game questions and answers

game questions and answers ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — The St. Petersburg City Council reversed course Thursday on whether to spend more than $23 million to repair the hurricane-shredded roof of the Tampa Bay Rays' ballpark , initially voting narrowly for approval and hours later changing course. The reversal on fixing Tropicana Field came after the council voted to delay consideration of revenue bonds for a proposed new $1.3 billion Rays ballpark. Just two days before, the Pinellas County Commission postponed a vote on its share of the new stadium bonds, leaving that project in limbo. “This is a sad place. I'm really disappointed,” council chair Deborah Figg-Sanders said. “We won’t get there if we keep finding ways we can’t.” The Rays say the lack of progress puts the new stadium plan and the future of Tropicana Field in jeopardy. “I can't say I'm confident about anything,” Rays co-president Brian Auld told the council members. The Trop's translucent fiberglass roof was ripped to pieces on Oct. 9 when Hurricane Milton swept ashore just south of Tampa Bay. There was also significant water damage inside the ballpark, with a city estimate of the total repair costs pegged at $55.7 million. The extensive repairs cannot be finished before the 2026 season, city documents show. The Rays made a deal with the Yankees to play next season at 11,000-seat Steinbrenner Field, New York's spring training home across the bay in Tampa. Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said MLB wants to give the Rays and Tampa-area politicians time to figure out a path forward given the disruption caused by the hurricane. Assuming Tropicana Field is repaired, the Rays are obligated to play there for three more seasons. “We’re committed to the fans in Tampa Bay,” Manfred said at an owners meeting. “Given all that’s happened in that market, we’re focused on our franchise in Tampa Bay right now.” The initial vote Thursday was to get moving on the roof portion of the repair. Once that's done, crews could begin working on laying down a new baseball field, fixing damaged seating and office areas and a variety of electronic systems — which would require another vote to approve money for the remaining restoration. The subsequent vote reversing funding for the roof repair essentially means the city and Rays must work on an alternative in the coming weeks so that Tropicana Field can possibly be ready for the 2026 season. The city is legally obligated to fix the roof. “I’d like to pare it down and see exactly what we’re obligated to do,” council member John Muhammad said. The city previously voted to spend $6.5 million to prevent further damage to the unroofed Trop. Several council members said before the vote on the $23.7 million to fix the roof that the city is contractually obligated to do so. “I don’t see a way out of it. We have a contract that’s in place,” council member Gina Driscoll said. “We’re obligated to do it. We are going to fix the roof.” The council had voted 4-3 to approve the roof repair. Members who opposed it said there wasn't enough clarity on numerous issues, including how much would be covered by the ballpark's insurance and what amount might be provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They also noted that city residents who are struggling to repair their homes and businesses damaged by hurricanes Helene and Milton are dismayed when they see so many taxpayer dollars going to baseball. “Why are we looking to expend so much money right away when there is so much uncertainty?” council member Richie Floyd said. The new Rays ballpark — now likely to open in 2029, if at all — is part of a larger urban renovation project known as the Historic Gas Plant District, which refers to a predominantly Black neighborhood that was forced out to make way for construction of Tropicana Field and an interstate highway spur. The broader $6.5 billion project would transform an 86-acre (34-hectare) tract in the city’s downtown, with plans in the coming years for a Black history museum, affordable housing, a hotel, green space, entertainment venues, and office and retail space. There’s the promise of thousands of jobs as well. St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch, a prime mover behind the overall project, said it's not time to give up. “We believe there is a path forward to success,” the mayor said. AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

It seems like Selena Gomez won't be "Single Soon," now that she's engaged to Benny Blanco. While announcing their engagement on social media Dec. 11, of her ring. The main diamond takes center stage, but the chunky yellow gold band also sparkles with smaller stones. “When I first saw the ring, all I could think about was how unique it was,” jewelry content creator and gemstone wholesaler Julia Hackman Chafé told TODAY.com in an email statement. At first, Chafé was surprised by the ring choice. She expected Gomez to “go for a colored stone ring” since Blanco, whose real name is Benjamin Levin, “specifically wears a lot of colored gemstones.” Blanco wore a necklace with a large red stone during his May 2024 , for example. Instead, she went for a marquise cut diamond. Chafé estimated Gomez’s center stone is four carats with .25 carat stones lining the band. “The diamond itself, if Benny chose a high-quality diamond, is probably around $75,000 and up,” she said. But it appears the marquise cut has a deeper, and deliberate, meaning. The diamond type is referenced in Gomez's 2015 collab with A$AP Rocky, “Good for You,” when she sings, “I’m in my marquise diamonds / I’m a marquise diamond / Could even make that Tiffany jealous.” The gist of the lyrics is about wanting to look good for someone else. "Let me show you how proud I am to be yours," Gomez sings. Chafé, like many internet commentators, is convinced the choice of ring stems from the song. “It must be something from there,” she said. Among diamonds, a marquise is one of the "less popular cuts," Chafé said. "But with the rise in popularity of all things elongated, it was a matter of time before marquise came into fashion,” she added. Some marquise cut-wearers are happy Gomez joined the club. A TikToker with the text, "Now me and Selena have the same Marquise Diamond ring." Others are anticipating that Gomez's ring will spark a spike in popularity, making their unique rings not quite as special. One TikToker of her marquise ring with the text "to my marquise girlies... it was nice while it lasted." Going forward, Chafé also expects the marquise cut to rise in popularity. “Anything Selena Gomez does will spark a trend. Perhaps not in 2025, but in 2026, for sure, marquise will be a popular cut,” she said. Georgina is an editorial intern for TODAY.com, based in New York City.

