5 nights at freddy's game
5 nights at freddy's game
Online influencers need ‘urgent’ fact-checking training, warns Unesco
BETHESDA, Md. , Dec. 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- AGNC Investment Corp. (Nasdaq: AGNC) announced today that its Board of Directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.12 per share of common stock for December 2024 . The dividend is payable on January 10, 2025 to common stockholders of record as of December 31, 2024 . For further information or questions, please contact Investor Relations at (301) 968-9300 or IR@AGNC.com . ABOUT AGNC INVESTMENT CORP. Founded in 2008, AGNC Investment Corp. (Nasdaq: AGNC) is a leading investor in Agency residential mortgage-backed securities (Agency MBS), which benefit from a guarantee against credit losses by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or Ginnie Mae . We invest on a leveraged basis, financing our Agency MBS assets primarily through repurchase agreements, and utilize dynamic risk management strategies intended to protect the value of our portfolio from interest rate and other market risks. AGNC has a track record of providing favorable long-term returns for our stockholders through substantial monthly dividend income, with over $13 billion of common stock dividends paid since inception. Our business is a significant source of private capital for the U.S. residential housing market, and our team has extensive experience managing mortgage assets across market cycles. To learn more about The Premier Agency Residential Mortgage REIT , please visit www.AGNC.com , follow us on LinkedIn and X , and sign up for Investor Alerts . CONTACT: Investor Relations - (301) 968-9300 View original content: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/agnc-investment-corp-declares-monthly-common-stock-dividend-of-0-12-per-common-share-for-december-2024--302329440.html SOURCE AGNC Investment Corp.
Vikings place LB Ivan Pace on injured reserve and sign LB Jamin Davis off Packers practice squad
Canadian industry groups reacted sharply on Tuesday morning to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s announcement that he plans to impose a 25-per cent tariff on imports of all products from Canada. While the proposed tariffs would apply across the board, they could hit some Canadian sectors and regions harder than others, experts say. Trump said he will sign an executive order imposing a 25-per cent tariff on all products arriving in the United States from Canada and Mexico. The president-elect posted to Truth Social on Monday evening that the duties will be among his actions on his first day back in the White House on Jan. 20, 2025 — Inauguration Day. Erik Johnson, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, told Global News the plan could hit hard. “Around 75 per cent of our exports all go exclusively the United States. We are very tied to the U.S. when it comes to that very meaningful part of our economy,” he said. Johnson said Ontario, the heart of Canada’s auto manufacturing sector, and Alberta, which ships a large amount of oil and gas south of the border, could feel the pinch. He said some of the investments that Canada has made in its auto manufacturing industry, particularly around EV production, could slow down. Flavio Volpe, president of Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, said Canadian industry was not surprised by the announcement. “There’s a strange calm, unlike in 2016 and ’17, when he did this the first time,” Volpe said in an interview with Global News. He added, “There’s a certain amount of anxiety because now you can’t rely on a 20-year commitment in a trade agreement like the original free trade agreement and then the NAFTA. But I think we learned that lesson in 2017, ’18 and ’19,” he said. Volpe said there was no need for the sector to panic, but instead employ a “prepare and wait” approach. “We’ve been preparing for the last year, and we certainly haven’t completely gone off the throttle since his first term. We know this is coming,” he said. Another industry preparing for a Trump presidency is the aluminum industry. According to the Aluminum Association of Canada, the U.S. consumes about six million tonnes of aluminum a year and produces only 800,000 tons. The rest is largely imported from Canada. Jean Simard, president and chief executive officer of the Aluminum Association of Canada, said, “Many components that end up in their final destination, such as a car, travel back and forth 10 to 12 times across the border. So if every time they’re impacted by the same tariff, it’s going to be very tough to remain competitive.” Simard said the industry is considering pivoting to other markets if Trump goes ahead with his tariffs. “We will be tempted to ship to Europe what we normally ship to the U.S.,” he said, “They’ll take everything we can send there. Especially since Russian metal has been sanctioned out of the market.” Lana Payne, national president of Unifor, warned that these tariffs could cause higher prices in the United States and job losses in Canada. “It could have a disastrous impact on jobs in these sectors unless we’re able to work out a deal with the United States right now around Canada being exempt from these tariffs,” she said. Industry group Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters said the tariffs are a “lose-lose proposition.” Dennis Darby, the group’s president and CEO, said in a statement, “Canada’s exports to the U.S. are primarily materials and inputs used by American businesses to manufacture other products.” “Imposing tariffs wouldn’t just harm Canada’s economy, it would also hurt U.S. manufacturers by increasing their costs and disrupting the deeply-integrated supply chains that make North American manufacturing globally competitive,” Darby said. Farmer groups are warning about adverse effects on agriculture, with the Grain Growers of Canada (GGC) saying that 70 per cent of Canada’s grains are exported to the United States, amounting to $14 billion. “The imposition of sweeping tariffs would create instability for farmers who are already facing tight margins due to rising input costs, changing weather patterns, and increased government taxation,” the group said in a statement. The Canadian of Chambers urged a strong response to the Trump tariff proposal. “Being America’s ‘nice neighbour’ won’t get us anywhere in this situation. President-elect Trump’s intention to impose 25% tariffs signals that the U.S.-Canada trade relationship is no longer about mutual benefit. To him, it’s about winners and losers—with Canada on the losing end,” Candace Laing, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said in a statement. However, it is not yet certain whether a Trump administration will go ahead with the tariffs in the way Trump is proposing. Tu Nyugen, economist at RSM said, “What is more likely to happen is that there will be trade negotiations between the U.S., Canada and Mexico rather than blanket tariffs. Tariffs on all goods coming from a country is actually very difficult to implement in reality.” — with files from Canadian PressIs the NORAD Santa tracker safe from a government shutdown?
