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24x7bet Five-star quarterback Bryce Underwood , the No. 1 overall prospect in the 2025 ESPN 300 recruiting rankings , has flipped his commitment from LSU to Michigan , he confirmed on social media Thursday. Underwood announced the news with a video posted to Instagram with the caption "Hometown Hero." The move comes amid a critical recruiting shakeup, especially at the quarterback position, just 13 days from the start of the early signing period. Underwood, a 6-foot-4, 210-pounder from Belleville, Michigan, is the top pocket passer in the class. With his flip, he becomes the highest-rated commit in Michigan program history and the top prospect in Sherrone Moore's inaugural recruiting class, which currently sits at No. 14 in ESPN's latest team rankings for the 2025 cycle. YES SIR ! #GoBlue 🔵 The Best players in Michigan go to Michigan ! #ProcessoverPrize25 Underwood's move comes as the latest piece of seismic quarterback movement atop the 2025 class ahead of the start of the early signing period on Dec. 4. Five-star quarterback Julian Lewis decommitted from USC on Nov. 17 and subsequently pledged to Colorado earlier Thursday. Committed to LSU since Jan. 6, 2024, Underwood remained the crown jewel of Brian Kelly's 2025 class over the past 11 months. Yet Michigan remained in contact with Underwood throughout his senior season at Belleville High School -- situated less than 30 minutes from Michigan Stadium. Editor's Picks CFB's top 50 recruiting classes for 2025: Ole Miss makes big gains; Julian Lewis boosts Buffs 6h Craig Haubert ESPN 300 rankings: How the QBs fit, which players will impact the 2025 CFP and more 29d Craig Haubert and Tom Luginbill The Wolverines intensified their pursuit of Underwood over the past two months with sources telling ESPN that the program stepped up with a competitive NIL package. The Oct. 30 decommitment of four-star quarterback commit Carter Smith (No. 155 in the ESPN 300) from the Wolverines heightened the buzz around a potential flip by Underwood. Michigan secures a potentially program-defining quarterback and one of the most significant pledges in program history less than 12 months after Moore replaced Jim Harbaugh after the Wolverines claimed the 2023 national championship. If Underwood signs with the Wolverines on Dec. 4, he will be the first No. 1 overall recruit to join Michigan since the program inked defensive tackle Rashan Gary in 2016. Underwood also would join Gary and defensive backs Jabrill Peppers (2014 class) and Dax Hill (2019) as the only five-star prospects to land in Ann Arbor since 2006, per ESPN rankings. He will mark the Wolverines' highest-ranked quarterback pledge since Michigan landed quarterback Ryan Mallett (No. 12 overall prospect) in the class of 2007. Whether Underwood is prepared to take over as the starter in 2025, his commitment brings critical stability to the quarterback position in Ann Arbor as Moore closes a turbulent first season. Michigan has struggled to identify a replacement for national title-winning quarterback J.J. McCarthy in 2024, bouncing between Davis Warren , Alex Orji and Jack Tuttle across a 5-5 start this fall. Warren and Orji hold eligibility beyond this season, as does former 2024 four-star quarterback prospect Jadyn Davis . Michigan also holds a commitment from four-star quarterback Brady Hart in the 2026 cycle. A composed passer with speed to test opposing defenses in the open field, Underwood has spent the past four years as one of the nation's most coveted prospects, ranked ahead of top quarterbacks Lewis (USC), Tavien St. Clair ( Ohio State ) and Keelon Russell ( Alabama ) in the 2025 ESPN 300. Underwood burst onto the national scene in 2021, when he threw for 2,888 yards and 39 touchdowns in his freshman season at Belleville. He led the Tigers to back-to-back state titles in his first two seasons under center, then earned Michigan Gatorade Player of the Year honors as a junior in 2023, when he completed 64.8% of his passes for 3,329 yards and 44 touchdowns while guiding Bellville to a third consecutive state title game appearance. With only one regular-season loss since September 2021, Underwood and Belleville entered the state playoffs this month as favorites to claim the program's third state championship in four years.Limited again, 49ers QB Brock Purdy still fighting sore shoulder

