wild card ace in the hole Happy New Year! It’s crazy how fast time seems to fly by. As we review how this past year has gone, we are delighted with how much was accomplished. Over $1,158,783 worth of improvements were made in 2024, such as building the Interurban Trail, finishing Lancaster Park, and maintaining our other facilities. Large projects require lots of financial resources, and we are thankful to have been blessed with $332,590.26 in local donations and from our new partnership with Harrison Township. Our department also secured $494,023 in grants this year, helping us prepare for our 2025 projects. Next year looks to be just as busy as this year was, with multiple projects on the books. After the baseball season ends in early July, Roush Park will be closed for major parking lot upgrades, including installing drainage, adding ADA sidewalks, and repaving the basketball court. The Wabash River Stabilization project to repair 1,100 feet of the riverbank from Wayne Street to the Howard Rich Pavilion will also commence in the summer while the river is in a low position. If all goes well with funding, there is a good possibility that as soon as the pool closes for the season, construction on the new one can begin. We are so grateful for the continued community support; we truly could not do it without all of you! Have you always wanted to learn how to Crochet? Now is your chance to sign up for January’s Hooked on Crochet class! Learning to crochet will give you a lifetime of pleasure and relaxation. You can learn to create handmade items for yourself and those you love. Classes will be taught by Kathy Gehrett at City Hall (128 E Market) from 5:30-6:30 p.m. on Thursdays, Jan. 9, 16 & 23. The cost for 3 one-hour group lessons is $20, due the first day. Yarn and instructions will be provided, and you will need to bring your own size H hook. Call the park office to pre-register at 824-6069 or email events@blufftonindiana.gov. The class is open to beginners and advanced students. The first Theater Thursday of 2025 is scheduled for January 16th at 10 am at the Wells County Public Library. The film will be 007 No Time to Die, rated PG-13. James Bond is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica after leaving active service. However, his peace is short-lived as his old CIA friend, Felix Leiter, shows up and asks for help. The mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond on the trail of a mysterious villain armed with a dangerous new technology. There is still time to make a New Year’s resolution to become more active! Over 200 people commit to the Wells Winter Challenge each year, and we have expanded the options for 2025! Wells Winter 100 Mile Challenge : Walk or run 100 miles by March 21! That’s just 10 miles a week — are you ready to go the distance? Wells Winter Fitness Minutes Challenge : Stay active with 1,800 minutes of any activity this winter (indoor/outdoor biking, walking, yoga, pickleball, etc.). Aim for 150 minutes a week (30 minutes five times a week), and you’ll be on track. Kids 50 Mile Challenge: For kids 12 and under—run or walk 50 miles and join in the fun. We also want to congratulate this year’s Gingerbread Contest winners : Lane McClure, Jada Gehrett, and Paige Watter. Each winner was awarded Chamber Bucks for all their creative work. Have a great week!HAMILTON, N.Y. (AP) — Dejour Reaves' 20 points helped Iona defeat Colgate 79-73 on Sunday. Reaves also contributed nine rebounds and six steals for the Gaels (4-8, 1-1 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference). Yaphet Moundi added 13 points while finishing 6 of 8 from the floor while they also had five rebounds. Adam Njie had 12 points and shot 5 of 11 from the field, including 1 for 4 from 3-point range, and went 1 for 4 from the line. The Raiders (3-10) were led in scoring by Nicolas Louis-Jacques, who finished with 27 points. Jalen Cox added 16 points, four assists and two steals for Colgate. Parker Jones also had seven points and two steals. Reaves scored 11 points in the first half for Iona, who led 36-32 at the break. Iona used a 7-0 run in the second half to build an eight-point lead at 43-35 with 16:42 left in the half before finishing off the win. Up next for Iona is a matchup Sunday with Harvard at home. Colgate hosts Army on Thursday. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .

Toronto agency launches court challenge against new law that would shutter some supervised consumption sitesSalesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) Insider R David Schmaier Sells 1,785 Shares of Stock

President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Friday to pause the potential TikTok ban from going into effect until his administration can pursue a “political resolution” to the issue. The request came as TikTok and the Biden administration filed opposing briefs to the court, in which the company argued the court should strike down a law that could ban the platform by Jan. 19 while the government emphasized its position that the statute is needed to eliminate a national security risk. “President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute. Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Act’s deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case,” said Trump’s amicus brief, which supported neither party in the case and was written by D. John Sauer, Trump’s choice for solicitor general. The argument submitted to the court is the latest example of Trump inserting himself in national issues before he takes office. The Republican president-elect has already begun negotiating with other countries over his plans to impose tariffs, and he intervened earlier this month in a plan to fund the federal government, calling for a bipartisan plan to be rejected and sending Republicans back to the negotiating table. Trump has also reversed his position on the popular app, having tried to ban it during his first term in office over national security concerns. He joined the app during his 2024 presidential campaign and his team used it to connect with younger voters, especially male voters, by pushing content that was often macho and aimed at going viral. He said earlier this year that he still believed there were national security risks with TikTok, but that he opposed banning it. This month, Trump also met with TikTok CEO Shou Chew at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. The filings Friday come ahead of oral arguments scheduled for Jan. 10 on whether the law, which requires TikTok to divest from its China-based parent company or face a ban, unlawfully restricts speech in violation of the First Amendment. The law was was signed by President Joe Biden in April after it passed Congress with broad bipartisan support. TikTok and ByteDance filed a legal challenge afterwards. Earlier this month, a panel of three federal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the statute , leading TikTok to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. The brief from Trump said he opposes banning TikTok at this junction and “seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.” In their brief to the Supreme Court on Friday, attorneys for TikTok and its parent company ByteDance argued the federal appeals court erred in its ruling and based its decision on “alleged ‘risks’ that China could exercise control” over TikTok’s U.S. platform by pressuring its foreign affiliates. The Biden administration has argued in court that TikTok poses a national security risk due to its connections to China. Officials say Chinese authorities can compel ByteDance to hand over information on TikTok’s U.S. patrons or use the platform to spread or suppress information. But the government “concedes that it has no evidence China has ever attempted to do so,” TikTok’s legal filing said, adding that the U.S. fears are predicated on future risks. In its filing Friday, the Biden administration said because TikTok “is integrated with ByteDance and relies on its propriety engine developed and maintained in China,” its corporate structure carries with it risk.Drought, fires and deforestation battered Amazon rainforest in 2024Caste survey touches one crore families so far in TelanganaQuebec police issue Amber Alert after 9-year-old abducted

OXFORD, Ohio (AP) — Reece Potter scored 19 points off the bench to help lead Miami (OH) past Sacred Heart 94-76 on Sunday. Potter went 8 of 8 from the field (3 for 3 from 3-point range) for the RedHawks (7-4). Kam Craft scored 12 points and added five rebounds. Brant Byers had 10 points and shot 4 for 7, including 1 for 4 from beyond the arc. Tanner Thomas finished with 15 points for the Pioneers (4-8). Sacred Heart also got 11 points from Griffin Barrouk. Fallou Gueye also had 10 points. Miami (OH) took the lead with 9:42 remaining in the first half and never looked back. Potter led their team in scoring with nine points in the first half to help put them up 50-30 at the break. Miami (OH) was outscored by Sacred Heart in the second half by a two-point margin, but still wound up on top, while Potter led the way with a team-high 10 second-half points. Miami (OH)'s next game is Monday against Defiance at home, and Sacred Heart hosts Manhattanville on Sunday. ___ The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by and data from . The Associated PressPalantir, Anduril In Talks With OpenAI, Elon Musk's SpaceX To Take On Defense Giants: FT

