FOUR players from the Emerald Isle will be playing on the PGA Tour in 2025. Rory McIlroy , Shane Lowry and Seamus Power will be joined by Tom McKibbin on the US based tour for the upcoming season. Holywood native McKibbin earned his status after claiming the final tour card in the DP World Tour end-of-season order of merit. Four-time major winner McIlroy and his Ryder Cup team-mate Shane Lowry, finished T9 in the 2024 Fedex Cup standings. Waterford ace Power had a mediocre season after numerous injuries halted his momentum after a decent start to the 2024 calendar year. The 2025 campaign also sees the launch of Tiger Woods and Rory Mc Ilroy's high-tech TGL golf league - separate from the PGA Tour. The full list of the four majors has been confirmed too, there will also be eight Signature tournaments on the PGA Tour's rota. And the first tournament of the season will see Kapalua play host to the first elevated event of the year with a $20 million purse up for grabs in Hawaii. The season gets underway in just two weeks time. Sunsport delves into the dates, purse and past winners ahead of the new season that is sure to be an exciting one. JAN 2 - 5 The Sentry Plantation Course at Kapalua Kapalua, Maui, HI • USA Signature Event Purse : $20,000,000 FEDEXCUP : 700 pts Previous Winner : Chris Kirk ($3,600,000) JAN 9 - 12 Sony Open in Hawaii Waialae Country Club Honolulu, HI • USA Purse : $8,700,000 FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Grayson Murray ($1,494,000) JAN 16 - 19 The American Express Pete Dye Stadium Course La Quinta, CA • USA Purse : $8,800,000 FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Nick Dunlap JAN 22 - 25 Farmers Insurance Open Torrey Pines Golf Course (South Course) San Diego, CA • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Matthieu Pavon ($1,620,000) JAN 30 - FEB 2 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Pebble Beach Golf Links Pebble Beach, CA • USA Signature Event Purse : $20,000,000 FEDEXCUP : 700 pts Previous Winner : Wyndham Clark ($3,600,000) FEB 6 - 9 WM Phoenix Open TPC Scottsdale (Stadium Course) Scottsdale, AZ • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Nick Taylor ($1,584,000) FEB 13 - 16 The Genesis Invitational The Riviera Country Club Pacific Palisades, CA • USA Signature Event Purse : $20,000,000 FEDEXCUP : 700 pts Previous Winner : Hideki Matsuyama ($4,000,000) FEB 20 - 23 Mexico Open at VidantaWorld VidantaWorld Vallarta • MEX Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Jake Knapp ($1,458,000) FEB 27 - MAR 2 Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches PGA National Resort (The Champion Course) Palm Beach Gardens, FL • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Austin Eckroat ($1,620,000) MAR 6 - 9 Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill Club & Lodge Orlando, FL • USA Signature Event Purse : $20,000,000 FEDEXCUP : 700 pts Previous Winner : Scottie Scheffler ($4,000,000) MAR 13 - 16 THE PLAYERS Championship TPC Sawgrass (THE PLAYERS Stadium Course) Ponte Vedra Beach, FL • USA Purse : $25,000,000 FEDEXCUP : 750 pts Previous Winner : Scottie Scheffler ($4,500,000) MAR 20 - 23 Valspar Championship Innisbrook Resort (Copperhead Course) Palm Harbor, FL • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Peter Malnati ($1,512,000) MAR 27 - 30 Texas Children's Houston Open Memorial Park Golf Course Houston, TX • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Stephan Jaeger ($1,638,000) APR 3 - 6 Valero Texas Open TPC San Antonio (Oaks Course) San Antonio, TX • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Akshay Bhatia ($1,656,000) APR 10 - 13 Masters Tournament Augusta National Golf Club Augusta, GA • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 750 pts Previous Winner : Scottie Scheffler ($3,600,000) APR 17 - 20 RBC Heritage Harbour Town Golf Links Hilton Head Island, SC • USA Signature Event Purse : $20,000,000 FEDEXCUP : 700 pts Previous Winner : Scottie Scheffler ($3,600,000) APR 24 - 27 Zurich Classic of New Orleans TPC Louisiana Avondale, LA • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 400 pts Previous Winner : Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry ($1,286,050) MAY 1 - 4 THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson TPC Craig Ranch McKinney, TX • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Taylor Pendrith ($1,710,000) MAY 8 - 11 Truist Championship The Philadelphia Cricket Club (Wissahickon Course) Philadelphia, PA • USA Signature Event Purse : $20,000,000 FEDEXCUP : 700 pts Previous Winner : Rory McIlroy ($3,600,000) MAY 8 - 11 Myrtle Beach Classic Dunes Golf and Beach Club Myrtle Beach, SC • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 300 pts Previous Winner : Chris Gotterup ($720,000) MAY 15 - 18 PGA Championship Quail Hollow Club Charlotte, NC • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 750 pts Previous