By ZEKE MILLER, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team on Tuesday signed an agreement to allow the Justice Department to conduct background checks on his nominees and appointees after a weeks-long delay. The step lets Trump transition aides and future administration staffers obtain security clearances before Inauguration Day to access classified information about ongoing government programs, an essential step for a smooth transiton of power. It also allows those nominees who are up for Senate confirmation to face the background checks lawmakers want before voting on them. Teams of investigators have been standing by to process clearances for Trump aides and advisers. “This agreement with the Department of Justice will ensure President Trump and his team are ready on Day 1 to begin enacting the America First Agenda that an overwhelming majority of our nation supported on Election Day,” said Susie Wiles, Trump’s designate to be White House chief of staff. The announcement comes a week after the Trump transition team signed an agreement with the Biden White House to allow transition staff to coordinate with the existing federal workforce before taking office on Jan. 20. The White House agreement was supposed to have been signed by Oct. 1, according to the Presidential Transition Act, and the Biden White House had issued both public and private appeals for Trump’s team to sign on. Security clearances are required to access classified information, including on ongoing operations and threats to the nation, and the Biden White House and outside experts have emphasized to Trump’s team the importance of having cleared personnel before Inauguration Day so they could be fully briefed and ready to run the government. Republican Senators have also insisted on FBI background checks for Trump’s nominees before they face confirmation votes, as has been standard practice for decades. Lawmakers have been particularly interested in seeing the findings of reviews into Trump’s designated nominee for defense secretary, former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, and for Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence. “That’s why it’s so important that we have an FBI background check, a committee review of extensive questions and questionnaires, and a public hearing,” said. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine on Monday. John Thune, the incoming Senate Republican leader, said the Trump team “understands there’s going to have to be a thorough vetting of all these nominees.” AP congressional correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed.None

Boothby scores 16, William & Mary beats Navy 82-76Sam Darnold leads game-winning drive in OT and Vikings beat Bears 30-27 after blowing late leadBurt died over the weekend, the Crocosaurus Cove reptile aquarium in Darwin, Australia, said. He was at least 90 years old. “Known for his independent nature, Burt was a confirmed bachelor – an attitude he made clear during his earlier years at a crocodile farm,” Crocosaurus Cove wrote in social media posts. The aquarium added: “He wasn’t just a crocodile, he was a force of nature and a reminder of the power and majesty of these incredible creatures. While his personality could be challenging, it was also what made him so memorable and beloved by those who worked with him and the thousands who visited him over the years.” A saltwater crocodile, Burt was estimated to be more than 16 feet long. He was captured in the 1980s in the Reynolds River and became one of the most well-known crocodiles in the world, according to Crocosaurus Cove. The 1986 film stars Paul Hogan as the rugged crocodile hunter Mick Dundee. In the movie, American Sue Charlton, played by actress Linda Kozlowski, goes to fill her canteen in a watering hole when she is attacked by a crocodile before being saved by Dundee. Burt is briefly shown lunging out of the water. But the creature shown in more detail as Dundee saves the day is apparently something else. The Internet Movie Database says the film made a mistake by depicting an American alligator, which has a blunter snout. The Australian aquarium where Burt had lived since 2008 features a Cage of Death which it says is the nation’s only crocodile dive. It said it planned to honour Burt’s legacy with a commemorative sign “celebrating his extraordinary life and the stories and interactions he shared throughout his time at the park”.

Jean-Philippe Mateta struck in the second half with the only real piece of quality in a nervy encounter between two struggling teams. It is now two wins and three draws from the last six matches for Glasner’s side, whose winter revival is gathering pace nicely following a sticky start to the campaign. “I feel very happy, we’re all very pleased with the result, it was not the best performance but the result was more important,” said the Eagles boss. “Most of the time we controlled the game and we scored an amazing goal, a fantastic finish from JP. “We had more chances to decide the game but we couldn’t, but I think the win was well deserved. “We didn’t give them any chances from open play and with a clean sheet you can always take the win. “It’s a big win. Now it’s not time to sit back and relax but to keep going. In four days we face Manchester City. We stay humble. There are still many things to improve but we are on the right path.” Ipswich looked the likelier to score as a low-key first half drew to a close and were denied by a point-blank save by Dean Henderson from Harry Clarke’s near-post header. Shortly after the interval Wes Burns got clear down the right and lifted an inviting cross towards Liam Delap, whose header was straight at Henderson. However, from out of nowhere Palace conjured up a lightning counter-attack to go ahead on the hour. Eberechi Eze led the charge before feeding Mateta, who surged forward with a couple of stepovers before brushing off the attention of Jacob Greaves and finishing superbly past Arijanet Muric. It was the French forward’s sixth goal of the season, and his first away from Selhurst Park. Back came Ipswich with Leif Davis fizzing in another cross for Delap, who somehow mistimed his jump and completely missed the ball from six yards. As time ticked down Greaves looped a header against the far post, with the rebound just eluding substitute Ali-Al Hamadi. “Frustrating night,” said Town boss Kieran McKenna. “It was a tight first half, we weren’t fantastic in terms of the flow of the game and didn’t create as many opportunities as we wanted. But having said that neither did our opponents. “In the second half we conceded a really poor goal and that proved decisive. We can do better than we did tonight.”"The progressive rock-ness of this huge epic pushed me in a whole new direction": Slash and Duff McKagan just have combined forces on a colossal new songIndiana 73, No. 18 Baylor 65

