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Amid GOP Calls for Bible in Public Schools, Some Religious Voters are Tuning Out

24-year-old woman arrested for “suspicious death” in NHMISTRAS Group Appoints Natalia Shuman as President and Chief Executive Officer

Illegal border crossers sponsoring illegal border crossers? Biden admin takes heatThousands of Syrians celebrate in central Damascus during first Friday prayers since Assad's fall DAMASCUS (AP) — Thousands of Syrians have celebrated in Umayyad Square, the largest in Damascus, after the first Muslim Friday prayers following the ouster of President Bashar Assad. The leader of the insurgency that toppled Assad, Ahmad al-Sharaa, appeared in a video message in which he congratulated “the great Syrian people for the victory of the blessed revolution.” Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in the Turkish capital of Ankara that there was “broad agreement” between Turkey and the United States on what they would like to see in Syria. The top U.S. diplomat also called for an “inclusive and non-sectarian" interim government. American released from Syrian prison is flown out of the country, a US official says WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military has transported an American who was imprisoned in Syria for seven months out of the country. That's according to a U.S. official, who says Travis Timmerman was flown out on a U.S. military helicopter. Timmerman, 29, told The Associated Press he had gone to Syria on a Christian pilgrimage and was not ill-treated while in Palestine Branch, a notorious detention facility operated by Syrian intelligence. He said he was freed by “the liberators who came into the prison and knocked the door down (of his cell) with a hammer.” Nancy Pelosi hospitalized after she 'sustained an injury' from fall on official trip to Luxembourg WASHINGTON (AP) — Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been hospitalized after she “sustained an injury” during an official engagement in Luxembourg, according to a spokesman. Pelosi is 84. She was in Europe to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. Her spokesman, Ian Krager, did not describe the nature of her injury or give any additional details, but a person familiar with the incident said that Pelosi tripped and fell while at an event with the other members of Congress. The person requested anonymity to discuss the fall because they were not authorized to speak about it publicly. Texas sues New York doctor for prescribing abortion pills by telemedicine Texas has sued a New York doctor for prescribing abortion pills to a Texas woman via telemedicine. It appears to be the first challenge in the U.S. to a state shield law that's intended to protect providers in Democratic-controlled states from being punished by states with abortion bans for exactly this kind of prescription. Prescriptions like these, made online and over the phone, are a key reason that the number of abortions has increased across the U.S. even after state bans started taking effect. Anti-abortion groups are increasingly focusing on the rise of pills. Some in seafood industry see Trump as fishermen's friend, but tariffs could make for pricier fish PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump is likely to bring big changes to seafood, one of the oldest sectors of the U.S. economy. Some in the industry believe the returning president will be more responsive to its needs. Economic analysts paint a more complicated picture, as they fear Trump’s pending trade hostilities with major trading partners Canada and China could make an already pricy kind of protein more expensive. Conservationists also fear Trump’s emphasis on deregulation could jeopardize fish stocks already in peril. But many in the commercial fishing and seafood processing industries said they expect Trump to allow fishing in protected areas and crack down on offshore wind expansion. Russia targets Ukrainian infrastructure with a massive attack by cruise missiles and drones KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia has launched a massive aerial attack against Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia fired 93 cruise and ballistic missiles and almost 200 drones in Friday's bombardments. He says it is one of the heaviest bombardments of the country’s energy sector since Russia’s full-scale invasion almost three years ago. He says Ukrainian defenses shot down 81 missiles, including 11 cruise missiles that were intercepted by F-16 warplanes provided by Western allies earlier this year. Zelenskyy renewed his plea for international unity against Russian President Vladimir Putin. But uncertainty surrounds how the war might unfold next year. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to end the war and has thrown into doubt whether vital U.S. military support for Kyiv will continue. Veteran Daniel Penny, acquitted in NYC subway chokehold, will join Trump's suite at football game FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A military veteran who choked an agitated New York subway rider and was acquitted of homicide this week has been invited by Vice President-elect JD Vance to join Donald Trump’s suite at the Army-Navy football game on Saturday. Daniel Penny was cleared of criminally negligent homicide in Jordan Neely’s 2023 death. A more serious manslaughter charge was dismissed last week. Vance served in the Marine Corps and had commented on the acquittal earlier this week. He said that “justice was done in this case” and Penny should never have been prosecuted. About 3 in 10 are highly confident in Trump on Cabinet, spending or military oversight: AP-NORC poll WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans may have elected Donald Trump to a second term in November, but that doesn’t mean they have high confidence in his ability to choose well-qualified people for his Cabinet or effectively manage government spending, the military and the White House. That's according to a new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. About half of U.S. adults are “not at all confident” in Trump’s ability to appoint well-qualified people for high-level government positions. Only about 3 in 10 are “extremely” or “very” confident that Trump will pick qualified people to serve in his administration. New Jersey governor wants more federal resources for probe into drone sightings TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has asked the Biden administration to put more resources into the ongoing investigation of mysterious drone sightings being reported in the state and other parts of the region. Murphy, a Democrat, made the request in a letter Thursday, noting that state and local law enforcement remain “hamstrung” by existing laws and policies in their efforts to successfully counteract any nefarious drone activity. Murphy and other officials say there is no evidence that the drones pose a national security or a public safety threat. A state lawmaker says up to 180 aircraft have been reported to authorities since Nov. 18. Yankees to get closer Devin Williams from Brewers for Nestor Cortes, Caleb Durbin, AP source says NEW YORK (AP) — A person familiar with the trade tells The Associated Press that the New York Yankees have agreed to acquire All-Star closer Devin Williams from the Milwaukee Brewers for left-hander Nestor Cortes, infield prospect Caleb Durbin and cash. A 30-year-old right-hander, Williams is eligible for free agency after the 2025 season. He was diagnosed during spring training with two stress fractures in his back and didn’t make his season debut until July 28.

