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ATLANTA (AP) — Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who tried to restore virtue to the White House after the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, then rebounded from a landslide defeat to become a global advocate of human rights and democracy, has died. He was 100 years old . The Carter Center said the 39th president died Sunday afternoon, more than a year after entering hospice care , at his home in Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died in November 2023, lived most of their lives. The center said he died peacefully, surrounded by his family. A moderate Democrat, Carter ran for president in 1976 as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad grin, effusive Baptist faith and technocratic plans for efficient government. His promise to never deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and U.S. defeat in southeast Asia. “If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Carter said. Carter’s victory over Republican Gerald Ford, whose fortunes fell after pardoning Nixon, came amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets and social upheaval over race, women’s rights and America’s role in the world. His achievements included brokering Mideast peace by keeping Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Camp David for 13 days in 1978. But his coalition splintered under double-digit inflation and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His negotiations ultimately brought all the hostages home alive, but in a final insult, Iran didn’t release them until the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, who had trounced him in the 1980 election. Humbled and back home in Georgia, Carter said his faith demanded that he keep doing whatever he could, for as long as he could, to try to make a difference. He and Rosalynn co-founded The Carter Center in 1982 and spent the next 40 years traveling the world as peacemakers, human rights advocates and champions of democracy and public health. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, Carter helped ease nuclear tensions in North and South Korea, avert a U.S. invasion of Haiti and negotiate cease-fires in Bosnia and Sudan. By 2022, the center had monitored at least 113 elections around the world. Carter was determined to eradicate guinea worm infections as one of many health initiatives. Swinging hammers into their 90s, the Carters built homes with Habitat for Humanity. The common observation that he was better as an ex-president rankled Carter. His allies were pleased that he lived long enough to see biographers and historians revisit his presidency and declare it more impactful than many understood at the time. Propelled in 1976 by voters in Iowa and then across the South, Carter ran a no-frills campaign. Americans were captivated by the earnest engineer, and while an election-year Playboy interview drew snickers when he said he “had looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times,” voters tired of political cynicism found it endearing. The first family set an informal tone in the White House, carrying their own luggage, trying to silence the Marine Band’s traditional “Hail to the Chief" and enrolling daughter, Amy, in public schools. Carter was lampooned for wearing a cardigan and urging Americans to turn down their thermostats. But Carter set the stage for an economic revival and sharply reduced America's dependence on foreign oil by deregulating the energy industry along with airlines, trains and trucking. He established the departments of Energy and Education, appointed record numbers of women and nonwhites to federal posts, preserved millions of acres of Alaskan wilderness and pardoned most Vietnam draft evaders. Emphasizing human rights , he ended most support for military dictators and took on bribery by multinational corporations by signing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He persuaded the Senate to ratify the Panama Canal treaties and normalized relations with China, an outgrowth of Nixon’s outreach to Beijing. But crippling turns in foreign affairs took their toll. When OPEC hiked crude prices, making drivers line up for gasoline as inflation spiked to 11%, Carter tried to encourage Americans to overcome “a crisis of confidence.” Many voters lost confidence in Carter instead after the infamous address that media dubbed his “malaise" speech, even though he never used that word. After Carter reluctantly agreed to admit the exiled Shah of Iran to the U.S. for medical treatment, the American Embassy in Tehran was overrun in 1979. Negotiations to quickly free the hostages broke down, and then eight Americans died when a top-secret military rescue attempt failed. Carter also had to reverse course on the SALT II nuclear arms treaty after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Though historians would later credit Carter's diplomatic efforts for hastening the end of the Cold war, Republicans labeled his soft power weak. Reagan’s “make America great again” appeals resonated, and he beat Carter in all but six states. Born Oct. 1, 1924, James Earl Carter Jr. married fellow Plains native Rosalynn Smith in 1946, the year he graduated from the Naval Academy. He brought his young family back to Plains after his father died, abandoning his Navy career, and they soon turned their ambitions to politics . Carter reached the state Senate in 1962. After rural white and Black voters elected him governor in 1970, he drew national attention by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” Carter published more than 30 books and remained influential as his center turned its democracy advocacy onto U.S. politics, monitoring an audit of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results. After a 2015 cancer diagnosis, Carter said he felt “perfectly at ease with whatever comes.” “I’ve had a wonderful life,” he said. “I’ve had thousands of friends, I’ve had an exciting, adventurous and gratifying existence.” Contributors include former AP staffer Alex Sanz in Atlanta.mg777.agency 。

