A panel of three judges dismissed on December 6 TikTok, ByteDance, and a collective of TikTok users’ challenge against a legislation mandating the app to dissociate from the Chinese communist government to remain operational in the United States. TikTok is now at risk of a ban effective January 19, 2025, unless President Joe Biden grants a 90-day extension, as the company contends that the regime in China will prevent any sale to a non-Chinese entity. This situation arises from the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA), which Biden signed into law in April, prohibiting apps owned by foreign adversaries from functioning within the U.S.

The appeal was presented before a panel of judges, including U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan, Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, and Senior Circuit Judge Douglas Ginsburg. Petitioners claimed that the law is unconstitutional, infringing upon users’ First Amendment rights regarding free speech.

The U.S. government contended that the statute does not target the content of the app but rather its ownership concerning national security regulations. According to Ginsburg’s opinion for the panel, “The Act satisfies strict scrutiny.” He added, “We emphasize from the outset that our conclusion here is fact-bound.”

The protracted efforts made by both branches of the government to investigate the national security threats posed by TikTok and to consider remedies put forth by TikTok significantly support the Act’s validity. TikTok indicated intentions to take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, although it remains uncertain whether the court would entertain an emergency petition before the January 19, 2025, cutoff.

TikTok expressed, “The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue.” The judges were convinced that the Chinese communist regime posed a national security risk, referencing notable instances of cyberattacks and cyberespionage backed by the Chinese state.

The government began scrutinizing TikTok in 2018, and from 2019 onwards, it engaged in numerous discussions with TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, to seek a resolution that wouldn’t involve divestment. Washington was not content with TikTok’s final proposal made in August 2022, believing it failed to address security concerns adequately. Consequently, federal lawmakers proposed legislation necessitating ByteDance’s divestment from TikTok.

The underlying security issue is that Chinese national security laws mandate all companies operating in China to comply with requests from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to provide data, even if this conflicts with laws in the data’s country of origin. The panel also dismissed TikTok’s claim that it was unfairly targeted, asserting that data collection was not the government’s principal concern.

The petitioners did not “identify any company operating a comparable platform in the United States with equivalent connections to the PRC,” the judges wrote, finding that the executive and legislative branches’ multiyear efforts to work with TikTok toward a solution showed that it was a legitimate “pressing concern.”

PRC refers to communist China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.

“In this case, a foreign government threatens to distort free speech on an important medium of communication,” the opinion reads. “Using its hybrid commercial strategy, the PRC has positioned itself to manipulate public discourse on TikTok in order to serve its own ends. The PRC’s ability to do so is at odds with free speech fundamentals.”

The judges wrote that the law does not attempt to influence content on TikTok, but only acts to prevent a foreign adversary from influencing this content. PAFACA does not address content and would allow TikTok to host the same content under new ownership.

TikTok had argued that the government could not prove the Chinese regime had manipulated content on the app. The government had submitted piecemeal evidence of content manipulation, which it admitted did not point to a particular source, along with evidence of the CCP’s foreign influence campaigns. Judges noted that TikTok would not deny allegations that the Chinese regime was manipulating content.

“Notably, TikTok never squarely denies that it has ever manipulated content on the TikTok platform at the direction of the PRC,” the opinion reads. “Its silence on this point is striking.”

“With today’s opinion, all three branches of government have reached the same conclusion: ByteDance is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, and TikTok’s ownership by ByteDance is a national security threat that cannot be mitigated through any other means than divestiture,” he stated.

“Every day that TikTok remains under the Chinese Communist Party’s control is a day that our security is at risk.”

House Select Committee on the CCP Chair Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich) stated the divestiture would end the CCP’s ability to “exploit ByteDance’s control over TikTok to undermine our sovereignty, surveil our citizens, and threaten our national security.”

Moolenaar expressed confidence that President-elect Donald Trump could facilitate a sale of TikTok to an American company.

“I am optimistic that President Trump will facilitate an American takeover of TikTok to allow its continued use in the United States and I look forward to welcoming the app in America under new ownership,” he said.

