ARLINGTON, Texas — Kind of a weird week in the Big 12, yeah? One of the conference’s former flagship programs (Texas) is playing for the SEC championship in its first season away from the Big 12. One team it passed over (SMU) is ranked higher than any of its current members and will contend for an ACC championship. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark publicly squabbled with the College Football Playoff committee and Group of Five competition on two separate occasions. Saturday’s conference championship game at AT&T Stadium yielded an announced attendance of 55,889, which, outside of the COVID-19-impacted 2020 season, was the lowest in the event’s 28-year history; last year’s, between Texas and Oklahoma State, drew a record 84,523 for what it’s worth. The secondary ticket market get-in price for the Big 12 championship game was as low as $16 on Saturday morning, according to Vivid Seats, and their cheapest SEC championship game tickets started at $110. And, yet, Arizona State gave the Big 12 a reason to cheer. The Sun Devils (11-2) throttled Iowa State, 45-19, to win the Big 12 championship in their first season as a member after the Pac-12 folded. Senior running back Cam Skattebo (208 total yards, 3 touchdowns) rumbled up and down the field, paced a blowout and helped give the Big 12 exactly what it needs: a team that looks like it might be worthy of a top-four playoff seed. “We’re 11-1 with our starting quarterbacking, having beat four ranked teams, having won the Big 12 championship,” head coach Kenny Dillingham said. “I think there should be a real chance we get a first-round bye, and I definitely think we should host a game.” Wouldn’t that be something? Yormark, before Saturday’s game, said that the conference is “building something special.” He talked up the conference’s “magical” November in which half the league remained in contention for a title game berth and a four-way tiebreaker (which also included BYU and Colorado) was called upon to decide Saturday’s matchup. Still, the Big 12 lacked a marquee contender this season. The kind that looks like a legitimate perennial postseason player. Like, say, a Texas or Oklahoma. The Longhorns and Sooners combined for five of the Big 12′s six playoff appearances under the original four-team format before they jumped to the SEC prior to this season. Texas will play for a top-four playoff seed on Saturday against Georgia in the SEC championship game. Oklahoma is, well, at least in better shape than their in-state rival Oklahoma State still in the Big 12. Internally, BYU had a chance to plant its flag this season but floundered late; Colorado has star power, a baseline of success but no serious postseason berth to show for it; TCU could’ve been in the driver’s seat after its CFP berth two years ago but is just 13-11 since. “I think, within time, you’re going to find that certain schools will distance themselves from others,” Yormark said. “I think that’s the evolution we’re going to go through. Parity and depth right now is what I’m selling, candidly, but moving forward I think it might be a little different.” Arizona State, in Year 1 of the new-look Big 12 and the expanded playoff, might’ve been the first to raise its hand. The Sun Devils were picked to finish dead last in the conference’s preseason poll but won five straight games to finish the regular season and force their way to JerryWorld. Dillingham, 34, is a rising star. Freshman quarterback Sam Leavitt (219 yards, 4 total touchdowns) is too. Skattebo — who surpassed 2,000 scrimmage yards on Saturday — is “the best player in the nation,” according to his quarterback. Their collective performance Saturday left no doubt that they belong in the CFP. It’s just a matter of whether they’ve done enough to convince the committee that they belong in that cushy top four where Yormark believes they do. The Sun Devils, ranked No. 15 in last Tuesday’s playoff poll, could certainly still be seeded No. 12 in Sunday’s final playoff bracket as the fifth highest-ranked conference champion. The four highest-ranked conference champions — who, according to the most recent rankings, are the winners of the SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Boise State of the Mountain West — will receive first-round byes. Boise State (No. 10) beat UNLV in the MWC championship game on Friday night to secure safe passage into the playoff. Yormark teed off on the selection committee on Wednesday and argued that no Group of Five team should be ranked higher than the Big 12 champion. He doubled down on Saturday, referenced his conference’s strength of schedule and claimed that there’s “no comparison” between the Big 12 and “any G5 conference champion.” The Sun Devils might have a chance to prove that a truth. If they remain the No. 12 seed and if Boise State remains the No. 4 seed, the two would be in line to meet in the quarterfinals if Arizona State wins its first-round game on the road. If their blowout win versus Iowa State sways the committee enough to move them above Boise State and into a top-four seed in Sunday’s final rankings, that same aforementioned quarterfinal Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty and Skattebo rank No. 1 and No. 2 in all-purpose yards per game this season. Jeanty is a Heisman Trophy candidate, though Yormark said Saturday that he doesn’t think “there’s any competition” for the award with Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter also a finalist. Yeah, if you hadn’t noticed, he’s not too fond of anything that has to do with the Group of Five right now. He’ll see which side of the argument the playoff committee falls on come Sunday. The Sun Devils, at least, made it interesting. “I do think we need to have a really thoughtful conversation [about] the selection committee and how the ranking is being done,” Yormark said. “Again, look at resumes. Look at data. The data doesn’t lie. So we’ll see where that goes.” ©2024 The Dallas Morning News. Visit dallasnews.