NEW YORK (AP) — Top-ranked chess player Magnus Carlsen is headed back to the World Blitz Championship on Monday after its governing body agreed to loosen a dress code that got him fined and denied a late-round game in another tournament for refusing to change out of jeans . Lamenting the contretemps, International Chess Federation President Arkady Dvorkovich said in a statement Sunday that he'd let World Blitz Championship tournament officials consider allowing “appropriate jeans” with a jacket, and other “elegant minor deviations” from the dress code. He said Carlsen's stand — which culminated in his quitting the tournament Friday — highlighted a need for more discussion “to ensure that our rules and their application reflect the evolving nature of chess as a global and accessible sport.” Carlsen, meanwhile, said in a video posted Sunday on social media that he would play — and wear jeans — in the World Blitz Championship when it begins Monday. “I think the situation was badly mishandled on their side,” the 34-year-old Norwegian grandmaster said. But he added that he loves playing blitz — a fast-paced form of chess — and wanted fans to be able to watch, and that he was encouraged by his discussions with the federation after Friday's showdown. “I think we sort of all want the same thing,” he suggested in the video on his Take Take Take chess app’s YouTube channel. “We want the players to be comfortable, sure, but also relatively presentable.” The events began when Carlsen wore jeans and a sportcoat Friday to the Rapid World Championship, which is separate from but held in conjunction with the blitz event. The chess federation said Friday that longstanding rules prohibit jeans at those tournaments, and players are lodged nearby to make sartorial switch-ups easy if needed. An official fined Carlsen $200 and asked him to change pants, but he refused and wasn't paired for a ninth-round game, the federation said at the time. The organization noted that another grandmaster, Ian Nepomniachtchi, was fined earlier in the day for wearing sports shoes, changed and continued to play. Carlsen has said that he offered to wear something else the next day, but officials were unyielding. He said “it became a bit of a matter of principle,” so he quit the rapid and blitz championships. In the video posted Sunday, he questioned whether he had indeed broken a rule and said changing clothes would have needlessly interrupted his concentration between games. He called the punishment “unbelievably harsh.” “Of course, I could have changed. Obviously, I didn’t want to,” he said, and “I stand by that.”Bathinda: Haryana cops on Sunday foiled protesting farmers’ second attempt within 3 days to march towards Delhi by firing teargas shells on them at the Punjab-Haryana border point in Shambhu, leaving scores injured and leading farmer forums Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha to suspend their march for a day. Tension gripped the site around 12 noon as a second jatha (group) of 101 farmers tried cross the multi-layered barricading on the national highway 44 to press for their demands, which include a legal guarantee for minimum support price. Cops offered tea, played hymns from Gurbani and even showered flowers from atop the barricading, but ultimately, resorted to use of pepper spray, teargas shells and water canons as farmers tried to pull apart iron grilles. The protesters, however, claimed the flowers were laced with chemicals and shells with no expiry date were fired at them, showing one of them as proof. We also published the following articles recently Haryana cops lob teargas shells, farmers halt march Farmers marching to Delhi from Punjab were halted at the Haryana border by police using tear gas and pepper spray, injuring several. The farmers, demanding guaranteed minimum support prices and talks with the Union agriculture minister, retreated but plan to resume their march on Sunday. One farmer died in a previous attempt. 6 farmers hospitalized after tear gas shelling at Punjab-Haryana border Clashes between farmers and Haryana police at the Shambhu border crossing continue, leaving six more farmers hospitalized on Sunday. Tear gas shelling by police resulted in injuries, with two farmers requiring transfers to higher medical facilities in Patiala and Chandigarh. Tension grips Shambhu border as farmers prepare for march; Haryana police on high alert Farmers protesting at the Punjab-Haryana border are planning to march to Delhi today, coinciding with a Sikh martyrdom day, to demand minimum support prices for crops. Haryana police have barricaded the highway to prevent the march, escalating tensions. This is the farmers' third attempt to reach Delhi, following a previous attempt that resulted in a fatality. Stay updated with the latest news on Times of India . Don't miss daily games like Crossword , Sudoku , and Mini Crossword .

