Scheifele shines against LeafsAlso on Lit Hub:'Mighty Murrumbidgee' gets some long-awaited care as river restoration begins

Hart High dinner and winter wonderland worth the wait

ESTERO, Fla. (AP) — Kennard Davis' 15 points helped Southern Illinois defeat Florida Tech 81-54 on Wednesday. Davis shot 6 for 13, including 1 for 5 from beyond the arc for the Salukis (3-5). Jarrett Hensley added 14 points while going 6 of 9 (2 for 4 from 3-point range) and he also had six rebounds. Sheridan Sharp finished 5 of 6 from the floor to finish with 12 points. The Panthers were led in scoring by Donovan Brown, who finished with 17 points. Elhadji Thiam added 14 points, six rebounds and two steals for Florida Tech. Max Polk finished with 14 points. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .‘Peak popularity’: Why names go in and out of vogue

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am in a regular walking group where I have become friends with about a third of the walkers. The rest I’m polite with, but consider them acquaintances only. I host an annual party at my home for my friends. I send out private email invitations, and don’t discuss the event during the walks. One of the walkers, a rather clingy person whom I consider only an acquaintance, told me she heard I was having a party, and invited herself. I couldn’t say no. She’s a decent person, but we have nothing in common. What can I say in the future to avoid accepting self-inviting party crashers? GENTLE READER: Treat it as you would a wedding: “It’s only a small group this year, but I look forward to catching up with you on our walks.” Miss Manners suggests you also remind your invited friends not to issue unauthorized invitations or advertise the party on those walks. (Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com ; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com ; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.) Latest Advice Columns Asking Eric: Group gives pass to angry and impatient friend, saying .... ‘that’s just who he is’ Dear Abby: I know my daughter-in-law loves me, but I don’t think she likes me Dear Annie: I’m inheriting a modest sum of money and want to fairly and compassionately distribute it Hints from Heloise: How to remove blood stains, small ways to conserve water and more ... December 27 birthday horoscope and your daily astrology

With new president, Nebraska teachers union floats 'bold' plan to recruit, retainThe S&P 500 pulled 0.5% higher after flipping between gains and losses several times during the day. Banks, smaller companies and other areas of the stock market that tend to do best when the economy is strong helped lead the way, while bitcoin briefly broke above $99,000. Crude oil, meanwhile, continued to rise. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 461 points, or 1.1%, and the Nasdaq composite edged up by less than 0.1%. Nvidia rose just 0.5% after beating analysts' estimates for profit and revenue yet again, but it was still the strongest force pulling the S&P 500 upward. It also gave a forecast for revenue in the current quarter that topped most analysts' expectations due to voracious demand for its chips used in artificial-intelligence technology. Its stock initially sank in afterhours trading Wednesday following the release of the results. Some investors said the market might have been looking for Nvidia's revenue forecast to surpass expectations by even more. But its stock recovered in premarket trading Thursday, and Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said it was another "flawless" profit report provided by Nvidia and CEO Jensen Huang, whom Ives calls "the Godfather of AI." The stock meandered through Thursday as well, dragging the S&P 500 and other indexes back and forth. How Nvidia's stock performs has more impact than any other because it's grown into Wall Street's most valuable company at roughly $3.6 trillion. The frenzy around AI is sweeping up other stocks, and Snowflake jumped 32.7% after reporting stronger results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The company, whose platform helps customers get a better view of all their silos of data and use AI, also reported stronger revenue growth than expected. BJ'S Wholesale Club rose 8.3% after likewise delivering a bigger profit than expected. That may help calm worries about how resilient U.S. shoppers can remain, given high prices across the economy and still-high interest rates. A day earlier, Target tumbled after reporting sluggish sales in the latest quarter and giving a dour forecast for the holiday shopping season. It followed Walmart, which gave a much more encouraging outlook. Nearly 90% of the stocks in the S&P 500 ended up rising Thursday, and the gains were even bigger among smaller companies. The Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks jumped a market-leading 1.7%. Google's parent company, Alphabet, helped keep indexes in check. It fell 4.7% after U.S. regulators asked a judge to break up the tech giant by forcing it to sell its industry-leading Chrome web browser. In a 23-page document filed late Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice called for sweeping punishments that would include restrictions preventing Android from favoring its own search engine. Regulators stopped short of demanding Google sell Android but left the door open to it if the company's oversight committee continues to see evidence of misconduct. All told, the S&P 500 rose 31.60 points to 5,948.71. The Dow jumped 461.88 to 43,870.35, and the Nasdaq composite added 6.28 to 18,972.42. In the crypto market, bitcoin eclipsed $99,000 for the first time before pulling back toward $98,000, according to CoinDesk. It's more than doubled so far this year, and its climb has accelerated since Election Day. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to make the country "the crypto capital of the planet" and create a "strategic reserve" of bitcoin. Bitcoin got a further boost after Gary Gensler, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said Thursday he would step down in January. Gensler has pushed for more protections for crypto investors. Bitcoin and related investment have a notorious history of big price swings in both directions. MicroStrategy, a company that's been raising cash expressly to buy bitcoin, saw an early Thursday gain of 14.6% for its stock quickly disappear. It finished the day with a loss of 16.2%. In the oil market, a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 2% to bring its gain for the week to 4.8%. Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 1.8%. Oil has been rising amid escalations in the Russia-Ukraine war. In stock markets abroad, shares of India's Adani Enterprises plunged 22.6% Thursday after the U.S. charged founder Gautam Adani in a federal indictment with securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud. The businessman and one of the world's richest people is accused of concealing that his company's huge solar energy project on the subcontinent was being facilitated by an alleged bribery scheme. Stock indexes elsewhere in Asia and Europe were mixed. In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury inched up to 4.43% from 4.41% late Wednesday following some mixed reports on the U.S. economy. One said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week in the latest signal that the job market remains solid. Another report, though, said manufacturing in the mid-Atlantic region unexpectedly shrank. Sales of previously occupied homes, meanwhile, strengthened last month by more than expected.

