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Biden’s 2024 dilemma: US economy looks solid, but voters still not feeling it

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:59:54 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden goes into next year’s election with a vexing challenge: Just as the U.S. economy is getting stronger, people are still feeling horrible about it.Pollsters and economists say there has never been as wide a gap between the underlying health of the economy and public perception. The divergence could be a decisive factor in whether the Democrat secures a second term next year. Republicans are seizing on the dissatisfaction to skewer Biden, while the White House is finding less success as it tries to highlight economic progress.“Things are getting better and people think things are going to get worse — and that’s the most dangerous piece of this,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who has worked with Biden. Lake said voters no longer want to just see inflation rates fall — rather, they want an outright decline in prices, something that last happened on a large scale during the Great Depression. “Honestly, I’m kind of mystified by it,...

Texas tops Stanford 3-1 to clinch spot in NCAA volleyball semifinals

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:59:54 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — There's only one team that isn't a No. 1 seed in its region headed to the NCAA volleyball national semifinals, and it's the defending national champion Texas Longhorns.The second-seeded Longhorns avenged an early-season loss to top-seeded Stanford 3-1 in the regional final Saturday at Maples Pavilion in Palo Alto, California. Texas will play Wisconsin on Thursday in Tampa, Florida. It's the 15th time in school history that Texas has made it to the national semifinals.MORE THAN THE SCORE: Stay up to date on sports stories like these, and sign up for our More than the Score sports newsletter at kxan.com/newslettersSet scores were 25-16, 15-25, 25-19 and 25-22.Madisen Skinner put the Longhorns on her back in the deciding set, hammering eight of her match-high 24 kills in the frame with a service ace to lift them to victory. Asjia O'Neal had 10 kills with five blocks while Bella Bergmark and Molly Phillips combined for 12 blocks.Texas was much more efficient in its attac...

Concert review: Young musicians bring sweet reverence to Lucia Celebration Concert

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:59:54 GMT

The American Swedish Institute’s Lucia Choir brought a bit of light to these dark days through the museum’s annual Lucia Celebration Concert, commemorating the Feast of Saint Lucia, practiced in Sweden as well as other Scandinavian countries.The choir, made up of children and teenagers who rehearse for five weeks, performed two sold-out concerts at Larson Hall in the Nelson Cultural Center on Sunday. Led by Lucia choir director Ingrid Aune, with accompanist Janis Aune impressively switching between piano, Nyckelharpa (a bowed string instrument with more strings than a violin, and held by the waist), and harp, the group admirably rang in the festival of light.At times, the young people doubled as instrumentalists, accompanying the singing as part of ASI’s Lilla Lag fiddle/cello folk music ensemble. The youth will perform a sold-out final show in the museum’s historic Turnblad mansion on Dec. 13.The feast day of Lucia of Syracuse (283–304), also known as Saint Lucy Day, began to be ce...

Elderly man beaten in apparent hate crime attack in Beverly Hills

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:59:54 GMT

Police have arrested a suspect in connection with the assault of an elderly man in Beverly Hills that may have been racially motivated.According to a media release from the Beverly Hills Police Department, officers responded to the area of North Rexford Drive and North Santa Monica Boulevard just after 9 a.m. Saturday morning on calls of an assault with a deadly weapon.  Authorities searching for man who stole more than $1,000 in designer fragrances from Sephora Responding officers found an elderly man who had sustained a laceration on his head after being struck with a belt, according to BHPD. “During the commission of the crime, the suspect made anti-Semitic statements to the victim,” Beverly Hills police said. The victim, who was accompanied by his wife at the time he was assaulted, was treated at the scene by paramedics and did not require further medical attention, officials said. A man claiming to be the victim's son posted on X, formerly Twitter, that h...

San Jose Sharks nearly finish six-game road trip on stirring note

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:59:54 GMT

The San Jose Sharks nearly saw their road trip end on another stirring note.The Sharks sent their game Sunday with the Vegas Golden Knights into overtime as Mike Hoffman scored with 38.2 seconds left to tie the game 4-4.But after a scoreless overtime, Kevin Labanc and Mikael Granlund could not capitalize on their shootout attempts, and Golden Knights forwards Jonathan Marchessault and Jack Eichel finished theirs to hand the Sharks a 5-4 loss at T-Mobile Arena.Hoffman’s marking the fourth time the Sharks have scored a 6-on-5 goal in their last three games.Hoffman’s goal was his second of the game and Mario Ferraro and Calen Addison both added one goal. Granlund had two assists for the Sharks.After Ferraro scored his first goal of the season 29 seconds into the first period, the Sharks (8-18-2) allowed goals to Marchessault and Chandler Stephenson in the second period and Brayden McNabb to fall behind 3-1.Hoffman and Addison both scored goals in the third period — sa...