Winner : Xander Schauffele ($3,330,000) MAY 22 - 25 Charles Schwab Challenge Colonial Country Club Fort Worth, TX • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Davis Riley ($1,638,000) MAY 29 - JUN 1 The Memorial Tournament presented by Workday Muirfield Village Golf Club Dublin, OH • USA Signature Event Purse : $20,000,000 FEDEXCUP : 700 pts Previous Winner : Scottie Scheffler ($4,000,000) JUN 5 - 8 RBC Canadian Open TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley (North Course) Caledon, Ontario • CAN Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Robert MacIntyre ($1,692,000) JUN 12 - 15 U.S. Open Oakmont Country Club Oakmont, PA • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 750 pts Previous Winner : Bryson DeChambeau ($4,300,000) JUN 19 - 22 Travelers Championship TPC River Highlands Cromwell, CT • USA Signature Event Purse : $20,000,000 FEDEXCUP : 700 pts Previous Winner : Scottie Scheffler ($3,600,000) JUN 26 - 29 Rocket Mortgage Classic Detroit Golf Club Detroit, MI • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Cam Davis ($1,656,000) JUL 3 - 6 John Deere Classic TPC Deere Run Silvis, IL • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Davis Thompson ($1,440,000) JUL 10 - 13 Genesis Scottish Open The Renaissance Club North Berwick • SCO Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Robert MacIntyre ($1,575,000) JUL 17 - 20 The Open Championship Royal Portrush Golf Club Portrush • NIR Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 750 pts Previous Winner : Xander Schauffele ($3,100,000) JUL 24 - 27 3M Open TPC Twin Cities Blaine, MN • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Jhonattan Vegas ($1,458,000) JUL 31 - AUG 3 Wyndham Championship Sedgefield Country Club Greensboro, NC • USA Purse : - FEDEXCUP : 500 pts Previous Winner : Aaron Rai ($1,422,000) AUG 7 - 10 FedEx St. Jude Championship TPC Southwind Memphis, TN • USA Purse : $20,000,000 FEDEXCUP : 2,000 pts Previous Winner : Hideki Matsuyama ($3,600,000) AUG 14 - 17 BMW Championship Caves Valley Golf Club Owings Mills, MD • USA Purse : $20,000,000 FEDEXCUP : 2,000 pts Previous Winner : Keegan Bradley ($3,600,000) AUG 21 - 24 TOUR Championship East Lake Golf Club Atlanta, GA • USA Purse : - Previous Winner : Scottie Scheffler SEP 11 - 14 Procore Championship Silverado Resort (North Course) Napa, CA • USA Purse : $6,000,000 FEDEXCUP FALL PTS : 500 pts Previous Winner : Patton Kizzire ($1,080,000) SEP 26 - 28 Ryder Cup Bethpage State Park (Black) Farmingdale, NY • USA Purse : - Previous Winner : Europe OCT 2 - 5 Sanderson Farms Championship The Country Club of Jackson Jackson, MS • USA Purse : $6,000,000 FEDEXCUP FALL PTS : 500 pts Previous Winner : Kevin Yu ($1,368,000) OCT 9 - 12 Baycurrent Classic Yokohama Country Club Yokohama • JPN Purse : $8,500,000 FEDEXCUP FALL PTS : 500 pts Previous Winner : Nico Echavarria ($1,530,000) OCT 23 - 26 Black Desert Championship Black Desert Resort Ivins, UT • USA Purse : $6,000,000 FEDEXCUP FALL PTS : 500 pts Previous Winner : Matt McCarty ($1,350,000) NOV 6 - 9 World Wide Technology Championship El Cardonal at Diamante Los Cabos • MEX Purse : $6,000,000 FEDEXCUP FALL PTS : 500 pts Previous Winner : Austin Eckroat ($1,296,000) NOV 13 - 16 Butterfield Bermuda Championship Port Royal Golf Course Southampton • BER Purse : $6,000,000 FEDEXCUP FALL PTS : 500 pts Previous Winner : Rafael Campos ($1,242,000) NOV 20 - 23 The RSM Classic Sea Island Golf Club (Seaside Course) St. Simons Island, GA • USA Purse : $6,000,000 FEDEXCUP FALL PTS : 500 pts Previous Winner : Maverick McNealy ($1,368,000) DEC 4 - 7 Hero World Challenge Albany GC Albany • BAH Purse : $5,000,000 Previous Winner : Scottie Scheffler ($1,000,000) DEC 12 - 14 Grant Thornton Invitational Tiburón Golf Club Naples, FL • USA Purse : $4,000,000 Previous Winner : Jake Knapp, Patty Tavatanakit ($500,000)NBC Sports enters Madden video game universe with alternate broadcast on Peacock
NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump’s recent dinner with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his visit to Paris for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral were not just exercises in policy and diplomacy. They were also prime trolling opportunities for Trump. Throughout his first term in the White House and during his campaign to return, Trump has spun out countless provocative, antagonizing and mocking statements. There were his belittling nicknames for political opponents, his impressions of other political figures and the plentiful memes he shared on social media. Now that's he's preparing to return to the Oval Office, Trump is back at it, and his trolling is attracting more attention — and eyerolls. On Sunday, Trump turned a photo of himself seated near a smiling first lady Jill Biden at the Notre Dame ceremony into a social media promo for his new perfume and cologne line, with the tag