Today is Wednesday, Dec. 4, the 339th day of 2024. There are 27 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Dec. 4, 1991, after being abducted and held for nearly seven years as a hostage by Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson was released from captivity.

Also on this date:

In 1783, Gen. George Washington bade farewell to his Continental Army officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York.

In 1956, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins, dubbed the “Million Dollar Quartet,” gathered for the first and only time for a jam session at Sun Records in Memphis.

In 1964, police arrested some 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, one day after the students stormed the administration building and staged a massive sit-in.

In 1965, the United States launched Gemini 7 with Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Borman and Navy Cmdr. James A. Lovell aboard on a two-week mission. (While Gemini 7 was in orbit, its sister ship, Gemini 6A, was launched on Dec. 15 on a one-day mission; the two spacecraft were able to rendezvous within a foot of each other.)

In 1969, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark of the Black Panther Party were shot and killed during a raid by Chicago police.

In 1997, the NBA suspended Golden State Warriors guard Latrell Sprewell for one year after Sprewell attacked Warriors coach P.J. Carlesimo three days earlier.

In 2016, a North Carolina man armed with an assault rifle fired several shots inside Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, D.C., pizzeria, as he attempted to investigate an online conspiracy theory that prominent Democrats were harboring child sex slaves at the restaurant; no one was hurt, and the man surrendered to police. (He was later sentenced to four years in prison.)

In 2018, long lines of people wound through the Capitol Rotunda to view the casket of former President George H.W. Bush.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Game show host Wink Martindale is 91.
• Actor-producer Max Baer Jr. is 87.
• Actor Gemma Jones is 82.
• Actor Jeff Bridges is 75.
• Actor Patricia Wettig is 73.
• Jazz singer Cassandra Wilson is 69.
• Basketball Hall of Famer Bernard King is 68.
• Baseball Hall of Famer Lee Smith is 67.
• Olympic pole vault gold medalist Sergey Bubka is 61.
• Actor Marisa Tomei is 60.
• Actor-comedian Fred Armisen is 58.
• Rapper Jay-Z is 55.
• Actor-model Tyra Banks is 51.
• Football Hall of Famer Joe Thomas is 40.
• Musician Jelly Roll is 40.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Vladislav Goldin scored a career-high 24 points — including three straight baskets inside down the stretch — and Michigan defeated No. 11 Wisconsin 67-64 on Tuesday night in the Big Ten opener for both teams.

Michigan (7-1, 1-0) won its sixth straight and handed Wisconsin (8-1, 0-1) its first loss of the season.

Goldin, a 7-foot-1 graduate student who followed new Michigan coach Dusty May from Florida Atlantic, scored 17 points after halftime and put the Wolverines ahead for good on a layup with 1:35 left.

Danny Wolf added 21 points, seven rebounds, five assists, five blocks and three steals for Michigan. John Tonje scored 18 and John Blackwell 16 for Wisconsin.

Wisconsin’s Max Klesmit missed three shots in the last 73 seconds that would have tied the game or put the Badgers ahead.

Michigan led 67-64 when Goldin missed the front end of a one-and-one with 2.6 seconds left. Tonje got about one-third of the way up the court before firing a desperation shot that bounced off the back rim at the buzzer.

Takeaways

Michigan: The Wolverines withstood a scoreless performance from Tre Donaldson, who had been averaging a team-high 13 points per game. After shooting just 7 of 33 from the floor in the first half, Michigan was 16 of 26 in the second half.

Wisconsin: The Badgers shot only 34.4% from the floor. They also made just 73.7% of their free throws (14 of 19). Wisconsin entered the night shooting a Division I-best 86.4% on free throws.

Key moment

Goldin took over the game in the closing minutes. His dunk cut Wisconsin’s lead to 64-63 with 2:23 left. After a steal by Michigan’s Nimari Burnett, Roddy Gayle Jr. found Goldin for a lay-in that put the Wolverines ahead. Goldin capped his personal 6-0 run by making a hook shot with 22.9 seconds remaining.

Key stats

Michigan blocked 11 shots. This was its first game with at least 10 blocks since Nov. 23, 2022, when the Wolverines had 13 against Jackson State.

Up next

Both teams play again Saturday, with Michigan hosting Iowa, and Wisconsin visiting No. 5 Marquette.

— By STEVE MEGARGEE, Associated Press

Debbie Nelson, the single mother of rapper Eminem whose rocky relationship with her son was known widely through his hit song lyrics, has died. She was 69.

Eminems longtime representative Dennis Dennehy confirmed Nelsons death in an email on Tuesday. He did not provide a cause of death, although Nelson had battled lung cancer.

Nelson was born in 1955 on a military base in Kansas. Her fraught relationship with her son, whose real name is Marshall Mathers III, has been no secret since the Detroit rapper became a star.

Eminem has disparaged his mother in songs such as the 2002 single Cleaning Out My Closet. Eminem sings: Witnessin your mama poppin prescription pills in the kitchen. ... My whole life I was made to believe I was sick when I wasnt.