The internet is rife with fake reviews. Will AI make it worse?Game-changing holiday gifts for building fires, printing photos, watching birds and more

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg snapped back Thursday at criticism from airline executives who say the Biden administration over-regulated them, pointing out that some of those airlines are making large profits despite new passenger-protection rules . Buttigieg said the rules his department has imposed, including automatic cash refunds after flights are canceled, enjoy broad public support and “will stand the test of time.” The comments came after the CEOs of Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines said they hoped the government will be more pro-business when President-elect Donald Trump returns to office. Delta CEO Ed Bastian said the Trump administration will be “a breath of fresh air” for his industry. “I know that some airline CEOs have expressed hopes that the next administration will be less passenger-friendly and more corporate-friendly than this administration,” Buttigieg responded during a news conference to discuss Thanksgiving travel. “The passenger protections that we have put in place deservedly enjoy broad public, bipartisan support. I just don't run into a lot of people who are against the idea that you ought to get an automatic refund without any hassle, for example.” Buttigieg argued that strong passenger protections are good for the airline business. “Some of these companies have been showing very healthy profits even at this new and higher level of consumer protection, demonstrating to me that these things can travel together,” he said. It appeared to be a reference to Delta, the most profitable U.S. airline in recent years. Delta earned $2.6 billion in the first nine months of this year and $4.6 billion last year. The airline industry has opposed many consumer-protections written by the Biden administration, even suing the Transportation Department to kill a rule requiring greater transparency over fees that airlines charge their passengers. Airlines also oppose a current department inquiry into their frequent-flyer programs . Bastian, the Delta CEO, said he expected the Transportation Department under Trump to “take a fresh look at the regulatory environment, the bureaucracy that exists in government, the level of overreach that we have seen over the last four years within our industry.” Southwest Airlines CEO Robert Jordan said last week, “We are hopeful for a DOT (Department of Transportation) that is maybe a little less aggressive in terms of regulating or rule-making.” Buttigieg noted that his department extracted a $140 million settlement from Southwest over widespread flight cancellations in December 2022 and is conducting a similar investigation into Delta, which canceled about 7,000 flights after a technology outage in July. He suggested airline CEOs should spend more time thinking about passengers and less about their regulator.Amid Republican interparty contention over H-1B visas and immigration policy, some misconceptions about workers' ability to change employers have been circulating, with some critics of the program likening it to indentured servitude. Newsweek has reached out to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services media team for comment on Sunday. Why It Matters President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on a platform of cracking down on immigration and carrying out mass deportations, pledges supported by many of his loyalists. However, two top Trump advisers, Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk , who are set to co-lead the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), have a less strict stance on the issue, and their social media posts this week have caused blowback within the GOP. At the center of the debate is the H-1B visa program, which allows U.S. companies to employ foreign workers with specialized knowledge or expertise. Some critics of the program are calling it "indentured servitude" of foreign workers, saying that visa holders cannot change jobs. While changing jobs as a visa holder is more logistically challenging and expensive than it is for American citizens, it is possible if the proper paperwork is filed and approved. What To Know This week, Indian American entrepreneur and venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan's appointment as Trump's artificial intelligence (AI) policy adviser caused a stir among supporters, as has Ramaswamy's recent social media post calling out American work culture and Musk saying there aren't enough "super talented" engineers in the U.S. Ramaswamy's lengthy post on X, formerly Twitter , argued that tech companies need foreign workers because Americans don't have a good enough work ethic and that American culture "venerated mediocrity over excellence." For specialized foreign workers to legally work in the U.S., they must be sponsored by employers and approved. Tech companies, financial institutions, and universities are often the most frequent sponsors. In 2024, Amazon , Google , Meta and other major companies dominated the market, each receiving several thousand visas. Musk, a South African naturalized U.S. citizen and owner of SpaceX and Tesla , has professionally and personally benefitted from H-1B visas. He first entered the U.S. on a J-1 academic visa that he says changed to an H-1B visa. Tesla reportedly brought hundreds of employees to the U.S. through the program last year. The H-1B visa program provides temporary stay in the U.S. to specialized foreign workers. There is an annual cap of 65,000 new H-1B visas that can be issued. An "additional 20,000 petitions filed on behalf of beneficiaries with a master's degree or higher from a U.S. institution of higher education are exempt from the cap," according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Extensions and employment changes (like switching employers) are exempt from the annual cap in most cases. According to USCIS data, thousands more applications are filed and approved annually than the 65,000 cap, indicating numerous petitions for new employers and continuing employment extensions. Unlike the definition of indenture servitude, in which someone works for a single employer without pay, visa holders may change employers and are paid. However, visa holders face more obstacles when changing jobs compared to American citizens. Some critics of the program acknowledge that while visa holders can switch employers, they may be unable to secure a higher salary at a better company if the petition process is not approved, reiterating their concerns of "indentured servitude." Others note the limited mobility to the visa holders as they are tied to their sponsoring employers, and some have raised concerns over underpayment. H-1B visa holders can "begin working for the new employer as soon as they properly file a non-frivolous Form I-129 petition on your behalf, or as of the requested start date on that petition, whichever is later," USCIS states. However, they are not guaranteed their updated visa for their new employer will be approved. If a visa holder's petition from a new employer is denied, they may continue working for their previous employer if their authorization period is still valid. However, their "authorization to work based on portability ceases upon denial of the petition." Some visa holders may be laid off, fired, or choose to quit their jobs, in which case they have up to 60 days "or until the end of your authorized validity period, whichever is shorter, to find new employment, change status, or depart the country." As part of the employer's filing on behalf of the applicant, a Labor Condition Application must be included, certified by Department of Labor. The application requires the employer to acknowledge they will comply with labor requirements. One such requirement outlined by the USCIS is: "The employer/agent will pay the H-1B worker a wage which is no less than the wage paid to similarly qualified workers or, if greater, the prevailing wage for the position in the geographic area in which the H-1B worker will be working." What People Are Saying Sohrab Ahmari, an author and columnist, posted on X on Thursday: "It's indentured servitude for the visa recipients. And native-born workers won't do these jobs? Then why are they sometimes asked to train their own H1B replacements *before* they're laid off? Yes, this happens." Ann Coulter, a conservative commentator and author, posted on X on Thursday: "American workers can leave a company. Imported H1B workers can't. Tech wants indentured servants, not "high-skilled" workers." Conservative writer Ana Bredenberg replied to a post on X on Friday : "More indentured servitude with H 1B. The best has never ever come through on H 1B Visas. They come through O-1 Visas. You've been gaslighted." David Bier, director of immigration studies at the think tank Cato Institute, wrote in an April 2024 blog post: "From fiscal year 2005 to 2023, H‐1B workers changed jobs over 1 million times (1,090,890). The number of switches grew from about 24,000 in 2005 to a record 130,576 in 2022—a more than fivefold increase. In fiscal year 2023, H‐1B workers changed jobs 117,153 times, a slight decline from 2022." Later in the post he wrote, "Of course, it is true that H‐1B workers are still not treated equally in the labor market." What Happens Next As of Saturday, Trump has not publicly addressed interparty debates over H-1B visas. He will be inaugurated on January 20, after which the new administration will decide what, if any, changes will be made to the legal immigration process.