By MICHELLE L. PRICE WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — An online spat between factions of Donald Trump’s supporters over immigration and the tech industry has thrown internal divisions in his political movement into public display, previewing the fissures and contradictory views his coalition could bring to the White House. The rift laid bare the tensions between the newest flank of Trump’s movement — wealthy members of the tech world including billionaire Elon Musk and fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and their call for more highly skilled workers in their industry — and people in Trump’s Make America Great Again base who championed his hardline immigration policies. The debate touched off this week when Laura Loomer , a right-wing provocateur with a history of racist and conspiratorial comments, criticized Trump’s selection of Sriram Krishnan as an adviser on artificial intelligence policy in his coming administration. Krishnan favors the ability to bring more skilled immigrants into the U.S. Loomer declared the stance to be “not America First policy” and said the tech executives who have aligned themselves with Trump were doing so to enrich themselves. Much of the debate played out on the social media network X, which Musk owns. Loomer’s comments sparked a back-and-forth with venture capitalist and former PayPal executive David Sacks , whom Trump has tapped to be the “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar.” Musk and Ramaswamy, whom Trump has tasked with finding ways to cut the federal government , weighed in, defending the tech industry’s need to bring in foreign workers. It bloomed into a larger debate with more figures from the hard-right weighing in about the need to hire U.S. workers, whether values in American culture can produce the best engineers, free speech on the internet, the newfound influence tech figures have in Trump’s world and what his political movement stands for. Trump has not yet weighed in on the rift, and his presidential transition team did not respond to a message seeking comment. Musk, the world’s richest man who has grown remarkably close to the president-elect , was a central figure in the debate, not only for his stature in Trump’s movement but his stance on the tech industry’s hiring of foreign workers. Technology companies say H-1B visas for skilled workers, used by software engineers and others in the tech industry, are critical for hard-to-fill positions. But critics have said they undercut U.S. citizens who could take those jobs. Some on the right have called for the program to be eliminated, not expanded. Born in South Africa, Musk was once on an a H-1B visa himself and defended the industry’s need to bring in foreign workers. “There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent,” he said in a post. “It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley.” Related Articles National Politics | Trump threat to immigrant health care tempered by economic hopes National Politics | In states that ban abortion, social safety net programs often fail families National Politics | Court rules Georgia lawmakers can subpoena Fani Willis for information related to her Trump case National Politics | New 2025 laws hit hot topics from AI in movies to rapid-fire guns National Politics | Trump has pressed for voting changes. GOP majorities in Congress will try to make that happen Trump’s own positions over the years have reflected the divide in his movement. His tough immigration policies, including his pledge for a mass deportation, were central to his winning presidential campaign. He has focused on immigrants who come into the U.S. illegally but he has also sought curbs on legal immigration , including family-based visas. As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump called the H-1B visa program “very bad” and “unfair” for U.S. workers. After he became president, Trump in 2017 issued a “Buy American and Hire American” executive order , which directed Cabinet members to suggest changes to ensure H-1B visas were awarded to the highest-paid or most-skilled applicants to protect American workers. Trump’s businesses, however, have hired foreign workers, including waiters and cooks at his Mar-a-Lago club , and his social media company behind his Truth Social app has used the the H-1B program for highly skilled workers. During his 2024 campaign for president, as he made immigration his signature issue, Trump said immigrants in the country illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country” and promised to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. But in a sharp departure from his usual alarmist message around immigration generally, Trump told a podcast this year that he wants to give automatic green cards to foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges. “I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country,” he told the “All-In” podcast with people from the venture capital and technology world. Those comments came on the cusp of Trump’s budding alliance with tech industry figures, but he did not make the idea a regular part of his campaign message or detail any plans to pursue such changes.By MICHELLE L. PRICE WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — An online spat between factions of Donald Trump’s supporters over immigration and the tech industry has thrown internal divisions in his political movement into public display, previewing the fissures and contradictory views his coalition could bring to the White House. The rift laid bare the tensions between the newest flank of Trump’s movement — wealthy members of the tech world including billionaire Elon Musk and fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and their call for more highly skilled workers in their industry — and people in Trump’s Make America Great Again base who championed his hardline immigration policies. The debate touched off this week when Laura Loomer , a right-wing provocateur with a history of racist and conspiratorial comments, criticized Trump’s selection of Sriram Krishnan as an adviser on artificial intelligence policy in his coming administration. Krishnan favors the ability to