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  • Affable comedy acting legend Dick Van Dyke turns 100 years old

    Affable comedy acting legend Dick Van Dyke turns 100 years old

    Comedy icon Dick Van Dyke celebrated his 100th birthday on Saturday, hitting the century mark some six decades after he sang and danced with Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins and starred in his self-titled sitcom.

    “The funniest thing is, it’s not enough,” Van Dyke said in an interview with ABC News at his Malibu, Calif., home. “A hundred years is not enough. You want to live more, which I plan to.”

    As part of the celebration of Van Dyke’s birthday this weekend, theaters around the country are showing a new documentary about his life, Dick Van Dyke: 100th Celebration.

    Van Dyke became one of the biggest actors of his era with The Dick Van Dyke Show, which ran from 1961-66 on CBS; appeared with Andrews as a chimney sweep with a Cockney accent in the 1964 Disney classic Mary Poppins; and, in his 70s, played a physician-sleuth on Diagnosis: Murder.

    Also a Broadway star, Van Dyke won a Tony Award for Bye Bye Birdie to go with a Grammy and four Primetime Emmys. In 1963, he starred in the film version of Bye Bye Birdie.

    Just last year, he became the oldest winner of a Daytime Emmy, for a guest role on the soap Days of Our Lives.

    In the 1970s, he found sobriety after battling alcoholism and spoke out about it at a time when that was uncommon to do.

    Now that he has hit triple digits, Van Dyke said he’s gotten some perspective on how he used to play older characters.

    “You know, I played old men a lot, and I always played them as angry and cantankerous,” he told ABC News. “It’s not really that way. I don’t know any other 100-year-olds, but I can speak for myself.”

    He recently imparted wisdom about reaching the century mark in his book, 100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist’s Guide to a Happy Life. He credited his wife, 54-year-old makeup artist and producer Arlene Silver, with keeping him young.

    “She gives me energy. She gives me humor, and all kinds of support,” he told ABC News.

    Van Dyke was born in West Plains, Mo., in 1925, and grew up “the class clown” in Danville, Ill., while admiring and imitating the silent film comedians.

    He told ABC News he started acting when he was about 4 or 5 years old in a Christmas pageant. He said he was the baby Jesus.

    “I made some kind of crack, I don’t know what I said, but it broke the congregation up,” he said. ”And I liked the sound of that laughter.”

    And what’s hard about being 100?

    “I miss movement,” he told ABC News. “I’ve got one game leg from I don’t know what.”

    “I still try to dance,” he said with a laugh.

  • 2 U.S. service members, one American civilian killed in ambush in Syria, U.S. Central Command says

    2 U.S. service members, one American civilian killed in ambush in Syria, U.S. Central Command says

    DAMASCUS, Syria — President Donald Trump said Saturday that “there will be very serious retaliation” after two U.S. service members and one American civilian were killed in an attack in Syria that the United States blames on the Islamic State group.

    “This was an ISIS attack against the U.S., and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them,” he said in a social media post.

    The American president told reporters at the White House that Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, was “devastated by what happened” and stressed that Syria was fighting alongside U.S. troops. Trump, in his post, said al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack.”

    The two service members killed were members of the Iowa National Guard, according to a person briefed on the situation who was granted anonymity because they did not have permission to speak publicly.

    U.S. Central Command said three service members were also wounded in an ambush Saturday by a lone IS member in central Syria. Trump said the three “seem to be doing pretty well.” The U.S. military said the gunman was killed.

    The attack on U.S. troops in Syria was the first with fatalities since the fall of President Bashar Assad a year ago.

    “There will be very serious retaliation,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

    The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, said the civilian killed was a U.S. interpreter. Parnell said the attack targeted soldiers involved in the ongoing counterterrorism operations in the region and is under active investigation.

    The shooting took place near historic Palmyra, according to the state-run SANA news agency, which earlier said two members of Syria’s security force and several U.S. service members had been wounded. The casualties were taken by helicopter to the al-Tanf garrison near the border with Iraq and Jordan.

    The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attacker was a member of the Syrian security force.

    Syria’s Interior Ministry spokesperson Nour al-Din al-Baba said a gunman linked to IS opened fire at the gate of a military post. He added that Syrian authorities are looking into whether the gunman was an IS member or only carried its extreme ideology. He denied reports that suggested that the attacker was a security member.

    Later al-Baba clarified that the attacker was a member of the Internal Security force in the desert, adding that he “did not have any command post” within the forces nor was he a bodyguard for the force commander.

    Al-Baba added in an interview with state TV that some 5,000 members have joined Internal Security forces in the desert and they are evaluated on a weekly basis. He added that three days ago, an evaluation was made of the attacker and it turned out that he might have extreme ideology. A decision was expected to be issued regarding him on Sunday but “the attack occurred on a Saturday which is a day off for state institutions.”

    U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X: “Let it be known, if you target Americans — anywhere in the world — you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.”

    The U.S. has hundreds of troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS.

    The U.S. had no diplomatic relations with Syria under Assad, but ties have warmed since the fall of the five-decade Assad family rule. Al-Sharaa made a historic visit to Washington last month where he held talks with Trump. It was the first White House visit by a Syrian head of state since the Middle Eastern country gained independence from France in 1946 and came after the U.S. lifted sanctions imposed on Syria during the Assads’ rule.