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.The Florida Gators (6-5) visit the Florida State Seminoles (2-9) at Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium on Saturday, November 30, 2024. What channel is Florida vs. Florida State on? What time is Florida vs. Florida State? Florida and Florida State play at 7 p.m. ET. Florida vs. Florida State betting odds, lines, spread Odds courtesy of BetMGM Florida vs. Florida State recent matchups Florida schedule Florida State schedule This content was created for Gannett using technology provided by Data Skrive.Syria's embattled government said Saturday it was setting up a ring of steel around Damascus, state media reported, as rebels on a lightning advance said they were bearing down on the city. "There is a very strong security and military cordon on the far edges of Damascus and its countryside, and no one... can penetrate this defensive line that we, the armed forces, are building," Interior Minister Mohammed al-Rahmoun told state television from the capital. Earlier, President Bashar al-Assad's government denied that the army had withdrawn from areas around Damascus. "Our forces have begun the final phase of encircling the capital," said rebel commander Hassan Abdel Ghani, with the Islamist-led alliance that launched the offensive. The leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group which has headed the assault, told fighters to prepare to take Damascus, just over a week into a renewed offensive in the long dormant conflict. "Damascus awaits you," said HTS's Ahmed al-Sharaa on Telegram, using his real name instead of his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. But the defence ministry insisted: "There is no truth to news claiming our armed forces... have withdrawn" from positions near Damascus. AFP has been unable to independently verify some of the information provided by the government and the rebels, as its journalists cannot reach the areas around Damascus where the rebels say they are present. In a Damascus suburb Saturday, witnesses said protesters toppled a statue of Assad's father, the late president Hafez al-Assad. Similar scenes were witnessed in images shared by local media in the southern city of Daraa and in online footage verified by AFP from Hama, north of Damascus. "The rebels entered Hama, it was a great joy for us -- something we had been waiting for since 2011," said resident Maymouna Jawad, of the year Assad's crackdown on democracy protests escalated into civil war. The presidency denied reports that Assad had left Damascus, saying he was "following up on his work and national and constitutional duties from the capital". The HTS leader said in a CNN interview Friday that "the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime". - Fears of 'chaos' - As government forces fall back, a war monitor and Abdel Ghani said rebels were within 20 kilometres of Damascus. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces had ceded more key ground, losing control of all of southern Daraa province, cradle of the 2011 uprising. The army said it was "redeploying and repositioning" in Daraa and another southern province, Sweida. The Britain-based Observatory said troops were also evacuating posts in Quneitra, near the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. Israel's military said Saturday it was helping UN peacekeepers in the Syrian part of the Golan to repel an attack "by armed individuals" bordering the UN-patrolled buffer zone. Jordan has urged its citizens to leave neighbouring Syria "as soon as possible", as have Assad ally Russia and the United States, which both keep troops in Syria. After the HTS-led rebels seized Aleppo and Hama earlier in their offensive, Daraa was taken by local armed groups, the Observatory said. An AFP correspondent in the province saw local fighters guarding public property and civil institutions. In Sweida city, a local fighter told AFP that after government forces had withdrawn "from their positions and headquarters, we are now securing and protecting vital facilities". In the central Homs area, a key stepping stone to Damascus, the Observatory said government forces had brought "large reinforcements" and stopped the rebel advance. Government forces have also pulled out of Deir Ezzor in the east, with Kurdish-led forces saying they had moved in. An Iraqi security source told AFP that Baghdad has allowed in hundreds of Syrian soldiers, who "fled the front lines", through the Al-Qaim border crossing. A second source put the figure at 2,000 troops, including officers. - 'Find peace' - HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. Proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments, it has sought to soften its image in recent years. The Islamist rebels have sought to reassure minority groups living in areas they now