On the campaign trail, Trump had echoed the national security concerns about TikTok but said he would be able to get the app to sell. He had said he was not in favor of a ban, as the app’s exit from the market could give social media giants such as Meta a monopoly.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, founder of Advancing American Freedom, commended the ruling and urged Trump to hold TikTok to the divest-or-ban law.

Melania Trump stated on Friday during her first interview since the election that President-elect Donald Trump has been taking advice from their 18-year-old son, Barron Trump, praising him for his role in helping his father secure the victory in the 2024 presidential election.

While speaking on “Fox & Friends,” the future first lady mentioned that Barron “was very vocal” in guiding his father on which media appearances would help attract younger voters.

“He had a clear understanding of who his father should reach out to and engage with,” Melania noted on the Fox News show, emphasizing that younger voters have shifted away from television and primarily obtain information through podcasts, social media, and live streaming platforms. Consequently, Barron “contributed to the campaign’s success,” she stated.

“He is a mature young man. I take great pride in his understanding, even regarding politics and the advice he provides to his father—he attracted a significant number of young individuals. He relates well to his generation, as today’s youth no longer gather in front of the TV,” Melania Trump expressed.

In the final phases of the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump engaged with various popular podcasters like Joe Rogan, who boasts millions of followers, along with Theo Von, Lex Fridman, Adin Ross, among others. Vice President-elect JD Vance also made appearances on several podcasts, including Rogan’s show shortly after Trump.

Many of the podcast episodes featuring Trump amassed millions of views, with the Rogan episode achieving 52 million views in slightly over a month.

Earlier this year, the president-elect said he would trust his son’s political advice.

“He’s seen it. He doesn’t have to hear. He is a smart one. He doesn’t have to hear much. But …  he’s a great guy,” Trump said in an interview with Philadelphia’s Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, as he was on trial in New York City on falsification of business records charges.

Melania Trump also fielded questions from Fox News on how their son is dealing with college as the son of a former president and now incoming president. An 18-year-old freshman, Barron Trump currently attends New York University in Manhattan.

“I don’t think it’s possible for him to be a normal student,” Melania Trump said in the interview. “This is your road,” she added, describing advice she had given to her son. “This is your life.”

Also in the interview, the soon-to-be first lady said that preparing to enter the White House for the second time looks a lot different from the first go-around. Now, she and her husband know what to expect, she said.

“I know what you need to establish, you know what kind of people you need to hire to be in your office,” she said in the rare television appearance, where she promoted holiday ornaments she’s selling and her memoir as Christmas approaches.

She said her husband’s attitude after his 2024 win was not the same as when he won in 2016.

“The country and the people really supported him,” she said. “I think the energy is different. People around him are different.”

She also described working on her memoir, which was released several months ago, as a process that was “very personal and could be sometimes very joyful, but also traumatic and hard.” In the book, titled “Melania,” she described her feelings after learning and seeing that her husband was shot in the right ear during a Pennsylvania rally in July.

Her husband is due to be inaugurated for his second term as president in about a month and a half, on Jan. 20, 2025. The new Congress will certify the November presidential election results on Jan. 6, 2025.

Recent financial disclosures reveal that in a late effort, Elon Musk surpassed Timothy Mellon to become the largest individual contributor to federal candidates in the upcoming 2024 elections.

On December 5, federal committees registered with the Federal Election Commission submitted their post-general reports detailing their financial activities from October 17 to November 25. These reports indicated that Musk, who has established a significant influence within President-elect Donald Trump’s inner circle, contributed over $238.5 million to a super political action committee supporting Trump’s campaign for the presidency in 2024.

This contribution positioned Musk above Mellon, a descendant of the Mellon family wealth, who has been a significant financier for the Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC. MAGA Inc. was a key supporter of Trump during his previous campaign for office. Mellon also funded a group endorsing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent campaign, American Values 2024, in both 2023 and 2024.

Mellon contributed about $197 million in the 2023–2024 election cycle, according to the Money in Politics watchdog organization OpenSecrets.

