The major stock indices in the US are closing mixed with the Dow industrial average lower, the broader S&P and NASDAQ indices are higher. The small-cap Russell 2000 was little changed. Both the S&P and NASDAQ indices closed at record levels The final numbers are showing: Dow industrial average felt -128.65 points or -0.29% at 44782.00 S&P index rose 14.77 points or 0.24% at 6047.15 NASDAQ index rose 185.78 points or 0.97% at 19403.95 Russell 2000 fell -0.587 points or -0.02% at 2434.13 Intel had a wild ride as they ousted their CEO Pat Gelsinger. after 4-years of mistake after mistake. The stock was up over 5%, but is closing the day down -0.50% Some other big gainers today: Super Micro Computer: +28.62% Lam Research: +6.27% Taiwan Semiconductor: +5.27% Block: +4.24% Arm: +6.05% First Solar: +4.33% Roblox: +4.05% AMD: +3.56% Tesla: +3.46% Meta Platforms: +2.84% Qualcomm: +2.44% Moderna: +2.79% Trump Media & Technology Group: +2.78% The biggest losers on the day include: GameStop Corp: -6.13% SoFi Technologies: -3.05% General Dynamics: -2.73% RTX Corp: -2.59% Rocket: -2.41%Former federal prosecutor and senior CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said on Friday that President-elect Donald Trump 's next pick for U.S. attorney general, Pam Bondi, is "without a question" more qualified to serve in the role than former Representative Matt Gaetz . Gaetz, a Florida Republican , on Thursday announced he was withdrawing his name from consideration to serve as the president-elect's attorney general. The former congressman posted to X, formerly known as Twitter , that he withdrew his name because it is "clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition." Gaetz has been the center of a probe into his alleged sexual allegations and previously was on Capitol Hill meeting with senators to urge them to confirm him. The probe stems from accusations that Gaetz was involved in recruiting women online for sex, including a 17-year-old girl. The Department of Justice (DOJ) last year told Gaetz that he would not face federal sex-trafficking charges. Two other women had accused Gaetz of paying them for sex. Their attorney, Joel Leppard, told Newsweek on Wednesday that his clients were paid a total of $10,000 over Venmo and PayPal . Leppard said his clients had not wanted to publicly testify against Gaetz. Gaetz has vehemently denied that he did anything improper and blames the accusations on a smear campaign. He posted to X that the allegations began under former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy . Meanwhile, Trump announced his nomination of Bondi, the former attorney general for the state of Florida, on Thursday evening, writing on Truth Social that she was a "prosecutor for nearly 20 years, where she was very tough on Violent Criminals, and made the streets safe for Florida Families." During an interview appearance on CNN on Friday, Honig told the network's Kaitlan Collins that Bondi is "way more qualified than Matt Gaetz." "Last week when Matt Gaetz was announced as Trump's original pick, you and I said there's two main things you have to look at: qualification and independence. So, on the first of those, qualifications, Pam Bondi is, without a question, qualified to be attorney general." He added: "She's been a prosecutor for 20 years in Florida. For eight of those, she was the attorney general of the state. That's a very big, very complicated job. And that level of experience is on par with or better than most United States attorneys general that we've seen over the past 50 years or so." Honig went on to say that he thinks "if we compare her to Matt Gaetz, she exceeds him on every level by far. But if we go back to sort of a normal curve, I think it's a closer call. One person who I think is an interesting historical comparison for Pam Bondi is Janet Reno. Now, I'm not saying Pam Bondi will be Janet Reno, but Janet Reno had a similar background. She had been a state level prosecutor in Florida for about 15 years at the time when Bill Clinton nominated her to become attorney general." Reno, the first woman to serve as attorney general, died in 2016. She was nominated to the role by then-President Bill Clinton in 1993. Newsweek reached out to Gaetz and a spokesperson for Trump for comment via email on Friday. In his Truth Social post announcing Bondi as his new attorney general pick, Trump wrote: "As Florida's first female Attorney General, she worked to stop the trafficking of deadly drugs, and reduce the tragedy of Fentanyl Overdose Deaths, which have destroyed many families across our Country. She did such an incredible job, that I asked her to serve on our Opioid and Drug Abuse Commission during my first Term—We saved many lives!" The president-elect went on to say that "for too long," the Department of Justice (DOJ) "has been weaponized against me and other Republicans - Not anymore. Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again. I have known Pam for many years — She is smart and tough, and is an AMERICA FIRST Fighter, who will do a terrific job as Attorney General!" Bondi is a longtime Trump ally, having served as one of his defense attorneys during his first impeachment trial. The Senate later acquitted Trump of charges accusing him of soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election by withholding military aid from Ukraine to pressure the country into investigating Trump's political opponent, President Joe Biden . She also acted as a surrogate on the 2024 campaign trail and led the legal arm of the America First Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank aligned with Trump. Trump Foundation Check Complaints Bondi has been the subject of past controversy. During the 2016 campaign, a $25,000 check that Trump's foundation sent to Bondi's fundraising committee in 2013 came under scrutiny. The donation was made four days after it was reported that Bondi's office in Florida was mulling an investigation into Trump University. Trump has denied allegations of impropriety, saying the check was not made in response to the potential probe. The donation was discovered in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential race after Trump's campaign confirmed that the then-Republican nominee paid a $2,500 fine for the donation after an ethics group complained it was not disclosed to tax officials. "While there was never an investigation, staff, doing due diligence, reviewed the complaints and the New York litigation and made the proper determination that the New York litigation would provide relief to aggrieved consumers nationwide," Bondi's spokesperson said at the time.