control. "We ask that all sects be reassured... for the era of sectarianism and tyranny has gone away forever," said Abdel Ghani. Since the offensive began last week, at least 826 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed, the Observatory said. The United Nations said the violence has displaced 370,000 people. UN special envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen called for "urgent political talks" to implement Security Council Resolution 2254 of 2015, which set out a roadmap for a negotiated settlement. US President-elect Donald Trump, in Paris for the reopening of Notre Dame cathedral, posted on his Truth Social platform that the United States should "not get involved". US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Friday for a "political solution to the conflict", in a call with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. After Fidan and his Iranian and Russian counterparts discussed Syria in Qatar on Saturday, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said they agreed on the initiation of "political dialogue between the Syrian government and legitimate opposition groups". Russia's Sergei Lavrov said it was "inadmissible" to allow a "terrorist group to take control" of Syrian territory. Moscow and Tehran have supported Assad's government and army during the war, as has Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. A source close to Hezbollah said it had sent 2,000 fighters into Syria, to an area near the Lebanese border, "to defend its positions". Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government backs some armed groups in northern Syria, said Saturday that Syria "is tired of war, blood and tears". "Our wish is for our neighbour, Syria, to find the peace and tranquility it has been dreaming of for 13 years." By Aya Iskandarani

The holidays are a time when the generous and the grinches come out. Scammers have made out with millions from Edmontonians this year. Police are sending warning alarms to another one, that uses a lot of technology. “Now I can state that this platform is reliable and has indeed brought substantial profits to thousands of Canadians.” This fake video posted to social media appears to show Prime Minister Justin Trudeau endorsing an investment into a cryptocurrency. Elon Musk also appears endorsing the same supposed product. “All you need to do is invest $350 and start earning profits from the first month.” Artificial intelligence was used to make it look like Trudeau and Musk are promoting an investment platform and encouraging you to register. Edmonton police say if you click a link and put in your phone number, you’ll get a call from an alleged “advisor” or “specialist” again guaranteeing large profits for a small fee. The person then tells you to download software that gives them remote access to your computer and asks you to give up personal banking information. Fifteen victims of this scam have been reported to police totalling $1.9 million. One victim was reported to have lost $900,000. “For these fraudsters, it’s a low-risk endeavour to make high profits with minimal work involved,” said Detective Trevor Semotiuk, with the EPS Financial Crimes Section. This EPS detective says larger organized crime groups outside of canada are largely responsible for this deception. “They’re just playing off of basic human emotions or a chance to make easy money quickly,” Semotiuk added. The Alberta Securities Commission says it’s important people pause if they see one of those videos and not get too deep in the hype. “Pressure, pressure, pressure. Get in now, guaranteed returns. That’s the language almost all of them use,” said Hilary McMeekin, Alberta Securities Commission. “Stop and just think about this. And do a bit of homework before you dive in.” 2024 was a lucrative year for scammers in Edmonton. Almost $13 million was stolen through various ways this year. Detective Semotiuk says that the dollar figure is only going up. Both EPS and the Alberta Securities Commission say you can avoid getting duped by doing your own research, seeing if the company is registered, a vague company description, and the golden rule, “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” It’s also important to be open with friends and family about getting suspicious messages and reporting it. “There’s nothing compelling you to take action right away,” said Semotiuk McMeekin adding, “You’re not alone. We want to know about these things.”NoneJOHNSON CONTROLS ANNOUNCES QUARTERLY DIVIDEND

Swansea boss Luke Williams thought his side were second best for the majority of the contest despite earning a 2-1 win at Derby. The Swans stunned Pride Park into silence with less than two minutes on the clock when Zan Vipotnik sent a bullet past Jacob Widell Zetterstrom before Ronald slotted home his first of the season in the 14th minute. Cyrus Christie brought Tom Barkhuizen down inside the box and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing dispatched the resulting penalty to cut the deficit in half and, despite piling on the pressure, Derby succumbed to a second home defeat of the season. Williams told a press conference: “We started the game very well, we were good up until we scored the second goal then we lost the grip on the game and I thought Derby were the better team. “The next thing for us we have to be able to maintain that level throughout the game and we