Musk founded the super PAC America PAC, according to its website. The organization’s main goals are strong borders, safe cities, free speech, sensible spending, a fair justice system, and self-protection. According to its most recent FEC filing, America PAC spent more than $249.9 million in 2024.

Independent expenditure reports attached to the Dec. 5 filing said America PAC spent its money on printing, postage, phone calls, text messages, digital media, canvassing, and field operations largely to boost Trump and oppose the Democratic Party’s candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris. Smaller expenditures were directed toward helping Republicans in races for the House and Senate.

Musk and the PAC attracted considerable media attention by giving away $1 million per day to registered voters who signed a petition supporting free speech and the right to bear arms in the run-up to the election.

The $1 million check promotion also drew attention from both the U.S. Department of Justice and Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who attempted to block the gifts by accusing the PAC of running an illegal lottery. That effort was ultimately blocked on Nov. 4 by a judge from the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas.

In November, Musk vowed to continue the PAC’s political activities in the coming midterm elections and direct its resources toward smaller local races.

Musk is believed to be among the wealthiest men in the world. Forbes estimates his worth at more than $347 billion. He is the founder and CEO of Tesla Inc. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

Since the Nov. 5 federal election, Musk has spent much time in Trump’s transitional government organization and is reportedly speaking with foreign leaders and weighing in on cabinet picks. Musk, along with fellow Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy, is leading a nongovernmental advisory group called the Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to slash federal spending.

In addition to his support of America PAC, Musk donated to three other groups in 2024—the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the Calvert Victory Fund, and the Early Vote Action PAC, according to FEC records.

The NRCC is a group dedicated to electing Republicans to the House. The Calvert Victory Fund was a group devoted to reelecting Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.). The Early Vote Action PAC, according to its most recent FEC filing, paid various individuals for “field strategy consulting.”

Additionally, a group registered to a PO Box in Austin, Texas, called the “Elon Musk Revocable Trust,” sent $20.5 million to the super PAC RBG PAC on Oct. 24, according to federal records.

According to its independent expenditure reports, the group supported Trump.

 The New York Rangers found a taker for Jacob Trouba.

They’re shipping their captain to the Anaheim Ducks. In return, New York will receive defenseman Urho Vaakanainen and a 2025 fourth-round draft pick.

Most important, the Ducks will take on Trouba’s full $8 million salary cap charge for the rest of this season and the next. That jumps the Rangers’ available cap space to more than $8.5 million and puts them on pace to accrue over $27 million by the March 7 trade deadline, according to PuckPedia.

The deal was finalized Friday after the Blueshirts held the 30-year-old defenseman out of their morning skate in advance of their 7:30 p.m. home game against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The situation had become increasingly untenable, with lingering awkwardness from when they attempted to trade Trouba over the summer. He knew his days in New York were numbered and he was unlikely to stick around for the final year of a seven-year contract he signed in 2019, with team president Chris Drury deciding to rip the band-aid off now.

It’s believed that Trouba’s approval was required to complete a deal with the Ducks, who may have been on his 15-team no-trade list. Had he refused to do so, the Rangers likely would have placed him on waivers and thereby allowing any team to claim him.

Trouba’s hometown Detroit Red Wings were also involved in the trade talks, according to one person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity, but they didn’t have the cap space to make it work unless the Rangers agreed to retain a portion of his salary.

“I was put in a position this summer to make a decision between my career and my family and I chose my family,” he said on a Zoom call. “I would choose my family 100 times over again.

“That made it difficult to play kind of with that hanging over everything and the result is the result. I guess I’m happy with moving forward but I’m not overly thrilled with how it went down. My opinion, things could have been handled better.”

Of course, the problems go well beyond one player. The sinking Rangers have lost six of their last seven games and are clinging to a wild-card spot by one point entering Friday, but their captain is the first to fall on the sword.

Coach Peter Laviolette said he and Drury “are together in our thoughts” about moving on from Trouba.