SantaCon, Haney fight in SF draws nearly 100K BART riders

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:59:54 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- It was a busy Saturday in San Francisco. Thousands of people made their way to the city for two big events: SantaCon and the world championship fight between local native Devin Haney and Regis Prograis. A large number of those events' attendees took BART as nearly 100,000 riders were recorded on Dec. 9. Official ridership for that day was 99,824 exits, the public transit agency said. That was 20,000 more trips than the previous Saturday on Dec. 9. The average ridership on Saturdays last month was 89,053, according to BART records. Deebo Samuel scores 2 TDs, Purdy throws for career-best 368 yards as 49ers beat Seahawks 28-16 SantaCon is the annual San Francisco event in which thousands are dressed in Santa clothing. Attendees must be 21 and older as most of the SantaCon events (which are free) are held at various bars across the city. The Haney-Prograis bout happened at the Chase Center -- the first world title fight in San Francisco in over a decade. Fans,...

Tripleheader in Connecticut showcases some of the top talent and teams in women’s basketball

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:59:54 GMT

UNCASVILLE, Conn. (AP) — UCLA coach Cori Close feels that it’s a pivotal time right now for women’s basketball.There are more people watching the games and the talent level has never been better spread across the country. That’s why she didn’t mind scheduling another cross-country trip — the team’s third of the young season — for the second-ranked Bruins to be part of the Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase on Sunday.“This is a special time in our sport. A window of opportunity to shine the bright light, pound the chest for the sake of each other,” Close said after her Bruins beat 20th-ranked Florida State 95-78. “We would be foolish not to put the growth of the game above our own institutions. There are better TV ratings, better attendance numbers … I think everyone is buying in. This is a really special time. It’s a tipping point for women’s sports in general.”Sunday’s tripleheader featured six ranked teams, including No. 1 South Car...

AP PHOTOS: On Antarctica’s ice and in its seas, penguins in a warming world

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:59:54 GMT

KING GEORGE ISLAND, Antarctica (AP) — When U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited Antarctica in November to highlight a planet in peril to set the stage for global climate talks in Dubai, he went to see an accelerating ice melt, not penguins.But penguins were all around as Guterres and his entourage toured glaciers and visited Chile’s Eduardo Frei Air Force Base on King George Island.They gathered by the hundreds to brood on nests, and stood in twos and threes at water’s edge in the soft light of an evening sun.The gentoo penguins weren’t always together. One penguin waddles ashore, perhaps after successfully finding a meal in the frigid — but warming — ocean waters off the continent’s tip. Another dives, surely seeking the same. The continent is both forbidding and beautiful, with craggy ice glowing an ethereal blue within. It’s fragile, too; scientists have marked huge melts in many of its protective ice shelves, and one recent study found that a big chunk of its ice is d...

Today in History: December 11, King Edward VIII abdicates British throne to marry Wallis Simpson

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:59:54 GMT

Today in HistoryToday is Monday, Dec. 11, the 345th day of 2023. There are 20 days left in the year.Today’s Highlight in History:On Dec. 11, 1936, Britain’s King Edward VIII abdicated the throne so he could marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson; his brother, Prince Albert, became King George VI.On this date:In 1816, Indiana became the 19th state.In 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States; the U.S. responded in kind.In 1946, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established.In 1972, Apollo 17’s lunar module landed on the moon with astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt aboard; they became the last two men to date to step onto the lunar surface.In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation creating a $1.6 billion environmental “superfund” to pay for cleaning up chemical spills and toxic waste dumps. In 1997, more than 150 countries agreed at a global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan, to control the Earth’s gre...

Western democracies face crisis of confidence ahead of big votes, poll shows

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:59:54 GMT

A majority of voters across seven Western countries, including the United States, France and the United Kingdom, believe their democracy is in worse shape than it was five years ago, according to a poll whose results were seen by POLITICO.Nearly seven in 10 American respondents said the state of democracy had declined in recent years, while 73 percent of poll takers shared the same opinion in France. In the United Kingdom, more than six out of 10 respondents said that democracy was working less well than five years ago, according to the poll which was carried out by Ipsos in September.The results reveal widespread angst about the state of democracy ahead of major votes in the United States, the U.K, and the European Union in the year ahead — as well as mixed views of the 27-member union.In all but one of the countries — which also included Croatia, Italy, Poland and Sweden — about half of voters reported being “dissatisfied” with the way democracy was working, while majo...