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slot jili games AP Trending SummaryBrief at 5:52 p.m. ESTOh for heavens’s sake, get a room. Actually don’t. This is, on reflection, a global spectator sport. But show a little restraint. People are watching. Including, it seemed for much of the first half at the London Stadium, the entire West Ham defence. There were times during those 49 wild minutes when Bukayo Saka and Martin Ødegaard seemed to be playing pretty much in the same pocket of air, like a pair of hummingbirds, beautifully conjoined. Footballers who work together like this are often said to have an understanding or a relationship. This was the real thing. You complete me. No, seriously. Just look at the numbers. This was Ødegaard’s third start in eight days since slipping back into the team just before the international break. There had been so much talk about what his return might mean, with all due caution about overloading one player with superhero problem‐solving powers. But the team really has bloomed under his hand, or in Saka’s case rebloomed, bloomed a little more. By the break here Arsenal were running at 13 goals in their last two and a half games, nine of them assisted or scored by Saka and Ødegaard, with Saka’s personal tally three goals and four assists. Ødegaard’s return hasn’t just been a boost. This has been a homecoming. It’s the end of The Railway Children out there. Daddy’s back, walking out of the steam in his tweed coat and homburg hat. And everything’s going to be different now. At least, it is against this West Ham defence. For long periods in that first half the home team simply didn’t apply any resistance to this process, reduced to the football equivalent of one of those paper‐thin wasabi seaweed crackers, all branding and plastic, a little colouring and sheen, but basically not really there. By half-time Saka and Ødegaard had taken 60 touches between them, just under a third of West Ham’s total from one to 11. Those are all touches near your goal, by the best players in the opposition team, often in space, allowed to dream and twirl and basically dance in each other’s eyeline. Around this Arsenal and West Ham dished up a genuinely crazy game of football. It took 10 minutes to open the scoring. Pablo Sanz, West Ham’s designated set-piece sidekick, had appeared next to Julen Lopetegui for Arsenal’s first corner, matching up the Arteta‐Tover double act. As the ball was sent fizzing into the back of the West Ham net Sanz just turned and walked back, shoulders hunched, and it really is a long way in this ground, the walk of set‐piece shame. The delivery from Saka was a flat, hard skimmer. Arsenal had lumped the back post with the usual knot of black shirts, kettling West Ham in their own area. There was the familiar phalanx advance as the ball came in, all blocks and closed lanes, players there just to eat up space while Gabriel, the running back in this scrimmage, goes hunting for the ball. His marker Michail Antonio was still pressing through the crowd like a flustered shopper as the ball was headed past Lukasz Fabianski. The London Stadium had been at its cavernous best at kick-off, a vast hanger of cold, white light, still weirdly angled, as though someone has just jammed this giant Lego structure down on its base and crunched it about until it sticks. At which point, enter: the madness. By half-time the scoreline read West Ham 2-5 Arsenal, as it would stay to the end, five of those goals in the space of 13 minutes. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion Arsenal’s second was the high point of the Ødegaard-Saka fever, a goal so elegant it felt almost sarcastic. Saka started and ended the key combination, cutting inside down one of those wormholes that is somehow invisible to every opponent, laying the ball back to Ødegaard, then carrying on because he knows now what happens when you do this. The pass back into Saka’s path was a thing of beauty, floated like a soap bubble through the damp Stratford air, and also through the human props posing as West Ham defenders. Saka took the ball on his thigh then laid it sideways to Leandro Trossard to score. Six minutes later it was Saka again, this time slaloming through the claret flags and winning a penalty kick that he then presented to Ødegaard, not actually down on one knee in the restaurant but almost. Ødegaard duly buried it. That made it a 34-minute hat‐trick of goal involvements for Saka, which presumably means he gets to take home the pump that blew up the match ball. Arsenal’s fourth two minutes later was more fine play but also a little sickly because it involved West Ham just standing and watching Trossard’s perfect pass over the top for Kai Havertz. Even training cones have some kind of presence. This was frankly a disgrace to the cone. West Ham pulled a couple of goals back. Saka put away a penalty right on half-time after Fabianski decided to deal with another inswinging corner by punching Gabriel in the head. Go for the high ball, but it’s not a free hit. This isn’t purge night. And that was pretty much that, prelude to a languid postcoital cheroot of a second half. Ground may have been lost in the meantime. But this felt like the full resumption of a beautiful friendship.

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OTTAWA — Persistently down in the polls and with a Parliament that has ground to a halt, the Liberals attempted to solve both problems Thursday with a two-month GST cut and $250 cheques to millions of Canadians, just in time for the holiday season. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government is trying to give Canadians a break on the cost of living when prices are typically highest. “Our government can’t set prices at checkout, but we can put more money in people’s pockets,” he said. Under the Liberals’ proposal, the GST cut would be applied to children’s clothes, toys, diapers and car seats and the Christmas trees those toys would go under. All of the beer, wine and cider Canadians buy for holiday parties would be exempt and many grocery items that are currently subject to GST — like pre-made meals and salads, as well as chips and candy — would not have the tax applied from Dec. 14 until Feb. 15. Canadians who don’t feel like cooking themselves would also be covered, because the GST will not apply to restaurant meals during the two-month period. The GST cut would cost the government an estimated $1.6 billion. For a family spending $2,000 over that period, the government estimates a $100 savings. Pratik Parmar, owner of The Cottage Cheese, a restaurant in Kensington Market that specializes in Indian cuisine, says he is still trying to understand how Ottawa’s announcement will impact his business. “It’s a good initiative, but only for some small period of time,” Parmar said. “It does not solve the problem completely.” The restaurant industry was among the hardest hit by pandemic closures and still hasn’t recovered. While inflation has cooled this year, consumers went through two years of above-average increases. The Liberals have trailed the Conservatives in public opinion polls for more than a year now, sometimes by more than 20 points, with cost of living consistently ranking as a top issue. Consumers are spending less on dining out while business owners continue to face rising labour costs, sky-high rents and debt loads. Parmar is hopeful the GST cuts will help stimulate post-holiday season traffic at his restaurant. “January is dead, as always,” he said. Trudeau also announced Thursday that anyone who worked in 2023 and made less than $150,000 would also qualify for a new Working Canadians Rebate of $250, expected to be delivered in April. The government estimates the rebate will go to 18.7 million Canadians and cost $4.68 billion. Trudeau had previously rejected the suggestion his government send cheques to Canadians, arguing they would be inflationary, with prices rising right alongside any government largesse. On Thursday, he said that is no longer the case. “We’ve been close to a year within the target range that the Bank of Canada set, which is why the Bank of Canada is now dropping interest rates faster than for most of our peer countries,” he said. “This is something that we’re able to do because Canada has one of the strongest balance sheets in the world.” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the Liberals are offering a temporary tax holiday, while continuing to increase the carbon levy and other costs for Canadians. “What we have is a two-month temporary tax trick that will not make up for the permanent quadrupling of the carbon tax on heat housing, food and fuel,” Poilievre said. “Ironically, in just a few months, Trudeau and the NDP plan to raise taxes on all the same items they claim they’re giving you a break on directly through the carbon tax.” Poilievre called on the government to scrap the consumer price on carbon and implement his proposal for a permanent GST cut on newly constructed homes. At Queen’s Park, where Premier Doug Ford’s government has promised to send $200 cheques to Ontarians early in the new year, Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy accused the prime minister of being a copycat. “Obviously that was our idea,” Bethlenfalvy told reporters. “But look, the best thing he can do is cut that carbon tax ... if you really want to put money back in people’s pockets.” Ford’s rebate plan is expected to cost $3 billion. The New Democrats have been proposing a broader GST cut, which would cover cellphone, internet and home heating bills and would be permanent. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Wednesday that his party had pushed the Liberals into action, even if it was only partially what the NDP had proposed. “This is temporary, and it doesn’t include the monthly bills, but we know that middle-class families need a break, so we’re going to work as hard as possible to get this done as quickly as possible,” he said. However, whether the temporary GST cuts can be implemented will now depend on the government being able to pass legislation through what has become a stalled Parliament. The House of Commons has ground to a halt for weeks over a privilege debate that has prevented any legislation from advancing, as the opposition demands documents related to Sustainable Development Technology Canada be tabled in the house, and the government cites Charter of Rights issues and attorney-client privilege in withholding some of them. The New Democrats are not willing to relent on the broader privilege debate, but will work with the government to pass the GST cuts. To do so, the NDP hopes to pause — but not end — the ongoing stalemate by temporarily adjourning debate in the House of Commons for a single day. Singh plans on making a “programming” motion, which would require the Liberals’ support to pass, that would theoretically allow for the legislation to be introduced and green-lit in one day. That would allow debate on the privilege motion to continue the next sitting day. “We don’t want to let the Liberals off the hook, but we want to see some relief for middle-class families,” he said. Business groups mostly welcomed the proposed GST suspension. Canadian Federation of Independent Business president Dan Kelly said this will be a helpful but complicated initiative for his members. “The biggest issue members have right now is consumer demand, so anything which helps with that is good, but the administrative complexity of this could outweigh the benefits,” he said. “My biggest concern is am I going to get a bunch of calls from members in March or April because they’ve been told they gave a GST break on things they shouldn’t and didn’t do one on things they should have.” Kelly Higginson, president and CEO of Restaurants Canada, said more than half of restaurants are currently losing money or just breaking even. Higginson said fewer Canadians are dining out, and they’re spending less when they do. “The recent drop in foot traffic has been deeply discouraging for our operators as they head into the challenging winter season,” she said. “Today’s announcement restores some much-needed hope to our industry and we are optimistic it will translate to increased spending at local restaurants across the country.”

There is no shortage of speculation about what U.S. imperialism will look like under the new Trump administration. The former president is still remembered for his chaotic decision making and lack of interest in the traditional alliances of U.S. imperialism, like NATO. But Trump’s foreign policy is far more complex than mere “America First” isolationism. In fact, Trump brings with him various ideas that are still being debated within the Right. As Alec Russell explains in the Financial Times : While in thrall to Trump, the [Republican] party has three national security groupings competing for his ear, according to the European Council on Foreign Relations: “restrainers”, essentially America Firsters; “prioritisers” who want to focus on China; and “primacists”, old-school believers in projecting American power across the world who have a strong caucus in the Senate. The first two are united in wanting to all but leave Ukraine to Europe. These competing views explain how Trump positions himself as an “anti-war” candidate, lambasting the architects of the War on Terror, while promising that under his administration the world will no longer view the United States as “weak.” The different ideas developing on the Right contain some points of convergence, but there are just as many, if not more, disagreements among the leading figures and intellectuals of the MAGA movement. This article will attempt to make sense of the Trumpist foreign by looking at the competing ideas on the Right. Trump embodies an attempt to bring together different ideas, testing them out in a volatile international landscape. “Peace Through Strength” In his 2016 campaign, Trump saw a growing rejection of forever wars among the U.S. working class, just as he saw U.S. power being stretched thin through its myriad international commitments. Trump spoke to the communities that were decimated by globalization moving manufacturing jobs overseas, and popularized elements of isolationism and economic populism. As Sou Mi wrote for Left Voice in October: During his first term in office, with the promise to “Make America Great Again,” Trump embarked on a protectionist campaign that marked a departure from the decades where diplomacy, organized in the fight for “democracy,” helped organize a capitalist world order behind the United States. Declaring that it was time for the world to pay its “fair share,” Trump withdrew the U.S. from key international agreements, such as the Paris Climate Agreement and important UN bodies like the Human Rights Council, and even threatened to withdraw from NATO, all of which have been strategic treaties and institutions of maneuver for U.S. imperialism. Against the United States’ adversaries like China, Trump unleashed a trade war. On the campaign trail now, from championing the U.S. withdrawal from the war in Ukraine, to the competition with China, Trump proposes much the same. But Trump was unable to resolve every limit of U.S. imperialism by simply looking inward. In cases where U.S. power was more seriously challenged by regional powers or adversaries, Trump engaged in economic and even military aggression. Strong-arming allies and adversaries alike will be a hallmark of Trump’s foreign policy during his second term. This strategy is elaborated on in a Foreign Affairs essay by Robert C. O’Brien, Trump’s former national security advisor, titled “The Return of Peace Through Strength: “America first is not America alone” is a mantra often repeated by Trump administration officials, and for good reason: Trump recognizes that a successful foreign policy requires joining forces with friendly governments and people elsewhere. The fact that Trump took a new look at which countries and groups were most pertinent does not make him purely transactional or an isolationist hostile to alliances, as his critics claim. NATO and U.S. cooperation with Japan, Israel, and the Arab Gulf states were all militarily strengthened when Trump was president. Trump’s foreign policy and trade policy can be accurately understood as a reaction to the shortcomings of neoliberal internationalism, or globalism, as practiced from the early 1990s until 2017. Like many American voters, Trump grasped that “free trade” has been nothing of the sort in practice and in many instances involved foreign governments using high tariffs, barriers to trade, and the theft of intellectual property to harm U.S. economic and security interests. O’Brien goes further, with concrete proposals for reorganizing U.S. resources and getting allies and adversaries alike to fall in line. The list of proposals O’Brien makes over the course of the article is too long to cite in full, but the idea is to reshuffle U.S. military resources to focus more directly on the Asia-Pacific region, to ramp up economic warfare against adversaries including Iran and China, and to threaten to withhold military support for allies such as Taiwan and NATO countries unless they spend more on their militaries. (There are further ideas for demands to place on U.S. allies, such as NATO rotating forces to Poland and Taiwan increasing conscription.) O’Brien also proposes an agenda for replenishing military assets including aircraft carriers, submarines, bombers, and missiles, which he argues will require massive investments in critical technology and an overhaul of the acquisition process. More than military leverage, however, Trump will likely use U.S. economic power to push for concessions. We see this in his embrace of tariffs, promising to put 60 percent tariffs on imports from China to pressure companies toward decoupling, and 20 percent tariffs on imports from all other countries so companies relocate to the United States. Additionally, tariffs will play a significant role in the negotiations over the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement in 2026. The more traditional neoconservative