2024 was a brutal year for the Amazon rainforest, with rampant wildfires and extreme drought ravaging large parts of a biome that’s a critical counterweight to climate change. A warming climate fed drought that in turn fed the worst year for fires since 2005. And those fires contributed to deforestation, with authorities suspecting some fires were set to more easily clear land to run cattle. The Amazon is twice the size of India and sprawls across eight countries and one territory, storing vast amounts of carbon dioxide that would otherwise warm the planet. It has about 20% of the world’s fresh water and astounding biodiversity, including 16,000 known tree species. But governments have historically viewed it as an area to be exploited, with little regard for sustainability or the rights of its Indigenous peoples, and experts say exploitation by individuals and organized crime is rising at alarming rates. “The fires and drought experienced in 2024 across the Amazon rainforest could be ominous indicators that we are reaching the long-feared ecological tipping point,” said Andrew Miller, advocacy director at Amazon Watch, an organization that works to protect the rainforest. “Humanity’s window of opportunity to reverse this trend is shrinking, but still open.” There were some bright spots. The level of Amazonian forest loss fell in both Brazil and Colombia. And nations gathered for the annual United Nations conference on biodiversity agreed to give Indigenous peoples more say in nature conservation decisions. “If the Amazon rainforest is to avoid the tipping point, Indigenous people will have been a determinant factor," Miller said. Forest loss in Brazil’s Amazon — home to the largest swath of this rainforest — compared to the previous year, the lowest level of destruction in nine years. The improvement under leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva contrasted with deforestation that hit a 15-year high under Lula's predecessor, far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, who prioritized agribusiness expansion over forest protection and weakened environmental agencies. In July, Colombia in deforestation in 2023, driven by a drop in environmental destruction. The country's environment minister Susana Muhamad warned that 2024's figures may not be as promising as a significant rise in deforestation had already been recorded by July due to dry weather caused by El Nino, a weather phenomenon that warms the central Pacific. Illegal economies continue to drive deforestation in the Andean nation. “It’s impossible to overlook the threat posed by organized crime and the economies they control to Amazon conservation,” said Bram Ebus, a consultant for Crisis Group in Latin America. “Illegal gold mining is expanding rapidly, driven by soaring global prices, and the revenues of illicit economies often surpass state budgets allocated to combat them.” In Brazil, large swaths of the rainforest were from fires raging across the Amazon, Cerrado savannah, Pantanal wetland and the state of Sao Paulo. Fires are traditionally used for deforestation and for managing pastures, and those man-made blazes were largely responsible for igniting the wildfires. For a second year, the , leading some countries to declare a state of emergency and distribute food and water to struggling residents. The situation was most critical in Brazil, where one of the Amazon River's main tributaries Cesar Ipenza, an environmental lawyer who lives in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, said he believes people are becoming increasingly aware of the Amazon's fundamental role “for the survival of society as a whole." But, like Miller, he worries about a “point of no return of Amazon destruction.” It was the worst year for Amazon fires since 2005, according to nonprofit Rainforest Foundation US. Between January and October, an area larger than the state of Iowa — 37.42 million acres, or about 15.1 million hectares of Brazil’s Amazon — burned. Bolivia had a record number of fires in the first ten months of the year. “Forest fires have become a constant, especially in the summer months and require particular attention from the authorities who don't how to deal with or respond to them,” Ipenza said. Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Guyana also saw a surge in fires this year. The United Nations conference on biodiversity — this year known as COP16 — was hosted by Colombia. The meetings put the Amazon in the spotlight and a historic agreement was made to give Indigenous groups more of , a development that builds on a growing movement to recognize Indigenous people's role in protecting land and combating climate change. Both Ebus and Miller saw promise in the appointment of Martin von Hildebrand as the new secretary general for the Amazon Treaty Cooperation Organization, announced during COP16. “As an expert on Amazon communities, he will need to align governments for joint conservation efforts. If the political will is there, international backers will step forward to finance new strategies to protect the world’s largest tropical rainforest,” Ebus said. Ebus said Amazon countries need to cooperate more, whether in law enforcement, deploying joint emergency teams to combat forest fires, or providing health care in remote Amazon borderlands. But they need help from the wider world, he said. “The well-being of the Amazon is a shared global responsibility, as consumer demand worldwide fuels the trade in commodities that finance violence and environmental destruction,” he said. Next year marks a critical moment for the Amazon, as Belém do Pará in northern Brazil hosts the first United Nations COP in the region that will focus on climate. “Leaders from Amazon countries have a chance to showcase strategies and demand tangible support," Ebus said.