Huge Australian crocodile made famous by cameo role in Crocodile Dundee dies

'Best Thrillers Book Awards' Names 'All Mortal Greatness' Finalist in the 'Crime Thriller Genre'

GARDEN RIDGE, Texas, Dec. 03, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Toll Brothers, Inc. TOL , the nation's leading builder of luxury homes, is pleased to announce that its newest community, Toll Brothers at Enchanted Bluff , is now open for sale in the San Antonio, Texas area. This exceptional new Texas Hill Country community offers expansive one-acre home sites and elegant single- and two-story home designs. The Toll Brothers Sales Center and professionally decorated model home is now open at 8279 Blue Oak Way in Garden Ridge. Toll Brothers at Enchanted Bluff features homes ranging from 3,198 to 5,184+ square feet, each thoughtfully crafted with bright and airy living spaces, stunning covered patios, first-floor primary bedroom suites, 3- to 4-car garages, and versatile loft, flex room, and office options. Homes in the community offer 4 to 5 bedrooms and are priced from the low $900,000s to over $1.14 million. Home buyers will enjoy personalizing their homes with a selection of high-end fixtures and finishes, with expert guidance provided through the Toll Brothers Design Studio experience. "We are thrilled to introduce Toll Brothers at Enchanted Bluff to the Garden Ridge community," said Matt Foran, Division President of Toll Brothers in San Antonio. "This stunning neighborhood offers an unmatched lifestyle with spacious home sites, exceptional home designs, and access to top-rated schools and amenities." Residents will appreciate the community's walking trails and proximity to a variety of outdoor recreation, high-end dining, shopping, and entertainment options in Garden Ridge, Schertz, San Antonio, and New Braunfels. Natural Bridge Caverns, Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch, and Bracken Cave Preserve are all located nearby the community, showcasing a drive-through safari and some of the largest caverns available to tour in Texas. Students living in this community will have the opportunity to attend the prestigious Comal Independent School District, including Garden Ridge Elementary, Danville Middle School, and Davenport High School. For more information, prospective home buyers are invited to call (877) 500-0508 or visit TollBrothers.com/Texas. About Toll Brothers Toll Brothers, Inc., a Fortune 500 Company, is the nation's leading builder of luxury homes. The Company was founded 57 years ago in 1967 and became a public company in 1986. Its common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "TOL." The Company serves first-time, move-up, empty-nester, active-adult, and second-home buyers, as well as urban and suburban renters. Toll Brothers builds in over 60 markets in 24 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington, as well as in the District of Columbia. The Company operates its own architectural, engineering, mortgage, title, land development, smart home technology, and landscape subsidiaries. The Company also develops master-planned and golf course communities as well as operates its own lumber distribution, house component assembly, and manufacturing operations. In 2024, Toll Brothers marked 10 years in a row being named to the Fortune World's Most Admired CompaniesTM list and the Company's Chairman and CEO Douglas C. Yearley, Jr. was named one of 25 Top CEOs by Barron's magazine. Toll Brothers has also been named Builder of the Year by Builder magazine and is the first two-time recipient of Builder of the Year from Professional Builder magazine. For more information visit TollBrothers.com . From Fortune, ©2024 Fortune Media IP Limited. All rights reserved. Used under license. Contact: Andrea Meck | Toll Brothers, Director, Public Relations & Social Media | 215-938-8169 | ameck@tollbrothers.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/59f05638-9c95-4af0-aeb8-d4cdbe6fb840 Sent by Toll Brothers via Regional Globe Newswire (TOLL-REG) © 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.David B. Kaplan Sells 26,518 Shares of Ares Management Co. (NYSE:ARES) Stock