In lyrics from his Oscar-winning hit Lose Yourself from the movie 8 Mile, his feelings seem to have simmered, referencing his "moms spaghetti. The song went on to win best rap song at the 2004 Grammy Awards.

Nelson brought and settled a pair of defamation lawsuits over Eminems statements about her in magazines and on radio talk shows. In her 2008 book, My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem, she attempted to set the record straight by providing readers details about the rappers early life, writing that Eminem had forgotten the good times they had.

Marshall and I were so close that friends and relatives commented that it was as if the umbilical cord had never been cut, she wrote.

She also detailed her own childhood, describing a violent home life in which her dads mother, who she spent summers with, was the one woman in my large dysfunctional family to show us kids love.

In 2004, she was dragged from her car on Eight Mile Road, the street in a Detroit suburb made famous by 8 Mile, by a 16-year-old who was later sentenced to more than four years in prison. She suffered bruises and a broken foot.

The highly acclaimed rapper Eminem won for best hip hop act at the 2024 MTV EMAs and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.

He announced in October that he was going to be a grandfather, saying his daughter Hailie Jade is pregnant by way of a touching music video that is a tribute to their relationship.

___

The story has been updated to correct that Eminem announced in October that he was going to be a grandfather, not last month.

By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Kash Patel has been well-known for years within Donald Trump’s orbit as a loyal supporter who shares the president-elect’s skepticism of the FBI and intelligence community. But he’s receiving fresh attention, from the public and from Congress, now that Trump has picked him to lead the FBI.

As he braces for a bruising and likely protracted Senate confirmation fight, Patel can expect scrutiny not only over his professed fealty to Trump but also for his belief — revealed over the last year in interviews and his own book — that the century-old FBI should be radically overhauled.

Here’s a look at some of what he’s proposed for the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency. How much of it he’d actually follow through on is a separate question.

He’s mused about shutting down the FBI’s Washington headquarters

The first FBI employees moved into the current Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters 50 years ago. The building since then has housed the supervisors and leaders who make decisions affecting offices around the country and overseas.

But if Patel has his way, the J. Edgar Hoover Building could be shut down, with its employees dispersed.

“I’d shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the ‘deep state,’” Patel said in a September interview on the “Shawn Kelly Show.” “Then, I’d take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. You’re cops — go be cops.”

Such a plan would undoubtedly require legal, logistical and bureaucratic hurdles and it may reflect more of a rhetorical flourish than a practical ambition.

In a book last year titled, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth and the Battle for Our Democracy,” he proposed a more modest reform of having the headquarters moved out of Washington “to prevent institutional capture and curb FBI leadership from engaging in political gamesmanship.”

As it happens, the long-term fate of the building is in flux regardless of the leadership transition. The General Services Administration last year selected Greenbelt, Maryland, as the site for a new headquarters, but current FBI Director Christopher Wray has raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest in the site selection process.

He’s talked about finding ‘conspirators’ in the government and media

In an interview last year with conservative strategist Steve Bannon, Patel repeated falsehoods about President Joe Biden and a stolen election.

“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel said. The same applies for supposed “conspirators” inside the federal government, he said.

It’s not entirely clear what he envisions, but to the extent Patel wants to make it easier for the government to crack down on officials who disclose sensitive information and the reporters who receive it, it sounds like he’d back a reversal of current Justice Department policy that generally prohibits prosecutors from seizing the records of journalists in leak investigations.

That policy was implemented in 2021 by Attorney General Merrick Garland following an uproar over the revelation that the Justice Department during the Trump administration had obtained phone records of reporters as part of investigations into who had disclosed government secrets.

Patel himself has said that it’s yet to be determined whether such a crackdown would be done civilly or criminally. His book includes several pages of former officials from the FBI, Justice Department and other federal agencies he’s identified as being part of the “Executive Branch Deep State.”

Under the FBI’s own guidelines, criminal investigations can’t be rooted in arbitrary or groundless speculation but instead must have an authorized purpose to detect or interrupt criminal activity.

And while the FBI conducts investigations, the responsibility of filing federal charges, or bringing a lawsuit on behalf of the federal government, falls to the Justice Department. Trump intends to nominate former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi as attorney general.

He wants ‘major, major’ surveillance reform

Patel has been a fierce critic of the FBI’s use of its surveillance authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and in his “Shawn Kelly Show” interview, called for “major, major reform. Tons.”

That position aligns him with both left-leaning civil libertarians who have long been skeptical of government power and Trump supporters outraged by well-documented surveillance missteps during the FBI’s investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.

But it sets him far apart from FBI leadership, which has stressed the need for the bureau to retain its ability to spy on suspected spies and terrorists even while also implementing corrective steps meant to correct past abuses.

If confirmed, Patel would take over the FBI amid continued debate over a particularly contentious provision of FISA known as Section 702, which permits the U.S. to collect without a warrant the communications of non-Americans located outside the country for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence.

Biden in April signed a two-year extension of the authority following a fierce congressional dispute centered on whether the FBI should be restricted from using the program to search for Americans’ data. Though the FBI boasts a high compliance rate, analysts have been blamed for a series of abuses and mistakes, including improperly querying the intelligence repository for information about Americans or others in the U.S., including a member of Congress and participants in the racial justice protests of 2020 and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Patel has made clear his disdain for the reauthorization vote.

“Because the budget of FISA was up this cycle, we demanded Congress fix it. And do you know what the majority in the House, where the Republicans did? They bent the knee. They (reauthorized) it,” Patel said.

In his book, Patel said a federal defender should be present to argue for the rights of the accused at all FISA court proceedings, a departure from the status quo.

He has called for reducing the size of the intelligence community

Patel has advocated cutting the federal government’s intelligence community, including the CIA and National Security Agency.

When it comes to the FBI, he said last year that he would support breaking off the bureau’s “intel shops” from the rest of its crime-fighting activities.

It’s not clear exactly how he would intend to do that given that the FBI’s intelligence-gathering operations form a core part of the bureau’s mandate and budget. Wray, who’s been in the job for seven years, has also recently warned of a heightened threat environment related to international and domestic terrorism.

After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, then-FBI Director Robert Mueller faced down calls from some in Congress who thought the FBI should be split up, with a new domestic intelligence agency created in its wake.

The idea died, and Mueller committed new resources into transforming what for decades had been primarily a domestic law enforcement agency into an intelligence-gathering institution equally focused on combating terrorism, spies and foreign threats.

Frank Montoya Jr., a retired senior FBI official who served as the U.S. government’s national counterintelligence executive, said he disagreed with the idea of breaking out the FBI’s “intel shops” and viewed it as a way to defang the bureau.

Doing so, he said, “makes the bureau less effective at what it does, and quite frankly, it will make the intelligence community less effective at what it does.”

Today is Tuesday, Dec. 3, the 338th day of 2024. There are 28 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Dec. 3, 1984, a cloud of methyl isocyanate gas escaped from a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India, causing an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 deaths and more than 500,000 injuries.

Also on this date:

In 1947, the Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire” opened on Broadway.

In 1967, a surgical team in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard (BAHR’-nard) performed the first human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky, who lived 18 days with the donated organ from Denise Darvall, a 25-year-old bank clerk who had died in a traffic accident.

In 1979, 11 people were killed in a crush of fans at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum, where the British rock group The Who was performing.

In 1989, U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev concluded two days of positive bilateral discussions in Malta in a symbolic end to the Cold War.

In 2015, Defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered the armed services to open all military jobs to women, removing the final barriers that had kept women from serving in combat.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Singer Jaye P. Morgan is 93.
• Rock singer Ozzy Osbourne is 76.
• Rock singer Mickey Thomas is 75.
• Actor Daryl Hannah is 64.
• Actor Julianne Moore is 64.
• Olympic figure skating gold medalist Katarina Witt is 59.
• Actor Brendan Fraser is 56.
• Singer Montell Jordan is 56.
• Actor Holly Marie Combs is 51.
• Actor/comedian Tiffany Haddish is 45.
• Actor Anna Chlumsky (KLUHM’-skee) is 44.
• Actor Amanda Seyfried is 39.
• Rapper Lil Baby is 30.
• Actor Jake T. Austin is 30.

A program that provides federal funds to groups in Detroit working to reduce homicides and shootings is showing reductions of 83%, 73% and 61% in some of the city's most violent areas.

The numbers come as Detroit is on pace to continue setting historic lows in those crimes, according to the city.

ShotStoppers ' metrics measure the level of homicides and shootings in the current quarter compared to the same quarter in the two prior years and were released Monday by Mayor Mike Duggan.

Detroit officials highlight success of 'Shotstopper' program

The program kicked off in 2023. Going by names like Force Detroit, Detroit 300, Detroit Friends and Family, and New Era Community Connection, activists and residents are empowered to use their own strategies to prevent violence. Those strategies include teaching young people to think critically, improving training opportunities for adults, drug prevention and blight removal.

Each group also is alerted by the police department whenever there is a shooting in their zone, Duggan told The Associated Press last week.

Because an hour later there will be a retaliation, Duggan said. The key is getting people to make different decisions. Theyve brokered agreements with groups beefing with one another. What theyre doing is making a difference.

The six groups focus on parts of the city that between 2018 and 2022 were hotspots for homicides and shootings. The recent drops in what the city calls Community Violence Intervention or CVI zones are from August through October and are compared to the same three-month period in 2023 and 2022.

Homicides and shootings were down 35% in areas not part of the CVI zones.

The 83% reduction in the Detroit Friends and Family CVI zone on Detroit's far northeast side was achieved through mediation strategies inside jails and juvenile facilities, working with the area's youth and looking at the goings-on within social networks, said Ray Winans, the group's founder.

It's not so much what we say to them. It's more so what we hear from them, Winans told The Associated Press last week. We want to hear what their stories are. We know our stories and support them while they are going through theirs'.

This is a group of young men and women whose brains aren't fully developed yet, he added. We don't look at leadership in the sense of traditional leadership. We serve as an example of what's possible. We deal with behavior modifications.

Tamica Nixon, 48, has relatives who live in Winans CVI zone. She said just a year or so ago the sound of gunshots was prevalent.

There were so many gunshots you would think thats the type of things you would hear in a war, Nixon said following Duggans announcement at a neighborhood church. Everything has really improved now. Its safer.

The program is similar in name to the gunshot detection technology, ShotSpotter, which has been used and later dropped by Chicago and several other police departments in the United States.

Violent crime in Detroit has been trending down for several years, with annual homicides being at their lowest since 1966 when there were 214 homicides.

In 2023, Detroit recorded 252 homicides and 804 nonfatal shootings. Those numbers were 309 and 955, respectively, in 2022. The city recorded 308 homicides in 2021 compared to 323 in 2020. There also were 1,064 nonfatal shootings in 2021, down from 1,170 the year before.

Officials have placed some credit to the drop in violent crime citywide to the hiring of about 200 new police officers over the past few years and a partnership between the city, Wayne County and the state that improves coordination among agencies and courts. ShotStoppers' success only appears to add to the lower numbers.

The project currently is funded by $10 million from the American Rescue Plan Act and each group started with a $175,000 base budget per quarter. Bonus grants are awarded to the groups that significantly cut serious violence in their areas.

With federal funding expiring in April, the statewide $100 million Public Safety & Violence Prevention Trust Fund being considered by Michigan lawmakers In Lansing could continue funding for the program. If approved, Detroit plans to add two new groups.

By ROB GILLIES, Associated Press

TORONTO (AP) — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Donald Trump that Americans would also suffer if the president-elect follows through on a plan to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products, a Canadian minister who attended their recent dinner said Monday.

Trump threatened to impose tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico if they don’t stop what he called the flow of drugs and migrants across their borders with the United States. He said on social media last week that he would impose a 25% tax on all products entering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico as one of his first executive orders.

Canadian Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, whose responsibilities include border security, attended a dinner with Trump and Trudeau at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club on Friday.

Trudeau requested the meeting in a bid to avoid the tariffs by convincing Trump that the northern border is nothing like the U.S. southern border with Mexico.

“The prime minister of course spoke about the importance of protecting the Canadian economy and Canadian workers from tariffs, but we also discussed with our American friends the negative impact that those tariffs could have on their economy, on affordability in the United States as well,” LeBlanc said in Parliament.

If Trump makes good on his threat to slap 25% tariffs on everything imported from Mexico and Canada, the price increases that could follow will collide with his campaign promise to give American families a break from inflation.

Economists say companies would have little choice but to pass along the added costs, dramatically raising prices for food, clothing, automobiles, alcohol and other goods.

The Produce Distributors Association, a Washington trade group, said last week that tariffs will raise prices for fresh fruit and vegetables and hurt U.S. farmers when the countries retaliate.

Canada is already examining possible retaliatory tariffs on certain items from the U.S. should Trump follow through on the threat.

After his dinner with Trump, Trudeau returned home without assurances the president-elect will back away from threatened tariffs on all products from the major American trading partner. Trump called the talks “productive” but signaled no retreat from a pledge that Canada says unfairly lumps it in with Mexico over the flow of drugs and migrants into the United States.

“The idea that we came back empty handed is completely false,” LeBlanc said. “We had a very productive discussion with Mr. Trump and his future Cabinet secretaries. … The commitment from Mr. Trump to continue to work with us was far from empty handed.”

Joining Trump and Trudeau at dinner were Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department, and Mike Waltz, Trump’s choice to be his national security adviser.

Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., Kirsten Hillman, told The Associated Press on Sunday that “the message that our border is so vastly different than the Mexican border was really understood.” Hillman, who sat at an adjacent table to Trudeau and Trump, said Canada is not the problem when it comes to drugs and migrants.

On Monday, Mexico’s president rejected those comments.

“Mexico must be respected, especially by its trading partners,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said. She said Canada had its own problems with fentanyl consumption and “could only wish they had the cultural riches Mexico has.”

Flows of migrants and seizures of drugs at the two countries’ border are vastly different. U.S. customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border during the last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border.

Most of the fentanyl reaching the U.S. — where it causes about 70,000 overdose deaths annually — is made by Mexican drug cartels using precursor chemicals smuggled from Asia.

On immigration, the U.S. Border Patrol reported 1.53 million encounters with migrants at the southwest border with Mexico between October 2023 and September 2024. That compares to 23,721 encounters at the Canadian border during that time.

Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states. Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian (US$2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day. About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports as well.

Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing for national security.

DETROIT (AP) General Motors has reached an agreement to sell its stake in a nearly completed electric vehicle battery plant in Lansing, Michigan.

The company said Monday that it has a nonbinding agreement for the sale to joint venture partner LG Energy Solution of South Korea. The companies expect to close the sale by the end of March.

Financial details were not released Monday. But GM, which has sunk about $1 billion into the Lansing factory, said it expects to recoup its investment.

The company said it will rely on joint venture factories in Warren, Ohio, and Spring Hill, Tennessee, to supply factories that make seven electric vehicles now on sale in the U.S.

Nearly all automakers in the U.S. have had to slow plans to build electric vehicle and battery factories after EV sales growth eased from huge growth in 2023.

Through September, U.S. new EV sales were up 7.2% to about 936,000, according to Motorintelligence.com. Thats slower growth than the 47% increase in 2023. But EV sales this year still are likely to surpass last years record of 1.19 million. The EV share of new vehicle sales this year is 7.9%, up from 7.6% last year.

The 2.8 million square foot Lansing plant employs about 100 people and is on track to have about 1,700 workers, GM said. It was to open this year, but its opening date now is unclear.

GM also announced Monday that it reached agreement with LG to develop prismatic battery cells for electric vehicles. The rectangular cells can store more energy, reducing battery sizes and cutting weight and cost compared with pouch cells GM now uses.

The post Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares steps down as carmaker continues struggle with slumping sales appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

Jake DeBrusk scored a hat trick, including the game-winner in overtime, and goaltender Kevin Lankinen set an NHL record for most consecutive road wins to start a season as the Vancouver Canucks beat the Detroit Red Wings 5-4 on Sunday.

DeBrusk scored two power-play goals in a 43-second span early in the second period and assisted on Erik Brannstrom's goal that tied the game with 3:20 left in regulation. Pius Suter also scored for Vancouver.

Lankinen is now 10-0-0 on the road this season, surpassing previous record-holders Glenn Hall (1965-66) and Cam Talbot (2023-24). Talbot, Detroit's starting goaltender on Sunday, played for Los Angeles last season.

Jonatan Berggren had a goal and an assist, while Alex DeBrincat, Michael Rasmussen and Vladimir Tarasenko also scored for the Red Wings.

Talbot left the game in the second period with a lower-body injury after making 12 saves. Ville Husso replaced him and made 15 saves, allowing three goals.

Takeaways

Vancouver: The Canucks are 4-1 on their current six-game road trip and 10-2 on the road this season.

Detroit: Tarasenko, the biggest offensive addition the Red Wings made in free agency during the offseason, has scored in back-to-back games after a 16-game drought.

Key moment

Penalties to Simon Edvinsson and Justin Holl late in the first period gave Vancouver a 5-on-3 advantage that carried over into the second period. DeBrusk took advantage of Detroit's penalty-kill unit, ranked last in the league, to scored on a tip-in and a rebound.

Key stat

Suter, a fifth-year center who played two seasons with Detroit, has six goals in 11 career games against the Red Wings.

Up next

The Canucks complete a six-game road trip at Minnesota on Tuesday while the Red Wings visit Boston on Tuesday.

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

DETROIT (AP) — Tyrese Maxey scored 28 points and the Philadelphia 76ers won their fourth game of the season by beating the Detroit Pistons 111-96 on Saturday night.

Jared McCain added 19 points and Ricky Council IV scored 17 for Philadelphia, which had lost seven of its previous eight games.

Malik Beasley had 19 points for the Pistons. Jaden Ivey had 15 points and Marcus Sasser scored 12. Simone Fontecchio had 11 rebounds for Detroit — the only player on either team to reach double figures in assists or rebounds.

Takeaways

Sixers: Andre Drummond left the game in the first quarter with a left ankle injury. Paul George was listed as out on the pregame injury report, but started after missing the last three games with a bone bruise on his left knee and scored 11 points.

Pistons: Cade Cunningham was a late scratch with a sprained left sacroiliac joint. Starters Tobias Harris, Tim Hardaway, Jr. and Jalen Duren combined for eight points on 3-for-16 shooting. Combined, they missed all seven of their 3-point attempts.

Key Moment

The Sixers scored 11 points in 101 seconds to take an early 22-7 lead. Maxey, George and Kelly Oubre Jr. hit three straight 3-pointers before Oubre finished the run with a mid-range jumper. Philadelphia led by as many as 18 points in the first quarter and 57-52 at halftime.

Key Stat

After starting the game with a 22-7 run, the Philadelphia starters began the second half with a 27-10 run to take an 84-62 lead late in the third quarter. KJ Martin replaced Drummond in the rotation after his injury.

Up Next

Both teams return to action on Tuesday night. The Sixers travel to Charlotte for a game with the Hornets while the Pistons play host to the Milwaukee Bucks.

— By DAVE HOGG, Associated Press

KALAMAZOO (AP) — Zahir Abdus-Salaam ran for a touchdown and caught another as Western Michigan defeated Eastern Michigan 26-18 on Saturday to become bowl eligible, snapping a three-game losing streak.

Abdus-Salaam scored on a 22-yard run for a 23-8 lead in the third quarter and he celebrated by jumping into a snowbank bordering the end zone.

The Broncos (6-6, 5-3 Mid-American Conference) blocked a punt for safety that started a run of 16 points in under four minutes. Abdus-Salaam scored on a 31-yard screen pass then Joey Pope recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff to set up Jalen Buckley’s 15-yard TD run with 19 seconds before the half ended.

