CHARLOTTE — East Tennessee State owned the second half for a second straight game against a team from the Queen City. The Bucs had a 16-2 run early in the second half and went on to score a 77-55 victory over Charlotte on Wednesday afternoon at Halton Arena. It was the third straight win for ETSU (5-2) after beating USC Upstate and Queens of Charlotte in a Multi-Team Event (MTE) over the weekend. Quimari Peterson, who was named Southern Conference Player of the Week on Monday, led the Bucs with 16 points, five rebounds and four assists. The Bucs had four players hit double figures. John Buggs III totaled 15 points, while Karon Boyd provided 14 points and seven rebounds. Jaden Seymour scored 12 points and Maki Johnson had a season-high eight points including a pair of 3-point shots. Davion Bradford pulled down seven rebounds. The Bucs didn’t commit a turnover the final 24 minutes of the game to provide a happy homecoming for Seymour from Charlotte and Boyd from nearby Concord, N.C. “No disrespect, they’re a good team, but I think we’re better,” ETSU coach Brooks Savage said on the post-game radio broadcast. “We felt like we could get to them physically on the glass, get to them transitionally. I thought our energy and togetherness could ultimately wear them down. We got great contributions from everybody.” ETSU continued to dominate its opponents on the glass. They held a 45-30 rebounding advantage, including 16-6 on the offensive end. Charlotte (3-3) from the American Athletic Conference came into Wednesday’s contest averaging nearly 73 points per game. The 49ers were held well under that number, hitting 40 percent from the field and 24 percent from 3-point range. It was the first time Charlotte lost back-to-back home games since the 2022-23 season. The 49ers had scored consistently off backdoor cuts in the first half, pushing its lead to 13 points before the Bucs closed to 36-31 at the half. Buggs nailed a 3-point shot and Boyd scored on a put-back bucket right before the horn sounded. ETSU was red hot out of the locker room and had a 12-point lead by the halfway point of the second half to mark a 25-point turnaround. The Bucs kept the defensive intensity throughout the rest of the game as the 49ers scored just 19 points over the final 20 minutes. “The second-half defense was big time,” Savage said. “We got back to what we’re best at, that’s sitting down and guarding. As we settled into the game, that showed up on defense.” The Bucs also took advantage of the 49ers going to a 1-3-1 defense. It played in the Bucs’ offensive hands as they hit the first 3-point shots of the second half. Savage liked the way his team made the extra pass to have those good shots. “We did a really good job playing on balance,” Savage said. “We turned down some good shots for great shots in the second half. When we’re doing that, we’re hard to guard.” Nik Graves and Jaehshon Thomas each scored 13 points to lead the 49ers. Giancarlo Rosardo had nine points before leaving the game early in the second half with an injury. NEXT UP ETSU returns home to face Austin Peay on Saturday at 4 p.m. Charlotte has a week off before hosting Livingstone College.This article contains spoilers for Squid Game. Netflix’s Squid Game isn’t a particularly subtle TV show. It’s a screed against capitalism and wealth inequity to the point that characters say this all out loud, in the dialogue, in the very first episode. Yet since it premiered in 2021, both viewers and even Netflix itself have been gleefully engaging with the show as a capitalist enterprise. So why does everyone keep missing the point of Squid Game? Squid Game first hit Netflix on September 17, 2021 – and it might be hard to remember now, given the show is a global sensation, but at the time at least in America, it was one of those classic “drop it on Netflix and see what happens” series that wasn’t really promoted by the streamer. No screeners for the press, no rabid red carpets full of screaming fans... And yet it caught on and grew almost immediately. On Nielsen’s report for the week of September 20-26, the show clocked 1.9 billion minutes – and that was only on TV screens, and only in the US. The next week, it garnered over 3.2 billion minutes on Nielsen’s chart , growing to become a clear viral success. The show itself didn’t seem like a likely breakout hit, given its ultra-violence and dark subject matter. Squid Game (in case you forgot over the past three years, or have yet to check out Season 2) revolves around a death game played by 456 players competing for cold, hard cash. Run by the mysterious Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), the games are framed as a way for the players to even the playing field. They can by majority vote decide to leave at any time – and even do, in Season 1, Episode 2, before promptly returning to the game – but whoever wins gets a sum of cash equal to the amount of people who died playing. Time and