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How investors might try to turn £10,000 into a chunky passive income The content of this article is provided for information purposes only and is not intended to be, nor does it constitute, any form of personal advice. Investments in a currency other than sterling are exposed to currency exchange risk. Currency exchange rates are constantly changing, which may affect the value of the investment in sterling terms. You could lose money in sterling even if the stock price rises in the currency of origin. Stocks listed on overseas exchanges may be subject to additional dealing and exchange rate charges, and may have other tax implications, and may not provide the same, or any, regulatory protection as in the UK. When investing, your capital is at risk. The value of your investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you put in. You're reading a free article with opinions that may differ from The Motley Fool's Premium Investing Services. Become a Motley Fool member today to get instant access to our top analyst recommendations, in-depth research, investing resources , and more. Learn More . I often find myself day dreaming about building a chunky passive income. The urge to escape the 9 to 5 by establishing a sizeable alternative source of income is a strong one. The hard part is figuring out where to start. Now,... Ken HallElderly man missing in cold weather rescued by police

Published 4:07 pm Thursday, December 5, 2024 By Jim Gazzolo Already, we are starting to get a feel for what McNeese State football will be like next season and in the future. During his re-introduction as McNeese State’s head coach, Matt Viator clearly stated that he wouldn’t just clean house and start over. “Retaining players and coaches is important,” Viator said. That process officially began Thursday when Viator announced he was retaining chief of staff Aaron Ingram, defensive coordinator Tony Pecoraro, and co-defensive coordinator Josh Brown. Viator will continue to meet with other current Cowboy coaches over the next few days and talk to others currently outside the program. “I’m excited to be able to keep these coaches and build some continuity on the defensive side of the ball,” said Viator. “The defense made a lot of progress this season with those two leading it. “We also have a lot of familiar friends, and those guys speak highly of and have a ton of respect for them.” After a nine-year absence, Viator, who Monday became the first man to return to the McNeese job, talked about how to get his staff together quickly. “It is important we get the right guys here,” Viator said. “We want people who are passionate about McNeese and the community.” Ingram was the first to agree to stay. He came to McNeese a year ago to lead recruiting, among other duties. His staying stabilizes this year’s recruiting efforts and will help with efforts to retain players. “It is a choice that I’m excited about and continuing to move the program forward,” said Ingram. “Our job is not finished here, but I’m glad to have had a chance to work with Coach V.” Pecoraro, who was interim head coach after Gary Goff was fired, is also returning. Pecoraro interviewed for the permanent position after his defense took a huge step forward last season. McNeese led the Cowboys in the Southland Conference, ranking 18th in the FCS in passing defense (176.3) and tops in the league while ranking No. 3 in the nation in pass efficiency defense (106.1). Three times the Cowboys held opponents to under 100 yards rushing and under 200 yards passing eight times. “I’m excited to be part of Coach Viator’s future for the program,” said Pecoraro. “I love it here at McNeese and Lake Charles, but we still have a lot of work to do.” Brown, who came on board last season as co-defensive coordinator, is also staying. That gives the defensive needed stability in leadership. “Excited to help continue and build this team and defense,” Brown wrote on social media. However, getting back the playmakers will be the bigger issue. With linebackers Micah Davey and Marques White and most of the secondary players entering the transfer portal, retaining players will be key. “They are the most important part of our recruiting right now,” said Pecoraro. “This could easily go from continuing to build on to a rebuild depending on who we can get back.” For the players who have entered the transfer portal, namely All-American Davey and leading rusher Joshon Barbie, Viator understands their decisions and hopes to convince them to stay. “I was excited that the guys who are in the portal still came to the team meeting and listened to what I had to say,” Viator said. “The portal is their right to explore their options, but I hope some of them also see what they’ve got here at McNeese. “I’d be a hypocrite if I told them not to go. I was in the portal when I came here.” The transfer portal officially opens on Dec. 9. With the reduction of rosters, it is expected to be an overflowing portal that should be a buyer’s market. Key Cowboys who have said they plan to enter the portal: Micah Davey, Linebacker Marques White, Linebacker Boogsie Silvera, safety Levi Wyatt, cornerback