    Al-Sharaa led the rebel forces that toppled Bashar Assad in December 2024 and was named the country’s interim leader in January. Al-Sharaa once had ties to al-Qaida and had a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.

    Last month, Syria joined the international coalition fighting against the IS as Damascus improves its relations with Western countries following the ouster of Assad when insurgents captured his seat of power in Damascus.

    IS was defeated on the battlefield in Syria in 2019 but the group’s sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in the country. The United Nations says the group still has between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq.

    U.S. troops, which have maintained a presence in different parts of Syria — including Al-Tanf garrison in the central province of Homs — to train other forces as part of a broad campaign against IS, have been targeted in the past. One of the deadliest attacks occurred in 2019 in the northern town of Manbij when a blast killed two U.S. service members and two American civilians as well as others from Syria while conducting a patrol.

  • Belarus frees Nobel Prize laureate Bialiatski, opposition figure Kolesnikova as U.S. lifts sanctions

    Belarus frees Nobel Prize laureate Bialiatski, opposition figure Kolesnikova as U.S. lifts sanctions

    VILNIUS, Lithuania — Belarus freed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, key opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova, and dozens of other prisoners on Saturday, capping two days of talks with Washington aimed at improving ties and getting crippling U.S. sanctions lifted on a key Belarusian agricultural export.

    The U.S. announced earlier Saturday that it was lifting sanctions on Belarus’ potash sector. In exchange, President Alexander Lukashenko pardoned 123 prisoners, Belarus’ state news agency, Belta, reported.

    A close ally of Russia, Minsk has faced Western isolation and sanctions for years. Lukashenko has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, and the country has been repeatedly sanctioned by the West for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Belarus has released hundreds of prisoners since July 2024.

    John Coale, the U.S. special envoy for Belarus who met with Lukashenko in Minsk on Friday and Saturday, described the talks to reporters as “very productive” and said normalizing relations between Washington and Minsk was “our goal,” Belta reported.

    “We’re lifting sanctions, releasing prisoners. We’re constantly talking to each other,” Coale said, adding that the relationship between the U.S. and Belarus was moving from “baby steps to more confident steps” as they increased dialogue, according to the Belarusian news agency.

    Among the 123 prisoners were a U.S. citizen, six citizens of U.S. allied countries, and five Ukrainian citizens, a U.S. official told the Associated Press in an email. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic negotiations, described the release as “a significant milestone in U.S.-Belarus engagement” and “yet another diplomatic victory” for U.S. President Donald Trump.

    The official said Trump’s engagement so far “has led to the release of over 200 political prisoners in Belarus, including six unjustly detained U.S. citizens and over 60 citizens of U.S. Allies and partners.”

    Bialiatski, Kolesnikova among those freed

    Pavel Sapelka, an advocate with the Viasna rights group, confirmed to the AP that Bialiatski and Kolesnikova were among those released.

    Bialiatski, a human rights advocate who founded Viasna, was in jail when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 along with the prominent Russian rights group Memorial and Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties. He was later convicted of smuggling and financing actions that violated public order — charges that were widely denounced as politically motivated — and sentenced to 10 years in 2023.

    Bialiatski told the AP by phone Saturday that his release after 1,613 days behind bars came as a surprise — in the morning, he was still in an overcrowded prison cell.

    “It feels like I jumped out of icy water into a normal, warm room, so I have to adapt. After isolation, I need to get information about what’s going on,” said Bialiatski, who seemed energetic but pale and emaciated in post-release videos and photos.

    He vowed to continue his work, stressing that “more than a thousand political prisoners in Belarus remain behind bars simply because they chose freedom. And, of course, I am their voice.”

    Kolesnikova, meanwhile, was a key figure in the mass protests that rocked Belarus in 2020, and is a close ally of an opposition leader in exile, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

    Known for her close-cropped hair and trademark gesture of forming a heart with her hands, Kolesnikova became an even greater symbol of resistance when Belarusian authorities tried to deport her in September 2020. Driven to the Ukrainian border, she briefly broke away from security forces at the frontier, tore up her passport and walked back into Belarus.

    The 43-year-old professional flutist was convicted in 2021 on charges including conspiracy to seize power and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

    Others who were freed

    Among the others who were released, according to Viasna, was Viktar Babaryka — an opposition figure who had sought to challenge Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election, widely seen as rigged, before being convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges he rejected as political.

    Viasna reported that the group’s imprisoned advocates, Valiantsin Stefanovic and Uladzimir Labkovich, and prominent opposition figure Maxim Znak were also freed. But it later said it was clarifying its report about Stefanovic’s release, and Bialiatski told the AP that Stefanovic had not been freed, though he hopes he will be soon.

    Most of those released were sent to Ukraine, Franak Viachorka, Tsikhanouskaya’s senior adviser, told the AP.

    “I think Lukashenko decided to deport people to Ukraine to show that he is in control of the situation,” Viachorka said.