bring more skilled immigrants into the U.S. Loomer declared the stance to be “not America First policy” and said the tech executives who have aligned themselves with Trump were doing so to enrich themselves. Much of the debate played out on the social media network X, which Musk owns. Loomer’s comments sparked a back-and-forth with venture capitalist and former PayPal executive David Sacks , whom Trump has tapped to be the “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar.” Musk and Ramaswamy, whom Trump has tasked with finding ways to cut the federal government , weighed in, defending the tech industry’s need to bring in foreign workers. It bloomed into a larger debate with more figures from the hard-right weighing in about the need to hire U.S. workers, whether values in American culture can produce the best engineers, free speech on the internet, the newfound influence tech figures have in Trump’s world and what his political movement stands for. Trump has not yet weighed in on the rift, and his presidential transition team did not respond to a message seeking comment. Musk, the world’s richest man who has grown remarkably close to the president-elect , was a central figure in the debate, not only for his stature in Trump’s movement but his stance on the tech industry’s hiring of foreign workers. Technology companies say H-1B visas for skilled workers, used by software engineers and others in the tech industry, are critical for hard-to-fill positions. But critics have said they undercut U.S. citizens who could take those jobs. Some on the right have called for the program to be eliminated, not expanded. Born in South Africa, Musk was once on an a H-1B visa himself and defended the industry’s need to bring in foreign workers. “There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent,” he said in a post. “It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley.” Related Articles National Politics | Should the U.S. increase immigration levels for highly skilled workers? National Politics | Trump threat to immigrant health care tempered by economic hopes National Politics | In states that ban abortion, social safety net programs often fail families National Politics | Court rules Georgia lawmakers can subpoena Fani Willis for information related to her Trump case National Politics | New 2025 laws hit hot topics from AI in movies to rapid-fire guns Trump’s own positions over the years have reflected the divide in his movement. His tough immigration policies, including his pledge for a mass deportation, were central to his winning presidential campaign. He has focused on immigrants who come into the U.S. illegally but he has also sought curbs on legal immigration , including family-based visas. As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump called the H-1B visa program “very bad” and “unfair” for U.S. workers. After he became president, Trump in 2017 issued a “Buy American and Hire American” executive order , which directed Cabinet members to suggest changes to ensure H-1B visas were awarded to the highest-paid or most-skilled applicants to protect American workers. Trump’s businesses, however, have hired foreign workers, including waiters and cooks at his Mar-a-Lago club , and his social media company behind his Truth Social app has used the the H-1B program for highly skilled workers. During his 2024 campaign for president, as he made immigration his signature issue, Trump said immigrants in the country illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country” and promised to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. But in a sharp departure from his usual alarmist message around immigration generally, Trump told a podcast this year that he wants to give automatic green cards to foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges. “I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country,” he told the “All-In” podcast with people from the venture capital and technology world. Those comments came on the cusp of Trump’s budding alliance with tech industry figures, but he did not make the idea a regular part of his campaign message or detail any plans to pursue such changes.Reverend Richard Coles left gagging as he struggles to swallow a fish eye alongside Tulisa in I’m A Celeb trial

The University of Colorado this week named Kenneth T. Christensen, provost of the Illinois Institute of Technology, as its Denver campus’s next chancellor following a national search. “This institution’s honorable mission of inclusive education and innovation was readily apparent to me during my interactions with the search committee and my campus visit, and this mission aligns with my own values and priorities as an academic leader,” Christensen said in a CU news release. “I am thrilled to join the University of Colorado as CU Denver’s next chancellor and to support the campus community in their transformative work to ensure and expand student success, scholarly impact and economic development.” As provost at Illinois Institute of Technology, Christensen launched academic initiatives around workforce readiness, created a pathway for undecided students to explore degree possibilities and charged a university-wide task force to modernize curriculum around the entrepreneurial mindset, design and innovation, computation and data literacy, and leadership, the news release said. Christensen’s Hispanic heritage contributed to his passion charting Illinois Tech’s path to becoming a Hispanic-serving Institution, CU officials said. He first joined Illinois Tech in 2020 as the Carol and Ed Kaplan Armour College Dean of Engineering. Before that, he was on the faculty at Notre Dame, the University of Illinois and the University of New Mexico. A native of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Christensen holds degrees from the University of New Mexico, the California Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois. Michelle Marks announced she would step down as CU Denver’s chancellor in August. Ann Schmiesing, vice chancellor for academic resource management at the University of Colorado Boulder, has been interim chancellor since then. Christensen begins his new role in February. “Dr. Christensen brings a deep commitment to CU Denver’s mission and student success as well as an impressive understanding of higher education’s ability to transform individual lives, our great state, the nation and the world,” CU President Todd Saliman said in a statement. “I was impressed by the strong support he received from CU Denver faculty, staff, students and community members following his campus visit and open forums. Dr. Christensen’s deep understanding of CU Denver’s unique opportunities make him the ideal person to lead the institution forward.”Ariana Grande baffles the internet by holding Cynthia Erivo’s finger