“It’s not meant to be a message,” he said before the trade. “I think everybody’s understanding of where we’ve been for the last month and how we’ve played. We can’t continue down that road or we’ll find ourselves out of the playoffs. The best thing is we need to set a path that can move us back up in the standings.”

Trouba made his strong preference to stay in New York clear when trade talks were heating up over the summer, which multiple people in the league believe scared off some teams.

How Trouba being cast aside will play in a locker room that has felt increasingly fragile lately is a roll of the dice.

“That’s a decision between the team and him, from what I’m understanding,” center Mika Zibanejad said after the news that Trouba was being held out of the lineup. “As a player, as a teammate, as a friend and human being, we love him to death.”

Chris Kreider, who’s also been shopped by Drury in the last couple weeks, acknowledged that he has thoughts on the situation, but declined to comment.

“Not today,” he said. “We’ve got to focus on winning a hockey game.”

Others recognized it as a potential distraction but expressed their desire to try to block it out.

“It’s hard not to react when you hear things,” Zibanejad said. “But at the same time, I think a lot of us have been in the situation before where there’s been rumors and there’s been talks. There are really a lot of those things that are out of your control. The thing that we can control is our game, and the next game. And that’s what we have to do tonight.”

Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James is taking a break from social media.

The 39-year-old made the announcement on X Wednesday, writing to his 52 million followers, “I’ll holla at y’all! Getting off social media for the time being. Y’all take care.” He also shared his announcement on Instagram to his 159 million followers.

James didn’t elaborate on what prompted his hiatus, but the four-time NBA champion shared a post on X minutes before his departure that appears to offer insight into his decision. James shared a post from Rich Kleiman, the longtime agent and business partner of Kevin Durant, that criticized the negativity of sports media.

“With so much hate and negativity in the world today, it confuses me why some of National sports media still think that the best way to cover sports is through negative takes,” Kleiman wrote on Oct. 24. “We can all acknowledge that sports is the last part of society that universally brings people together. So why can’t the coverage do the same? It’s only click bait when you say it. When the platform is so big, you can make the change and allow us all an escape from real life negativity. I for one find it all a waste of breath. The Olympics and JJ and Bron’s show was the future of what this can and should all be

One day before his online departure, James chatted with the media following the Lakers’ 124-118 win over the Utah Jazz and noted that “everybody on the internet calls me a liar all the time.” He dropped the quote while speaking about his teammate Dalton Knecht’s 37-point performance, saying he’s known how good the rookie is since his collegiate days

“They say I lie about every (expletive) thing. So what am I now? I’ve been said it. I watched him, I watched Tennessee a lot,” James said. “I did not think he was going to fall to us. I thought it would be impossible. I have no idea how that happened but very grateful and very happy that he’s here. I knew exactly what we was getting when he fell to 17.”

The most predictable byproduct of tripling the College Football Playoff from four to 12 teams was that whining would become a varsity sport on its own.

First up was the ACC’s commissioner, Jim Phillips, who said his league was “shocked and disappointed” that Miami dropped from No. 6 to No. 12 and almost certainly out of the playoff field after losing to Syracuse. (No mention of the fact that the Hurricanes blew a 21-point lead).

Then came Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, who blasted the committee for ranking Boise State above both Arizona State and Iowa State, as his league will only get one team in the playoff field.

“The committee continues to show time and time again that they’re paying attention to logos versus résumés,” he said. (Never mind that the two Big 12 teams playing for an automatic bid have one top-25 win between them.)

And then here came the SEC. Danny White, the Tennessee athletics director who is presumably miffed that the Vols might have to go on the road in the first round, said on a local radio show that a computer ranking system should replace the committee (Even though this was already tried with the BCS and everyone hated it.)

Then Lane Kiffin, the Ole Miss coach whose team is almost certainly on the outside looking in at 9-3, had to spill his sour grapes all over the playoff party. “It’s a bad system,” he said. “Have any of those coaches (on the committee) been down here in the deep South, into these stadiums and played in these games that are on this? So how do they even know?” (One of the former coaches on the committee, Gary Pinkel, had just a little bit of SEC experience at Missouri, but why let facts get in the way of a good rant? And also, Lane, maybe just beat Kentucky next time.)

