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HOUSTON (AP) — Tyler Herro scored 27 points before being one of seven people ejected, six for their roles in a fight in the final minute of the Miami Heat's 104-100 victory over the Houston Rockets on Sunday night. Herro was thrown to the ground by the Rockets' Amen Thompson with 35 seconds left and the Heat leading 99-94. Players and coaches from both benches then came onto the court. Both players were thrown out along with Rockets guard Jalen Green, coach Ime Udoka and assistant coach Ben Sullivan. Terry Rozier was also ejected for Miami. Houston led 92-85 after Fred VanVleet's layup with 8:10 to play, but the Rockets missed their next 11 shots, allowing Miami to tie the game when Herro found Haywood Highsmith for a 3-pointer with 4:47 to play. Herro’s jumper with 1:56 to play put the Heat on top for good. VanVleet was ejected in the final minute after appearing to make contact with referee Marc Davis, upset after being called for a 5-second violation that preceded the dustup with Thompson, Herro and others. Heat: Playing the second night of a back-to-back and missing Jimmy Butler for a fifth straight game, Nikola Jovic finished with 18 points, seven rebounds, and six assists for the Heat. Highsmith added 15 points. Rockets: After blowing a 15-point, fourth-quarter lead against the Wolves, Houston struggled offensively in the fourth quarter, shooting just 6 for 24 from the field. Dillon Brooks scored 22 points after missing the last three games with a right ankle effusion. Jovic’s 3 with 47 seconds left put Miami up 98-94. Miami outscored Houston, the NBA’s best offensive rebounding team, 15-9 in second-chance points. The Rockets host Dallas on Wednesday and the Heat host New Orleans on Wednesday.AP Sports SummaryBrief at 6:11 p.m. ESTPlans to let first-home buyers purchase a property with a smaller deposit won't be a silver bullet, the housing minister concedes, with federal parliament set to pass the reforms. or signup to continue reading Labor's Help to Buy and Build to Rent schemes will become law after the Greens agreed to wave the proposals through parliament following months of debate. The Help to Buy scheme is a shared equity program that will allow 10,000 first-home buyers each year to purchase a house with a contribution from the government. Housing Minister Clare O'Neil welcomed the end of the political stalemate on the reforms, but said the laws wouldn't immediately fix problems in the sector. "This is not a silver bullet, and it was never meant to be," she told Nine's Today program on Tuesday. "The truth is we've had a generations-in-the-making housing crisis in our country that's been building for more than 30 years and it requires our government to do lots of things differently. "We're trying to build many more homes in our country. We're trying to get a better deal for renters. We're trying to get more Australians into home ownership. It's a big, complex program, and it's going to take some time." Greens Leader Adam Bandt denied the delay by his party in agreeing to the two housing bills had kept first-home buyers out of the market. "For over the last two months, we pushed them to to go further and do what's needed to really tackle the housing crisis. They've said no," he told ABC TV. "The question that people will ask is, with all of the government's legislation passed, why is it that it's the case that we still have a housing crisis in this country?" Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather said the party had agreed to pass the reforms in order to set sites on action for renters at the next election, which is due by May. He said the minor party had not capitulated by backing the housing reforms after months of heated debate. "There comes a point where you've pushed as far as you can, and you know, we really tried to get the government to act on soaring rents, on phasing our negative gearing," he told ABC radio. "I haven't lost hope, because I think we can go to the next election with those policies, and I think we can push Labor after that." It comes as opposition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar prepares to speak at the National Press Club on Tuesday. The opposition will argue banking regulation has made it harder for first-home buyers to secure a loan. The coalition has been angling to weaken "responsible lending" obligations imposed on banks after the global financial crisis that it believes are too cumbersome and create barriers for first-time buyers. "If there's one message I want Australians to take away from my remarks today, it's that the coalition will not accept a generation of Australians not having the same opportunities that previous generations have enjoyed for home ownership," Mr Sukkar will say. DAILY Today's top stories curated by our news team. WEEKDAYS Grab a quick bite of today's latest news from around the region and the nation. WEEKLY The latest news, results & expert analysis. WEEKDAYS Catch up on the news of the day and unwind with great reading for your evening. WEEKLY Get the editor's insights: what's happening & why it matters. WEEKLY Love footy? We've got all the action covered. WEEKLY Every Saturday and Tuesday, explore destinations deals, tips & travel writing to transport you around the globe. WEEKLY Going out or staying in? Find out what's on. WEEKDAYS Sharp. Close to the ground. Digging deep. Your weekday morning newsletter on national affairs, politics and more. TWICE WEEKLY Your essential national news digest: all the big issues on Wednesday and great reading every Saturday. WEEKLY Get news, reviews and expert insights every Thursday from CarExpert, ACM's exclusive motoring partner. TWICE WEEKLY Get real, Australia! Let the ACM network's editors and journalists bring you news and views from all over. AS IT HAPPENS Be the first to know when news breaks. DAILY Your digital replica of Today's Paper. Ready to read from 5am! DAILY Test your skills with interactive crosswords, sudoku & trivia. Fresh daily! Advertisement Advertisement

Caiwei Chen is a reporter who covers tech, the internet, and society. Her work has been seen in publications including Wired, Rolling Stone, Protocol, Rest of World, and more. She is more online than she would like to admit.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Technology stocks pulled Wall Street to another record amid a mixed Monday of trading. The S&P 500 rose 0.2% from its all-time high set on Friday to post a record for the 54th time this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 128 points, or 0.3%, while the Nasdaq composite gained 1%. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. Get the latest need-to-know information delivered to your inbox as it happens. Our flagship newsletter. Get our front page stories each morning as well as the latest updates each afternoon during the week + more in-depth weekend editions on Saturdays & Sundays.