Stocks shook off a choppy start to finish higher Monday, as Wall Street kicked off a holiday-shortened week. The S&P 500 ended 0.7% higher after having been down 0.5% in the early going. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also recovered from an early slide to eke out a 0.2% gain. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 1%. Gains in technology and communications stocks accounted for much of the gains, outweighing losses in consumer goods companies and elsewhere in the market. Semiconductor giant Nvidia, whose enormous valuation gives it an outsize influence on indexes, rose 3.7%. Broadcom climbed 5.5% to also help support the broader market. Walmart fell 2% and PepsiCo slid 1%. Japanese automakers Honda and Nissan said they are talking about combining in a deal that might also include Mitsubishi Motors. U.S.-listed shares in Honda jumped 12.7%, while Nissan ended flat. Eli Lilly rose 3.7% after announcing that regulators approved Zepbound as the first and only prescription medicine for adults with sleep apnea. Department store Nordstrom fell 1.5% after it agreed to be taken private by Nordstrom family members and a Mexican retail group in a $6.25 billion deal. All told, the S&P 500 rose 43.22 points to 5,974.07. The Dow gained 66.69 points to 42,906.95. The Nasdaq rose 192.29 points to 19,764.89. Traders got a look at a new snapshot of U.S. consumer confidence Monday. The Conference Board said that consumer confidence slipped in December. Its consumer confidence index fell back to 104.7 from 112.8 in November. Wall Street was expecting a reading of 113.8. The unexpectedly weak consumer confidence update follows several generally strong economic reports last week. One report showed the overall economy grew at a 3.1% annualized rate during the summer, faster than earlier thought. The latest report on unemployment benefit applications showed that the job market remains solid. A report on Friday said a measure of inflation the Federal Reserve likes to use was slightly lower last month than economists expected. Worries about inflation edging higher again had been weighing on Wall Street and the Fed. The central bank just delivered its third cut to interest rates this year, but inflation has been hovering stubbornly above its target of 2%. It has signaled that it could deliver fewer cuts to interest rates next year than it earlier anticipated because of concerns over inflation. Expectations for more interest rate cuts have helped drive a roughly 25% gain for the S&P 500 in 2024. That drive included 57 all-time highs this year. Inflation concerns have added to uncertainties heading into 2025, which include the labor market's path ahead and shifting economic policies under an incoming President Donald Trump. "Put simply, much of the strong market performance prior to last week was driven by expectations that a best-case scenario was the base case for 2025," said Brent Schutte, chief investment officer at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company Treasury yields rose in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.59% from 4.53% late Friday. European markets closed mostly lower, while markets in Asia gained ground. Wall Street has several other economic reports to look forward to this week. On Tuesday, the U.S. will release its November report for sales of newly constructed homes. A weekly update on unemployment benefits is expected on Thursday. Markets in the U.S. will close at 1 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday for Christmas Eve and will remain closed on Wednesday for Christmas.

NEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump’s lawyers formally asked a judge Monday to throw out his hush money criminal conviction, arguing continuing the case would present unconstitutional “disruptions to the institution of the Presidency.“ In a filing made public Tuesday, Trump’s lawyers told Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan that dismissal is warranted because of the “overwhelming national mandate granted to him by the American people on November 5, 2024.” They also cited President Joe Biden’s recent pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, who had been convicted of tax and gun charges. “President Biden asserted that his son was ‘selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,’ and ‘treated differently,’” Trump’s legal team wrote. The Manhattan district attorney, they claimed, had engaged in the type of political theater “that President Biden condemned.” Prosecutors will have until Dec. 9 to respond. They have said they will fight any efforts to dismiss the case but have indicated a willingness to delay the sentencing until after Trump’s second term ends in 2029. In their filing Monday, Trump’s attorneys dismissed the idea of holding off sentencing until Trump is out of office as a “ridiculous suggestion.” Following Trump’s election victory last month, Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed his sentencing, previously scheduled for late November, to allow the defense and prosecution to weigh in on the future of the case. He also delayed a decision on Trump’s prior bid to dismiss the case on immunity grounds. Trump has been fighting for months to reverse his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to suppress her claim that they had sex a decade earlier. He says they did not and denies any wrongdoing. Taking a swipe at Bragg and New York City, as Trump often did throughout the trial, the filing argues that dismissal would also benefit the public by giving him and “the numerous prosecutors assigned to this case a renewed opportunity to put an end to deteriorating conditions in the City and to protect its residents from violent crime.” Clearing Trump, the lawyers added, would also allow him to “to devote all of his energy to protecting the Nation.” The defense filing was signed by Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who represented Trump during the trial and have since been selected by the president-elect to fill senior roles at the Justice Department. A dismissal would erase Trump’s historic conviction, sparing him the cloud of a criminal record and possible prison sentence. Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime and the first convicted criminal to be elected to the office. Trump takes office on Jan. 20. Merchan hasn’t set a timetable for a decision. Merchan could also decide to uphold the verdict and proceed to sentencing, delay the case until Trump leaves office, wait until a federal appeals court rules on Trump’s parallel effort to get the case moved out of state court or choose some other option. Prosecutors had cast the payout as part of a Trump-driven effort to keep voters from hearing salacious stories about him. Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels. Trump later reimbursed him, and Trump’s company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses — concealing what they really were, prosecutors alleged. Trump has pledged to appeal the verdict if the case is not dismissed. He and his lawyers said the payments to Cohen were properly categorized as legal expenses for legal work. A month after the verdict, the Supreme Court ruled that ex-presidents can’t be prosecuted for official acts — things they did in the course of running the country — and that prosecutors can’t cite those actions to bolster a case centered on purely personal, unofficial conduct. Trump’s lawyers cited the ruling to argue that the hush money jury got some improper evidence, such as Trump’s presidential financial disclosure form, testimony from some White House aides and social media posts made during his first term. Prosecutors disagreed and said the evidence in question was only “a sliver” of their case. If the verdict stands and the case proceeds to sentencing, Trump’s punishments would range from a fine to probation to up to four years in prison — but it’s unlikely he’d spend any time behind bars for a first-time conviction involving charges in the lowest tier of felonies. Because it is a state case, Trump would not be able to pardon himself once he returns to office. Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes.