474 betting
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GOP congressman urges Republicans to back Mike Johnson ahead of House speaker voteDoughty scores 17 in Indiana State's 83-80 win against Iona
OpenAI wants to remove a clause about AGI from its Microsoft contract to encourage additional investments, report says
Big Six banks to further diverge as economic conditions get trickier
Vancouver parrot lands internet fameBy JAMIE STENGLE, Associated Press DALLAS (AP) — More than 60 years after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated , conspiracy theories still swirl and any new glimpse into the fateful day of Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas continues to fascinate . Related Articles President-elect Donald Trump promised during his reelection campaign that he would declassify all of the remaining government records surrounding the assassination if he returned to office. He made a similar pledge during his first term, but ultimately bended to appeals from the CIA and FBI to keep some documents withheld. At this point, only a few thousand of the millions of governmental records related to the assassination have yet to be fully released, and those who have studied the records released so far say that even if the remaining files are declassified, the public shouldn’t anticipate any earth-shattering revelations. “Anybody waiting for a smoking gun that’s going to turn this case upside down will be sorely disappointed,” said Gerald Posner, author of “Case Closed,” which concludes that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Friday’s 61st anniversary is expected to be marked with a moment of silence at 12:30 p.m. in Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy’s motorcade was passing through when he was fatally shot. And throughout this week there have been events marking the anniversary. When Air Force One carrying Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy touched down in Dallas , they were greeted by a clear sky and enthusiastic crowds. With a reelection campaign on the horizon the next year, they had gone to Texas on political fence-mending trip. But as the motorcade was finishing its parade route downtown, shots rang out from the Texas School Book Depository building. Police arrested 24-year-old Oswald and, two days later, nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald during a jail transfer. A year after the assassination, the Warren Commission, which President Lyndon B. Johnson established to investigate the assassination, concluded that Oswald acted alone and there was no evidence of a conspiracy. But that hasn’t quelled a web of alternative theories over the decades. In the early 1990s, the federal government mandated that all assassination-related documents be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration. The collection of over 5 million records was required to be opened by 2017, barring any exemptions designated by the president. Trump, who took office for his first term in 2017, had boasted that he’d allow the release of all of the remaining records but ended up holding some back because of what he called the potential harm to national security. And while files have continued to be released during President Joe Biden’s administration, some still remain unseen. The documents released over the last few years offer details on the way intelligence services operated at the time, and include CIA cables and memos discussing visits by Oswald to the Soviet and Cuban embassies during a trip to Mexico City just weeks before the assassination. The former Marine had previously defected to the Soviet Union before returning home to Texas. Mark S. Zaid, a national security attorney in Washington, said what’s been released so far has contributed to the understanding of the time period, giving “a great picture” of what was happening during the Cold War and the activities of the CIA. Posner estimates that there are still about 3,000 to 4,000 documents in the collection that haven’t yet been fully released. Of those documents, some are still completely redacted while others just have small redactions, like someone’s Social Security number. There are about 500 documents where all the information is redacted, Posner said, and those include Oswald’s and Ruby’s tax returns. “If you have been following it, as I have and others have, you sort of are zeroed in on the pages you think might provide some additional information for history,” Posner said. Trump’s transition team hasn’t responded to questions this week about his plans when he takes office. From the start, there were those who believed there had to be more to the story than just Oswald acting alone, said Stephen Fagin, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, which tells the story of the assassination from the building where Oswald made his sniper’s perch. “People want to make sense of this and they want to find the solution that fits the crime,” said Fagin, who said that while there are lingering questions, law enforcement made “a pretty compelling case” against Oswald. Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said his interest in the assassination dates back to the event itself, when he was a child. “It just seemed so fantastical that one very disturbed individual could end up pulling off the crime of the century,” Sabato said. “But the more I studied it, the more I realized that is a very possible, maybe even probable in my view, hypothesis.”