    Eight or nine others, including Bialiatski, were being sent to Lithuania on Saturday, and more prisoners will be taken to the Baltic country in the next few days, Viachorka said.

    Ukrainian authorities confirmed that Belarus had handed over 114 civilians. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that five of them are Ukrainian nationals.

    Freed Belarusian nationals “at their request” and “after being given necessary medical treatment” will be taken to Poland and Lithuania, Ukrainian authorities said.

    Lukashenko wants rapprochement with the West

    When U.S. officials last met with Lukashenko in September, Washington said it was easing some of the sanctions on Belarus. Minsk, meanwhile, released more than 50 political prisoners into Lithuania, pushing the number of prisoners it had freed since July 2024 past the 430 mark.

    “The freeing of political prisoners means that Lukashenko understands the pain of Western sanctions and is seeking to ease them,” Tsikhanouskaya, the opposition leader in exile, told the AP on Saturday.

    She added: “But let’s not be naive: Lukashenko hasn’t changed his policies, his crackdown continues and he keeps on supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine. That’s why we need to be extremely cautious with any talk of sanctions relief, so that we don’t reinforce Russia’s war machine and encourage continued repressions.”

    Tsikhanouskaya also described European Union sanctions against Belarusian potash fertilizers as far more painful for Minsk that the U.S. ones, saying that while easing U.S. sanctions could lead to the release of political prisoners, European sanctions should be used to push for long-term, systemic changes in Belarus and the end of the war in Ukraine.

    Sanctions have hit key export hard

    Belarus, which previously accounted for about 20% of global potash fertilizer exports, has faced sharply reduced shipments since Western sanctions targeted state producer Belaruskali and cut off transit through Lithuania’s port in Klaipeda, the country’s main export route.

    “Sanctions by the U.S., EU and their allies have significantly weakened Belarus’ potash industry, depriving the country of a key source of foreign exchange earnings and access to key markets,” Anastasiya Luzgina, an analyst at the Belarusian Economic Research Center BEROC, told the AP.

    “Minsk hopes that lifting U.S. sanctions on potash will pave the way for easing more painful European sanctions; at the very least, U.S. actions will allow discussions to begin,” she said.

    The latest round of U.S.-Belarus talks also touched on Venezuela, as well as Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Belta reported.

    Coale told reporters that Lukashenko had given “good advice” on how to address the Russia-Ukraine war, saying that Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin were “longtime friends” with “the necessary level of relationship to discuss such issues.”

    “Naturally, President Putin may accept some advice and not others,” Coale said.

    The U.S. official told the AP that “continued progress in U.S.-Belarus relations” also requires steps to resolve tensions between Belarus and neighboring Lithuania, which is a member of the EU and NATO.

    The Lithuanian government this week declared a national emergency over security risks posed by meteorological balloons sent from Belarus.

    The balloons forced Lithuania to repeatedly shut down its main airport, stranding thousands of people. Earlier this year, Lithuania temporarily closed its border with Belarus, and Belarusian authorities responded by threatening to seize up to 1,200 Lithuanian trucks they said were stuck in Belarus.

    The U.S. official said improving ties between U.S. and Belarus will require “positive action to stop the release of smuggling balloons from Belarus that affect Lithuanian airspace and resolve the impoundment of Lithuanian trucks.”

  • Adolescence lasts into your 30s, and other surprises about the brain

    Adolescence lasts into your 30s, and other surprises about the brain

    The human brain has four distinct turning points where its structure changes, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications, demonstrating that brain development is not as linear as you might think.

    “It’s easy to fall into this belief that there’s a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ way for a brain to be structured,” said lead study author Alexa Mousley at the University of Cambridge. “And that’s not really the case. What this study is emphasizing is the brain is expected to be doing something different at different ages.”

    In the new study, Mousley and colleagues looked at around 4,000 scans from healthy people ages 0 to 90 and analyzed their brains. They found four major times when the brain underwent developmental changes, around ages 9, 32, 66, and 83, dividing the life span into five distinct phases.

    “It’s yet another very nice example of how the brain and its global interactions change across the life span,” said Seth Grant, a neuroscientist at The University of Edinburgh who wasn’t involved in the new research. “The message is, there is continuous change from birth until old age. It’s not as if you suddenly build a brain and it stays the same and then just drops off at old age. It’s always changing.”

    Mousley and her co-authors identified five epochs during which the brain is wired in different ways.

    1. Childhood

    From infancy to 9 years old, the brain is busy. There is a lot of consolidation of neural connections happening, competitive elimination of synapses, and rapid increases in gray and white matter. But interestingly the brain is becoming less efficient during this time — so it takes longer for information to get from one region of the brain to another. The researchers don’t fully understand why this would be the pattern, but they have some theories.

    “We know that in very early life, the brain makes more connections than it needs, and then it prunes them away,” Mousley said. “It’s unclear if that is kind of what’s happening here, but it is potentially what’s happening.”

    Whatever the reason for the brain becoming less efficient during childhood, it is a time when a lot of learning happens — language, motor skills, speech — and there is likely a reason that the brain is structured the way that it is during this period.

    “It could be that this decreasing efficiency is potentially related to this incredible moment of learning,” Mousley said.

    2. Adolescence

    There is a dramatic turning point that the researchers saw occurring around the age of 9 on average — a time when many children begin to enter puberty. The brain switches gears and starts rewiring to become more efficient.

    The adolescence phase the researchers identified lasts for two decades, into the early 30s on average. This is when people are most vulnerable to developing a mental health disorder, but it’s also a critical time for brain development.

    “It is really important to think about adolescence as this protracted window,” said Katie Insel, a psychologist at Northwestern University who studies how the brain changes over the course of adolescence. She said that while in our society we may think of 18- or 21-year-olds as adults, this research adds to a growing body of work suggesting that the brain isn’t fully developed or stable until our late 20s or even early 30s.

    “Something that sets us apart as humans from other animals is how slowly we develop,” Mousley said. “A giraffe can stand up very soon after being born, but human babies just take a very long time to learn to walk, to eat.”

    Mousley suggested that this slower development might give humans the opportunity to develop more complex brain connections, and could be related to the things that humans can do that other animals can’t.

    3. Adulthood

    Adulthood is the longest phase — lasting for more than three decades from around 32 years old until around 66 years old.

    “It does seem to be this kind of period of relative stability,” Mousley said. “It’s consistent for a very long period of time.”

    That doesn’t mean that the brain isn’t changing during this period, but the changes are less dramatic than during other phases. This is also a period of stability in terms of intelligence, behavior, and personality.

    “If you just think about what an adult is compared to a teenager, you kind of assume there’s kind of a level of stability there in terms of how people are behaving. And that’s aligning with this three-decade period of consistent brain rewiring from our study,” Mousley said.

    4. Early aging

    Around 66 years old on average, the researchers saw another turning point. This is a time when the brain seems to become more vulnerable to age-related diseases — but the news isn’t all bad for the aging brain.

    “There’s an expected and healthy, typical way for the brain to shift,” Mousley said.

    Insel noted that in addition to some of the negative changes people might associate with aging, like memory loss, there are also positive changes. Older adults tend to be wiser and better at emotional regulation.

    “There are pros and cons to every developmental stage,” Insel said. “I think with every phase of life, there are trade-offs where some types of cognition and behavior are privileged because of how the brain is responding to the environment.”

    5. Late aging

    From 83 onward, the researchers identified a “late aging” phase.

    “What we’re seeing during that late aging phase is something called ‘increasing centrality,’” Mousley said. Particular regions of the brain become more important than others during this time. There is reduced connectivity, but there seems to be a pattern to that change.

    The metaphor Mousley used was that of changing bus routes. If you had a direct bus to work, but one day it stopped running and you had to take two buses, the transfer station would suddenly become very important. She theorized that the brain might be prioritizing important connections if other connections drop off.

    What it means

    The word “development” is often associated with childhood or the teenage years — but what this new research demonstrates is that the brain develops continually throughout our lives.

    “We often ascribe certain brain changes to negative outcomes in adulthood or later life,” Insel said. “But actually there’s certain cognitive features that can be really helpful and useful in aging.” By zooming out and looking at how the brain changes over the course of our lifetimes, Insel hopes that we can have a better understanding of what to expect at these different ages, and why our brains might be more vulnerable to certain disorders in adolescence or older age respectively.

    Yaakov Stern, a neuroscientist at Columbia University, noted that a good next step would be to try to understand exactly how these measures of the brain might be related to cognitive processes — essentially connecting the dots between this research and other work that has looked at the way our brains function throughout our lives.

    He added that many of the things that affect brain development are within our control — such as diet, exercise and social connection.

    “The brain changes with aging. We know that,” Stern said. “What interests me, is there are exposures that seem to be associated with more successful aging.”

  • This holiday season isn’t very merry for consumers, an AP-NORC poll finds

    This holiday season isn’t very merry for consumers, an AP-NORC poll finds

    WASHINGTON — This holiday season isn’t quite so merry for American shoppers as large shares are dipping into savings, scouring for bargains, and feeling like the overall economy is stuck in a rut under President Donald Trump, a new AP-NORC poll finds.

    The vast majority of U.S. adults say they’ve noticed higher than usual prices for groceries, electricity, and holiday gifts in recent months, according to the survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

    Roughly half of Americans say it’s harder than usual to afford the things they want to give as holiday gifts, and similar numbers are delaying big purchases or cutting back on nonessential purchases more than they would normally.

    It’s a sobering assessment for the Republican president, who returned to the White House in large part by promising to lower prices, only to find that inflation remains a threat to his popularity just as it did for Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency. The poll’s findings look very similar to an AP-NORC poll from December 2022, when Biden was president and the country was grappling with higher rates of inflation. Trump’s series of tariffs have added to inflationary pressures and generated anxiety about the stability of the U.S. economy, keeping prices at levels that many Americans find frustrating.

    The president has insisted there is “no” inflation and the U.S. economy is booming, as he expressed frustration that the public feels differently.

    “When will people understand what is happening?” Trump said Thursday on Truth Social. “When will Polls reflect the Greatness of America at this point in time, and how bad it was just one year ago?”

    Most U.S. adults, 68%, continue to say the country’s economy is “poor,” which is unchanged from December 2024, before Trump returned to the presidency.

