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Flag football scours nation with talent camps to uncover next wave of starsThe Dow rocketed to a fresh record Friday, extending a post-election US equity rally while the euro retreated against the dollar following weak eurozone data. The blue-chip index piled on one percent to end the day at 44,296.51, narrowly overtaking a record set earlier this month. Major American indices have been at or near record territory since the US election, with investors betting that President-elect Donald Trump's program of tax cuts and regulatory scale-back would more than offset the drag from expected tariff increases. "The trading most of this week has been influenced by the growth agenda," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Cresset Capital Management. Market watchers have been cheered this week by a broadening of the rally beyond the tech names that dominated earlier in the year. The dollar also continued to strengthen, reflecting less certainty about additional Federal Reserve interest rate cuts and the US currency's status as a haven asset amid escalating tensions in the Russia-Ukraine war. The euro was also battered by a closely watched survey showing contractions in November business activity in the eurozone. The HCOB Flash Eurozone purchasing managers' index (PMI) published by S&P Global dropped to 48.1 compared to 50.0 in October, the most marked rate of contraction in 10 months. Any reading above 50 indicates growth, while a figure below 50 shows contraction. "Things could hardly have turned out much worse," said Cyrus de la Rubia, chief economist at Hamburg Commercial Bank. "The eurozone's manufacturing sector is sinking deeper into recession, and now the services sector is starting to struggle after two months of marginal growth." But as the euro fell both Paris and Frankfurt stocks managed to recover their losses and advance. "The eurozone data has increased the chance of more rate cuts from the ECB next year," said Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB, as well a cut of 50 basis points next month. "Investors have been jolted into recalibrating interest rate expectations on the back of this bleak economic news," she added. London managed to gain 1.4 percent despite data showing that retail sales figures for October undershot forecasts, as the pound fell against the dollar. In Asia, Tokyo climbed as the government prepared to announce a $140 billion stimulus package to kickstart the country's stuttering economy. However, Hong Kong and Shanghai sank on a sell-off in tech firms caused by weak earnings from firms including Temu-owner PDD Holdings and internet giant Baidu. Bitcoin set a new record high above $99,500 Friday, before easing back slightly. The leading digital currency is expected to soon burst through $100,000 as investors grow increasingly hopeful that Trump will pass measures to deregulate the crypto sector. Bitcoin has soared more than 40 percent since the Republican's election victory this month and has more than doubled since the turn of the year. The recent surge has also been "driven by news that Trump could set up an official crypto department that would sit in the heart of US government," said XTB's Brooks. New York - Dow: UP 1.0 percent at 44,296.51 (close) New York - S&P 500: UP 0.4 percent at 5,969.34 (close) New York - Nasdaq Composite: UP 0.2 percent at 19,003.65 (close) London - FTSE 100: UP 1.4 percent at 8,262.08 (close) Paris - CAC 40: UP 0.6 percent at 7,255.01 (close) Frankfurt - DAX: UP 0.9 percent at 19,322.59 (close) Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 0.7 percent at 38,283.85 (close) Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: DOWN 1.9 percent at 19,229.97 (close) Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 3.1 percent at 3,267.19 (close) Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.0418 from $1.0474 on Thursday Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.2530 from $1.2589 Dollar/yen: UP at 154.83 yen from 154.54 yen Euro/pound: DOWN at 83.11 pence from 83.20 pence West Texas Intermediate: UP 1.6 percent at $71.24 per barrel Brent North Sea Crude: UP 1.3 percent at $75.17 per barrel burs-jmb/mlm
Readers Write: Political division, the HEARTS act, charter school funding
