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The prospect of Ukraine's accession to NATO has been a contentious issue, with Russia vehemently opposing any further expansion of the alliance into former Soviet territories. Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its ongoing support for separatists in eastern Ukraine have heightened concerns about Ukraine's vulnerability and the need for enhanced security cooperation with NATO.WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — returned home Saturday after his meeting with Donald Trump without assurances the president-elect will back away from threatened tariffs on all products from the major American trading partner. Trump called the talks “productive” but signaled no retreat from a pledge that Canada says unfairly lumps it in with Mexico over the flow of drugs and migrants into the United States. After the leaders’ hastily arranged dinner Friday night at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Trudeau spoke of “an excellent conversation” but offered no details. Trump said in a Truth Social post later Saturday that they discussed “many important topics that will require both Countries to work together to address.” For issues in need of such cooperation, Trump cited fentanyl and the “Drug Crisis that has decimated so many lives as a result of Illegal Immigration,” fair trade deals “that do not jeopardize American Workers” and the U.S. trade deficit with its ally to the north. Trump asserted that the prime minister had made “a commitment to work with us to end this terrible devastation” of American families from fentanyl from China reaching the United States through its neighbors. The U.S., he said, “will no longer sit idly by as our Citizens become victims to the scourge of this Drug Epidemic.” The Republican president-elect has a 25% tax on all products from Canada and as one of his first executive orders when he takes office in January. U.S. customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border. On immigration, the U.S. Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests at the Mexican border in October alone and 23,721 arrests at the Canadian border between October 2023 and September 2024 — and Canadian officials say they are ready to make new investments in border security. Trudeau called Trump after the Republican’s social media posts about the tariffs last Monday and they agreed to meet, according to a official familiar with the matter who was not authorized to publicly discuss detail of the private talks. The official said other countries are calling Canadian officials to hear how about how the meeting was arranged and to ask for advice. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, after speaking with Trump on the telephone, said Thursday she was confident would be averted. At the dinner that was said to last three hours, Trump said he and Trudeau also discussed energy, trade and the Arctic. A second official cited defense, Ukraine, NATO, China, the Mideast, pipelines and the Group of Seven meeting in Canada next year as other issues that arose. Trump, during his first term as president, once called Trudeau but it was the prime minister who was the first G7 leader to visit Trump since the Nov. 5 election. “Tariffs are a crucial issue for Canada and a bold move was in order. Perhaps it was a risk, but a risk worth taking,” Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal. Trudeau had said before leaving from Friday that Trump was elected because he promised to bring down the cost of groceries but now was talking about adding 25% to the cost of all kinds of products, including potatoes from Prince Edward Island in Atlantic Canada. “It is important to understand that Donald Trump, when he makes statements like that, he plans on carrying them out. There’s no question about it,” Trudeau said. “Our responsibility is to point out that he would not just be harming Canadians, who work so well with the United States, but he would actually be raising prices for Americans citizens as well and hurting American industry and business,” he added. The threatened tariffs could essentially blow up the North American trade pact that Trump’s team negotiated during his first term. Trudeau noted they were able to successfully renegotiate the deal, which he calls a “win win” for both countries. When Trump imposed higher tariffs as president, other countries responded with retaliatory tariffs of their own. Canada, for instance, announced against the U.S. in a response to new taxes on Canadian steel and aluminum. Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states. Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian (US $2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day. About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports are from Canada. Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security. Canada is one of the most trade-dependent countries in the world, and 77% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S. ___ Gillies reported from Toronto. Rob Gillies And Fatima Hussein, The Associated PressFact or Fiction? Dispelling Common EV Myths