Ruthless Arsenal share the goals around as dominant Gabriel calls set-piece shotsRetailers coax Black Friday shoppers into stores with big discounts and giveaways NEW YORK (AP) — Retailers in the U.S. have used giveaways and bigger-than expected discounts to reward shoppers who ventured out on Black Friday. The day after Thanksgiving still reigns for now as the unofficial kickoff of the holiday shopping season even if it’s lost some luster. Analysts reported seeing the biggest crowds at stores that offered real savings. They say many shoppers are being cautious with their discretionary spending despite the easing of inflation. Stores are even more under the gun to get shoppers in to buy early and in bulk since there are five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Online sales figures from Thanksgiving Day gave retailers a reason to remain hopeful for a lucrative end to the year. Southwest Airlines says it is ending cabin service earlier to reduce chance of injury Southwest Airlines is ending its cabin service earlier starting next month. Beginning on Dec. 4, a company spokesperson says flight attendants will begin preparing the cabin for landing at an altitude of 18,000 feet instead of 10,000 feet. The company says it's making the changes to reduce the risk of in-flight turbulence injuries. For passengers, that means they will need to return their seats to an upright position or do other pre-landing procedures earlier than before. While turbulence-related fatalities are quite rare, injuries have piled up over the years. Why your favorite catalogs are smaller this holiday season PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — While retailers hope to go big this holiday season, customers may notice that the catalogs arriving in their mailboxes are smaller. Many of the millions of catalogs getting sent to U.S. homes were scaled down to save on postage and paper. Some gift purveyors are sending out postcards. In a sign of the times, the American Catalog Mailers Association rebranded itself in May as the American Commerce Marketing Association. Despite no longer carrying an extended inventory of goods, industry experts say catalogs help retailers cut through the noise and still hold their own in value because of growing digital advertising costs. Canada's Trudeau says he had an 'excellent conversation' with Trump in Florida after tariffs threat WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he had an “excellent conversation” with Donald Trump in Florida after the president-elect’s threat to impose significant tariffs on two of America’s leading trade partners raised alarms in Ottawa and Mexico City. It's unclear, as Trudeau headed back to Canada on Saturday, whether the conversation had alleviated Trump’s concerns. Trump’s transition team hasn't responded to questions about what the leaders had discussed at their dinner Friday night at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club. The Republican president-elect has threatened to impose tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico if the countries don’t stop what he said was the flow of drugs and migrants across their borders. Trump and Republicans in Congress eye an ambitious 100-day agenda, starting with tax cuts WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans swept to power on Election Day and now control the House, the Senate and the White House, with plans for an ambitious 100-day agenda come January. Their to-do list includes extending tax breaks, cutting social programs, building the border wall to stop immigration and rolling back President Joe Biden's green energy policies. Atop that list is a plan to renew some $4 trillion in expiring tax cuts that were a signature domestic achievement of Republican Donald Trump’s first term as president. It's an issue that may define his return to the White House. The ruble's in a slump. For the Kremlin, that's a two-edged sword Russia’s ruble is sagging against other currencies, complicating the Kremlin’s efforts to keep consumer inflation under control with one hand even as it overheats the economy with spending on the war against Ukraine with the other. Over time a weaker ruble could mean higher prices for imports from China, Russia's main trade partner these days. President Vladimir Putin says things are under control. One wild card is sanctions against a key Russian bank that have disrupted foreign trade payments. If Russia finds a workaround for that, the ruble could regain some of its recent losses. Iceland votes for a new parliament after political disagreements force an early election REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — Icelanders are electing a new parliament after disagreements over immigration, energy policy and the economy forced Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson to pull the plug on his coalition government and call early elections. This will be Iceland’s sixth general election since the 2008 financial crisis devastated the economy of the North Atlantic island nation and ushered