Seibert misses an extra point late as the Commanders lose their 3rd in a row, 34-26 to the CowboysDAVIS, California — A scientist guides a long tube into the mouth and down to the stomach of Thing 1, a two-month-old calf that is part of a research project aiming to prevent cows from burping methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Paulo de Meo Filho, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Davis, is part of an ambitious experiment aiming to develop a pill to transform cow gut bacteria so it emits less or no methane. Register to read this story and more for free . Signing up for an account helps us improve your browsing experience. OR See our subscription options.

Chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen returns to a tournament after a dispute over jeans is resolvedNone

In the lives of public figures a tale often takes hold and that narrative becomes their story. In the case of Jimmy Carter, it goes like this: A humble peanut farmer and former Georgia governor defies extraordinary odds and wins the White House, through a combination of virtue, decency and a post-Watergate political cleansing. Over the next four years he is overwhelmed and over-matched by inflation and Iran’s ayatollah. He scolds his countrymen and wears a sweater like a hairshirt. He’s attacked by a “killer rabbit” and loses reelection — in an electoral college landslide — to the buoyant and swaggering Ronald Reagan. But, then, in a great and noble second act, the former president travels the world spreading goodness, peace and light while helping build safe and affordable housing for the needy and fighting the twin scourges of poverty and disease . There is much that is accurate about that account. But it also overlooks a good deal, and distorts some of the rest. “There’s been this easy shorthand about him that is actually a real disservice to the complex truth,” said Jonathan Alter, a political journalist and author of the 2020 biography “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life.” In Alter’s considered judgment, Carter, who died Sunday at 100 , “was an underrated and under-appreciated president and an appropriately appreciated but slightly overrated former president.” Politics is a zero-sum profession, its score-keeping writ in black and white. Either you win or you lose. “If you’re president and you’re defeated for a second term — that, in our system, is the definition of failure,” said Les Francis, a California Democratic strategist who worked in the Carter White House and both his presidential campaigns. Francis, now retired in the Sierra foothills, is quite mindful of the Carter narrative — lousy president, sainted ex-president — and reacted to its mention in a tone that mixed weariness with resignation. “It rankles those of us who worked for him,” Francis said, “and I know it rankled him because it ignores the substantial accomplishments of his presidency.” Those include a doubling of the national park system; the first national legislation funding green energy; major civil service and government ethics reforms; creation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency ; the Middle East peace accord between Egypt and Israel; normalization of relations with China; and moves that helped bring about the end of the Soviet Union. In their most recent survey, released in February, presidential historians ranked Carter’s performance 22nd among the nation’s 46 presidencies. To give some perspective, Abraham Lincoln was first and Donald Trump came in dead last. Of course, there were plenty of reasons that Carter lost his 1980 reelection bid. A stiff primary challenge from the liberal leviathan, Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. The toxic mix of high inflation and high unemployment, dubbed “stagflation.” Gas lines. The Iranian hostage crisis and, in particular, a failed rescue attempt that ended in wreckage and humiliation in the country’s Great Salt Desert . Carter also had a self-righteousness that could present as starchy and sanctimonious, a trait he exhibited even in his good works once he left the White House. “Sometimes, as a former president, he operated as a kind of freelance secretary of State and he did some things to complicate the lives of his successors that don’t look so great in retrospect,” Alter said. “I think he sometimes let his own ego get in the way a little bit.” The body language on those occasions Carter gathered alongside presidents past and present was telling. He stood among them but always seemed somehow apart. At bottom, Carter was a fundamentally good and caring man, who lived his Christian faith and whose uprightness and personal probity offer a model for those who’ve followed him into the Oval Office. (His more than yearlong survival after entering hospice and refusing further medical treatment was both stirring and surprising. Carter’s last public appearance came in late November last year, at the funeral of his wife, Rosalyn, who died two days after entering hospice at age 96.) In 1976, during the presidential campaign, there was a flap when Carter told Playboy magazine he “looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.” The controversy seems quaint now, compared to the criminally convicted Trump’s 2016 boast of grabbing women “by the pussy” and getting away with it. It’s just one example of how low our politics have sunk , and it casts some of the criticisms of Carter in a fresh light. Maybe being a micromanager and a little uptight weren’t such horrible things after all. After news broke that Carter had entered hospice, writer and GOP political consultant Stuart Stevens was one of many offering public reappraisals of the former president. “The first article I published in a national magazine was a snarky piece ... calling Jimmy Carter a failure,” Stevens said on Twitter, as the site was then known. “Looking back on it, my smugness was disgusting. I can’t imagine he read it & if he did, I’m sure he didn’t care but still, I wish I had found a way to apologize.” In a follow-up email, Stevens said his original piece came “from the perspective of a Southerner who felt that Carter was an embarrassment. Not in a policy sense but just his manner and approach. “There was no appreciation,” Stevens said, “for the basic decency of a man trying to do what he felt was right.” In the summer of 1984, after his forced exit from the White House, Carter paid a return visit to Washington. It was a rarity. The former president was never much liked inside the Beltway, and the feeling was mutual. But Carter, as dutiful Democratic soldier, headlined a reception and chicken dinner to raise money for his f ormer vice president, Walter Mondale , while Mondale prepared to accept the party’s presidential nomination. (And, it turned out, the opportunity to be buried a few months later in yet another Reagan landslide .) With the leadership mantle passing from the former president to his understudy, Mondale offered a laudatory summation of the Carter administration. “We told the truth,” he said. “We obeyed the law and we kept the peace. And that’s not bad.” Not bad at all. (Mark Z. Barabak is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, focusing on politics in California and the West.) ©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Cher on the Humor and Heartbreak of Her Extraordinary New MemoirChess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen returns to a tournament after a dispute over jeans is resolved