line, “A fragrance your enemies can’t resist!” The first lady’s office declined to comment. When Trudeau hastily flew to Florida to meet with Trump last month over the president-elect's threat to impose a 25% tax on all Canadian products entering the U.S., the Republican tossed out the idea that Canada become the 51st U.S. state. The Canadians passed off the comment as a joke, but Trump has continued to play up the dig, including in a post Tuesday morning on his social media network referring to the prime minister as “Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada.” After decades as an entertainer and tabloid fixture, Trump has a flair for the provocative that is aimed at attracting attention and, in his most recent incarnation as a politician, mobilizing fans. He has long relished poking at his opponents, both to demean and minimize them and to delight supporters who share his irreverent comments and posts widely online and cheer for them in person. Trump, to the joy of his fans, first publicly needled Canada on his social media network a week ago when he posted an AI-generated image that showed him standing on a mountain with a Canadian flag next to him and the caption “Oh Canada!” After his latest post, Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Tuesday: “It sounds like we’re living in a episode of South Park." Trudeau said earlier this week that when it comes to Trump, “his approach will often be to challenge people, to destabilize a negotiating partner, to offer uncertainty and even sometimes a bit of chaos into the well established hallways of democracies and institutions and one of the most important things for us to do is not to freak out, not to panic.” Even Thanksgiving dinner isn't a trolling-free zone for Trump's adversaries. On Thanksgiving Day, Trump posted a movie clip from “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” with President Joe Biden and other Democrats’ faces superimposed on the characters in a spoof of the turkey-carving scene. The video shows Trump appearing to explode out of the turkey in a swirl of purple sparks, with the former president stiffly dancing to one of his favorite songs, Village People’s “Y.M.C.A." In his most recent presidential campaign, Trump mocked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, refusing to call his GOP primary opponent by his real name and instead dubbing him “Ron DeSanctimonious.” He added, for good measure, in a post on his Truth Social network: “I will never call Ron DeSanctimonious ‘Meatball’ Ron, as the Fake News is insisting I will.” As he campaigned against Biden, Trump taunted him in online posts and with comments and impressions at his rallies, deriding the president over his intellect, his walk, his golf game and even his beach body. After Vice President Kamala Harris took over Biden's spot as the Democratic nominee, Trump repeatedly suggested she never worked at McDonalds while in college. Trump, true to form, turned his mocking into a spectacle by appearing at a Pennsylvania McDonalds in October, when he manned the fries station and held an impromptu news conference from the restaurant drive-thru. Trump’s team thinks people should get a sense of humor. “President Trump is a master at messaging and he’s always relatable to the average person, whereas many media members take themselves too seriously and have no concept of anything else other than suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome,” said Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director. “President Trump will Make America Great Again and we are getting back to a sense of optimism after a tumultuous four years.” Though both the Biden and Harris campaigns created and shared memes and launched other stunts to respond to Trump's taunts, so far America’s neighbors to the north are not taking the bait. “I don’t think we should necessarily look on Truth Social for public policy,” Miller said. Gerald Butts, a former top adviser to Trudeau and a close friend, said Trump brought up the 51st state line to Trudeau repeatedly during Trump’s first term in office. “Oh God,” Butts said Tuesday, “At least a half dozen times.” “This is who he is and what he does. He’s trying to destabilize everybody and make people anxious,” Butts said. “He’s trying to get people on the defensive and anxious and therefore willing to do things they wouldn’t otherwise entertain if they had their wits about them. I don’t know why anybody is surprised by it.” Gillies reported from Toronto. Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