again, it’s clear the game is rigged for the enjoyment of the billionaire VIPs who bet on it from the safety of their cushy lounge. And in the middle of this all? The sometimes good-hearted, perhaps naive loser Seong Gi-hun ( Lee Jung-jae ), who goes on to – spoilers here – win the game, though perhaps at the cost of his basic belief in the goodness of humanity. Season 2 widens things out further . We get to see what economically drives one of the Squid Game guards to join up and become a stone-faced murderer. We see a lot more of the outside world in Korea, and how every interaction, no matter how small, is a game driven by commerce. And the Squid Game itself changes to allow a majority vote to leave after every challenge. That latter tweak allows Hwang Dong-hyuk, throughout the season’s seven episodes, to dig into how capitalism controls even the existence of democracy and freedom of choice, and our divides (political, gender, monetary) are exacerbated by the very existence of money dangling over our heads. In this case, literally, thanks to the omnipresent piggy bank hanging over the room where the Squid Game contestants sleep and eat. While there was some international promotion for the series when it first launched, including an appearance by the Red Light/Green Light doll in a mall in the Philippines, and a replica of the jungle gym set in a Seoul subway station, for the most part, the show traveled by word of mouth. Netflix had to play catch-up over the next few months. In an interview with the New York Times in advance of Season 2, Marian Lee, Netflix’s chief marketing officer, copped to as much. “Everything we did outside of Korea was reactive, because we didn’t know,” she said. “Even the content executives didn’t anticipate that it would be such a global phenomenon.” By the time Squid Game had become the most-watched Netflix launch in the streamer’s history a month after release (one month later, it would become the most-watched show of all time , period), there was a pop-up store in Paris , and a Red Light/Green Light game complete with actors dressed as Squid Game guards in the Netherlands . What followed was total Squid Game domination. Dalgona, the honeycomb candy at the center of one of the games in the series, began showing up at homegrown candy stores and even official Netflix pop-ups in malls everywhere, alongside costumes from the show, just in time for Halloween. The press tour eventually caught up, too, leading to the stars of the series growing to international sensations “overnight” (check with your local Korean TV and movie viewer to hear them furiously explain how many of these “overnight sensations” have been celebrities in non-US countries for years). Then came the Golden Globes wins, SAG Award wins, and 14 Emmy nominations, of which the show won five. The Funko Pop!s followed the next year, and as Netflix proudly includes in all of its press releases about Season 2 of the series, based on the footwear of the mostly deceased contestants in the show, “Vans slip-on sneakers sales increased 8,000%.” While Dong-hyuk was mulling plans for a second, and third season of the series, Netflix began referring to a Squid Game “universe” as early as January of 2022. And they paid off on that promise. Squid Game: The Challenge, a reality game show that reproduced the initial TV series without all the killing hit the service in November 2023, though it was marred by multiple safety and health issues , as well as (per the point of this article) critics pointing out it vastly missed the whole thesis of Squid Game. Similarly, the online multiplayer game Squid Game: Unleashed is a 32-player party game for Netflix subscribers (currently free for everyone in time for the release of Squid Game Season 2) which the streamer’s own press outlet, TUDUM , describes as “takes all the thrills of the hit Netflix show and puts them in your pocket.” To be clear, there is no option in the game to hang yourself in anguish and shame after you’re forced to take your wife’s life in a deadly game of marbles, so perhaps not all the thrills. Why do people keep engaging with Squid Game as something “fun?” Why is Netflix able to make a cottage industry out of products sold around the show? How are there corporate retreats where actors dress up as the Front Man and Squid Game guards and have employees run through games from the show, ostensibly for team-building purposes? There’s even an official Netflix Squid Game Experience that claims it’s perfect for “School and Camp Visits,” and if the thought of children playing the games from the hyperviolent TV show Squid Game doesn’t make you viscerally uncomfortable, you may be entirely devoid of human empathy. Part of the issue is that Squid Game, for all its cultural cache, is nothing new. Gladiatorial battles go back millennia. More to the point, everything from Battle Royale to Hunger Games thrives on the idea of people – usually children – fighting