Republicans have dealt a pair of stinging rejections to President-elect Donald Trump over the past week, a sign of how Trump’s immediate lame-duck status could limit his influence despite his enormous sway over the GOP’s most dedicated voters. There’s little doubt Trump, like any president, remains the leader of his party, and is certain to have a mostly unified GOP rooting for him as he pushes for tax cuts for the wealthy, conservative judicial appointments and assaults on democratic norms. And there have long been limits to how far Republicans would actually go in service of a man many of them privately find ridiculous even as they lavishly praise him in public. But the two prominent rejections in the past week ― Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis resisting Trump’s entreaties to his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to Florida’s open Senate seat and more than three dozen House Republicans denying his request to include a debt ceiling hike in a government funding bill ― show how Trump lacks the power to simply dictate the GOP’s behavior in either politics or government, and function as warning signs for Trump allies hoping for seamless enactment of his agenda, from his plans for a complex piece of tax legislation to his vision for trillions in spending cuts engineered by Elon Musk. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) told HuffPost the GOP would obviously remain by Trump’s side, but noted some of his requests ― like a debt ceiling hike ― simply aren’t feasible. “I think he’s going to continue to lobby, and I think they respect the fact that he’s the incoming president of the United States, and they all want to have a good relationship with him, but they also know that certain things are doable and some things are not doable, and in the political process, there is no way at this stage of the game to effectively address the debt ceiling,” he said. “And so it was a matter of we do the best we can, and we’re all on the same team.” “We want to make things work out, right?” Rounds said. Trump’s demand that Republicans add a debt ceiling provision to their government funding bill tanked House Speaker Mike Johnson’s initial legislation, but set up a standoff that he wound up losing. Republicans hate raising the debt ceiling, and they weren’t willing to abandon their stubborn position just because Trump wanted them to. Thirty-eight Republicans voted against the legislation that Johnson hastily assembled to placate their leader. The president-elect even threatened to back a primary opponent against Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), only to see Roy openly defy him. “My position is simple - I am not going to raise or suspend the debt ceiling (racking up more debt) without significant & real spending cuts attached to it. I’ve been negotiating to that end. No apologies,” Roy wrote on X, tagging Trump to make sure he saw. Trump’s embarrassing defeat at the hands of House lawmakers followed a stiff-arm by Senate Republicans, who refused to support scandal-plagued Matt Gaetz for attorney general, forcing the would-be nominee to withdraw from consideration. In that confrontation, Trump backed down even after threatening to try to go around the Senate and use recess appointments to fill his cabinet. DeSantis’ resistance was less explicit. Lara Trump was never firmly rejected, instead withdrawing her name from consideration on Saturday night. The Washington Post reported Trump had pushed DeSantis to name her to the seat , which will become vacant when Sen. Marco Rubio is presumably confirmed as Trump’s Secretary of State. But when asked about it at a press conference earlier this month, Trump was skeptical he would get his way. “I probably don’t, but I don’t know,” the president-elect said at Mar-a-Lago. “Ron’s doing a good job and that’s his choice. Nothing to do with me.” Trump likely lost leverage over DeSantis when it became clear he was sticking by his troubled nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, who stands accused of workplace drinking and sexual assault. Trump allies had floated DeSantis as a potential replacement nominee if Hegseth faltered. Former Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.), a Trump critic, said DeSantis and other Republicans were already looking past the time when Trump ruled the party. “That episode clearly reflects Trump’s lame duck status when it comes to who will be fighting for control of the party starting in December of 2026,” Jolly said. “DeSantis clearly sees Trump as a lame duck with fading currency, and the Florida Governor still has plans to demonstrate his own Republican leadership. Surely DeSantis isn’t alone.” Another prominent Florida GOP consultant noted the “ceiling” of Trump’s ask could also decline in the future. “If there is obvious cognitive decline from Jan. 20, [his problems] will accelerate,” said the consultant, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about his party’s leader. Mike Davis, a former Senate GOP staffer known for his pro-Trump bombast, insisted the president-elect was charging full steam ahead. “Trump forced Biden, a Democrat-controlled Senate, and a barely Republican-controlled House to surrender on their annual end-of-year spending frenzy,” he said. “Trump’s