weren’t able to do that to be quite honest today. “They made it difficult, reacted very well after the second goal and didn’t go under, far from it.” Swansea leapfrogged their opponents into the top half of the table with their sixth win of the season and took three points back to south Wales following two last-minute defeats by Burnley and Leeds heading into the match. Williams added: “We’ve recently conceded late goals but they’re a very resilient group and we saw it out in the end. “We’ve dominated games a lot but probably failed to score when we’ve been that dominant and tonight we managed to score the goals when we were dominant. “We scored the goals at the right time today.” Derby had been unbeaten in their last three matches coming into this one but Paul Warne put defeat down to a poor start. He said: “We conceded two and didn’t get close enough, weren’t aggressive enough, not enough body contact and looked soft, that’s my fault. “Maybe I didn’t message it properly. Sometimes it doesn’t come down to shape and tactics but I thought that was what the difference was. “Credit Swansea for the win but after the 25 mins it looked like we would score. I really enjoyed it, that’s the truth. I had 70 minutes of a team giving everything, I don’t think we’ve had that many attempts in the Championship this season. “It’s a rude awakening, last year we would’ve won that 4-2.”UCF 80, Florida A&M 55By Kim Hyun-bin The cultural department of the French Embassy, in collaboration with Gen.G Esports, Webedia and the French cultural institute, will host its first-ever Korean boot camp for a French League of Legends professional team from Tuesday to Dec. 10. The event is a unique project facilitated through cooperation with the French Embassy. French League of Legends boot camp poster / Courtesy of Embassy of France in Seoul Team Vitality, the recent champion of the League of Legends La Banque Postale France Cup held in France last month, will embark on an immersive experience in Korea's celebrated esports ecosystem. They will train alongside one of the world's top teams, Gen.G Esports, at the Gen.G Global Academy. This boot camp offers Team Vitality customized training and opportunities to explore esports landmarks and cultural sites in Seoul. "Our partnership with the French Embassy in Korea enables the La Banque Postale France Cup winning team to train with the world's elite players. This experience will extend beyond gaming, providing a unique cultural exchange. The entire journey will be documented and aired on French television in 2025," Bertrand Amar, head of esports at Webedia, said. This boot camp highlights the growth of French esports on the global stage. Prominent teams like Team Vitality and Karmine Corp have driven significant growth in the French esports ecosystem in recent years. "This boot camp symbolizes our vision of a robust and sustainable cooperative relationship between Korea and France. Hosting this event while the second season of the animated series 'Arcane,' inspired by League of Legends and produced by a top French studio, is airing, is particularly meaningful. This coincidence underscores France's international expertise and standing in animation and video games," Pierre Morcos, cultural attaché at the French Embassy, said. The event is sponsored by the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and the French cultural institute as part of their strategy to promote cultural and creative industries abroad.

The author and her father in her favorite photo of them together. This holiday season there will be no devastating political discussion at our dinner table. My father, the only one of my family members who may have voted red, has been gone for almost 20 years now. When I was young, my dad said he wanted to be a school bus driver when he retired. The kids in my neighborhood were truly terrible to our bus driver, and I worried for him about this. When I adopted my own (now debunked) dream to become a veterinarian, I was pleased when he vowed to become my assistant instead. He always said he would “put the dogs up on the table” for me, as if this was a veterinary assistant’s only duty. I never got a chance to find out what his retirement would have looked like. He had a heart attack on the basketball court when I was 15 — he was 54 — and died suddenly. Sometimes I imagine that he is driving a bus full of heavenly dogs right now, that he lifts tenderly into their seats. Because of his death, I can keep on loving him only exactly this way, as a dog lifter and bus driver. Since he was a fiscally conservative Republican in life, I don’t know if my dad would have voted for Donald Trump. For this I have a complicated gratitude that I can never forgive our 45th president for. I loved my father fiercely. To have any reason at all to not want him back fills me with a stew of shame. My dad was a patriotic individual in a '90s way, earnestly believing America was the greatest nation on Earth, reminding us often how lucky we were to live here. He was a trivia and history buff who loved even the smallest, dustiest historical museum and who almost made it on to Jeopardy! (if only he’d known the main ingredient in guacamole). On a cross-country roadtrip from Colorado to Dad’s hometown in New York my parents took my sister and I on, we were forced to stop at every state capital, place of interest, or memorial site. Where my mom read fiction