Eastern Michigan’s Delmert Mimms II scored two third-quarter touchdowns. The teams exchanged field goals for the only fourth-quarter scoring.

The Eagles got the ball back with 2:18 remaining but on their first play Bilhal Kone intercepted a tipped pass. Eastern Michigan (5-7, 2-6) lost its last five games.

Abdus-Salaam rushed for 135 yards and Buckley 103 on 19 carries apiece. Hayden Wolff threw for 126 yards and a score. Abdus-Salaam had 40 yards receiving.

Mimms rushed for 127 yards on 18 carries. Cole Snyder was only 7 of 22 for 91 yards passing.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A fight broke out at midfield after Michigan stunned No. 2 Ohio State 13-10 on Saturday as Wolverines players attempted to plant their flag and were met by Buckeyes who confronted them.

Police had to use pepper spray to break up the players, who threw punches and shoves in the melee that overshadowed the rivalry game.

Ohio State police said in a statement “multiple officers representing Ohio and Michigan deployed pepper spray.” Ohio State police will investigate the fight, according to the statement.

After the Ohio State players confronted their bitter rivals at midfield, defensive end Jack Sawyer grabbed the top of the Wolverines’ flag and ripped it off the pole as the brawl moved toward the Michigan bench. Eventually, police officers rushed into the ugly scene.

Ohio State coach Ryan Day said he understood the actions of his players.

“There are some prideful guys on our team who weren’t going to sit back and let that happen,” Day said.

The two Ohio State players made available after the game brushed off questions about it.

Michigan running back Kalel Mullings, who rushed for 116 yards and a touchdown, didn’t like how the Buckeyes players involved themselves in the Wolverines’ postgame celebration. He called it “classless.”

“For such a great game, you hate to see stuff like that after the game,” he said in an on-field interview with Fox Sports. “It’s just bad for the sport, bad for college football. But at the end of the day, you know some people got to — they got to learn how to lose, man. … We had 60 minutes, we had four quarters, to do all that fighting.”

Michigan coach Sherrone Moore said everybody needs to do better.

“So much emotions on both sides,” he said. “Rivalry games get heated, especially this one. It’s the biggest one in the country, so we got to handle that better.”

— By MITCH STACY, Associated Press

The post Great Lakes, Plains and Midwest forecast to be hit with snow and dangerous cold into next week appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

By JESSICA DAMIANO

A neighbor texted me this week asking for advice about controlling carpenter bees. She was hoping for an exterminator recommendation, but I gave her a simple, do-it-yourself solution that is easier on the wallet and environment, and even more effective.

It got me thinking about the importance of taking a beat to learn whether insects actually pose any harm — and, if so, how much — rather than immediately reaching for a spray can or calling in the big guns.

We’re all familiar with beneficial insects like ladybugs, dragonflies and bees, but it’s high time we reconsider our definition of “pests” and collectively add other, less-familiar insects to the friendly bug list. Native beetles, assassin bugs and even wasps are among those that make significant contributions to the environment despite their threatening appearance.

Great Britain’s Royal Horticultural Society has even removed the pest designation from slugs and snails, typically considered garden menaces. As it happens, they, too, play an essential role in the ecosystem, consuming rotting vegetation and serving as an important food source for birds, frogs and other animals, with some species even helping to control algae.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise — everything on Earth has a purpose, whether we realize it or not.

Fortunately, as gardeners learn more about the relationships between different life-forms, they are viewing insects as essential components of a sustainable landscape rather than nuisances.

I told my neighbor that the pesticide an exterminator would use in an attempt to eradicate her carpenter bees would also kill other pollinators and beneficial insects. Plus, those chemicals would need to be applied repeatedly to maintain control, hence the “service plan” upsell.

Carpenter bees are big and, to the uninitiated, scary-looking. But the males don’t have stingers, and the females only use theirs if they are blatantly disturbed. Still, they do “drill” holes in wooden surfaces.

What to do

I recommended sealing the holes with wood putty to prevent the bees from accessing their nests and force them to relocate. In addition, carpenter bees do not like painted surfaces, so painting bare wood would discourage hole-drilling in the first place (as well as protect it from the elements).

Spraying nest openings with almond or citrus oil, which the bees detest, also would provide an effective deterrent.

If you must act

Common sense should prevail, as particularly severe infestations might warrant a stronger approach. If so, seek out an organic control, such as diluted Neem oil, sprayed only after dark to avoid exposing pollinators. Homemade soap sprays made by mixing 1 tablespoon of dish soap into a quart of water can be used to control soft-bodied insects on plants, if necessary.

Planting nectar-rich flowering native plants will support native insects like ladybugs, lacewings and parasitic wasps.

Avoid planting the same crops in the same beds year after year. Rotating them will essentially starve pests that target specific plants, and provide a clean slate when you reintroduce them to the bed two or three years later.

And learn to accept some “pest” activity. A few leaf nibbles shouldn’t justify eradication. These measures should only be taken when a damage threshold is crossed. In many cases, it won’t be.