No. 1 South Carolina women stunned by fifth-ranked UCLA 77-62, ending Gamecocks' 43-game win streakFlexible Working Capital Solutions Top Holiday Wish List for B2B Firms

Kakko's late goal lifts Rangers past Canadiens 4-3One of my top shows of 2024 actually premiered in 2021. That’s because it took a couple of years for the Australian series “The Newsreader” to make its way Stateside. Alas, it was only legal to stream in the U.S. for a handful of weeks in September and then — pffft! — it was gone before most people had even heard of it. Well, I have great news. The show is available once again, this time via Sundance Now (accessible through the AMC+ streaming platform), which has licensed the first season. It stars Anna Torv (“Fringe”) and Sam Reid (“Interview with the Vampire”) as TV reporters in Melbourne, circa 1986. At the outset, Reid’s character exudes big loser energy, which is such an amusing contrast to his work as Lestat. The show is unexpectedly funny and terrifically Machiavellian in its portrayal of small-time office politics, and I’m thrilled audiences in the U.S. will get another shot at watching it. Overall, 2024 offered a modestly better lineup than usual, but I’m not sure it felt that way. Too often the good stuff got drowned out by Hollywood’s pointless and endless pursuit of rebooting intellectual property (no thank you, Apple’s “Presumed Innocent”) and tendency to stretch a perfectly fine two-hour movie premise into a saggy multipart series (“Presumed Innocent” again!). There were plenty of shows I liked that didn’t make this year’s list, including ABC’s “Abbott Elementary” and CBS’ ”Ghosts” (it’s heartening to see the network sitcom format still thriving in the streaming era), as well as Netflix’s “A Man on the Inside” (Ted Danson’s charisma selling an unlikely premise) and Hulu’s “Interior Chinatown” (a high-concept parody of racial stereotypes and cop show tropes, even if it couldn’t sustain the idea over 10 episodes). Maybe it just felt like we were having more fun this year, with Netflix’s “The Perfect Couple” (Nicole Kidman leading a traditional manor house mystery reinterpreted with an American sensibility) and Hulu’s “Rivals” (the horniest show of 2024, delivered with a wink in the English countryside). I liked what I saw of Showtime’s espionage thriller “The Agency” (although the bulk of episodes were unavailable as of this writing). The deluge of remakes tends to make me cringe, but this year also saw a redo of Patricia Highsmith’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley” on Netflix that was far classier than most of what’s available on the streamer. Starring Andrew Scott, I found it cool to the touch, but the imagery stayed with me. Shot in black and white, it has an indelible visual language courtesy of director of photography Robert Elswit, whether capturing a crisp white business card against the worn grain wood of a bar top, or winding stairways that alternately suggest a yawning void or a trap. As always, if you missed any of these shows when they originally premiered — the aforementioned titles or the Top 10 listed below — they are all available to stream. Top 10 streaming and TV shows of 2024, in alphabetical order: “Couples Therapy” (Showtime) The least cynical reality show on television remains as absorbing as ever in Season 4, thanks to the probing questions and insights from the show’s resident therapist, Dr. Orna Guralnik. Everything is so charged. And yet the show has a soothing effect, predicated on the idea that human behavior (and misery) isn’t mysterious or unchangeable. There’s something so optimistic in that outlook. Whether or not you relate to the people featured on “Couples Therapy” — or even like them as individuals — doesn’t matter as much as Guralnik’s reassuring presence. “Diarra From Detroit” (BET+) Created by and starring Diarra Kilpatrick, the eight-episode series defies categorization in all the right ways. Part missing-person mystery, part comedy about a school teacher coming to grips with her impending divorce, and part drama about long-buried secrets, it has tremendous style right from the start — sardonic, knowing and self-deprecating. The answers to the central mystery may not pack a satisfying punch by the end, but the road there is as entertaining and absorbing as they come. We need more shows like this. “English Teacher” (FX) A comedy created by and starring Brian Jordan Alvarez (of the antic YouTube series “The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo”), the show has a sensibility all its own, despite a handful of misinformed people on social media calling it a ripoff of “Abbott Elementary.” There’s room enough in the TV landscape for more than one sitcom with a school setting and “English Teacher” has a wonderfully gimlet-eyed point of view of modern high school life. I’m amused that so much of its musical score is Gen-X coded, because that neither applies to Alvarez (a millennial) nor the fictional students he teaches. So why does the show feature everything from Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” to Exposé’s “Point of No Return”? The ’80s were awash in teen stories and maybe the show is using music from that era to invoke all those tropes in order to better subvert them. It’s a compelling idea! It’s streaming on Hulu and worth checking out if you haven’t already. “Fifteen-Love” (Sundance Now) A one-time tennis phenom accuses her former coach of coercing her into a sexual relationship in this British thriller. The intimacy between a coach and athlete often goes unexplored, in real-life or