voraciously, the books I remember on his nightstand were war histories, biographies of former Yankees players, and The Art of the Deal . I’m grateful I don’t know much about my father’s feelings toward Trump aside from that he liked that book and admired him as a real estate mogul, Dad having been a realtor himself. Trump was a different figure then, someone we knew from his name on buildings and his cameo in Home Alone 2 . I can’t imagine my father would be happy with someone with no political background running for president — but that’s the thing, I can only imagine. The author's father as a child in the '50s. I believe he would’ve been tormented by his presidential choices in the last few elections, but ultimately, he would have voted as he took the civic duty of an American citizen seriously. I’ll just never know for sure who he would’ve voted for in 2016 or 2024. Like others, I was physically ill the morning after the most recent election, a nervous nausea amplified over the following week by the growing misogyny online, and Trump’s dystopian video promises for his upcoming term. Almost 35, should I be lucky enough to have a second child, my next pregnancy will be considered geriatric, my risk of miscarriage growing with time. This is only one reason I’ve been haunted by the women dying because they cannot receive proper reproductive healthcare. With a daughter who I’ll soon enroll in school, I’m terrified over our lack of gun control. I’m worried sick about my queer and trans friends whose identity Trump hopes to erase. I’m nervous for my mom and stepdad who will need Medicare soon. I’m anxious for what will become of the many immigrants in my life. I’m particularly devastated by the message Trump and his champions deliver to women, especially young girls: You do not matter . But at least, as I discussed white elephant rules and drafted a Thanksgiving menu with my family, I wasn’t nervous to enjoy the holidays with them. If my father had voted for Trump, especially this time around, I don’t know if I could have ever forgiven him. Examples of relationships ending because of Trump are plentiful, specking the internet and each of our own lives. I became so upset with one friend for voting for him the first time, our last dinner ended in tears. We haven’t seen each other since. Another friend of mine stopped speaking to her aunt after a fight over vaccinations. The next thing my friend knew, she was attending her funeral, her aunt an unfortunate COVID fatality. Yet another friend of mine hasn’t spoken to her father since 2017. In the early 2000s my mom and aunt, both Democrats, would trade gag gifts with my dad. Toilet paper with George W. Bush’s face on it or a crude birthday card of Bill Clinton playing sax in the nude. They would all laugh, my Dad hardest of all, sometimes until he cried, dragging his big mitt of a hand over his face as if it’d been sprayed with snow. They’d push each other’s buttons at the dinner table, usually conceding to a good point or two, and we’d move on to passing a plate of cannoli and playing a rousing game of Taboo. This was the America I grew up in, the America I was promised. Trump took that away. Right after the election, I “unfriended” the last one of the boys I used to ride the bus with who I was still connected to on Facebook. He’d posted a “your body, my choice” meme to his wall. That boy was picked up at the stop right after mine to be taken to middle school. He and the other boys in his group would push other kids’ heads as they stormed to the back of the bus yelling obscenities, launching spitballs, and lighting seats on fire so the whole bus filled with the smell of burning rubber and sometimes hair when they got bored and moved on to flicking their lighters at each other’s knees and heads. We went through five bus drivers in one year, no one able to withstand their unruliness. Dad ended up driving me to a stop on a different bus route in the morning. This wasn’t the America he remembered as a kid, the America that made him want to be a bus driver. The kids who lit the bus on fire grew up to be a different kind of Republican than Dad remembers, too. My dad’s hometown of Rochester, New York reeks of Americana. His parents were the first inhabitants of their little house there in the early '50s and were very proud to provide a life to go with it — an American dream. My grandfather worked hard for the US post office, my grandmother was a homemaker, and my dad and his brother enjoyed an idyllic childhood riding bikes, getting donuts after church, and even holding an annual presidential election for their favorite bears. According to his younger brother, Dad’s bear always won. When I went back to Rochester to reconnect with family last year, I drove past his childhood home and found the neighborhood looking shabbier than before, surrounded by strip malls and chain-link fences. On the front lawn of his old house was a big truck, another in the driveway. The new owner’s hat was red. This scared me, like my electric vehicle seemed to scare him. We connected over the old America, when he recognized my last name. “LaBue,” he said with a big grin, “of course!” This recognition was a little slice of the way life used to be. He let me take some pictures in front of his house, and I imagine we both thought of how much things have changed. The author, 19 weeks pregnant, visits her father's childhood home. The current