The circle of life

A single nest of baby birds consumes between 6,000 and 9,000 caterpillars, insects and worms in just their first few weeks of life. Encourage prospective avian parents to nest on your property by setting up a feeder and providing fresh, clean water. They’ll do a great job and work for free.

And that’s undoubtedly the best exterminator a gardener can hope for.

Jessica Damiano writes weekly gardening columns for the AP and publishes the award-winning Weekly Dirt Newsletter. You can sign up here for weekly gardening tips and advice.

By ROB GILLIES, Associated Press

TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on this threat to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products, he would be raising prices for Americans and hurting American business.

Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico if the countries don’t stop what he called the flow of drugs and migrants across southern and northern borders. He said he would impose a 25% tax on all products entering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico as one of his first executive orders.

“It is important to understand that Donald Trump, when he makes statements like that, he plans on carrying them out. There’s no question about it,” Trudeau said to reporters in Prince Edward Island in Atlantic Canada.

“Our responsibility is to point out that he would not just be harming Canadians, who work so well with the United States, but he would actually be raising prices for Americans citizens as well and hurting American industry and business.”

Trudeau said Trump got elected because he promised to bring down the cost of groceries but now he’s talking about adding 25% to the cost of all kinds of products including potatoes from Prince Edward Island.

Those tariffs could essentially blow up the North American trade pact that Trump’s team negotiated during his initial term. Trudeau noted they were able to successfully re-negotiate the deal, which he calls a “win win” for both countries.

“We can work together as we did previously,” Trudeau said.

Trump made the tariff threat Monday while railing against an influx of illegal migrants, even though the numbers at the Canadian border pale in comparison to the southern border.

The U.S. Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests at the Mexican border in October alone — and 23,721 arrests at the Canadian one between October 2023 and September 2024.

Trump also railed about fentanyl from Mexico and Canada, even though seizures from the Canadian border are few in comparison to the Mexican border. U.S. customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border.

Canadian officials say lumping Canada in with Mexico is unfair but say they are ready to make new investments in border security.

“We’re going to work together to meet some of the concerns,” Trudeau said. “But ultimately it is through lots of real constructive conversations with President Trump that I am going to have, that will keep us moving forward on the right track for all Canadians.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday she is confident that a tariff war with the United States will be averted. Trump posted on social media that he had spoken with her and she had agreed to stop unauthorized migration across the border into the United States.

When Trump imposed higher tariffs during his first term in office, other countries responded with retaliatory tariffs of their own. Canada, for instance, announced billions of new duties in 2018 against the U.S. in a tit-for-tat response to new taxes on Canadian steel and aluminum.

Canada is already examining possible retaliatory tariffs on certain items from the U.S. should Trump follow through on his threat to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products, a senior official told The Associated Press this week.

A government official said Canada is preparing for every eventuality and has started thinking about what items to target with tariffs in retaliation. The official stressed no decision has been made. The person spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly.

In the U.S., business groups were quick to warn about rapidly escalating inflation. House Democrats put together legislation to strip a president’s ability to unilaterally apply tariffs this drastic, warning that they would likely lead to higher prices for autos, shoes, housing and groceries.

Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states. Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian (US$2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day.

About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports are from Canada.

Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.

Canada is one of the most trade-dependent countries in the world, and 77% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S.

“Canada has reason to fear because Trump is impulsive, often influenced by the last thing he sees on Fox News,” said Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. “He can leverage that by catering to what he thinks will sound and look good to the public rather than to what happens or will happen.”

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vaping is coming before the Supreme Court next week as federal regulators ask the high court to uphold its block on sweet, flavored products following a spike in youth e-cigarette use.

The Food and Drug Administration has denied more than a million marketing applications for candy- or fruit-flavored products that appeal to kids, part of a wider crackdown that advocates say helped drive down teen vaping after an “epidemic level” surge in 2019.

Vaping companies, though, said the agency unfairly disregarded arguments that their sweet e-liquid products would help adults quit smoking traditional cigarettes without putting kids at greater risk.

Republican Donald Trump’s administration could take a different approach after he vowed in a September social-media post to “save” vaping.

The Supreme Court on Monday is hearing arguments in the FDA’s appeal of a decision from the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. While other courts upheld FDA refusals, the appeals court sided with the Dallas-based company Triton Distribution.

It tossed out a decision blocking the marketing of nicotine-laced liquids like “Jimmy The Juice Man in Peachy Strawberry” that are heated by an e-cigarette to create an inhalable aerosol.

Triton said the FDA had unfairly changed its requirements without enough warning.

“It sort of pulls the chair out from the applicants,” said Marc Scheineson, a former FDA associate commissioner and attorney who now represents other small electronic tobacco companies.

The FDA was slow to regulate the now multibillion-dollar vaping market, and even years into the crackdown flavored vapes that are technically illegal nevertheless remain widely available. The agency has approved some tobacco-flavored vapes, and recently allowed its first menthol-flavored electronic cigarettes for adult smokers.