So here we are, just a couple of days away from having the first 12-team playoff field set to go, and it seems like nobody’s happy with the monster they’ve created. For a template on what to expect Sunday, just refer to the 24-hour period after every NCAA basketball tournament selection show when lots of people seem to have “Very Strong Feelings” about who the last couple of at-large teams in a 68-team field should be.

Except for last year, when Florida State got replaced by Alabama – due almost exclusively to the fact that the Seminoles’ starting quarterback was injured – we didn’t have much of this in the first decade of the four-team playoff. Things were generally clear-cut, and the No. 5 team usually didn’t have much of a gripe. Now that we’ve brought mediocrity into the picture, everyone in college sports seems to have an opinion about how unfair and bad the process is – unless, of course, it works to their benefit this time.

Given that context, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey deserves some credit – but also a healthy dose of cynicism – for how he answered a question on Thursday about the sudden angst over the format.

Whether it’s fair or not, Sankey is still miffed at his conference commissioner colleagues (some of whom no longer work in college sports) for stonewalling playoff expansion plans in 2021 after Texas and Oklahoma bolted to the SEC. So in his view, it seems, any problems with the system are the result of expansion plans slowing down, then speeding up again to get ready for 2024, as another round of conference expansion killed the Pac-12 and further consolidated power in the hands of the Big Ten and SEC.

“We don’t want to go through change every year,” he said. “We want to work to get things right. Now, I know that we’re in this new era and that’s going to cause a lot of questions. My perspective in having lost a year of preparation that we can’t recover means we’re going to have more of these adjustment conversations.”

He continued: “Should we be providing these lower-seeded conference champions that access point? That’s been discussed before. I think that starts to illustrate one of the new issues.”

In other words, while Sankey admitted that he’d like to see eight SEC teams in the field and believes his league has enough depth to deserve that consideration, his news conference Thursday didn’t make number of teams a front-burner issue. He isn’t going to blow his political capital – and he has a lot of it these days – going overboard to lobby for a mid-pack SEC team over somebody else to get that 12th spot.

What seems more likely when the commissioners gather again in the coming weeks to discuss the playoff format for 2026 and beyond is that the SEC is going to draw some red lines around seeding that probably puts their teams at a disadvantage, now that we’ve seen it play out in real time.

If you simply freeze the playoff field as the committee had it this week, the SEC would have three teams playing in the first round with two of them going on the road: Tennessee at Ohio State and Alabama at Notre Dame. Meanwhile, presumptive champion Texas gets a first-round bye as a No. 2 seed, where it would likely face Georgia for a third time this season in the quarterfinals.

And you can see pretty easily why that’s a problem.

The initial idea of the 12-team playoff was that the four first-round byes would go to the four highest-ranked conference champions. That makes sense in theory and keeps the conference championship games relevant until the very end. But in practice, it leads to a bracket that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

If things stay the same as they are now, the No. 5 seed, Penn State, would be lined up to play No. 4 Boise State in the quarterfinals. And the winner of Tennessee-Ohio State, both of whom are ranked above Boise, would have to face No. 1 Oregon.

I hesitate to say that’s not fair, because this is college football after all, and nothing in this sport has been fair for the last five decades or so. But it does seem wrong that you have an easier path to the semifinals as a No. 5 seed than a No. 1 seed, or that a No. 2 seed like Texas would have a far more difficult quarterfinal game than a No. 4 seed.

In any sport that uses a tournament format to decide championships, that’s not how it’s supposed to work. If Georgia has had a better regular season than Arizona State and is ranked higher by the committee, it should have a more favorable path to a championship. That’s a pretty easy concept to understand.

Sankey is correct that constantly making changes to the format, as the BCS did seemingly every year, is the wrong path for the CFP to go down. That only increases the anger and sows distrust in the process.