About 5,000 miles west of the Caribbean nation, similar climes awaited Maui Invitational men's teams in Hawaii. They’ve often been greeted with leis, the traditional Hawaiian welcome of friendship. College basketball teams and fans look forward to this time of the year. The holiday week tournaments feature buzzworthy matchups and all-day TV coverage, sure, but there is a familiarity about them as they help ward off the November chill. For four decades, these sandy-beach getaways filled with basketball have become a beloved mainstay of the sport itself. “When you see (ESPN’s) ‘Feast Week’ of college basketball on TV, when you see the Battle 4 Atlantis on TV, you know college basketball is back,” said Miller-Tooley, the founder and organizer of the Battle 4 Atlantis men's and women's tournaments. “Because it’s a saturated time of the year with the NFL, college football and the NBA. But when you see these gorgeous events in these beautiful places, you realize, ‘Wow, hoops are back, let’s get excited.’” MTE Madness The Great Alaska Shootout was the trend-setting multiple-team event (MTE) nearly five decades ago. The brainchild of late Alaska-Anchorage coach Bob Rachal sought to raise his program’s profile by bringing in national-power programs, which could take advantage of NCAA rules allowing them to exceed the maximum allotment of regular-season games if they played the three-game tournament outside the contiguous 48 states. The first edition, named the Sea Wolf Classic, saw N.C. State beat Louisville 72-66 for the title on Nov. 26, 1978. The Maui Invitational followed in November 1984, borne from the buzz of NAIA program Chaminade’s shocking upset of top-ranked Virginia and 7-foot-4 star Ralph Sampson in Hawaii two years earlier. Events kept coming, with warm-weather locales getting in on the action. The Paradise Jam in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Cancun Challenge in Mexico. The Cayman Islands Classic. The Jamaica Classic. The Myrtle Beach Invitational joining the Charleston Classic in South Carolina. Numerous tournaments in Florida. Some events have faded away like the Puerto Rico Tipoff and the Great Alaska Shootout, the latter in 2017 amid event competition and schools opting for warm-weather locales. Atlantis rising Miller-Tooley’s push to build an MTE for Atlantis began as a December 2010 doubleheader with Georgia Tech beating Richmond and Virginia Tech beating Mississippi State in a prove-it moment for a tournament’s viability. It also required changing NCAA legislation to permit MTEs in the Bahamas. Approval came in March 2011; the first eight-team Atlantis men’s tournament followed in November. That tournament quickly earned marquee status with big-name fields, with Atlantis champions Villanova (2017) and Virginia (2018) later winning that season’s NCAA title. Games run in a ballroom-turned-arena at the resort, where players also check out massive swimming pools, water slides and inner-tube rapids surrounded by palm trees and the Atlantic Ocean. “It’s just the value of getting your passport stamped, that will never get old,” Miller-Tooley said. “Watching some of these kids, this may be their first and last time – and staff and families – that they ever travel outside the United States. ... You can see through these kids’ eyes that it’s really an unbelievable experience.” ACC Network analyst Luke Hancock knows that firsthand. His Louisville team finished second at Atlantis in 2012 and won that year’s later-vacated NCAA title, with Hancock as the Final Four's most outstanding player. “I remember (then-coach Rick Pitino) saying something to the effect of: ‘Some of you guys might never get this opportunity again. We’re staying in this unbelievable place, you’re doing it with people you love,’” Hancock said. “It was a business trip for us there at Thanksgiving, but he definitely had a tone of ‘We’ve got to enjoy this as well.’” Popular demand Maui offers similar vibes, though 2024 could be a little different as Lahaina recovers from deadly 2023 wildfires that forced the event's relocation last year. North Carolina assistant coach Sean May played for the Tar Heels’ Maui winner in 2004 and was part of UNC’s staff for the 2016 champion, with both teams later winning the NCAA title. May said “you just feel the peacefulness” of the area — even while focusing on games — and savors memories of the team taking a boat out on the Pacific Ocean after title runs under now-retired Hall of Famer Roy Williams. “Teams like us, Dukes, UConns – you want to go to places that are very well-run,” May said. “Maui, Lea Miller with her group at the Battle 4 Atlantis, that’s what drives teams to come back because you know you’re going to get standard A-quality of not only the preparation but the tournament with the way it’s run. Everything is top-notch. And I think that brings guys back year after year.” That’s why Colorado coach Tad Boyle is so excited for the Buffaloes’ first Maui appearance since 2009. “We’ve been trying to get in the tournament since I got here,” said Boyle, now in his 15th season. And of course, that warm-weather setting sure doesn’t hurt. “If you talk about the Marquettes of the world, St. John’s, Providence – they don’t want that cold