Here’s If Trump or Biden Can Stop the TikTok BanORLANDO, Fla. — UCF coach Gus Malzahn is resigning after four seasons with the school. ESPN’s Pete Thamel was the first to report the move, which will see Malzahn to leave to take the offensive coordinator job at Florida State. Malzahn previously worked with FSU coach Mike Norvell during their time at Tulsa under then-coach Todd Graham from 2007-08. The Knights ended a disappointing 4-8 season in which they lost eight of their last nine games, the longest losing streak since 2015. Malzahn, 59, was in the fourth year of a contract through 2028. His buyout, it is reported, would have been $13.75 million. He finished 27-25 at UCF but lost 16 of his last 22 games and was a dismal 4-14 in two seasons in the Big 12. After back-to-back nine-win seasons in 2021-22, the Knights went 6-7 in 2023 and 4-8 in 2024. This season started with high expectations as Malzahn made sweeping changes to the program. He retooled the strength and conditioning department and hired Ted Roof and Tim Harris Jr. as defensive and offensive coordinators, respectively. He also added nearly 50 new players to the roster, leaning heavily on the transfer market. UCF started by winning its first three games against New Hampshire, Sam Houston and a thrilling comeback at TCU, but offensive struggles saw the Knights tumble through a TBD-game losing streak to finish the season. Terry Mohajir hired Malzahn on Feb. 15, 2021, six days after he was hired to replace Danny White. The move came eight weeks after Malzahn had been fired at Auburn after eight seasons of coaching the Tigers. The two briefly worked together at Arkansas State in 2012 before Malzahn left for the Auburn job. “When he [Mohajir] offered the job, I was like, ‘I’m in.’ There wasn’t thinking about or talking about ...,” Malzahn said during his introductory press conference. “This will be one of the best programs in college football in a short time. This is a job that I plan on being here and building it.” UCF opened the 2021 season with non-conference wins over Boise State and Bethune-Cookman before traveling to Louisville on Sept. 17, where quarterback Dillon Gabriel suffered a fractured collarbone in the final minute of a 42-35 loss. Backup Mikey Keene would finish out the season as Gabriel announced his intention to transfer. The Knights would finish the season on the plus side by accepting a bid to join the Big 12 Conference in September and then by defeating Florida 29-17 in the Gasparilla Bowl. Malzahn struck transfer portal gold in the offseason when he signed former Ole Miss quarterback John Rhys Plumlee. Plumlee, a two-sport star with the Rebels, helped guide UCF to the American Athletic Conference Championship in its final season. However, Plumlee’s injury forced the Knights to go with Keene and freshman Thomas Castellanos. The team finished with losses to Tulane in the conference championship and Duke in the Military Bowl. Plumlee would return in 2023 as UCF transitioned to the Big 12 but would go down with a knee injury in the final minute of the Knights’ 18-16 win at Boise State on Sept. 9. He would miss the next four games as backup Timmy McClain took over the team. Even on his return, Plumlee couldn’t help UCF, on a five-game losing streak to open conference play. The Knights got their first Big 12 win at Cincinnati on Nov. 4 and upset No. 15 Oklahoma State the following week, but the team still needed a win over Houston in the regular-season finale to secure a bowl bid for the eighth straight season. From the moment Malzahn stepped on campus, he prioritized recruiting, particularly in Central Florida. “We’re going to recruit like our hair’s on fire,” Malzahn said at the time. “We’re going to go after the best players in America and we’re not backing down to anybody.” From 2007 to 2020, UCF signed 10 four-star high school and junior college prospects. Eight four-star prospects were in the three recruiting classes signed under Malzahn. The 2024 recruiting class earned a composite ranking of 39 from 247Sports, the highest-ranked class in school history. The 2025 recruiting class is ranked No. 41 and has commitments from three four-star prospects. Malzahn has always leaned on the transfer market, signing 60 players over the past three seasons. Some have paid huge dividends, such as Javon Baker, Lee Hunter, Kobe Hudson, Tylan Grable, Bula Schmidt, Amari Kight, Marcellus Marshall, Trent Whittemore, Gage King, Ethan Barr, Deshawn Pace and Plumlee. Others haven’t been as successful, such as quarterback KJ Jefferson, who started the first five games of this season before being benched for poor performance. Jefferson’s struggles forced the Knights to play musical chairs at quarterback, with true freshman EJ Colson, redshirt sophomore Jacurri Brown and redshirt freshman Dylan Rizk all seeing action at one point or another this season. This season’s struggles led to several players utilizing the NCAA’s redshirt rule after four games, including starting slot receiver Xavier Townsend and kicker Colton Boomer, who have also entered the transfer portal. Defensive end Kaven Call posted a letter to Malzahn on Twitter in which he accused the UCF coaching staff of recently kicking him off the team when he requested to be redshirted. Get local news delivered to your inbox!