owner moved his second truck off the lawn so that Sammi could take this picture. Every Christmas since losing my dad has felt emptier than my first 15 Christmases. Once you lose a parent young, you can never go back to the fullness of a holiday as a kid. My mom and sister and I have always tried, building new traditions, keeping up the old, and showering each other in presents. My niece, nephew, and daughter have made it better — getting to experience it through the eyes of Dad’s grandchildren. Now I also have this complicated gratitude. Not knowing what my dad thinks of my career, my daughter, even the Yankees’ performance in the World Series will always give me a kind of windless sock to my stomach. But another type of wondering evokes a different emotion: Would my dad worry about my rights and those of my daughter like I worried about him becoming a bus driver? Would he protect me from the kid on the bus like I tried to protect him? This type of not knowing is a relief. Now I get to decide that he would. Now I get to picture how he would fit into this future. I imagine that just as he wanted to carry the burdensome weight of the dogs at my veterinary practice, he would want to help carry the load of these burdens, too. Sammi LaBue is the founder of the ongoing writing community, Fledgling Writing Workshops (Best Writing Classes, TimeOut NY). Some of her other essays have been published in Slate, Literary Hub, Glamour, The Offing, and elsewhere. You can find her writing portfolio here and join her Substack for opportunities to write with her. Her latest project is a just finished memoir written in collaboration with her mom titled, Bad Apples. Do you have a personal story you’d like to see published on BuzzFeed? Send us a pitch at essay-pitch@buzzfeed.com .Hendrix 4-12 4-5 12, Sharp 3-3 0-0 6, Gueye 0-5 0-0 0, McEvans 4-10 1-2 11, Purifoy 3-7 1-2 8, Alexander 1-3 2-2 5, Ellis 2-5 1-2 5, Bostic 2-2 0-0 4, Delancy 0-2 0-0 0, Griffin 1-4 0-0 3, Subirats 0-8 1-2 1, Totals 20-61 10-15 55 Akot 1-4 1-2 3, Gusters 10-15 2-2 22, Brown 2-2 2-4 6, Peterson 6-18 6-7 21, Rodriguez 5-10 7-11 18, Chandler-Roberts 0-0 0-0 0, Ring 0-0 0-0 0, Ngodu 0-0 5-6 5, Castagne 0-1 0-0 0, Yancy 2-2 0-2 5, Totals 26-52 23-34 80 3-Point Goals_Florida A&M 5-14 (McEvans 2-4, Purifoy 1-2, Alexander 1-3, Griffin 1-2, Subirats 0-3), UCF 5-14 (Peterson 3-9, Rodriguez 1-3, Castagne 0-1, Yancy 1-1). Assists_Florida A&M 11 (Purifoy 6), UCF 18 (Akot 5). Fouled Out_Florida A&M Hendrix, Sharp. Rebounds_Florida A&M 34 (Hendrix 9), UCF 38 (Gusters 11). Total Fouls_Florida A&M 23, UCF 17. Technical Fouls_None. A_1,187.

NoneGoldenEye, Jamaica: the low-key hideaway steeped in A-list historyOn Thursday 32 Bills passed in the Senate in an abrogation of the chamber’s role of scrutiny – and in an attack on democratic process. Rex Patrick provides a former insider’s perspective on what happened and who has democracy’s blood and follower betrayal on their hands. Parliament is nothing without procedure. It might be mainly of interest to political junkies, but it’s a critical part of our democracy. Parliament makes laws and the processes of the Parliament are intended to ensure the democratic, orderly and transparent consideration of those laws. Let’s start with proper process for the passage of a Bill through the Senate. Step 1: When a Bill is first introduced, along with an explanatory memorandum , it’s “ read a first time” . At this point the Bill can be referred to a Senate Committee for detailed examination; stakeholders and members of the public can have their say via submissions and senators can ask all sorts of questions of officials and subject matter experts. Step 2: The next stage is the second reading debate. During this stage, senators can choose to make a 15-minute speech to express their opinions about the Bill. The speech might persuade some senators to change their own views, especially independents. It’s also useful for putting a particular position on the record for later consideration by voters. The second reading is an important democratic step. At the conclusion of the debate, a vote is taken on the question “ that this bill be read a second time “. The Bill can be killed at this stage if the Government doesn’t have support for it. Step 3: The third reading, or ‘committee stage’, is a Q and A session around the Senate chamber. Senators ask questions of the minister on how the Government intends the Bill will work, and answers can even be used by Courts to later resolve any ambiguity in the law. The committee stage is also where amendments are moved and senators point out the purpose and benefits of them. Once the Bill leaves the ‘committee stage’, a vote is taken on the question, “ that this bill be read a third time ” If agreed to, the bill has passed all stages and assuming the House of Representative is willing to accept any Senate amendments, will go on to become law. A physical guillotine is an apparatus designed for cutting off a person’s head. A parliamentary guillotine is a procedure designed to cut off debate on a Bill. The guillotine can be used legitimately for an urgent Bill, or if senators are filibustering in debate. It’s not supposed to serve as a way to abrogate scrutiny and prevent advocacy for amendments. A guillotine can occur with majority approval of the Senate. That’s important, because Labor doesn’t have a majority in the Senate; Labor’s guillotine on 32 