NoneChildren of the wealthy and connected get special admissions consideration at some elite U.S. universities, according to new filings in a class-action lawsuit originally brought against 17 schools. Georgetown’s then-president, for example, listed a prospective student on his “president’s list” after meeting her and her wealthy father at an Idaho conference known as “summer camp for billionaires,” according to Tuesday court filings in the price-fixing lawsuit filed in Chicago federal court in 2022. Although it’s always been assumed that such favoritism exists, the filings offer a rare peek at the often secret deliberations of university heads and admissions officials. They show how schools admit otherwise unqualified wealthy children because their parents have connections and could possibly donate large sums down the line, raising questions about fairness. Stuart Schmill, the dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in a 2018 email that the university admitted four out of six applicants recommended by then-board chairman Robert Millard, including two who “we would really not have otherwise admitted.” The two others were not admitted because they were “not in the ball park, or the push from him was not as strong.” In the email, Schmill said Millard was careful to play down his influence on admissions decisions, but he said the chair also sent notes on all six students and later met with Schmill to share insight “into who he thought was more of a priority.” The filings are the latest salvo in a lawsuit that claims that 17 of the nation’s most prestigious colleges colluded to reduce the competition for prospective students and drive down the amount of financial aid they would offer, all while giving special preference to the children of wealthy donors. “That illegal collusion resulted in the defendants providing far less aid to students than would have been provided in a free market,” said Robert Gilbert, an attorney for the plaintiffs. Since the lawsuit was filed, 10 of the schools have reached settlements to pay out a total of $284 million, including payments of up to $2,000 to current or former students whose financial aid might have been shortchanged over a period of more than two decades. They are Brown, the University of Chicago, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt and Yale. Johns Hopkins is working on a settlement and the six schools still fighting the lawsuit are the California Institute of Technology, Cornell, Georgetown, MIT, Notre Dame and the University of Pennsylvania. MIT called the lawsuit and the claims about admissions favoritism baseless. “MIT has no history of wealth favoritism in its admissions; quite the opposite,” university spokesperson Kimberly Allen said. “After years of discovery in which millions of documents were produced that provide an overwhelming record of independence in our admissions process, plaintiffs could cite just a single instance in which the recommendation of a board member helped sway the decisions for two undergraduate applicants." In a statement, Penn also said the case is meritless that the evidence shows that it doesn't favor students whose families have donated or pledged money to the Ivy League school. “Plaintiffs’ whole case is an attempt to embarrass the University about its purported admission practices on issues totally unrelated to this case," the school said. Notre Dame officials also called the case baseless. “We are confident that every student admitted to Notre Dame is fully qualified and ready to succeed,” a university spokesperson said in a statement. The South Bend, Indiana, school, though, did apparently admit wealthy students with subpar academic backgrounds. According to the new court filings, Don Bishop, who was then associate vice president for enrollment at Notre Dame, bluntly wrote about the “special interest” admits in a 2012 email, saying that year's crop had poorer academic records than the previous year's. The 2012 group included 38 applicants who were given a “very low” academic rating, Bishop wrote. He said those students represented “massive allowances to the power of the family connections and funding history,” adding that “we allowed their high gifting or potential gifting to influence our choices more this year than last year.” The final line of his email: “Sure hope the wealthy next year raise a few more smart kids!” Some of the examples pointed to in this week's court filings showed that just being able to pay full tuition would give students an advantage. During a deposition, a former Vanderbilt admissions director said that in some cases, a student would get an edge on the waitlist if they didn’t need financial aid. The 17 schools were part of a decades-old group that got permission from Congress to come up with a shared approach to awarding financial aid. Such an arrangement might otherwise violate antitrust laws, but Congress allowed it as long as the colleges all had need-blind admissions policies, meaning they wouldn't consider a student’s financial situation when deciding who gets in. The lawsuit argues that many colleges claimed to be need-blind but routinely favored the children of alumni and donors. In doing so, the suit says, the colleges violated the Congressional exemption and tainted the entire organization. The group dissolved in recent years when the provision allowing the collaboration expired.Autonomous vehicle technology and electrification startups were once the darlings of the VC and corporate world. The two technologies promised billions of dollars in revenue — and a new pathway for automakers to make money beyond building and selling cars. Autonomous vehicle technology and electrification startups were once the darlings of the VC and corporate world. The two technologies promised billions of dollars in revenue — and a new pathway for automakers to make money beyond building and selling cars.