Former UCF head coach Gus Malzahn hired as Florida State OCMinister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has sharply criticized a former Rivers State governor, Dr. Peter Odili, accusing him of self-interest. Wike also asked between himself and Odili, who has turned Rivers State into his personal estate? Speaking at a thanksgiving service organised by the factional Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Hon. Martin Chike Amaewhule, at the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Oro-Igwe/Eliogbolo Archdeaconry Church of the Holy Spirit, Eliozu Parish, Port Harcourt, on Sunday, Wike, through a statement by his media aide Lere Olayinka, lamented Odili’s alleged habit of prioritizing personal gain over statesmanship. Olayinka quoted Wike as saying that it was unfortunate that somebody who is supposed to be seen as an elder statesman and called a father can reduce himself to a sycophant and a trader. He asked; “Must you be a trader all the time? As governor for eight years, what else are you looking for?” The Minister said; “You know, I didn’t want to say anything. But somebody called me last night and told me what someone said on social media. I said until I read it myself. This morning, I read in the newspapers what our former governor, Sir Dr Peter Odili, said.“What did he say? He said that the present governor has been able to stop one man who wanted to convert Rivers State to his personal estate. Wike pointed to several appointments allegedly dominated by Odili’s family members and questioned his past contributions as governor. He said, “Between him and myself, who has turned Rivers State to his personal estate? His wife is a chairman of Governing Council, his daughter is a Commissioner, his other daughter is a Judge, and he is the general overseer. Who has now turned Rivers State to his private estate? I am sure if care is not taken, if there is a chance, he can even arrange a marriage for the governor. “It was his nephew, his late senior brother’s son that was recommended for Commissioner. He took the slot and gave it to his own daughter. Someone who didn’t remember to stand for the son of his late elder brother, is that an elder statesman? He added, “All of you here remember when I was governor, this same Odili praised me to high heaven. In fact, he said then that all past governors in Rivers State combined did not do better than me. “In 2007, after he left office, he couldn’t come near power in the State because Amaechi was the governor then. He was gone! “Like somebody said that God will use someone to lift up someone. When I came in as governor in 2015, I won’t use the word resurrected, but I brought him back to life. “All of us know about Pamo University. But for us, there wouldn’t have been anything called Pamo University. Rivers State was sponsoring 100 students per session and for every semester, each of the students was paying nothing less than N5m. Then, Rivers people were attacking me up and down. “I personally called Julius Berger to build a mansion for him to live. He was calling everyone to the house then, telling them, come and see what Wike has done for me. Wike has shown me love. He was taking them round the house. Related News You gave me encouragement, Fubara tells Rivers residents I have done more for Rivers, Wike slams Secondus, Omehia Firms award scholarships to 611 Rivers students “Now, because you have organised a Christmas Carol for the governor, I didn’t say you should not do your Christmas Carol. But why reduce yourself to such a laughing stock? People will still see it on television how he was telling the whole world then how God used me to bring him back to life politically. “Why not do your Christmas Carol, collect what you can collect and leave me alone? Wike also expressed disappointment in Odili’s recent comments praising the current Rivers State governor while undermining Wike’s achievements. “The governor that all of us made has not spent one year in office and the same Odili was already saying that the governor has beaten the records of all the past governors of Rivers State. “When I was there, he said I had surpassed the records of all the past governors, including himself. What can he even show that he did in his eight years as governor? But a governor has not spent one year, you are saying he has done more than all the past governors. “You spent eight years as governor and someone who hasn’t spent one year has surpassed your records, what manner of elder talk like that? Is that what an elder statesman should be known for? “When I was governor, my pictures were everywhere in his house. Sitting room, bedroom, kitchen, even in the toilet, my picture was everywhere. But today, all the pictures have been removed. Asking what can be learned from such an elder statesman, Wike said; “What can I learn from this kind of elder? What kind of advice can one get from him? This moment you are saying something, the next moment you are saying something else. “You see, if your children begin to ask you, is this not the same man you were praising before? What would you tell them?” On the state’s governorship issue, the Minister asked; “When I was plotting who will be governor after me, was he (Odili) there? Then, he was complaining about this governor, saying that he couldn’t stand before the public to talk. But today, he is organising Christmas Carol for the same governor he was against then. “He has forgotten all that he said in the past. I named this after you, I named that after your wife. What have I not done? “You said we should not be part of the government, we have left. We are managing, you have taken assembly money, they are not dying of hunger and they will not die of hunger. We are okay. I’m focusing on my job in Abuja and all this sycophancy won’t take him to the level I have attained. “This is a man who wanted to run for president then, he didn’t have the balls, he chickened out. Simply because Obasanjo said no, he would not contest, he ran away. Because of him, I never invited Obasanjo to Rivers State to commission projects. I felt it would humiliate him.” Click the link below to watch the video: https://x.com/MobilePunch/status/1873482169102028823?t=FkZAEo721HmMp1mbzeEjXg&s=19PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Newly married and sworn as a Naval officer, Jimmy Carter left his tiny hometown in 1946 hoping to climb the ranks and see the world. Less than a decade later, the death of his father and namesake, a merchant farmer and local politician who went by “Mr. Earl,” prompted the submariner and his wife, Rosalynn, to return to the rural life of Plains, Georgia, they thought they’d escaped. The lieutenant never would be an admiral. Instead, he became commander in chief. Years after his presidency ended in humbling defeat, he would add a Nobel Peace Prize, awarded not for his White House accomplishments but “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” The life of James Earl Carter Jr., the 39th and longest-lived U.S. president, ended Sunday at the age of 100 where it began: Plains, the town of 600 that fueled his political rise, welcomed him after his fall and