in a new era of political instability. Opinion polls suggest the country may be in for another upheaval, with support for the three governing parties plunging. Benediktsson, who was named prime minister in April following the resignation of his predecessor, struggled to hold together the unlikely coalition of his conservative Independence Party with the centrist Progressive Party and the Left-Green Movement. Massachusetts lawmakers push for an effort to ban all tobacco sales over time BOSTON (AP) — A handful of Massachusetts lawmakers are hoping to persuade their colleagues to support a proposal that would make the state the first to adopt a ban meant to eliminate the use of tobacco products over time. Other locations have weighed similar “generational tobacco bans.” The bans phase out the use of tobacco products based not just on a person's age but on birth year. Lawmakers plan to file the proposal next year. If approved, the bill would set a date and ban the sale of tobacco to anyone born after that date forever, eventually banning all sales. Vietnam approves $67 billion high-speed railway project between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam has approved the construction of a high-speed railway connecting the capital Hanoi in the north with the financial capital of Ho Chi Minh in the south. It is expected to cost $67 billion and will stretch 1,541 kilometers (957 miles). The new train is expected to travel at speeds of up to 350 kph (217 mph), reducing the journey from the current 30 hours to just five hours. The decision was taken by Vietnam’s National Assembly on Saturday. Construction is expected to begin in 2027 and Vietnam hopes that the first trains will start operating by 2035. But the country has been beleaguered by delays to its previous infrastructure projects. Inflation rose to 2.3% in Europe. That won't stop the central bank from cutting interest rates FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Inflation in the 20 countries that use the euro currency rose in November — but that likely won’t stop the European Central Bank from cutting interest rates as the prospect of new U.S. tariffs from the incoming Trump administration adds to the gloom over weak growth. The European Union’s harmonized index of consumer prices rose 2.3 percent, up from 2.0% in October, according to EU statistics agency Eurostat. However, worries about growth mean the Dec. 12 ECB meeting is not about whether to cut rates, but by how much. Market buzz says there could be a larger than usual half-point cut in the benchmark rate, currently 3.25%.The EU and a South American trade bloc reach a giant trade deal after 25 years of talks
EXCLUSIVE Aussie's whinge about new rules for Victorian landlords spectacularly backfires: 'Wow' Victorian government introduce new reforms for rentals Under the bill, rentals must meet minimum standards READ MORE: Dire warning Albo's plan to solve rental crisis could backfire By ANTOINETTE MILIENOS FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA Published: 22:59, 29 December 2024 | Updated: 23:19, 29 December 2024 e-mail View comments A landlord has been slammed after voicing his concern over new laws protecting tenants and ensuring rentals meet the basic standards of living. The Victorian Labor government introduced the Consumer and Planning Legislation Amendment (Housing Statement Reform) Bill set to strengthen the rights of renters. Premier Jacinta Allan and minister for consumer affairs Gabrielle Williams explained the bill would deliver a raft of sweeping reforms that crack down on rental providers and dodgy rentals. Under the bill, rental providers and their agents could face fines of more than $11,000 for individuals and $59,000 for companies if the property they have rented does not meet minimum standards. Ms Allan said too often tenants move into properties that still require urgent repairs or maintenance to comply with the minimum standards of a rental. 'New tenants should be able to focus on where they put their couch, not worrying about if they need to go to VCAT because the mould in the bathroom that was supposed to be removed after the inspection is still there,' Ms Allan said. Rental activist Jordan van den Lamb, founder of the s***rentals.org website and known online as PurplePingers, mocked one landlord after he shared his concern. The landlord claimed older properties would become too costly to repair if they were forced to meet minimum standards under the new laws. The Victorian Labor Government has introduced sweeping new reforms cracking down on rental providers and dodgy rentals 'Property managers would be required to audit all their properties,' he posted on Facebook. 'Holes in carpets, a gate not working, windows nailed shut and cracked concrete paths will all be utterly unacceptable. 'Jacinta has introduced these laws to keep the trades in work. My concern is numerous older properties will simply become to costly to get up to standard. 'Around suburbs like Colliingwood, Footscray and Dandenong, literally every second rental property will fail badly. 