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Ice Spice has undergone a pretty dramatic fitness journey as of late, and has taken to social media quite often to show off her weight loss in recent months. Of course, a lot of fans expressed their support for her mission to work on herself, whereas others shared more critical perspectives of her transformation. Folks accused the Bronx femcee of using Ozempic or just hated on her new physique. However, it's clear that she doesn't put much stock into these troll takes, or at least, she has a lot of energy to respond in kind. The "Think U The S**t" hitmaker seemed to clap back via a recent Instagram post. Specifically, it's a meme of a grossed-out Spongebob saying "she mid bro," seemingly commenting on the types of people who criticize Ice Spice's looks . There's nothing like a good meme to rally fans over to your side and engage in some Internet banter in the process. Still, some fan concern could come from more earnest corners, not the blind negativity that she seems to have a particular issue with. But if that were the case, then Spice isn't responding to that genuine worry just yet. Read More: Ice Spice Transforms Into A Playboy Bunny For Halloween Performance Maybe she will one day, but given just how much hate she has to deal with online for much more important reasons, she probably has other priorities in mind. Ice Spice has a big career to sustain and nurture, whether that's through new music or through extracurricular ventures such as her Fortnite collab . While she did receive a lot of negative criticism this year for her musical output, it was also still a massive year for her, and certainly not one that she can't follow up more explosively in 2025. Nevertheless, only time will tell if Ice Spice's star is starting to fade or if it's just now catching its spark. In either case, she will probably continue to ward the haters off and use all the negative attention towards her to her advantage. Sadly, a lot of female rappers have to adopt this strategy to get to the real meat of criticism towards them, not the misogynistic and close-minded perspective that usually overwhelms their online presences. Read More: Ice Spice Shocks Fans With Dramatic New Hair Color

Myles Rice scores 18 to lead Indiana to 77-68 victory over WinthropPLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Newly married and sworn as a Naval officer, left his tiny hometown in 1946 hoping to climb the ranks and see the world. Less than a decade later, the death of his father and namesake, a merchant farmer and local politician who went by “Mr. Earl,” prompted the submariner and his wife, Rosalynn, to return to the rural life of Plains, Georgia, they thought they’d escaped. The lieutenant never would be an admiral. Instead, he became commander in chief. Years after his presidency ended in humbling defeat, he would add a Nobel Peace Prize, awarded not for his White House accomplishments but “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” The life of James Earl Carter Jr., the 39th and longest-lived U.S. president, ended Sunday at the age of 100 where it began: Plains, the town of 600 that fueled his political rise, welcomed him after his fall and sustained him during 40 years of service that redefined what it means to be a former president. With the stubborn confidence of an engineer and an optimism rooted in his Baptist faith, Carter described his motivations in politics and beyond in the same way: an almost missionary zeal to solve problems and improve lives. Carter was raised amid racism, abject poverty and hard rural living — realities that shaped both his deliberate politics and emphasis on human rights. “He always felt a responsibility to help people,” said Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend of Carter's in Plains. “And when he couldn’t make change wherever he was, he decided he had to go higher.” Defying expectations Carter's path, , pitted moral imperatives against political pragmatism; and it defied typical labels of American politics, especially caricatures of one-term presidents as failures. “We shouldn’t judge presidents by how popular they are in their day. That's a very narrow way of assessing them," Carter biographer Jonathan Alter told the Associated Press. “We should judge them by how they changed the country and the world for the better. On that score, Jimmy Carter is not in the first rank of American presidents, but he stands up quite well.” Later in life, Carter conceded that many Americans, even those too young to remember his tenure, judged him ineffective for failing to contain inflation or interest rates, end the energy crisis or quickly bring home American hostages in Iran. He gained admirers instead for his work at The Carter Center — advocating globally for public health, human rights and democracy since 1982 — and the decades he and Rosalynn wore hardhats and swung hammers with Habitat for Humanity. Yet the common view that he was better after the Oval Office than in it annoyed Carter, and his allies relished him living long enough to see historians reassess his presidency. “He doesn’t quite fit in today’s terms” of a left-right, red-blue scoreboard, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the former president multiple times during his own White House bid. At various points in his political career, Carter labeled himself “progressive” or “conservative” — sometimes both at once. His most ambitious health care bill failed — perhaps one of his biggest legislative disappointments — because it didn’t go far enough to suit liberals. Republicans, especially after his 1980 defeat, cast him as a left-wing cartoon. It would be easiest to classify Carter as a centrist, Buttigieg said, “but there’s also something radical about the depth of his commitment to looking after those who are left out of society and out of the economy.” ‘Country come to town’ Indeed, Carter’s legacy is stitched with complexities, contradictions and evolutions — personal and political. The self-styled peacemaker was a war-trained Naval Academy graduate who promised Democratic challenger Ted Kennedy that he’d “kick his ass.” But he campaigned with a call to treat everyone with “respect and compassion and with love.” Carter vowed to restore America’s virtue after the shame of Vietnam and Watergate, and his technocratic, good-government approach didn't suit Republicans who tagged government itself as the problem. It also sometimes put Carter at odds with fellow Democrats. The result still was a notable legislative record, with wins on the environment, education, and mental health care. He dramatically expanded federally protected lands, began deregulating air travel, railroads and trucking, and he put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. As a fiscal hawk, Carter added a relative pittance to the national debt, unlike successors from both parties. Carter nonetheless struggled to make his achievements resonate with the electorate he charmed in 1976. Quoting Bob Dylan and grinning enthusiastically, he had promised voters he would “never tell a lie.” Once in Washington, though, he led like a joyless engineer, insisting his ideas would become reality and he'd be rewarded politically if only he could convince enough people with facts and logic. This served him well at Camp David, where he brokered peace between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Epypt’s Anwar Sadat, an experience that later sparked the idea of The Carter Center in Atlanta. Carter's tenacity helped the center grow to a global force that monitored elections across five continents, enabled his freelance diplomacy and sent public health experts across the developing world. The center’s wins were personal for Carter, who hoped to outlive the last Guinea worm parasite, and nearly did. As president, though, the approach fell short when he urged consumers beleaguered by energy costs to turn down their thermostats. Or when he tried to be the nation’s cheerleader, beseeching Americans to overcome a collective “crisis of confidence.” Republican Ronald Reagan exploited Carter's lecturing tone with a belittling quip in their lone 1980 debate. “There you go again,” the former Hollywood actor said in response to a wonky answer from the sitting president. “The Great Communicator” outpaced Carter in all but six states. Carter later suggested he “tried to do too much, too soon” and mused that he was incompatible with Washington culture: media figures, lobbyists and Georgetown social elites who looked down on the as “country come to town.” A ‘leader of conscience’ on race and class Carter carefully navigated divides on race and class on his way to the Oval Office. , Carter was raised in the mostly Black community of Archery, just outside Plains, by a progressive mother and white supremacist father. Their home had no running water or electricity but the future president still grew up with the relative advantages of a locally prominent, land-owning family in a system of Jim Crow segregation. He wrote of President Franklin Roosevelt’s towering presence and his family’s Democratic Party roots, but his father soured on FDR, and Jimmy Carter never campaigned or governed as a New Deal liberal. He offered himself as a small-town peanut farmer with an understated style, carrying his own luggage, bunking with supporters during his first presidential campaign and always using his nickname. And he began his political career in a whites-only Democratic Party. As private citizens, he and Rosalynn supported integration as early as the 1950s and believed it inevitable. Carter refused to join the White Citizens Council in Plains and spoke out in his Baptist church against denying Black people access to worship services. “This is not my house; this is not your house,” he said in a churchwide meeting, reminding fellow parishioners their sanctuary belonged to God. Yet as the appointed chairman of Sumter County schools he never pushed to desegregate, thinking it impractical after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board decision. And while presidential candidate Carter would hail the 1965 Voting Rights Act, signed by fellow Democrat Lyndon Johnson when Carter was a state senator, there is no record of Carter publicly supporting it at the time. Carter overcame a ballot-stuffing opponent to win his legislative seat, then lost the 1966 governor's race to an arch-segregationist. He won four years later by avoiding explicit mentions of race and campaigning to the right of his rival, who he mocked as “Cufflinks Carl” — the insult of an ascendant politician who never saw himself as part the establishment. Carter’s rural and small-town coalition in 1970 would match any victorious Republican electoral map in 2024. Once elected, though, Carter shocked his white conservative supporters — and landed on the cover of Time magazine — by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” Before making the jump to Washington, Carter befriended the family of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whom he’d never sought