sustained him during 40 years of service that redefined what it means to be a former president. With the stubborn confidence of an engineer and an optimism rooted in his Baptist faith, Carter described his motivations in politics and beyond in the same way: an almost missionary zeal to solve problems and improve lives. Carter was raised amid racism, abject poverty and hard rural living — realities that shaped both his deliberate politics and emphasis on human rights. “He always felt a responsibility to help people,” said Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend of Carter's in Plains. “And when he couldn’t make change wherever he was, he decided he had to go higher.” Defying expectations Carter's path, a mix of happenstance and calculation , pitted moral imperatives against political pragmatism; and it defied typical labels of American politics, especially caricatures of one-term presidents as failures. “We shouldn’t judge presidents by how popular they are in their day. That's a very narrow way of assessing them," Carter biographer Jonathan Alter told the Associated Press. “We should judge them by how they changed the country and the world for the better. On that score, Jimmy Carter is not in the first rank of American presidents, but he stands up quite well.” Later in life, Carter conceded that many Americans, even those too young to remember his tenure, judged him ineffective for failing to contain inflation or interest rates, end the energy crisis or quickly bring home American hostages in Iran. He gained admirers instead for his work at The Carter Center — advocating globally for public health, human rights and democracy since 1982 — and the decades he and Rosalynn wore hardhats and swung hammers with Habitat for Humanity. Yet the common view that he was better after the Oval Office than in it annoyed Carter, and his allies relished him living long enough to see historians reassess his presidency. “He doesn’t quite fit in today’s terms” of a left-right, red-blue scoreboard, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the former president multiple times during his own White House bid. At various points in his political career, Carter labeled himself “progressive” or “conservative” — sometimes both at once. His most ambitious health care bill failed — perhaps one of his biggest legislative disappointments — because it didn’t go far enough to suit liberals. Republicans, especially after his 1980 defeat, cast him as a left-wing cartoon. It would be easiest to classify Carter as a centrist, Buttigieg said, “but there’s also something radical about the depth of his commitment to looking after those who are left out of society and out of the economy.” ‘Country come to town’ Indeed, Carter’s legacy is stitched with complexities, contradictions and evolutions — personal and political. The self-styled peacemaker was a war-trained Naval Academy graduate who promised Democratic challenger Ted Kennedy that he’d “kick his ass.” But he campaigned with a call to treat everyone with “respect and compassion and with love.” Carter vowed to restore America’s virtue after the shame of Vietnam and Watergate, and his technocratic, good-government approach didn't suit Republicans who tagged government itself as the problem. It also sometimes put Carter at odds with fellow Democrats. The result still was a notable legislative record, with wins on the environment, education, and mental health care. He dramatically expanded federally protected lands, began deregulating air travel, railroads and trucking, and he put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. As a fiscal hawk, Carter added a relative pittance to the national debt, unlike successors from both parties. Carter nonetheless struggled to make his achievements resonate with the electorate he charmed in 1976. Quoting Bob Dylan and grinning enthusiastically, he had promised voters he would “never tell a lie.” Once in Washington, though, he led like a joyless engineer, insisting his ideas would become reality and he'd be rewarded politically if only he could convince enough people with facts and logic. This served him well at Camp David, where he brokered peace between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Epypt’s Anwar Sadat, an experience that later sparked the idea of The Carter Center in Atlanta. Carter's tenacity helped the center grow to a global force that monitored elections across five continents, enabled his freelance diplomacy and sent public health experts across the developing world. The center’s wins were personal for Carter, who hoped to outlive the last Guinea worm parasite, and nearly did. As president, though, the approach fell short when he urged consumers beleaguered by energy costs to turn down their thermostats. Or when he tried to be the nation’s cheerleader, beseeching Americans to overcome a collective “crisis of confidence.” Republican Ronald Reagan exploited Carter's lecturing tone with a belittling quip in their lone 1980 debate. “There you go again,” the former Hollywood actor said in response to a wonky answer from the sitting president. “The Great Communicator” outpaced Carter in all but six states. Carter later suggested he “tried to do too much, too soon” and mused that he was incompatible with Washington culture: media figures, lobbyists and Georgetown social elites who looked down on the Georgians and their inner circle as “country come to town.” A ‘leader of conscience’ on race and class Carter carefully navigated divides on race and class on his way to the Oval Office. Born Oct. 1, 1924 , Carter was raised in the mostly Black community of Archery, just outside Plains, by a progressive mother and white supremacist father. Their home had no running water or electricity but the future president still grew up with the relative advantages of a locally prominent, land-owning family in a system of Jim Crow segregation. He wrote of President Franklin Roosevelt’s towering presence and his family’s Democratic Party roots, but his father soured on FDR, and Jimmy Carter never campaigned or governed as a New Deal liberal. He offered himself as a small-town peanut farmer with an understated style, carrying his own luggage, bunking with supporters during his first presidential campaign and always using his nickname. And he began his political career in a whites-only Democratic Party. As private citizens, he and Rosalynn supported integration as early as the 1950s and believed it inevitable. Carter refused to join the White Citizens Council in Plains and spoke out in his Baptist church against denying Black people access to worship services. “This is not my house; this is not your house,” he said in a churchwide meeting, reminding fellow parishioners their sanctuary belonged to God. Yet as the appointed chairman of Sumter County schools he never pushed to desegregate, thinking it impractical after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board decision. And while presidential candidate Carter would hail the 1965 Voting Rights Act, signed by fellow Democrat Lyndon Johnson when Carter was a state senator, there is no record of Carter publicly supporting it at the time. Carter overcame a ballot-stuffing opponent to win his legislative seat, then lost the 1966 governor's race to an arch-segregationist. He won four years later by avoiding explicit mentions of race and campaigning to the right of his rival, who he mocked as “Cufflinks Carl” — the insult of an ascendant politician who never saw himself as part the establishment. Carter’s rural and small-town coalition in 1970 would match any victorious Republican electoral map in 2024. Once elected, though, Carter shocked his white conservative supporters — and landed on the cover of Time magazine — by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” Before making the jump to Washington, Carter befriended the family of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whom he’d never sought out as he eyed the governor’s office. Carter lamented his foot-dragging on school integration as a “mistake.” But he also met, conspicuously, with Alabama's segregationist Gov. George Wallace to accept his primary rival's endorsement ahead of the 1976 Democratic convention. “He very shrewdly took advantage of his own Southerness,” said Amber Roessner, a University of Tennessee professor and expert on Carter’s campaigns. A coalition of Black voters and white moderate Democrats ultimately made Carter the last Democratic presidential nominee to sweep the Deep South. Then, just as he did in Georgia, he used his power in office to appoint more non-whites than all his predecessors had, combined. He once acknowledged “the secret shame” of white Americans who didn’t fight segregation. But he also told Alter that doing more would have sacrificed his political viability – and thus everything he accomplished in office and after. King's daughter, Bernice King, described Carter as wisely “strategic” in winning higher offices to enact change. “He was a leader of conscience,” she said in an interview. Rosalynn was Carter's closest advisor Rosalynn Carter, who died on Nov. 19 at the age of 96, was identified by both husband and wife as the “more political” of the pair; she sat in on Cabinet meetings and urged him to postpone certain priorities, like pressing the Senate to relinquish control of the Panama Canal. “Let that go until the second term,” she would sometimes say. The president, recalled her former aide Kathy Cade, retorted that he was “going to do what’s right” even if “it might cut short the time I have.” Rosalynn held firm, Cade said: “She’d remind him you have to win to govern.” Carter also was the first president to appoint multiple women as Cabinet officers. Yet by his own telling, his career sprouted from chauvinism in the Carters' early marriage: He did not consult Rosalynn when deciding to move back to Plains in 1953 or before launching his state Senate bid a decade later. Many years later, he called it “inconceivable” that he didn’t confer with the woman he described as his “full partner,” at home, in government and at The Carter Center. “We developed a partnership when we were working in the farm supply business, and it continued when Jimmy got involved in politics,” Rosalynn Carter told AP in 2021. So deep was their trust that when Carter remained tethered to the White House in 1980 as 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, it was Rosalynn who campaigned on her husband’s behalf. “I just loved it,” she said, despite the bitterness of defeat. Reevaluating his legacy Fair or not, the label of a disastrous presidency had leading Democrats keep their distance, at least publicly, for many years, but Carter managed to remain relevant, writing books and weighing in on societal challenges. He lamented widening wealth gaps and the influence of money in politics. He voted for democratic socialist Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and later declared that America had devolved from fully functioning democracy to “oligarchy.” Yet looking ahead to 2020, with Sanders running again, Carter warned Democrats not to “move to a very liberal program,” lest they help re-elect President Donald Trump. Carter scolded the Republican for his serial lies and threats to democracy, and chided the U.S. establishment for misunderstanding Trump’s populist appeal. He delighted in yearly convocations with Emory University freshmen, often asking them to guess how much he’d raised in his two general election campaigns. “Zero,” he’d gesture with a smile, explaining the public financing system candidates now avoid so they can raise billions. Carter still remained quite practical in partnering with wealthy corporations and foundations to advance Carter Center programs. Carter recognized that economic woes and the Iran crisis doomed his presidency, but offered no apologies for appointing Paul Volcker as the Federal Reserve chairman whose interest rate hikes would not curb inflation until Reagan's presidency. He was proud of getting all the hostages home without starting a shooting war, even though Tehran would not free them until Reagan's Inauguration Day. “Carter didn’t look at it” as a failure, Alter emphasized. “He said, ‘They came home safely.’ And that’s what he wanted.” Well into their 90s, the Carters greeted visitors at Plains’ Maranatha Baptist Church, where he taught Sunday School and where he will have his last funeral before being buried on family property alongside Rosalynn . Carter, who made the congregation’s collection plates in his woodworking shop, still garnered headlines there, calling for women’s rights within religious institutions, many of which, he said, “subjugate” women in church and society. Carter was not one to dwell on regrets. “I am at peace with the accomplishments, regret the unrealized goals and utilize my former political position to enhance everything we do,” he wrote around his 90th birthday. Pilgrimages to Plains The politician who had supposedly hated Washington politics also enjoyed hosting Democratic presidential contenders as public pilgrimages to Plains became advantageous again. Carter sat with Buttigieg for the final time March 1, 2020, hours before the Indiana mayor ended his campaign and endorsed eventual winner Joe Biden. “He asked me how I thought the campaign was going,” Buttigieg said, recalling that Carter flashed his signature grin and nodded along as the young candidate, born a year after Carter left office, “put the best face” on the walloping he endured the day before in South Carolina. Never breaking his smile, the 95-year-old host fired back, “I think you ought to drop out.” “So matter of fact,” Buttigieg said with a laugh. “It was somehow encouraging.” Carter had lived enough, won plenty and lost enough to take the long view. “He talked a lot about coming from nowhere,” Buttigieg said, not just to attain the presidency but to leverage “all of the instruments you have in life” and “make the world more peaceful.” In his farewell address as president, Carter said as much to the country that had embraced and rejected him. “The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language,” he declared. “Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity and who suffer for the sake of justice — they are the patriots of this cause.” Carter pledged to remain engaged with and for them as he returned “home to the South where I was born and raised,” home to Plains, where that young lieutenant had indeed become “a fellow citizen of the world.” —- Bill Barrow, based in Atlanta, has covered national politics including multiple presidential campaigns for the AP since 2012.