The marketing refusals combined with age-limit enforcement on the federal and state levels have helped drive down youth nicotine use to its lowest level in a decade, said Dennis Henigan, vice president for legal and regulatory affairs at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

He says the FDA was clear in its requirements and fears a court decision that leads to wider availability for flavored vape products, which are the dominant choice among the 1.6 million high school students who still vape. “We think that would be a real harm to public health,” Henigan said.

By BEN NUCKOLS, Associated Press Sports Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The NCAA’s yearslong efforts to get lawmakers to address myriad problems in college sports could finally pay off in the new, Republican-controlled Congress.

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who is set to take over as chair of the powerful Commerce Committee, said recently that a college sports bill will be a top priority, accusing Democrats of dragging their feet on needed reforms. He still needs Democratic support for any bill to pass the necessary 60-vote threshold in the Senate, and that means some compromise with lawmakers who are more concerned about athlete welfare than giving the NCAA more authority.

“Clearly the situation is much more doable with Republicans in control,” said Tom McMillen, a former Democratic congressman who played college basketball and for several years led an association of Division I athletic directors. “From the standpoint of the NCAA’s perspective, this is sort of an ideal scenario for them.”

What’s at stake

Cruz and others want to preserve at least parts of an amateur athlete model at the heart of college sports that has provided billions of dollars in scholarships and fueled decades of success by the United States at the Olympics.

The broad outlines of a bill have been debated for years, with those conversations influenced by millions of dollars in lobbying by the NCAA and the wealthiest athletic conferences. The NCAA has found a more receptive audience on Capitol Hill since Charlie Baker, a former Republican Massachusetts governor, took over as its president in March 2023.

There is some bipartisan consensus that Congress should grant the NCAA a limited antitrust exemption that would allow it to make rules governing college sports without the constant threat of lawsuits, and that national standards for athlete name, image and likeness (NIL) compensation are needed to override a patchwork of state laws.

Those are the key elements of legislation that Cruz has backed for more than a year. Staffers from his office and those of fellow Republican Jerry Moran of Kansas and Democrats Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Cory Booker of New Jersey spent months negotiating a bill that would have been introduced in the current, divided Congress, but those talks stalled.

Bipartisan support key

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the outgoing Commerce Committee chair, has been working to advance college sports reform since 2019 but struggled to build consensus on legislation. Still, she agrees with Cruz on at least one problem that Congress could solve — one she saw play out in her home state with the dissolution of the Pac-12 Conference.

“Right now, big schools and their boosters are pitted against smaller schools. We need a predicable national NIL standard that will ensure a level playing field for college athletes and schools,” Cantwell said in a statement to The Associated Press.

A Supreme Court decision in 2021 paved the way for athletes to receive NIL compensation, and now a pending $2.8 billion settlement of multiple antitrust lawsuits against the NCAA has set the table not only for damages paid to past athletes for the NIL money they couldn’t earn but revenue-sharing by schools to their current and future college stars.

Beyond those changes the NCAA was forced to make by the courts, the organization has expanded health benefits for athletes and made new scholarship guarantees. Those new rules took effect Aug. 1, and the NCAA argues they obviate the need for Congress to mandate such benefits.

“We believe that in the next session, members of Congress are going to see the results of those positive changes, and our goal is to build on those and address the remaining issues that only Congress can address,” said Tim Buckley, the NCAA’s senior vice president of external affairs.

Prickly employment issue

The NCAA’s chief goal — and one that seems achievable with Republicans in charge — is “preventing student-athletes from being forced into becoming employees of their schools,” Buckley said.

There are several pending efforts by athletes seeking the ability to unionize, with at least one already tied in up court.

The NCAA has sent athletes to Capitol Hill to tell Congress they don’t want employee status, and some Democrats who previously supported athlete employment have acknowledged the potential drawbacks. Those include drastic cuts to women’s and Olympic sports that might be needed for universities to meet their payroll obligations and financial complications for athletes whose scholarships and other benefits would become taxable.

“For example, the historically Black colleges and universities came together and said, ‘If you force us to treat student-athletes as employees, it’s going to cause us to cancel most of our athletic programs.’ That would be a disastrous outcome,” Cruz said in an appearance at Texas A&M University in September.

Still, overly broad anti-employment language in any bill could imperil its chances of passage. Democrats are hesitant to approve legislation that is seen as too friendly to the NCAA. Booker, a moderate on the issue of athlete employment and a former football player at Stanford, nonetheless emphasized in a statement that he would only support an athlete-friendly bill.

“For too long, the college sports system put power and profits over the rights and well-being of college athletes. And while we’ve made some hard-fought progress in recent years, there’s still more to do,” Booker said. “My advocacy on their behalf will continue in the next Congress.”

Cruz could also face pressure from his own side of the aisle. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., who spent more than two decades as a Division I football coach, has called for Congress to mandate penalties for players who break NIL contracts.

While Cruz understands the need for compromise, he intends to use the power he has to advance his — and, to some extent, the NCAA’s — priorities.

“As chairman, I can convene hearings. I’m in charge of every hearing the Commerce Committee has,” Cruz said on a recent episode of his weekly podcast. “I can decide what bills get marked up and what bills don’t, and it gives you the ability to drive an agenda that is just qualitatively different.”

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