weather,” said NBA and college TV analyst Terrence Oglesby, who played for Clemson in the 2007 San Juan Invitational in Puerto Rico. “They’re going to have to deal with that all January and February. You might as well get a taste of what the sun feels like.” Packed schedule The men’s Baha Mar Championship in Nassau, Bahamas, got things rolling last week with No. 11 Tennessee routing No. 13 Baylor for the title. The week ahead could boast matchups befitting the Final Four, with teams having two weeks of action since any opening-night hiccups. “It’s a special kickoff to the college basketball season,” Oglesby said. “It’s just without the rust.” On the women’s side, Atlantis began its fourth eight-team women’s tournament Saturday with No. 16 North Carolina and No. 18 Baylor, while the nearby Baha Mar resort follows with two four-team women’s brackets that include No. 2 UConn, No. 7 LSU, No. 17 Mississippi and No. 20 N.C. State. Then come the men’s headliners. The Maui Invitational turns 40 as it opens Monday back in Lahaina. It features second-ranked and two-time reigning national champion UConn, No. 4 Auburn, No. 5 Iowa State and No. 10 North Carolina. The Battle 4 Atlantis opens its 13th men’s tournament Wednesday, topped by No. 3 Gonzaga, No. 16 Indiana and No. 17 Arizona. Michigan State Hall of Famer Tom Izzo is making his fourth trip to Maui, where he debuted as Jud Heathcote’s successor at the 1995 tournament. Izzo's Spartans have twice competed at Atlantis, last in 2021. “They’re important because they give you something in November or December that is exciting,” Izzo said. Any drawbacks? “It’s a 10-hour flight,” he said of Hawaii.
Amazon and Starbucks workers are on strike. Trump might have something to do with it Amazon delivery drivers and Starbucks baristas are on strike in a handful of U.S. cities as they seek to exert pressure on the two major companies to recognize them as unionized employees or to meet demands for an inaugural labor contract. Strikes during busy periods like the holidays can help unions exercise leverage during negotiations or garner support from sympathetic consumers. One expert says he thinks workers at both companies are “desperate” to make progress before President-elect Donald Trump can appoint a Republican majority to the National Labor Relations Board. Workers at Starbucks, Amazon and some other prominent consumer brands are fighting for their first contracts after several locations voted to unionize. Bluesky finds with growth comes growing pains — and bots Bluesky has seen its user base soar since the U.S. presidential election, boosted by people seeking refuge from Elon Musk’s X, or wanting an alternative to Meta’s Threads and its algorithms. The platform grew out of the company then known as Twitter and was eventually intended to replace it. While this is still very much a pie in the sky, Bluesky’s growth trajectory could make it a serious competitor to other social platforms. With growth, though, comes growing pains. It’s not just human users who’ve been flocking to Bluesky but also bots, including those designed to create partisan division or direct users to junk websites. Farmers are still reeling months after Hurricane Helene ravaged crops across the South LYONS, Ga. (AP) — Farmers in Georgia are still reeling more than two months after Hurricane Helene blew away cotton, destroyed ripened squash and cucumbers and uprooted pecan trees and timber. Agribusinesses in other Southern states saw costly damage as well. The University of Georgia estimates the September storm inflicted $5.5 billion in direct losses and indirect costs in Georgia alone. In rural Toombs County, Chris Hopkins just finished harvesting his ravaged cotton crop and figures he lost half of it, costing him about $430,000. Poultry grower Jeffrey Pridgen in Georgia's Coffee County had four of his 12 chicken houses destroyed and others badly damaged. Farmers say more government disaster assistance is needed. Ex-OpenAI engineer who raised legal concerns about the technology he helped build has died Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT and later said he believed those practices violated copyright law, has died, according to his parents and San Francisco officials. He was 26. He was well-regarded by colleagues at the San Francisco company, where a co-founder this week called him one of OpenAI’s strongest contributors who was essential to developing some of its products. But he grew disillusioned with the company and told The Associated Press this fall he would “try to testify” in copyright infringement cases against it. Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge shows price pressures eased last month WASHINGTON (AP) — An inflation gauge that is closely watched by the Federal Reserve barely rose last month in a sign that price pressures cooled after two months of sharp gains. Prices rose just 0.1% from October to November. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, prices also ticked up just 0.1%, after two months of outsize 0.3% gains. The milder inflation figures arrived two days after Federal Reserve officials, led by Chair Jerome Powell, rocked financial markets by revealing that they now expect to cut their key interest rate just two times in 2025, down from four in their previous estimate. Albania to close TikTok for a year blaming it for promoting violence among children TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albania’s prime minister says the government will shut down video service TikTok for one year, blaming it for inciting violence and bullying, especially among children. Albanian authorities held 1,300 meetings with teachers and parents following the stabbing death of a teenager in mid-November by another teenager following a quarrel that started on TikTok. Prime Minister Edi Rama, speaking at a meeting with teachers and parents, said TikTok “would be fully closed for all. ... There will be no TikTok in the Republic of Albania.” Rama says the ban will begin sometime next year. Albanian children comprise the largest group of TikTok users in the country, according to domestic researchers. Stock market today: Wall Street rises to turn a dismal week into just a bad one NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks rose to turn what would have been one of the market’s worst weeks of the year into just a pretty bad one. The S&P 500 rallied 1.1% Friday to shave its loss for the week down to 2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped nearly 500 points, and the Nasdaq composite gained 1%. A report said a measure of inflation the Federal Reserve likes to use was slightly lower last month than expected. It’s an encouraging signal after the Fed shocked markets Wednesday by saying worries about inflation could keep it from cutting interest rates in 2025 as much as earlier thought. Starbucks workers begin strikes that could spread to hundreds of US stores by Christmas Eve Workers at U.S. Starbucks stores have begun a five-day strike to protest a lack of progress in contract negotiations with the company. The strikes began in Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle and could spread to hundreds of stores across the country by Christmas Eve. Workers at 535 of the 10,000 company-owned Starbucks stores in the U.S. have voted to unionize. The Starbucks Workers United union accuses the Seattle-based coffeehouse chain of failing to honor a commitment made in February to reach a labor agreement this year. Starbucks says the union prematurely left the bargaining table this week. It said Friday there's been no significant impact to store operations. It's beginning to look like another record for holiday travel Drivers and airline passengers without reindeer and sleighs better make a dash for it: it’s beginning to look like another record for holiday travel in the U.S. The auto club AAA predicts that more than 119 million people will travel at least 50 miles from home between Saturday and New Year’s Day. The two weekends on either side of Christmas are tempting a lot of people to head out earlier. U.S. airlines expect to have their busiest days to be Friday and Sunday this week and next Thursday, Friday and Sunday. A government shutdown that could start as soon as Saturday was not expected to immediately affect flights and airport operations. Amazon workers are striking at multiple facilities. Here's what you should know Amazon workers affiliated with the Teamsters union are on strike for a second day at seven of the company’s delivery hubs just days before Christmas. At midnight on Saturday, the Teamsters say workers at a prominent unionized warehouse in New York will also join. The union has not indicated how many employees were participating in the walkout or when it will end. The Teamsters say the workers were continuing their strike on Friday after Amazon ignored a Sunday deadline the union had set for contract negotiations. The company says it doesn’t expect the strikes taking place in Southern California, San Francisco, New York City, Atlanta, and Skokie, Illinois, to impact holiday shipments.