'There would be another way of rental properties being sold.' Mr van den Lamb shared a screenshot of the landlord's post to his X account on Saturday, mocking him for his absurd complaints. 'Next year we'll have to make sure our investment properties comply with the law and that's a bad thing,' Mr van den Lamb wrote. 'We'll have to provide state of the art rentals with things like WINDOWS THAT AREN'T NAILED SHUT and if I have to do that I'm gonna sell my third investment property.' Rental activist Jordan van den Lamb (pictured) mocked one landlord after he shared claimed it would be too costly to bring older properties up to minimum standards under the new reforms Read More Shocking moment real estate boss 'says the quiet part out loud' in online stoush with renters Social media users also slammed the landlord with many claiming the minimum standard was an easily achievable goal to make something liveable. 'If your property is not up to scratch, you can’t rent it out. Simple,' one person commented. 'Wow! Rentals that are code compliant?' another person wrote. 'An authority that ensures they are? Could it possibly be real? Is my open air and not fitting the frame front door code complaint?' 'Human rights are quite a frightening concept to property investors,' a third chimed. A fourth added: 'The minimum standard should be: if the landlord wouldn’t live in it for a year as it is, you can’t expect the tenant to'. Under the new reforms landlords will face penalties if they withhold a tenants bond and fail to provide photographic evidence of damaged property along with a receipt outlining the cost of repairs. Landlords will also lose the right to evict a tenant without a genuine reason and real estate agents will be banned from charging prospective tenants with the cost of conducting a background check on their rental history. Hidden fees and charges which exist on third-party apps used by tenants to pay their rent will also be removed. The cost of breaking a lease will also be capped, with renters paying one week's rent for each remaining month of their contract - and only up to a maximum of four weeks. The Victorian parliament is set to introduce the reforms in stages over the next 12 months, with legislation to ban unreasonable evictions coming into effect this year. Landlords will still maintain the power to evict a tenant if they cause damage, fail to pay their rent or if the owner wants to move back into the property. Facebook Jacinta Allan Share or comment on this article: Aussie's whinge about new rules for Victorian landlords spectacularly backfires: 'Wow' e-mail Add comment
The New Orleans Pelicans aren't expected to take a "gap year" this season, according to ESPN's Brian Windhorst . Given the team's horrid 4-16 start and the barrage of injuries on the roster, it wouldn't be shocking if the Pelicans essentially lined themselves up to get a high draft pick and repositioned as a potential contender when everyone is healthy next season. But Windhorst noted that, "Right now, that isn't a consideration in New Orleans, sources told ESPN, as the Pelicans want to see what their hopefully eventually healthy roster can do. But with Zion Williamson still out indefinitely with a hamstring injury, it is something to keep an eye on two months from now when the trade deadline approaches." This article will be updated soon to provide more information and analysis. For more from Bleacher Report on this topic and from around the sports world, check out our B/R app , homepage and social feeds—including Twitter , Instagram , Facebook and TikTok .Messi named most valuable player in America
Doughty scores 17 in Indiana State's 83-80 win against IonaUnrivaled, the new 3-on-3 women's basketball league launching this winter, signed LSU star guard Flau'jae Johnson to a name, image and likeness deal. Johnson is the second college player to ink an agreement with Unrivaled, following UConn's Paige Bueckers. They won't be participating in the upcoming inaugural season, but Johnson and Bueckers will have equity stakes in the league. Unrivaled dropped a video on social media Thursday showing Johnson -- who also has a burgeoning rap career -- performing a song while wearing a shirt that reads, "The Future is Unrivaled." The deal will see Johnson create additional promotional content for the league. Johnson, 21, was a freshman on the LSU team that won the 2023 national championship. Now in her junior year, Johnson is averaging career highs of 22.2 points, 6.0 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game through 10 games for the No. 5 Tigers (10-0). She ranks eighth in Division I in scoring. Johnson has career averages of 14.1 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game in 82 career appearances (80 starts) for LSU. --Field Level Media
Uncertainties and challenges