Jimmy Carter, a no-frills and steel-willed Southern governor who was elected president in 1976, was rejected by disillusioned voters after a single term and went on to an extraordinary post-presidential life that included winning the Nobel Peace Prize, died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia, according to his son James E. Carter III, known as Chip. He was 100 and the oldest living U.S. president of all time. His son confirmed the death but did not provide an immediate cause. In a statement in February 2023, the Carter Center said the former president, after a series of hospital stays, would stop further medical treatment and spend his remaining time at home under hospice care. He had been treated in recent years for an aggressive form of melanoma skin cancer, with tumors that spread to his liver and brain. His wife, Rosalynn, died Nov. 19, 2023, at 96. The Carters, who were close partners in public life, had been married for more than 77 years, the longest presidential marriage in U.S. history. His final public appearance was at her funeral in Plains, where he sat in the front row in a wheelchair. Mr. Carter, a small-town peanut farmer, U.S. Navy veteran, and Georgia governor from 1971 to 1975, was the first president from the Deep South since 1837, and the only Democrat elected president between Lyndon B. Johnson’s and Bill Clinton’s terms in the White House. As the nation’s 39th president, he governed with strong Democratic majorities in Congress but in a country that was growing more conservative. Four years after taking office, Mr. Carter lost his bid for reelection, in a landslide, to one of the most conservative political figures of the era, Ronald Reagan. When Mr. Carter left Washington in January 1981, he was widely regarded as a mediocre president, if not an outright failure. The list of what had gone wrong during his presidency, not all of it his fault, was long. It was a time of economic distress, with a stagnant economy and stubbornly high unemployment and inflation. “Stagflation,” connoting both low growth and high inflation, was a description that critics used to attack Mr. Carter’s economic policies. In the summer of 1979, Americans waited in long lines at service stations as gasoline supplies dwindled and prices soared after the revolution in Iran disrupted the global oil supply. Mr. Carter made energy his signature domestic policy initiative, and he had some success, but events outside his control intervened. In March 1979, a unit of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pa., suffered a core meltdown. The accident was the worst ever for the U.S. nuclear energy industry and a severe setback to hopes that nuclear power would provide a safe alternative to oil and other fossil fuels. Mr. Carter’s fortunes were no better overseas. In November 1979, an Iranian mob seized control of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans as hostages. It was the beginning of a 444-day ordeal that played out daily on television and did not end until Jan. 20, 1981, the day Mr. Carter left office when the hostages were released. In the midst of the crisis, in April 1980, Mr. Carter authorized a rescue attempt that ended disastrously in the Iranian desert when two U.S. aircraft collided on the ground, killing eight American servicemen. Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, who had opposed the mission, resigned. “I may have overemphasized the plight of the hostages when I was in my final year,” Mr. Carter said in a 2018 interview with The Washington Post in Plains. “But I was so obsessed with them personally, and with their families, that I wanted to do anything to get them home safely, which I did.” A month after the Iranian hostage crisis erupted, an emboldened Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Mr. Carter ordered an embargo of grain sales to the Soviet Union, angering American farmers, and a U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, a step that was unpopular with many Americans and was widely seen as weak and ineffectual. As the years wore on, the judgment on Mr. Carter’s presidency gradually gave way to a more positive view. He lived long enough to see his record largely vindicated by history, with a widespread acknowledgment that his presidency had been far more than long lines at the gas station and U.S. hostages in Iran. Near the end of Mr. Carter’s life, two biographies argued forcefully that he had been a more consequential president than most people realized – “perhaps the most misunderstood president in American history,” author Jonathan Alter wrote in his 2020 book, “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life.” Both books — the other was Kai Bird’s 2021 volume, “The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter” — said Mr. Carter was often ahead of his time, especially with his early focus on reducing fossil fuel use and his efforts to mitigate the nation’s racial divide, including by expanding the number of people of color in federal judgeships. The biographies concluded that Mr. Carter’s reputation as a poor president was unfair and came largely from his stubborn insistence on doing what he thought was correct even when it cost him politically. “He insisted on telling us what was wrong and what it would take to make things better,” Bird wrote. “And for most Americans, it was easier to label the messenger a ‘failure’ than to grapple with the hard problems.” Mr. Carter, noted for his mile-wide smile in public, was also tenacious and resolute, and those qualities were critical to achieving the Camp David Accords, a signature success of his presidency. He spent 13 days at the presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains in September 1978, shuttling between cabins that housed Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. In a process that almost collapsed several times, Mr. Carter was instrumental in brokering a historic agreement between bitter rivals. The Camp David Accords led to the first significant Israeli withdrawal from territory captured in the Six-Day War of 1967 and a peace treaty that has endured between Israel and its largest Arab neighbor. In 1978, Begin and Sadat were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor conferred on Mr. Carter 24 years later for a lifetime of working for peace. Against fierce conservative opposition, Mr. Carter pushed through the Panama Canal treaties, which ultimately placed the economically and strategically critical waterway under Panamanian control, a major step toward better U.S. relations with Latin American neighbors. He signed a nuclear arms reduction treaty, SALT II, with the Soviets, but he withdrew it from Senate consideration when Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan. Taking advantage of the opening made by President Richard M. Nixon, Mr. Carter granted full diplomatic recognition to China. He made human rights a central theme of U.S. foreign policy, a sharp departure from the approach of Nixon and his national security adviser and second secretary of state, Henry A. Kissinger. Two Cabinet-level departments — Energy and Education — were created under Mr. Carter, as was the Superfund to clean up toxic waste sites. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act more than doubled the size of the national park and wildlife refuge system. Mr. Carter was ahead of his time on environmental issues. In June 1979, he installed 32 solar panels on the roof of the West Wing of the White House, telling reporters that the point was to harness “the power of the sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil.” “A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people,” Mr. Carter said. Reagan removed the panels in 1986. His relations with Congress were often strained, even though it was controlled by his party, but he had more success than most modern presidents at winning passage of his legislative proposals. With the deregulation of the airline and trucking industries, Mr. Carter set in motion a movement that picked up steam under Reagan and his conservative allies. The military buildup under Reagan was often credited with hastening the collapse of the Soviet Union, but that buildup began under Mr. Carter. Inflation was a constant scourge to his administration, but it was Mr. Carter who appointed Paul Volcker chairman of the Federal Reserve. Volcker was later hailed as the man who broke the back of inflation in the early 1980s when Reagan was president. In the 2018 Post interview, Mr. Carter said he had “a lot of regrets” from his time in office, mainly over the Iran hostage crisis and his not having done more to unify the Democratic Party. He said he was most proud of the Camp David Accords, his work to normalize relations with China and his focus on human rights. “I kept our country at peace and championed human rights, and that’s a rare thing for post-World War II presidents to say,” he said, adding that he was also proud that he “always told the truth.” ROVING AMBASSADOR Mr. Carter was a former president for more than four decades — longer than anyone else in history — and he was only the second to live to 94, after George H.W. Bush, who died in 2018. He dedicated his post-presidential life to public service at home and supporting democracy and human rights abroad. It was a career that even some of his supporters said seemed better suited to him than being president. “Nothing about the White House so became Mr. Carter as his having left it,” historian Douglas Brinkley wrote in “The Unfinished Presidency,” a 1998 account of Mr. Carter’s life after the presidency. Mr. Carter lived more modestly than any ex-president since Harry S. Truman, whom Mr. Carter called his favorite president. He and Rosalynn lived in Plains until the end in the ranch house that they built for themselves in 1961, and where Mr. Carter will be buried with her next to a shady willow tree near a pond that he helped dig. Mr. Carter declined the corporate board memberships and lucrative speaking engagements that