Having a human committee isn’t the problem here. In a sport like college football where you only play 12 games in a season (and some of them are complete mismatches), there’s not enough data to put into a computer formula and feel confident that you’re getting a good result. You need people to be part of the process.

The only real issue with the 12-team playoff as it stands is the seeding. Not Kiffin’s complaints or Yormark’s declarations. It’s simply rewarding teams with byes who do not deserve them.

The question is whether there will be enough agreement among the conference commissioners to fix it because – and here’s the cynical part – it’s almost certainly going to work to the SEC’s benefit most years while penalizing a league like the Big 12 that is fortunate to have a playoff spot at all given the poor quality of play in their conference this year.

Sankey brought up that he had been in favor of re-seeding after the first round, but other commissioners wouldn’t get on board with that. Another possible fix would be to just give the top two conference champions byes into the quarterfinals and then seed the rest of the field Nos. 3-12 as the committee ranks them (with automatic bids for the Big 12, ACC and the Group of Five).

“I think we’ll look at this and probably have another one of those types of conversations,” Sankey said. “I don’t want us to just react; I want us to be thoughtful in how we consider these issues.”

Will tweaking the playoff to emphasize true seeding benefit the SEC? Most years, probably so. But that would be preferable to the nonsensical mess of a bracket that the committee is going to unveil on Sunday.

The reigning World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers are adding a two-time Cy Young Award winner in the biggest move so far this offseason.

Left-hander Blake Snell has reached an agreement with the Dodgers on a five-year, $182 million free agent contract, according to a person with direct knowledge of the agreement. The person spoke to USA TODAY Sports on the condition of anonymity because the deal has not yet been announced.

After not finding a long-term deal last winter, the free-agent left-hander went 5-3 with a 3.12 ERA in 20 starts last season on a one-year, $32 million contract with the San Francisco Giants. After one of the greatest second halves in recent history — a 1.31 ERA over 13 starts, with 111 strikeouts in 75⅓ innings, including a no-hitter at Cincinnati — he opted out of the final year of that deal.

Meanwhile, even as the Dodgers won the World Series, they needed rotation stability. Right-handers Walker Buehler and Jack Flaherty are free agents, while several pitchers have health questions to answer in 2025, including lefty Clayton Kershaw.

Even still, the Dodgers have more than $1 billion tied up in pitchers they hope will be in their rotation next year. Right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto agreed to a $325 million deal before the 2023 season, and Tyler Glasnow signed a $136.5 million extension after a trade from the Rays.

Including his deal, that’s $643.5 million committed before factoring whatever portion of Shohei Ohtani’s heavily-deferred 10-year, $700 million deal one might consider devoted to pitching, and not hitting.

Snell has a history of slow starts (and strong finishes), but last season’s was perhaps his most extreme. After missing all of spring training, he jumped right into the Giants’ rotation and only made three starts before spending a month on the injured list with a thigh injury.

But after he returned from a second stint on the injured list on July 9, he allowed just 11 earned runs in his final 14 starts — going 5-0 with a 1.23 ERA in 80⅓ innings as the Giants went 12-2 in those games. Included in that amazing run was his first career nohitte (and first career complete game) against the Cincinnati Reds on Aug. 2.

That was more than enough for the Dodgers to pounce and snag arguably the top option off the market in a winter where Snell, lefty Max Fried and right-hander Corbin Burnes are far and away the best options available.

Snell, who turns 32 on Dec. 4, was a first-round pick out of high school by the Tampa Bay Rays in 2011. He pitched for the Rays for five seasons, winning a career-high 21 games and the AL Cy Young award in 2018, before being traded to the San Diego Padres after the 2020 season.

He spent three years in San Diego, winning the 2023 NL Cy Young award, before becoming a free agent and signing with the Giants last offseason.

Over nine MLB seasons, Snell has an overall record of 76-58 with a 3.19 ERA in 211 games.

His career mark of 11.2 strikeouts per nine innings ranks him No. 1 in baseball history for players with at least 1,000 innings pitched.