From Maui to the Caribbean, Thanksgiving tournaments a beloved part of college basketballAndrew Hammond Christmas holidays tend to be a time of joy for many families around the world. However, this year’s festivities will also be tinged with great sadness for many as the world on Thursday (Dec. 26) marks the 20th anniversary of the devastating Boxing Day Tsunami. Two decades on from the deadly waves, caused by a massive earthquake, that caused devastation in countries with Indian Ocean coastlines, scientific advances have improved our ability to forecast and provide warnings of dangerous tsunamis. However, the economic and wider human costs of such natural catastrophes can never be completely eliminated. This was illustrated, for example, by the concern caused by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake this month about 55 miles off the coast of Eureka in California. The effects were felt from San Francisco to southern Oregon, sparking a tsunami warning affecting millions of residents. The alert was later canceled. Tsunami warnings are relatively rare on the US West Coast but still more common than elsewhere in the country. However, some scientists predict the area might be overdue for a massive quake, and resulting tsunami, in the Cascadia Subduction Zone, an 1,100 km offshore fault that runs from northern California to southern British Columbia, and/or the San Andreas fault, which runs for 1,200 km through California. Some scientists refer to this potentially huge natural disaster as “The Big One,” defined as an earthquake of magnitude 8.0 or higher on the Richter scale. Such an event could cause hundreds of billions of dollars of damage, and tens of thousands of deaths and injuries at the very least. But even a disaster of that magnitude might still be dwarfed by the devastation caused by the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami in the Indian Ocean. According to the EM-DAT global disaster database, it killed a total of 226,408 people in more than a dozen countries, and more than 1.5 million people were displaced. The magnitude 9.1 earthquake that caused the tsunami was one of the biggest the world had seen since 1900. The epicenter was off the western coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It was the longest fault line rupture ever observed, as the ocean floor opened up along a distance of at least 1,200 km between the India plate and Burma microplate. The earthquake triggered the largest tsunami in the Indian Ocean for more than 700 years. The amount of energy it released was estimated to be equivalent to about 23,000 Hiroshima bombs. The huge waves it created, some more than 30 meters high, swept into several coastal nations, including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. Twenty years on, the silver lining amid the sadness of the upcoming anniversary is that our understanding of tsunami risks is now better. This means better forecasting, more effective warnings, and improved disaster-resistant construction techniques for more-resilient infrastructure. In terms of warning systems, there were none in place in the Indian Ocean region in 2004. The picture has changed since then, with a regional system in place as part of an approximately 1,400-strong network around the world that generally reduces the delay in issuing a warning after a tsunami forms to just minutes. Even with such improved warning systems, some communities still might not receive the alert in time. Indeed, had the present-day Indian Ocean warning system been in place in 2004, it is not certain it would have helped many of those among the first hit by the tsunami, especially in poorer communities lacking the benefit of modern digital technologies. In part, this is why a significant proportion of tsunami casualties tend to happen before any official or technically based warnings can be delivered. This differs from some other natural hazards, such as hurricanes, which can be predicted further in advance and tend to cause fewer casualties. However, for people more distant from the origin point of a tsunami, warnings can be very effective, including those transmitted through community communications. These can save many lives, with a key factor in success being the distribution of data rapidly, transparently, and hyper-locally, so that it is available in the best form, in the right place and as quickly as possible. As warning systems improve, there are continuing debates about the enhanced exchange of data. This places an increasing amount of weight on improved forecasts. Such methods of predicting earthquakes in advance were once thought to be impossible, owing to the difficulty of calculating the motion of rocky mantle flows beneath the earth’s crust. Thanks to increasingly sophisticated algorithms, however, it might now be possible to model this underground activity in more effective ways by creating a model of fault lines, consisting of millions of underground grid points, to ascertain where the underground stresses are strongest. This is a potential indicator of key earthquake trigger points. However, even if forecasting technology and early warnings can fulfill their full longer-term potential, there is still a need for increasingly resilient infrastructure, given the devastation tsunamis can cause to physical geography. Take the example of the province of Aceh in Indonesia, one of the areas worst-hit by the 2004 tsunami. Hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed and about 3,000 hectares of land were washed away, destroying infrastructure such as roads, ports, and