have made other ex-presidents tens of millions of dollars. He said in the 2018 interview that he didn’t want to “capitalize financially on being in the White House.” “I don’t see anything wrong with it; I don’t blame other people for doing it,” Mr. Carter said. “It just never had been my ambition to be rich.” Instead, he wrote 33 books on topics ranging from war to woodworking, which gave him a comfortable retirement income. He also won three Grammy Awards for his recordings of audio versions of his books. For decades, the Carters spent a week a year building homes with Habitat for Humanity, the Georgia-based nonprofit organization that constructs housing for low-income people. Wearing their own tool belts, they helped build or renovate about 4,300 homes in 14 countries. In 1982, the Carters founded the Carter Center at Emory University in Atlanta. It became the base from which they traveled widely on peacemaking and other humanitarian missions. The Carter Center sponsors programs in education, agricultural development and health care and supports fair elections in countries around the world. Mr. Carter became an unofficial roving ambassador, monitoring elections, mediating disputes and promoting human rights and democracy. In 1994, at the request of President Clinton, he helped forge an agreement that removed a brutal military regime in Haiti and averted a possible U.S. invasion of that country. Mr. Carter’s missions required meeting with some of the world’s most notorious despots, including Kim Il Sung of North Korea and Moammar Gaddafi of Libya. Fledgling democracies trusted him, and he was asked to monitor elections in Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Zambia, the West Bank and Gaza. The Carter Center has monitored 115 elections in 40 countries, according to its website. He was not always successful, but Mr. Carter never seemed discouraged about his efforts to resolve conflicts. He spent the days leading up to the 1994 Christmas holiday in the Balkans, engaging in negotiations that included a shouted conversation by shortwave radio with Serbian strongman Radovan Karadzic, who in 2016 was convicted of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Mr. Carter’s efforts resulted in a four-month cease-fire in the bloody conflict. From Atlanta, the Carter Center coordinated dozens of initiatives, including a decades-long effort that helped to virtually eradicate Guinea worm disease, a painful and disabling condition that once afflicted millions of people in some of Africa’s poorest countries. Mr. Carter’s freelance diplomacy, which at times included outspoken criticism of U.S. policies, could provoke outrage. He angered Clinton in 1994 by thrusting himself into a dispute over U.N. inspections of North Korea’s nuclear facilities. In his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” (2006), Mr. Carter set off a storm of criticism by seeming to equate Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories with the former apartheid regime in South Africa. Over the years, Mr. Carter was a constant source of irritation to conservative critics. In a book about Mr. Carter’s life after the White House — a book whose subtitle called him “Our Worst Ex-President” — conservative political commentator Steven F. Hayward accused him of engaging in “usually embarrassing and often disastrous peace missions around the world.” The far more common judgment was that Mr. Carter’s tireless pursuit of peace and human rights was admirable and set a new standard for ex-presidents. In awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, the Nobel committee lauded him “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.” Introducing the 2002 Peace Prize laureate in Oslo, Gunnar Berge, a member of the Nobel committee, said: “Jimmy Carter will probably not go down in American history as the most effective president. But he is certainly the best ex-president the country ever had.” THE CARTER IMAGE That Mr. Carter became president was something of a historical accident, one that followed an unprecedented chain of events. The progression began in 1973 with the resignation of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, who was caught in a web of corruption dating from his time as a Maryland politician. That led to the appointment of then-Minority Leader Gerald Ford, a respected but relatively little-known U.S. House member from Michigan, as Agnew’s successor. And, finally, in 1974, there was the resignation of Nixon to avoid impeachment stemming from the Watergate scandal. Two years later, Mr. Carter narrowly defeated Ford, but the person he really campaigned against was Nixon. Mr. Carter was the peanut farmer from Georgia, the candidate who carried his own garment bag off the aircraft and promised to bring an open and honest style of leadership to the nation’s capital. It later became commonplace for presidential candidates, and most challengers to incumbents, to run “against Washington.” Mr. Carter was among the first of the modern era to do so. Mr. Carter signaled his disdain for the “imperial” trappings of the presidency on Inauguration Day in 1977, when he, Rosalynn and their daughter, Amy, stepped out of the presidential limousine on Pennsylvania Avenue and walked the parade route to the White House. “He didn’t feel suited to the grandeur,” Stuart E. Eizenstat, a Carter aide and biographer, said in 2018. While that seemed refreshing to many people after the Nixon years, it ultimately grated on those who thought that Mr. Carter’s style – refusing, for example, to have “Hail to the Chief” played when he entered rooms – demeaned and diminished the presidency. Eizenstat said Mr. Carter’s order eliminating drivers for top staff members was meant to signal a more frugal approach to governing. Instead, he said, it meant that busy officials were driving instead of reading and working for an hour or two every day. Two years later, in 1979, Americans were in a sour mood, and Mr. Carter’s response to events seemed to make matters worse. In July, he abruptly canceled a speech on energy and retreated to Camp David, where he held a series of intense discussions with a cross-section of guests. When he emerged July 15, he delivered a nationally televised address that was soon dubbed the “malaise” speech, although Mr. Carter never used that word in his address. In the speech, Mr. Carter spoke of a “crisis of the American spirit” and, before setting out a series of energy policy proposals, warned that “we are at a turning point in our history.” “There are two paths to choose,” he continued. “One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.” The speech, initially well received, was soon turned against Mr. Carter, who was accused of blaming the American people for the failures of his administration. Mr. Carter did not help his cause when, two days later, he demanded the resignation of his entire Cabinet and fired five of the secretaries. Then came the takeover of the U.S. Embassy by Iranian student protesters. By the early 21st century, Mr. Carter’s warning about the fragmentation of American society leading to political paralysis appeared prescient to many. So, too, did his emphasis on concerns then only dimly perceived as threats — foremost among them, the spread of nuclear weapons to unfriendly and unstable regimes. But hindsight was of no benefit to him then. Mr. Carter’s dignity was ruthlessly assailed by reports in August 1979 of his encounter with a “killer rabbit” a few months before while fishing in Georgia. “President Attacked by Rabbit,” a front-page headline in The Post proclaimed. His use of a paddle to fend off a rabbit swimming toward his small boat was widely lampooned as a desperate struggle. The story, inconsequential in itself, reinforced an impression, cultivated by his political opponents, that Mr. Carter was a hapless bumbler unequal to his office. He also had been mocked for wearing a cardigan in February 1977 while sitting next to a fire to deliver his first speech on energy, in which he called the nation’s response to a growing energy crisis “the moral equivalent of war.” But his energy policies led to a reduction in U.S. consumption of foreign oil. Long after he left public office, there was a public outcry over congressional “earmarks” and other forms of pork-barrel spending because of the soaring federal budget deficit. One of Mr. Carter’s first acts as president was to veto a bill authorizing a number of federal water projects he considered wasteful, incurring the lasting enmity of some of the Democratic barons of Capitol Hill. “If you are president and you’re going to diagnose a problem, you better have a solution to it,” journalist Hendrik Hertzberg, who as a White House speechwriter worked on the “malaise” speech, later observed. “While he turned out to be a true prophet, he turned out not to be a savior.” To many who were sympathetic to Mr. Carter and considered his presidency underrated, his shortcomings stemmed largely from the way he defined the role more in moral than political terms, which reflected his deep religious faith. He craved political power to do good as he saw it, and he was adept at gaining power. But he was not a natural politician, and he was never at home in the messy world of politics and governing in an unruly democracy. He was always far more at home in Plains, the speck of a town in South Georgia that he never really left. Until late in their lives, he and Mrs. Carter frequently were seen walking hand in hand along Church Street on their way home from Saturday dinners at the home of their friend Jill Stuckey. Mr. Carter was a champion for the town, which is essentially a living museum of his life, with old-fashioned storefronts and shops selling everything from Carter Christmas ornaments to campaign memorabilia. He helped woo a Dollar General store to Plains, then shopped for his clothes there. In the 2018 interview, Mr. Carter said he and Mrs. Carter wanted to be buried in Plains partly because they knew their gravesite would draw tourists and provide a much-needed economic boost to their hometown. They celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary in 2021 with a party for more than 300 people at Plains High School, which they both had attended about eight decades earlier. The guests included country music stars Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, a married couple who had worked with the Carters for years building homes for Habitat for Humanity. (Brooks and Yearwood quietly presented the Carters with a 1946 Ford Super Deluxe convertible, in honor of the year they were married.) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came to the party, as did billionaire and CNN founder Ted Turner, who was Mr. Carter’s longtime friend and fly-fishing buddy, and civil rights leader Andrew Young, whom President Carter appointed U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and who later served as mayor of Atlanta. Also, there was Mary Prince, an African American woman who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1970. She met the Carters when she was a prisoner assigned to work at the Georgia governor’s mansion. Rosalynn Carter was convinced of her innocence and hired her to be Amy Carter’s nanny. After he became president, Mr. Carter persuaded the parole board to let him be Prince’s parole officer. She moved into the White House and lived there for all of Mr. Carter’s presidency, looking after Amy. She later received a full pardon. She still lives in Plains and sometimes cares for the Carters’ grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Most notably, Bill and Hillary Clinton made the long trip to Plains. The Carters and the Clintons had tense relations for decades but seemed ready to set their differences aside in the twilight of Carter’s life. Onstage, Mr. Carter, who was then 96, spoke haltingly, showing the combined effects of his age and many health problems, including brain cancer that appeared to have been treated successfully in 2015. Seated next to his wife, Mr. Carter expressed “particular gratitude” to her for “being the right woman.” Then he flashed his trademark toothy grin, looked out at an auditorium jammed with family and friends, many of them choking up, and declared, “I love you all very much.” Friends said it felt like a goodbye. The next morning, an exhausted Mr. Carter was wheeled into the Baptist church where he had until recently taught Sunday school. He kissed Pelosi’s hand when she walked in. “I thought he was a great president because he was a president of values, and he acted upon the values,” Pelosi said later. She admired him for his vision, for his striving to help free the world of nuclear weapons, and for the way he inspired people by his good works in his post-presidency. “He went from the White House to building houses for poor people,” she said. “He glorified that work. Others wanted to do it because he did it. That’s powerful.” Despite the feeling of farewell in Plains that summer weekend, Mr. Carter did not fade completely from public view. Nearly five months later, on the eve of the first anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, he wrote an op-ed for the New York Times decrying “unscrupulous politicians” who guided the mob and the “lie” that the 2020 election had been stolen. He called on Americans to reject political violence, polarization, and disinformation and embrace “fairness, civility and respect for the rule of law.” “Our great nation now teeters on the brink of a widening abyss,” Mr. Carter warned. “Without immediate action, we are at genuine risk of civil conflict and losing our precious democracy. Americans must set aside differences and work together before it is too late.” Survivors include their four children, John W. “Jack” Carter, James E. “Chip” Carter III, Donnel J. “Jeff” Carter and Amy Carter; 11 grandchildren; and 14 great-grandchildren. THE MAN FROM PLAINS James Earl L. “Buddy” Carter Jr., the eldest of four children, was born Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains, a farming town about 150 miles south of Atlanta. The Carters lived on the family farm in Archery, Ga., about two miles west of Plains, in a house with no electricity or running water. But that was not uncommon in the rural South of the time, and the Carters, though not wealthy, were not poor. As they prospered, the Carters eventually moved to a larger and more modern, although still modest, home in Plains. Mr. Carter’s father, who was known as Earl, was ambitious, hard-working and shrewd. Over the years, he enlarged his farm holdings in the region and branched into other business ventures, including a peanut warehouse. Running for president, Jimmy Carter was often described, and described himself, as a peanut farmer, but that label did not capture the full extent of the family’s business interests. By the time he entered state politics in the early 1960s, Mr. Carter was an affluent agribusinessman, the head of a sizable and thriving commercial enterprise. It was his mother who probably had the most influence on the future president. A nurse by training, Lillian Gordy Carter was talkative, outgoing, at times irrepressible. In 1966, at the age of 68, “Miss Lillian,” as she came to be known, decided to join the Peace Corps, and she spent nearly two years serving in India. She slipped quietly out of town to begin her training because, she said later, the family thought her joining the Peace Corps might arouse conservative suspicions about her son’s campaign for governor. Mr. Carter grew up in the rigidly segregated South of the 1920s and ’30s. But unlike in much of the North, which was segregated in fact if not in law, contact between Black and White people was part of everyday life in much of the South. There was only one other White family in Archery, and many of Mr. Carter’s boyhood friends were Black. His mother turned the family home into a social center where Black and White people were welcome and where she dispensed medical treatment and advice to the sharecropper families who worked the Carter land. In his youth, Mr. Carter made no attempt to conceal his ambition. Perhaps influenced by an uncle, Tom Watson Gordy, a Navy enlisted man who sent messages to the family from exotic places, he declared at an early age that he intended to enter the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and eventually become chief of naval operations. He also told a friend that one day he would be governor of Georgia. Mr. Carter graduated from Plains High School in 1941. To qualify for the Naval Academy, he enrolled at Georgia Southwestern College in nearby Americus, and he later spent a year studying at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. In 1943, as World War II raged, he was admitted to the Naval Academy. He was a good student, a quick study who seemed to move through the academy’s rigorous academic schedule with ease. He was also popular with his classmates, and viewed as a “nice guy,” but not necessarily destined to be a leader. He was officially a member of the Class of 1947, but under the Navy’s accelerated wartime schedule, he graduated in 1946, ranking 59th in a class of more than 800. Shortly after his graduation, Mr. Carter married Eleanor Rosalynn Smith of Plains, a close friend of his sister Ruth’s. The new Mrs. Carter, three years younger than her husband, was from a respectable Plains family and shared Mr. Carter’s values and outlook. After graduating from the Naval Academy, Mr. Carter spent two compulsory years on Navy surface ships and then applied for the submarine service. He was accepted and soon won entry to the Navy’s newest and most glamorous program, which was developing the nation’s first nuclear-powered submarines under the iron-fisted direction of a captain (later admiral) named Hyman G. Rickover. Rickover was a cold man who drove his subordinates relentlessly. He never praised his men; he signaled his approval by allowing them to remain in their jobs. Years later, Mr. Carter would say, “I think, second to my own father, Rickover had more effect on my life than any other man.” The title of his 1975 presidential campaign autobiography, “Why Not the Best?” was based on his first encounter with Rickover, who asked him whether he had always done his best at the Naval Academy. The young lieutenant junior grade answered honestly that, no, he had not always done his best. After a long pause, Rickover asked icily, “Why not?” Rickover was not a man who cultivated friendships, and his influence on Mr. Carter might have reinforced the same tendency in the future president. Supremely self-confident, Mr. Carter, too, was a taskmaster, and he was not a favorite president among those who served on the permanent White House staff and saw chief executives come and go. When Mr. Carter came to Washington as the newly elected “outsider” president, he had few real friends in the capital, even among members of his own party. In four years, he did little to forge the bonds of friendship and loyalty that can help carry a president through times of turmoil. He alienated potential allies, and the engineer in him was given to micromanagement. Early in his term, Mr. Carter personally controlled access to the White House tennis court. “Although most considered Mr. Carter a kind, amiable man, he could turn nasty in an instant,” Brinkley wrote in “The Unfinished Presidency.” He added, “At times he was downright vicious; in fact, his trademark steely, laser-sharp stare usually preceded a hurtful put-down. Even in the most informal settings, Mr. Carter had to let everybody know he was in charge.” Mr. Carter, however, did develop deep friendships. One of them, surprisingly, was with Ford, the man he defeated in 1976. Out of office, the two men saw each other frequently and collaborated on various projects. Mr. Carter delivered a eulogy at Ford’s funeral in Grand Rapids, Mich., in 2007. Mr. Carter never stopped taking positions on personally and politically difficult issues. He cut ties with the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000, citing