4-star quarterback Jake Merklinger commits to Tennessee football in 2024 class

Reuters
UN plastic treaty talks push for breakthrough as deadline looms
Negotiators at the fifth round of talks aimed at securing an international treaty to curb plastic pollution were striving on Friday to speed up sluggish proceedings and reach a deal by a Dec. 1 deadline. South Korea is hosting the fifth and final U.N. Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) meeting to agree globally binding rules on plastics this week. In an attempt to speed up the process, INC Chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso is holding informal meetings on Friday to try and tackle the most divisive issues.
Associated Press
AP PHOTOS: Jakarta TNR effort aims to help stray cats like lively Hitam and feisty Aing Maung
Hitam, a lively black-and-white stray cat has been spayed and returned to the loving arms of Alvin, a parking attendant in a bustling street in Indonesia's capital. The nimble feline is part of an estimated whopping 700,000 stray cats that roam Jakarta. Trap-neuter-return programs, or TNR, have been spearheaded by community-based groups including Let’s Adopt Indonesia that advocate humane methods to control the cat population.
AFP
Top UN court to open unprecedented climate hearings
The world's top court will next week start unprecedented hearings aimed at finding a "legal blueprint" for how countries should protect the environment from damaging greenhouse gases -- and what the consequences are if they do not.Some of the world's largest carbon polluters -- including the world's top three greenhouse gas emitters, China, the United States and India -- will be among some 98 countries and 12 organisations and groups expected to make submissions.
AFP
European countries that allow assisted dying
UK lawmakers will debate on Friday a new bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales that has sparked concern among opponents about its implications. Luxembourg decriminalised euthanasia and assisted dying in 2009.
AFP
British MPs to debate contentious assisted dying law
UK lawmakers will Friday debate and likely vote on whether to advance divisive and emotive legislation to allow assisted dying for terminally ill people in England and Wales.Parliament last debated, and defeated, a euthanasia bill in 2015, but public support for giving terminally ill people the choice to end their lives has since shifted in favour.
CNN
Putin threatens to strike Ukraine again with new missile after wave of attacks on energy
Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to strike Ukraine again with a new nuclear-capable ballistic missile following Moscow’s latest widespread attack on critical energy infrastructure.
AFP
Yen rallies on rate hike bets as equity markets swing
The yen rallied Friday after forecast-busting inflation data out of Tokyo boosted talk of another Japanese interest rate cut next month, while equity markets were mixed as traders weigh the economic outlook during a second Trump administration.The stronger yen weighed Japanese exporters and pushed Tokyo stocks lower on Friday.
AFP
PlayStation at 30: How Sony's grey box conquered gaming
Japanese electronics giant Sony is set to celebrate 30 years since it launched the PlayStation console, the little grey box that catapulted the firm into the gaming big league.- Sony 'humiliated' - The original PlayStation can trace its history to a falling out between the two great Japanese firms.
NBC News
Image believed to show Amelia Earhart's plane was a rock formation, not crash site, company says
The company behind a search for pilot Amelia Earhart's possible crash site in the Pacific said a sonar image believed to resemble her plane turned out to be the sea floor's normal shapes.
AFP
Saudi Arabia hosts UN talks on drought, desertification
Saudi Arabia will host the COP16 UN conference on land degradation and desertification next week as the top oil exporter pitches itself as an environmental defender despite criticism of its role at climate talks.Activists accused Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, of trying to water down calls to phase out fossil fuels at last week's COP29 UN climate talks in Azerbaijan.
AFP
PlayStation: Fun facts to know as Sony's console turns 30
Since 1994, PlayStation's five consoles have changed video game history.- Store success - The PlayStation 2 is the top-selling console in the history of video games, with more than 160 million units sold.
Reuters
China court sentences journalist Dong Yuyu to 7 years on spy charges, family says
BEIJING (Reuters) -A Beijing court sentenced veteran Chinese state media journalist Dong Yuyu on Friday to seven years in prison for espionage, a family member told Reuters. Former Guangming Daily editor and journalist Dong Yuyu, 62, was detained by police in Beijing in February 2022 while having lunch with a Japanese diplomat, according to a statement from the U.S. National Press Club, and later charged with espionage. There was a heavy police presence outside Beijing's No. 2 Intermediate People's Court, with at least 7 police cars parked nearby.
NBC News
Connecticut Congress members targeted with bomb threats on Thanksgiving
Most of Connecticut's congressional delegation said they were the subject of bomb threats at their homes as they were preparing to celebrate Thanksgiving, although no bombs ultimately were found.
AFP
Nepal's first transgender candidates run for local office
Two transgender candidates are contesting Nepal's local by-elections for the first time, hoping to push for political representation among sexual and gender minorities in the Himalayan nation.Chief election commissioner Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya said the two candidates will help "open a door for sexual minority groups to come forward in politics".
AFP
Father of PlayStation says 'everyone told us we would fail'
The PlayStation has been a colossal consumer hit, but three decades ago, its creator Ken Kutaragi struggled to convince both game-makers and his bosses at Sony that his console would be a winner.- Nintendo drama - Sony and fellow Japanese game giant Nintendo are industry rivals, but more than three decades ago they worked together to make a CD-ROM reader compatible with the Super Nintendo console, which could only take game cartridges.
AFP
Iraq tries to stem influx of illegal foreign workers
Rami, a Syrian worker in Iraq, spends his 16-hour shifts at a restaurant fearing arrest as authorities crack down on undocumented migrants in the country better known for its own exodus.Ahmed -- another pseudonym -- is a 31-year-old Syrian who has been undocumented in Iraq for the past year and a half.
CNN
China investigates a top military official as Xi broadens purge of PLA generals
China has suspended a top military official and placed him under investigation for corruption, the defense ministry said, as leader Xi Jinping broadens a sweeping purge in the upper ranks of the world’s largest military.
NBC News
3 Americans detained in China are released in prisoner swap and are back in U.S.
Three American citizens who had been detained for years in China were released, a State Department spokesperson said Wednesday.
Associated Press
Crew mistakes caused the sinking of a New Zealand navy ship off Samoan coast, inquiry finds
Mistakes by members of the crew caused a New Zealand navy ship to plow into a reef off the coast of Samoa, where it caught fire and sank, according to the preliminary findings of a military Court of Inquiry released Friday. All 75 people on board the vessel evacuated safely as the boat foundered about 1.6 kilometers (a mile) off the coast of Upolu, Samoa, in October. The ship was one of only nine in New Zealand’s navy and was the first the country lost at sea since World War II.
CBS News
Thanksgiving weather forecast maps show snowstorms, winter cold fronts
Winter storm weather is forecast to bring snow to different parts of the country in the days around Thanksgiving 2024, potentially interrupting travel.

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