Sports on TV for Sunday, Dec. 1

Minnesota looks to stop skid vs. Bethune-Cookman

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Saquon Barkley knew the Eagles season rushing record could be his on Sunday with the type of stellar performance that has become the standard during his first season in Philadelphia. As for the exact moment Barkley hit the milestone, he wasn't sure — until the “MVP!” chants echoed throughout the Linc after a 9-yard run in the fourth quarter . “The records are great, they put a smile on your face,” Barkley said, “but the season is far from over.” Needing 109 yards to break LeSean McCoy's record, Barkley rushed for 124 yards and pushed his season total to 1,623 in a 22-16 victory over Carolina . Barkley needed just 13 games to pass McCoy, who rushed for 1,607 yards in 2013. He also overtook Wilbert Montgomery, who had 1,512 yards in 1978. “I never wrote the goal down to break it,” Barkley said. “You're always aware of it. That's how I train. That's how I operate in the offseason. I want to be great.” Barkley also maintained his pace to break Eric Dickerson’s NFL single-season rushing record of 2,105 yards, set in 1984 with the Los Angeles Rams. “That would be extremely cool to do,” Barkley said. “If it happens, it happens, and not with the mindset of, I'm scared to go try to do it. Whatever it takes to win football games.” Barkley is averaging 124.8 yards per game. At that pace and with one more game to play than Dickerson, he would become the top single-season rusher in NFL history. He needs 483 yards yards over the final four games to top Dickerson’s 40-year-old record. He averaged 6.2 yards on 20 carries against the Panthers to help the Eagles win their ninth straight game. McCoy, who was inducted into the team's Hall of Fame this season, remains the franchise’s rushing leader with 6,792 yards. Referencing his old uniform number, McCoy congratulated Barkley on social media with “a lot of love, coming from 2-5." “Being a fan of Shady's growing up, and seeing the spectacular things he was able to do with the ball in his hand, to be able to have my name mentioned with him definitely means a lot,” Barkley said. Barkley left the New York Giants in the offseason and signed a three-year deal worth $26 million guaranteed to join the Eagles, who made him the highest-paid running back in franchise history. The 27-year-old has been worth every dollar. Barkley is among the favorites for league MVP, according to BetMGM Sportsbook. Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen was the only player with better MVP odds entering Sunday. Barkley has a franchise-record nine 100-yard rushing games in a season. Although he was held out of the end zone Sunday, he began the day leading the league with four rushing touchdowns of 25-plus yards. Barkley, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2018 NFL draft, topped 1,000 yards three times in his six seasons with the Giants. He finished with 1,312 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns in 2022 and rushed for 1,307 yards and 11 scores as a rookie. Eagles general manager Howie Roseman, who had been unwilling to spend on elite running backs, pounced on Barkley and the decision was celebrated as a success in Philly from the first game of the season. Barkley rushed for two scores and caught a TD pass in the opener against Green Bay. His three touchdowns were the most by an Eagles player in his debut since Terrell Owens in 2004. Barkley only soared in production and popularity from there, his highlight reel stamped by a reverse leap over the head of a Jacksonville defender last month. He's since vaulted over every running back ahead of him on the Eagles rushing list — and has a chance at NFL history. ___ AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL Dan Gelston, The Associated PressA supply depot servicing the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline lies idle in Oyen, Alta., on Feb. 1, 2021. TODD KOROL/Reuters U.S. president-elect Donald Trump is raising the prospect of restoring his approval for the long-dead Keystone XL oil pipeline – the focus of environmental, legal and political battles for more than a decade – as he pushes his agenda of promoting more fossil-fuel use in the United States. Mr. Trump pointed to Keystone XL during a presidential election debate with opponent Kamala Harris, saying that President Joe Biden’s move to kill a key permit for the project was proof that the Democrat administration was weak and ineffective. And he wants to revive the pipeline project on his first day back in the White House, according to a report from Politico , despite the fact no companies are trying to build it any more. Keystone XL was long a target of climate change activists in Canada and the United States, and was subject to years of protests, studies and court challenges, as well as presidential approvals and rejections. Calgary-based TC Energy Corp., which first proposed the massive project in 2008, scrapped it in 2021 after Mr. Biden revoked a presidential permit issued