UnitedHealthcare CEO kept a low public profile. Then he was shot to death in New YorkCustom-designed helmets that stave off major brain injuries. Mobile blood banks and preliminary surgery on the battlefield. Dog tags that broadcast medical data. Evacuation by helicopter to hospitals, measured in minutes. Fentanyl lollipops to ease the pain. As Israel plows into the second year of open-ended war on several fronts, its military doctors have been innovating trauma care on the fly and grimly boast a record survival rate. That, in turn, may help shore up public support in Israel for a conflict that has inflicted the country’s worst losses in decades. “We accrue battlefield knowledge and apply it and improve on it even as the fighting continues,” said Lt.-Col. Ofer Almog, head of technological development for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Medical Corps. The human cost on the other side has been devastating — 44,000 dead in Gaza and 3,000 in Lebanon, many of them civilians. Of Israeli soldiers who sustain wounds in the Gaza Strip or southern Lebanon that require urgent treatment, 6.9 percent die, the corps says — a “case fatality rate” (CFR) less than half that of Israel’s last major war, in 2006. It also compares favorably to the CFRs that U.S. forces suffered from similar kinds of attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan — 10 percent and 8.6 percent, according to a 2019 study published by the U.S. military’s Joint Trauma System. An inherent advantage the Israelis have is in the proximity of hospitals. The average time it takes to evacuate a Gaza casualty to a trauma center is 66 minutes, the corps says. The record was 17 minutes. But intervention begins beforehand, sometimes within seconds of the injury, administered by doctors, paramedics or medics deployed with every IDF combat company. Not far behind is an armored ambulance equipped with a specially cooled blood-bank, for type-O transfusions in large quantities to counteract catastrophic hemorrhaging. “Our staff in the field are even equipped to do intraosseous infusions — directly into the bone marrow — when a soldier’s veins aren’t accessible,” Almog said. Kyle Remick, a retired U.S. Army colonel and now trauma chief at Meritus Medical Center in Hagerstown, Maryland, described such “scoop and run” evacuations and rapid hemorrhage control as critical factors in saving lives. “Unprecedented” He called a CFR of 6.9 percent unprecedented, and noted that Israel has long been known as a leader in such battlefield care. Israel has lost almost 800 soldiers, with another 5,350 wounded, in the war that began with a surprise Hamas cross-border rampage in October. On a per capita basis, that’s almost four times the number of U.S. service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. And unlike the professional U.S. military, Israel’s personnel are mostly conscripts and reservists. The Hamas attack killed 1200 and abducted 250. Public support for the war in Israel has been strong, with some slippage only in recent weeks amid a sense that objectives in Gaza and Lebanon have been exhausted, said Tamar Hermann, a pollster with the Israel Democracy Institute think-tank. “Had there been many hundreds of fatalities, the erosion would have begun earlier, I think,” she said. Among the IDF’s wartime improvements to care, Almog said, has been a chip-bearing dog tag given immediately to a casualty, into which medics enter information through tablet-like devices. That smooths the handover from battlefield to helicopter to hospital, as each new team downloads the data. Ease breathing During the conflict, the IDF also stopped routinely draining excess air or fluid from a casualty’s chest to ease breathing, a procedure known as a thoracotomy. “We determined, after investigating hundreds of cases, that there was zero proven utility that would suffice to counterbalance the potential damage,” Almog said. Two months into the war, the IDF limited the procedure and instead focused on methods like intubation and ventilation. An IDF innovation team partnered with the Medical Corps is working on body armor that would give more protection than the ceramic breast plates currently issued to soldiers. The new design would incorporate malleable material and mitigate various penetrating injuries. “We found that shrapnel wounds are six times more