    Americans are feeling strained as they continue to see high prices

    White House officials plan to send Trump barnstorming across the country in hopes of bucking up people’s faith in the economy before next year’s midterm elections. But the president this week in Pennsylvania defended the price increases tied to his tariffs by suggesting that Americans should buy fewer dolls and pencils for children. His message is a jarring contrast with what respondents expressed in the poll, even among people who backed him in the 2024 election.

    Sergio Ruiz, 44, of Tucson, Ariz., said he is using more buy now, pay later programs to spread out over time the expense of gifts for his children. He doesn’t put a huge emphasis on politics, but he voted for Trump last year and would like to see lower interest rates to help boost his real estate business. He believes that more Americans having higher incomes would help to manage any affordability issues.

    “Prices are up. What can you do? You need to make more money,” Ruiz said.

    The poll found that when they do shop, about half of Americans are finding the lowest price more than they would normally. About 4 in 10 are dipping into their savings more than at other times.

    Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say they’re cutting back on expenses or looking for low prices, but many Republicans are budgeting more than usual as well. About 4 in 10 Republicans are looking for low prices more than they usually would, while a similar share are shopping for nonessential items less than usual.

    Views are largely similar to when Biden was president

    People felt similarly dismal about holiday shopping and the economy when Biden was president in 2022. Inflation had spiked to a four-decade high that summer. Three years later, inflation has eased substantially, but it’s still running at 3%, a full percentage point above the Federal Reserve’s target as the job market appears to have entered a deep freeze.

    The survey indicates that it’s the level of prices — and not just the rate of inflation — that is the point of pain for many families. Roughly 9 in 10 U.S. adults, 87%, say they’ve noticed higher than usual prices for groceries in the past few months, while about two-thirds say they’ve experienced higher prices than usual for electricity and holiday gifts. About half say they’ve seen higher than normal prices for gas recently.

    The findings on groceries and holiday gifts are only slightly lower than in the 2022 poll, despite the slowdown from an inflation rate that hit a four-decade peak in the middle of that year.

    Consumer spending has stayed resilient despite the negative sentiments about the economy, yet Trump’s tariffs have caused changes for shoppers such as Andrew Russell.

    The 33-year-old adjunct professor in Arlington Heights, Ill., said he used to shop for unique gifts from around the globe and buy online. But with the tariffs, he got his gifts locally and “this year, I only bought things that I can pick up in person,” he said.

    Russell, who voted Democratic in last year’s election, said he worries about the economy for next year. He thinks the investment in artificial intelligence has become a bubble that could burst, taking down the stock market.

    Little optimism about an economic rebound in 2026

    Few people expect the situation to meaningfully improve next year — a sign that Trump has done little to instill much confidence from his mix of tariffs, income tax cuts, and foreign trips to attract investments. Trump has maintained that the benefits from his policies will begin to snowball in 2026.

    About 4 in 10 U.S. adults expect next year will be economically worse for the country. Roughly 3 in 10 say conditions won’t change much. Only about 2 in 10 think things will get better, with Republicans being more optimistic.

    The belief that things will get better has slipped from last year, when about 4 in 10 said that 2025 would be better than 2024.

    Millicent Simpson, 56, of Cleveland, said she expects the economy to be worse for people like her who rely on Medicaid for healthcare and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Simpson voted Democratic last year and blames Trump for the greater economic pressures that she faces going into the winter.

    “He’s making it rough for us,” she said. “He’s messing with the government assistance for everybody, young and old.”

    The AP-NORC poll of 1,146 adults was conducted Dec. 4-8 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

  • A guide to good manners at the retail counter this holiday season

    A guide to good manners at the retail counter this holiday season

    As shoppers flood stores across the country during the year’s biggest shopping season, retail workers are bracing for what many describe as the most demanding — and often demoralizing — stretch of the job.

    “It magnifies everything,” said Nick Leighton, host of the podcast Were You Raised by Wolves?, which he cohosts with comedian Leah Bonnema. Together, they dissect etiquette and the subtleties of social behavior.

    “People are stressed, they’re busy, they’re frazzled,” he said. “When that happens, we tend to forget other people exist.”

    Whether it’s gridlocked parking lots or shelves picked clean, the holiday retail environment can become a pressure cooker where manners evaporate quickly.

    November and December have long driven retail sales, prompting companies to hire large numbers of seasonal workers to manage the surge. These workers often absorb the brunt of shoppers’ frustration. Some customers treat employees as extensions of a corporation rather than as people.

    This year, there might be even fewer employees to handle crowds of holiday shoppers. Companies say they could cut back on seasonal workers because of economic uncertainty, while at the same time, shoppers are expected to spend more than they did last year.

    “Yelling at a worker isn’t doing anything,” Leighton noted. “Everyone else is busy, too. … Your shopping isn’t more important than the next person’s.”

    Here are some expert suggestions on how customers can be kinder, more polite, and more empathetic toward the people helping to execute all those holiday lists.

    Manners apply everywhere

    People who behave courteously generally do so everywhere, while those who are rude in stores often have similar issues in their personal lives, etiquette consultants say.

    “We do not pay retail workers to be a therapist, a social worker, or a punching bag. It’s not appropriate, and it’s not fair,” said Jodi R.R. Smith, president of Mannersmith Etiquette Consulting in Massachusetts. Long before she advised companies on etiquette, Smith worked several holiday seasons at a Hallmark store.

    Plan your shopping trip and leave time

    Smith advises shoppers to plan ahead — knowing who is on their list, which stores they need to visit and when they will go. “Set yourself up for success,” she said. “Bring water or a snack. Do not go hungry.”

    Timing matters as well. “Ask yourself, ‘When is the best time to go?’” she said. “Weekends are busier, lines are longer, and parking is tighter. If possible, go on a Wednesday morning when the store opens.”

    Establish a little rapport

    Smith suggests making friendly eye contact with workers, offering a greeting, and using humor to diffuse tense moments. If someone in line becomes irritable, she said, a gentle joke about needing a nap can reset the mood.

    “We don’t have control over others’ behavior, but we certainly do over ours,” she said.

    Shoppers can help reduce frustration by asking questions — and recognizing that workers may not have all the answers, said Elizabeth Medeiros, 59, who spent more than 35 years in retail in New York and the Boston area.

    Some companies are acting preemptively. Delta Air Lines is encouraging kindness between customers and employees with a “Centennial Cheer” program. It says it will recognize “100,000 acts of kindness” with Holiday Medallion cards, which can be redeemed for gifts.

    Manage expectations

    Customers often assume store employees can control everything from inventory and discounts to restocking speed and even the behavior of other shoppers, she said.

    They can’t.

    “Customers are focused, especially during the holidays,” said Medeiros, a former district sales manager and longtime store manager. “They’re checking off lists and looking for deals, and anything that interferes with that throws them off.”

    Holiday work is already tough for staff under the best of circumstances, she noted. “Everyone is often stretched thin. Breaks get skipped, shifts get extended unexpectedly, and six-day workweeks become common.”

    As Smith puts it: “Clerks are not the CEO. Don’t expect someone making hourly wages in December to change a store policy you don’t like.”

    Training workers to defuse tension

    Adam Lukoskie, executive director of the National Retail Federation Foundation, emphasized that most customer interactions remain positive.

    “In the news you might see a couple of incidents, but most experiences are OK,” he said. “We work hard to provide a high-quality environment.”

    The industry has invested in new training programs to prepare workers for tense encounters, Lukoskie said.

    The foundation’s RISE Up skills-training courses now reach more than 80,000 people annually. “It gives associates the tools to provide customer service and to understand that an angry customer is usually mad at the problem, not at them,” he said.

    Above all, he said, shoppers should reframe how they view the person behind the counter.

    “Act as if the person helping you is your daughter or son, or your mother or father. Not just someone there to do a task for you.”

  • Joel Embiid scores season-high 39 points to lead Sixers to 115-105 win against Pacers

    Joel Embiid scores season-high 39 points to lead Sixers to 115-105 win against Pacers

    PHILADELPHIA — Joel Embiid scored a season-high 39 points, Paul George had 23 and the 76ers beat the Indiana Pacers 115-105 on Friday night.

    VJ Edgecombe added 22 points for the 76ers, who played without Tyrese Maxey — the NBA’s third-leading scorer (31.5 points per game) sat out with an illness.

    Pascal Siakam had 20 points for the defending Eastern Conference champion Pacers, who dropped to 6-19.

    Siakham’s jumper with 8:24 remaining gave Indiana a 100-95 lead, but the Pacers missed nine consecutive shots — including three 3-pointers — after that as the 76ers went on a 13-2 run. The spurt was capped with Embiid’s offensive rebound and follow basket. The 2023 MVP was fouled on the play and made the free throw to push Philadelphia’s lead to 108-102.

    Embiid, the seven-time All-Star who has been beset with injuries the last 1 1/2 seasons, came in averaging 18.2 points while playing in just nine of Philadelphia’s 23 contests due to left and right knee issues. However, he looked more like himself on Friday, hitting a step-back 3-pointer at the first-half buzzer to give him 14 points inn the second quarter.

    Philadelphia improved to 6-4 with Embiid in the lineup.

    The 76ers had four days off since losing 112-108 at home to LeBron James and the Lakers on Sunday night, giving Embiid plenty of time for rest and recovery. He was upgraded after being probable on the pregame injury report.

    George, who was drafted by Indiana and played there from 2010–2017, also looked more like the nine-time All-Star that he is by finishing with a season high in points following offseason knee surgery.

    Philadelphia was 33 for 43 on free throws while Indiana was 16 for 19. Indiana’s frustration with the disparity in attempts was apparent in the final minutes, as head coach Rick Carlisle received a technical foul with just over three minutes left and Siakham was assessed with one with 1:41 remaining.

  • Penguins send two-time All-Star goalie Tristan Jarry to Edmonton in goaltender swap

    Penguins send two-time All-Star goalie Tristan Jarry to Edmonton in goaltender swap

    PITTSBURGH — Tristan Jarry is going “home” with the hope of helping the Edmonton Oilers get over the top.