to the death for a possible prize, and rich people’s amusement. Those, too, are often misinterpreted by the public (see any of the Hunger Games theme park rides worldwide). Like how society gets dulled by repeated violence in the real world, so too are we inured to it on screen. Squid Game is perhaps not as shocking as it could be, because it’s not the first out of the gate; it’s just another death games series in a long line of series and movies. And like any genre, it has its fans, detractors, and culture that surrounds it. There’s the question of why we like to watch these things, though, with at least two major reasons. One is the broad sense of why we watch horror movies, violent action spectacles, or even ride rollercoasters: to confront our own real fear of death and overcome it. But to the point of the death game genre, it raises the question of what you would do in the situation, something that Squid Game confronts head-on. There’s a deeper, more horrifying reason why both viewers and Netflix are able to engage with Squid Game on the most surface level possible, though, and it’s that Hwang Dong-hyuk... Is right. We are under the yoke of corporations and billionaires. They inure us into thinking that capitalism is a game we can win, but it’s rigged to their benefit, and not ours. Think about how the central action of the show features humans, reduced to numbers instead of names, forced to kill each other playing children’s games. Dong-hyuk distills it down even more simply in Seong Gi-hun’s first encounter with the Squid Game in the series premiere. Penniless, defeated, and beaten up, he encounters a clean-cut man in a business suit (Gong Yoo) on the subway. The man tells Seong Gi-hun he can play a simple children’s game (called ddakji), and after losing the first round is told that if Seong Gi-hun wins, he gets money. If he loses, the businessman gets to slap him. What follows is a series of increasingly harder, more humiliating slaps as the businessman beats down Seong Gi-hun. When he finally wins, Seong Gi-hun goes to slap the businessman back – but no, the game is over. He gets paid. It’s done. In Season 2, Dong-hyuk drives this home even harder, throwing any sort of subtly out the window in a desperate attempt to get his point across to the section of the audience who saw “die for money” as too opaque a metaphor. The businessman has graduated from ddakji to giving hungry homeless people the choice between bread, and a lottery ticket. Would you rather eat, or have the chance for money you’ll likely never receive? Guess which most of them choose (and lose)? As the second season continues, in small ways and big Seong Gi-hun is as controlling of the men he sends on a treasure hunt city-wide to find that businessman as anyone running the Squid Game. There’s a major sequence early in the season set on Halloween that is clearly pointed at anyone who thinks it might be fun to dress as a Squid Game guard. Once Seong Gi-hun is back in the game, his seeming heroism turns self-centered, and his vision of bringing down the game is less about saving people than redeeming himself for his own complicated actions. It muddies the waters of the conversation, but also turns the camera towards the audience, practically screaming that if you thought you were a hero like Seong Gi-hun... Well, you’re bad, too. But what can you do about it? The game is rigged. The billionaires are in charge of it all. Netflix is able to sell you those Funko Pop!s, the Vans, and the Red Light/Green Light Mattel doll for kids because the alternative – you cannot beat the system, we will all die in here – is too horrifying to contemplate. Netflix is worth nearly $400 billion. They are the VIPS in this scenario, seeing no repercussions for their actions. While they’re not literally making us walk a glass bridge until we plummet to our deaths, they are hiding behind their golden animal masks, and reducing us to streaming numbers controlled by the algorithm. As the Front Man explains early in Season 2 when Seong Gi-hun tells him he wants to end Squid Game once and for all, the key isn’t killing one man, or even multiple men, as Seong Gi-hun has planned. It’s so much bigger than that. “If the world doesn’t change, the game doesn’t end,” the Front Man says. So how do you change the world? How can anyone? To grasp that in any fashion is to know the system is everywhere, and it’s overwhelming. That’s what the contestants in the show realize during their brief sojourn back to Seoul in Season 1, that dying playing a children’s game is essentially the same as living in society. For us here in the real world, it’s easier to giggle about the actor dressed as the Front Man telling everyone on our corporate team that the Squid Games have begun, taking selfies and eventually heading back to our safe, identical hotel rooms, than contemplate we’re all trapped in one, large Squid Game ourselves, every day of our lives.