The NBA fined the Atlanta Hawks $100,000 for “violating the league’s Player Participation Policy in connection with Trae Young missing the team’s Emirates NBA Cup game on Nov. 12 against the Boston Celtics at TD Garden,” the league announced Tuesday.

Young was listed out for that Celtics game with right Achilles tendinitis. However, the league said, “following an investigation, including review by an independent physician, the NBA determined that the Hawks held Young out of a game that he could have played in under the medical standard in the Policy. The organization’s conduct violated the Policy, which is intended to promote participation in the NBA’s regular season.”

Part of the NBA’s participation policy states that “Teams must ensure that star players are available for national TV and In-Season Tournament games.”

It’s the only game Young has missed this season for the 7-11 Hawks, who defeated the Celtics 117-116 in that contest.

President Biden participated in the annual Christmas tree lighting on the Ellipse on Thursday evening, his last time taking part in the annual tradition before he departs the White House next year.

Mr. Biden returned to the White House early Thursday after spending the beginning of the week in Angola. Before he left, he ignited a firestorm when he issued a sweeping pardon for his son, Hunter, who had been convicted on federal drug and gun charges, and pleaded guilty to tax charges. When asked about the pardon earlier this week, the first lady, who attended every day of Hunter Biden’s Delaware trial, said “of course I support the pardon of my son.”

This year’s Christmas tree is a 35-foot Red Spruce from the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests in Virginia. A collection of 58 smaller trees are adorned with student-designed ornaments from every state and territory.

The 102nd Tree Lighting Ceremony will be hosted by Mickey Guyton featuring performances by Adam Blackstone, Stephen Sanchez, James Taylor and Trisha Yearwood. Viewers can watch the full ceremony on CBS on Dec. 20.

2024 White House holiday decorations

The tree lighting is the last part of the White House holiday transformation, with this year’s theme being “A Season of Peace and Light.”

First lady Jill Biden unveiled the holiday decor in the East Room on Monday, speaking to volunteers who made the winter wonderland come to life.

“As we celebrate our final holiday season here in the White House, we are guided by the values that we hold sacred: faith, family, and service to our country, kindness toward all of our neighbors, and the power of community,” she said.

It takes over 300 volunteers from across the country along with about 9,810 feet of ribbon, 28,125 ornaments and 2,200 paper doves to deck the halls of the White House.

The White House expects to welcome over 100,000 visitors during the holiday season. The first lady on Tuesday welcomed families of National Guard members to be the first to view the decorations. Upon arrival, visitors will see a Christmas tree dedicated to Gold Star families with six stacked stars representing all six branches of the military. Down the East Colonnade guests will be surrounded by bells “symbolizing the peaceful sounds of the holiday season.” In the East Room, a reflective canopy twinkles next to the chandeliers like snowfall as two large Christmas trees guard the main door.

The first known Christmas tree inside the White House was in 1889 during the Benjamin Harrison administration, according to the White House. It was a much smaller affair with only a Christmas tree in the Second Floor Oval Room decorated with candles by President Harrison’s grandchildren.

The annual gingerbread White House manages to combine 25 sheets of gingerbread dough, 10 sheets of sugar cookie dough, 65 pounds of pastillage, 45 pounds of chocolate, 50 pounds of royal icing, and 10 pounds of gum paste into the form of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Volunteers who bring the decorations to life

Alisa Cooper de Uribe, a first-grade bilingual teacher at the New Mexico International School in Albuquerque and the 2021 New Mexico Teacher of the Year, was one of the volunteers who assembled the thousands of doves. She traveled to Washington, D.C., with her family to be part of the White House decorations team.

“It’s a sisterhood, a brotherhood. It was a very collegial atmosphere,” Cooper de Uribe told CBS News. “And that was one of the things that I was really impressed by was how so many people who were gathered together without any knowledge of each other before, how well these people work together.”

The holiday volunteers are teachers, military families, nurses, and small business owners from across the country who all apply before being selected for decor duty. Bright and early the day after Thanksgiving, the volunteers arrived at the White House to begin full days of glitter and garland before the first lady unveiled all their work. The Office of the First Lady sent out special invitations to State Teachers of the Year winners like de Uribe to join the holiday volunteer tradition. Some volunteers formed text chains and Facebook groups, intending to keep in touch long after the ornaments are taken down.

