen anywhere else in the world. Therefore, our Kumbh is also the Maha Kumbh of unity. This time’s Maha Kumbh will also bolster the mantra of Maha Kumbh of unity.” “Let me tell all of you; when we participate in the Kumbh, let us bring along this resolve of unity with us. Let us also make a resolve to annihilate the feeling of division and hatred in society. If I have to say it in a few words, then I will say Mahakumbh Ka Sandesh, Ek Ho Poora Desh... The message of the Mahakumbh, let the whole country be united... and putting it in another way, I will express Ganga Ki Aviral Dhara, Na Bate Samaj Hamara... Like the uninterrupted flow of the Ganga, let our society be undivided. Friends, this time in Prayagraj, devotees from the country and the world will also be witness to the digital Maha Kumbh,” the PM added. This is the second time in as many months that the PM has spoken about unity and peace in society. On November 11, speaking virtually at the 200th-anniversary celebrations of the Shri Swaminarayan Temple in Vadtal, Gujarat, Modi urged for collective action to safeguard national integrity. “Unity among citizens and integrity of the nation is important to make India a developed nation by 2047. Some forces are working to divide our society on the basis of caste, faith, language, social status, gender, and the rural-urban divide. We must recognise the gravity of these attempts by those who seek to harm our nation, understand the threat they pose, and work collectively to defeat such divisive acts,” Modi said. The PM also informed that for the first time an AI chatbot will be used at the mega carnival of humanity. “With the help of digital navigation, you will be able to reach different ghats, temples, and akharas of sadhus. The same navigation system will also help you reach parking spaces. For the first time, an AI chatbot will be used in the Kumbh event. All kinds of information related to the Kumbh will be available in 11 Indian languages through the AI chatbot. Anyone can ask for any kind of help through this chatbot, either by typing text or by speaking in. The entire fair area is being covered with AI-powered cameras,” the PM said. If a person gets separated from one’s kith and kin during the Kumbh, these cameras will help find them and devotees will also get the facility of a digital lost and found centre, the PM added. He spoke of how devotees will also be provided information about government-approved tour packages, accommodation and homestays on their mobile phones and a facility to click selfies with #EktaKaMahakumbh. As the government is making mega plans to celebrate 75 years of the installation of the Constitution — which has also been at the centre of major political battles in the recent past between the Congress and the BJP — the Prime Minister in his Mann ki Baat announced that a special website has been created to bring the common people closer to the spirit of the document. “On January 26, 2025, our Constitution is completing 75 years. It is a matter of great honour for all of us. The Constitution, handed over to us by our Constitution makers, has stood the test of time in every sense of the term. The Constitution is our guiding light, our guide. It is on account of the Constitution of India that I am here today, being able to talk to you. This year, on Constitution Day, the 26th of November, many activities have commenced that will go on for a year. A special website named constitution75.com has also been created to connect the citizens of the country with the legacy of the Constitution,” the PM said. “In this”, Modi added, “you can read the Preamble of the Constitution and upload your video. You can read the Constitution in myriad languages; you can also ask questions pertaining to the Constitution. I urge the listeners of Mann Ki Baat, school-going children, college-going youth, to visit this website and become a part of it.” Modi also touted the ministry of information and broadcasting’s upcoming WAVES Summit in New Delhi that the ministry wants to turn into India’s flagship entertainment conference, akin to what the Cannes Film Festival is to France. “A great opportunity is on the way to showcase India’s creative talent to the world. Next year, for the first time, the World Audio Visual Entertainment Summit, that is, WAVES Summit is going to be organised in our country. All of you must have heard about Davos, where the world’s economic giants gather. Similarly, in the WAVES Summit, giants from the media and entertainment industry and people from the creative world will come to India. This summit is an important step towards making India a hub of global content creation. I feel proud informing you that the young creators of our country are also joining with full enthusiasm in the preparations for this summit. When we are moving towards a $5 trillion economy, our creator economy is bringing in a new energy. “I would urge the entire entertainment and creative industry of India -- whether you are a young creator or an established artist, associated with Bollywood or regional cinema, a professional from the TV industry, an expert in animation, gaming or an innovator in entertainment technology -- to be a part of the WAVES Summit,” he said. The WAVES Summit was earlier scheduled to be held in Goa alongside IFFI in November but was rescheduled to four months later. Modi also told the country about the first Bastar Olympics that concluded earlier this month and saw the participation of 165,000 players from seven districts. “You will also be happy to know that this is taking place in the region which was once a witness to Maoist violence,” he said. The events included athletics, archery, badminton, football, hockey, weightlifting, karate, kabaddi, kho-kho, and volleyball. “Bastar Olympics is not just a sports event. It is a platform where development and sports are merging together, where our youth are honing their talent and building a new India,” he said.U.S. attorney’s office, the FBI, along with Tribal and local law enforcement officials, announce second 'Don’t Click December' consumer protection campaignRecently, the police have issued a warning to the public about a new scam involving empty parcels that appear to be delivered by courier services. These seemingly harmless packages are actually conceal traps waiting to ensnare unsuspecting individuals. It is crucial for everyone to remain vigilant and avoid falling victim to these deceitful schemes.