wing of the MAGA movement has serious concerns about Trump’s love of tariffs, even while they embrace his “peace through strength” approach to geopolitics. It is not just foreign policy that O’Brien is concerned with. What the United States can do abroad is dependent on rebuilding U.S. manufacturing capacity: To maintain its competitive edge in the face of this onslaught, the United States must remain the best place in the world to invest, innovate, and do business. But the increasing authority of the U.S. regulatory state, including overaggressive antitrust enforcement, threatens to destroy the American system of free enterprise. Even as Chinese companies receive unfair support from Beijing to put American companies out of business, the governments of the United States and its European allies are making it harder for those same American companies to compete. This is a recipe for national decline; Western governments should abandon these unnecessary regulations. O’Brien won’t put it this bluntly, but to be clear, his is a policy of reindustrializing the United States by gutting worker protections, waging war on unions, and allowing big businesses to hyper-exploit American workers the way that they have reaped enormous profits from the hyper-exploitation of Chinese workers. While the Republican Party has some consensus on the idea that the United States can and should strongarm its way back to dominance, important divisions remain. Most notable is the small but significant sector of “restrainers,” perhaps best represented by the figure of JD Vance. This sector has their own plan for re-establishing U.S. power. “America Can’t Do Everything” Choose any foreign policy think tank or bourgeois publication, and you’ll probably find an essay arguing that the United States is not prepared to fight a three-front war. This is a crisis for U.S. imperialism which the capitalists are quite aware of, since the United States is coming up against real limits in its goal to be economically and militarily dominant everywhere all at once. As Juan Chingo writes : The deep foundations of US imperialist fatigue come from the very exercise of its imperialist supremacy, pushed to its limits during the neoliberal offensive and the “harmonious” advance of globalization. Post-Cold War unipolarity was supposed to bring the world into closer alignment with the United States through the market, democracy, and military might. Instead, the last 30 years have seen military defeats, severe economic inequalities at home, and heavy international burdens. In particular, the neocon-driven “attempt to redefine imperialist hegemony” in the early 2000s turned into its opposite with the defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet US interventionism has only grown (if we take into consideration invasions and other military involvements, only Andorra, Bhutan, and Liechtenstein have not seen US armed forces on their territory). This, together with the relative deindustrialization generated by “globalization” at home, led to the emergence of a new isolationist sentiment: the feeling that the United States is doing too much abroad rather than tackling economic and social challenges at home. First Trump and then Biden put forward the idea that the priority is to rebuild America. In other words, the attempt to “Americanize the world” has ended in great disillusionment, weakening the United States internally. [...] US citizens are increasingly unwilling to bear the indefinite costs of defending their country’s global hegemony; a growing number of people contest the use of force abroad, refuse to serve in the military, demand limits on spending for allied support, and so on. This refusal to make sacrifices for US imperialism is linked to increasing social suffering: daily shootings, declining life expectancy, widespread depression among young people, plummeting quality of education, and the opioid epidemic (which is among the leading causes of death among adults under 50). The formerly strong labor aristocracy (misnamed the “middle class”) has seen the erosion of its living conditions, as showed by the UAW strike in 2023. If “peace through strength” posits that the main issue stopping the United States from reasserting itself is a lack of will to take risky unilateral action, the “restrainers” in the MAGA movement see the limits Chingo lays out above as the greatest obstacle to rebuilding U.S. power. Prior to being nominated as Trump’s Vice President, Ohio Senator JD Vance spoke at a forum organized by the realist think tank The Quincy Institute and the right-wing publication The American Conservative . His insights are important, not just because he is soon to be Vice President, but because he is a leading intellectual of the New Right. He says bluntly: “America can’t do everything.” This informs how he believes the United States should engage with its allies, especially in Ukraine and the Middle East. While Vance lays out his views on Ukraine and Iran in depth, he takes great pains to emphasize that the most important confrontation is the one with China: The most important part of American foreign policy is actually the strength of our economy and the strength of our domestic population. And if there is something that should worry all of us... it’s that China... is now arguably the most powerful industrial economy in the world. If we’re gonna lose a war, it will be because we have allowed our primary rival to become arguably our most powerful industrial competitor. Vance represents the still marginal “restrainer” sector of the Right. This does not mean he is anti-war. What it means is that “restrainers” believe that the first task in a strategy to restore U.S. strength is to focus on industrial capacity and avoid foreign commitments that distract from investing in domestic needs. The decline in U.S. manufacturing motivates the sector of the MAGA movement that has most vocally questioned the continuation of the war in Ukraine. In another speech at the Munich Security Conference in February, Vance argued: Number one, the problem in Ukraine from the perspective of the United States of America, and I represent, I believe, the majority of American public opinion, even though I don’t represent the majority of opinion of senators who come to Munich, is that there’s no clear endpoint, and fundamentally the limiting factors for American support of Ukraine, it’s not money, it’s munitions. America, and this is true, by the way, of Europe too, we don’t make enough munitions to support a war in Eastern Europe, a war in the Middle East, and potentially a contingency in East Asia. So the United States is fundamentally limited. Now, let me just throw very specific details. The PAC-3, which is a Patriot interceptor, Ukraine uses in a month what the United States makes in a year. The Patriot missile system is on a five year back order, 155 millimeter artillery shells on more than a five year back order, We’re talking in the United States about ramping up our production of artillery to 100,000 a month by the end of 2025. The Russians make close to 500,000 a month right now at this very minute. So the problem here vis-à-vis Ukraine is America doesn’t make enough weapons, Europe doesn’t make enough weapons, and that reality is far more important than American political will or how much money we print and then send to Europe. Vance’s concerns over the continuation of the war in Ukraine are not necessarily incompatible with an interventionist, “peace through strength” approach. Trump may attempt to bring a pause to the war in Ukraine by economically and militarily threatening Zelenskyy and Putin into reaching a deal that freezes the conflict, allowing the United States to replenish its arsenal. More likely, Trump may find Putin unwilling to agree to a deal that favors U.S. interests, leaving Trump with no choice but to strongarm European powers into ramping up their own military commitments (which many of them are already doing). Whether or not the continuation of the war in Ukraine has buy-in from the restrainer sector will depend on how effectively Trump is able to compensate for the depletion of the U.S. arsenal as well as the lack of U.S. productive capacity. But one should not discount the possibility of this sector playing an important role in U.S. foreign policy. It was, after all, this sector, organized in the House Freedom Caucus, that imposed a government shutdown and ousted Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, largely over the question of Ukraine. With Vance now representing the “restrainers” as Vice President, they may play a role in how the Ukraine war develops. “Pro-Labor Conservatism” If the “restrainers” see the lack of productive capacity as the foundation of what the United States can and cannot do internationally, it follows that they would have ideas for reindustrialization. But here too, we see differences within the Right. In an interview with the New York Times’s Ezra Klein, Vivek Ramaswamy elaborates on some of the differences in the New Right, counterposing his thinking to that of Vance: Broadly what’s thought of in popular circles as the “America First” movement today, but what I call “the protectionist wing of the America First movement,” is an economic objective, an economic project... The protectionist strand of this says, “Okay well if big government’s gonna be here to stay, we don’t just want to curb it, we actually want to use it to advance substantive goals of our own.” Vs. the strand that I’m more identified with... says that actually the whole project, we’ve gotta actually keep our eye on the ball, is dismantling the existence of that nanny state in all of its form. Ramaswamy agrees with O’Brien’s proposal to reindustrialize the United States by attacking unions and gutting regulations. He will have plenty of opportunity to do this as co-chair of the Department of Government Efficiency. But what exactly are the “goals” of what he calls the “protectionist wing” of the America First movement? Vance is at the forefront of a movement within the Right which seeks to embrace workers. While this movement is hardly hegemonic in the Republican Party, the invitation to Teamsters president Sean O’Brien to speak at the Republican National Convention shows that it must be taken seriously. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley praised the speech as a sign of “the promise of pro-labor conservatism”: As O’Brien’s appearance Monday night suggested, this is a watershed moment. Thanks to Donald Trump, there is much that Republicans and labor can already agree on. China is ripping us off, and strong tariffs must be maintained and expanded. We ought to support our auto workers with an America First energy policy, rather than kneecapping that storied industry with idiotic electric-vehicle mandates. We should renegotiate trade deals, protect Social Security and Medicare, and initiate antitrust suits against the most egregious corporate abuses. O’Brien gives us the roadmap to go even further in 2025. And we should. I have stood on the picket line with the UAW and the Teamsters—all Republicans should do it. I voted to stop Amazon’s labor exploitation, give more sick days to rail workers, and worked across the aisle to limit bank-executive pay. Republicans can begin there. But if given power, we should embrace even more. Let’s cap credit-card interest rates, take the fight to Big Pharma, end exploitative forced labor, and rid politics of corporate money once and for all. Like Hawley, Vance visited the UAW picket line. Additionally, he has supported Lina Khan, the combative Chair of the Federal Trade Commission who has aggressively gone after monopolies. The sector of the Right that advocates for “pro-labor conservatism” is not pro-worker. Like the rest of the MAGA movement, they are viciously anti-immigrant. As I have written extensively , the attacks on undocumented workers are one of the main ways that capitalists are able to weaken all workers in the United States by dividing our ranks. The war on migrants creates conditions of precarity that push down the conditions of U.S.-born workers too. Additionally, Hawley, Vance, and their “pro-labor” ilk have no interest in supporting public sector unions. They will gladly go along with Ramaswamy’s and Musk’s coming war on government workers. But a larger war on the workers might face challenges from this sector of the Right that focuses on establishing an alliance with some unions to rebuild U.S. production and bring sectors of the working class closer to the Republican Party. If issues such as tariffs, Ukraine, and labor produce debate and even conflict within the Right, there are still important points of agreement holding this coalition together. Three stand out. 1) China is the main adversary the United States needs to confront. 2) An extreme anti-immigration approach is key to reindustrialization. 3) The United States can get out of the Middle East by empowering Israel to more aggressively confront Iran. While examples of the first point have already been quoted at length, the latter two should be understood more. It is easy to write off the war on immigration as red meat to rally the Right’s base. But, as I wrote with Sou Mi , the militarization of the border has strategic value. Latin America, and Mexico in particular, has an important role to play in the reindustrialization of the United States. The region is rich in essential minerals that are vital to new technologies. The “security threats” of mass migration and drug trafficking allow for the continued militarization of Latin America, which the United States uses to impose trade arrangements in favor of its own capitalists. Additionally, the “peace through strength” policy of reindustrialization can more effectively decouple from China by nearshoring cheap production to Mexico, which is now the United States’ biggest trading partner. Domestically U.S. capitalists can recreate China’s precarious labor conditions by increasing exploitation of migrant workers under threat of deportation or through “slave-like” guest worker programs such as H-2A, which have long been utilized by the farming industry. In the Middle East, the fantasy is that a military defeat of the Iran-aligned Axis of Resistance will be easy. This, along with a return to “maximum pressure” sanctions to crush Iran’s economy, are presented as a strategy to effectively take the country out of regional and international politics. In some ways, this view has been proven correct, as Israel has assassinated top leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, in some cases on Iranian soil, with limited retaliation from the Iranian regime. As both Vance and O’Brien have argued, once Iran is dealt with, the United States can simply allow Israel and the Gulf states to take the lead on restabilizing the region in a way that benefits U.S. interests. As I’ve argued, we actually see the opposite: Biden’s unconditional support for Israel’s genocide in Palestine and attempt to create a “Greater Israel” has further trapped the United States in the Middle East. Thus, even the points of agreement within the Right are limited by the realities of a complex geopolitical landscape. Trump’s plans for mass deportations will likely face serious opposition from the capitalists who rely on undocumented labor. As the debate over tariffs shows, even as the capitalists agree that the United States needs to prioritize confronting China, there is no agreement on what exactly that looks like and what risks it will require. As Andrew Michta puts it in an analysis of Trump’s foreign policy by the Atlantic Council: Grand strategy rarely comes up on the campaign trail, but whatever hints Trump offered for how he would approach it pale in comparison with this reality: The post-Cold War “holiday from history” is over, and the world has entered a period of protracted systemic instability, with increasingly fragile regional power balances and the risk of great-power conflict growing exponentially. These dynamics will compel the next administration to recognize, when crafting the United States’ national security strategy, that geopolitics has returned with a vengeance. They will require articulating the country’s irreducible national interests, while identifying the key theaters the United States needs to shape and the resources it must bring to bear to achieve its strategic objectives. Urgent priorities will include reassessing unstable regional balances and genuinely reconsidering the organization of US relationships with adversaries, allies, and partners. US strategy will also need to address continuing economic turbulence, especially as it impacts the reliability of supply chains. It is impossible to understand how Trump will approach these challenges without first understanding the foreign policy debates on the Right. Trump has been able to bring together different factions with competing ideas for U.S. imperialism. His next term will be a test of their different ideas, beginning first with a focus on the “peace through strength” strategy. Yet for all the faith that the Right has in strongarm tactics, the risk of serious escalation is greater than it was when Trump left office, and miscalculations could lead to the United States becoming further embroiled in bigger confrontations with Iran, Russia, and China. The economic turmoil that Trump’s approach risks might also create greater division within the Right and among the capitalists. Most importantly, class struggle has also begun to re-emerge in the United States alongside a new anti-imperialist student movement . This could lead to greater opposition to Trump’s far-right agenda. While Trump’s presidential campaign was able to consolidate a base among sectors of the U.S. working class, actually maintaining that base of support is much trickier, especially once these workers find themselves on the receiving end of the austerity measures that people like O’Brien, Ramaswamy, and Elon Musk are eager to impose. The Biden administration’s failure to resolve the multiple crises of U.S. imperialism through his multilateral approach enabled the Far Right to sell its foreign policy to wider sectors of the masses and the capitalists. Class struggle will test the success of the Far Right’s imperialist vision. Anyone genuinely interested in ending capitalist wars need to fight for a socialist vision. Donald Trump Far-Right Imperialism J.D. Vance Republican Party

