Albania declares one-year TikTok ban over stabbing

Vast Updates Shareholders at Annual General Meeting on Significant Progress Towards Delivering ...No. 9 Kentucky, focused on getting better, welcomes Jackson St.

A pair of teams with minimal rest will face off in Nassau, Bahamas, on Sunday when No. 22 St. John takes on Georgia. St. John's (5-1), which will play its third game in four days, began the stretch in the Bahamas Championship on Thursday, dropping a heartbreaker to No. 13 Baylor. The Red Storm led by 18 in the first half before Baylor forced overtime. From there, St. John's rallied from five down with 1:47 left to send the game to a second overtime, where it saw Baylor knock down a pair of 3-pointers in the final seven seconds -- including Jeremy Roach's buzzer-beater -- to knock off the Red Storm 99-98. In the third-place game on Friday, St. John's breezed past Virginia 80-55. RJ Luis Jr. led the way with 18 points and four steals, followed by Kadary Richmond's 12 points, as the Red Storm took a one-point lead with 15:21 left in the first half and didn't trail again. "I'm really impressed with our guys, coming off a double-overtime, extremely emotional loss," St. John's head coach Rick Pitino said. "To respond that way was extremely impressive, both offensively and defensively." Pitino, in his second year with the Red Storm, was moved by something off the court on Friday, involving captain Zuby Ejiofor, who chipped in eight points, nine boards, two steals and two blocks. Ejiofor was serenaded by St. John's fans during the win, following his two missed free throws at the end of double overtime against Baylor. "When you've only been in a job for a year, you search for things you love about a place," Pitino said. "Tonight I found out what I love about St. John's. Our fans chanted Zuby's name the whole game, which doesn't happen anywhere else in America. I was really impressed with our fans and I thank them for making Zuby feel good, because he gives you all the energy." Luis leads the Red Storm with 17.3 points per game, followed by Ejiofor (10.7), Aaron Scott (10.5), Deivon Smith (10.3) and Richmond (10.2). Georgia enters Sunday's matchup looking to rebound from its first loss after falling to No. 15 Marquette 80-69 on Saturday. Georgia (5-1) battled back from a 15-point, second-half deficit, but was held to just three points over the final 4:57 in Saturday's loss. Blue Cain led the Bulldogs with a season-high 17 points, including five 3-pointers. "It's a process. It's a journey with this team," Bulldogs head coach Mike White said. "It's about continuing to make strides, continuing to protect our culture. ... At the end of the day, wins and losses are going to take care of themselves. We just have to embrace the process and enjoy it." Five-star freshman recruit Asa Newell was held to a season-low nine points but leads the team with 15.5 points per game. Silas Demary Jr. is second with 13.8. --Field Level Media

Florida knocks No. 9 Ole Miss out of College Football Playoff contention

Select Specialty Hospital-Columbus South Hit with “Never Event” LawsuitROCK HILL, S.C. (AP) — Nick Johnson had 22 points in Winthrop's 102-97 win over Mercer on Saturday. Johnson had five rebounds for the Eagles (10-4). Kasen Harrison shot 7 of 11 from the field, including 1 for 3 from 3-point range, and went 5 for 8 from the line to add 20 points. Kelton Talford shot 4 of 9 from the field and 10 of 14 from the free-throw line to finish with 18 points. The Bears (6-6) were led in scoring by Ahmad Robinson, who finished with 27 points and seven assists. Tyler Johnson added 19 points for Mercer. Angel Montas finished with 17 points. Winthrop plays Sunday against Indiana on the road, and Mercer visits Georgia State on Saturday. ___ The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by and data from . The Associated Press

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (AP) — Rob Martin had 17 points in Southeast Missouri State's 88-39 victory against Westminster (MO) on Sunday night. Martin also contributed seven rebounds for the Redhawks (7-6). Braxton Stacker scored 16 points while going 7 of 11 (1 for 5 from 3-point range) and added five rebounds. Damarion Walkup went 5 of 11 from the field (4 for 10 from 3-point range) to finish with 14 points. The Blue Jays were led in scoring by Walker Gohring, who finished with 13 points. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .

Trimble and Mallon sanctioned DUP ministers over rotation plan

Florida knocks No. 9 Ole Miss out of College Football Playoff contentionZoe Ball's son with Fatboy Slim, Norman Cook, has paid an emotional tribute to his mum after she announced during the week that she would be quitting the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show at the end of December. Woody Cook, 23, who has made his name as a DJ in a similar vein to his father as well as appearing on reality TV show The Circle, posted his thoughts on social media and the hopes he has now that Zoe has said she is leaving radio, for now. Woody posted some unseen family photos which showed both his parents with him and his 14-year-old sister Nelly, who is rarely seen in public posts. Eight years after Zoe and Norman divorced, they still looked a happy family, with the famous couple being married for 16 years before they separated. DJ Woody, wrote on Instagram : "Well done Mama on a fabulous stint on Radio 2! Here's to more time at home! Excuse the whole family pic can’t find enough crackers with @zoetheball. YOU ARE AMAZING. 4AM is a crazy time to get up!" Zoe, 53, was among the first to reply to her son's post. writing: "Love you Bear. beyond xxx." She announced her departure from the Breakfast Show earlier this week, and also confirmed that Scott Mills would be replacing her in the New Year. It has been reported that one of the driving factors to Zoe stepping down as was the death of her mum Julia in April. Zoe took time away from her show in March, so that she could be at her mum's side. After returning briefly to radio in August, Zoe took another extended break in September, when it is believed she took stock of her life and made her decision to quit her show. Zoe succeeded Chris Evans in 2019 and her final broadcast is scheduled for December 20. Updating listeners on her next steps, she said that she wasn't "going to be a stranger" and is staying with her "Radio 2 crew", though didn't share any more details. Zoe said: "While I'm stepping away from the Breakfast Show, I'm not disappearing entirely - I'll still be part of the Radio 2 family, with more news in the New Year." Citing the reason for her departure, Zoe said she plans to "focus on family" and be "a mum in the mornings" again, adding she "can't wait to tune in on the school run". An insider told Mail Online : "She simply wants to live differently, which means having more of a family life. In the end, this was completely her decision. She came to them [the BBC] in September after she had had a break to think about her life and said: 'I'm done'. The BBC... wanted a bit of time to put everything in place, which they were able to do." Follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .Michelle Obama Receives Backlash for 'Happy Holidays' Post