out as he eyed the governor’s office. Carter lamented his foot-dragging on school integration as a “mistake.” But he also met, conspicuously, with Alabama's segregationist Gov. George Wallace to accept his primary rival's endorsement ahead of the 1976 Democratic convention. “He very shrewdly took advantage of his own Southerness,” said Amber Roessner, a University of Tennessee professor and expert on Carter’s campaigns. A coalition of Black voters and white moderate Democrats ultimately made Carter the last Democratic presidential nominee to sweep the Deep South. Then, just as he did in Georgia, he used his power in office to appoint more non-whites than all his predecessors had, combined. He once acknowledged “the secret shame” of white Americans who didn’t fight segregation. But he also told Alter that doing more would have sacrificed his political viability – and thus everything he accomplished in office and after. King's daughter, Bernice King, described Carter as wisely “strategic” in winning higher offices to enact change. “He was a leader of conscience,” she said in an interview. Rosalynn was Carter's closest advisor Rosalynn Carter, who at the age of 96, was identified by both husband and wife as the “more political” of the pair; she sat in on Cabinet meetings and urged him to postpone certain priorities, like pressing the Senate to relinquish control of the Panama Canal. “Let that go until the second term,” she would sometimes say. The president, recalled her former aide Kathy Cade, retorted that he was “going to do what’s right” even if “it might cut short the time I have.” Rosalynn held firm, Cade said: “She’d remind him you have to win to govern.” Carter also was the first president to appoint multiple women as Cabinet officers. Yet by his own telling, his career sprouted from chauvinism in the Carters' early marriage: He did not consult Rosalynn when deciding to move back to Plains in 1953 or before launching his state Senate bid a decade later. Many years later, he called it “inconceivable” that he didn’t confer with the woman he described as his “full partner,” at home, in government and at The Carter Center. “We developed a partnership when we were working in the farm supply business, and it continued when Jimmy got involved in politics,” Rosalynn Carter told AP in 2021. So deep was their trust that when Carter remained tethered to the White House in 1980 as 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, it was Rosalynn who campaigned on her husband’s behalf. “I just loved it,” she said, despite the bitterness of defeat. Reevaluating his legacy Fair or not, the label of a disastrous presidency had leading Democrats keep their distance, at least publicly, for many years, but Carter managed to remain relevant, writing books and weighing in on societal challenges. He lamented widening wealth gaps and the influence of money in politics. He voted for democratic socialist Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and later declared that America had devolved from fully functioning democracy to “oligarchy.” Yet looking ahead to 2020, with Sanders running again, Carter warned Democrats not to lest they help re-elect President Donald Trump. Carter scolded the Republican for his serial lies and threats to democracy, and chided the U.S. establishment for misunderstanding Trump’s populist appeal. He delighted in yearly convocations with Emory University freshmen, often asking them to guess how much he’d raised in his two general election campaigns. “Zero,” he’d gesture with a smile, explaining the public financing system candidates now avoid so they can raise billions. Carter still remained quite practical in partnering with wealthy corporations and foundations to advance Carter Center programs. Carter recognized that economic woes and the Iran crisis doomed his presidency, but offered no apologies for appointing Paul Volcker as the Federal Reserve chairman whose interest rate hikes would not curb inflation until Reagan's presidency. He was proud of getting all the hostages home without starting a shooting war, even though Tehran would not free them until Reagan's Inauguration Day. “Carter didn’t look at it” as a failure, Alter emphasized. “He said, ‘They came home safely.’ And that’s what he wanted.” Well into their 90s, the Carters greeted visitors at Plains’ Maranatha Baptist Church, where he taught Sunday School and where he will have his last funeral before being buried on . Carter, who made the congregation’s collection plates in his woodworking shop, still garnered headlines there, calling for women’s rights within religious institutions, many of which, he said, “subjugate” women in church and society. Carter was not one to dwell on regrets. “I am at peace with the accomplishments, regret the unrealized goals and utilize my former political position to enhance everything we do,” he wrote around his 90th birthday. Pilgrimages to Plains The politician who had supposedly hated Washington politics also enjoyed hosting Democratic presidential contenders as again. Carter sat with Buttigieg for the final time March 1, 2020, hours before the Indiana mayor ended his campaign and endorsed eventual winner Joe Biden. “He asked me how I thought the campaign was going,” Buttigieg said, recalling that Carter flashed his signature grin and nodded along as the young candidate, born a year after Carter left office, “put the best face” on the walloping he endured the day before in South Carolina. Never breaking his smile, the 95-year-old host fired back, “I think you ought to drop out.” “So matter of fact,” Buttigieg said with a laugh. “It was somehow encouraging.” Carter had lived enough, won plenty and lost enough to take the long view. “He talked a lot about coming from nowhere,” Buttigieg said, not just to attain the presidency but to leverage “all of the instruments you have in life” and “make the world more peaceful.” In his farewell address as president, Carter said as much to the country that had embraced and rejected him. “The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language,” he declared. “Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity and who suffer for the sake of justice — they are the patriots of this cause.” Carter pledged to remain engaged with and for them as he returned “home to the South where I was born and raised,” home to Plains, where that young lieutenant had indeed become “a fellow citizen of the world.” —- Bill Barrow, based in Atlanta, has covered national politics including multiple presidential campaigns for the AP since 2012. 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Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. A sunny day, 29 degrees, a gentle north-westerly breeze: flying conditions were near perfect as Qantas flight 520 began rolling down the runway at Sydney Airport en route to Brisbane. This particular plane, a Boeing 737-800, had been delivered new to the national carrier in November 2005 and given the tail number VH-VYH. A dependable workhorse, it had scooted up and down Australia’s east coast, mostly, for 19 years without notable incident. On this day, November 8, 2024, the Boeing had already made three trips, the first a breakfast run out of Sydney just before 7am. It was now setting off for the return leg to Brisbane. QF520 left the gate around 12.15pm and taxied to its slot in the take-off line-up, from where it was given the go-ahead. Its pilots hit the gas and the engines bellowed. It soon reached 200km/h and passed what aviators call “V1”: the point at which a plane is travelling too quickly to safely abort take-off. Exactly what happened next is now in the hands of safety investigators. What we do know is that, as the 737 was still gathering speed down the runway, one of its two engines suddenly destroyed itself . It failed, spitting fragments of superheated metal out of its exhaust chute, which shot to the ground, sparking a grassfire that soon made TV news. Some 40 per cent of air travellers report some fear of flying. Yet air travel is by far the safest form of transport, we’re often told. It’s heavily regulated, constantly scrutinised and, in Australia, operated and overseen by thousands of highly trained and dedicated professionals. The statistics confirm it. Australia’s safety record for commercial travel is exemplary: no large jet has ever been lost here. Our oldest airline, Qantas, regularly tops world safety rankings . Yet incidents still happen. Planes bump into each other on the ground. Tyres burst. Turbulence flings people around. Why do things still go wrong, albeit occasionally? Who is responsible for keeping us safe in the air? And what happens when that rarest of event occurs: one of your two engines goes “pop”? The cockpit front windows of a 747 jet. Credit: Getty Images, digitally tinted Who keeps us safe in the air? Flores, a tropical island about an hour’s flight east of Bali, is best known for three things: clear-water scuba diving, komodo dragons that can weigh more than 100 kilograms, and volcanoes, some picturesque and dormant, others not so much. In early November, Lewotobi Laki-laki began erupting in earnest, endangering nearby villages and sending a plume of ash 10 kilometres into the air. Some 4000 kilometres south, at the Qantas Integrated Operations Centre near Sydney Airport, concern began to build. Famously, all four engines on a British Airways 747 failed after passing through a sulphurous volcanic cloud high above Java in 1982; only after the crew had prepared to ditch in the ocean did the turbofans clear of debris and miraculously restart. Partly as a consequence, when the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted in 2010, airspace was closed across Europe , which led to some 95,000 flights cancelled and millions of passengers stranded. As the Flores ash cloud drifted west towards Bali, the Qantas team declared the situation critical and began cancelling flights into Denpasar for both Qantas and its subsidiary Jetstar. On the day we visit the operations centre, the crisis management team is about to meet in its purpose-built war room to gauge when flights might be allowed to resume. “It’s about determining when it’s going to be safe for us to operate,” says Qantas’s head of safety, Mark Cameron, a former British Airways pilot who knew the 747 crew who survived the volcano in 1982. “Engines do not like breathing in volcanic ash.” Mark Cameron, Qantas’s head of safety, in the airline’s operations centre in Mascot, Sydney. Credit: Louise Kennerly, digitally tinted Hundreds of Qantas staff, meanwhile, seated in pods in a vast room at head office, are still scrambling to reschedule flights, alert and mollify annoyed passengers while also dealing with the normal workings of some 100 international and 300 domestic flights on a typical day. For what we’re told is an extraordinarily busy day, though, the atmosphere is hushed and calm: a giant jigsaw puzzle being completed then restarted as mini-crises are discovered and mitigated. Jetstar was doing the same at its operations centre in Melbourne. The business of air travel is mind-bogglingly complex. But so, too, are the systems underpinning it. They allow it to operate extremely safely, especially compared to any other form of transport. ‘You can’t eliminate risk in any part of your daily life, but our role is to manage the risk to a level at which we’re comfortable that everybody’s going to be safe.’ Back in 1944, as World War II saw a flurry of new airports being built, 54 nations including Australia sent delegates to Chicago for a convention that laid the groundwork for international air safety standards. They agreed to create an overarching authority, today called the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), under the auspices of the United Nations to set world standards for airworthiness and maintenance, and airport and airline operations, among other areas. “The aviation industry has an incredibly good safety record,” says Ron Bartsch, an aviation safety expert and founder of Avlaw aviation consulting. “The main reason for that is it’s so strictly and extensively regulated.” For 2023, ICAO reported the accident rate (such as incidents involving death, injury, aircraft damaged or missing) for commercial aircraft was 1.87 accidents per million departures. To break this down: of 35,250,759 departures, there were 66 accidents, all but one of them non-fatal, the exception a twin-engine propeller aircraft operated by Yeti Airlines that crashed while coming into land at Pokhara in the Himalayas, killing 72 people on board. The Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) regulates the ongoing airworthiness of aircraft by ensuring airlines adhere to safety standards and a strict maintenance program.Regular maintenance is based on the number of hours the aircraft has flown, or how much time has passed since the last check – different parts require different “periodicity” for being serviced. Engineers could do anything from checking fluids after every flight to replacing wheelpads after a few flights to inspecting or replacing any one of thousands of parts after a specified time. “What it allows us to do,” says Qantas’s Mark Cameron, “is to be really proactive in how we’re managing risk – because, effectively, that’s what airlines do, we manage risk. We can’t eliminate it because you can’t eliminate risk in any part of your daily life, but our role is to manage the risk to a level at which we’re comfortable that everybody’s going to be safe.” This image from Flightradar in October shows flights routed out of airspace over Iran when Tehran launched missile attacks on Israel. Credit: FlightRadar24.com At Qantas HQ, various teams plan virtually every aspect of each flight: checking the weather; working out the best route (from several options if flying overseas, including avoiding volcanic eruptions or geopolitical hazards such as closed airspace in the Middle East, which Qantas has been navigating since early August); making sure cargo is loaded correctly so the plane is balanced; identifying dangerous goods on board; and screening for troublesome passengers on the banned “no fly” list ... and on it goes. With all that in place, the pilots run pre-flight checks, going over the weather briefing, for example, and any notes on potential dangers. The airline tells pilots how much fuel they need, but the pilot can choose to take more, depending on the possibility of a weather diversion or other delays. The pilot physically walks around the aircraft on the ground to triple-check there are no obvious faults. An engineer will have already signed a certificate of release to service – a legal declaration that the aircraft is fit to fly – before every international flight and at least daily for domestic flights, which the pilot clocks, along with a log of maintenance, before they accept the aircraft for flight. Air-traffic controller Alexander Palmer in the tower at Melbourne Airport. Credit: Airservices Australia, digitally tinted The pilot’s next contact is with air-traffic controllers, who clear planes for departure according to strict rules that determine “how many aircraft we can have taking off and landing at any one time,” says Airservices Australia’s Michelle Petersen, who is responsible for the towers at all of Australia’s major airports. Controllers also factor in “wake turbulence”, the disruption to the air that a plane leaves in its wake; there needs to be a gap of three minutes between an A380 taking off and a Boeing 737 following it, for example. All over the world, controllers and pilots speak English and use regulated unambiguous terms: “Qantas one, runway 19 left, cleared for take-off.” Pilots always repeat back the message. “There cannot be any assumptions in the air and we embed safety in everything we do,” says Petersen. The most deadly air disaster in history, which killed 583 people in Tenerife in the Canary Islands in 1977, was blamed, at least in part, on a communication breakdown: two 747s collided on the runway in heavy fog after one tried to take off following a command from air-traffic control that pilots mistook to be an all-clear to depart. The wreckage of a jet after a catastrophic collision with another jet on the runway in Tenerife in 1977. Credit: Getty Images How did plane safety develop? In the Ancient Greek fable, Icarus was warned by a fledgling aviation regulator (his dad) not to swoop too close to the sea lest his wings, fashioned from feathers and wax, become waterlogged; nor should he fly too close to the sun in case the wax melted. In other words, the operational envelope of his equipment was well understood and his fate (a fatal wax-feather-decoupling incident) was quite rightly chalked up to pilot error. Next came 747 ‘jumbos’ – some famously featuring a spiral staircase to an upstairs lounge bar. Today, aviators talk of jet planes in generations. “Generation one” had panels of dials and gauges and rudimentary autopilots, if any. Think: cars with no airbags or anti-lock braking and possibly alarming handling characteristics, such as the world’s first commercial jet airliner, BOAC’s de Havilland Comet. One, flying from Singapore to London via Bangkok, Rangoon, Calcutta, Karachi, Bahrain, Beirut and Rome in 1954 disintegrated midair, as did two of its sister planes, thanks to structural issues; 23 other Comets, out of 114 in total including prototypes, were lost due to pilot error, design faults and other mishaps. Next came the beginnings of truly modern jets, including the pretty reliable 747 “jumbos” – some famously featuring a spiral staircase to an upstairs lounge bar – and the first of the Boeing 737s, launched in 1968 and still one of the most-operated airliners today. These had better automatic systems but could still make you think twice about getting on board: the McDonnell Douglas DC-10, in particular, gained a terrible reputation in the 1970s thanks to engine failures and a series of hijackings. A “generation one” jet, a 1949 prototype of the de Havilland Comet turbojet airliner, built in Hertfordshire in Britain. Credit: Getty Images, digitally tinted “Generation three” planes saw the introduction of technology such as “terrain avoidance systems”, leading to a rapid reduction in losses that continues today in “generation four” planes, which can “see” all around themselves to take evasive action if something nearby is judged to be on a collision course. Airbus tells us its latest safety systems use real-time data to avoid runway excursions and reduce the risk of landing incidents (“in case the aircraft is too fast, too high or lands too long, an alert will be triggered to advise the crew to perform a go-around or use the maximum reverse and brakes”). Martinis and beer in the first-class upper deck lounge in a Qantas Boeing 747 in 1971. Credit: Courtesy Qantas, digitally tinted Says Qantas’s Mark Cameron: “If you look at the accident rates throughout that period of time, you just see them plummet across the generations.” Last year was the first to record zero fatalities from commercial jet crashes, despite there being more than 29,000 in service worldwide, according to Boeing’s statistical summary that dates back to 1959. (This excludes turboprop, or propeller, passenger planes such as those operated by Yeti Airlines in Nepal and the ATR-72-500 that crashed over Brazil in August 2024 after stalling and entering a flat spin.) The age of a plane, meanwhile, says little about how well-maintained it is. “Don’t get confused with cosmetic looks,” says David Evans, a former Qantas pilot of 35 years. “If you walk into an aircraft that looks a bit shabby, the carpet might be a bit threadbare, that has no relationship to its airworthiness.” An example of “generation four”, a Qantas Dreamliner in 2018. Credit: Qantas, digitally tinted “Generation four” planes have a huge number of backups, or redundancies. Those with two engines, such as Boeing 737s, can fly on one. They have multiple alternative power sources. “The A380 had about six different backup systems for wheel brakes. If you’re running out of brakes, you’re having a really bad day,” says Evans. “All of these things have been based around previous incidents ... over the 100-odd years of aviation. There are risks every time you go flying, but we mitigate them by ... checklists, briefings, plan A, B and C. You’re trying to eliminate surprise.” There are also at least two pilots on a flight deck at all times, one free to monitor the autopilot while the other scrutinises variables such as fuel consumption and weather. Having said this, airlines and regulators from more than 40 countries have pushed ICAO to help make single-pilot flights safe; the European Union Aviation Safety Agency says such services could start in 2027. Ron Bartsch doesn’t back such a change. “You need someone who can take the place of the pilot if they have a heart attack or something.” Evans has written in this masthead before that it is an alarming idea, noting that pilots are “the last line of defence”. Boeing 737 Max planes parked in Seattle in 2020 after 20 months of grounding following two deadly crashes. Credit: Getty Images, digitally tinted What happened with the ‘Max’ planes? Once in a while, a defect can slip through what the industry calls the “Swiss cheese” safety model. Visualise a packet of Swiss cheese slices, each with holes in different places. For an error to creep through, a hole would have to line up in every slice of cheese. Boeing’s new-ish 737 Max aircraft was delivered to airlines with a fatal flaw: a problem that had managed to pass through every slice of cheese. First, a system that prevented the planes from stalling malfunctioned: perceiving that the planes were climbing too steeply when they were not, it automatically, and repeatedly, forced down the nose. This could, potentially, have been overridden by pilots, had they been trained to recognise the problem – but they had not. As a result, two Max 8 737s crashed – one in Indonesia in October 2018, another in Ethiopia in March 2019 – with the loss of a total of 346 lives. ‘Boeing is still paying the price for the damage to their brand. It’s got a fair way before it regains industry trust.’ It later emerged that Boe­ing had cut corners by updat­ing its now decades-old 737s to the longer, more powerful Max rather than build­ing an entirely new air­craft from scratch, in order to match its chief competitor, the Air­bus A320neo. Max variants were grounded worldwide between March 2019 and December 2020 while investigators determined the cause of the fatal disasters. The groundings, lawsuits and compensation, U S Senate investigations subcommittee hearings and cancelled orders kept Boeing’s safety record in the spotlight and have cost the company about $100 billion. Boeing supplied historical safety data for this Explainer but declined an invitation to speak on the record. Bartsch says the 737 Max troubles have been “a classic example of companies trying to cut costs” ahead of safety. “Boeing is still paying the price for the damage to their brand. It’s got a fair way before it regains industry trust.” Boeing was again in the spotlight earlier this year for its 737 Max aircraft when a Max 9 explosively decompressed above Portland, Oregon after it lost a fuselage panel called a “door plug” that, it turned out, had bolts missing in its installation. Although extremely alarming, there were no serious injuries. The hole left after a “door plug” blew out midair on an Alaska Airlines flight in a Boeing 737 over Oregon in the United States in January. Credit: US National Transportation Safety Board, digitally tinted In Australia, CASA has now certified the Max 8 as safe to operate. Virgin, which currently operates eight 737 Max 8 aircraft, requires its pilots to undergo additional training to understand the differences between the new aircraft and previous iterations of the 737. In addition, Boeing has modified the problematic system, called MCAS, so it cannot override a pilot’s ability to control the airplane. “Virgin Australia is one of over 80 airlines operating Boeing 737 Max family aircraft globally,” says Virgin Australia chief operations officer, Stuart Aggs. “More than 1400 of these aircraft are in service around the world, carrying about 700,000 passengers on 5500 flights every day. Over the past 50 years, a journey of continuous improvement has made commercial aviation the world’s safest form of transportation. Virgin Australia retains full confidence in Boeing’s commitment to this journey.” For all the focus on beleaguered Boeing, Airbus has not been without incident: in September, a Rolls-Royce engine on a Cathay Pacific A350 caught fire and failed, forcing the plane to dump fuel then return to Hong Kong. After inspecting its entire fleet of A350 aircraft, Cathay found that 15 had faulty engine parts that needed to be replaced. A preliminary report into the September incident by Hong Kong’s safety body found a fuel hose had torn, according to Aviation Direct. “This led to a fuel leak, which in combination with oxygen and an ignition source (heat) triggered the fire.” Former pilot David Evans in a flight simulator. Credit: USQ/Anna Singleton, digitally tinted So, why do accidents still happen? When the right-side engine failed on Qantas flight 520 out of Sydney just seconds after the “V1′′ point of no return during take-off, the pilots knew they had no choice but to keep going and take off with just one power plant. Says David Evans: “V1 is carefully calculated for every takeoff. The only decision pilots have to make prior to V1 is to either stop or go. After V1 there is no decision, you are committed to go flying. Any attempt to stop after V1 will result in a runway overrun.” The Boeing had been designed for such an eventuality; to take off with just one engine. That did not mean, however, it was routine. Historically, many fatal crashes have occurred at or shortly after take-off, including the disaster in Paris in 2000 that eventually consigned the only supersonic airliner, Concorde, to the history books. ”We spend a fair amount of our career lifetime in simulators, preparing for worst-case scenarios,” says Doug Drury, a former commercial pilot who heads aviation at Central Queensland University. “It’s all about developing these critical skills, thinking, decision-making processes and having good situational awareness.” The Sydney incident was a scenario that pilots regularly simulate in training and their response was by the book, says Mark Cameron, who spoke with them afterwards. “They were saying they really appreciate the training they’d had.” Their take-off, after the engine had failed, was “low and slow” as the plane crept skywards, circled Sydney airport then landed safely. “Within 15 minutes of the landing, we had the data already available where we could actually see exactly how the crew had flown,” says Cameron. “It was really good in terms of how they controlled the aircraft, recognised the issues, the approach back into Sydney. It’s actually a really good news story for our pilots and systems.” Passengers who heard the engine go “bang” were alarmed but nobody was injured. Says David Evans: “An engine failure is horrendous from a passenger’s point of view, and even for the cabin crew, but for the pilots it’s a serious inconvenience more than anything. I don’t want to say it’s not a big deal, but it’s not something they haven’t seen many, many times and practised over and over.” ‘We don’t want the engines to fail. But the reality is, there’s always going to be a failure rate. It’s pretty small across the industry.’ So why did this engine give up the ghost? This model is generally very reliable, manufactured since 1997 by CFM International and used in thousands of Boeing and Airbus planes. CFM describes it as “simple and rugged” with a “dispatch reliability” (the rate at which a specific component is held responsible for aircraft delays, turn-backs, diversions, etc) of 99.96 per cent. Yet nothing is entirely foolproof. CFM engines have failed before, most notably on planes operated by Southwest Airlines in the United States where they shot debris into the fuselage. In 2018, a passenger died after reportedly being sucked out of a window punctured by debris. The US National Transportation Safety Board determined that one of the failed engine’s fan blades had broken off due to fatigue and fractured into fragments. It had likely harboured a tiny crack that had pre-dated a safety inspection, the authority said, “However, the crack was not detected for unknown reasons.” “We don’t want the engines to fail,” says Cameron. “But the reality is, there’s always going to be a failure rate. It’s pretty small across the industry.” He adds: “An engine failure in itself doesn’t mean you’re going to have an accident because you’ve got trained crew, an aircraft that is certified to fly on one engine and numerous other controls in place.” Doug Drury notes: “Airlines don’t survive if they cut corners. Historically, yes, it’s happened, but in this day and age, post-pandemic, that’s the last thing any airline wants, is to get hit with this.” In 2010, David Evans was the supervising check captain on QF32, an Airbus A380, when it suffered an uncontained engine failure moments after take-off from Singapore’s Changi Airport en route to Sydney. “Sometimes a failure will have a cascading effect on other systems and QF32 is a good example of that: where an engine exposure created havoc with everything else,” Evans says. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau later found that an oil pipe in the failed Rolls-Royce engine had been manufactured to improper tolerances and had developed a crack due to fatigue, then it leaked oil that caused a fire, which caused a turbine disc to separate from the drive shaft and destroy the engine. The pilots famously landed the plane safely. “You’ll never get rid of risk,” says Evans. “The only thing you can do is mitigate against risk.” There were 58 uncon­tained (that is, explosive) engine fail­ures on West­ern-built air­craft between 1982 and 2008, according to the US authority the Fed­eral Avi­ation Admin­is­tra­tion – a scary-sounding number until you do the maths: roughly, around one occurrence per 10 million flights per year, or far less likely than being hit by lightning (one in a million). Some incidents are harder to mitigate than others. Orville Wright was probably the first aviator to hit a bird, in 1905. The most famous bird strike of all was caused by a flock of Canadian geese in 2009, which clogged the engines on an Airbus 320 departing New York and required its captain, Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger III (later played by Tom Hanks in the movie recreation ) to ditch on the Hudson River. Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, left, and first officer Jeffrey Skiles go through their pre-flight checks at LaGuardia airport in New York in 2009. Credit: Reuters, digitally tinted Turbulence, particularly where an aircraft drops suddenly in the absence of any obvious “weather” such as storm clouds – dubbed “clear-air turbulence” – regularly sees flight staff, in particular, injured. A Southwest attendant was scalded by hot coffee in March; a United staffer flung into the air with the drinks cart, then back to the floor, described it as “slamming down from a fifth-floor building”. In May, a passenger died of a suspected heart attack, and more than a hundred were injured, when a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777 suddenly fell nearly two kilometres over three minutes over Myanmar during the breakfast service, one passenger telling the BBC it was “just like going down a vertical rollercoaster”. ‘In an aeroplane, you’re getting all sorts of sensations which you can’t rationalise.’ The incident, while extreme, prompted a round of reminders of the benefits of fastening seatbelts, one of the few aspects of flying that passengers can control. For most “aviophobics”, says Corrie Ackland, clinical director of the Sydney Phobia Clinic, the fear “comes down to this idea that they don’t know what’s happening and they don’t know how to fix it – and those things play up for them”. News reporting and TV shows put all manner of aviation incidents in the spotlight. “I’ve seen people and their fear is based around what they see on the telly – nothing to do with flying,” says Evans. He helped set up a “fear of flying” program that now partners with Ackland’s clinic where people sit with a pilot in a flight simulator. “In an aeroplane, you’re getting all sorts of sensations which you can’t rationalise,” Evans says. “And there might have been an incident that you were involved in, turbulence perhaps, and noises like the undercarriage retracting or the flaps extending or retracting, and the amygdala [the fight-or-flight centre of the brain] sets off that charge because you think there’s something afoot or something that’s dangerous. But it’s the normal operation of the aircraft.” A week after landing in Sydney, meanwhile, the Qantas Boeing 737 that suffered engine failure was back in the air. With a new powerplant, VH-VYH shuttled once again from Sydney to Brisbane to Sydney to Melbourne to Brisbane. The damaged engine would be scrutinised to determine what, exactly, had happened, and what remedies might be put in place to minimise the chances of it happening again. Our new Explainer anthology, Why Do People Queue for Brunch? The Explainer Guide To Modern Mysteries is available for pre-order and subscribers are being offered a 25 per cent discount (full price is $32.99) until December 12. See here for details . In bookstores December 3. Credit: Allen & Unwin