by the previous Trump administration. Besides forcing the company to declare a writedown of $2.2-billion, it also meant a $1.3-billion loss for Alberta taxpayers a year after former premier Jason Kenney’s government bought an equity stake in the project and provided loan guarantees. TC Energy’s US$15-billion Keystone XL claim thrown out by trade tribunal This year, TC Energy spun off its Canadian and U.S. oil pipeline operations into a new company called South Bow Corp. Asked on Thursday if the company would consider resurrecting Keystone XL, South Bow spokesperson Katie Stavinoha did not answer directly. “South Bow supports efforts to transport more Canadian crude oil to meet U.S. demand. South Bow’s long-term strategy is to safely and efficiently grow our business,” Ms. Stavinoha said in an e-mail. Energy economist Peter Tertzakian, the managing director of ARC Financial Corp., is not convinced that any company would stomach the political and legal risks of bringing the project back from the dead without abundant political reassurances and guarantees. “The corporate world is so jaded by what happened,” Mr. Tertzakian said in an interview. It’s not the business case for another pipeline south that he has a problem with. He believes that case is easily made given that oil demand is projected to remain strong for years and Canadian crude is used in a vast array of products, not just gasoline and diesel. “It’s the more the case that, if I spend hundreds of millions of dollars again ramping up to build this pipe, what is the risk that another government is going to come in and stand in my way? Or court challenges?” he said. “They’ve seen this movie before and it didn’t end well at all. So why would they rerun it?” Keystone XL would have shipped up to 830,000 barrels of crude a day along a 1,947 kilometre route to Steele City, Neb., from Hardisty, Alta. The idea was to give Alberta oil companies a long-sought direct route for their crude to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Both TC Energy and the Alberta government launched legal actions to recoup their costs after Mr. Biden scrapped a key permit, effectively killing the project. In July, an international trade tribunal threw out TC Energy’s US$15-billion claim. Alberta Energy Minister Brian Jean told media on Monday that he believes Mr. Trump has been convinced by the positive economics of the project. “It would be a great move by the Americans,” he said. “We’re waiting for a private-sector investor, and we believe that they’ll move forward on that.” However, the recent start of the expanded Trans Mountain pipeline system has reduced pressure on the industry to spending billions on new oil pipelines in the near future. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith last week signed on to an energy pact with a dozen American states, the province’s first step in positioning itself in preparation for a Trump administration in the new year. Established in September, the Governors Coalition for Energy Security aims to shore up energy security, lower energy costs, increase reliability and bolster sustainable economic development. Alberta is the first non-U.S. jurisdiction to enter into the agreement. Ms. Smith’s office said last week that pipelines would be among the topics she would raise at meetings with the group, but her office did not respond to whether she would support using taxpayer dollars to back another pipeline headed south of the border. During the election, Mr. Trump promised a universal tariff of between 10 per cent and 20 per cent on all imports to the U.S., which could include oil and gas. Such tariffs would play havoc with Alberta’s fossil fuel-dependent finances. The province is hoping to avoid them, and being part of the coalition means it could potentially leverage a network of influential governors should Mr. Trump follow through with his promise.

Relational, Dellsons Group forge partnership to expand market presence in PakistanPLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Newly married and sworn as a Naval officer, Jimmy Carter 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.” Carter's path, a mix of happenstance and calculation , 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.” 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 Georgians and their inner circle as “country come to town.” Carter carefully navigated divides on race and class on his way to the Oval Office. Born Oct. 1, 1924 , 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 Carter, who died on Nov. 19 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. 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 “move to a very liberal program,” 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 family property alongside Rosalynn . 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. The politician who had supposedly hated Washington politics also enjoyed hosting Democratic presidential contenders as public pilgrimages to Plains became advantageous 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.