    The two-time defending Western Conference champions acquired Jarry from the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday in hopes of shoring up a position that has cost them during their deep playoff runs in recent years.

    Jarry, a two-time All-Star with Pittsburgh in 2020 and 2022, starred for the Edmonton Oil Kings as a junior. Now he heads back to Edmonton with a chance to help the Oilers try to win their first Stanley Cup in more than 35 years.

    Edmonton sent goaltender Stuart Skinner, defenseman Brett Kulak and a second-round pick in the 2029 draft to Pittsburgh in exchange for Jarry and forward Sam Poulin.

    “I just felt it was time for something different,” Oilers general manager Stan Bowman said. “It’s not so much a comment on Stuart Skinner. It’s just maybe time for something different here.”

    The move closes an eventful 10 years in Pittsburgh for Jarry, who was signed to a five-year contract in 2023 but struggled so badly last season that the Penguins took the unorthodox approach of demoting him to the minors multiple times.

    The 30-year-old Jarry has bounced back this season under first-year Penguins coach Dan Muse. Jarry went 9-3-1 with a 2.66 goals against average and a .909 save percentage for surprising Pittsburgh.

    Bowman said the team has been tracking Jarry for a while and that the metrics surrounding his play have been good for an extended period. The fact that Jarry is also signed through 2027-28 also gives the Oilers some stability. Skinner is scheduled to become a free agent next summer.

    “It’s a (salary) number that we’re going to be able to manage well in our salary cap over the coming seasons, so I think those factors did play a role,” Bowman said. “When you add it all up, it wasn’t just about a couple of games here or there. It was about a career sample size and the fact that he’s going to be with us for three playoff rounds.”

    Even if Jarry isn’t exactly a proven commodity in the postseason. He holds a career playoff record of just 2-6 with a 3.00 goals against and a .891 save percentage. His shaky play in the opening round against the New York Islanders in the 2021 playoffs played a major factor in the Penguins losing the series in six games.

    Pittsburgh general manager Kyle Dubas praised Jarry for the way he responded to being sent to the minors, and allowed at times the team’s play in front of him didn’t put Jarry in the best position for success.

    “I think Tristan is extremely talented,” Dubas said. “It’ll be a great opportunity for him in Edmonton.”

    The Oilers’ problems in net in recent years have played an outsized role in keeping Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and company from getting over the hump and winning the Stanley Cup, especially in the final the past two years against Florida.

    Skinner allowed 19 goals on 137 shots, an .861 save percentage, in the 2025 final, and Calvin Pickard was not much better at .878. Skinner also allowed a soft goal in Game 7 in 2024.

    Edmonton this season had the fourth-worst team save percentage in the NHL. And while Skinner ranks 38th in the league among goalies who have appeared in nine or more games, Calvin Pickard — who remains on the roster in tandem with Jarry — is last at .851.

    Jarry is expected to join the Oilers in Toronto on Saturday. Edmonton’s current road swing includes a stop in Pittsburgh next Tuesday.

    The Penguins were able to move on from Jarry thanks in part to a deep prospect pool in net, led by 21-year-old Sergey Murashov, who played well during a brief stint in Pittsburgh earlier this season. The Penguins also have 23-year-old Joel Blomqvist at their American Hockey League affiliate in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and 24-year-old Artur Silovs has been solid if not spectacular this year while splitting time with Jarry in Pittsburgh.

    Dubas said there is no firm plan to call up Murashov or Blomqvist in the short term, but that both will have the opportunity to establish themselves as the club’s top goaltender at some point in the future, perhaps as early as next season.

    Skinner is 11-8-4 with a 2.83 goals against average, though his save percentage is just .891.

    The 31-year-old Kulak gives the Penguins an experienced and dependable defenseman who posted career highs in goals (seven), assists (18) and points (25) last season for Edmonton. Kulak has two assists this year for the Oilers.

    Poulin was Pittsburgh’s first-round pick in 2019 but has been unable to find his footing at the NHL level. Poulin has only two points in 15 games for Pittsburgh.

    The move wasn’t the only one made by the Oilers on Friday. Edmonton also sent a third-round pick in the 2027 draft to Nashville for defenseman Spencer Stastney. The 25-year-old Stastney has one goal and eight assists in nine games for the Predators this season.

    “He’s a great skater, a lot of quickness, and he’s been very effective in the penalty kill,” Bowman said of Stastney. “And he’s got some offense to his game as well. I think he hasn’t really reached his true potential yet.”

    ___

    AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno contributed to this report.

    ___

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

  • Wild acquire Quinn Hughes from the Canucks in a blockbuster NHL trade

    Wild acquire Quinn Hughes from the Canucks in a blockbuster NHL trade

    The Minnesota Wild have acquired Quinn Hughes from the Vancouver Canucks in the biggest blockbuster trade of the NHL season.

    The teams announced the seismic move Friday night, after the 2024 Norris Trophy winner as the league’s top defenseman had been the most talked-about trade candidate over the past couple of weeks.

    Minnesota sent center Marco Rossi, defenseman Zeev Buium, winger Liam Ohgren and a first-round pick in the 2026 draft to suddenly rebounding Vancouver to complete the deal. Rossi at 24, Ohgren at 21 and Buium at 20 fit the young players the Canucks were speculated to be targeting if they were to trade Hughes.

