Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has committed to fiercely defending the H-1B visa program for foreign tech workers. His declaration comes amidst a discord between President-elect Donald Trump's supporters and new backers from the tech sector. In a social media post, Musk referred to the importance of H-1B visas, citing their role in strengthening America by attracting critical talent to companies like SpaceX and Tesla. Musk himself, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from South Africa, has benefited from the program. The dispute underscores tensions over immigration policy, emphasizing the tech industry's dependence on the program while attracting criticism for potentially suppressing wages and limiting job opportunities for native citizens. (With inputs from agencies.)winning slots game 。

Syrians are dancing in the streets of Damascus and other cities, to celebrate the collapse of the hideous regime of Bashar al-Assad, the man responsible for an estimated 600,000 dead in a 13-year-long civil war — including tens of thousands viciously tortured to death in his dungeons. Those still alive have been staggering out of liberated prisons, limping and running toward family and freedom. “This is the moment of celebration,” I was told by the University of Oklahoma’s Joshua Landis, a Syria specialist with family in the country. He told me the dispirited Syrian army had faded away and let rebels win because they had been receiving little or no pay and no further support from their Russian and Iranian backers. That’s the good news. The not so good news: No one is certain what kind of government will follow Assad in the weeks to come — whether it will help stabilize the region, including Lebanon and possibly Gaza, or further tear it apart. The critical news, which may save Syria from a relapse into violence: Assad’s flight to exile in Moscow is a body blow to Iran’s ayatollahs and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, for whom Syria had critical importance. It displays their increasing weakness and paints them as losers. It makes them more vulnerable to anyone who seeks negotiations with either. President-elect Trump, take note. The immediate post-Assad threat is that Syria might collapse into separate militia fiefs or into another civil war. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (known as HTS) — the main rebel group that toppled the government in a lightning advance from the north — was once the Syrian branch of al-Qaida. Its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, broke with the terrorist group several years ago and is trying to soften his image. But Syria’s many minorities will have doubts. “Jolani’s going to have to reach out to all these different Syrian communities,” said Landis, hopefully. I still recall my last visit inside Syria in 2012, during the Arab Spring just before the heightened civil war and Islamist kidnappings made journalistic access almost impossible. With a Syrian translator, I visited a headquarters of a group called Ahrar al-Sham, inside an abandoned school, and the aggressive hostility of the fighters was only contained when a Belgian volunteer intervened. I soon left. I also interviewed moderate, unbearded civilian fighters who had set up militias because they wanted a democracy to replace Assad’s vicious rule. How to coalesce secular Syrians, moderate Muslims, Kurds, and Christians into a government with Islamists, and whether free elections will be possible is the huge challenge Syria will face. Yet, what gives me hope is that the Iranians and Russians will no longer be able to bend Syria to their will. After a popular uprising in 2011, Assad was only able to retain power because of intervention by Tehran, and later by Moscow. Although Syria has a religiously and ethnically mixed population, including a plurality of Sunni Muslims along with Kurds, Christians and other minorities, Assad belongs to a minority Shiite sect, known as Alawites, who have controlled the country for decades. Thus he was close to the Shiite regime in Tehran. The Iranians sent thousands of fighters to Syria, comprised of their own forces along with Iraqi Shiite militias and even Afghan refugees living in Iran. Led by Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers, they were much more effective combatants than the underpaid and corrupt Syrian army. Iran’s quid pro quo was Assad’s permission to allow Iranian weapons and missiles to be trucked and flown from Tehran via Damascus to Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon to use against Israel. Syria thus became a critical element of Tehran’s effort to encircle Israel with a “ring of fire” that included Lebanon’s Hezbollah militiamen (along with Hamas in Gaza and Houthis in Yemen). With Assad gone and Sunni Syrian rebel groups in charge, Iranians are fleeing the country. No more will they be able to transport weapons to Lebanon to be used against Israel. Nor will they be able to help the Alawite minority dominate the country. Russia, for its part, sent planes in 2015 to bomb Syrian civilians and cities into rubble, just as they have done to Ukraine. Moscow was rewarded with a critical Mediterranean port in Tartus and a major airfield which helped support Putin’s expansionist ambitions. Russia will most likely lose those bases, which gave them their only access to the Mediterranean and gave Putin an important Mideast role. His global access is thus shrinking. And Syria, hopefully, will be freed from his colonial games. This means that the Islamists, and Jolani, will have to look to the moderate Sunni Arab world and to the West to help rebuild their country and resettle Syrian refugees who return. Which in turn gives those Arabs and Western leaders leverage to prevent any attempt to impose an ultraconservative religious state. If this leverage is not used wisely, Jolani could become a threat, in a country where ISIS still has cells that are in touch with their counterparts in Iraq. If used wisely, Syria could revive and rebuild its shattered society. Nothing less is owed to the thousands who died under torture during Assad’s rule.Global Molybdenum Market Insights 2024: Key Trends, Market Size, and Growth Forecast

