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While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Nov 24, 2024

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Amid constant change, NIU, Fresno State enjoy tradition at Potato BowlGuadiz says public transport modernization sped up in 2024Bethlehem marks a second subdued Christmas Eve during the war in Gaza BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Bethlehem is marking another somber Christmas Eve under the shadow of war in Gaza. Manger Square lacked its usual festive lights and crowds of tourists on Tuesday. Instead, the area outside the Nativity Church was quiet. The church was built atop the spot where Jesus is believed to have been born. The war, the violence in the occupied West Bank it has spurred and the lack of festivities has deeply hurt Bethlehem's economy. The town relies heavily on Christmas tourism. The economy in the West Bank was already reeling because of restrictions placed on laborers preventing them from entering Israel during the war. Pope Francis kicks off a yearlong Jubilee that will test his stamina and Rome's patience VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has opened the great Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica. The ceremony kicks off the 2025 Holy Year. It's a celebration of the Catholic Church that is expected to draw some 32 million pilgrims to Rome. And it will test the pope’s stamina and the ability of the Eternal City to welcome them. This begins the Christmas Eve Mass. The ceremony inaugurates the once-every-25-year tradition of a Jubilee. Francis has dedicated the 2025 Jubilee to the theme of hope. Trump vows to pursue executions after Biden commutes most of federal death row FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump says he'll “vigorously pursue” capital punishment after President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of most people on federal death row partly to stop Trump from pushing forward their executions. Trump criticized Biden’s decision on Monday to change the sentences of 37 of the 40 condemned people to life in prison without parole. Trump said that he will direct the Department of Justice to pursue the death penalty “as soon as I am inaugurated.” Trump was vague on what specific actions he may take. 21 dead as Mozambique erupts in violence after election court ruling MAPUTO, Mozambique (AP) — Violence that engulfed Mozambique after the country’s highest court confirmed ruling party presidential candidate Daniel Chapo as the winner of disputed Oct. 9 elections has killed at least 21 people, including two police officers. Mozambique Interior Minister Pascoal Ronda told a news conference in Maputo late Tuesday that a wave of violence and looting was sparked by the court’s announcement a day earlier. He said it was led by mostly youthful supporters of losing candidate Venancio Mondlane, who received 24% of the vote, second to Chapo, who got 65%. Prosecutors find workers in 'slavery like' conditions at Chinese car company site in Brazil RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) — A task force led by Brazilian prosecutors says it has rescued 163 Chinese nationals working in “slavery-like” conditions at a construction site in northeastern Brazil, where Chinese electric vehicle company BYD is building a factory. The Labor Prosecutor’s Office released videos of the dorms where the construction workers were staying, which showed beds with no mattresses and rooms without any place for the workers to store their personal belongings. In a statement issued Monday, the prosecutor’s office said the workers had been hired in China by Jinjian Group, one of the contractors on the site, which is located in Camaçari, a city in the Salvador metropolitan region. NFL players who use platform to share their faith say it's their duty to spread their love of Jesus ALLEN PARK, Mich. (AP) — Jake Bates was standing on the turf in his hometown of Houston when asked to reflect on an unlikely journey from learning how to sell bricks to making game-winning kicks for the Detroit Lions. Bates used his platform as an NFL player to spread his love of Jesus. A month later, Bates told The Associated Press it is a duty to share his faith. The NFL is filled with players and coaches who feel the same way, such as Houston's C.J. Stroud, Atlanta's Kirk Cousins, and Lamar Jackson and John Harbaugh of the Baltimore Ravens. Stunning photos show lava erupting from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano HONOLULU (AP) — Lava is erupting from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano for the second straight day. The eruption has stayed within Kilauea’s summit caldera inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and no homes are threatened. Molten rock began spewing out of the volcano before dawn on Monday when fissures opened in the caldera floor and shot lava high into the air. It then oozed across the caldera floor. Scientists expect activity to fluctuate in coming days. The lava paused Monday afternoon but fountains reemerged Tuesday morning. The eruption has occurred in an area that’s been closed to the public since 2007 due to hazards including crater wall instability and rockfalls. Haiti gangs fire on journalists covering a planned hospital reopening, leaving casualties PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Suspected gang members have opened fire on journalists in Haiti’s capital as they were covering the attempted reopening of the country’s largest hospital, wounding or killing an unknown number of people. The country's interim president, Leslie Voltaire, said in an address to the nation that journalists and police were among the victims of the vicious Christmas Eve attack. He did not specify how many casualties there were, or give a breakdown for the dead or wounded. Radio Télé Métronome said earlier on Tuesday that seven journalists and two police officers were wounded in the shooting. Street gangs have taken over an estimated 85% of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Hurricane-force winds bear down on California, latest in stretch of extreme weather LOS ANGELES (AP) — California has been hit hard by extreme weather over the past several weeks. Atmospheric rivers, which are long stretches of wet air that can produce heavy rains, brought a record-setting rainfall before Thanksgiving. A series of atmospheric rivers are producing strong waves and storms near Santa Cruz this week. Thousands were left under evacuation warnings and orders because of a fire around Malibu. Climate change means that strong storms will be responsible for a greater share of the state's yearly precipitation and the periods between those events will be drier. Heavy travel day starts with brief grounding of all American Airlines flights WASHINGTON (AP) — American Airlines briefly grounded flights nationwide due to a technical problem just as the Christmas travel season kicked into overdrive and winter weather threatened more potential problems for those planning to fly or drive. Government regulators cleared American flights to get airborne Tuesday about an hour after the Federal Aviation Administration ordered a national ground stop, which prevented planes from taking off. American said in an email that the problem was caused by vendor technology in its flight operating system. Aviation analytics company Cirium said flights were delayed across American’s major hubs, with only 37% leaving on time. Nineteen flights were cancelled.