BLOOMINGTON — Myles Rice scored 18 points to lead Indiana to a 77-68 victory over Winthrop on Sunday. Rice made 7 of 13 shots and all four of his free throws for the Hoosiers (10-3), who improved to 9-0 at home by holding the Eagles (10-5) scoreless over the final 3:16 to wrap up the victory. He added four rebounds, three assists and three steals. Malik Reneau totaled 14 points and seven rebounds for Indiana. Trey Galloway added 11 points and five assists. Langdon Hatton had a game-high 11 rebounds to go with seven points off the bench. K.J. Doucet and Kasen Harrison both scored 14 to lead Winthrop, which fell to 1-4 on the road. Doucet grabbed 12 rebounds for his third double-double of the season. Kelton Talford scored 13 and Paul Jones III and Nick Johnson added 10 points apiece. Rice had 12 points in the first half to help Indiana take a 41-37 advantage into the break. Doucet had eight points and Harrison and Jones both scored seven to keep Winthrop close. Luke Goode followed his basket with a three-point play to give Indiana a 54-47 lead with 15:15 left to play. Talford finished off a three-point play to get Winthrop within three with 11:34 to go. Reneau answered with a basket and Mackenzie Mgbako followed with a dunk as Indiana quickly pushed its lead back to seven. Johnson buried a 3-pointer with 3:16 remaining to pull Winthrop within a point at 69-68, but the Eagles went scoreless from there. Indiana will host Rutgers on Saturday in a Big Ten Conference matchup. Winthrop returns home to play South Carolina Upstate on Thursday in a Big South Conference opener.

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ZAYN Malik paid a poignant tribute to Liam Payne as he performed his first gig since the tragic death of his ex-One Direction bandmate. Earlier this week, Liam was laid to rest a month after he fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Zayn kicked off his solo tour, named Stairway To The Sky, in front of thousands at the 02 Academy in Leeds on Saturday night. Fans were heard sobbing as a heartfelt tribute to Liam popped up on a large blue screen behind the former One Direction star. The message, accompanied with a love heart, read: "Liam Payne 1993-2024. Love you bro". Zayn wore a red cap and a black t-shirt with rapper Tupac on the front as he ran through a medley of his greatest hits. Read More in Showbiz Adoring fans waved their phones in the air with their flashlights on as Zayn serenaded the crowd. The tour was due to begin in Edinburgh on November 20 but was delayed after the death and funeral of Liam. Zayn was also due to perform in San Francisco, California, on October 23, before playing several more US dates throughout the month and in November but these dates have now been rescheduled. It comes as Zayn gathered alongside Harry Styles , Louis Tomlinson , and Niall Horan to say goodbye to Liam at his funeral on Wednesday. Most read in Showbiz It was the first public appearance Zayn has made with the group since he left the band in 2015. The pop star left One Direction, citing "stress," after withdrawing from the group's world tour. Liam and Zayn found fame together as members of One Direction back in 2010, alongside Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan. The group became an international phenomenon, with hits including Kiss You, What Makes You Beautiful and Night Changes. As news of Liam's heartbreaking loss spread around the world, the band released a statement together, before they each made their own separate tributes. Zayn shared a picture of him and Liam cuddled up together in the back of the car as he reflected on their friendship and the time they spent together. He wrote: "Liam I have found myself talking out loud to you, hoping you can hear me, I can't help but think selfishly that there was so many more conversations for us to have in our lives. "I never got to thank you for supporting me through some of the most difficult times in my life. "When I was missing home as a 17-year-old kid, you would always be there with a positive outlook and reassuring smile and let me know you were my friend and that I was loved." He added: "When it came to the music, Liam, you were the most qualified in every sense. "I knew nothing in comparison, I was a novice child with no experience and you were already a professional. "I lost a brother when you left us and can't explain to you what I'd give to just give you a hug one last time and say goodbye to you properly. Read More on The US Sun "I will cherish all the memories I have with you in my heart forever". Liam is survived by his family, including his sister Ruth, and his seven-year-old son, Bear. SHOCKED fans, former co-workers, loved ones and friends flooded social media with sad tributes to Liam Payne after news of his death emerged. Harry Styles’ mum Anne was among the first from One Direction's camp to share her reaction, posting a photo of Liam and writing 'Just a boy...' alongside a broken heart emoji. Britain's Got Talent judge Amanda Holden shared an image of the pair together with the words: "Such an awful tragedy. "Sending love to his family and all those who loved him." X Factor star Olly Murs told fans he was "devastated" and "lost for words". He wrote on social media: “Liam shared the same passions as me, the same dreams so to see his life now end so young hits hard, I’m truly gutted and devastated for his Family and of course his son Bear losing a dad x". Liam Gallagher said he was "very sad" and told his followers on X: "Life is precious Kids, you only get to do it once, go easy." Former X Factor presenter Dermot O’Leary has also expressed his shock and spoke on This Morning. He said: “I remember him as a 14-year-old turning up to audition on The X Factor, and blowing us away singing Sinatra. He just loved to sing. “He was always a joy, had time for everyone, polite, grateful, and was always humble.” BBC Radio 2 presenter Zoe Ball reacted to the "devastating news" on her show and told fans she hugged her own son Woody tight this morning. JLS band member Marvin Humes reflected on his memories with the singer, sharing: "I first met Liam in 2008 with the JLS boys whilst auditioning for X Factor..he was 14 years old.. "We instantly clicked and looked at him as a little brother..that year it worked out for us but not for him and then 2 years later he went back to audition and One Direction was born..the rest is history.. "Absolutely heartbroken by the tragic news..Liam you wanted to be a global superstar and you did it bro..just can’t believe that things have ended this way..it’s shocking..my thoughts and prayers are with all your family and friends brother..RIP." Niall Horan' s brother Greg shared an emotional tribute to Liam, praising him as a "top young man". He added: "You will be forever missed. Liam, words can’t describe how much I want to grab my brother and mind him now while the world shows their memories of you and him and the boys. "My heart goes out to your family parents and sisters and your son Bear and your 1D brothers. "10th October we met and we started out that evening as 5 families into one big one 1D family thank you for all the laughs bro watch down on all your family and mind them lots of love kiddo x x x 1D 4 LIFE x x x" German DJ Anton Zaslavski , otherwise known as Zedd, has taken to X with a devastated statement. The producer, who worked with Liam on his 2017 hit Get Low, wrote: "RIP Liam... I can’t believe this is real...absolutely heartbreaking..." American singer, Charlie Puth , who was friends with Liam and also collaborated with him on a song called Bedroom Floor, has posted a series of Instagram stories dedicated to him. Alongside photos of the two of them together in their younger days, Charlie wrote: "I am in shock right now. Liam was always so kind to me. "He was one of the first major artists I got to work with. I can not believe he is gone... "I am so upset right now, may he rest in peace. I am so sorry..." Irish singer duo Jedward also took to social media, saying: "RIP Liam Payne. Condolences to friends and family." In another tweet, they added: "Sending strength to Cheryl and his son Bear. And all the One direction Family. RIP Liam Payne." American media personality Paris Hilton shared: "So upsetting to hear the news of Liam Payne passing. Sending love and condolences to his family & loved ones. RIP my friend." ITV weather presenter Alex Beresford shared a news video about Liam's tragic death on Instagram, adding: "Can't believe this! RIP Liam." Meanwhile Love Island star Molly Marsh penned: "I'm so taken aback, rest in peace." James Cordon also paid his own tribute, describing the star as a "loving and kind soul". The Gavin and Stacey actor wrote on Instagram: "Talking about Liam in the past tense is utterly heart-breaking. "I will treasure the moments I got to spend with him. My thoughts are with his family today x." Payne previously appeared on Cordon's The Late Late Show in America. Former Little Mix star Jade Thirwall - who won X Factor with her bandmates one year after One Direction took part - described him as "the first friend I made in this industry". She said: "We fell out of touch as the years went by, but back in 2008 he was the first friend I made in this industry. "Both of us so young, so ambitious, both hoping we'd 'make it'. I hope you are at peace now". Camila Cabello described his death as a "tragedy" and said he "made an impression" on her when she was a young girl.New Delhi: Dr. Manmohan Singh, who passed away on December 26 at the age of 92, was a distinguished economist, academician, and bureaucrat, known for his remarkable contributions across various fields. Throughout his career, he held several key positions and received numerous awards in recognition of his work. Dr. Singh served in prominent roles, including Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Secretary of the Finance Ministry, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Advisor to the Prime Minister, and Chairman of the University Grants Commission from 1987 to 1990. His leadership and expertise left an indelible mark on India's economic and policy landscape. According to Forbes Magazine, Dr Singh was the 19th Most Powerful Person in the World in 2011, the 20th Most Powerful Person in the World in 2012 and the 28th Most Powerful Person in the World in 2013. Throughout his illustrious public career, Dr. Manmohan Singh has received numerous prestigious awards and honours, both in India and globally, acknowledging his transformative contributions to economics, governance, and diplomacy. Among the most prominent recognitions is India’s second-highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan (1987), presented to Dr. Singh for his exceptional service to the nation. Other significant accolades include the Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Award from the Indian Science Congress (1995), and the Asia Money Award for Finance Minister of the Year (1993 and 1994), alongside the Euro Money Award for Finance Minister of the Year (1993), which highlighted his pivotal role in India’s economic reforms. In academia, Dr. Singh was honoured with the Adam Smith Prize by the University of Cambridge (1956) and the Wright’s Prize for Distinguished Performance at St. John’s College, Cambridge (1955). Dr. Singh's leadership also earned him recognition from international institutions, including being honoured by the Japanese Nihon Keizai Shimbun. Furthermore, he is a recipient of honorary degrees from several prestigious universities, including the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, acknowledging his intellectual contributions and global influence. These awards reflect the broad and enduring impact of Dr. Singh's career, cementing his legacy as one of India's most respected statesmen and economists. National Honors:Padma Vibhushan (1987): India’s second-highest civilian honor, recognizing his exceptional contributions to public service.Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Award (1995): Presented by the Indian Science Congress for his outstanding leadership.Outstanding Parliamentarian Award (2002): Awarded by the Indian Parliamentary Group for his exemplary role in Parliament.Wright Prize for Distinguished Performance Award (1995): Honored by St. John’s College, Cambridge.Adam Smith Prize (1996): Recognized by the University of Cambridge for his academic and intellectual achievements.International Honors:Order of King Abdulaziz (2010): Saudi Arabia's second-highest civilian honor, awarded for strengthening bilateral relations.Order of the Paulownia Flowers (2014): Japan’s second-highest civilian honor, acknowledging his contributions to India-Japan relations.Global Recognition:Ranked as the 19th Most Powerful Person in the World (2011) by Forbes Magazine.Ranked as the 20th Most Powerful Person in the World (2012).Ranked as the 28th Most Powerful Person in the World (2013). Manmohan Singh Passes Away Singh, a renowned economist and statesman, was admitted to AIIMS Delhi on Thursday evening after his health deteriorated. "With profound grief, we inform the demise of Former Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, aged 92. He was being treated for age-related medical conditions and had sudden loss of consciousness at home on 26th December 2024. Resuscitative measures were started immediately at home. He was brought to the Medical Emergency at AIIMS, New Delhi at 8:06 PM. Despite all efforts, he could not be revived and was declared dead at 9:51 PM," AIIMS said in a statement, confirming the death. In his political career, Singh has been a member of the Rajya Sabha since 1991, where he was Leader of the Opposition between 1998 and 2004.Manmohan Singh was sworn in as Prime Minister on 22nd May after the 2004 general elections and took the oath of office for a second term on 22nd May 2009. Get Latest News Live on Times Now along with Breaking News and Top Headlines from India and around the world.

Better Fintech Stock: PayPal vs. SoFi TechnologiesU.S. President-elect Donald Trump's latest nominee for U.S. attorney general has established herself as a staunch conservative, Trump loyalist and outspoken defender of the president-elect, both personally and professionally. Trump announced his selection of former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday, just hours after former Florida U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration for the post. From his Truth Social media account, Trump praised Bondi and what she will bring to the office. "For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans — Not anymore," Trump wrote. "Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting crime and making America safe again." The 59-year-old Bondi was one of the lawyers on Trump's defense team during his first impeachment trial, and she played a leading role in his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Raised, educated in Florida Bondi was born and raised in Florida, received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Florida, and a law degree from the Stetson University College of Law in DeLand, Florida. Early in her law career, Bondi worked as prosecutor and spokeswoman in Hillsborough County, where she was assistant state's attorney. In 2010, she became the first female attorney general elected to the state of Florida. In that role, "she pioneered impactful anti-trafficking initiatives, hosted groundbreaking conferences to combat sexual exploitation, and championed innovative solutions that other states have since followed," said the non-profit National Center on Sexual Exploitation, which welcomed her appointment in a statement Friday. While in office, Bondi defended a 2008 amendment to the state constitution that would ban same sex marriages. In 2018, she joined other Republican state attorney generals in an unsuccessful lawsuit attempting to overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare. Bondi received widespread criticism in 2013 when, following a $25,000 donation to a political action committee supporting her re-election campaign from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, she chose not to join a lawsuit initiated by the attorney general of New York against Trump University for "persistent fraudulent, illegal and deceptive conduct." Prior to the donation, Bondi had said she was considering joining the lawsuit, as her office had received at least 22 complaints about Trump University. She endorsed Trump in the Florida primary during the 2016 presidential campaign. Organization founded to advance Trump's agenda Bondi serves as chair for the Center for Litigation and co-chair of the Center for Law and Justice at the America First Policy Institute, a conservative organization that was founded in 2021 to advance Trump's agenda. Bondi is also a partner at the Washington-based Ballard Partners lobbying firm, where she chairs the firm's Corporate Regulatory Compliance practice. Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

Shares of AppLovin Co. ( NASDAQ:APP – Get Free Report ) traded down 4.2% during mid-day trading on Friday . The company traded as low as $326.69 and last traded at $332.13. 869,744 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 81% from the average session volume of 4,590,855 shares. The stock had previously closed at $346.73. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades APP has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on AppLovin from $250.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 20th. UBS Group raised shares of AppLovin from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $100.00 to $145.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. BTIG Research boosted their price objective on shares of AppLovin from $202.00 to $291.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Benchmark reaffirmed a “sell” rating and set a $66.00 target price on shares of AppLovin in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Finally, Oppenheimer reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $480.00 price objective on shares of AppLovin in a research note on Tuesday, December 10th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $310.71. View Our Latest Research Report on AppLovin AppLovin Stock Performance AppLovin ( NASDAQ:APP – Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The company reported $1.25 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.92 by $0.33. The company had revenue of $1.20 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.13 billion. AppLovin had a net margin of 26.85% and a return on equity of 122.24%. AppLovin’s revenue for the quarter was up 38.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.30 EPS. Equities research analysts predict that AppLovin Co. will post 4.06 EPS for the current fiscal year. Insider Buying and Selling In other news, insider Victoria Valenzuela sold 15,971 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $313.07, for a total transaction of $5,000,040.97. Following the sale, the insider now owns 372,205 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $116,526,219.35. This trade represents a 4.11 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link . Also, CMO Katie Kihorany Jansen sold 59,876 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $286.14, for a total transaction of $17,132,918.64. Following the sale, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 1,017,388 shares in the company, valued at $291,115,402.32. This trade represents a 5.56 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . Insiders sold 888,867 shares of company stock worth $284,773,062 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 14.69% of the company’s stock. Institutional Inflows and Outflows A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of APP. Capital Performance Advisors LLP purchased a new position in shares of AppLovin in the 3rd quarter valued at about $25,000. DT Investment Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of AppLovin in the third quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Meeder Asset Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of AppLovin during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $27,000. Raleigh Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of AppLovin during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Finally, Quest Partners LLC acquired a new stake in AppLovin in the 2nd quarter valued at $33,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 41.85% of the company’s stock. About AppLovin ( Get Free Report ) AppLovin Corporation engages in building a software-based platform for advertisers to enhance the marketing and monetization of their content in the United States and internationally. It operates through two segments, Software Platform and Apps. The company's software solutions include AppDiscovery, a marketing software solution, which matches advertiser demand with publisher supply through auctions; MAX, an in-app bidding software that optimizes the value of a publisher's advertising inventory by running a real-time competitive auction; Adjust, a measurement and analytics marketing platform that provides marketers with the visibility, insights, and tools needed to grow their apps from early stage to maturity; and Wurl, a connected TV platform, which distributes streaming video for content companies and provides advertising and publishing solutions through its AdPool, ContentDiscovery, and Global FAST Pass products. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for AppLovin Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for AppLovin and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .

When Nathan Hecht ran for the Texas Supreme Court in 1988, no Republican had ever been elected to the state’s highest civil court. His election foreshadowed a coming transformation of the court, civil legal procedure and Texas itself. Hecht is the longest tenured Supreme Court justice in Texas history. He won six reelections and led the court as chief justice for more than a decade. He heard more than 2,700 oral arguments, authored 7,000 pages of opinions, and retires now not because he’s had enough, but because state law requires him to. Late on a Friday afternoon, just two weeks before he hung up his robe, he was still in his office, his mind mired in the work that was left to be done. “This is always a really busy time for us, because the opinions are mounting up to be talked about,” he said. “It’ll be busy next week.” Hecht began as a dissenter on a divided court, his conservative positions on abortion, school finance and property rights putting him at odds with the Democratic majority and some moderate Republicans. But as Texas Republicans began dominating up and down the ballot, his minority voice became mainstream on one of the country’s most conservative high courts. In his administration of the court, Hecht has been a fierce advocate for the poor, pushing for more Legal Aid funding, bail reform and lowering the barriers to accessing the justice system. “If justice were food, too many would be starving,” Hecht told lawmakers in 2017. “If it were housing, too many would be homeless. If it were medicine, too many would be sick.” Hecht’s departure leaves a vacancy that Gov. Greg Abbott , a former justice himself, will get to fill. He may elevate a current justice or appoint someone new directly to the chief justice role. Whoever ends up in the top spot will have to run for reelection in 2026. In his typical understated manner, so at odds with the bombast of the other branches of government, Hecht told The Texas Tribune that serving on the court has been the honor of his life. “I have gotten to participate not only in a lot of decisions shaping the jurisprudence of the state, but also in trying to improve the administration of the court system so that it works better and fosters public trust and confidence,” he said. “So I feel good about the past,” he said. “And I feel good about the future.” A ‘sea change’ Born in Clovis, New Mexico, Hecht studied philosophy at Yale before getting his law degree from Southern Methodist University. He clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and returned to Texas, where his reputation preceded him. As a young lawyer, Tom Phillips, a former chief justice and now a partner at Baker Botts, reached out to a Dallas law firm that had promised to hire him the next chance they got. “I called them a few months later and said, ‘So I assume you never got a vacancy,’” Phillips recalls. “And they said, ‘Well, we did, but we had a chance to hire Nathan Hecht, so you’ll understand why we went ahead and did that.’” Hecht was appointed to the district court in 1981 and quickly made a name for himself, pushing the court to modernize their stenography practices and taking the unusual step of writing opinions as a trial judge. He was elected to the court of appeals in 1986, and ran for Texas Supreme Court two years later. This race came at a low point for Texas’ judiciary, after a string of scandals, ethics investigations, eyebrow-raising rulings and national news coverage made several sitting Supreme Court justices household names — and not in a good way. Seeing an opportunity, Hecht challenged one of the incumbents, a Democrat who’d been called out in a damning 60 Minutes segment for friendly relationships with lawyers who both funded his campaigns and argued before the court. Hecht teamed up with Phillips and Eugene Cook, two Republicans who had recently been appointed to the court, and asked voters to “Clean the Slate in ’88,” separating themselves from the Democrats by promising to only accept small donations. “Party politics were changing in the state at the same time, but the broader issue on our court at the time was to ensure that judges were following the law,” Hecht said. “That was a driving issue.” Since Phillips and Cook were incumbents, Hecht was the only one who had to take on a sitting Supreme Court justice. And he won. “It really was a sea change in Texas political history,” Phillips said. “He was the first person ever to do that in a down ballot race, to defeat a Democrat as a Republican.” Political changes Republican dominance swept through the Supreme Court as swiftly as it did Texas writ large. The last Democrat would be elected to the court in 1994, just six years after the first Republican. But even among Bush-era Republicans filling the bench, Hecht’s conservatism stood out. In 2000, he wrote a dissent disagreeing with the majority ruling that allowed teens in Texas to get abortions with a judge’s approval if their parents wouldn’t consent, and a few years earlier, ruled in favor of wealthy school districts that wanted to use local taxes to supplement state funds. His pro-business bent stood out next to the court’s history of approving high dollar payouts for plaintiffs. Alex Winslow, the executive director of Texas Watch, a consumer advocacy group, told the New York Times in 2005 that Hecht was “the godfather of the conservative judicial movement in Texas.” “Extremist would be an appropriate description,” Winslow said. “He’s the philosophical leader of the right-wing fringe.” The only other justice who regularly staked out such a conservative position, according to the New York Times, was Priscilla Owen, who President George W. Bush appointed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2005. Hecht and Owen, who now goes by her maiden name, Richmond, wed in 2022 . Wallace Jefferson, Hecht’s predecessor as chief justice, said Hecht’s sharp intellect and philosophical approach to the law improved the court’s opinions, even when he ultimately didn’t side with the majority. “He was a formidable adversary,” said Jefferson, now a partner at Alexander Dubose & Jefferson. “You knew that you would have to bring your best approach and analysis to overcome Nathan’s approach and analysis ... You had to come prepared and Nathan set the standard for that.” Hecht briefly became a national figure in 2005 when he helped Bush’s efforts to confirm Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court. As her longtime friend, Hecht gave more than 120 interviews to bolster Miers’ conservative credentials, jokingly calling himself the “PR office for the White House,” Texas Monthly reported at the time . This advocacy work raised ethical questions that Hecht fought for years, starting with a reprimand from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Hecht got that overturned. The Texas Ethics Commission then fined him $29,000 for not reporting the discount he got on the legal fees he paid challenging the reprimand. He appealed that fine and the case stretched until 2016 , when he ultimately paid $1,000. Hecht has largely stayed out of the limelight in the decades since, letting his opinions speak for themselves and wading into the political fray mostly to advocate for court reforms. While Democrats have tried to pin unpopular COVID and abortion rulings on the justices in recent elections, Republicans continue to easily win these down-ballot races. Hecht is aware of the perception this one-party dominance creates, and has advocated for Texas to turn away from partisan judicial elections. In his 2023 state of the judiciary address , Hecht warned that growing political divisions were threatening the “judicial independence essential to the rule of law,” pointing to comments by both Democratic politicians and former President Donald Trump. But in an interview, Hecht stressed that most of the cases the Texas Supreme Court considers never make headlines, and are far from the politics that dominate Austin and Washington. “There’s no Republican side to an oil and gas case. There’s no Democrat side to a custody hearing,” he said. “That’s the bread and butter of what we do, and that’s not partisan.” Hecht’s reforms Unlike its federal counterpart, the Texas Supreme Court is often a temporary port of call on a judge’s journey. Many, like Abbott, Sen. John Cornyn and U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett , leave for higher office. Others, like Owen and 5th Circuit Judge Don Willett, leave for higher courts. Most, like Phillips, leave for higher pay in private practice. But Hecht stayed. “I didn’t plan it like this,” Hecht said. “I just kept getting re-elected.” Hecht had been considering retirement in 2013, when Jefferson, the chief justice who replaced Phillips, announced he would be stepping down. “He wanted me to consider being his successor,” Hecht said. “So I did, and here I am. I didn’t say, ‘Let’s spend 43 years on the bench,’ but one thing led to another.” In 2013, Hecht was sworn in as chief justice by then-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, another great dissenter whose views later became the majority. While the Texas Supreme Court’s political makeup has changed largely without Hecht’s input, the inner workings of the court have been under his purview. And that, many court watchers say, is where his greatest legacy lies. Hecht ushered in an era of modernization, both to the technology and the rules that govern justice in Texas. He led a push to simplify the appellate rules, removing many of the trapdoors and procedural quirks that led to important cases being decided on technicalities. The court scaled back how long cases could drag on by limiting discovery, including how long a deposition can go. And he ensured every case was decided before the term ended, like the U.S. Supreme Court. “I think people generally don’t understand the impact the rules can have on the equitable resolution of disputes, but they’re enormous,” Jefferson said. “Nathan recognized that at an early juncture in his career.” Hecht pushed Texas to adopt e-filing before many other states, which proved prescient when COVID hit. Hecht, who was then president of the national Conference of Chief Justices, was able to help advise other states as they took their systems online. Hecht also dedicated himself to improving poor Texan’s access to the justice system, pushing the Legislature to appropriate more funding for Legal Aid and reducing the barriers to getting meaningful legal resolutions. He helped usher through a rule change that would allow paraprofessionals to handle some legal matters like estate planning, uncontested divorces and consumer debt cases, without a lawyer’s supervision. “Some people call it the justice gap. I call it the justice chasm,” Hecht said. “Because it’s just a huge gulf between the people that need legal help and the ability to provide