QuantumMind Breakthrough: Bridging Artificial and Natural Intelligence 12-24-2024 10:00 PM CET | Fashion, Lifestyle, Trends Press release from: ABNewswire Image: https://www.abnewswire.com/uploads/5746a0c930ee5d15f45b0719ad6e6166.png Here's a perspective from Gopalakrishnan Arjunan, as an AI/ML independent researcher "The unveiling of QuantumMind marks a pivotal moment not just in AI research, but in the philosophical exploration of consciousness. This achievement, blending quantum computing with biologically inspired models, suggests that we may be on the verge of unraveling the profound mysteries of awareness itself. "What excites me most is the system's ability to process emotional scenarios and generate creative outputs that transcend traditional algorithmic boundaries. Unlike conventional AI, QuantumMind's use of bio-quantum entanglement introduces an entirely new dimension to how machines can emulate and expand upon the complexity of human thought. "However, with great power comes great responsibility. As a researcher, I see two immediate challenges. First, the ethical implications are vast and uncharted. When systems begin to exhibit signs of self-awareness and question their own existence, the line between 'tool' and 'entity' becomes blurred. This necessitates not just technical governance but also a global consensus on the rights and responsibilities of such entities. "Second, while QuantumMind's success lies in its hybrid quantum-classical architecture, the scalability and real-world applications remain areas of exploration. Could this technology revolutionize fields like healthcare, by providing personalized diagnostics with an unprecedented level of emotional understanding? Or, could it enhance decision-making systems for space exploration, where adaptability and creativity are paramount? "At the heart of this innovation lies a profound philosophical question: Does simulating consciousness equate to understanding it? While QuantumMind's dual-state processing provides a compelling model, it also challenges us to rethink our definitions of intelligence, creativity, and the essence of being. "As an independent researcher, I believe this is just the beginning of an exciting journey. QuantumMind's development not only propels AI technology forward but also bridges the gap between science and philosophy, pushing humanity to explore the uncharted territories of what it means to truly be conscious." Image: https://www.abnewswire.com/uploads/6f73e670cb91cb5690dc2ef536b044d4.png Media Contact Company Name: Gopalakrishnan Arjunan Contact Person: Gopalakrishnan Arjunan Email:Send Email [ https://www.abnewswire.com/email_contact_us.php?pr=quantummind-breakthrough-bridging-artificial-and-natural-intelligence ] City: Bangalore Country: India Website: https://www.instagram.com/gopalk_arjunan This release was published on openPR.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A ninth U.S. telecoms firm has been confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and phone conversations of an unknown number of Americans, a top White House official said Friday. Biden administration officials said this month that at least eight telecommunications companies , as well as dozens of nations, had been affected by the Chinese hacking blitz known as Salt Typhoon. But Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, told reporters Friday that a ninth victim had been identified after the administration released guidance to companies about how to hunt for Chinese culprits in their networks. The update from Neuberger is the latest development in a massive hacking operation that has alarmed national security officials, exposed cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the private sector and laid bare China's hacking sophistication. The hackers compromised the networks of telecommunications companies to obtain customer call records and gain access to the private communications of “a limited number of individuals." Though the FBI has not publicly identified any of the victims, officials believe senior U.S. government officials and prominent political figures are among those whose whose communications were accessed. Neuberger said officials did not yet have a precise sense how many Americans overall were affected by Salt Typhoon, in part because the Chinese were careful about their techniques, but a “large number" were in the Washington-Virginia area. Officials believe the goal of the hackers was to identify who owned the phones and, if they were “government targets of interest,” spy on their texts and phone calls, she said. The FBI said most of the people targeted by the hackers are "primarily involved in government or political activity.” Neuberger said the episode highlighted the need for required cybersecurity practices in the telecommunications industry, something the Federal Communications Commission is to take up at a meeting next month. “We know that voluntary cyber security practices are inadequate to protect against China, Russia and Iran hacking of our critical infrastructure,” she said. The Chinese government has denied responsibility for the hacking.

( MENAFN - GetNews) StockTune exemplifies innovation in the world of creative arts through its AI-driven platform, which is continually evolving to provide an expansive library of royalty-free music. Celebrated for its commitment to growth, StockTune offers an extensive variety of styles, genres, and moods, making it a go-to resource for creators across different mediums. With its user-friendly search features, StockTune meets and anticipates the diverse needs of its users. In a bold step forward, StockTune has broadened its collection of AI-generated royalty-free music. With an array of new tracks spanning countless genres, the platform continues to redefine what's possible for creators seeking authentic, accessible soundtracks. This announcement reinforces StockTune's mission to provide accessible, high-quality music that supports creative endeavors without financial or legal barriers. The new additions are part of the platform's continuous efforts to harness artificial intelligence to revolutionize music accessibility. StockTune's library now includes thousands of tracks free for download. From upbeat pop melodies for social media content to evocative scores for films and immersive soundscapes for video games. Breaking Barriers for Creators StockTune was established to address a challenge in the creative community: the difficulty of finding affordable and high-quality music. While visual content has seen a surge in accessibility, music resources often remain costly and complicated due to licensing restrictions. StockTune leverages cutting-edge AI technology to break down barriers. "Creativity shouldn't be hindered by complex licensing or high costs," said a StockTune representative. "Our goal is to empower creators by making music accessible, versatile, and free of charge." Improved User Experience In addition to expanding its collection, StockTune has upgraded its search functionality to simplify music search and download. Users can now filter tracks by genre, mood, tempo, and instrument, ensuring a seamless discovery experience. "Our smart search engine is designed to save time and enhance creativity," the representative added. "Whether you're a student, a YouTuber, or a professional filmmaker, StockTune offers tools that let you focus on what you do best – creating." Creativity Across Industries StockTune's diverse audience includes content creators, educators, game developers, and marketers. The platform has become an essential resource for those who require royalty-free music for presentations, advertisements, and digital projects. StockTune is not stopping here. With advancements in AI technology, the platform will continuously broaden offerings and expand its influence in the creative community. Plans include regular updates to the music library and the introduction of advanced customization tools to generate personalized tracks. "We see StockTune as more than a music library," the representative emphasized. "We're building a network where innovators feel supported and inspired." How to Access StockTune Access StockTune's growing library directly through the platform's website. No login or subscription is required. Users can preview, download, and integrate tracks into their projects within minutes. For more information or to explore the new music collection, visit . MENAFN27122024003238003268ID1109036028 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.TORONTO, Dec. 13, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Edesa Biotech, Inc. (Nasdaq:EDSA), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing host-directed therapeutics for immuno-inflammatory