KABUL: Top Russian security official Sergei Shoigu visited Afghan government officials on Monday, assuring them Moscow will soon remove the Taleban from its list of banned organizations, Kabul said. Since the Taleban surged back to power in 2021 visits by foreign officials have been infrequent because no nation has yet formally recognized the government of the former insurgent group. Taleban government curbs on women have made them pariahs in many Western nations but Kabul is making increasing diplomatic overtures to its regional neighbors, emphasizing economic and security cooperation. Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, met an Afghan cohort in Kabul headed by Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Abdul Ghani Baradar. He “expressed Russia’s interest in increasing the level of bilateral cooperation with Afghanistan,” Baradar’s office said in a statement released on social media site X. “He also announced that, to expand political and economic relations between the two countries, the Islamic Emirate’s name would soon be removed from Russia’s blacklist.” The Islamic Emirate is the name the Taleban government uses to refer to itself. Analysts say Moscow may be eying cooperation with Kabul to counter the threat from Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) – the Afghan-based branch of the militant group. In March, more than 140 people were killed when IS-K gunmen sieged a Moscow concert hall. Taleban authorities have repeatedly said security is their top domestic priority and have pledged militants staging foreign attacks will be ousted from Afghanistan. “The Taleban certainly are our allies in the fight against terrorism,” Russia’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Dmitry Zhirnov, said in July. “They are working to eradicate terrorist cells.” — AFPAmarion Dickerson guides Robert Morris past Northern Kentucky 97-93 in triple OT

EXCLUSIVE Fury as councils approve thousands of requests to work abroad - including one who worked from Ibiza for four years By DAVID CHURCHILL Published: 17:00 EST, 29 December 2024 | Updated: 17:00 EST, 29 December 2024 e-mail View comments Council staff have been allowed to ‘work from the beach’ more than 2,000 times since the pandemic. Town hall bosses approved at least 731 staff requests to work from abroad in 2023 – with one council worker logging in from Ibiza for four years. There were 440 approvals the year after the Covid pandemic and 708 in 2022, before rising again to 731 last year. A further 226 requests were granted in the first few months of 2024. Critics branded the figures ‘horrifying’ and called on the Government to order a crackdown amid plummeting public sector productivity and town-hall plans to hike council taxes next year. But Labour ministers refused to condemn them, saying it was a matter for councils. Town halls doubled down tonight, insisting they can still monitor employees’ performance from abroad and that offering the perk was crucial for hiring and retaining staff in ‘a competitive recruitment market’. Many of the destinations staff have been allowed to work from – such as Barbados and Australia – have time zones vastly different to the UK, raising concerns about whether staff can do their jobs properly and promptly respond to emails and telephone calls. The real figures are likely to be much higher as many councils failed or refused to answer Freedom of Information requests. A woman sat on a sunny beach working on her laptop (stock image). Council staff have been allowed to ‘work from the beach’ more than 2,000 times since the pandemic Derby City Council (pictured) approved someone working from France for 74 days and New Zealand for 42 days Sandwell Council (pictured) in Birmingham is one council which allowed staff to work from abroad The Tories’ local government spokesman, Kevin Hollinrake, said: ‘It’s shocking that Labour won’t condemn this for what it is. ‘But it is unsurprising given [Local Government Secretary] Angela Rayner is committed to ideological experiments like full-time pay for part-time work and French-style union laws that will wreck our economy. ‘It shows this is a Labour Government that raises taxes sky-high but couldn’t care less when it’s being wasted – and local people will suffer as a result.’ Joanna Marchong, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, which obtained the data, said: ‘Taxpayers will be horrified that more employees are being given permission than before to work from their sunbeds in what will come as a slap in the face to the residents who are facing higher council tax bills despite reduced frontline services.’ Former Tory Cabinet minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg added: ‘It indicates a contempt for the taxpayer – they’re just not taking work seriously.’ The data shows one employee for West Devon Borough Council was allowed to work from the Spanish party island of Ibiza from March 2020 until February this year. Derby City Council approved someone working from France for 74 days and New Zealand for 42 days, while Sandwell Council in Birmingham allowed an employee to work from Dubai for nearly three weeks. Powys County Council in Wales granted permission for someone to work from Barbados in 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24, although it did not reveal for how long in each year. Central Bedfordshire Council approved more than 150 requests over the past two years. Tonight the local authority admitted it was official policy to allow staff to work from abroad for up to a month every year, with other councils having similar policies. One council allowed an employee to work from Dubai for nearly three weeks A beach in Sydney. Many of the destinations staff have been allowed to work from – such as Barbados and Australia – have time zones vastly different to the UK, raising concerns about whether staff can do their jobs properly A nightclub in Ibiza. The data shows one employee for West Devon Borough Council was allowed to work from the Spanish party island of Ibiza from March 2020 until February this year Former Tory Cabinet minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg added: ‘It indicates a contempt for the taxpayer – they’re just not taking work seriously’ As many workers return to their jobs after the Christmas holidays, the figures will infuriate council taxpayers who do not have the luxury of working remotely. It also comes as some town halls look to hike council tax by at least 5 per cent while claiming they don’t have enough resources to continue delivering frontline services. Meanwhile, Office for National Statistics data show that public service productivity was estimated to be 8.5 per cent below pre-Covid levels in the second quarter of this year. The Daily Mail highlighted the growing trend of council staff logging on from abroad last summer, a phenomenon dubbed ‘working from the beach’. But while the private sector has been shifting away from remote working, councils have allowed it to expand. In September, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the previous Tory government’s emphasis on getting people to return to workplaces was ‘bizarre’, insisting that staff can be just as productive working remotely. The Local Government Association, which represents town halls, said: ‘Councils have long experience of managing staff remotely and it is a matter for individual councils to agree from where staff can work.’ The Local Government Department said: ‘Councils are independent employers and they are responsible for managing their own workforces.’ Of more than 300 councils in England and Wales, 271 replied to Freedom of Information requests, with 65 providing data. Wales Share or comment on this article: Fury as councils approve thousands of requests to work abroad - including one who worked from Ibiza for four years e-mail Add comment“Happy Halloween!” Cher booms down the phone. As I recompose myself and a moment of silence follows, she adds, with a touch of knowing glee: “Did I give you a fright?” I’m not exactly frightened, but hearing that sonorous voice say my name back to me—a voice I’ve heard my entire life on the radio, on the TV, and in my head every time I read one of her Tweets—does feel a little surreal. After all, stars may come and go, but there’s only ever been one Cher. As one of the world’s greatest entertainers, her career has spanned six decades and half a dozen disciplines; she’s been garlanded with everything from an Oscar to a Grammy to the best actress prize at Cannes Film Festival, and feted by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for her music, GLAAD for her activism, and the CFDA for her often imitated (but never duplicated) eye for fashion. She’s resuscitated her career more times than you can even count, from a boho folk-rock countercultural icon, to a leather-clad rock chick, to an acclaimed actor, to an imperious disco diva. (As the saying goes, if there’s a nuclear war, only two species are likely to survive: cockroaches and Cher.) What those many transformations speak to, though, is not just Cher’s remarkable knack for reinvention, but her extraordinary resilience: a quality that has never been captured with the same candor and scope as her rip-roaring, deliciously readable new memoir, titled, simply, The Memoir: Part One . (The book has been split into two parts, with the first half out now, and the second arriving in 2025—because, as Cher’s publishers HarperCollins succinctly put it: “It’s a life too immense for only one book.” Well, quite.) Yet despite the forensic eye for detail you’ll find within the book’s pages, it was a long and meandering journey to getting her story down with the honesty it truly required. “Truthfully, I started work on it at least two times, maybe even three,” Cher explains. “But I always thought, ‘You know what? If you’re going to write this book, you’ve got to tell more.’” The book offers a bracingly candid account of Cher’s turbulent, itinerant childhood: Her neglectful father deserted the family for heroin and other women, while her glamorous mother struggled to make ends meet while constantly moving around the country, and was even—in a particularly devastating chapter—forced to deposit Cher at a Baptist orphanage in Scranton for an extended period while working shifts in an all-night diner at the other end of the city. We follow Cher through her teenage years (and a brief dalliance with Warren Beatty), her relationship with Sonny Bono, and their rapid ascent to fame, her path criss-crossing with a dazzling cast of 1960s and ’70s pop culture icons. There are the highs of motherhood and the lows of abusive relationships, with Bono’s suffocating cruelty in the final years of her relationship even leading her to consider suicide. There is the promise of reinvention , as the book ends with Cher catching up with her old friend Francis Ford Coppola in her dressing room at Caesar’s Palace, considering her first leap into the world of cinema. And for fashion fans, there are also some fascinating insights into her rise as a style icon, from her first time meeting Bob Mackie at a fitting for an appearance on The Carol Burnett Show, to her memories of working with Diana Vreeland on her string of Vogue covers in the 1970s. But the constant through it all? Cher’s unmistakable voice, which rings out, loud and clear, from every sentence: her compassion, her wisdom, her heart, and, of course, her bone-dry sense of humor. Here, Cher talks to Vogue about her journey to writing the memoir, why the chapters on abortion and reproductive rights feel more timely than ever, and how she gets dressed for a Halloween party. (Especially when there’s a decent chance you’ll run into someone dressed as you. ) We also spoke in the days leading up to the U.S. presidential election—and Cher’s insight was, as ever, exceedingly prescient. Vogue: Good morning, Cher! Where am I finding you at this hour? Cher: You’re finding me sitting on my bed, looking at the ocean, trying to decide which Halloween party I’m going to go to tonight. So you have multiple options? I have a few, yes. My goddaughter is throwing one. I don’t go to a lot of parties, but I expect this will be fun because her friends are fun. It’s going to be great. And then, tomorrow night we’re going to a Universal party, and it’s Halloween Horror Night, so I’m excited about that. When did you first start working on your memoir, and what prompted you to begin writing it? I don’t know exactly what prompted me, but I started work on it a long, long time ago. I quickly realized there were a few things that I didn’t want in there. Truthfully, I started work on it at least two times, maybe even three, but I always thought, “You know what? If you’re going to write this book, you’ve got to tell more.” And in the beginning, I just didn’t want to. Then eventually, I realized, “Oh, well, who cares?” What was it that you were reluctant to share? Or that you were struggling to get down on the page? I truly can’t remember the individual things, because once I started writing, I just started writing. But there were moments in the beginning where I thought, I don’t want to go there. I thought too, I won’t be able to explain certain things about my relationships—how could I do that? I was really concerned. There’s a remarkable level of detail in the chapters about your childhood. Was that all plumbed from your own memories, or did you talk to others who were there at the time to piece it together? Well, my mom always told me things from my childhood, but she also left out some important things. As a teenager, or even as a child, you don’t hop a freight train if you’re not... different. [ Laughs. ] So I think my mom was ready for it. But my grandmother? When I was in my early 30s, she came backstage one night when I was getting ready to go on, and she arrived with a high chair that had Bambi on it and said, “When you lived with us, this was your high chair.” And then my grandmother started telling me these stories, and I just thought, Oh, my God. I thought, Whatever I feel, I have an audience out there waiting, and I just don’t have time to feel this now. I’ll feel it later. The first part of the book charts the story of your childhood and your ascent to fame, and