A number of Donald Trump’s cabinet picks have been targeted by bomb threats and swatting attacks, the president-elect’s transition team has said. Matt Gaetz, former nominee for attorney general, and Elise Stefanik, Trump’s choice to be his next U.N. ambassador, are among those said to have been subjected to threats that are now being investigated by the FBI. In a statement, the agency said it is “aware of numerous bomb threats and swatting incidents targeting incoming administration nominees and appointees, and we are working with our law enforcement partners. We take all potential threats seriously, and as always, encourage members of the public to immediately report anything they consider suspicious to law enforcement.” Swatting is when emergency responders are sent to someone’s home because of a fake call. “Last night and this morning, several of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees and Administration appointees were targeted in violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them,” incoming White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “These attacks ranged from bomb threats to ‘swatting.’ In response, law enforcement and other authorities acted quickly to ensure the safety of those who were targeted. President Trump and the entire Transition team are grateful for their swift action.” Elise Stefanik , Trump’s choice to be his next U.N. ambassador, was one of those targeted. Her office said in a statement that on Wednesday morning, she was driving home to her Saratoga County residence from Washington along with her husband and their 3-year-old son to celebrate Thanksgiving when they were informed of a bomb threat at their home. “New York State, County law enforcement, and U.S. Capitol Police responded immediately with the highest levels of professionalism,” her office said. “We are incredibly appreciative of the extraordinary dedication of law enforcement officers who keep our communities safe 24/7.” The Okaloosa County sheriff’s office in Florida said on Facebook that it had “received notification of a bomb threat referencing former Congressman Matt Gaetz’s supposed mailbox at a home in the Niceville area around 9 a.m. this morning.” Gaetz was Trump’s nominee for attorney general for eight days before he stepped aside amid an investigation into allegations of sex trafficking and sex with a minor, claims Gaetz has repeatedly denied. The sheriff’s office said that a family member of Gaetz’s lives at the targeted home, but they added that “former Congressman Gaetz is NOT a resident. The mailbox however was cleared and no devices were located. The immediate area was also searched with negative results.” Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, former New York congressman Lee Zeldin , said in a statement that his home was targeted with the threat of a pipe bomb with a message described as “pro-Palestinian.” Zeldin, who is Jewish, added that he nor his family were home at the time. “A pipe bomb threat targeting me and my family at our home today was sent in with a pro-Palestinian themed message,” he said. “My family and I were not home at the time and are safe. We are working with law enforcement to learn more as the situation develops.” Brook Rollins, Trump’s choice to be secretary of Agriculture, revealed on social media that she had faced a threat against her family and Texas home. After the area was cleared by Fort Worth police, they could return to the residence, she said. “This morning, we learned that a threat was issued against our home and family,” she wrote on X. “Thanks to the swift efforts by the @fortworthpd we were unharmed and quickly returned home. I want to express my deep gratitude to the law-enforcement professionals who did their utmost, in both speed and expertise, to protect us — as they protect our community every single day.” The threats come after a presidential campaign that saw Trump was targeted in two assassination attempts. The former president was grazed in the ear during a shooting in Pennsylvania this summer and was subsequently the target in an attempt stopped by the Secret Service at his West Palm Beach Florida golf course. Speaker Mike Johnson has called on President Joe Biden and other Democrats to condemn the incidents. “This year, there was not just one but TWO assassination attempts on President Trump. Now some of his Cabinet nominees and their families are facing bomb threats,” he wrote on X . “This is dangerous and unhinged. It is not who we are in America. Joe Biden and all Democrat leaders have an obligation to speak up and condemn this now.” The White House soon issued a statement condemning the violent threats. “The White House is in touch with federal law enforcement and the President-elect’s team, and continues to monitor the situation closely,” a White House spokesperson said. “Federal law enforcement’s response, alongside state and local authorities, remains ongoing. The President and the Administration unequivocally condemn threats of political violence.” The Associated Press contributed to this report

Defense fund established by supporters of suspected CEO killer Luigi Mangione nears $200KAuthored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times, Chief executive officers have exited from U.S. companies in 2024 at a greater pace than ever before, with businesses increasingly opting to appoint interim leaders as replacements, according to global outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. As of November, 1,991 CEOs have departed from their companies, “the highest total on record,” according to a Dec. 20 report from the company. “It has surpassed the previous record of 1,914 CEO exits that occurred in all of 2023. It is up 16% from the 1,710 exits that occurred during the same period last year.” Amid a jump in executive departures, companies were found to be appointing more interim leaders. Last year, interim replacements for CEOs were at seven percent, this year it has gone up to 13 percent. “ The current landscape has a lot of uncertainty baked in, and companies are responding by putting temporary leaders in place. This can act as