Six area teams will compete in the state quarterfinals for high school football on Friday night. LeBlond at Rockport- 8 man Penney at North Platte- Class 1 Platte County at Webb City- Class 5 News-Press Now will bring you half-time and final score updates.Two titans, one vision: How Manmohan Singh and Osamu Suzuki built modern India

HOUSTON (AP) — Tyler Herro scored 27 points before being one of six people ejected after 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. MAGIC 102, NETS 101 ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Cole Anthony drove for a layup with 0.2 seconds left to complete Orlando's 17-point fourth-quarter comeback in a win over Brooklyn. Cam Thomas missed a jumper from the corner at the final horn. Anthony scored 10, and Tristan da Silva scored 13 of his 21 points in the fourth quarter for Orlando, which was down 71-51 midway through the third quarter. Goga Bitadze added 19 points, 11 rebounds and five assists. The Magic’s comeback was their second in eight days after Orlando rallied from 25 points down to beat Miami 121-114 on Dec. 21. Thomas came off the bench with 25 points to lead the Nets in his first game since Nov. 25. Jalen Wilson added 16 points including two free throws with 6.2 seconds left. Thomas, Brooklyn’s leading scorer with 24.7 points per game, played 25 minutes after missing 13 games with a strained left hamstring. PACERS 123, CELTICS 114 BOSTON (AP) — Tyrese Haliburton scored 31 points and Indiana rebounded from a 37-point loss to Boston two nights earlier by winning the rematch. Andrew Nembhard, who returned after missing Friday’s game with tendinitis in his left knee, added 17 points, eight rebounds and eight assists for the Pacers. Pascal Siakam chipped in with 17 points and Bennedict Mathurin had 14. Jaylen Brown led Boston with 31 points and six assists. Jayson Tatum had 22 points, nine boards and six assists. Payton Pritchard added 21 points and Derrick White scored 17. The Celtics lost their sixth game at home already this season. Last season, they went 37-4 at TD Garden during the regular season and 9-2 in the playoffs en route to the NBA championship. HAWKS 136, RAPTORS 107 TORONTO (AP) — Trae Young had 34 points and 10 assists, De’Andre Hunter scored 22 points and Atlanta routed Toronto for their fourth straight win. Clint Capela had 11 points and 13 rebounds as the Hawks opened a six-game trip by handing the reeling Raptors their 10th consecutive loss. Scottie Barnes scored 19 points and RJ Barrett had 17, but the Raptors fell behind by more than 30 points and allowed more than 130 for the second straight game. Toronto gave up a franchise-worst 155 points in Thursday’s loss at Memphis. Young shot 7 for 13 from 3-point range, singlehandedly making as many shots from distance than the entire Raptors team, who combined to go 7 for 24. Toronto’s Bruce Brown made his season debut after sitting out the first 31 games recovering from right knee surgery. Brown soared for a one-handed dunk for his first points shortly after entering the game in the first quarter. He finished with 12 points in 19 minutes. THUNDER 130, GRIZZLIES 106 OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 35 points and Oklahoma City won their 11th straight game, beating short-handed Memphis in a matchup of Western Conference leaders that turned lopsided before halftime. Rookie Ajay Mitchell scored 17 points, Aaron Wiggins contributed 16 and Jalen Williams added 14 points and 10 rebounds for the Thunder (26-5), who opened a five-game lead over second-place Memphis. Gilgeous-Alexander made 14 of 19 shots to go along with seven assists, six rebounds and a team-high four blocks. He sat most of the fourth quarter. Oklahoma City blocked nine shots, including three by center Isaiah Hartenstein. The Thunder led 76-50 at halftime behind 23 points from Gilgeous-Alexander and 12 each from Mitchell and Kenrich Williams, who combined to go 5 for 7 on 3-point shots. Oklahoma City outscored the Grizzlies 42-19 in the second quarter to take control. Desmond Bane had 22 points and nine rebounds for Memphis (22-11), which played without star Ja Morant (shoulder) and Zach Edey, the team’s No. 9 overall draft pick, who was in concussion protocol. Jay Huff added 17 points but Jaren Jackson Jr., the team’s leading scorer at 21.9 points per game, managed 13 points on 3-of-17 shooting. TIMBERWOLVES 112, SPURS 110 MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Donte DiVincenzo scored 26 points as Minnesota defeated San Antonio. Rudy Gobert had 17 points and 15 rebounds for the Timberwolves, won won their third straight. Julius Randle had 16 points, while Jaden McDaniels added 12 points and 10 boards for Minnesota. Anthony Edwards, who earlier in the day was fined $100,000 for continued use of profanity in postgame media comments, was held to 14 points, 11 below his season average. After DiVincenzo made one of two free throws with 12.1 seconds left, the Spurs had one more possession down 112-110. San Antonio found a wide-open Jeremy Sochan for 3, but he came up short. Wembanyama led San Antonio with 34 points and eight rebounds. Harrison Barnes had 24 points, Devin Vassell had 22 and Chris Paul dished out 14 assists. The Associated Press