Reflecting on his time away, Jack Ma spoke of the importance of introspection and renewal. He emphasized the need for leaders to take breaks, recharge, and come back stronger than ever. His message resonated with many in the audience, who could relate to the pressures and demands of the business world.Here's what to know about the new funding deal that countries agreed to at UN climate talks
ATA Creativity Global ( NASDAQ:AACG – Get Free Report ) saw a large decline in short interest during the month of December. As of December 15th, there was short interest totalling 154,200 shares, a decline of 16.3% from the November 30th total of 184,200 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 45,300 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 3.4 days. Analysts Set New Price Targets Separately, StockNews.com began coverage on ATA Creativity Global in a research report on Saturday. They issued a “sell” rating on the stock. Get Our Latest Stock Report on AACG ATA Creativity Global Trading Down 2.2 % ATA Creativity Global Company Profile ( Get Free Report ) ATA Creativity Global, together with its subsidiaries, provides educational services to individual students through its training center network in China and internationally. Its educational services include portfolio training, research-based learning, overseas study counselling, in-school art classes through cooperation with high schools and training organizations, foreign language training services, junior art education, and other related educational services to its students. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for ATA Creativity Global Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for ATA Creativity Global and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .
The allegations against Tang Renjian center around suspicions of accepting bribes in exchange for favors and privileges, indicating a flagrant abuse of power and a betrayal of public trust. The news of his arrest has underscored the pressing need for greater accountability and transparency in government operations, especially in sectors as crucial as agriculture.DOVER, Del. (AP) — A Delaware judge has reaffirmed her ruling that Tesla must revoke Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar pay package Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick on Monday denied a request by attorneys for Musk and Tesla’s corporate directors to vacate her ruling earlier this year requiring the company to rescind the unprecedented pay package. McCormick also rejected an equally unprecedented and massive fee request by plaintiff attorneys , who argued that they were entitled to legal fees in the form of Tesla stock valued at more than $5 billion. The judge said the attorneys were entitled to a fee award of $345 million. The rulings came in a lawsuit filed by a Tesla stockholder who challenged Musk’s 2018 compensation package. McCormick concluded in January that Musk engineered the landmark pay package in sham negotiations with directors who were not independent. The compensation package initially carried a potential maximum value of about $56 billion, but that sum has fluctuated over the years based on Tesla’s stock price. Following the court ruling, Tesla shareholders met in June and ratified Musk’s 2018 pay package for a second time, again by an overwhelming margin. Defense attorneys then argued that the second vote makes clear that Tesla shareholders, with full knowledge of the flaws in the 2018 process that McCormick pointed out, were adamant that Musk is entitled to the pay package. They asked the judge to vacate her order directing Tesla to rescind the pay package. McCormick, who seemed skeptical of the defense arguments during an August hearing, said in Monday’s ruling that those arguments were fatally flawed. “The large and talented group of defense firms got creative with the ratification argument, but their unprecedented theories go against multiple strains of settled law,” McCormick wrote in a 103-page opinion. The judge noted, among other things, that a stockholder vote standing alone cannot ratify a conflicted-controller transaction. “Even if a stockholder vote could have a ratifying effect, it could not do so here due to multiple, material misstatements in the proxy statement,” she added. Meanwhile, McCormick found that the $5.6 billion fee request by the shareholder’s attorneys, which at one time approached $7 billion based on Tesla’s trading price, went too far. “In a case about excessive compensation, that was a bold ask,” McCormick wrote. Attorneys for the Tesla shareholder argue that their