Kamden Sixkiller, Quarterback Joshon Barbie, running back Finn Lappin, punter Hayes Creel, offensive linemanHowling winds could not stop Notre Dame’s heart from beating again. With three resounding knocks on its doors by Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich, wielding a staff carved from fire-scorched beams, the cathedral roared back to life on Saturday evening. For the first time since a devastating 2019 blaze, the towering Gothic masterpiece reopened for worship, its rebirth marked by song, prayer, and awe beneath its soaring arches. While the ceremony was initially planned to begin on the forecourt, unusually fierce December winds whipping across the central Paris island, flanked by the River Seine, forced all events inside. Yet the occasion lost none of its splendour. Inside the luminous nave, choirs are singing psalms, and the cathedral’s mighty organ, silent for nearly five years, is thundering to life in a triumphant interplay of melodies. The evening’s celebration, being attended by 1,500 dignitaries, including President-elect Donald Trump, US First Lady Jill Biden, Britain’s Prince William, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, underscores Notre Dame’s enduring role as both a spiritual and cultural beacon. For President Emmanuel Macron, who championed the ambitious five-year restoration timeline, it was a rare moment of unity amid profound political crises and threats to his presidential legacy.

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Stephanie Armour, Julie Rovner | (TNS) KFF Health News Many of President-elect Donald Trump’s candidates for federal health agencies have promoted policies and goals that put them at odds with one another or with Trump’s choice to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., setting the stage for internal friction over public health initiatives. Related Articles National Politics | Elon Musk’s preschool is the next step in his anti-woke education dreams National Politics | Biden will decide on US Steel acquisition after influential panel fails to reach consensus National Politics | Biden vetoes once-bipartisan effort to add 66 federal judgeships, citing ‘hurried’ House action National Politics | A history of the Panama Canal — and why Trump can’t take it back on his own National Politics | President-elect Trump wants to again rename North America’s tallest peak The picks hold different views on matters such as limits on abortion, the safety of childhood vaccines, the COVID-19 response, and the use of weight-loss medications. The divide pits Trump picks who adhere to more traditional and orthodox science, such as the long-held, scientifically supported findings that vaccines are safe, against often unsubstantiated views advanced by Kennedy and other selections who have claimed vaccines are linked with autism. The Trump transition team and the designated nominees mentioned in this article did not respond to requests for comment. It’s a potential “team of opponents” at the government’s health agencies, said Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian policy organization. Kennedy, he said, is known for rejecting opposing views when confronted with science. “The heads of the FDA and NIH will be spending all their time explaining to their boss what a confidence interval is,” Cannon said, referring to a statistical term used in medical studies. Those whose views prevail will have significant power in shaping policy, from who is appointed to sit on federal vaccine advisory committees to federal authorization for COVID vaccines to restrictions on abortion medications. If confirmed as HHS secretary, Kennedy is expected to set much of the agenda. “If President Trump’s nomination of RFK Jr. to be secretary is confirmed, if you don’t subscribe to his views, it will be very hard to rise in that department,” said Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “They will need to suppress their views to fit with RFK Jr’s. In this administration, and any administration, independent public disagreement isn’t welcome.” Kennedy is chair of Children’s Health Defense , an anti-vaccine nonprofit. He has vowed to curb the country’s appetite for ultra-processed food and its incidence of chronic disease. He helped select Trump’s choices to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health. If confirmed, he would lead them from the helm of HHS, with its more than $1.7 trillion budget. Clashes are likely. Kennedy has supported access to abortion until a fetus is viable. That puts him at odds with Dave Weldon, the former Florida congressman whom Trump has chosen to run the CDC. Weldon, a physician, is an abortion opponent who wrote one of the major laws allowing health professionals to opt out of participating in the procedure. Weldon would head an agency that’s been in the crosshairs of conservatives since the COVID pandemic began. He has touted his “100% pro-life voting record” on his campaign website. (He unsuccessfully ran earlier this year for a seat in Florida’s House of Representatives.) Trump has said he would leave decisions about abortion to the states, but the CDC under Weldon could, for example, fund studies on abortion risks. The agency could require states to provide information about abortions performed within their borders to the federal government or risk the loss of federal funds. Weldon, like Kennedy, has questioned the safety of vaccines and has said he believes they can cause autism. That’s at odds with the views of Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon whom Trump plans to nominate for FDA commissioner. The British American said on the “Brian Kilmeade Show” on Fox News Radio that vaccines “save lives,” although he added that it’s good to question the U.S. vaccine schedule for children. The American Academy of Pediatricians encourages parents and their children’s doctors to stick to the recommended schedule of childhood vaccines. “Nonstandard schedules that spread out vaccines or start when a child is older put entire communities at risk of serious illnesses, including infants and young children,” the group says in guidance for its members. Jay Bhattacharya, a doctor and economist who is Trump’s selection to lead NIH, has also supported vaccines. Kennedy has said on NPR that federal authorities under his leadership wouldn’t “take vaccines away from anybody.” But the FDA oversees approval of vaccines, and, under his leadership, the agency could put vaccine skeptics on advisory panels or could make changes to a program that largely protects vaccine makers from consumer injury lawsuits. “I do believe that autism does come from vaccines,” Kennedy said in 2023 on Fox News . Many scientific studies have discredited the claim that vaccines cause autism. Ashish Jha, a doctor who served as the White House COVID response coordinator from 2022 to 2023, noted that Bhattacharya and Makary have had long and distinguished careers in medicine and research and would bring decades of experience to these top jobs. But, he said, it “is going to be a lot more difficult than they think” to stand up for their views in the new administration. It’s hard “to do things that displease your boss, and if [Kennedy] gets confirmed, he will be their boss,” Jha said. “They have their work cut out for them if they’re going to stand up for their opinions on science. If they don’t, it will just demoralize the staff.” Most of Trump’s picks share the view that federal health agencies bungled the pandemic response, a stance that resonated with many of the president-elect’s voters and supporters — even though Trump led that response until Joe Biden took office in 2021. Kennedy said in a 2021 Louisiana House oversight meeting that the COVID vaccine was the “deadliest” ever made. He has cited no evidence to back the claim. Federal health officials say the vaccines have saved millions of lives around the globe and offer important protection against COVID. Protection lasts even though their effectiveness wanes over time. The vaccines’ effectiveness against infection stood at 52% after four weeks, according to a May study in The New England Journal of Medicine, and their effectiveness against hospitalization was about 67% after four weeks. The vaccines were produced through Operation Warp Speed, a public-private partnership Trump launched in his first term to fast-track the shots as well as other treatments. Makary criticized COVID vaccine guidance that called for giving young children the shots. He argued that, for many people, natural immunity from infections could substitute for the vaccine. Bhattacharya opposed measures used to curb the spread of COVID in 2020 and advised that everyone except the most vulnerable go about their lives as usual. The World Health Organization warned that such an approach would overwhelm hospitals. Mehmet Oz, Trump’s choice to head the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, an agency within HHS, has said the vaccines were oversold. He promoted the use of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment. The FDA in 2020 revoked emergency authorization of hydroxychloroquine for COVID, saying that it was unlikely to be effective against the virus and that the risk of dangerous side effects was too high. Janette Nesheiwat, meanwhile, a former Fox News contributor and Trump’s pick for surgeon general, has taken a different stance. The doctor described COVID vaccines as a gift from God in a Fox News opinion piece . Kennedy’s qualms about vaccines are likely to be a central issue early in the administration. He has said he wants federal health agencies to shift their focus from preparing for and combating infectious disease to addressing chronic disease. The shifting focus and questioning of vaccines concern some public health leaders amid the spread of the H5N1 bird flu virus among dairy cattle. There have been 60 human infections reported in the U.S. this year, all but two of them linked to exposure to cattle or poultry. “Early on, they’re going to have to have a discussion about vaccinating people and animals” against bird flu, said Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. “We all bring opinions to the table. A department’s cohesive policy is driven by the secretary.” ©2024 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.AAP_Distribution a3442 ha -----25-year-old killed in park: Newark case remains unsolvedNone