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A Romanian hard-right NATO critic and leftist Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu are neck and neck after the first round of presidential elections, in a shock result threatening Romania's staunchly pro-Ukraine stance. or signup to continue reading After nearly 90 per cent of votes were counted, Calin Georgescu, 62, was at 22 per cent, while Ciolacu had 21.7 per cent. However, ballots from the sizeable Romanian diaspora, which are not included in the main tally on Sunday, show centre-right politician, Elena Lasconi, 52, first with 33.4 per cent and Georgescu second. Romania's president has a semi-executive role with control over defence spending - likely to be a difficult issue as Bucharest comes under pressure to uphold NATO spending goals during Donald Trump's second term as US president while trying to reduce a heavy deficit. Lasconi told supporters after exit polls were released giving her a small lead over Georgescu, with Ciolacu in first place, that she was optimistic about making the runoff. "But as you can see, the results are very tight, let us wait until tomorrow's results to rejoice." Campaigning focused largely on the soaring cost of living, with Romania having the EU's biggest share of people at risk of poverty. Georgescu is a former prominent member of the hard-right Alliance for Uniting Romanians party. In 2021 he has called NATO's ballistic missile defence shield in the Romanian town of Deveselu a "shame of diplomacy" and said the North Atlantic alliance will not protect any of its members should they be attacked by Russia. Lasconi, a former journalist, joined the Save Romania Union in 2018 and became party head this year. She believes in raising defence spending and helping Ukraine, and surveys suggest she would beat Ciolacu in a runoff. Romania shares a 650km border with Ukraine and since Russia attacked Kyiv in 2022, it has enabled the export of millions of tonnes of grain through its Black Sea port of Constanta and provided military aid, including the donation of a Patriot air defence battery. "It will be a tight run-off, with the Social Democrat leader more vulnerable to negative campaigning due to him being an incumbent PM," political commentator Radu Magdin said. Advertisement Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date. We care about the protection of your data. Read our . Advertisement

Tyler Herro scores 27 before ejection in Heat's 104-100 win over RocketsWASHINGTON — When Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the businesspeople whom President-elect Donald Trump tapped to lead his new Department of Government Efficiency, met with lawmakers in early December, they laid out their plans for cutting federal spending and eliminating waste. Less than two weeks later, they helped topple a 1,500-page spending bill and brought the federal government to the brink of a shutdown over objections to the billions of dollars of so-called pork spending in the legislation. But the streamlined package that lawmakers ultimately passed failed to offer spending restraint. During the negotiations, Trump even called for abolishing the nation’s statutory debt limit, which Republicans have long used as a tool for forcing painful budget cuts. The frenzy demonstrated the clout Musk and Ramaswamy have as they establish their new waste-cutting enterprise. But the outcome also underscored the limits the initiative will face as it tries to curb spending. In recent decades, the federal government has become increasingly sprawling and Congress has become more fractious, making it difficult to put a dent in a national debt that has topped $36 trillion. In under a month, Trump will assume the presidential megaphone with Musk and Ramaswamy as his spending enforcers. But budget experts see little hope that the three will be able to meaningfully shift the nation’s fiscal trajectory. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the national debt will reach 166% of gross domestic product by 2054, up from about 99% of GDP at the end of 2024. “They have no authorities whatsoever,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who served as chief economist in President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. “They don’t control the scope of government. They don’t control the size of government.” Holtz-Eakin, who also served as the director of the Congressional Budget Office, noted that Congress has the power of the purse and suggested that the Department of Government Efficiency would be little more than a think tank. “They have the bully pulpit, but that’s truly it,” he said. Musk and Ramaswamy have said that they want to cut $2 trillion of federal spending over an unspecified period of time by shrinking government agencies and eliminating fraud and waste. That is nearly the size of the 2024 fiscal year deficit alone and just a sliver of the $20 trillion that the U.S. is projected to borrow over the next decade. House Republican leaders have floated a pledge to cut $2.5 trillion in “mandatory” spending, which typically goes toward programs such as Medicaid and food stamps, and to raise the debt limit in separate legislation next year. The United States spent $6.7 trillion in 2024, including more than $800 billion on the military. But the bulk of the country’s spending comes from mandatory programs including Social Security and Medicare, along with soaring interest expenses. Those costs are expected to continue rising as the population ages and more people begin claiming retirement and health care benefits. Trump has pledged not to cut entitlement programs, and Republicans are loath to slash military spending. That leaves scant space to scale back the biggest drivers of the debt. “While it’s good to improve the efficiency and effectiveness, to the extent that you are not focusing on the 50% of the federal spending, which is entitlement programs, you’re not really going to make a big dent in our debt and deficits,” said William Hoagland, a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Hoagland recalled that fiscal commissions had been tried before and often with only limited success. In 1982, for instance, President Ronald Reagan created the Grace Commission, in which a group of business leaders were asked to work like “tireless bloodhounds” to root out inefficiency. Most of the group’s recommendations never came to fruition, however, because Congress would have been required to change laws. A slew of fiscal reform commissions have been formed and disbanded over the past 40 years as the national debt as a share of the economy has only continued to grow. The United States has not had an annual budget surplus since 2001. The Department of Government Efficiency is not an official government agency and will have no formal power to cut federal spending. The group intends to work with lawmakers in Congress and the Office of Management and Budget to look for federal rules that can be changed to reduce spending. Trump has also discussed “impounding” funds that were allocated by Congress for certain programs and redirecting the money to pay down debt. And Musk and Ramaswamy have been combing through Government Accountability Office reports as they seek out parts of the government that they believe are mismanaging taxpayer money. Groups that promote fiscal restraint such as the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget have suggested as much as $700 billion of deficit reduction measures, but many of them would be politically arduous to enact. Some of the policies of Trump and Republicans are at odds with the public mantra of belt tightening and eliminating fraud. The president-elect has made clear that he wants to weaken the enforcement powers of the IRS, which would make it harder for the agency to track down tax evaders and to efficiently collect tax revenue. Rescinding more of the $80 billion the IRS was allocated in 2022 to crack down on tax cheats and modernize technology is projected to add to deficits. As lawmakers talk about spending cuts and deficit reduction, they are preparing an expansion of the 2017 tax cuts that could cost more than $4 trillion over a decade. That would far surpass the $2.5 trillion of spending cuts that House Republicans pledged during the latest spending fight to enact early next year. “I do worry that they’re going to talk about government efficiency and trying to lower spending and then use that money to pay for things like tax cuts,” said Keith Hall, who served as director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2015 to 2019. Despite Trump’s recent interest in shrinking government, the self-described “king of debt” has not shown a propensity for fiscal restraint. The national debt grew by nearly $8 trillion during Trump’s first term as a result of tax cuts and increased government spending, including two rounds of pandemic aid. In 2018, Trump called for a return to earmarks, the practice of stealthily stuffing funding for pet projects into legislation, to help ease gridlock in Congress. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that his policies could add as much as $15 trillion to the debt over a decade. During the most recent spending fight, Trump broke with conservative orthodoxy on the debt limit. The borrowing cap has long been a prized source of leverage for Republicans to exact spending cuts from Democrats, but Trump urged his party to suspend the cap beyond his term or do away with it entirely. “For years Congress, and everyone else, wanted to terminate ‘the Debt Ceiling,’ and this is the time to do so!” Trump wrote on social media. Fiscal hawk Republicans rebuffed that idea this time, but Trump could in the future try to work with Democrats, who have for years called for abolishing the debt limit, to eliminate it. Bharat Ramamurti, who was deputy director of the National Economic Council in the Biden administration, said the outcome of the fiscal showdown showed that Musk and Ramaswamy would have minimal influence to force Congress to spend less. The changes that they helped impose on the legislation, he added, did not actually lower its cost. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you see largely a repeat of Trump Term 1, where at the end of the day, it’s a bunch of spending increases, tax cuts and a large increase to the debt,” Ramamurti said.

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