Centerpiece of the holiday decor

The centerpiece of the holiday decor inside the Blue Room is a 18 ½ foot Fraser Fir that traveled from the Cartner Family of Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm in North Carolina. The tree was one of the survivors as thousands of others were devastated when Hurricane Helene hit the Blue Ridge Mountains. The owners named it “Tremendous” as a tribute to the resilience of North Carolina communities affected by Hurricane Helene.

In the state dining room, there are ornaments on the Christmas tree that feature self-portraits of students, including four of de Uribe’s first graders.

“It was an opportunity for the students to see themselves reflected in the White House and in this season, and that it’s their place, and it’s their opportunity to have their individual and unique selves and their culture shine out through their portraits,” de Uribe said.

The best way to understand the kicking woes of Baltimore’s Justin Tucker is to ask another kicker what the hell is going on. So I did. In fact, I asked one of the best to ever do it.

Lawrence Tynes kicked game-winning field goals in two NFC title games to send the Giants to the Super Bowl. Tynes, who played for three NFL teams between 2001 and 2013, was one of the most clutch kickers of his generation. He won two Super Bowls.

What Tynes says matters and what he thinks has happened to Tucker is extremely interesting.

“From the couch, looking on,” Tynes told USA TODAY Sports, “he has a mechanical flaw that was causing him to pull all his kicks. Does not look like he was able to fix what was causing that and continues to miss left in-game.

“I say in-game because I am sure he was able to fix it in practice. Games are different.

Bill Belichick said something similar on the “Let’s Go!” podcast.

“Obviously there’s something that’s a little bit off from a technique standpoint,” Belichick explained, “but I don’t see that there’s like a lack of talent. I think there’s something mechanically that he’s not doing consistently. If you have the key to unlock that problem, then probably everything could be great.

“But clearly this extends back even to last year a little bit, too, because there was some accuracy issues last year in the ‘23 season as well as the current season. So I think Coach (John) Harbaugh is doing the right thing. I would stick with Justin Tucker. This guy was the most accurate kicker in the history of football. He gets great height on the ball. He’s been super consistent. He’s obviously having a little bit of a rough patch right here, but it doesn’t look to me like his talent level has declined. There’s something mechanically that just isn’t quite right all the time. I think they just gotta work hard and try to find that.”

Tucker has missed five kicks in the last three games. For Tucker, this is like an ordinary kicker missing 50. Tucker is The Avengers of kickers. (Not sure if he’s Thor or Iron Man or Captain Marvel or the guy with the arrows, but you get it.)

Overall, what’s happening to him now is one of the wildest stories not just in the NFL, but in all of sports.

But enough of Belichick. Back to Tynes. And for the record, as a kicking nerd, I could listen to Tynes for days. He’s utterly fascinating.

“Inevitably, you can overcompensate for a left miss, and miss right, which he did Sunday,” Tynes continued.

Tucker missed an extra point and two field goals during Baltimore’s 24-19 loss to Philadelphia.

“To summarize,” he said, “he is struggling mentally, that’s the bottom line.”

How does Tucker fix this? No one knows. If they did, it would have already been fixed.

What’s clear is that the Ravens have a difficult choice. Harbaugh can stick with Tucker and hope he works out his issues. If he does, the team would continue on, and make a deep playoff run.

Or, Harbaugh can stick with Tucker, and if the kicker doesn’t work out his issues, he could miss a kick that costs the team a playoff game.

These are not easy choices.

As he often does, Tynes perfectly summarized everything.

“He is the best kicker of all time who has never even had a mini-slump in his career,” Tynes said. “This is his first one and if we’re being honest, he is not handling it well. Would hate to be the Ravens right now because yes, you believe he can fix it, but what if he doesn’t and you lose a playoff game because of him?”

Yeah, this is not easy for the Ravens.