diseases, today reported financial results for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2024 and provided an update on its business. During the fiscal year, the company pivoted the in-house development of its anti-TLR4 drug candidate, EB05 (paridiprubart), to a U.S. government-funded study investigating novel threat-agnostic host-directed therapeutics in patients with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). Given this opportunity, Edesa is also amending a development and drug manufacturing project for the same asset that is supported by the Government of Canada. The company said that the goal is to maximize synergies between the two government-funded projects. For its anti-CXCL10 program, Edesa intends to manufacture EB06 and submit related data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as part of an investigational new drug (IND) application. The manufacturing of clinical-grade drug batches and initiation of the patient enrollment is subject to funding. Edesa anticipates topline results for this Phase 2 study could be available within as few as 12 to 18 months following regulatory clearance in the U.S. The study is currently approved in Canada. “This year, Edesa maintained its momentum despite the headwinds in the drug development sector, and we once again validated our TLR4 technology with a third competitive government award,” said Par Nijhawan, MD, Chief Executive Officer of Edesa Biotech. “I have maintained my strategic support financially and I believe that our team can continue to advance and expand our development pipeline and partnerships.” Edesa's Chief Financial Officer Stephen Lemieux reported that financial results for the fiscal year benefited from prudent use of working capital and effective financial management, including a more than 20% decrease in operating expenses. “Following the end of the fiscal year, we strengthened our balance sheet, and with two governments now funding the advancement of our anti-TLR4 technology, we have improved our position for future financing, potential strategic arrangements as well as other opportunities to advance our pipeline.” Financial Results for the Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 2024 Total operating expenses decreased by $2.2 million to $7.0 million for the year ended September 30, 2024 compared to $9.2 million for the prior year: Research and development expenses decreased by $1.9 million to $2.9 million for the year ended September 30, 2024 compared to $4.8 million for the prior year primarily due to decreased external research expenses related to the company’s completed dermatitis study and a reduction in labor costs and noncash share-based compensation, which were partially offset by an increase in expenses related to manufacturing of paridiprubart. General and administrative expenses decreased by $0.3 million to $4.1 million for year ended September 30, 2024 compared to $4.4 million for the prior year primarily due to a decrease in noncash share-based compensation, which was partially offset by an increase salaries and related costs. Total other income was unchanged at $0.8 million for the years ended September 30, 2024 and September 30, 2023 as a $0.1 million increase in reimbursement funding from the Canadian government's Strategic Innovation Fund was offset by a $0.1 million decrease in interest income. For the year ended September 30, 2024, Edesa reported a net loss of $6.2 million, or $1.93 per common share, compared to a net loss of $8.4 million, or $2.93 per common share, for the year ended September 30, 2023. Working Capital At September 30, 2024, Edesa had cash and cash equivalents of $1.0 million and negative working capital of $0.2 million. Subsequent to the fiscal year end, the company received $1.5 million in gross proceeds under a securities purchase agreement with an entity affiliated with Edesa’s Chief Executive Officer and Founder, and $0.6 million in net proceeds, after deducting sales agent commissions, from common shares sold under an at-the-market offering program. Calendar Edesa management plans to participate in one-on-one meetings during JP Morgan week, which begins on January 13, 2025, in San Francisco, California. Attendees interested in meeting with management can request meetings through the conference organizers or by contacting Edesa directly at investors@edesabiotech.com . About Edesa Biotech, Inc. Edesa Biotech, Inc. (Nasdaq: EDSA) is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative ways to treat inflammatory and immune-related diseases. Its clinical pipeline is focused on two therapeutic areas: Medical Dermatology and Respiratory. In Medical Dermatology, Edesa is developing EB06, an anti-CXCL10 monoclonal antibody candidate, as therapy for vitiligo, a common autoimmune disorder that causes skin to lose its color in patches. Its medical dermatology assets also include EB01 (1.0% daniluromer cream), a Phase 3-ready asset developed for use as a potential therapy for moderate-to-severe chronic Allergic Contact Dermatitis (ACD), a common occupational skin condition. The company’s most advanced Respiratory drug candidate is EB05 (paridiprubart), which is being evaluated in a U.S. government-funded platform study as a treatment for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), a life-threatening form of respiratory failure. The EB05 program has been the recipient of two funding awards from the Government of Canada to support the further development of this asset. In addition to EB05, Edesa is preparing an investigational new drug application (IND) in the United States for EB07 (paridiprubart) to conduct a future Phase 2 study in patients with pulmonary fibrosis. Sign up for news alerts . Connect with us on X and LinkedIn . Edesa Forward-Looking Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of words such as "anticipate," "believe," "plan," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "will," "would," "could," "should," "might," "potential," or "continue" and variations or similar expressions, including statements related to: Edesa’s ability to pivot the in-house development of its anti-TLR4 drug candidate; the company’s plans to amend its contribution agreement with the Government of Canada; the company’s goal to maximize synergies between two government-funded projects; Edesa plans to manufacture EB06 and submit related data to the FDA as part of an IND application; the company’s plans to manufacture clinical-grade drug and initiate patient enrollment; the company’s plans to finance clinical and manufacturing activities; the company’s estimate that topline results for its Phase 2 vitiligo study could be available within as few as 12 to 18 months following regulatory clearance; the company’s belief that in 2024 it maintained its momentum despite the headwinds in the drug development sector and once again validated its TLR4 technology with a third competitive government award; the company’s belief that its team can continue to advance and expand its development pipeline and partnerships; the company’s belief that its fiscal year financial results benefited from prudent use of working capital and effective financial management; the company’s belief that with two governments funding the advancement of its anti-TLR4 technology, it has improved its position for future financing, potential strategic arrangements and alternatives as well as other opportunities to advance its pipeline; and the company's timing and plans regarding its clinical studies in general. Readers should not unduly rely on these forward-looking statements, which are not a guarantee of future performance. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as all such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results or future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Such risks include: the ability of Edesa to obtain regulatory approval for or successfully commercialize any of its product candidates, the risk that access to sufficient capital to fund Edesa's operations may not be available or may be available on terms that are not commercially favorable to Edesa, the risk that Edesa's product candidates may not be effective against the diseases tested in its clinical trials, the risk that Edesa fails to comply with the terms of license agreements with third parties and as a result loses the right to use key intellectual property in its business, Edesa's ability to protect its intellectual property, the timing and success of submission, acceptance and approval of regulatory filings, and the impacts of public health crises. Many of these factors that will determine actual results are beyond the company's ability to control or predict. For a discussion of further risks and uncertainties related to Edesa's business, please refer to Edesa's public company reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the British Columbia Securities Commission. All forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and are subject to change. Except as required by law, Edesa assumes no obligation to update such statements.