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In today's rapidly changing world, the concept of productivity is no longer limited to traditional methods and practices. Instead, a new wave of innovation and creativity is driving the emergence of what can be termed as "new productivity." This new form of productivity is based on leveraging cutting-edge technologies, unconventional thinking, and agile methodologies to create efficiencies and drive growth in ways never seen before. As a result, we are witnessing a steady development of new productivity, with the momentum continuing to build as organizations and individuals alike tap into the power of these "new" potentials.JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — After taking over as governor amid a scandal in 2018, Republican Mike Parson hoped to bring stability to a state that had just watched the unsettling resignation of his predecessor. But, in an expansive interview as he prepares to leave office, Missouri’s 57th chief executive said he remains in awe of how multiple crises unfolded during his tenure as chief executive. Within weeks of taking over for scandal-plagued Republican Eric Greitens, the former state lawmaker and county sheriff raced to Branson in the aftermath of the sinking of a duck boat ride at Table Rock Lake that killed 17 tourists. There was a flood, a drought , a crisis in the St. Louis prosecutor’s office and the COVID-19 pandemic. “There was so much turmoil when I first walked in these doors. The first big challenge was, ‘How do you stabilize that?’” Parson said. “I think at the end of the day, we did.” Parson will leave the warren of offices overlooking the Missouri River on the Capitol’s second floor on Jan. 13, handing the keys to Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, a fellow Republican who has signaled he too wants relative continuity in 2025 by retaining a number of Parson holdovers to serve in his Cabinet. In a wide-ranging conversation with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Parson said there were many incidents that no governor could have been prepared to face, including a respiratory virus that infected a third of all residents and killed 22,000 Missourians. Like other governors, Parson faced evolving and often conflicting health advice, as well as members of the public split on masks, vaccines and school and business closures. “It was one of the most difficult times I had,” Parson said. “It was just unprecedented.” The governmental response to the virus wasn’t just a fight between a more relaxed approach in rural Missouri versus heightened health concerns in more populous urban areas, Parson said. “Some people wanted mandates, some people didn’t and that was all over the state,” said Parson, pointing to examples that came from friends in his hometown of Bolivar. “I remember people down home talking about churches, for example. I remember people calling me and saying you need to shut the churches down,” Parson said. “And that was people back home. You had that kind of pressure every day.” The COVID-19 shutdowns sent Missouri’s unemployment rate skyrocketing, pushing beyond the 12% level in April 2020. But, through a combination of vaccines and businesses opening, the rate was down to 6.8% by July 2020 and 4.2% a year later. “The whole time you’re fighting the virus you’re trying to keep the economy going,” he said. Parson said his decision to not shut down the state was based largely on his experience of owning a Polk County gas station in his younger days. Small business owners need to pay loans, mortgages and employees. “We made it possible for people to stay open,” Parson said. “I think looking back on it we did the right thing.” It wasn’t smooth sailing. In July 2020, Parson downplayed the risk of children contracting the coronavirus during school reopenings, insisting “they’re going to get over it.” “These kids have got to get back to school,” he said at the time. “They’re at the lowest risk possible. And if they do get COVID-19, which they will — and they will when they go to school — they’re not going to the hospitals. They’re not going to have to sit in doctor’s offices. They’re going to go home and they’re going to get over it.” “We gotta move on,” he continued. “We can’t just let this thing stop us in our tracks.” The blowback was harsh. Some health officials expressed concern about returning to schools because students could carry the virus home to older relatives. “I probably didn’t do it as tactfully as I should have,” Parson now acknowledges. “It was pretty brutal. People came after me with both barrels.” The governor’s approach to COVID-19 was similar to how he addressed other issues. Often out of sync Parson governed as a staunch Republican, eagerly taking up GOP talking points on guns, immigration and cultural issues. He signed a strict abortion ban in 2019 that went into effect in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. He won legislative support to give the nation’s lowest-paid state workers raises topping 25% to address an ongoing labor shortage in his administration, but he refused to sign any state worker employee union contracts during his entire tenure. Long waiting times for residents seeking state benefits were a frustrating feature of the Parson era. Missouri voters also sent Parson and his fellow Republicans multiple reminders that Missouri is not a wholly red state when it comes to social service issues. In 2020, for example, Missouri voters approved an expansion of Medicaid coverage after years of Republican opposition to President Barack Obama’s signature achievement of trying to fix the nation’s health care system. Parson opposed the expansion as a dangerous drain on tax revenues. The administration slow-walked the voter-approved rollout until the Supreme Court of Missouri held the expansion amendment to be constitutional. People began enrolling in October 2021, nearly a year after the matter was approved at the ballot box. Expansion has proven popular. As of Dec. 6, more than 316,000 adults were enrolled to get health coverage. In all, there are nearly 1.3 million Missourians receiving health insurance through Obamacare. In response to the Medicaid vote and other citizen-led petition drives, Parson says lawmakers must make it harder for residents to amend the state’s constitution. Republicans who control the Legislature were unable to raise the threshold for passage during a contentious spring legislative session and, by the fall, voters overturned the ban