fictional contexts and that’s what the show interrogates: When does it go over the line? It’s smart, endlessly watchable and the kind of series that would likely find a larger audience were it available on a more popular streamer. “Hacks” (Max) There’s real tenderness in this show. Real cruelty, too. It’s a potent combination and the show’s third and strongest season won it an Emmy for best comedy. Jean Smart’s aging comic still looking for industry validation and Hannah Einbinder’s needy Gen-Z writer are trapped in an endless cycle of building trust that inevitably gives way to betrayal. Hollywood in a nutshell! “Hacks” is doing variations on this theme every season, but doing it in interesting ways. Nobody self-sabotages their way to success like these two. “Interview with the Vampire” (AMC) I was skeptical about the show when it premiered in 2022. Vampire stories don’t interest me. And the 1994 movie adaptation starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt wasn’t a persuasive argument to the contrary. But great television is great television and nothing at the moment is better than this show. It was ignored by Emmy voters in its initial outing but let’s hope Season 2 gets the recognition it deserves. Under showrunner Rolin Jones, the adaptation of Anne Rice’s novels is richly written, thrillingly inhabited by its cast and so effortlessly funny with a framing device — the interview of the title — that is thick with intrigue and sly comedy. I wouldn’t categorize the series as horror. It’s not scary. But it is tonally self-assured and richly made, rarely focused on the hunt for dinner but on something far more interesting: The melodrama of vampire existence, with its combination of boredom and lust and tragedy and zingers. Already renewed for Season 3, it has an incredible cast (a thrilling late-career boost for Eric Bogosian) and is well worth catching up with if you haven’t already. “Nobody Wants This” (Netflix) It’s been too long since the pleasures of banter fueled a romantic comedy in the spirit of “When Harry Met Sally.” But it’s all over the place in “Nobody Wants This,” one of the best shows on Netflix in recent memory. Renewed for a second season, it stars Kristen Bell as a humorously caustic podcaster and Adam Brody as the cute and emotionally intelligent rabbi she falls for. On the downside, the show has some terrible notions about Jewish women that play into controlling and emasculating stereotypes. You hate to see it in such an otherwise sparkling comedy, because overall Bell and Brody have an easy touch that gives the comedy real buoyancy. “Nolly” (PBS Masterpiece) I suspect few people saw this three-part series on PBS Masterpiece, but it features a terrific performance by Helena Bonham Carter playing the real-life, longtime British soap star Noele “Nolly” Gordon, who was unceremoniously sacked in 1981. She’s the kind of larger-than-life showbiz figure who is a bit ridiculous, a bit imperious, but also so much fun. The final stretch of her career is brought to life by Carter and this homage — to both the soap she starred in and the way she carried it on her back — is from Russell T. Davies (best known for the “Doctor Who” revival). For U.S. viewers unfamiliar with the show or Gordon, Carter’s performance has the benefit of not competing with a memory as it reanimates a slice of British pop culture history from the analog era. “Shōgun” (FX) The year is 1600 and a stubborn British seaman piloting a Dutch ship washes ashore in Japan. That’s our entry point to this gorgeously shot story of power games and political maneuvering among feudal enemies. Adapted from James Clavell’s 1975 novel by the married team of Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, it is filled with Emmy-winning performances (for Anna Sawai and Hiroyuki Sanada; the series itself also won best drama) and unlike something like HBO’s far clunkier “House of the Dragon,” which tackles similar themes, this feels like the rare show created by, and for, adults. “Slow Horses” (Apple TV+) The misfits and losers of Britain’s MI5 counterintelligence agency — collectively known as the slow horses, a sneering nickname that speaks to their perceived uselessness — remain as restless as ever in this adaptation of Mick Herron’s Slough House spy novels. As a series, “Slow Horses” doesn’t offer tightly plotted clockwork spy stories; think too deeply about any of the details and the whole thing threatens to fall apart. But on a scene-by-scene basis, the writing is a winning combination of wry and tension-filled, and the cumulative effect is wonderfully entertaining. Spies have to deal with petty office politics like everyone else! It’s also one of the few shows that has avoided the dreaded one- or two-year delay between seasons, which has become standard on streaming. Instead, it provides the kind of reliability — of its characters but also its storytelling intent — that has become increasingly rare.Innotech support scheme opensHezbollah fires about 250 rockets and other projectiles into Israel in heaviest barrage in weeks BEIRUT (AP) — Hezbollah has fired about 250 rockets and other projectiles into Israel, wounding seven people in one of the militant group’s heaviest barrages in months. Sunday's attacks in northern and central Israel came in response to deadly Israeli strikes in central Beirut on Saturday. Israel struck southern Beirut on Sunday. Meanwhile, negotiators press on with cease-fire efforts to halt the all-out war. And Lebanon's military says an Israeli strike on a Lebanese army center in the southwest killed one soldier and wounded 18 others. Israel's military has expressed regret and said its operations are directed solely against the militants. Israel cracks down on Palestinian citizens who speak out against the war in Gaza UMM AL-FAHM, Israel (AP) — In the year since the war in Gaza broke out, Israel's government has been cracking down on dissent among its Palestinian citizens. Authorities have charged Palestinians with “supporting terrorism” because of posts online or for demonstrating against the war. Activists and rights watchdogs say Palestinians have also lost jobs, been suspended from schools and faced police interrogations. Palestinians