FBI Director Wray to resign at the end of Biden’s term

Did you know Pope Francis was a nightclub bouncer, his favorite movie is “La Strada” by Federico Fellini, and that he doesn’t watch television? On the occasion of his 88th birthday on December 17, these and other interesting facts about Pope Francis are highlighted below. 1. How did he discover his vocation? On the feast of St. Matthew the Apostle, Pope Francis discovered his vocation to the priesthood after going to confession when he was 16 years old. It happened on Sept. 21, 1953. It was Student Day in Argentina, which coincides with the day when spring begins in the southern hemisphere and is celebrated with a big party. “Before going to the party, I passed by the parish I attended and I found a priest I didn’t know and I felt the need to go to confession. This was for me an experience of encounter: I found Someone who was waiting for me.” “I don’t know what happened, I don’t remember, I don’t know why that priest was there, whom I didn’t know, why I had felt that desire to go to confession, but the truth is that Someone was waiting for me. He had been waiting for me for a long time. After confession I felt that something had changed,” the Holy Father shared. He said that after that confession he said that he was no longer himself: “I had heard something like a voice, a call: I was convinced that I had to be a priest.” 2. What is his favorite dish? November 19, 2022, was one of those rare occasions when Pope Francis left the Vatican without an official program. The reason? A family reunion in Asti, the Italian city where his cousin Daniela di Tiglione lives, who was celebrating her 90th birthday. On that occasion, Pope Francis was able to enjoy his favorite dish: Bagna Cauda, a typical Piedmont dish prepared with anchovies, oil, and garlic and used as a sauce for vegetables. 3. A passion for tango Before being ordained a priest, especially during his youth, Pope Francis enjoyed tango, one of the most emblematic dances of Argentina. He also liked the milonga, another typical dance from his homeland. 4. He was a bouncer in a nightclub Like any young man, Jorge Bergoglio worked various jobs to earn his first salary. Although his first job was scrubbing the floors of the hosiery company where his father worked, in 2013 he confessed to a group of young people that he was also a bouncer at a nightclub. Thanks to that experience, he began “to guide the disillusioned to the Church.” 5. He’s missing a lung When he was 21, he had to have a lung removed due to an infection, which has caused him to suffer from some breathing difficulties in recent years. 6. He has refused forgiveness only once On more than one occasion, Pope Francis has encouraged priests to forgive “everything” in the confessional and to “not torture” the faithful in the confessional. During an interview on Italian television in January, he stated that in his more than 50 years as a priest he has refused forgiveness only once, “because of the hypocrisy of the person.” 7. The prayer he says every day to keep his good humor On several occasions, Pope Francis has praised a good sense of humor and stressed that sadness is not a Christian disposition. He has even gone so far as to say that the “hallmark of a Christian” is joy and not being a sourpuss. To be good-humored, he says a prayer from St. Thomas More every day, a prayer he has referred to in numerous public appearances, most recently with the president of France, Emmanuel Macron. “Lord, give me a sense of humor. Grant me the grace to understand a joke, to discover in life a bit of joy, and be able to share it with others,” the Holy Father prays every day. 8. St. Joseph, his help in difficulties There is an image of St. Joseph that Pope Francis is very fond of that shows the “silent” saint lying down asleep. During his apostolic trip to the Philippines, the pontiff referred to St. Joseph as “a strong man of silence” and said that he keeps this figurine on his desk. “Even when he sleeps, he takes care of the Church,” he said. “When I have a problem, a difficulty, I write a little note and put it under St. Joseph so that he can dream about it. In other words, I tell him: Pray for this problem!” the Holy Father confessed. 9. Pope Francis favors taking a daily nap Pope Francis usually goes to bed at 9 p.m. and wakes up around 4 a.m. He sleeps about six hours a day, as he usually reads for an hour after going to bed, until 10 p.m. “Later I need a nap. I have to sleep for 40 minutes to an hour. I take off my shoes and fall into bed. And I also sleep deeply and wake up alone. On days when I don’t take a nap, I notice it,” he once said. 10. What is his favorite soccer team? Even though he no longer lives in Argentina, Pope Francis continues to root for the San Lorenzo de Almagro team from Buenos Aires. He keeps up to date thanks to a Swiss Guard who informs him of the team’s news every week, since the pope doesn’t watch the games. In fact, during an audience at the Vatican in September, a delegation from the San Lorenzo club asked the Holy Father for his blessing to name the club’s next stadium after him. 11. The day his life was saved At the age of 44, Pope Francis suffered from gangrene of the gallbladder, a serious complication that occurs when the tissue of this organ of the digestive system becomes necrotic due to an interruption of blood flow. “I felt like I was dying,” said the Holy Father, referring to the night in 1980 when he was operated on by Dr. Juan Carlos Parodi, an eminent Argentine surgeon who saved the life of then-Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio. In 2014, 34 years later, the two held a private meeting in the Vatican. 