just getting warmed up.” Still, it’s clear there’s also something of an indirect challenger for Trump’s throne atop the GOP. While Trump did not get any of what he requested from House Republicans, his top donor, tech billionaire Elon Musk, did. And Musk’s trillions may be able to power political careers years in the future when Trump’s social media missives have disappeared from the scene. Trump, in a speech in Arizona on Sunday, aimed to downplay the idea Musk could somehow supplant him, noting ― correctly, for once in his life ― that Musk is ineligible to be president. “I’m safe. You know why? He can’t be. He wasn’t born in this country,” Trump said jokingly.UTICA – The start of the 2024-25 season hasn’t exactly been easy for Mike Hardman. Take last Saturday, as an example, for the new Utica Comets winger. Less than two minutes into the eventual 5-1 win at Rochester, the 25-year-old Hardman – playing in his first season with the Comets after signing with the parent New Jersey Devils in the offseason – got bumped by Brendan Warren into a stanchion near the Amerks’ bench. His face took the brunt of the collision with the glass. “My tooth went up into my lip. I got six stitches,” Hardman said with a slight chuckle. “So that’s kind of how it is going right now. I was lucky to not lose any teeth. ... I would have been pretty upset if lost a couple teeth. My mom was pretty happy about (me not losing any teeth).” He missed about nine minutes of game time in the first period to get stitched up – there was “a lot of blood,” he noted – and later scored the eventual game-winner in the second period. That was his 50th career AHL goal. It was part of a four-point weekend for Hardman, a central figure in helping the Comets secure their first win of the season Friday in Syracuse with a g ame-winning goal with 73 seconds remaining in regulation. For his contributions, Hardman was named the AHL’s Player of the Week for the first time in his career. “I feel like my linemates, Adam Beckman and X (Xavier Parent), they were awesome this weekend. I think we were all playing pretty similar. We were playing pretty well in the (offensive zone) there,” Hardman said. “I feel like it is a huge credit to them. We were just talking to each other on the bench and trying to help each out. (The Player of the Week honor) is nice to have. But, I feel like they helped me out a lot. We’re just trying to build off that into (Wednesday) and the weekend.” It was also a nice feeling, Hardman said, after dealing with a hip flexor injury in October and then an issue with his his acromioclavicular (AC) joint in his shoulder. He missed eight of the team’s 15 games between the two injuries. Hardman said he feels 100% now. “I feel like it was definitely frustrating coming to a new team and getting a couple injuries right off the bat. But, you know, the medical staff here was great and they really helped me out,” he said. “Coming back getting those two wins, it was an awesome feeling. We’re trying to build off of that.” Hardman is among the players trying to make an impression in an effort to get an opportunity at the NHL level with the Devils. Hardman played 164 games with AHL Rockford and 37 contests with its affiliate, Chicago before joining the organization. Comets interim head coach Ryan Parent referred to Hardman as “a really strong player.” “He does a lot of things well away from the puck,” Parent said. “When I watch him, he’s a great linemate because you know he’s going to be there. If you’re working with him, he does a good job of managing the game, delivering the puck and making it easy for the rest of his lines and for the team when he’s on the ice.” He’s got a chance to make an impression with the home crowd at 7 p.m. Wednesday when the Comets play their final home game of November against the Providence Bruins. It is the first of two visits to Utica for Boston’s AHL affiliate this season. “Hopefully, the guys will have energy and continue to build on what we have going,” said Parent, who noted the team’s better game management, special teams play and generating more offense by getting pucks to the net. Utica (2-10-1-2 overall, 7 points) continues to face an arduous uphill climb to get back into the conversation with some of the other North Division teams. The team enters this week 11 points out of fifth place, which is the eventual playoff cutoff line in the North Division. Parent has stated the team’s game is trending in the right direction. On Tuesday, the players seemed jovial during practice. “I think the biggest thing for our group is we’re not satisfied with two wins,” Hardman said. “I think we’re definitely a long way out of a playoff spot right now. But, we want to just keep climbing up the standings. Obviously a lot of games left in the year.” The