on abortion through an initiative petition. Although Parson favors toughening the standards for passage of amendments, he also urged the Legislature to resolve problems before residents feel the need to make changes themselves at the ballot box. “If you don’t take action ... people are going to go to the initiative petition process because they get frustrated because nothing ever happens here and nobody is willing to come to a compromise,” Parson said. The state budget also grew exponentially during his tenure, some of that due to an influx of billions of dollars in federal funds. As he leaves office, Parson contends that a series of income tax cuts also helped boost the bottom line. “Yes, the budget has ballooned during this administration. There’s no doubt about it,” he said. “It’s because revenues went up. If you put money back in people’s pockets, the general revenue and the economy grows.” Picking the ‘right people’ Parson’s relationship with the Democrat-controlled St. Louis region was sometimes testy over Republican opposition to tightening the state’s loose gun laws and ongoing threats to put the city’s police department under state control. “I set out early on to make sure the people of St. Louis realize I just wasn’t some old country boy from southwest Missouri and I was just going to take care of things back home,” Parson said. “For the state of Missouri to do well, St. Louis must do well.” “You’ve got to be part of finding solutions. Sometimes when you get involved it becomes controversial,” he said. Parson said he never imagined he would be in the middle of a fight over the St. Louis city prosecutor’s office when he was first sworn in. “I didn’t even know it was my job to pick the circuit attorney of St. Louis,” Parson said. In 2023, Parson appointed Gabe Gore , a civil attorney, to rebuild the city prosecutor’s office following the abrupt resignation of beleaguered Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner. Gore, then a partner at the high-powered and politically connected Dowd Bennett law firm, served on the Ferguson Commission following protests over the 2014 death of Michael Brown and worked as an assistant U.S. attorney prosecutor in the 1990s. “That was a big selection. You could tell he cared about the city,” Parson said of Gore. Parson also had the unprecedented opportunity to appoint four people to statewide office to fill vacancies when the officeholder ran for higher office and left the post open. He elevated state treasurer Eric Schmitt to attorney general to succeed Josh Hawley. Hawley and Schmitt are now both U.S. senators. Parson named Scott Fitzpatrick, a state representative, to succeed Schmitt as treasurer. Fitzpatrick is now state auditor. The governor named his general counsel Andrew Bailey to succeed Schmitt as attorney general and lawyer Vivek Malek to succeed Fitzpatrick as treasurer. “I really tried to pick people who were good for the jobs,” he said. All four ran for election after their appointments and voters gave them easy wins on Election Day — a result Parson says means that he chose the right people. “I think the people of the state said, ‘You did a pretty good job,’” Parson said. There also were controversies inside the Capitol and outside. At the height of the pandemic, amid concerns about the ongoing spread of the virus, former House Speaker Rob Vescovo informed Parson’s office that he would have to deliver the annual State of the State speech to an empty House chamber. An enraged Parson received permission to give his speech in the Senate chamber. Two days later, a fuming Parson fired off a letter accusing Vescovo of engaging in a “purposeful and disgusting scheme to embarrass” him. “Instead, Wednesday became an insider stunt and petty show of arrogance and political power,” Parson wrote. Dealing with the media In 2021, Parson accused the Post-Dispatch of hacking into a state website despite evidence that his own administration’s computer shortcomings had left personal information about Missouri teachers available within a few mouse clicks on a state-run website. He never apologized for the accusation after prosecutors declined to press charges. Parson also raised eyebrows for pardoning Central West End attorney Mark McCloskey and his wife, Patricia, in 2021 for brandishing guns at protesters who were moving through the neighborhood. He also was criticized in 2024 for pardoning Britt Reid, the son of Kansas City Chiefs Coach Andy Reid, who had been in prison for a drunken driving crash that seriously injured a 5-year-old girl. His decision this month to commute the prison sentence of former police detective Eric DeValkenaere , the first Kansas City officer ever convicted of killing a Black man, was, as expected, highly controversial. But Parson also was widely praised for granting clemency to Patty Prewitt , who had spent 40 years behind bars for her husband’s 1984 murder. “It wasn’t like we liked all the stories anyone wrote, but you’re not in the business of writing everything I like,” Parson said. “You have to learn to deal with the media. From Day One, we tried to establish a role with the media. And for the most part we were able to do that,” he said. Parson said Kehoe will hit the ground running next month. He hopes the former senator and Jefferson City businessman will address the state’s child care industry, which has not recovered from the pandemic. A key to solving the problems lies with Kehoe navigating divisiveness among Republicans, who have been unable to overcome differences in the state Senate, leading to a record-low number of non-budget bills going to Parson’s desk. “I think he’s got a really good foundation to build on,” Parson said. “If there is one thing on the table that I didn’t get done ... you’ve got to do something about the day care situation in the state.” “It is a huge issue for everyday people out there. There’s just a lack of it,” Parson said. As he heads back to Bolivar, a city of 11,300 people, his small cattle operation and home to Southwest Baptist University, Parson said the last six years were more intense than many can imagine. “The worst part of the job is time. You just have very little time,” Parson said. “I missed my family. I missed a lot of ball games. It is a pressure cooker every day and it just never stops.” But, he said, “We got about everything done that we started out to do. I’m looking forward to going home.” ©2024 STLtoday.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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