a trial run to see how the leader navigates current challenges,” Challenger, Gray & Christmas Senior Vice President Andrew Challenger said. “It’s much less disruptive to replace an interim head if things do not appear to be working out, not only the company and its employees, but also to analysts and shareholders.” Entities in the government/non-profit sector saw the highest number of exits year-to-date at 438 departures, followed by health care/products, technology, entertainment/leisure, financial, services, and hospitals. State-wise, California topped the list with 223 CEOs departing, followed by New York, Texas, and Florida. Besides stepping down, some of the top reasons executives gave for leaving their positions included retirement, pursuing new opportunities, or transitioning to a different position within the company. Back in September, Andrew Challenger suggested that economic changes were a key factor for the rising number of exits. “Economic uncertainty tends to drive leadership decisions and several indicators suggest not only is the labor marketing softening, but the market overall may be heading for a downturn,” he said. “Companies are cutting costs across the board, as well as pivoting to new procedures, operations, and in some cases products, in light of new technologies. It’s an ideal time for new leaders to ascend.” The Challenger report comes as Pat Gelsinger, the chief executive of Intel, resigned from his post earlier this month after leading the tech giant for four years. Under his tenure, the company saw several quarters of revenue declines as well as net losses. Intel also failed to create any significant impact in the AI chip space during these years. Following Gelsinger’s exit from the company, Intel’s shares surged. Earlier in March, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun stepped down after the company got entangled in a scandal over quality issues. A door panel of a Boeing plane blew off mid-air during a flight in January, triggering concerns about safety regulations followed by the company. This also attracted increased government scrutiny. In addition to Calhoun, two more senior Boeing executives resigned from their posts at the time. In January, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares left his post following disappointing sales numbers in North America. According to a report by leadership advisory company Russell Reynolds Associates, more companies are appointing CEOs from within their business than from outside. The report analyzed data from leading global stock indexes. “Globally, of the 178 CEOs appointed in 2023, 77 percent were internal hires,” it said while adding that such appointments had hit an “all-time high” last year. The trend is driven by several factors, including views that an internal candidate is lower risk and lower cost and that such promotions are “more likely to inspire and encourage current staff.” “Additionally, boards want to send a message that they have been doing their job by constantly and effectively planning for successions. This means unplanned emergencies as well as systemic future planning have been effectively prepared for.” Internally appointed executives were found to have served 1.4 years longer on average. In addition, external hires were more likely to be fired from their posts, the report said.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The United Nations raised the death toll of a recent massacre in which dozens of older people and Vodou religious leaders were killed by a gang in Haiti, and called on officials to bring the perpetrators to justice. The U.N. Integrated Office in Haiti said in a report published on Monday that between Dec. 6 and 11 more than 207 people were killed by the Wharf Jeremie gang. The gang took people from their homes and from a place of worship, interrogated them and then executed them with bullets and machetes. Earlier this month, human rights groups in Haiti had estimated that in the massacre, but the new U.N. investigation doubles the number of victims. “We cannot pretend that nothing happened” said María Isabel Salvador, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative in Haiti. “I call on the Haitian justice system to thoroughly investigate these horrific crimes and arrest and punish the perpetrators, as well as those who support them,” she said in a statement. Human rights groups in Haiti said the after the son of Micanor Altès, the leader of the Wharf Jeremie gang, died from an illness. The Cooperative for Peace and Development, a human rights group, said that according to information circulating in the community, Altès accused people in the neighborhood of causing his son’s illness. “He decided to cruelly punish all elderly people and (Vodou) practitioners who, in his imagination, would be capable of casting a bad spell on his son,” the group said in a statement released shortly after news of the massacre emerged. In Monday’s report, the United Nations said that people were tracked down in their homes and in a place of worship by Altès’ gang, where they were first interrogated and then taken to an execution site. The United Nations said that the gang tried to erase evidence of the killings by burning bodies, or by dismembering them and throwing them into the sea. The massacre is the latest humanitarian tragedy in Haiti, where gang violence has intensified since the nation’s president was killed in . Haiti has struggled to organize an election that will fill the power vacuum and restore democratic rule. The Caribbean nation is currently governed by a transitional council that includes representatives from the business community, civil society and political parties, but its government has no control over many areas of the capital city, and gangs are constantly fighting over ports, highways and neighborhoods. According to the United Nations, more than 5,350 people have been killed in Haiti’s gang wars this year. The Haitian government acknowledged the massacre against older people in a statement issued earlier this month, and promised to persecute those responsible for this act of “unspeakable carnage.”