likely than bullet wounds,” Almog said. The IDF already had its own battle helmet deployed, which the Medical Corps developed by studying head wounds and realizing that the most lethal were generally to the upper parts of the skull. Accordingly, the helmet has more plating over those areas and less elsewhere, for improved protection with roughly the same overall weight. Mental acuity and alertness also play a role in survival. Instead of injecting morphine to dull the pain of an injury, a fentanyl lollipop is given which the casualty can remove when the pain is tolerable and thus remain responsive and cooperative with medics. Upon landing at the hospital, an assistance officer phones one of the casualty’s parents and has them speak directly and briefly about the injury — to provide a measure of calm as the patient enters surgery.
CINCINNATI (AP) — The Cincinnati Bengals took care of business and won three straight games for the first time this season. Cincinnati is playing its best football, but it might be too late to sneak into the playoffs, with five teams battling for the two remaining AFC postseason spots. At 7-8, the Bengals are on the bubble along with two other teams that have the same record, the Colts and Dolphins. To have a chance, the Bengals will need to beat the visiting Denver Broncos (9-6) on Saturday, then try to take down the Steelers (10-5) at Pittsburgh in the regular-season finale. They'll need some help from other teams, too. The rub for the Bengals is that they have yet to beat a team with a winning record this season. Now with some momentum for the first time, the Bengals will have to clear that hurdle. “It’s just what it’s supposed to feel like for us. This is our expectation," coach Zac Taylor said after the Bengals beat the Cleveland Browns 24-6 on Sunday. “We just put ourselves in a position to now play some real meaningful games. ... We found a way to get the win and now we can turn our focus to a short week and the Denver Broncos.” What's working Joe Burrow became the first player in NFL history to throw for at least 250 yards and three or more touchdowns in seven consecutive games. One of his TD passes, to Tee Higgins, came as he was falling down. He finished 23 for 30 for 252 yards. ... Ja'Marr Chase continues to build his resume as he strives to win the receiving “triple crown.” He had six catches for 97 yards and a touchdown against the Browns and leads the league in receptions, yards and TDs. ... K Cade York tied a franchise record with a 59-yard field goal. “The guys have responded this way all season,” Taylor said. “We lost some heartbreakers to be quite frank, and games that just came down to the end. It doesn’t mean that we’ve had a bad football team and we weren’t in it. We’ve been in this, and now — I don’t want to say getting our confidence back, because we’ve had confidence — but we’re just making the plays necessary at the critical points of the game to take control of these games. That’s really what’s happened the last three weeks, and we’ve got to continue that.” What needs help Burrow has fumbled 10 times this season. Against the Browns, he lost a fumble on a strip-sack with the Bengals on the Cleveland 2-yard-line. Stock up Last week, S Jordan Battle scooped a fumble and ran it all the way back, only to fumble as he crossed the goal line, leading to a touchback. Against the Browns, he intercepted a second-half pass from Dorian Thompson-Robinson in the end zone. The Bengals' defense has nine takeaways in the past two games. Stock down Cincinnati's depleted offensive line allowed four sacks. Injuries The offensive line took a hit when tackle Amarius Mims went out with an ankle injury and didn't return. Key number 5.1 — Yards per carry by RB Chase Brown, who seems to get better every week. He had 18 carries for 91 yards. Next steps The Bengals continue their improbable effort to slip into the playoffs when they host the Broncos in their home finale on Saturday. They finish the season the following week at Pittsburgh. ___ AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL Mitch Stacy, The Associated PressAP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EST
Timbercreek Alternatives LP and Aspen Properties Close Acquisition of Calgary’s 1 Palliser ...Phillies have no plans to start pitching prospect Andrew Painter in spring training following injuryNone