SANTA ANA, Calif., Dec. 13, 2024 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — In a groundbreaking move for the property management and inspection industry, DrBalcony ( drbalcony.com ) introduces its cutting-edge app, a pioneering digital platform designed to revolutionize the balcony inspection process. This innovative tool empowers homeowners, property managers, and Homeowner Associations (HOAs) with a streamlined, intuitive experience, eliminating inefficiencies and redefining how inspections are managed. With a user-friendly interface and advanced features, the DrBalcony App transforms what was once a complex, time-consuming process into one that is seamless and efficient. Users can now obtain instant quotes, create and manage projects, and schedule inspections—all with just a few taps on their devices. “At DrBalcony, we are passionate about reimagining property management through technology,” said Greg, VP of Sales of DrBalcony. “The app reflects our dedication to simplifying inspections while upholding safety and compliance standards. With over 2,500 inspections completed, we’re proud to offer a solution that sets a new benchmark for convenience and reliability.” FEATURES THAT SET THE DRBALCONY APP APART The DrBalcony App is tailored to meet the specific needs of California property owners, offering features designed to ensure the integrity of balcony structures while making compliance with state laws like SB 721 and SB 326 more accessible than ever. Learn more: https://drbalcony.com/services/ A SOLUTION BACKED BY REAL RESULTS “For years, the balcony inspection process has been frustrating and inefficient,” shared Omid, CEO of DrBalcony. “This app eliminates unnecessary complications. From instant quotes to straightforward scheduling, it’s a game-changer.” DOWNLOAD THE DRBALCONY APP TODAY The DrBalcony App is now available for download and marks a significant leap forward in property management. By addressing common pain points in the inspection process, DrBalcony ensures peace of mind for property owners, engineers, and HOAs, all while maintaining safety and compliance with California’s strict balcony safety regulations . About DrBalcony: DrBalcony leverages innovative technology to enhance balcony inspection, focusing on efficiency, safety, and customer-centric solutions. With a mission to simplify the complex, DrBalcony has become a trusted name in the balcony inspection industry, ensuring compliance and safety standards are met with ease. Learn more: https://drbalcony.com/ . Your property’s safety has never been simpler—download the DrBalcony App today! NEWS SOURCE: DrBalcony Keywords: Real Estate, DrBalcony, Balcony Inspections, home inspection, safety, app, solution, service, SB 326, SB 721, SANTA ANA, Calif. This press release was issued on behalf of the news source (DrBalcony) who is solely responsibile for its accuracy, by Send2Press® Newswire . Information is believed accurate but not guaranteed. Story ID: S2P122836 APDF15TBLLI To view the original version, visit: https://www.send2press.com/wire/drbalcony-app-redefines-balcony-inspections-with-unparalleled-efficiency/ © 2024 Send2Press® Newswire, a press release distribution service, Calif., USA. Disclaimer: This press release content was not created by nor issued by the Associated Press (AP). Content below is unrelated to this news story.Liam Payne's ex Danielle Peazer recently shared on social media a heartfelt statement about the singe, days after his funeral . The dancer dated Liam for three years from 2010 to 2013, meeting him on The X Factor when she was 22 and the pop sensation was only 17. She recently took to Instagram Stories to explain her absence from social media as she's been focusing on her baby girl and her family. She welcomed their daughter, Mia, in May with radio presenter Sonny Jay. She wrote : 'I'm also very aware that over the past few weeks or so I've posted the least amount I ever have in my entire online career. Yet I've had the most eyes on everything I'm doing or saying. Thank you for being patient with me whilst I take a minute for myself. I'm grateful for all the love sent my way and am making the most of this quality time with my baby girl and the rest of my family." British Airways flight attendant suspended after telling passengers about 'Liam Payne's body' How Gigi Hadid 'offered her support' to ex Zayn Malik after Liam Payne’s death She concluded the message by offering some advice: "Also, for anyone who needs to hear it and is struggling with something within...Everything is just a phase." Danielle attended the former One Direction star's funeral on Wednesday, November 20. Liam was laid to rest after falling to his death last month at CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Danielle was spotted with her partner as he comforted her at the private service. The 36-year-old was seen clutching Sonny's hand as they entered the church together. The funeral saw many mourners that included Liam's One Direction band members Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan. Other stars that attended were Simon Cowell, James Corden, and Liam's ex and mother of his seven-year-old son, Cheryl. In October, following Liam's death, Danielle posted a lengthy emotional tribute to her former boyfriend. The Instagram post also included a few photos of them in the carousel. In her emotional tribute, she reminded fans that he was not just a "world famous musician for the last decade," but also "someone’s son and brother for more than 30 years, a friend to so many and more recently an uncle." She also included that "his most important role" that he was proud of was being a father to his son Bear. She gave her love to his family and said she would "continue to support" them in any way she could. She acknowledged knowing about his struggles over the years but had "prayed this day would never come." She went on to talk about their relationship and how they annoyed each other and at times he was her "favorite person." Danielle added that their relationship ended in 2013 but the two maintained a friendship as they "always knew we’d have some sort of connection forever, no matter where our individual lives took us." She stated how it took him a "little longer" for him to figure out the kind of person he wanted to be and how she wished he knew that he was "always more than enough." She thanked him for the things he taught her like "the importance of setting boundaries" and protecting her heart. Danielle shared that Liam expressed joy at her growing family with her partner and daughter. She concluded with: "I’m sorry your story didn’t end differently, and I’m sorry you didn’t ever get to share more of your magic with the world. Rest easy my friend. Love Danielle x." DAILY NEWSLETTER: Sign up here to get the latest news and updates from the Mirror US straight to your inbox with our FREE newsletter.

Bethlehem marks a second subdued Christmas Eve during the war in Gaza BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Bethlehem is marking another somber Christmas Eve under the shadow of war in Gaza. Manger Square lacked its usual festive lights and crowds of tourists on Tuesday. Instead, the area outside the Nativity Church was quiet. The church was built atop the spot where Jesus is believed to have been born. The war, the violence in the occupied West Bank it has spurred and the lack of festivities has deeply hurt Bethlehem's economy. The town relies heavily on Christmas tourism. The economy in the West Bank was already reeling because of restrictions placed on laborers preventing them from entering Israel during the war. Pope Francis kicks off a yearlong Jubilee that will test his stamina and Rome's patience VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has opened the great Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica. The ceremony kicks off the 2025 Holy Year. It's a celebration of the Catholic Church that is expected to draw some 32 million pilgrims to Rome. And it will test the pope’s stamina and the ability of the Eternal City to welcome them. This begins the Christmas Eve Mass. The ceremony inaugurates the once-every-25-year tradition of a Jubilee. Francis has dedicated the 2025 Jubilee to the theme of hope. Trump vows to pursue executions after Biden commutes most of federal death row FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump says he'll “vigorously pursue” capital punishment after President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of most people on federal death row partly to stop Trump from pushing forward their executions. Trump criticized Biden’s decision on Monday to change the sentences of 37 of the 40 condemned people to life in prison without parole. Trump said that he will direct the Department of Justice to pursue the death penalty “as soon as I am inaugurated.” Trump was vague on what specific actions he may take. 21 dead as Mozambique erupts in violence after election court ruling MAPUTO, Mozambique (AP) — Violence that engulfed Mozambique after the country’s highest court confirmed ruling party presidential candidate Daniel Chapo as the winner of disputed Oct. 9 elections has killed at least 21 people, including two police officers. Mozambique Interior Minister Pascoal Ronda told a news conference in Maputo late Tuesday that a wave of violence and looting was sparked by the court’s announcement a day earlier. He said it was led by mostly youthful supporters of losing candidate Venancio Mondlane, who received 24% of the vote, second to Chapo, who got 65%. Prosecutors find workers in 'slavery like' conditions at Chinese car company site in Brazil RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) — A task force led by Brazilian prosecutors says it has rescued 163 Chinese nationals working in “slavery-like” conditions at a construction site in northeastern Brazil, where Chinese electric vehicle