it.” Hecht said he’s glad this has been taken up as a bipartisan issue, and he’s hopeful that the same attention will be paid even after he leaves the court. “No judge wants to give his life’s energy to a work that mocks the justice that he’s trying to provide,” he said. “For the judiciary, this is an important issue, because when the promise of equal justice under law is denied because you’re too poor, there’s no such thing as equal justice under the law.” What comes next Despite the sudden departure of their longtime leader, the Texas Supreme Court will return in January to finish out its term, which ends in April. Among the typical parsing of medical malpractice provisions, oil and gas leases, divorce settlements and sovereign immunity protections, the high court has a number of more attention-grabbing cases on its docket this year. Earlier this year, the court heard oral arguments about the Department of Family and Protective Services’ oversight of immigration detention facilities, and in mid-January, they’ll consider Attorney General Ken Paxton’s efforts to subpoena Annunciation House, an El Paso nonprofit that serves migrants. They’ll also hear arguments over Southern Methodist University’s efforts to cut ties with the regional governing body of the United Methodist Church. Other cases will be added to the schedule before April. Phillips, who has argued numerous cases before the Texas Supreme Court since leaving the bench, said Hecht’s loss will be felt, but he expects the court to continue apace. “It’s not a situation like it might have been at some point in the past where if one justice left, nobody would know what to do next,” he said. “It’s an extremely qualified court.” As for Hecht, he’s tried to put off thinking too much about what comes next for him. He still has opinions to write and work to finish. He knows he wants to stay active in efforts to improve court administration nationally and in Texas, and he’s threatened his colleagues with writing a tell-all book, just to keep them on their toes. But beyond that, he’s waiting for the reality of retirement to sink in before he decides on his next steps. “We’ve got 3,200 judges in Texas, plus adjuncts and associate judges and others,” he said. “I really think it’s such a strong bench, and I am proud to have been a part of it. I look forward to helping where I can.” This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.Sign up to write 'against' statement for Castle Rock school levy

About 6.21 lakh applications have been received for 1.27 lakh opportunities under the Prime Minister's Internship Scheme and the selection process is continuing, the government said on Sunday. ET Year-end Special Reads What kept India's stock market investors on toes in 2024? India's car race: How far EVs went in 2024 Investing in 2025: Six wealth management trends to watch out for The scheme, announced in the 2024 Union Budget, aims to provide internship opportunities to 1 crore youth in top-500 companies over five years. A pilot project of the scheme, started on October 3, aims to provide 1.25 lakh internship opportunities during 2024-25. In a release on Sunday, the corporate affairs ministry said approximately 6.21 lakh applications have been received against 1.27 lakh internship opportunities. "The selection process for internship is ongoing." Partner companies have posted about 1.27 lakh internship opportunities on the internship scheme portal. 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View Program Data Science SQL for Data Science along with Data Analytics and Data Visualization By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) AI and Analytics based Business Strategy By - Tanusree De, Managing Director- Accenture Technology Lead, Trustworthy AI Center of Excellence: ATCI View Program Web Development A Comprehensive ASP.NET Core MVC 6 Project Guide for 2024 By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Marketing Digital Marketing Masterclass by Pam Moore By - Pam Moore, Digital Transformation and Social Media Expert View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) AI-Powered Python Mastery with Tabnine: Boost Your Coding Skills By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Office Productivity Mastering Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and 365 By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Marketing Digital marketing - Wordpress Website Development By - Shraddha Somani, Digital Marketing Trainer, Consultant, Strategiest and Subject Matter expert View Program Office Productivity Mastering Google Sheets: Unleash the Power of Excel and Advance Analysis By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Web Development Mastering Full Stack Development: From Frontend to Backend Excellence By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Finance Financial Literacy i.e Lets Crack the Billionaire Code By - CA Rahul Gupta, CA with 10+ years of experience and Accounting Educator View Program Data Science SQL Server Bootcamp 2024: Transform from Beginner to Pro By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program About 4.87 lakh individuals have completed their KYC and registered themselves on the portal, the release said. Under the scheme, interns will be provided a monthly financial assistance of Rs 5,000 for 12 months and a one-time grant of Rs 6,000. While mentioning about various initiatives taken this year, the ministry said the framework governing cost record and audit will be amended after considering stakeholders' comments and recommendations of the ministry-appointed committee. From financial year 2023-24, the ministry has issued regular advisories to companies on adhering to the prescribed timelines for filing cost audit reports. "This initiative has led to a 14 per cent increase in the timely submission of cost audit reports during 2023-24 compared to the previous year," the release added.The financial technology, or fintech, industry was one of the hardest hit parts of the stock market in the post-pandemic bear market, but there are still some excellent opportunities. PayPal ( PYPL -1.45% ) is one great example with a stock price that is still about 70% below its 2021 peak and excellent turnaround progress in 2024, while SoFi ( SOFI -3.74% ) is an app-based bank with tremendous momentum. However, these are two very different businesses. Here's a rundown of the bull cases for both stocks and what to keep in mind before you decide which is best for you. PayPal wiped the slate clean and is now moving forward After growth stagnated in the post-pandemic era and management didn't have a clear path to restoring the once-strong momentum, PayPal decided to make some big leadership changes. Not only was former Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU) executive Alex Chriss named CEO, but the entire executive leadership team was replaced. The focus of the team was initially on efficiency. In the most recent quarter, PayPal's revenue grew by just 6% year over year, but thanks to efficiency improvements, earnings per share (EPS) soared by 22%. Management continues to buy back stock hand over fist, and the company is doing a great job with engagement, as evidenced by a 9% increase in transactions per active account. However, many of the most exciting moves PayPal has made aren't reflected in the numbers yet. For example, the company announced it is creating an advertising platform and hired the former head of Uber 's (NYSE: UBER) ad business to run it. It rolled out its Fastlane checkout product recently, as well as its PayPal Everywhere cash-back, debit-card initiative. And PayPal has announced several key partnerships, most notably with Shopify (NYSE: SHOP) to offer PayPal as a checkout option to U.S. customers. In short, PayPal's efficiency efforts have been paying off. In 2025, its growth initiatives started to show results. SoFi is one of the best products of the SPAC boom Hundreds of companies went public through blank-check companies, or SPACs (special purpose acquisition companies) in the 2020 to 2021 time frame, and to be honest, the bulk of them didn't turn out well for investors. SoFi -- which used one of Chamath Palihapitiya's SPACs to go public -- is a notable exception. I don't say that just because it's one of the few with a share price above the $10 initial SPAC valuation. I say that SoFi is one of the best products of the SPAC era because not only has it sustained incredible growth momentum, but it has become profitable in the process. Over the past three years, SoFi's member base has more than tripled, with 35% year-over-year growth in the most recent quarter. About 8.5 million financial services products like bank accounts, investment accounts, and credit cards have been opened in that period. And SoFi's deposit base grew from zero when it first got its banking charter in early 2022 to $24.4 billion in customer deposits. As mentioned, SoFi has become consistently profitable, and its bottom-line income could soar in the next few years as the business continues to scale. Two great fintech opportunities To be perfectly clear, I don't think anyone will go wrong with either of these stocks. In fact, they are the two largest fintech investments I own in my portfolio (in full disclosure, SoFi is the bigger position). PayPal shines when it comes to profitability, but there's a lot that needs to go right for sustainable growth to return to the business. On the other hand, SoFi is growing at an impressive pace and has been growing rapidly for years but just recently became profitable and is still in full growth mode. The best choice for you depends on which of those profiles fits best with your investment style.JERUSALEM US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla discussed the situation in Lebanon with Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military said on Saturday. "The Commander of CENTCOM General Michael “Erik” Kurilla, arrived in Israel yesterday as the official guest of the Chief of the General Staff LTG Herzi Halevi," the military said on X. The two conducted a "situational assessment" along with the head of the operations directorate and the commanding officer of the Northern Command that "focused on security and strategic issues with an emphasis on Lebanon." In recent months, Kurilla has visited Israel multiple times, reflecting the strong support provided by Washington on military, intelligence, and political levels. Israel was engaged in cross-border warfare with Hezbollah since the beginning of Gaza war, but it launched an extensive air campaign on Lebanon in late September, followed by a ground invasion the next month. Over 3,600 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Lebanon, and over 1 million have been displaced since last October, according to Lebanese health authorities. *Writing by Rania Abu Shamala​​​​​​​