48 jili casino A second straight provincial title looked to be in the cards for the Vernon Senior Panthers as they went into the second half of the championship game at B.C. Place in Vancouver with a 14-0 lead over the Windsor Wolves. But the Wolves' offence woke up in the final two quarters and the defence held strong, leading to a thrilling 17-14 victory that earned Windsor its first B.C. title since 2017. The first quarter of the B.C. AA High School Senior Varsity Football championship game went scoreless, with both teams turning over the ball in their opponent's territory. In the second quarter, Panthers star quarterback Cole Budgen threw a goal line fade to a receiver in the end zone for a touchdown. The Panthers missed the PAT, giving themselves a 6-0 lead. Later in the quarter, Tanner Hanson intercepted a pass and ran the ball back to the Wolves' one-yard line. The Panthers punched it into the end zone from there and completed a two-point convert, putting them up 14-0. Windsor then completed a 60-yard drive in the third quarter with Emmet Ward scoring the touchdown to get the Wolves on the board. Windsor would add a field goal to make it a 14-10 game heading into the fourth quarter. In the fourth, Windsor threw the ball deep in a fourth and long situation and the ball was intercepted on the Panthers' five yard line. The Panthers then drove the ball deep into Windsor territory, thanks in part to a 42-yard catch and run by Ayden McDonald. But the Panthers missed a crucial field goal keeping the game's score at 14-10. That gave Windsor the ball back with the chance to win the game with five and a half minutes left to play. A deep reception by Samson Sachter got the Wolves to the Panthers' 34 yard line. Then Sachter reeled in a ball with one hand and went in for the go-ahead touchdown. The Panthers had 1:50 left on the clock to at least get a field goal and send the game to overtime, but on fourth and 10 around mid-field the Panthers came inches short of the first-down marker, turning it over on downs and sealing the victory for the Wolves. The Panthers were looking to win back-to-back championships for the second time in six years after winning provincial titles in 2018, 2019 and 2023. For Windsor, the win marked their first championship in seven years and third since 2005.Syracuse and Georgetown meet for the 100th time Saturday when the Orange host the Hoyas in the latest installment of their classic rivalry. As former Big East Conference rivals, Syracuse and Georgetown have staged many memorable contests over the decades with the Orange holding a 54-45 all-time advantage. The teams still meet annually despite the Orange now playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Syracuse has won five of the last seven meetings, including a 12-point triumph in Washington D.C. last December. "It definitely felt like a Big East game," Hoyas coach Ed Cooley said after last season's contest. This time around, Georgetown (7-2) is coming off a 73-60 loss to West Virginia in which the team shot under 38 percent from the floor and committed 14 turnovers. "When the ball has music, when the ball is singing, unbelievable music happens," Cooley said. "The music is the play. The music is body movement and screening an open shot. We didn't have good music today." Thomas Sorber is the team's leading scorer at 15.4 points per game, although the freshman has failed to reach that average in six of the last seven games. Syracuse (5-4), meanwhile, is coming off a 102-85 win over Albany despite the absence of leading scorer J.J. Starling (19.8 points), who is out indefinitely with a hand injury. In his stead, freshman Donnie Freeman supplied 24 points on 10-of-13 shooting despite playing just 23 minutes due to an illness. "Whatever (illness) he has, he needs to keep that, if he can keep playing like, whatever he was feeling," Orange coach Adrian Autry joked. Syracuse will be looking for more success from 3-point range after hitting 6-of-15 (40 percent) against Albany. In their previous game -- a five-point loss to Notre Dame -- the Orange failed to make a 3-pointer for the first time in more than a decade. No Syracuse player has made more than 11 3-pointers this season -- and even that player (Chris Bell) is only shooting 25 percent from long distance. --Field Level MediaLuka Doncic returns to Dallas Mavericks' lineup after missing two games with left heel contusion

