Comment on Pentagon chief worries about partisanship's impact

In an early episode of Squid Game 2, the series’ working-class hero Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) is summoned to a dance club on Halloween night. Weaving among revelers dressed as sexy nurses, cops, and skeletons, he eventually spots the masked figure he’s been pursuing, clad in the hot-pink tracksuit of a Squid Game guard.

PHOENIX — Unlike the last two years, the Nuggets were not surrounded by the comforts of home this Christmas. Extracted from the mountains and dropped in the desert, they couldn’t find any flow in a 110-100 loss to the Suns. Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant combined for 52 points with impressive shot-making inside the arc, and Denver’s offense had an uncharacteristic dud at Footprint Center.

How is it already the end of 2024? Yet here we are and my 14th year here at C&L is just about done, so I figured I'll wish you all a MerryChristmasHappyHanukkahHappyHolidays message from me and my granddogs. That little black and white one at the top is Tako, my northern California granddog.

By WILL GRAVES PITTSBURGH — Andy Reid donned a Santa Claus suit in a giddy Kansas City Chiefs locker room on Christmas Day, then handed his team a present it increasingly looks like it deserves: home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs. How Reid managed to slide into the costume so quickly after Kansas City’s clinical 29-10 victory over the reeling Pittsburgh Steelers to lock up the top seed in the AFC for the fourth time in seven years is a mystery (though he hinted there’s an elf involved). How Reid’s team manages to pull away from the pack year after year is not. A lot of Patrick Mahomes.

A suspect barricaded himself in his Centennial home after allegedly firing a rifle at one of his neighbors Wednesday morning. Police arrested him Wednesday afternoon. Authorities sent out a code red alert to residents to shelter in place near the 3200 block of East Hinsdale Place, where there’s a heavy police presence, the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office said on X. Related Articles Crime and Public Safety | FBI arrests 23-year-old in connection with tribal reservation fatal shooting Crime and Public Safety | 4 hospitalized in Aurora following shooting and car crash involving RTD train Crime and Public Safety | Denver-area bars, restaurants partner with The Blue Bench to train bartenders in sexual-assault prevention Crime and Public Safety | CBI identifies problems with more than 1,000 cases handled by its former star DNA scientist Crime and Public Safety | Colorado’s first emergency safehouses for sex-trafficking survivors are opening in metro Denver early next year Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day.

A baby girl froze to death overnight in Gaza, while Israel and Hamas accused each other of complicating ceasefire efforts that could wind down the 14-month war. The 3-week old baby was the third to die from the cold in Gaza’s tent camps in recent days, said doctors. The deaths underscore the squalid conditions, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crammed into often ramshackle tents after fleeing Israeli bombardment and offensives. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza have killed over 45,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count. The offensive has caused widespread destruction and displaced some 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, often multiple times.