Comets will try to end another extended winless streak, having gone 0-6-0-2 in downtown Utica this season tying the team record for longest winless stretch in a season. And, dating back to the 2023-24 season, Utica is 0-8-0-2 at home. The last victory was March 30 vs. Springfield. After Wednesday, Utica heads to Springfield for a 4:05 p.m. game Friday in Massachusetts. Then, Utica meets Providence again at 7 p.m. Saturday in Rhode Island to close November. While Hardman has gotten the chance to play close to home in previous seasons, this is the closest he’s consistently played near his parents and family in his pro career. He’s excited to have family at the two games this weekend in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. “My parents are pretty pumped to come to the games,” said Hardman, who played two seasons at Boston College. “I think I’ll have a good amount of family and friends at the game on Saturday. I’m really excited to see all of them and play in front of them since I haven’t really done that in the past couple of years.” Change Veteran defenseman Andy Welinski was released from his professional tryout contract, the team announced Tuesday. The 31-year-old appeared in eight games with Utica as a depth option. Parent said he believed Welinski was able to “find another opportunity,” but didn’t elaborate. Jackson van de Leest was recalled from ECHL Adirondack. He’s played two games with Utica this season.
SKUAST-K scholar secures top rank in INSPIRE fellowship SRINAGAR: Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir Scholar Mehnaz Shakeel has secured the first rank in the INSPIRE Fellowship awarded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. Mehnaz Shakeel is a PhD scholar in the Division of Plant Pathology at the Faculty of Agriculture, Wadura Campus. The INSPIRE (Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research) Fellowship aims to support young researchers in pursuing advanced studies in basic and applied sciences, including agriculture. Mehnaz’s research is being supervised by Prof Anwar Ali, who has been guiding her academic work. The fellowship provides monthly scholarship and financial assistance for research-related costs and will support her doctoral studies for up to five years. Vice Chancellor of SKUAST-K, Prof Nazir Ahmad Ganai, congratulated Mehnaz on this achievement, noting that it reflects the university’s focus on fostering quality research. “Mehnaz has made the university proud by securing this prestigious fellowship that too with the first rank at the all-India level. We wish her continued success in her academic journey,” he said. This recognition highlights the growing presence of SKUAST-K scholars in national research platforms and reinforces the institution’s commitment to advancing agricultural sciences.A charity is encouraging the public to make their mental health a priority this Christmas. Turn2me, a mental health charity, said the holiday season can bring many challenges, particularly when being forced to socialise with "toxic" family members. The mental health charity said this time of year can "magnify tensions", particularly in family dynamics where "unresolved issues or dysfunctional patterns exist". Turn2Me's CEO Fiona O'Malley stressed the importance of setting boundaries, especially around potentially divisive dinner table topics. "We all know at the dinner table, people should generally avoid politics, religion and money," Ms O'Malley said. "They are generally topics that can cause division. "If you pivot into other topics that can be a good way to keep tensions low." Ms O'Malley said some family dynamics can be "emotionally draining". "Remember that you do have the right to set boundaries and priorities your own mental health," she said. Ms O'Malley previously told Newstalk Breakfast that limiting time spent with your family can also help. “If you spend extended periods with these toxic family members that can feel overwhelming, but if you plan ahead, you can limit your time together,” she said. “This could mean arriving later, arriving earlier, or if you schedule breaks during family gatherings like saying, ‘I have to take a phone call at x time’ or ‘I need to have a walk around the block after lunchtime’. “That can lessen the impact or make it feel less overwhelming.” Turn2Me offer anonymous, confidential mental health support. You can learn more about the organisation right here . Other mental health resources include the Text About It service, Pieta House , the Samaritans and Childline . If you or someone you know is at risk of harming themselves or others, always contact emergency services on 112 or 999. HSE information and advice on mental health can be found here . Feature image shows a stressed woman in a Christmas jumper, Alamy.