make up about 20% of Israel's population. Many feel forced to self-censor out of fear of being jailed and further marginalized in society. Others still find ways to dissent, but carefully. Israel's National Security Ministry counters that, “Freedom of speech is not the freedom to incite.” Israel says rabbi who went missing in the UAE was killed. The government arrests 3 TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel says the body of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates has been found, citing Emirati authorities. The UAE’s Interior Ministry said authorities arrested three perpetrators involved in the killing of Zvi Kogan. The statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Sunday said Kogan was killed, calling it a “heinous antisemitic terror incident.” It said: “The state of Israel will act with all means to seek justice with the criminals responsible for his death." Kogan went missing on Thursday, and there were suspicions he had been kidnapped. His disappearance comes as Iran has been threatening to retaliate against Israel after the two countries traded fire in October. Somalia says 24 people have died after 2 boats capsized in the Indian Ocean MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somalia's government says 24 people died after two boats capsized off the Madagascar coast in the Indian Ocean. Somalia’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Moalim Fiqi said 46 people were rescued. Most of the passengers were young Somalis, and their intended destination remains unclear. Many young Somalis embark every year on dangerous journeys in search of better opportunities abroad. A delegation led by the Somali ambassador to Ethiopia is scheduled to travel to Madagascar on Monday to investigate the incident and coordinate efforts to help survivors. The rising price of paying the national debt is a risk for Trump's promises on growth and inflation WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump has big plans for the economy. He also has big debt problem that'll be a hurdle to delivering on those plan. Trump has bold ambitions on tax cuts, tariffs and other programs. But high interest rates and the price of repaying the federal government’s existing debt could limit what he’s able to do. The federal debt stands at roughly $36 trillion, and the spike in inflation after the pandemic has pushed up the government’s borrowing costs such that debt service next year will easily exceed spending on national security. Moscow offers debt forgiveness to new recruits and AP sees wreckage of a new Russian missile KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law granting debt forgiveness to new army recruits who enlist to fight in Ukraine. The measure, whose final version appeared on a government website Saturday, underscores Russia’s needs for military personnel in the nearly 3-year-old war, even as it fired last week a new intermediate-range ballistic missile. Russia has ramped up military recruitment by offering increasing financial incentives to those willing to fight in Ukraine. Ukraine’s Security Service on Sunday showed The Associated Press wreckage of the new intermediate-range ballistic missile that struck a factory in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday. Forecasts warn of possible winter storms across US during Thanksgiving week WINDSOR, Calif. (AP) — Forecasters in the U.S. have warned of another round of winter weather that could complicate travel leading up to Thanksgiving. California is bracing for more snow and rain while still grappling with some flooding and small landslides from a previous storm. The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for California's Sierra Nevada through Tuesday, with heavy snow expected at high elevations. Thousands remained without power in the Seattle area on Sunday after a “bomb cyclone” storm system hit the West Coast last week, killing two people. After Trump's win, Black women are rethinking their role as America's reliable political organizers ATLANTA (AP) — Donald Trump's victory has dismayed many politically engaged Black women, and they're reassessing their enthusiasm for politics and organizing. Black women often carry much of the work of getting out the vote, and they had vigorously supported the historic candidacy of Kamala Harris. AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters, found that 6 in 10 Black women said the future of democracy was the single most important factor for their vote this year, a higher share than for other demographic groups. But now, some Black women are renewing calls to emphasize rest, focus on mental health and become more selective about what fight they lend their organizing power to. Pakistani police arrest thousands of Imran Khan supporters ahead of rally in the capital ISLAMABAD (AP) — A Pakistani security officer says police have arrested thousands of Imran Khan supporters ahead of a rally in Islamabad to demand the ex-premier’s release from prison. Khan has been behind bars for more than a year. But he remains popular and his party says the cases against him are politically motivated. Police Sunday arrested more than 4,000 Khan supporters in eastern Punjab province, a Khan stronghold. They include five parliamentarians. Pakistan has sealed off the capital with shipping containers. It also suspended mobile and internet services “in areas with security concerns.” Uruguay's once-dull election has become a dead heat in the presidential runoff MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — Uruguayans are heading to the polls to choose their next president. In Sunday's election, the candidates of the conservative governing party and the left-leaning coalition are locked in a close runoff after failing to win an outright majority in last month’s vote. It's a hard-fought race between Álvaro Delgado, the incumbent party’s candidate, and Yamandú Orsi from the Broad Front, a coalition of leftist and center-left parties that governed for 15 years until the 2019 victory of center-right President Luis Lacalle Pou — overseeing the legalization of abortion, same-sex marriage and the sale of marijuana in the small South American nation.