Emma Logan launches bespoke marketer consultancyGuwahati, Dec 29 (IANS): The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), which operates in the northeastern states and in seven districts of West Bengal and five districts of north Bihar, would soon integrate ‘Kavach 4.0’ to improve train operations, officials said here on Sunday. NFR Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) Kapinjal Kishore Sharma said that a 1,966 route kilometre length from Malda town (in West Bengal) to Dibrugarh (in Assam) has been identified for implementation of Kavach. "NFR, being a part of the nation’s railway connectivity system, would be integrating this advanced technological system ‘Kavach 4.0’ soon, providing safer, more reliable, and efficient rail services within its jurisdiction," he said. The CPRO said that the Indian Railways is speeding up to deploy advanced Kavach 4.0 - automatic train protection system across its key routes. According to Sharma, the Kavach 4.0 is an enhanced comprehensive, technology-driven solution developed by Indian Railways to prevent accidents and ensure the smooth operation of trains, providing an additional layer of safety and control. All the locomotives where lower versions of Kavach were installed will be replaced with the upgraded Kavach 4.0, he said. The implementation of Kavach 4.0 by Indian Railways across its key routes is a broader initiative to modernise its infrastructure and improve safety standards. The NFR CPRO said that by leveraging technology such as Kavach 4.0, the connectivity system would ensure smoother operations, minimising human error, and most importantly, preventing accidents. The Kavach 4.0 system is built upon several critical technological components, including Station Kavach, which receives information from Loco Kavach and signalling systems to guide the locomotive and RFID tags, which are installed along the tracks at regular intervals and signal point to monitor the train’s location and direction. Over the past period, Indian Railways has been taking several steps to cut down train accidents. By rolling out Kavach 4.0, Indian Railways is committed to making rail travel even safer for passengers. This step is part of a larger plan to strengthen the railway network and boost safety measures across the rail network of the country, Sharma said. The system is capable of automatically applying brakes if the loco pilot fails to do so, as it displays real-time line-side signals in the driver’s cab, and provides continuous movement authority updates through radio-based communication, he pointed out. Other key features of the “Kavach 4.0” include automatic whistling at level crossing gates, direct locomotive-to-locomotive communication to prevent collisions, and an SOS function to alert authorities in case of emergencies.NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump’s lawyers urged a judge again Friday to throw out his hush money conviction, balking at the prosecution’s suggestion of preserving the verdict by treating the case the way some courts do when a defendant dies. They called the idea “absurd.” The Manhattan district attorney’s office is asking Judge Juan M. Merchan to “pretend as if one of the assassination attempts against President Trump had been successful,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in a blistering 23-page response. In court papers made public Tuesday, District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office proposed an array of options for keeping the historic conviction on the books after Trump’s lawyers filed paperwork earlier this month asking for the case to be dismissed. They include freezing the case until Trump leaves office in 2029, agreeing that any future sentence won’t include jail time, or closing the case by noting he was convicted but that he wasn’t sentenced and his appeal wasn’t resolved because of presidential immunity. Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove reiterated Friday their position that the only acceptable option is overturning his conviction and dismissing his indictment, writing that anything less will interfere with the transition process and his ability to lead the country. The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined comment. It’s unclear how soon Merchan will decide. He could grant Trump’s request for dismissal, go with one of the prosecution’s suggestions, wait until a federal appeals court rules on Trump’s parallel effort to get the case moved out of state court, or choose some other option. In their response Friday, Blanche and Bove ripped each of the prosecution’s suggestions. Halting the case until Trump leaves office would force the incoming president to govern while facing the “ongoing threat” that he’ll be sentenced to imprisonment, fines or other punishment as soon as his term ends, Blanche and Bove wrote. Trump, a Republican, takes office Jan. 20. “To be clear, President Trump will never deviate from the public interest in response to these thuggish tactics,” the defense lawyers wrote. “However, the threat itself is unconstitutional.” The prosecution’s suggestion that Merchan could mitigate those concerns by promising not to sentence Trump to jail time on presidential immunity grounds is also a non-starter, Blanche and Bove wrote. The immunity statute requires dropping the case, not merely limiting sentencing options, they argued. Blanche and Bove, both of whom Trump has tabbed for high-ranking Justice Department positions, expressed outrage at the prosecution’s novel suggestion that Merchan borrow from Alabama and other states and treat the case as if Trump had died. Blanche and Bove accused prosecutors of ignoring New York precedent and attempting to “fabricate” a solution “based on an extremely troubling and irresponsible analogy between President Trump” who survived assassination attempts in Pennsylvania in July and Florida in September “and a hypothetical