its “increasingly rigid” views, especially on the role of women in society. “I’ve made this decision with a great deal of pain and reluctance,” Mr. Carter told the Associated Press at the time. “For me, being a Southern Baptist has always been like being an American. ... My father and his father were deacons and Sunday school teachers. It’s something that’s just like breathing for us.” But he added: “I personally feel the Bible says all people are equal in the eyes of God. I personally feel that women should play an absolutely equal role in service of Jesus in the church.” THE POLITICAL LIFE By 1952, promoted to lieutenant and assigned as the engineering officer on the USS Sea Wolf, the fleet’s second nuclear submarine, Mr. Carter’s Navy career was off to a good start. But his father died in July 1953, leaving the farm and other family business interests in shaky financial condition. As the oldest of the Carter siblings, the young naval officer felt a duty to return to Georgia and take his place as head of the family. And his mother wanted him at home to hold things together through a challenging time. He resigned from the Navy on Oct. 9, 1953, and headed home. His return to Plains reunited him with his sisters, Gloria and Ruth, and his brother, Billy, who became a well-known figure during the Carter presidency. Always the family rebel, Billy Carter reveled in the role of Georgia’s good ol’ boy at the gas station he owned in Plains. He also marketed a beer – Billy Beer — under his own name. But he became an embarrassment to his brother when it was disclosed that he had accepted a $220,000 loan from Libya and registered as a foreign agent of the Libyan government. Mr. Carter’s siblings all died before him —all from pancreatic cancer. Mr. Carter’s Navy resignation was a difficult decision, especially for Rosalynn. She enjoyed the adventure and security of military life, and as a young girl, she had yearned to leave the confines of Plains for the wider world. Now, at 26, with three small children, she headed back to the small town amid the dusty farm fields of southwest Georgia and a life she thought she had escaped. But the Carters soon found their footing in their native region. They formed an effective business partnership, with Rosalynn handling the bookkeeping and other managerial duties at the warehouse and her husband immersing himself in the technical and scientific details of modern farming. They began to prosper. The Carters remained partners in all facets of life. At the White House, Rosalynn Carter was an unusually activist first lady, regularly attending Cabinet meetings and policy sessions and serving as a trusted adviser to the president. She placed special emphasis on mental health issues and served as the active honorary chairman of the President’s Commission on Mental Health. After the White House years, she accompanied her husband on his global missions. Like his father before him, Mr. Carter became an active member in community institutions — Plains Baptist Church, the Lions Club, the local school and library boards, and the county planning commission. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter had been elected to the Georgia legislature the year before his death, and in 1962, his elder son embarked on a political career. He ran for a state Senate seat representing Sumter and six other counties. Mr. Carter ran an energetic campaign for the Democratic primary, the only election that counted at that time in the Deep South, but he came up just short against the incumbent. On the day of the primary, however, his operatives in the small city of Quitman witnessed widespread voting irregularities, including ballot stuffing. It was the way things had been done in Quitman for years. Mr. Carter convinced John Pennington, a young investigative reporter for the Atlanta Journal, that there was a good story to be had in Quitman. Pennington’s subsequent stories exposed the extent of voter fraud in the county and brought Mr. Carter statewide attention. Through intermediaries, including Griffin Bell, who became attorney general in the Carter administration, Mr. Carter made contact with Charles Kirbo, a partner in a prestigious Atlanta law firm. Kirbo, who had never met the Georgia peanut farmer, agreed to represent him in a challenge to the primary election’s outcome. Kirbo remained a friend and trusted adviser. Mr. Carter prevailed, and in January 1963 he took his seat in the Georgia Senate. He served four years, his only legislative experience, generally keeping a low profile while achieving a reputation for diligence and hard work. He promised to read every bill introduced in the legislature, and when he had trouble keeping up, he took a speed-reading course. In 1966, Mr. Carter announced that he was running for the congressional seat held by Howard “Bo” Calloway, a wealthy Republican and graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. When Calloway unexpectedly dropped his reelection bid and entered the race for the Republican nomination for governor, Mr. Carter jumped into the race for the Democratic nomination. His primary opponents included Ellis Arnall, a former governor who was regarded as a progressive, and Lester Maddox, an Atlanta restaurant owner who dispensed ax handles to patrons as a symbol of his resistance to the civil rights advances of the 1960s. Mr. Carter finished third in the primary, which was won by Maddox. The 1966 defeat affected Mr. Carter profoundly. It was then, he later wrote, that he underwent a deep religious transformation, a “born-again” experience that guided him for the rest of his life. From then on, he pursued a moral as much as a political agenda and tended to define issues in terms of right and wrong. When he ran for president, he described himself as a “born-again Christian,” at the time a new and somewhat jarring term in the lexicon of presidential politics. He almost immediately began planning to run a second campaign for governor in 1970. His main rival in the Democratic primary was Carl Sanders, a well-regarded former governor with a moderate record on race. Mr. Carter had taken courageous stands on the issue of race, although he was never in the forefront of the civil rights movement, which was gathering momentum and tearing the South apart. In the 1950s, he withstood intense pressure from his neighbors and threats to the family business as one of the few White men in Plains who would not join the local chapter of the White Citizens Council, an organization whose thinly veiled purpose was the continued subjugation of Black people. In 1965, he and other members of his family stood virtually alone in opposing a resolution barring Black people from Plains Baptist Church. But in the 1970 campaign, Mr. Carter aggressively courted the state’s conservative, rural voters, kept his distance from the African American community and relentlessly attacked Sanders as the wealthy crony of the “bigwigs” of Atlanta’s business establishment. Sanders had refused to allow Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace, the most prominent segregationist politician in the country, to address the Georgia legislature. Mr. Carter promised repeatedly to invite Wallace to the state. Mr. Carter was endorsed by some of Georgia’s leading segregationists, but the 1970 campaign cost him the support of some old allies. Mr. Carter defeated Sanders in a primary runoff and easily won the general election. He then executed a stunning political pivot. On Jan. 12, 1971, Mr. Carter delivered his inaugural address in front of the Georgia Capitol, declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over. ... No poor, rural, weak or Black person should ever have to bear the additional burden of being deprived of the opportunity of an education, a job or simple justice.” The speech was probably the most important of his life, including those he delivered as president. It brought him national attention and soon landed him on the cover of Time magazine. Mr. Carter became a leading figure in a generation of young New South politicians who were seen as determined to move their region beyond the rancorous politics of race. As governor, Mr. Carter largely lived up to his lofty words. He appointed more women and minorities to state government positions than all of his predecessors combined. He also continued efforts, begun in the state Senate, to upgrade Georgia’s public schools, and he overhauled the prison system and judiciary. EYE ON THE PRESIDENCY Mr. Carter was constitutionally limited to one term as governor (Georgia governors can now serve two consecutive terms), but his ambitions were not similarly constrained. He began to think of running for president, a goal that might seem wildly out of reach even for a bright young governor with a progressive reputation. As late as October 1975, a public opinion poll on possible 1976 Democratic presidential contenders did not include his name. By the 1970 gubernatorial campaign, Mr. Carter had acquired the services, and the fierce loyalty, of two young Georgians who would be at his side through his presidency. One was Hamilton Jordan, a political science student who volunteered to work for Mr. Carter in 1966 and became his closest political strategist and White House chief of staff. The other was Jody Powell, who began as Mr. Carter’s driver in the 1970 campaign and went on to be his chief spokesman and White House press secretary. Jordan died in 2008; Powell died in 2009. While still governor of Georgia, Mr. Carter quietly pursued the presidency with the same determination that marked all of his endeavors. He managed to get appointed to an important Democratic National Committee campaign post, providing a vehicle to meet Democratic politicians and activists around the county. Jordan, his executive assistant, left Atlanta for a job with the DNC in Washington, where he served as the unannounced candidate’s eyes and ears at national party headquarters. Jordan also wrote a long memo setting out the changing contours of the nomination process and a strategy that would lead to victory. Mr. Carter, with Powell at his side, crisscrossed the country tirelessly, impressing the people he met and gradually building a foundation of support. It all came together on a cold January night in Iowa. Mr. Carter did not win the Iowa caucuses in 1976 – the most votes were cast for uncommitted delegates – but he finished first among those who competed. That gave him a burst of publicity and momentum that carried him to victory in the New Hampshire primary and eventually to the nomination as his rivals dropped out of the race one by one. It was the 1976 Carter campaign that firmly established Iowa as the starting point of the road to the White House. After Watergate and the other scandals of the Nixon administration, it was a good year to be a Democrat. Mr. Carter chose Sen. Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota, a Northern liberal with strong ties to organized labor, as his running mate, and they headed into the fall campaign with a 30-point lead in the polls over their Republican opponents. They almost lost. Ford ran a disciplined campaign that made maximum use of his status as the incumbent, and Mr. Carter’s lead in the polls steadily dwindled. Shortly before Election Day, Playboy magazine published a long interview with the Democratic nominee. As a final question, Mr. Carter was asked whether he thought that he had reassured people who were uneasy about his religious beliefs and fearful that he would be a rigid, unbending president. In the midst of a long, rambling response, Mr. Carter said: “I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.” Public doubts about the born-again peanut farmer and one-term governor deepened. Mr. Carter won the election by two percentage points. His steep slide during the 1976 campaign was an early warning signal of his political vulnerability. Four years later, Mr. Carter was the incumbent, but that was hardly an advantage. One July 1980 poll put his approval rating at 21 percent, one of the lowest ever recorded for a president. Mr. Carter was the first president to openly embrace rock-and-roll music, and he credits the Allman Brothers and other musicians with helping him win the election in 1976. “I was practically a nonentity, but everyone knew the Allman Brothers,” Mr. Carter said in a 2020 documentary, “Jimmy Carter: Rock-and-roll President.” “When they endorsed me, all the young people said, ‘Well, if the Allman Brothers-like him, we can vote for him.’” Mr. Carter was challenged for his party’s nomination by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a hero to Democratic liberals who had come to detest Mr. Carter for what they considered his conservative policies. The Kennedy campaign badly damaged Mr. Carter’s reelection chances, but it also exposed weaknesses in Kennedy’s presidential aspirations. Mr. Carter won the nomination, and the youngest of the Kennedy brothers never again sought the presidency. In the fall, Mr. Carter faced Reagan, the hero of a rising conservative movement. As he had in the 1970 campaign for governor of Georgia, Mr. Carter played to win. He mounted a negative assault that depicted Reagan as a right-wing ideologue who was too dangerous to entrust with the nation’s future. In the only nationally televised debate of the fall campaign, Reagan disarmed that portrayal. “There you go again,” he said in his avuncular, optimistic style, responding to Mr. Carter’s accusations. Reagan won by almost 10 percentage points, sweeping 44 of the 50 states. For years, people in Mr. Carter’s orbit believed that Reagan supporters had been in contact with Iranian officials and urged them to delay the release of the U.S. hostages in Tehran until after the 1980 election. The purpose, allegedly, was to make sure that Mr. Carter didn’t pull off an “October surprise” that could swing the election in his favor. Investigations by the U.S. House and Senate concluded that there was no credible evidence of any such plot. In March 2023, while Mr. Carter was in hospice care, the New York Times reported allegations made by Ben Barnes, a longtime politician and operative from Texas, that supported those suspicions. Barnes said that he had accompanied his mentor, former Texas governor and former U.S. treasury secretary John B. Connally Jr., to several Middle East countries in the summer of 1980 and that Connally urged leaders there to pass a message to Iranian officials that they should wait until Reagan was president to release the hostages. Connally and most other key players had died, and Barnes’s allegations could not be independently confirmed. But the Times story felt like a vindication to Mr. Carter’s allies. Gerald Rafshoon, Mr. Carter’s White House communications director, told the Times that the allegations were “pretty damn outrageous.” After the Times story was published, grandson Jason Carter told The Post that he believed that Mr. Carter remained alert enough to know about the article and that the family was gratified by what it added to the historical record, but “my grandfather had moved on.” Jason Carter said he never once – despite all that had been written about dirty politics played at the expense of the hostages and Mr. Carter – heard his grandfather talk about it. “I think that tells you a lot,” Jason Carter said. “He believed there were other things more important than politics.” In his first act as a former president, performed at the request of the new president, Mr. Carter flew to a U.S. air base in Germany to greet the American hostages who were returning from Iran. He was 56 and could not know how much time he had left or how he would use it. But in a farewell address a week earlier, Mr. Carter suggested that although he had lost an election, he was not finished with what he saw as his life’s work. “In a few days,” he said, “I will lay down my official responsibilities in this office to take up once more the only title in our democracy superior to that of president, the title of ‘citizen.’” Mary Jordan contributed to this report. Edward Walsh, who died in 2014, served as The Washington Post’s White House correspondent during the Carter administration. Jimmy Carter at 100: A century of changes for a president, the U.S., the world since 1924 We invite you to add your comments. We encourage a thoughtful exchange of ideas and information on this website. By joining the conversation, you are agreeing to our commenting policy and terms of use . More information is found on our FAQs . You can modify your screen name here . 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India ISA ink agreement for solar projects in four Indo-Pacific countries
With 2025 less than two weeks away, it is time to recap all the features Microsoft deprecated or removed from Windows 10 and 11 in 2024. Although the list from 2024 is not as big as , Microsoft still deprecated quite a lot of features, so here is each one of them to give you a better look at what you can no longer use or what will soon be removed. Table of contents: | Starting with a big one: Android app support, a thing that used to be one of Windows 11's headline features, is now dead. You can no longer download WSA, the Amazon App Store for Windows, and any officially supported apps. However, if you have some installed, they will continue operating until March 5, 2025. While Microsoft never provided any official explanations, some developers from the WSA team later revealed that . | Test Base, a cloud-based Azure service for application testing, is dead. On June 1, 2024, Microsoft shut down Test Base and deleted all user information, claiming that Windows 11 and its "continuous innovation" resolved "a high percentage of application compatibility issues." | RSA keys shorter than 2048 bits are no longer valid for certificates. Microsoft deprecated them to improve security when using certificates for authentication and cryptographic purposes. | This is another security-related change in Windows 11 version 24H2 and newer. NPLogonNotify and NPPasswordChangeNotify APIs were deprecated to prevent risks of password exposure. However, since some customers might still need those APIs, Microsoft allows them to be used via a dedicated policy. | MDAG extension was a security tool for tracking untrusted websites and redirecting them from your current browser to an isolated Microsoft Edge instance. This extension (available for Chrome and Firefox) was killed in May 2024. | Driver Verifier is a special component for stress-testing Windows drivers. While the verifier itself is not going anywhere, its graphical user interface is now deprecated. Microsoft suggests using the Verifier Command Line (verifier.exe) instead of the Driver Verifier GUI. | New Technology Lan Manager has been deprecated, and Microsoft says all NTLM calls should be replaced by Negotiate calls. Interestingly, despite the promise to keep NTLM around (remember, deprecation does not always mean removal), Microsoft started removing NTLM from consumer and server Windows versions . | DirectAccess, a feature for remote connection to corporate networks introduced in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, is now deprecated in favor of Always on VPN. | Adobe dropped Type 1 font support about two years ago, preventing users with certain creative apps from utilizing them. As a result, Microsoft is also deprecating Type 1 font support in modern Windows versions, and users are recommended to remove them in Settings > Personalization > Fonts. | Paint3D was a failed attempt to make the classic Paint more modern by adding 3D capabilities in the era of Windows 10 feature updates with stupid names. Paint3D is no longer available for download from the Microsoft Store, but if you want to check out this forgotten piece of Microsoft history. | This one is the only deprecated feature that does not affect Windows 10 and 11. The end of legacy DRM services means you won't be able to play protected content in Windows Media Player and Silverlight on Windows 7, Windows 8, and