12. Where does he want to be buried? Unlike many pontiffs throughout the history of the Church, whose coffins are in the crypts of the Vatican in the grottoes under St. Peter’s Basilica, the Holy Father revealed that he has had his tomb prepared in St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome due to the great devotion he has to the Virgin Salus Populi Romani (protectress of the Roman people), to whom he made a promise. In addition, in December 2022, the pontiff gave an interview in which he announced that he had signed his resignation in case his health did not allow him to continue exercising his ministry. 13. What is his favorite movie? “La Strada” by Federico Fellini, winner of the Oscar for best foreign film in 1957. 14. He doesn’t watch television because of a promise to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Pope Francis says he hasn’t watched television since July 15, 1990, when he promised Our Lady of Mount Carmel that he would no longer do so. The Holy Father made this promise because he “felt that God was asking me to do it.” 15. He went to therapy at age 42 In the book interview “Politics and Society” by Frenchman Dominique Wolton, Pope Francis recounted that, when he was provincial of the Society of Jesus in Argentina, he went to therapy for six months with a Jewish psychologist. “She was very good, very professional,” the Holy Father said. 16. An ‘incognito’ pope on the streets of Rome In 2013, the year he was elected bishop of Rome, a Vatican source informed the “Huffington Post” that Pope Francis went out at night dressed as a priest to give alms and help the poor on the streets of Rome. Suicide bombers planned to attack the pope Meanwhile, Pope Francis marked his 88th birthday with revelations that he almost didn’t make it, the Associated Press said. According to excerpts from his upcoming autobiography, suicide bombers had planned to attack him during his March 2021 visit to Iraq, but were killed before striking. Italian daily “Corriere della Sera” ran excerpts of “Hope: The Autobiography,” written with Italian author Carlo Musso, which is being released in more than 80 countries next month. IFrancis recalled his historic March 2021 trip to Iraq, the first ever by a pope. Covid-19 was still raging and security concerns were high, especially in Mosul. According to Italian publisher Mondadori, “Hope” is the first autobiography ever published by a pope. Catholic News Agency with Associated PressColumn: This red Midwestern state is a global paragon of clean powerIt's harder now than ever to win on the PGA Tour. The depth of professional golf has only grown in recent years, and a new wave of young stars enters the sport every year and makes their mark on the PGA Tour. In 2024, there were 15-first-time winners, meaning almost 33 percent of all Tour events were won by first timers. Then there was Scottie Scheffler, who won seven PGA Tour events in addition to his win at the Olympics and Hero World Challenge. Xander Schauffele won a pair of majors. Rory McIlroy won the Wells Fargo for the fourth time. However, not every star has lifted a trophy recently. Some are adding the years since they won. Here's a look at some PGA Tour stars who are looking to end lengthy win droughts in 2025. It's coming up on two years since Burns took down good friend Scottie Scheffler in the semis at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in 2023 before a thrilling final against Cam Young, but the 19th ranked golfer in the world has yet to win since. Perhaps 2025 can be the year he gets PGA Tour win No. 6. The eight-time PGA Tour winner captured the 2022 BMW Championship, defending his title at the event. But heading into 2025, Cantlay is creeping up on three years without a victory and recently fell outside of the top 10 in the OWGR for the first time since June of 2021. Finau went through a stretch in 2022-23 where he won four times in 19 starts, including three wins in a seven-start stretch the latter half of 2022. But he hasn't won since the 2023 Mexico Open and is recovering from recent knee surgery. Hovland won the FedEx Cup and Tour Championship in 2023, and since then, it has been a spiral. He missed the cut in three of the four majors in 2024, though he seemed to find his groove toward the end of the year. He recently broke his pinky toe, however, and will try to play through the pain at The Sentry. Homa won on the DP World Tour late last year and had a strong week defending earlier this month, but his last PGA Tour win came nearly two years ago at the 2023 Farmers. Perhaps the West Coast Swing can result in another win for the California kid. It's hard to believe, but Adam Scott is coming up on five years since his last PGA Tour win at the 2020 Genesis Invitational. He's ranked 18th in the world thanks to a strong stretch of golf in 2024, but does the Aussie have a few more Ws in him? Who knows what to expect from Spieth in 2025 after wrist surgery in late August. He hasn't won since the 2022 RBC Heritage, including a playoff loss to Matt Fitzpatrick in the same event a year later. Last but not least, Thomas hasn't won since capturing his second major at the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills. However, of all golfers on this list, it wouldn't be a surprise to see him win early in 2025. His last two starts of 2024? T-2 at the Zozo and solo third at the Hero.