Elon Musk is $83 billion richer post Trump winA s a former deputy state underwater archaeologist, Mark Wilde-Ramsing can’t help but look down. While rowing around North Carolina’s Eagles Island, at the tip of the Gullah Geechee corridor, he noticed signs of human-made structures, visible at low tide. Though he’d retired, he was still active in the field and knew his former agency hadn’t recorded the structures – which meant he had come across something previously undocumented. The next step was figuring out exactly what he’d found. Wilde-Ramsing knew the area had once been full of rice fields. His neighbor, Joni “Osku” Backstrom, was an assistant professor in the department of environmental sciences at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington whose specialty was shallow-water sonar, and he had the skills and technology to explore the area. Using a sonar device, the duo detected 45 wooden structures in the river, and the remote sensing tool allowed Backstrom and Wilde-Ramsing to acoustically map the canal beds. “The side-scan sonar system that Mark and I put together and put on these vessels has been really important in finding these artifacts because if you went diving, you wouldn’t be able to see anything,” Backstrom said. “That’s really the advantage of this custom, shallow sonar system and being able to go up through these known rice canals and irrigation areas.” Spanning 2,000 acres (809 hectares) of the northern end of Eagles Island, the 45 irrigation devices were developed by enslaved people, who would later come to be known as the Gullah Geechee. The devices were used to control water flow for the rice fields in conjunction with earthen dams and levees, Wilde-Ramsing said. Their existence provides further evidence of the engineering and technological skills that Gullah Geechee people used for rice cultivation, beginning in the late 1700s at the latest. Backstrom and Wilde-Ramsing documented their findings in a study published earlier this year. “The use of the island for this endeavor prior to the Civil War, in large part rested on the shoulders of transplanted and enslaved Africans and their descendant Gullah Geechee tradition,” the study reads. The team’s discoveries, which came after two years of research in and around Eagles Island, have helped further shed light on the ingenious, skilled work of the Gullah Geechee people. Though Gullah Geechee people have been studied for centuries, Backstrom and Wilde-Ramsing’s research is the first to focus on their irrigation systems. The research couldn’t come soon enough: Eagles Island is environmentally vulnerable, both because of climate change and ongoing development. The duo registered their sites with the state, making development more difficult as a means to ensure the protection of cultural artifacts. “The whole area was originally swamp. It was cleared mostly in the post-colonial, early 1800s period for tidal rights cultivation because that area was freshwater,” Wilde-Ramsing said. “They were able to actually use, regulate, introduce the water and drain it with the tides instead of having these big ponds and using the traditional way.” The work the Gullah Geechee people did would have been exhaustive. Wilde-Ramsing says it required removing the cypress forests, then building dams and levees. Growing rice necessitated the use of water, so they created long wooden boxes, or “trunks”, with gates on either side, that allowed them to let the water in by opening the gates. The area, Wilde-Ramsing said, is desolate, difficult swamp terrain, which makes it good for rice cultivation, but hot, buggy and humid – “really not a nice place to work in the summer”. Everyone got around via boat, and most of the boat drivers were enslaved Africans. The enslaved populations throughout the Gullah Geechee corridor – which spans the coasts of North Carolina to upper Florida – were isolated in such a way that they developed and maintained a culture different from that of most plantations. “Originally, they were sought out as slaves from coastal regions of west Africa, an area that had similar environs to those along the southern Atlantic seaboard centering on Georgia and the Carolinas, where rice agriculture was a mainstay of the economy,” the study reads. “Traditional knowledge and skills, as well as the ability to tolerate humid, mosquito-infested conditions, made this group critical to the success of rice cultivation in the Americas.” Eagles Island has a long history of slavery: formerly known as Cranes Island, it was featured on John Ogilby’s 1672 map of Carolina, and around 1737, King George II granted much of the “ grand island ” opposite Wilmington to Richard Eagles, an attorney and plantation owner from Bristol, England, for whom the island is named. The Eagles plantation was one of many on the island. Via Wilmington, a port city founded in 1739 that developed in large part due to its participation in the slave industry , Eagles Island was used for shipping cotton, shipbuilding and rice cultivation. That rice cultivation made Wilmington wealthy, at the expense of the enslaved Gullah Geechee, who received no wages for their labor. “I didn’t quite realize the role that rice played. It rivaled cotton during the 1840s and 50s,” Backstrom said. “It was all over Europe and the US and it was all run by African Americans. A lot of it was developed based on their skills. I’m just happy that it’s coming to light and they’re getting their – I won’t say new – but recognition that this was an amazing thing, amazing work.” Even though Wilde-Ramsing and Backstrom’s discovery likely won’t permanently stop either development or climate change, not least because the island is owned by multiple private entities, the existence of historic, cultural artifacts can ensure that the Gullah Geechee structures are at least documented instead of simply being razed and forgotten. The researchers have been in communication with East Carolina University’s maritime program, and the school plans to send a contingent to the site to study some of the characteristic types. People from the school will be able to work on noting the various structures, trying to figure out how they operated and taking samples. Backstrom said that they’ve also been in contact with researchers at George Mason University in Fairfax county, Virginia, including a professor who had ancestors in Wilmington. In terms of further discovery, a mix of approaches best suits the complicated terrain. “We’re thinking about using drone imagery,” Backstrom said. “We have some preliminary drone footage, which gives us access to these areas at dead low tide, areas that we had a lot of difficulty with, even with a very small vessel.” The area is remote, full of tight nooks and crannies. It’s “particularly challenging because of the tides and the timing”, he said. The different combinations of drone imagery and sonar mean the researchers aren’t limited by turbidity in the water. Backstrom hopes to go to west Africa, specifically to Senegal or the Senegambia region, where many Gullah Geechee people were from, to learn about the history of rice farming, including the roles women and children played. Children, for instance, tasted the water to ensure too much saltwater wasn’t being let in, and women helped in the actual cultivation of the rice , using skills from their home countries that were passed down throughout generations. The methods that the researchers used for Eagles Island can be transferred elsewhere, and Wilde-Ramsing and Backstrom will apply their discovery techniques to finding other such sites in the area. They anticipate finding others around Cape Fear, a nearby former slave center , and in places farther south in the Gullah Geechee corridor. “South Carolina was kind of the center of rice cultivation compared to here, so we’re hoping to link up with the Gullah Geechee researchers, [maybe] down in South Carolina or even Georgia,” Backstrom said. Their work will continue to expand knowledge around historic Gullah Geechee practices for generations to come.Hearts Melt As Golden Retriever 'Gently' Wakes Sibling Having a Bad Dream