work resulted in the “massive” benefit of returning shares to Tesla that otherwise would have gone to Musk and diluted the stock held by other Tesla investors. They value that benefit at $51.4 billion, using the difference between the stock price at the time of McCormick’s January ruling and the strike price of some 304 million stock options granted to Musk. While finding that the methodology used to calculate the fee request was sound, the judge noted that the Delaware’s Supreme Court has noted that fee award guidelines “must yield to the greater policy concern of preventing windfalls to counsel.” “The fee award here must yield in this way, because $5.6 billion is a windfall no matter the methodology used to justify it,” McCormick wrote. A fee award of $345 million, she said, was “an appropriate sum to reward a total victory.” The fee award amounts to almost exactly half the current record $688 million in legal fees awarded in 2008 in litigation stemming from the collapse of Enron.The object of their desire? A frozen pig's head, rumored to be the most succulent and flavorful delicacy that could only be found in the most remote corners of the region. To obtain this prized possession, the group devised a plan that involved the use of not one, but two rugged off-road vehicles. The journey ahead would be treacherous, but the promise of culinary delight fueled their determination.
Even more Canadian passports are in limbo almost one month into the Canada Post strike. In early November, Service Canada put a temporary hold on mailing out passport packages after November 8, 2024. “By holding residential mail several days in advance of a work stoppage, Service Canada has reduced the risk of having any passports held in Canada Post distribution centres,” Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) spokesperson Maja Stefanovska told Daily Hive. Just days after 55,000 employees represented by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) , the agency said were already being held. In an update on Wednesday, Stefanovska told Daily Hive that as of December 1, approximately 185,000 passports that were printed and ready to be mailed are being held by Service Canada. In a release on Wednesday, Canada Post said it reviewed the latest offer from the CUPW and “determined that the union’s demands are unaffordable and unsustainable – adding billions of dollars in long-term fixed costs.” “Added up, all the demands in CUPW’s latest offers would cost more than $3 billion over four years, at a time when the postal service is already recording large financial losses,” stated the postal service. “Some of the big-ticket items include wage increases and staffing changes.” The union’s latest from Tuesday said it just wants its members to “have good collective agreements, with their rights protected.” ESDC said the hundreds of thousands of passports on hold will be mailed out once the labour disruption is over and regular mail service resumes. According to Canada Post, once operations resume, all mail and parcels in the postal network will be secured and delivered as quickly as possible on a first-in, first-out basis. However, services may take time to fully return to normal, no matter the length of the disruption. ESDC advises Canadians who have already submitted an application and are in urgent need of a passport to request to pick it up at a Service Canada location. You can do so by contacting the at 1-800-567-6868 or visiting a Service Canada Centre. “Passport offices may not be able to respond to requests on a first-come, first-served basis due to a high volume of requests and are therefore contacting clients based on the date of travel or need,” explained Stefanovska. For anyone requesting a transfer, the pickup date is arranged based on their travel date or need. ESDC says the pickup could even be arranged for the same day for urgent situations. “If the processing time for the application is now outside service standard, Canadians can request a file transfer at no additional fee,” said Stefanovska. “If the application is still within service standard, Canadians will need to pay the fees for a file transfer ($45) and standard pick up service ($20).” According to the agency, as of December 1, there have been requests for about 6,500 passports to be transferred for pick-up at a Service Canada office. This includes requests for passports being held due to the Canada Post strike and for other reasons. Canadians travelling in more than six weeks can visit a Service Canada Centre that offers 20-business-day service, or a scheduled outreach site to submit their application.