Is ‘Glicked’ the new ‘Barbenheimer’? ‘Wicked’ and ‘Gladiator II’ collide in theaters

Swinney and Brown at memorial service for ‘giant of a man’ Alex SalmondFormer Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin once commented that he spent “half his time on sanctions.” Sanctions served as a key tool in the first Trump administration’s foreign policy strategy, which fixated on a maximum economic pressure campaign against Iran. It is reasonable to expect that sanctions will play a prominent role in Trump’s foreign policy agenda in his second term, given that the people likely to join the second Trump administration’s Treasury and State Department sanctions teams will have previously served under Trump. The architect of the “maximum economic pressure” campaign against Iran is leading State Department transition efforts. Senator Marco Rubio, considered to be a proponent of sanctions and a hawk on Iran and China, has been nominated to be Secretary of State, indicating the directional sanctions-heavy focus of the new administration. There is concern globally about what a second Trump administration will mean for Russia-related sanctions, particularly if they’ll be quickly lifted as part of a deal to end the crisis in Ukraine. Sanctions against Russia to date have been a true multilateral effort, with dozens of nations subscribing to the program and heavy coordination among Group of Seven (G7) partners and European Union teams. While President-elect Trump has not made any specific statements about the use of sanctions on Russia, he may yet act to change them. Considering that possibility, it is important to note that the president is not the sole decider. Any next steps in an expansion or potential reduction of sanctions against Russia will largely be directed by whoever is appointed in key roles on the National Security Council and at the Treasury and State Department, as well as the US Congress. In an extraordinary bipartisan effort in 2017, during Trump’s first administration, the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) was enacted in part to limit the president’s ability to unilaterally lift sanctions on countries such as Russia. CAATSA requires the president to submit a report to appropriate congressional committees and leadership prior to lifting Russia sanctions. While G7 partners’ concerns about the potential for the United States to lift its sanctions targeting Russia are valid, there are several procedural hoops the next administration would need to jump through to do it. If the next administration decides to expand sanctions on Russia, there is one tool that was employed in a limited form in Trump’s first administration that could be considered: secondary sanctions. Secondary sanctions force countries to choose between doing business with those imposing sanctions or those that are the subject of sanctions. President Obama’s administration leveraged secondary sanctions to bring Iran to the negotiating table to form the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015, a deal that Trump ultimately abandoned in 2018. Secondary sanctions related to Russia were imposed by President Biden in December 2023 and have slowly begun to be implemented. It’s conceivable that this instrument of foreign policy could be used as another stick in a Trump 2.0 strategy to compel unaligned countries, including current US allies, to align with American objectives regarding Russia or other national security priorities, such as China. However, relations with China are not as tense as they were when Trump left office nearly four years ago. The Biden administration sought a reset of US-China relations after tensions reached a peak during the spy balloon incident in 2023, and has largely followed the path of export control and sanctions policy that started during the Trump administration. It notably eased, but did not pull down the Trump-era tariffs targeting China’s unfair trade practices. The Economic Working Group was formed between the United States and China in October 2023 to serve as an ongoing channel to discuss bilateral economic policy matters including climate change, capital requirements, and fentanyl trafficking. While there continues to be a tit for tat on trade and export control matters, it is on a less prominent scale than the first Trump administration. Given President-elect Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail about the importance of building relationships with your adversaries, it is still an open question of whether he will resume his tactics of trade and tariff threats against China once in office. The landscape with China has changed since Trump left the White House, including through China imposing the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law in 2021. The law forbids compliance with foreign sanctions in China, complicating the ability of any US business to fully comply with both Chinese and US regulations. It is conceivable that, between the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law requirements and export control bans China has put in place for rare earth minerals and precious metals, Trump 2.0 takes a more diplomatic approach toward China lest he more broadly disrupt global supply chains. Daniel Tannebaum is a non-resident senior fellow with the Economic Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council and partner in Oliver Wyman’s Finance & Risk Practice, where he leads the firm’s Global Anti-Financial Crime Practice.