NoneNATS chiefs have “quietly ditched” a £500million bus funding pledge, cutting it to just £10million. The Bus Partnership Fund — hailed as a “landmark long-term capital investment” — has been axed. Advertisement 2 The Bus Partnership Fund has been axed by SNP ministers Credit: The Sun 2 Labour's transport spokeswoman Claire Baker said the pledge had been "quietly ditched" Credit: Alamy Scottish Labour said that the promised half-billion pound spend, announced five years ago, had amounted to just £26.9million. Party transport spokeswoman Claire Baker said: “It looks like the promised £500million investment has been quietly ditched.” She added: “Services are disappearing while fares soar, leaving communities cut off and Scots paying more for less.” The BPF, along with a Community Bus Fund, has been replaced with a Bus Infrastructure Fund of just £10million. Advertisement READ MORE ON THE SCOTTISH SUN MAKING AMENDS John Swinney reveals call with Trump weeks after US President's Kamala blast BUDGET FALLOUT SNP cut funding to public services while splurging extra £1.3bn on benefits Scottish Budget documents confirm: “The 2024-25 Budget included funding for the Community Bus Fund, which has now ceased. “Capital funding to support improved infrastructure for bus services is now sitting within the Bus Infrastructure Fund.” A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We are committing almost £465million to concessionary travel and bus services, which is an increase from last year. “The new BIF focuses on delivering bus priority and supporting infrastructure, making buses more attractive through quicker journeys and for operators to reinvest potential savings to improve services.” Advertisement Most read in The Scottish Sun WARMING UP Scots set for 21C swing as temperature rise to bring an end to sub zero freeze SEARCH ENDS Missing traveler is found after month-long search that led to dad's suicide GET OUT I'm an ex-Gers star who was sacked after one game - I was surprised I got that long Exclusive JUNGLE WINNINGS Coleen Rooney signs first big money deal after I’m A Celeb success We previously told how Nats ministers have effectively slashed funding for milk and healthy snacks for pre-school kids. EXPLAINED: Scottish Budget 2024, what do the SNP's spending plans mean for you? A real-term cut — buried in the SNP Budget — comes despite First Minister John Swinney boasting of “eradicating child poverty”. The Scottish Milk and Healthy Snack Scheme has now been held at £12.5million for four years, despite increasing demand. And taking inflation into account, it is the equivalent of a cut of around £1.3million.  Advertisement

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Jayden Daniels dazzles again as Commanders clinch a playoff spot by beating Falcons 30-24 in OT LANDOVER, Md. (AP) — The Washington Commanders clinched a playoff spot by beating the Atlanta Falcons 30-24 in overtime. Jayden Daniels ran for a season-high 127 yards and threw for 227 and three touchdowns to make the postseason in his rookie year in the NFL. He outdueled fellow top-10 draft pick Michael Penix Jr. in a game each had an interception. The Commanders can move up to the sixth seed in the NFC if they win at Dallas next weekend. The Falcons lost control of their playoff chances and now can only get in if they beat Carolina and Tampa Bay loses to New Orleans in Week 18.Oldest college football coaches: Where Bill Belichick ranks with North Carolina hiring

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