With a focus on human rights, US policy toward Latin America under Jimmy Carter briefly tempered a long tradition of interventionism in a key sphere of American influence, analysts say. Carter, who died Sunday at the age of 100, defied the furor of US conservatives to negotiate the handover of the Panama Canal to Panamanian control, suspended aid to multiple authoritarian governments in the region, and even attempted to normalize relations with Cuba. Carter's resolve to chart a course toward democracy and diplomacy, however, was severely tested in Central America and Cuba, where he was forced to balance his human rights priorities with pressure from adversaries to combat the spread of communism amid the Cold War standoff with the Soviet Union. "Latin America was fundamental and his global policy was oriented toward human rights, democratic values and multilateral cooperation," political analyst Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank in Washington, told AFP. During his 1977-1981 administration, which was sandwiched between the Republican presidencies of Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, the Democrat sought to take a step back from US alignment with right-wing dictatorships in Latin America. An important symbol of Carter's approach was the signing of two treaties in 1977 to officially turn over the Panama Canal in 1999. "Jimmy Carter understood that if he did not return the canal to Panama, the relationship between the United States and Panama could lead to a new crisis in a country where Washington could not afford the luxury of instability," said Luis Guillermo Solis, a political scientist and former president of Costa Rica. Carter called the decision, which was wildly unpopular back home, "the most difficult political challenge I ever had," as he accepted Panama's highest honor in 2016. He also hailed the move as "a notable achievement of moving toward democracy and freedom." During his term, Carter opted not to support Nicaraguan strongman Anastasio Somoza, who was subsequently overthrown by the leftist Sandinista Front in 1979. But in El Salvador, the American president had to "make a very uncomfortable pact with the government," said Shifter. To prevent communists from taking power, Carter resumed US military assistance for a junta which then became more radical, engaging in civilian massacres and plunging El Salvador into a long civil war. Carter took a critical approach to South American dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay, suspending arms deliveries and imposing sanctions in some cases. But his efforts "did not achieve any progress in terms of democratization," said Argentine political scientist Rosendo Fraga. The American president also tried to normalize relations with Cuba 15 years after the missile crisis. He relaxed sanctions that had been in force since 1962, supported secret talks and enabled limited diplomatic representation in both countries. "With him, for the first time, the possibility of dialogue rather than confrontation as a framework for political relations opened up," Jesus Arboleya, a former Cuban diplomat, told AFP. But in 1980, a mass exodus of 125,000 Cubans to the United States, with Fidel Castro's blessing, created an unexpected crisis. It "hurt Carter politically with the swarm of unexpected immigrants," said Jennifer McCoy, a professor of political science at Georgia State University. Castro continued to support Soviet-backed African governments and even deployed troops against Washington's wishes, finally putting an end to the normalization process. However, more than 20 years later, Carter made a historic visit to Havana as ex-president, at the time becoming the highest-profile American politician to set foot on Cuban soil since 1959. During the 2002 visit, "he made a bold call for the US to lift its embargo, but he also called on Castro to embrace democratic opening," said McCoy, who was part of the US delegation for the trip, during which Castro encouraged Carter to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Cuban All-Star baseball game. "Castro was sitting in the front row and we were afraid he would rise to give a long rebuttal to Carter's speech. But he didn't. He just said, 'Let's go to the ball game.'" In the years following Carter's presidency, Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) would go on to resume a full-frontal confrontation with Cuba. Decades later, Barack Obama (2009-2017) opened a new phase of measured normalization, which Donald Trump (2017-2021) brought to an end. US President Joe Biden promised to review US policy toward Cuba, but hardened his stance after Havana cracked down on anti-government protests in 2021. "Carter showed that engagement and diplomacy are more fruitful than isolation," McCoy said. bur-lp-rd-jb/lbc/mlr/bfm/sst/bbk