GAZA, — An Israeli airstrike on a car in the Gaza Strip on Saturday killed five people, a senior Palestinian health official said. Three of them were said to be employees of the charity World Central Kitchen , whose aid delivery efforts in the war-ravaged territory were temporarily suspended earlier this year after an Israeli strike killed seven of its workers, most of them foreigners. World Central Kitchen could not immediately be reached for comment, and it did not mention the deaths on social media. The Israeli military said it struck a wanted militant who had been involved in the Hamas attack that sparked the war. In a later statement, it said that the alleged attacker had worked with WCK and it asked “senior officials from the international community and the WCK administration to clarify" how that had come about. The violence in Gaza rages on even as a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah appears to be holding, despite sporadic episodes that have tested its fragility. Israel on Saturday struck what it said were Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites along Syria's border with Lebanon. The strike on the vehicle in Gaza was the latest in what aid agencies have described as the dangerous work of delivering aid in Gaza , where the war has sparked a humanitarian crisis that has displaced much of the territory's 2.3 million population and triggered widespread hunger. World Central Kitchen provides freshly prepared meals to people in need following natural disasters or to those enduring conflict. Its teams have fanned out in Gaza and across Israel and Lebanon since the war began and have often served as a lifeline for people in Gaza who have struggled to feed themselves and their families. Palestinian health official Muneer Alboursh confirmed the strike, and an aid worker in Gaza confirmed that three killed were workers with the WCK. The aid worker spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak with the media. At Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, a woman held up an employee badge bearing the WCK logo, the word “contractor” and the name of a man said to have been killed in the strike. A heap of belongings — burned phones, a watch and stickers with the WCK logo — lay splayed on the hospital floor. Nazmi Ahmed said his nephew worked for WCK for the past year. He said he was driving to the charity's kitchens and warehouses. “Today, he went out as usual to work ... and was targeted without prior warning and without any reason,” Ahmed said. In April, a strike on a WCK aid convoy killed seven workers — three British citizens, Polish and Australian nationals, a Canadian-American dual national and a Palestinian. The Israeli military said the strike was a mistake. The strike prompted an international outcry and the suspension of aid to Gaza for a a brief period by several aid groups, including WCK. Another Palestinian WCK worker was killed in August by shrapnel from an Israeli airstrike, the group said. The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’ October 2023 attack, when militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took some 250 hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants in their count but say more than half the dead were women and children. Efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have faltered repeatedly. But the U.S.- and France-brokered deal for Lebanon appears to holding after it took effect on Wednesday. Still, Israel has accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire and Lebanon has accused Israel of the same. On Saturday, Israel's military said it struck sites that had been used to smuggle weapons from Syria to Lebanon after the ceasefire took effect, which the military called a violation of its terms. There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities or activists monitoring the conflict in that country. Hezbollah did not immediately comment. Israeli aircraft have struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, citing ceasefire violations, several times since the truce began. The Israeli strike in Syria came as insurgents there breached the country's largest city, Aleppo, in a shock offensive that added fresh uncertainty to a region reeling from multiple wars. The truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah calls for an initial two-month ceasefire in which the militants are to withdraw north of Lebanon's Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. Many Lebanese, some of the 1.2 million displaced in the conflict, were streaming south to their homes , despite warnings by the Israeli and Lebanese militaries to stay away from certain areas. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that an Israeli drone attacked a car in the southern village of Majdal Zoun. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said three people were wounded, including a 7-year-old child. Majdal Zoun, near the Mediterranean Sea, is close to where Israeli troops still have a presence. Israel's military said earlier Saturday that its forces, who remain in southern Lebanon until they withdraw gradually over the 60-day ceasefire period, had been operating to distance “suspects” in the region, without elaborating, and said troops had located and seized weapons found hidden in a mosque. Israel says it reserves the right under the ceasefire to strike against any perceived violations. Israel has made returning the tens of thousands of displaced Israelis home the goal of the war with Hezbollah but Israelis, concerned that Hezbollah has not been deterred and could still attack northern communities, have been apprehensive about returning home . Hezbollah began attacking Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group Hamas and its assault on southern Israel the day before. Israel and Hezbollah kept up a low-level conflict of cross-border fire for nearly a year, until Israel escalated its fight with a sophisticated attack that detonated hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah fighters. It followed that up with an intense aerial bombardment campaign against Hezbollah assets, killing many of its top leaders including longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah , and it launched a ground invasion in early October. More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon. ___ Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel, and Mroue reported from Beirut. Mohammad Jahjouh in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, contributed.Early tallies in Ireland's General Election hint at challenges for incumbents and potential new alliancesMookie Betts Opens Up On Interfering Yankees Fans, 'F*** You Guys'