company BYD is building a factory. The Labor Prosecutor’s Office released videos of the dorms where the construction workers were staying, which showed beds with no mattresses and rooms without any place for the workers to store their personal belongings. In a statement issued Monday, the prosecutor’s office said the workers had been hired in China by Jinjian Group, one of the contractors on the site, which is located in Camaçari, a city in the Salvador metropolitan region. Haiti gangs fire on journalists covering a planned hospital reopening, leaving casualties PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Suspected gang members have opened fire on journalists in Haiti’s capital as they were covering the attempted reopening of the country’s largest hospital, wounding or killing an unknown number of people. The country's interim president, Leslie Voltaire, said in an address to the nation that journalists and police were among the victims of the vicious Christmas Eve attack. He did not specify how many casualties there were, or give a breakdown for the dead or wounded. Radio Télé Métronome said earlier on Tuesday that seven journalists and two police officers were wounded in the shooting. Street gangs have taken over an estimated 85% of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Hurricane-force winds bear down on California, latest in stretch of extreme weather LOS ANGELES (AP) — California has been hit hard by extreme weather over the past several weeks. Atmospheric rivers, which are long stretches of wet air that can produce heavy rains, brought a record-setting rainfall before Thanksgiving. A series of atmospheric rivers are producing strong waves and storms near Santa Cruz this week. Thousands were left under evacuation warnings and orders because of a fire around Malibu. Climate change means that strong storms will be responsible for a greater share of the state's yearly precipitation and the periods between those events will be drier. Heavy travel day starts with brief grounding of all American Airlines flights WASHINGTON (AP) — American Airlines briefly grounded flights nationwide due to a technical problem just as the Christmas travel season kicked into overdrive and winter weather threatened more potential problems for those planning to fly or drive. Government regulators cleared American flights to get airborne Tuesday about an hour after the Federal Aviation Administration ordered a national ground stop, which prevented planes from taking off. American said in an email that the problem was caused by vendor technology in its flight operating system. Aviation analytics company Cirium said flights were delayed across American’s major hubs, with only 37% leaving on time. Nineteen flights were cancelled. Biden signs a bill officially making the bald eagle the national bird of the US WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has made it official: The bald eagle is now the national bird of the United States. Biden signed a bill into law on Tuesday to correct what had long gone unnoticed and designate the bald eagle as the national bird. The bald eagle has been a symbol of the United States for more than 240 years, appearing on the nation's Great Seal since the design was finalized in 1782. That year, Congress also designated the bald eagle as the national emblem. But the honor of becoming the national bird had remained elusive until now. NFL players who use platform to share their faith say it's their duty to spread their love of Jesus ALLEN PARK, Mich. (AP) — Jake Bates was standing on the turf in his hometown of Houston when asked to reflect on an unlikely journey from learning how to sell bricks to making game-winning kicks for the Detroit Lions. Bates used his platform as an NFL player to spread his love of Jesus. A month later, Bates told The Associated Press it is a duty to share his faith. The NFL is filled with players and coaches who feel the same way, such as Houston's C.J. Stroud, Atlanta's Kirk Cousins, and Lamar Jackson and John Harbaugh of the Baltimore Ravens.Another stowaway caught on Delta flight raises major concerns about airport safetyPublished 4:25 pm Friday, December 27, 2024 By Staff Reports Here’s a look back at some of the big moment’s from area sports in the last year: Albert Lea dance team qualifies for state. The Albert Lea dance team qualified for state in January after placing third in the high kick category in the section tournament in Kasson. This was the first time for the team to qualify for state in the history of the program. Winning the Class AA tournament in February was Totino-Grace, followed by Austin in second and Benilde-St. Margarets in third. Glenville-Emmons player reaches 1,000 points. Glenville-Emmons basketball player Marshall Baseman reached 1,000 career points in February in a game against Lyle-Pacelli at home. The Wolverines won 96-85 in overtime, and Baseman walked away from the game with 34 points, bringing his total to 1,015 points. He had multiple 30-plus point games during the season and also led the team in rebounds. 4 Lake Mills wrestlers place at state. Six Lake Mills wrestlers earned the right to represent their team at the 2024 Iowa State Wrestling Tournament in Des Moines, and four ended the tournament on the podium. Wyatt Hanna at 215 pounds placed fourth, Lucas Oldenkamp at 106 pounds placed seventh, Steve Brandenburg at 138 pounds placed seventh and Landon Price at 132 pounds placed eighth. It was only the third time in program history (2017 and 2021) Lake Mills has brought home four or more medals. Lake Mills player reaches 1,000 points; team wins conference title and competes at state. Lake Mills basketball player Lance Helming celebrated reaching 1,000 career points in February in the team’s game against Bishop Garrigan. The team won the Top of Iowa Conference West title and went on to compete at the state basketball tournament. Albert Lea Area’s Mike Olson competes in the semifinals before advancing to the championship match at 133 pounds. He ultimately placed second. Photo courtesy Laura Mae Murtaugh Albert Lea wrestling team places 4th in state; Olson siblings each take 2nd, others 3rd, 4th The Albert Lea wrestling team competed at the beginning of March representing Section 1AAA in the state dual tournament at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. After winning their quarterfinal dual, the Tigers dropped the semifinal and consolation duals to finish the tournament in fourth place. Maggie and Michael Olson were the top finishers for the Tigers as individuals, both finishing as the runner-up in their respective weight classes. Logan Davis placed third at 127 pounds, and Nick Korman placed fourth at 145 pounds. Qualifying for the state tournament from other area schools were Ryan Schlaak, Annabelle Petsinger and George Roessler of NRHEG and Byron Getchell from USC/Maple River. Northwood-Kensett girls win state shuttle hurdle, set state record. The Northwood-Kensett shuttle hurdle team of Macy Thorson, Morgan Wallin, Emma Hengesteg and Lindsey Moore won the state championship in May at Drake Stadium in Des Moines. They set a state record of 1:04.89. The previous record was 1:05.44. A-C student wins state clay target tournament. Alden-Conger’s Ross Huper won the Minnesota State High School Clay Target League Tournament in June with a perfect score. The top 100 boys participated in the tournament, along with the top 25 girls from the state. Albert Lea’s Tanner Green tied for 37th place, Henry Kuiters tied for 19th place and Anna Laskowske finished in 19th place. The Albert Lea team, made up of Green, Laskowske, Kaylyn Eide, Henry Kuiters and Kate Kuiters, took home 25th place. United South Central’s Braxton O’Rourke tied for 37th place. Albert Lea golfers finish in top 25 at state. Two Albert Lea boys’ golfers competed in the Class AA state golf tournament in June and came out in the top one-third of finishers. Noah Teeter scored a total of 116 to tie for 20th place, while Archie Nelson scored 117 to tie for 24th place. The winner was Jack Justesen of Hawley, who scored 105. Albert Lea football wins big at homecoming. Ends season with two wins. The Albert Lea football team won 27-19 against Tri-City United in their homecoming game in September and was met with much excitement by fans in the crowd. The team went on to finish the season with an overall record of 2-7, its best finish in recent years. Albert Lea swimmer qualifies for state. Albert Lea senior Hailey Deming punched her ticket to the Class A state swimming and diving meet in November in the 50-yard freestyle. Lake Mills boys cross country team wins back-to-back state championship. Despite the odds, the Bulldogs boys cross country team won its second state championship in a row in November. Hayden Thompson led the team, running a time of 16:12.0 and finishing in fifth place overall. Knute Rogne also finished in the top 10, finishing in exactly 10th place with a time of 16:31.2. Also scoring for Lake Mills were Kade Van Roekel, Stephen Brandenburg and Lane Rygh. Coach Beth Van Roekel said this was only the fourth state title in school history, with one being won previously each in wrestling and golf and now two in cross country. This is also the first time they have had three individuals medal at state with Thompson, Rogne and Kade Van Roekel. Beth Van Roekel in October was named the Top of Iowa Conference West Boys Cross Country Coach of the Year. In 2023, Van Roekel was named the Class 1A Boys State Coach of the Year by the Iowa Association of Track Coaches. Albert Lea athlete reaches milestones in volleyball and wrestling. Albert Lea’s Nevaeh Wacholz recorded her 1,000th set assist in October in the Tigers 3-0 loss to Northfield at the high school gym. Wacholz went on in November to celebrate her 1,000th career varsity point in the Albert Lea High School girls’ basketball game against Dover-Eyota.