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — The first big snowfall of the season is blanketing towns along Lake Erie in upstate New York and northwestern Pennsylvania in the middle of the hectic holiday travel and shopping weekend, while numbing cold and heavy snow could persist into next week and cause hazards in the Great Lakes, Plains and Midwest regions. The heavy snow has led to a state of emergency declaration in parts of New York and a disaster declaration in Pennsylvania, with officials warning of dangerous conditions for Thanksgiving travelers trying to return home. “Travel will be extremely difficult and hazardous this weekend, especially in areas where multiple feet of snow may accumulate very quickly,” the National Weather Service said Saturday. Part of I-90 in Pennsylvania was closed Saturday, as were westbound lanes of the New York Thruway heading toward Pennsylvania. Nearly two feet (61 centimeters) of snow have already fallen in parts of New York, Ohio and Michigan and some 29 inches (73 centimeters) of snow was recorded in Pennsylvania’s northwestern tip. The roads in parts of northwestern Pennsylvania became so impassable early Saturday that scores of people took refuge overnight in the lobby and hallways of a fully booked Holiday Inn hotel near I-90. Jeremiah Weatherley, a staffer at the hotel, said dozens of people rolled in as the snow piled up, with workers opening the hotel's conference room and giving people blankets so they could sleep on the floors. “It was hard to manage but we had no choice,” he said. “They just showed up and we don’t want to turn people away.” Weatherley said he was making people bagels and handing out juice and cereal on Saturday morning, as the group pitched in to help one another dig out their cars from the heavy snow. “Everyone helped each other,” he said. “It was pretty cool.” This week's blast of frigid Arctic air also brought bitterly cold temperatures of 10 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit below average to the Northern Plains, the weather service said. That prompted cold-weather advisories over parts of North Dakota. Cold air was expected to move over the eastern third of the U.S. by Monday, the weather service said, with temperatures about 10 degrees below average. Parts of Michigan were battered by the heavy lake-effect snow, which happens when warm moist air rising from a body of water mixes with cold dry air overhead. Bands of snow that have been rolling off Lake Superior for the past three days had buried parts of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula under two feet (61 centimeters) of snow or more just before noon Saturday, said Lily Chapman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Marquette, Michigan, office. She said 27 inches (69 centimeters) was on the ground just northeast of Ironwood, in the Upper Peninsula’s western reaches adjacent the Wisconsin state line. Another two feet (61 centimeters) of snow had fallen in Munising, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula's eastern region. Chapman said the continued lake effect snow showers could add more than a foot of snow (30.5 centimeters) over Michigan’s eastern Upper Peninsula through Monday morning, with six (15 centimeters) to 10 inches (25 centimeters) or higher in the western Upper Peninsula. Meanwhile, steady winds that trained snow bands Friday on Gaylord, Michigan, dumped 24.8 inches (63 centimeters) of snow, setting a new all-time snowfall record for a single calendar day in the northern Lower Peninsula city that sits in a region dotted by ski resorts, said Keith Berger, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Gaylord office. Gaylord’s previous all-time daily snowfall record was 17.0 inches (43 centimeters) that fell on March 9, 1942, based on snowfall records dating back to 1940. The record snowfall was good news for Treetops Resort, a ski resort in Gaylord that features 80 acres (32 hectares) of ski hill terrain among its 2,000 acres (809 hectares), said Doug Hoeh, the resort’s director of recreation. He said the snowfall boosted the snow base that the resort’s snowmaking machines will be adding to in the coming days before the resort opens for the skiing season next weekend. “Obviously when you get that much snowfall it’s great for the snow hills but it’s bad for the parking lots, so we’re kind of digging out. But we’re close to being ready to pull the trigger on skiing and the natural snowfall definitely helps,” Hoeh said. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Josh Shapiro signed a proclamation of disaster emergency. Shapiro said parts of Erie County in northwestern Pennsylvania had already received nearly three feet (one meter) of snow with more expected through Monday night. Pennsylvania State Police responded to nearly 200 incidents during the 24-hour period from 6 a.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday, officials said. Izaguirre reported from Lindenhurst, New York. Callahan reported from Indianapolis. AP Sports Writer John Wawrow contributed from Orchard Park, New York. Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Ron Todt in Philadelphia; and Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, also contributed.