Xbox 360. | Suggested Actions is the youngest feature that Microsoft killed this year. Introduced over two years ago as part of build 25115, Suggested Actions allowed you to quickly make calls, create calendar events, search using Bing, and do other stuff when highlighting text across Windows. Microsoft said Suggested actions would be removed in a future Windows 11 update. In total, Microsoft deprecated 12 Windows features and components in 2024. Are you going to miss some of them?Washington, D.C. — The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), yesterday announced $2.1 million for American Samoa’s broadband and digital accessibility as part of over $60 million nationally for Digital Equity Plans. The effort was authorized by Congress under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which Congresswoman Uifa’atali Amata supported leading to numerous local funding announcements since. “The best possible future for our islands’ economy is based on being able to keep up with technology and communications so our local small businesses can take part in worldwide economic activity, our students have access to the latest learning, and our hospital and clinics can increase services through tele-health,” the Congresswoman said. “I supported the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to strengthen infrastructure, broadband and other improvements. Thank you to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, Assistant Secretary Alan Davidson, and NTIA for ensuring American Samoa’s funding, along with ASG as our people work with this program for our digital capacity in our islands.” American Samoa will use $2,100,000 in funding to implement key digital equity initiatives, including: With this announcement, NTIA has approved and recommended for award all state and U.S. Territory applications for the first round of funding from the State Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program, one of three Digital Equity Act grant programs created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. This first funding round will make approximately $768 million available to states and U.S. Territories. This funding is part of the “Internet for All” initiative, a key component of President Biden’s “Investing in America” agenda. For a variety of reasons, many Americans struggle to use the Internet connection available to them—for example, some lack the skills to navigate online resources and protect their personal and financial information online; others cannot afford a computer or tablet at home. States and territories will use this funding to implement their digital equity plans, which outlines how they will empower individuals and communities with the tools and skills necessary to benefit from meaningful access to affordable, reliable, high-speed Internet service. “Quality, affordable high-speed Internet allows families and businesses to thrive in our modern economy. Thanks to President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Department of Commerce is connecting everyone across the country to quality, affordable high-speed Internet and providing the resources they need to make the most of that Internet connection,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “We look forward to working with the awardees to ensure all residents have the tools and skills to take advantage of quality, affordable high-speed Internet – whether it’s for work, education, health care, or any other essential service.” These approvals are from the first funding round of the Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program, which made available more than $800 million for states, including Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, U.S. Territories, and Native Entities to apply for grants to implement their digital equity plans. These plans were developed under the State Digital Equity Planning Grant Program. Awards of funding will require additional review and approval of State-submitted documentation. “For the first time, every state in the nation has a digital equity plan in place to promote widespread adoption of high-speed Internet services. These states and territories now can request access to the funds to put their digital equity plans into action,” said Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson. “The Biden-Harris Administration’s Internet for All initiative will ensure everyone can thrive online through access to devices and digital skills.” Other states and territories in the announcement along with American Samoa were Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Maryland, North Dakota, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.(The Center Square) – After an Iranian national was arrested on Monday in a Boston suburb for his alleged ties to a terrorist attack that killed three U.S. service members, the town's leaders unanimously voted to pass a sanctuary city ordinance. On Monday, Iranian-born Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi, a resident of Natick, Mass., was charged in federal court in Boston "with conspiring to export sophisticated electronic components from the United States to Iran in violation of U.S. export control and sanctions laws," The Center Square reported. Sadeghi and others allegedly conspired to evade U.S. export control and sanctions laws by procuring goods, services, and technology from American companies and exporting them to an Iranian-based company that contracts with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a US-designated foreign terrorist organization. The company allegedly manufactured the drones used by the IRGC that killed U.S. soldiers stationed in Jordan in January. Sadeghi faces up to 20 years in prison for his role in a conspiracy that goes back nearly 10 years , according to the complaint . His arrest occurred after an unprecedented number of Iranian and special interest aliens were apprehended after illegally entering the U.S., The Center Square reported . It also occurred after Islamic terrorist incidents increased under President Joe Biden and after he extended a national emergency regarding Iran last month. The U.S. has been in a perpetual state of national emergency related to Iran since Nov. 14, 1979, The Center Square reported . Forty-eight hours after Sadeghi's arrest , on Wednesday night, Natick's Select Board members unanimously passed a sanctuary city policy, 5-0. It prohibits taxpayer-funded town employees from inquiring about or collecting information about residents' citizenship status, among other provisions. Natick joined Boston, Somerville, Northampton, Amherst Cambridge, Concord, Lawrence and Newton in adopting so-called sanctuary city policies ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's stated mass deportation policy. The policy is being implemented in response to more than 14 million illegal border crossers being reported under the Biden administration as crime and national security threat escalated, The Center Square reported. Natick's actions followed the all-Democratic Boston City Council unanimously voting to reaffirm the Boston Trust Act, which prohibits Boston Police Department officers from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with some exceptions. It also comes after Boston's mayor said the city wasn't planning on cooperating with ICE, The Center Square reported. Massachusetts' sanctuary policies work against law enforcement tasked with protecting residents, Todd Lyons, acting assistant director of field operations for ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations in New England, argues. Elected officials "preaching their sanctuary city status are making it easier for those who commit sex crimes and fentanyl dealers. We need cities and towns to work with us to keep these criminals out of neighborhoods. "We focus on the worst of the worst and all the political rhetoric is not helping," he told the Boston Herald. Democratic leaders describing Massachusetts "as a sanctuary to the international community and that they won't cooperate with federal authorities, sends a dangerous signal to bad actors around the world," the chair of the Massachusetts Republican Party, Amy Carnevale, said , "It tells them that Massachusetts is a safe haven where they can evade prosecution from the United States federal government." Last year, Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll urged residents to house illegal border crossers, saying, " step up if you're willing to have an additional family be part of your family." One year later, the state converted an empty former prison to house them, resulting in local outrage, The Center Square reported . Carnevale said it was time for Driscoll to "stand with the people of Massachusetts and declare that our state will no longer serve as a sanctuary for criminals whether they're here legally or illegally. For the safety and security of our communities, Massachusetts must send a clear message: there is no sanctuary for international criminals in our Commonwealth." ICE agents have been arresting violent criminals in Massachusetts, including men convicted of aggravated rape, assault and battery, and fugitives wanted in their home countries for violent sexual crimes. In many cases, sanctuary jurisdictions refused to cooperate with ICE, and instead released violent offenders into the community who then committed additional crimes, The Center Square reported . New Hampshire's incoming-Gov. Kelly Ayotte has had harsh words for Massachusetts, saying, "Our neighbors to the south seem intent on proving that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. As they struggle with a billion-dollar illegal immigrant crisis, they are instead choosing to double down," she told Fox News Digital. Ayotte, who is replacing outgoing Gov. Chris Sununu, ran on a campaign against the "Mass-i-fication" of New Hampshire. "Here in New Hampshire, we are going to ban sanctuary policies and give law enforcement the tools to work together to ensure this crisis never comes to our towns," she said.