Alex Enumah in Abuja The International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) Nigeria has reiterated its commitment towards improving the lives of indigent and vulnerable Nigerians, especially women and children. FIDA reiterated its commitment yesterday in Abuja, during a media parley to herald the federation’s triennial conference, tagged, ‘FIDA @ 60: Celebrating Our Legacy, Embracing the Future’. Speaking, the association’s Country Vice President/National President, Mrs. Amina Suzanah Agbaje, stated that, “FIDA Nigeria, 60 years ago, began with a bold vision to ensure access to justice for indigent women and children whilst championing the rights of the marginalised. “Through decades of dedication, passion, and resilience, we have grown into a formidable force within Nigeria’s legal landscape. Our story is one of triumphs, challenges, and undeniable impact, and as we look ahead, we remain even more committed to advancing the cause of justice.” Agbaje, claimed that in the last six decades, FIDA Nigeria has been working tirelessly to turn its vision into reality. “From securing landmark legislative victories to pushing for the domestication of international treaties that protect women and children, we’ve championed causes like the mitigation of gender-based violence, enhanced child protection, and the empowerment of women through legal education. We’ve continuously trained lawyers, provided free legal services to indigent women, and advocated for the passage of laws that promote gender parity and inclusion. “Today, as we mark this milestone, we are proud of the role we have played in shaping a more just and equitable society. As we celebrate, we are also conscious of the work that lies ahead. There is still much to be done, and FIDA Nigeria stands ready to continue leading the charge,” she said. The Country Vice President/National President disclosed that part of the activities slated for the triennial conference include; A 60 for 60 Outreach to empower indigent women who run small businesses with a profit lower than minimum wage; the grand unveiling of a National Shelter for survivors of gender-based violence—a testament to our unwavering dedication to supporting and empowering the vulnerable; aerobic sessions to promote physical and mental well-being among our members and legal education sessions to booster the knowledge and capacity of our members, amongst others. Highlight of the briefing was the unveiling of FIDA’s new logo—a fresh emblem that reflects both FIDA’s history and future aspirations. According to Agbaje, the new logo is more than just a symbol, “It represents FIDA Nigeria’s renewed commitment to innovation, leadership, and justice whilst reminding us that re-branding, re-inventing to remain relevant in an ever dynamic world is much needed for the evolution that we seek. “It honours our past, highlighting the foundation laid by trailblazing women who fought for equality in their time, and to keep the consciousness to further institutionalise an intergenerational organisation deliberate about mentorship and passing the torchlight to the younger, more vibrant, technology-driven generation of women who will lead in the revolution, landmark legislative reforms that will give women and children access to a fair and equitable justice, an opportunity in governance and leadership.”

Tennessee used discredited experts to defend its trans healthcare ban at SCOTUS. Here's what they got wrong.