Canadian lawmaker to start work on defeating Trudeau government in early JanuaryThe 54-year-old TV presenter revealed in 2021 that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and later underwent a mastectomy during which her breast plus two lymph glands were removed before reconstruction took place. Bradbury has since stopped drinking alcohol and has changed the priorities in her life, but revealed she has received some pushback on social media from sharing her approach. She told The Times Weekend magazine: “I wasn’t close to death, but death looked me in the eyes. So I am more focused on my health than I ever have been. “I don’t drink, I eat a healthy diet and exercise every day. “When I came home from my mastectomy, I promised I would spend time outside every day, and that is my mantra, however poor it might be in this shitty winter.” Bradbury, who has since been given the all-clear, said a doctor recently helped her reframe how she utilises her energy. She recalled: “He said, ‘This drive that you have – you’re running on a credit card. You can push through all sorts of things. But is that the best thing for you?’. “I realised you don’t have to win every race. You don’t have to overcome everything. I don’t want to max out the credit card.” The presenter previously discussed her experience in an ITV documentary, Julia Bradbury: Breast Cancer And Me, which followed her as she came to terms with her diagnosis and prepared to undergo her single mastectomy. She also regularly shares her wellness and fitness tips with her more than 270,000 Instagram followers. However, she revealed she has had pushback from people saying, “I was healthy, I go to the gym, I got cancer, and now its metastasised and I’ve got secondary cancer. So are you blaming me for my illness?”. A post shared by JULIA BRADBURY (@juliabradbury) Responding to the accusations, she added: “No. All I’m saying is, this is what I went through. It was a wake-up call, and it made me look at life differently. “It made me prioritise my sleep, emotional health, and give more time to my loved ones. “If I drink more than four units of alcohol a week, my risk of reoccurrence goes up by 28%. But people find me giving up drinking infuriating.” Bradbury, who has a 13-year-old son Zephyr, and nine-year-old twins Xanthe and Zena, said having children later in life has caused her to not be as “patient” as she feels she should be at times after becoming more set in her own ways. “People think that after you’ve got a cancer diagnosis, you become this beautiful angel with a halo, and a super mum and do everything right”, she added. “But no, you make the same mistakes. I lose my temper, and I can hear myself saying things that I can’t believe I’m saying. “None of us know what we’re doing, really. We’re just doing our best. I know they do have lots of love. They are told that they’re loved every day.”Remembering Manmohan Singh: A Secular Visionary

Watch 2024’s biggest moments in new ABC special ‘The Year: 2024’ for freeFriend of Quebec man killed in Florida boat explosion says his sister also injuredA childhood friend of the Quebec man killed in a Florida boat explosion earlier this week says one of the victim’s sisters was among the other six passengers injured in the blast. Thi Cam Nhung Lê says she grew up with Sebastien Gauthier in Quebec City and considered him her best friend. Lê says Gauthier’s older sister was also on the boat in Florida’s Broward County when it exploded and she was taken to a hospital. She says Gauthier’s family was in Florida to celebrate the holidays and that his sudden death feels “unimaginable.” A video posted on social media Monday shows the vessel engulfed in flames following the explosion, with a thick column of black smoke billowing into the sky. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has confirmed that Gauthier died of his injuries, saying a preliminary investigation shows the 37-foot vessel exploded after its engines were started. Lê remembers Gauthier as someone who was always smiling and says she is waiting for answers about what led to her friend’s death.

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