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It’s been a big year for Ryan Seacrest , whose 2024 career highlights have included his 22nd season as the host of American Idol (which will return on the 2025 TV schedule ) and taking over for Pat Sajak — one of the best game show hosts of all time — on Wheel of Fortune . The celebrations aren’t over yet, though, and come December 31, he’ll reach one more big milestone — two decades of hosting Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve . Seacrest marked the upcoming occasion with a social media montage, and good gravy, has it really been 20 years? Dick Clark was a huge figure in pop culture as a radio personality, game show host and, of course, American Bandstand . New Year’s Rockin’ Eve is a big part of his legacy, too, allowing people to watch the ball drop in New York City’s Times Square since he first produced the music special in 1972. Everything changed in 2004, when Clark suffered a stroke and was no longer able to host on his own. Ryan Seacrest has been there ever since, as you can see in the Instagram video below: A post shared by Ryan Seacrest (@ryanseacrest) A photo posted by on While it is kind of hard to remember a time when Ryan Seacrest didn’t hold every single hosting job available (that’s only a slight exaggeration), it’s also pretty unbelievable that for two whole decades the American Idol host has been leading us in “Auld Lang Syne.” I’m afraid when I wake up tomorrow, Pat Sajak will have been off of Wheel of Fortune for six years rather than six months. Speaking of the passage of time not making any sense whatsoever, did someone forget to start the clock on Ryan Seacrest’s aging process? I know Paul Rudd is the quintessential example of never aging , but how many people could you show a montage of like the one above — with a photo from each of the last 20 years — and have them look astoundingly the same? It wouldn’t work for me, that’s for sure. The nerve of this guy to have all these jobs and still find time to drink from the fountain of youth! I say this all in jest, of course, because you have to respect how much work Ryan Seacrest has put in to get such esteemed positions in the entertainment industry, and it would be hard to deny that he’s one of the best at what he does. That fact has never been more apparent than earlier this year when he was able to win over Wheel of Fortune audiences pretty handily when he started hosting one of America’s favorite game shows . One thing for viewers to be on the lookout for this year when they gather to watch the end-of-year celebrations is if and how Ryan Seacrest’s mini-New Year's feud with Andy Cohen will continue. This fall, the two hosts agreed to end their rivalry , but you never know when the excitement of the holiday might get the better of them. If you want to see Ryan Seacrest’s 20th year as the host of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve , tune in starting at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday, December 31, on ABC. CINEMABLEND NEWSLETTER Your Daily Blend of Entertainment NewsSyracuse hosts Georgetown for milestone battle in longtime rivalryLebawit Lily Girma | (TNS) Bloomberg News When winter rolls around, travelers predictably turn their attention to beaches. And this year, it’s the destination that comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean” that’s experiencing outsize demand from Americans planning a warm island vacation. Talk about trashing stereotypes. Puerto Rico has recovered overseas visitors (excluding those from Canada and Mexico) faster than any U.S. state or territory — a staggering 85% increase over its 2019 overseas inbound visitor levels as of 2023, according to an October study from the U.S. National Travel and Tourism Office. There are now more daily flights from the U.S. West Coast, and hotel bookings are 6% higher so far in this last quarter of 2024 year-over-year. It’s a trifecta of tourism growth: more visitors, but also longer stays and a higher spend that reached a record $9.8 billion in 2023, boosting small businesses as well as major brands. “We don’t have a slow season in Puerto Rico anymore,” says Brad Dean, chief executive officer at Discover Puerto Rico. Even if they’re not booking, people are dreaming about “La Isla.” By tracking flight searches for trips between November 2024 and February 2025, a measure of “inspirational” demand, tourism intelligence company Mabrian Technologies reports Puerto Rico is up 9% compared with the same period last year and leads Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and the Bahamas in the Caribbean proper. Only Costa Rica ranked higher in the wider region. Dean attributes Puerto Rico’s ongoing tourism growth to a strategic effort to reposition the island’s brand as more than a sun-and-sea destination, starting back in 2018. That led to the Live Boricua campaign, which began in 2022 and leaned heavily on culture, history and cuisine and was, Dean says, “a pretty bold departure” in the way Puerto Rico was showcased to travelers. He adds that at least $2 billion in tourism spend is linked to this campaign. “We (also) haven’t shied away from actively embracing the LGBTQ+ community, and that has opened up Puerto Rico to audiences that may not have considered the Caribbean before,” Dean says. Hotels are