Communicating with aliens one day could be much easier if we study the way AI agents speak with each otherWASHINGTON , Dec. 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- It is with deep sadness that Universities Space Research Association (USRA) announces the passing of Dr. Berrien Moore III , an internationally recognized leader in Earth Science and an invaluable member of the USRA Board of Trustees. Dr. Moore passed away on December 17, 2024 , in Norman, Oklahoma . He was the Dean of the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences and Director of the National Weather Center at the University of Oklahoma . Dr. Moore was elected to the USRA Board of Trustees in 2019 and re-elected for a second term in 2022. He served in multiple leadership capacities on the Board, including Chair of the Compensation Committee, inaugural Chair of the University Engagement Committee, and, since 2021, Vice Chair of the Board. Gen Lester Lyles , Chair of the USRA Board of Trustees said, "We are profoundly grieved by the loss of Berrien Moore , a treasured member of our Board. Berrien was a strong leader and a dedicated advocate for Earth Science. With his wit and charm, Berrien was more than just a colleague, he was a true friend to everyone. On behalf of the entire Board, I extend our heartfelt condolences to Berrien's family and loved ones during this challenging time." Dr. Jeffrey Isaacson , President and CEO of USRA commented, "At USRA, we are deeply saddened by this news. This is a terrific loss for our Association, but we are grateful to have had the privilege of working with Berrien and are indebted by his many contributions. All of us at USRA extend our heartfelt condolences, prayers, and support to his family." Dr. Moore served in several capacities with NASA including as Principal Investigator of NASA's Geostationary Carbon Cycle Observatory (GeoCarb) mission that placed University of Oklahoma at the forefront of climate research. He also served as chair of NASA's Space and Earth Science Advisory Council, as a member of the NASA Advisory Council, and was on several other committees. As a Coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he contributed to the body of work that garnered the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. His honors include NASA's highest civilian honor, the Distinguished Public Service Medal for outstanding service, the NOAA Administrator's Recognition Award, and the 2007 Dryden Lectureship in Research medal by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Dr. Moore is survived by his wife Lucia and his daughter Leila. About USRA Founded in 1969, under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences at the request of the U.S. Government, the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) is a nonprofit corporation chartered to advance space-related science, technology, and engineering. USRA operates scientific institutes and facilities and conducts other major research and educational programs. It is an association with 121 university members. It engages the broader university community, employs in-house scientific talent, and offers innovative research, development, and project management expertise. More information about USRA is available at www.usra.edu . PR Contact: Suraiya Farukhi sfarukhi@usra.edu 443-812-6945 View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/usra-mourns-the-loss-of-dr-berrien-moore-iii-a-distinguished-member-of-the-board-of-trustees-302337533.html SOURCE Universities Space Research Association
( MENAFN - Jordan Times) LONDON – Given Donald Trump's nominees for key cabinet positions so far, it appears that the US president-elect is determined at least to try to deliver on many of his campaign promises. If so, the current news cycle may have come as a welcome surprise to those who have grown tired of elected leaders making promises they have no intention of keeping. But as a longtime student and practitioner of the dismal science (economics), I see no reason to believe that Trump's policies will do what he and his supporters think they will do. For example, aggressively enforcing a country's immigration laws might well be a good idea. But aggressively pursuing illegal immigrants who are already in the country is another matter, and if it is done in a way that discourages immigrants more broadly, the United States could lose one of the key advantages that it has over many of its advanced-economy peers. With demographic trends putting downward pressure on the populations of Europe, Japan, and many other countries, the US must be careful to not join them. Additional workers who can preserve the size of the labor force need to be found somewhere. Or consider Trump's two other major campaign promises: significant tax cuts and new 10-20% tariffs on imports from the rest of the world, with the rate rising to 60% for goods from China. While it is easy to find economists who will disagree with each other on just about any economic-policy question, tariffs might be the one big exception. Few economists think they are a good idea, mainly because there is zero evidence that they can help reduce a country's trade deficit. Worse, all the additional costs and other negative consequences that they produce are well known. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times demonstrates this clearly in a recent commentary. A country's balance of payments, he explains, is an accounting identity (an equation that must always balance out). Thus, any deficit on trade (which typically dominates the current-account balance) must be matched by a surplus of capital inflows. That is how the overall balance becomes balanced. While the US could use tariffs to reduce its imports from country A, it will have to import more from countries B and C unless it also reduces the consumption, investment, or government spending that drives its demand for those imports in the first place. In fact, this is exactly what happened after the US imposed tariffs on imports from China during Trump's previous term. The US continued to import the same goods, but from other countries, many of which increased their own imports from China. If Trump goes ahead and slaps punitive tariffs on those countries, too, the same pattern will have to repeat itself. There is no way around it: If the US truly wants to reduce its aggregate imports, it will have to reduce overall domestic demand; or more precisely, it will have to raise domestic savings relative to its investment needs, which in turn would mean receiving less net capital from abroad. Now consider Trump's promises to cut taxes and hand out various other goodies for those who helped elect him. Such measures, all else remaining constant, will boost domestic demand; and if they are applied together with tariffs, they will increase the cost of living. The inflation that soured so many voters on Joe Biden's administration has eased, but Trump's agenda could send prices soaring again. And that is before accounting for the retaliation by other countries, most of whom would introduce their own tariffs to hurt US exporters (as China and others did previously when they targeted US agriculture). What can other countries' leaders learn from America's bizarre experiment? With Trump's unorthodox approach to politics now very much in vogue, we can expect to see more mini-Trump initiatives popping up around the world. But insofar as they are Trumpian, they, too, will fail to achieve their intended purposes. Since all other countries have the same balance-of-payments identity as the US, those with large trade surpluses necessarily export more capital relative to their current domestic investment needs. Faced with Trump's return, wise foreign leaders would start thinking about how to tackle their countries' own long-standing domestic economic challenges. Those with excess savings, for example, ought to consider how to boost investment at home or reduce the domestic savings rate. Given their own current troubles, Germany and China both would be well served by such a strategy. Not only would it boost their economies and increase the appeal of their leaders; it also would reduce their exports of capital to the rest of the world, including the US. Many other constructive policy changes could then follow. China, for example, could reform its financial sector and allow its currency to acquire more of the features that have been so central to America's ability to attract capital from the rest of the world. Future US leaders might then be less cavalier about dictating terms to others, not least because others would no longer be so dependent on the US and its currency. Jim O'Neill, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management and a former UK treasury minister, is a member of the Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2024. MENAFN30112024000028011005ID1108942276 Legal Disclaimer: MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.EAGAN, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota Vikings linebacker Ivan Pace Jr. has been placed on injured reserve after hurting his hamstring Sunday in a 30-27 overtime victory over the Chicago Bears. The move announced Tuesday means that Pace must miss at least the Vikings next four games. The Vikings also activated outside linebacker Gabriel Murphy from injured reserve and signed linebacker Jamin Davis off the Green Bay Packers practice squad. Pace, 23, had started each of the Vikings nine games this season. The 2023 undrafted free agent from Cincinnati had 56 tackles — including six for loss — and three sacks. Murphy, 24, signed with the Vikings as an undrafted free agent this spring. He was placed on injured reserve Aug. 27. Davis had joined the Packers practice squad Oct. 29 after getting released by the Washington Commanders a week earlier. Washington selected him out of Kentucky with the 19th overall pick in the 2021 draft. The 25-year-old Davis has 282 tackles, seven sacks, one interception, two forced fumble recoveries and two forced fumbles in his NFL career. He led the Commanders with a career-high 104 tackles in 2022. The Vikings (9-2) host the Arizona Cardinals (6-5) on Sunday. AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