Vibration Table Market Outlook and Future Projections for 2030

Qatar National Archives is participating with a distinguished pavilion in Darb Al Saai as part of the agency's commitment to enhancing community awareness of the importance of national archives and their role in documenting the country's history and connecting new generations with its national heritage. The agency opened its pavilion Wednesday in the presence of HE Sheikh Abdulrahman bin Hamad al-Thani, Minister of Culture, HE Ghanem bin Shaheen al Ghanem, Minister of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, Mohammed bin Ali al-Mannai, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, HE Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud, former Speaker of the Shura Council, HE Abdullah bin Khalifa al-Attiyah, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Qatar National Archives, HE Abdulaziz bin Nasser bin Mubarak al-Khalifa, President of the Civil Service Bureau and Government Development, Secretary-General of the National Planning Council, HE Dr Hassan al-Derham, former president of Qatar University, and a number of Their Excellencies the ambassadors accredited to Qatar. The Qatar National Archives presented a comprehensive vision of the importance of documents in preserving the national identity. The pavilion offers a unique experience for visitors, through a virtual journey that takes them between prominent stages in Qatar's history using the latest digital technologies. Activities in the pavilion include a mural that highlights statistics on the urban and population renaissance in Qatar, in addition to a collection of rare documents that shed light on the stages of the country’s development throughout the ages. The pavilion also offers educational and interactive programmes for children, such as the “Play and Learn with Dar” competition, which combines entertainment and education, and the “Bishtakhta Dar” competition (Bishtakhta is an old term of non-Arabic origin, means gramaphone) which encourages children to explore documents in an innovative and fun way. One of the most prominent activities of the National Archives at Darb Al Saai is the co-operation with the Center for Empowerment and Elderly Care (Ehsan), with the attendance of prominent figures as guests of honour at the National Archives’ pavilion, due to the importance of their distinguished role, and as one of the most important pillars of society on which the national identity is built. In this regard, Dr Ahmed Abdullah al-Buainain, Secretary-General of the Qatar National Archives, stated: “Our first participation in Darb Al Saai reflects the commitment of the Qatar National Archives to protect the documentary heritage of Qatar as a fundamental pillar of the national identity. Through this initiative, we seek to build sustainable awareness of the importance of documents as a strategic tool for understanding our present and documenting our past which supports the national development process and enhances our vision to achieve the goals of Qatar National Vision 2030. This participation is not just a celebration of the National Day, but rather a step towards enhancing the role of documents in preserving the nation’s memory and building a sustainable future.” The activities of the Qatar National Archives also include presenting a working paper titled “Qatar Statistics in the Ottoman Archives,” which sheds light on rare historical sources that provide accurate data about Qatar during the early stages of its history. Related Story ADLQ annual symposium concludes Hisense unveils new brand store in QatarElmo To Sesame Street: DOGE's Tax Cut Plan Could End Several Beloved ShowsThis is Day 2 and the wrap-up of our run-through of President-elect Donald Trump’s weekend interview with “Meet the Press” to show how he is previewing upcoming fights with Congress and U.S. allies. We’re also highlighting important or overlooked details about those disputes. This requires a (short) history lesson. Since his presidential campaign in 2016 – with roots stretching back even further – Trump has complained that NATO allies aren’t paying enough and has repeatedly threatened not to defend countries that have not reached the 2% threshold. In February, he said he would encourage Russia to “ do whatever the hell they want ” to those countries. Sign Up for U.S. News Decision Points Your trusted source for breaking down the latest news from Washington and beyond, delivered weekdays. Sign up to receive the latest updates from U.S News & World Report and our trusted partners and sponsors. By clicking submit, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy . On NBC, Trump was asked whether he will stay in NATO. “If they’re paying their bills, and if I think ... they’re treating us fairly, the answer is absolutely I’d stay with NATO,” he replied. Set aside that this has nothing to do with “bills” or, as he has said before, “dues.” Trump, ever the transactionalist, is serving up his amped-up version of a long-standing American complaint. No single figure has worked harder to turn around the image of the Capitol rioters than Trump. On Jan. 6, 2021, most Americans were repulsed by images of the rioters savagely beating Capitol police, ransacking the building and interrupting the peaceful ratification of President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. They later recoiled at accounts of rioters smearing feces and blood inside. Even some of Trump’s most stalwart allies denounced the attack . But in the 2024 campaign, the president-elect lionized the rioters – or, to be clearer, praised people willing to carry out political violence on his behalf. He has called the riot “a day of love.” He has played a version of the national anthem sung by jailed rioters and called participants “patriots.” He has described them as political prisoners. And he has said he’ll make pardoning rioters one of his first orders of business. On NBC, Trump said the rioters who beat Capitol police “had no choice.” He also said he would be looking on his “first day” at pardoning riot participants. Pardons would generate an explosion of outrage, but the Constitution vests the president with vast power on that front. There’s no obvious path for Democrats – who are in the minority in the House and Senate – to do anything concrete. It’s also unclear whether congressional Republicans have the stomach to defend such a decision. So Trump may conceivably face a two-front conflict here – but will most likely meet little resistance beyond the rhetoric.

President of theRepublic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has signed a decree to grantone-time financial assistance to private national television andradio broadcasters in Azerbaijan, reports. Under the decree, the Azerbaijani Audiovisual Council has beenallocated 2.5 million manat ($1.4 million) from the President’sreserve fund, which is included in the state budget for 2024. Theallocated funds will provide additional support to private nationalbroadcasters operating in Azerbaijan to facilitate theirbroadcasting through telecommunications satellites and othermeans. The Ministry of Finance of Azerbaijan is responsible forensuring the funding as specified in the decree.