preparing to meet this growing demand: A number of established boutique properties are undergoing upgrades valued between $4 million and more than $50 million, including Hotel El Convento; La Concha, which will join the Marriott Autograph Collection; Condado Vanderbilt Hotel; and the Wyndham Grand Rio Mar. That’s in addition to ultra-chic options that are coming online in 2025, including the adults-only Alma San Juan, with rooms overlooking Plaza Colón in the heart of Old San Juan, and the five-star Veranó boutique hotel in San Juan’s trendy Santurce neighborhood. The beachfront Ritz-Carlton San Juan in Isla Verde will also be reopening seven years after Hurricane Maria decimated the island. The travel industry’s success is helping boost employment on the island, to the tune of 101,000 leisure and hospitality jobs as of September 2024, a 26% increase over pre-pandemic levels, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Efforts to promote Puerto Rico’s provinces beyond the San Juan metro area — such as surfing hub Rincón on the west coast, historical Ponce on the south coast and Orocovis for nature and coffee haciendas in the central mountains —have spread the demand to small businesses previously ignored by the travel industry. Take Sheila Osorio, who leads workshops on Afro-Puerto Rican bomba music and dance at Taller Nzambi, in the town of Loíza, 15 miles east of San Juan; or Wanda Otero, founder of cheese-producing company Vaca Negra in Hatillo, an hour’s drive west of Old San Juan, where you can join a cheese-making workshop and indulge in artisanal cheese tastings. “The list of businesses involved in tourism has gone from 650 in 2018 to 6,100, many of which are artists and artisans,” Dean says. While New Yorkers and Miami residents have always been the largest visitor demographic, Dean says more mainland Americans now realize that going to Puerto Rico means passport-free travel to enjoy beaches, as well as opportunities to dine in Michelin-rated restaurants, hike the only rainforest in the U.S. and kayak in a bioluminescent bay. Visitors from Chicago and Dallas, for example, have increased by approximately 40% from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, compared with the same period in 2022-2023, and more travelers are expected from Denver now that United Airlines Holdings Inc. has kicked off its first nonstop service to San Juan, beginning on Oct. 29. Previously, beach destinations that were easy to reach on direct flights from Denver included Mexico, Belize and California, but now Puerto Rico joins that list with a 5.5-hour nonstop route that cuts more than two hours from the next-best option. Given United Airlines’ hub in San Francisco, it could mean more travelers from the Golden State in the near future, too. In December, U.S. airlines will have 3,000 more seats per day to the territory compared with the same period last year, for a total of 84,731 — surpassing even Mexico and the Dominican Republic in air capacity, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium. Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, the island’s primary gateway, is projecting a record volume of 13 million passengers by year’s end — far surpassing the 9.4 million it saw in 2019. As for Hinchcliffe’s “floating island of garbage” line, Dean says it was “a terribly insensitive attempt at humor” that transformed outrage into a marketing silver lining, with an outpouring of positive public sentiment and content on Puerto Rico all over social media. Success, as that old chestnut goes, may be the best revenge. “It was probably the most efficient influencer campaign we’ve ever had,” Dean says, “a groundswell of visitors who posted their photos and videos and said, ‘This is the Puerto Rico that I know.’” ©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Principal U.S. Mega-Cap ETF ( NASDAQ:USMC – Get Free Report ) declared a dividend on Friday, December 27th, NASDAQ Dividends reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 27th will be given a dividend of 0.1501 per share on Tuesday, December 31st. The ex-dividend date is Friday, December 27th. Principal U.S. Mega-Cap ETF Trading Down 1.4 % Shares of Principal U.S. Mega-Cap ETF stock opened at $60.86 on Friday. Principal U.S. Mega-Cap ETF has a 1 year low of $46.14 and a 1 year high of $61.98. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $59.50 and its 200-day simple moving average is $56.63. The company has a market cap of $2.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.66 and a beta of 0.92. Principal U.S. Mega-Cap ETF Company Profile ( Get Free Report ) See Also Receive News & Ratings for Principal U.S. Mega-Cap ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Principal U.S. Mega-Cap ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .NFC's No. 1 seed comes down to Vikings-Lions showdown at Detroit in Week 18