Bills on Thursday needed support from either the Liberals or the Greens. With Prime Minister Albanese desperate to get movement on legislation, a guillotine this week was as predictable as taxes. MMW did exactly this on Tuesday. On Wednesday evening, around 7:30 PM, the Government circulated a guillotine motion. At 8:30 PM independent senator Jacqui Lambie posted on BlueSky, alerting political die-hards that the Government had signalled ‘game on’, saying: Senators’ advisors, who were struggling through the end of a long sitting fortnight went on alert. A furious Lambie was to stand up in the Senate the following morning to rightfully hit out at the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Wong. “Last night Minister Wong said all people in this place deserve a safe workplace, and, just an hour later, they sent a guillotine through like that. How is it safe for the employees in my office to go through 41 bills in a matter of about 12 hours? How is that safe? How bloody hypocritical. What about the right to disconnect?” Thursday morning would have seen deals being close to settled. At 9:03 AM, after morning prayers, Lambie stood in the Chamber and sought permission of senators to move a motion to scold the Government for their persistent guillotining of Bills – Labor had already dropped the guillotine blade on no less than 160 Bill thus far in this Parliament and was about to add to that tally. Permission was denied (any single senator can deny permission). Lambie then sought to ’suspend standing orders’ to ask the entire Senate if she could move her motion. Debate occurred. The interesting thing was – the Greens sat silently – and when it came to the vote that would allow Lambie to admonish Labor for their excessive guillotines, the Greens voted with the Government to stop her in her tracks. The Greens have long expressed strident opposition to the use of the guillotine. They understand it chops up democracy. This was expressed strongly through Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi on 28 October, a month prior. “ The Senate is a place where a huge diversity of political views are heard and it is important that the Senate is facilitated by people who can also represent that plurality. But what we see again and again is a stitch-up between the two major parties, the Liberals and the Labor Party, and we see it again today. This is not the first time it has happened. We talk about democracy here—this is the chamber of review—but again and again democracy is shut down. How many times have we seen, just in the last couple of years, debate being shut down by guillotine motions? ...” So, back to last Thursday, one might have been surprised at what happened next. At 9:46 AM Labor’s Senator Gallagher rose to set up a guillotine. And the Greens supported it! The Government lost the vote 33 (yes) and 34 (no). The business of the Senate would, at least for a short while, take its ordinary course. If at First You Don’t Succeed At 12:20 PM Wong rose to her feet in the Senate to again seek to set up a guillotine. After 30 minutes of proposals and counterproposals across the chamber, a 30 Bill guillotine was put in place. The vote was won 34 (yes) to 32 (no). The Greens again supported the guillotine. But before putting the guillotine motion to the vote Wong foreshadowed adding two more Bills to the guillotine, one of which was the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 – a Bill that the Greens purportedly bitterly opposed. Wong then acted to include the further two Bills. The Greens knew that the Government, with Coalition support, had the numbers to pass the Social Media Minimum Age Bill, but supported it being included in the guillotine. That was despite the earlier words of Senator Sarah Hanson-Young on the Social Media Minimum Age Bill. Firstly, let me say what a disgrace it is that this bill, only tabled in the House of Representatives last Thursday, has been railroaded and rushed through the process here across the parliament. It was tabled in the House Thursday, sent to a Senate inquiry that sat for only three hours on Monday. Submissions from stakeholders and interested parties were open for less than 24 hours on Friday—talk about putting out the bins, taking out the rubbish! That’s exactly how this whole bill has been treated by the major parties. The reason that this bill is being rushed without scrutiny and without appropriate review is both the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Dutton, and the Prime Minister are worried that if people really knew about what the consequences of this piece of legislation meant, they wouldn’t support it. The Government’s deal with the Greens must have been a good one to flush away Hanson-Young’s concerns. And that includes the concern she had express about young and vulnerable children. They’ll be pushed into the darkest parts of the web and they won’t want to tell their parents what’s going on because they’ll be worried their phone will be taken away, so they will spiral further and further into isolation from their friends, their family, medical experts who may be able to help them, school counsellors and teachers. They’ll become even more isolated and vulnerable. Too bad, so sad kids! Hypocrisy and betrayal was thick in the air. Those watching the Chamber though would have seen the Greens opposing the Social Media Minimum Age Bill at the third reading stage – looking like they were fighting the good fight. But the reality was, they passed the Bill the moment they voted for the guillotine. What happened visually after that was just a swindle. For the Greens, as with Labor and the Coalition, commitment to democratic process all too often falls by the wayside as partisan interests prevail.No. 24 Louisville women use 16-0 4th-quarter run to beat Colorado 79-71