you’re very candid about the challenges you faced. Was it difficult to revisit that period of your life? No. I mean, not like you think it would be. It’s pragmatic. It was what it was. While I was doing it, I didn’t like it too much, but it was also... we were in such a time crunch [back then] that we were working constantly—many, many, many hours a day with no days off. It started to irritate my psyche. Did you feel any kind of weight off your shoulders after getting it down on the page? Was it therapeutic in any sense? I don’t know. I’m not sure. To be honest, I just don’t know. Fair enough. I wanted to ask you about the opening of the book, with you watching Elvis on TV as a kid. Why did that feel like such a formative moment for you? Well, musically, I just thought everybody sang all the time. My mom and my grandfather, and my uncle, we sang all the time. And when I saw Elvis, when I heard him—and my mother and I both loved him, which I think was great because my girlfriends were jealous, because most of their mothers were appalled—when my mom took me to see him, it was a huge turning point in my life because I just thought, that’s what I want to be. I want to be him. Your voice is very present in the book in a way I was surprised by and enjoyed. There are a lot of Cher-isms in there: describing a childhood home as a “funky-ass log cabin” and sprinkling in a few WTFs here and there... What do you mean? I suppose... I know what you just said, but what do you actually mean? I guess that it’s not written like a... stuffy, old-fashioned biography. Well, I do say it was very Dickensian at some point. You did. And it is Dickensian, in many ways. It was what it was. It was what it was, and you just live it. When you’re busy living it, and something happens, you go, ‘Oh God.’ But then when you think back on it, maybe it wasn’t so hard. I think what I was trying to get at is that your sense of humor always feels woven into the story, even during some of the darkest periods of your life. Has humor always helped you confront those more difficult moments? Well, usually with the “What the fuck?” part. Really, it's like, “What were these people thinking?” Because really, What were these people thinking? Weren’t they ashamed of themselves? I do think though, my God, I’m so lucky. I had such a cool life. Even if it was difficult, it was really interesting. And maybe people will love it or hate it. [ Pauses. ] I don’t think l could describe it as either loving or hating it... Were you gobsmacked? [ Laughs. ] I was! But I was also very moved. A huge part of it is you recounting the story of your mother considering an abortion when she was pregnant with you. I know it’s a subject you’ve spoken about before, but the grace you held around the choices your mom was facing in that moment felt very powerful, and timely. I didn't really think about... actually no, I think about that all the time. I think about how we have gone so backwards, and God knows where it’s going to end because I have no idea. You know things happen in your life, and you make some peace with them. I’m a little bit strange when it comes to those things. You have good times and you have bad times, and you can’t control either one. Reproductive rights are at the forefront of the political conversation—a conversation you’ve been very outspoken about throughout your entire career. How are you feeling right now? Scared to death. What do you think I’m feeling? I don’t know how far back we’re going to go, but I think we will go back in every area where we’ve made progress, and it scares me to death because this is going to be a bumpy ride. I know that’s very American, but that’s how it feels. It’s the scariest thing that’s happened in my lifetime. And we’re going to go backwards in every way we’ve made progress. We’re going to go back so much farther than we made the progress from. Do you know what I mean? I don’t even know how to explain my feelings about it. I’m terrified. I was also really struck by your observational writing throughout the book. I loved the weird details you picked out from the milieu of friends that surrounded your mom when you were growing up in Hollywood, and the clothes they wore. Well, my mom and her friends, these women were some of the most beautiful women I ever saw, and have ever seen. I think my mom was the poorest of them all, but even though she didn’t have money, she would save and save and save and buy one dress that she could wear that was fashion-forward and looked beautiful. All of my mother’s friends were so beautiful, and so... gracious but funky, balls to the wall. Fashion and makeup were a huge part of my life, and I was always so interested in watching these women put on their clothes and high heels. And it wasn’t Andy Hardy and it wasn’t Father Knows Best it was something that didn’t exist. Kind of like Sonny and I! That fashion didn’t exist until we started it. You might not have liked it, but it was fashion. Completely. Your looks with Sonny were pivotal in defining what the idea of fashion means, and it was one of the first proper, 360-degree youth pop cultural phenomena. I loved reading about how people responded to you arriving in London. They were all obsessed because they’d never seen anyone dressed like that before. In America, it was terrible. It was terrible! And the moment we got to London, it was amazing. We went to a candy store, and we walked in, and there was an old lady behind the register, and she took out her autograph book and said, “Could I have your autograph?” And I just stood there, and I was confounded, because people at home, the grown-ups, really didn’t like us at all. They were afraid and appalled at the way we looked. England was the beginning. Without coming there, without Great Britain, I’m not sure we would’ve existed. You also write in the book about your first shoots for Vogue and how exciting that was. Do those memories still resonate with you today? That was all due to Mrs. Vreeland. She was such a forward thinker and none of the girls that she put in there were thought of as beautiful or model-like, or... we were strange, but it turned out to be fabulous, because she brought a whole new world into Vogue. And how does it feel at this point, knowing the book is going to be in readers’ hands in just a few weeks after having worked on it for so many years? Well, I don’t know what’s going to actually happen. People that I talk to seem to like it and seem to be surprised. And I think that what I tried to do more than anything was present stories, not information because you could go anywhere to get information, but stories are hard to come by. Stories have to come from the person. I hope you have a great Halloween, also. Have you decided what you’re going to dress up as? I don’t know. I was just thinking about that, actually. I was thinking about makeup and doing something like a beautiful vampire or skull—a beautiful skull. But I have no idea. I just thought of those things because I want to be interesting. I don’t want to try to be like myself. I don’t want to be Cher. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.