bridges. More than 100,000 houses have been rebuilt there, according to the Indonesian government. In this context, a key goal for engineers and community planners is to build increasingly tsunami-proof structures and plan more-resilient communities. As global warming intensifies, these calculations must also factor in the growing risk from rising sea levels, a threat that is increasing three times faster in tropical seas — including central portions of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and much of the Indian Ocean — where tsunami risks tend to be greatest. All of this underlines the further potential for improved forecasting and earlier warnings of future tsunamis to help make the world a safer place for many people. However, the economic and wider human cost of such terrifying natural hazards can never be eliminated, even with increasingly resilient infrastructure. Courtesy: arabnewsHow to Change the Default Search Engine in Google Chrome
Emboldened by the view from the top of the NFC North, the Detroit Lions are out to eliminate nightmare holiday gatherings when the Chicago Bears come to town Thursday for a lunchtime division duel. The Lions (10-1) are streaking one direction, the Bears (4-7) the other in the first matchup of the season between teams on opposite ends of the division. Riding a nine-game winning streak, their longest since a 10-game streak during their first season in Detroit in 1934, the Lions are burdened by losses in their traditional Thanksgiving Day game the past seven seasons. Three of the defeats are courtesy of Chicago. The Bears and Lions get together for the 20th time on Thanksgiving -- the Bears have 11 wins -- this week in the first of two meetings between the teams in a 25-day span. Detroit goes to Soldier Field on Dec. 22. "I think there's two things," Campbell said of the Thanksgiving losing streak. "Number one -- Get a W. And it's a division win that's why this huge. Number two is because the players are going to get a couple of days off. So, they have family, friends in, it'd be nice to feel good about it when you're with everybody because it's just not real fun. It's not real fun to be around." Detroit (10-1) owns the best record in the NFC but the Lions aren't even assured of a division title. Minnesota sits one game behind them and Green Bay is two games back. The Bears (4-7) sit in last place and would likely need to run the table to have any chance of making the playoffs. The Lions have been dominant in all phases and haven't allowed a touchdown in the past 10 consecutive quarters. Detroit's offense ranks first in points per game (32.7) and second in total yardage (394.3) The Lions defense has not given up a touchdown in the last 10 quarters. Rookie placekicker Jake Bates has made all 16 of his field goal attempts, including four from 50-plus yards over the past three games. Chicago shows up in a foul mood. The Bears are saddled with a five-game losing streak and Chicago's defense has been destroyed for nearly 2,000 total yards in the last four games. The Bears failed to reach the 20-point mark four times in five outings since they last won a game. In their latest defeat, rookie quarterback Caleb Williams and the offense perked up but they lost to Minnesota in overtime, 30-27. "We have to play complementary football for us to be able to win these games," coach Matt Eberflus said. "The games we have won, we have done that. The games we have been close we've missed the mark a little bit. Over the course of the year, it's been one side or the other, this side or that side. In this league you have to be good on all sides to win. That's what we are searching for." Williams threw for 340 yards and two touchdowns without an interception. The wide receiver trio of DJ Moore, Keenan Allen and Romeo Odunze combined for 21 receptions and two touchdowns while tight end Cole Kmet caught seven passes. "What I've been impressed with is just how he has grown," Campbell said. "He has grown every game but these last two I really feel like he's taken off and what they're doing with him has been really good for him and he just looks very composed. He doesn't get frazzled, plays pretty fast, and he's an accurate passer, big arm, and he's got some guys that can get open for him." Detroit's banged-up secondary could be susceptible against the Bears' veteran receivers in their bid to pull off an upset on Thursday. The Lions put two defensive backs on injured reserve in the past week and top cornerback Carlton Davis isn't expected to play due to knee and thumb injuries. Detroit offensive tackle Taylor Decker (knee) and top returner Kalif Raymond (foot) are also expected to miss the game, though Campbell expressed optimism that running back David Montgomery (shoulder), formerly of the Bears, would play. Bears safety Elijah Hicks was listed as a DNP for Tuesday's walkthrough. --Field Level Media