    Only 26 and considered the best at the position behind Colorado’s Cale Makar, Hughes has one season left on his contract after this one before he can become an unrestricted free agent. There has been plenty of buzz about Quinn wanting to play with brothers Jack and Luke with the New Jersey Devils.

    They could potentially be teammates on the U.S. Olympic team, either in February in Milan or in 2030. Wild general manager Bill Guerin runs USA Hockey’s management team.

    Hughes has two goals and 21 assists for 23 points in 23 games this season with the last-in-the-NHL Canucks. He was their captain since 2023, and his abrupt exit paves the way for more change in Vancouver 11 months since the trade of J.T. Miller to the New York Rangers and in the aftermath of coach Rick Tocchet’s departure rather than remain behind the bench there.

    “With the circumstances surrounding JT and now Quinn, we are fortunate to acquire these very good young players from Minnesota,” Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford said. “They will be a key part of the rebuild that we are currently in, giving us a bright future moving forward. The hockey club will continue to build with talented young players using that as a blueprint to become a contender sooner rather than later.”

    Minnesota cannot extend Hughes until July 1, and it’s unclear if he would entertain signing another contract. He had nothing in the way of trade protection on his current deal, paying him an average of $7.85 million annually, that would have allowed him to block a trade anywhere.

    The Wild are taking a shot at challenging the two top teams in the NHL, Colorado and Dallas, in the Central Division, which also includes reigning Presidents’ Trophy-winning Winnipeg. Hughes vastly upgrades their blue line, which already included captain Jared Spurgeon and smooth-skating Swede Jonas Brodin, and winger Kirill Kaprizov only this past fall signed the richest deal in hockey history to stay in the “State of Hockey” for eight more years.”

    It was the second major trade of the day after two-time Stanley Cup Final runner-up Edmonton finally made a move for a goaltender, acquiring Tristan Jarry from Pittsburgh.

  • Christine Choy, indie filmmaker who led seminal documentary on the killing of Vincent Chin, has died

    Christine Choy, indie filmmaker who led seminal documentary on the killing of Vincent Chin, has died

    Christine Choy, a trailblazer for Asian Americans in independent film and whose documentary on the fatal beating of Vincent Chin was nominated for an Academy Award, has died. She was 73.

    Ms. Choy died Sunday, according to a statement from JT Takagi, executive director of Third World Newsreel, a filmmaking collective Choy helped establish in the 1970s. No cause of death was given.

    “She was a prolific filmmaker who made significant films that helped form our Asian American and American film history,” Takagi said on the organization’s website.

    Chin, a Chinese American who grew up in Detroit, was celebrating his bachelor party in 1982 when two white autoworkers attacked him. At that time, Japanese auto companies were being blamed for job losses in the U.S. auto manufacturing industry. The attackers were motivated by their assumption Chin was Japanese. His death and the lack of prison time for the two assailants is considered a galvanizing moment for Asian Americans fighting anti-Asian hate.

    Renee Tajima-Peña, co-director of Who Killed Vincent Chin?, met Ms. Choy around 1980 through Third World Newsreel. They decided to collaborate on a documentary a year after Chin’s death after seeing how little coverage it received.

    Tajima-Peña recalls bonding with Ms. Choy and other crew during freezing Detroit winter nights while waiting for witnesses in Chin’s death and evenings spent with Chin’s mother’s over home-cooked meals.

    “We were in constant motion during the production with Chris always the picture of cool — sunglasses, stylishly slim, cigarette in hand. And yes she was brash and outspoken — her cigarettes may have had filters but her language didn’t,” Tajima-Peña said in an email to the Associated Press on Friday. “But, her audaciousness was all a part of the package.”

    Their production was lauded for bringing more attention to Chin’s slaying and went on to earn an Oscar nomination for best documentary feature in 1989. In 2021, it was chosen for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

    Ms. Choy was a full-time professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts up until her death. She was praised as someone who enjoyed mentoring young auteurs and students at NYU and Third World Newsreel.

    In a statement, Dean Rubén Polendo called her “a triumphant force in documentary filmmaking whose works penetrated America’s social conscience.”

    “Christine’s loss is felt deeply across the Tisch community, where her unparalleled legacy survives through her pioneering work as an artist and educator,” Polendo said.

    Born in China, Ms. Choy grew up with a Korean father and a Chinese mother. She immigrated to New York City as a teen. Being there in the 1960s, Ms. Choy learned about the Civil Rights Movement up-close. That would shape her passion for social justice, according to her NYU faculty biography.

    She moved to Los Angeles and earned a directing certificate from the American Film Institute. But she eventually moved back to New York and, in 1972, helped create Third World Newsreel. The group’s mission was to advance films about social justice and marginalized communities, particularly people of color. Ms. Choy’s early documentaries included subjects such as New York City’s Chinatown and race relations in the Mississippi Delta.

    Ms. Choy received several awards and fellowships over the years including Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships. She also taught at other universities including Yale, Cornell and City University in Hong Kong.

    Plans for funeral services were not immediately known.