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Stock market today: Losses for Big Tech pull US indexes lowerOTTAWA - A Liberal MP says his committee colleagues are wasting time by launching a third inquiry into the former employment minister instead of focusing on important legislation for Indigenous Peoples. Jaime Battiste, who is Mi’kmaq, said there has been an “attack” on fellow Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault, who left his position as employment minister on Wednesday after allegations of shifting claims of Indigenous identity and questions around his past business dealings. Boissonnault has been the subject of two ethics committee probes, and Battiste said a third one by the Indigenous and northern affairs committee is “a waste of time, and it seems to be the Conservatives’ way of ensuring that nothing gets done in the House of Commons.” The Conservatives, NDP and Bloc Québécois all supported pushing ahead with the third study, even after Boissonnault left cabinet. Though Liberal MPs did not object to the motion Thursday, Battiste said the committee’s time would be better spent studying legislation on important issues such as First Nations policing, a modern treaty commissioner and clean water for First Nations. “It’s very much my fear and frustration that politics is now becoming more important at the Indigenous and northern affairs committee than actually Indigenous Peoples that we’re there every day to try to make life better for,” he said. NDP MP Lori Idlout, who is a member of the committee, said Canadians deserve answers and she doesn’t expect the probe to cut into the committee’s other work. “It’s not a waste of time to have MP Boissonnault answer for why his identity kept changing. Pretending to be Indigenous is a serious matter and we need to have him be transparent to all Canadians.” Boissonnault came under intense scrutiny after the National Post reported that a company he previously co-owned described itself as wholly Indigenous-owned in order to apply for government contracts set aside for Indigenous businesses. He has been described as Indigenous multiple times in communications from the Liberal party, and in 2018 referred to himself as “non-status adopted Cree” — a statement he has repeated on other occasions. He also said his great-grandmother was a “full-blooded Cree woman.” He has since clarified that his adoptive mother and brother are Métis, and he apologized for his shifting claims last Friday. The House ethics committee has separately investigated Boissonnault’s past business dealings after media reports alleged he remained involved in the company he co-founded after he was re-elected in 2021 and joined the federal cabinet. Opposition MPs passed a motion in the House of Commons on Tuesday — a day before Boissonnault left cabinet — for the employment minister to appear as a witness to discuss his claims to Indigenous identity. But because Boissonnault is no longer in cabinet, the Liberal chair of the committee ruled Thursday that newly minted Employment Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor is technically the person the motion called to testify. “I figured this might happen,” said Conservative MP and committee member Jamie Schmale. “If there are games to be played here and we have Minister Petitpas Taylor attend, I don’t think that goes to the spirit of the House order. I don’t think it would be very responsible to go against that ... It’s Randy Boissonault that the House determined it needs and is ordered to appear along with several other witnesses. That’s who we expect to be in that seat.” A new motion from the Conservatives calls directly for Boissonnault to appear at the committee. One of the key concerns raised about Boissonnault in recent weeks is related to the government’s Indigenous business procurement strategy. A directory provides the federal government with names of businesses it could consider using to meet its Indigenous procurement target, which states a minimum five per cent of the total value of government contracts should be held by Indigenous-owned businesses. Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu told a House of Commons committee on Tuesday that the company Boissonnault founded was not listed on that directory. Battiste suggested the committee will now be in a position of determining who is eligible for Indigenous programming and determining who is Indigenous, and as a First Nations person he does not agree with that. “I have a lot of concern because no First Nations, Métis or Inuit in this country are asking committees — who are filled with non-Indigenous Peoples — to determine our identity, who we are.” Schmale and Bloc MP Sebastian Lemire, who is also a member of the committee, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2024. Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version stated that MPs on the Indigenous and Northern affairs committee passed a motion to have the employment minister appear as a witness at the committee.