dead defendant.” Such an option normally comes into play when a defendant dies after being convicted but before appeals are exhausted. It is unclear whether it is viable under New York law, but prosecutors suggested that Merchan could innovate in what’s already a unique case. “This remedy would prevent defendant from being burdened during his presidency by an ongoing criminal proceeding,” prosecutors wrote in their filing this week. But at the same time, it wouldn’t “precipitously discard” the “meaningful fact that defendant was indicted and found guilty by a jury of his peers.” Prosecutors acknowledged that “presidential immunity requires accommodation” during Trump’s impending return to the White House but argued that his election to a second term should not upend the jury’s verdict, which came when he was out of office. Longstanding Justice Department policy says sitting presidents cannot face criminal prosecution . Other world leaders don’t enjoy the same protection. For example, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on trial on corruption charges even as he leads that nation’s wars in Lebanon and Gaza . Trump has been fighting for months to reverse his May 30 conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records . Prosecutors said he fudged the documents to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to suppress her claim that they had sex a decade earlier, which Trump denies. In their filing Friday, Trump’s lawyers citing a social media post in which Sen. John Fetterman used profane language to criticize Trump’s hush money prosecution. The Pennsylvania Democrat suggested that Trump deserved a pardon, comparing his case to that of President Joe Biden’s pardoned son Hunter Biden, who had been convicted of tax and gun charges . “Weaponizing the judiciary for blatant, partisan gain diminishes the collective faith in our institutions and sows further division,” Fetterman wrote Wednesday on Truth Social. Trump’s hush money conviction was in state court, meaning a presidential pardon — issued by Biden or himself when he takes office — would not apply to the case. Presidential pardons only apply to federal crimes. Since the election, special counsel Jack Smith has ended his two federal cases , which pertained to Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and allegations that he hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. A separate state election interference case in Fulton County, Georgia, is largely on hold. Trump denies wrongdoing in all. Trump had been scheduled for sentencing in the hush money case in late November. But following Trump’s Nov. 5 election victory, Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed the former and future president’s sentencing so the defense and prosecution could weigh in on the future of the case. Merchan also delayed a decision on Trump’s prior bid to dismiss the case on immunity grounds. A dismissal would erase Trump’s conviction, sparing him the cloud of a criminal record and possible prison sentence. Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime and the first convicted criminal to be elected to the office.

Travis Hunter and Ashton Jeanty give this year's Heisman Trophy ceremony a different vibeMIAMI — The Miami Heat on Friday set up a small trade that could have a wide-ranging impact across their roster and payroll. Reaching an agreement with the Indiana Pacers, the Heat will send out center Thomas Bryant once he is eligible to be traded Sunday. While the Heat will receive the right to swap 2031 second-round draft slots with the Pacers, the move was made to alleviate the Heat’s current position hard against the NBA’s punitive luxury tax and to also better align the roster. Bryant, 27, signed a one-year contract at the veteran minimum of $2.1 million in July at the outset of free agency to return for a second season. At the time, he waived his right to veto a trade this season. Sunday is the first day players signed in the offseason can be dealt. Beyond the savings against the luxury tax, the deal allows the Heat to better deploy their resources. Even with the Bryant deal, the Heat still have starter Bam Adebayo and reserves Kevin Love, Kel’el Ware and even Nikola Jovic to cast at center. With the open roster spot, the Heat next would be in position to convert one of their players on a two-way deal to a standard contract. Point guard Dru Smith, who currently is playing on a two-way deal, in recent games has emerged as a reliable rotation contributor. Players on two-way deals can be on the active roster for no more than 50 games over the 82-game regular season and are not playoff eligible. Should the Heat convert one of their current two-way players, it then would open such a slot for another two-way signing. Among options in that regard is summer and preseason prospect Isaiah Stevens, the point guard who is leading the G League in assists while playing for the team’s affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce. The open roster spot also could help facilitate a larger trade in which the Heat take back more players than are sent out, perhaps adding additional intrigue to the recent swirl of Jimmy Butler trade speculation. In the short term, the Heat likely are to go the maximum two weeks allowed to be at fewer than 14 players on standard contracts, saving the team further against the luxury tax. With the trade, the Heat also will create a $2.1 million trade exception. Initially signed in 2023 free agency, Bryant never quite gained traction with the Heat, held out of 10 consecutive games during a recent stretch. He now gets to play not far from his college campus, having been drafted out of Indiana University by the Utah Jazz in the second round of the 2017 NBA draft. The Pacers were in the market for an additional big man after losing big men Isaiah Jackson and James Wiseman to season-ending Achilles injuries. ©2024 South Florida Sun Sentinel. Visit at sun-sentinel.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.