The last time Villa lifted silverware – beating Leeds 3-0 in the League Cup – Prodigy’s Firestarter had knocked Take That’s cover of How Deep Is Your Love off the No.1 spot in the charts and Wallace and Gromit’s A Close Shave had just won an Oscar.
David Beckham was yet to make his England debut while Cash, Youri Tielemans, Boubacar Kamara and Emi Buendia were not born.
It has been a long wait, with Villa losing two FA Cup finals and one League Cup final since.
Emery, a Europa League winner with Sevilla and Villarreal in previous roles, stated on his first day in charge the main goal was to win a trophy. Last season’s FA Cup semi-final defeat to eventual winners Crystal Palace still stings.
“The semi-final in the Conference League and Champions League quarter-final, they were big nights for us, big moments in which we haven’t delivered,” captain John McGinn told reporters.
“Every time we go into a big game now, we have that determination in the back of our heads to prove this team we have built over the past five or six years is worth more than a quarter-final, worth more than a semi-final.
“The determination, I can feel it this year. I can feel we want to prove a point. I think until we do that, there will always be questions asked. As captain, you feel that probably twice as much, but when that day finally comes, you will feel it positively, twice as much.”
When bidding farewell to the nation in January, President Obama urged perseverance in the face of political change.
“If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures and run for office yourself,” he said.
Dozens of people who worked in his administration or on his presidential bids have taken that call to action to heart, with several top political aides, policy staff and ambitious millennials from the Obama era mounting campaigns of their own right here in California. All are Democrats, and some of their races could be tipping points in the 2018 midterms as the party attempts to win back control in Washington.
Among the former government officials is Ammar Campa-Najjar, who is seeking to oust Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter in San Diego County.
Born in the U.S. to a Mexican mother and a Palestinian father, Campa-Najjar recalls questioning if his fellow Americans would ever truly accept him in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
He brooded and struggled, but his faith was renewed when another biracial man with a unique name and an absent father, Barack Obama, won the presidency of the United States.
“In 2008, the country said, ‘Yes, we can,’ and elected this skinny brown kid with a funny name. It really kind of inspired me,” said Campa-Najjar, 28.
In the short term, that resulted in Campa-Najjar interning at the White House, where he was assigned the task of reading the letters Americans sent the president about their heartbreak and their victories, and helping select the 10 that were sent to Obama for him to read himself daily. He later worked in the Department of Labor and on Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.
Today, he is among the youngest congressional candidates in the nation. And he is one of several former Obama campaign and administration officials who are running for office across the nation at all levels of government.
It’s not unusual for political staffers to seek elected office, but the number of Obama alumni who have entered the field for the 2018 election is notable. In California alone, there are at least four congressional candidates who worked for Obama, as well as several others seeking legislative and statewide posts.
President Obama in his farewell address urged listeners unhappy with their representatives to “run for office yourself.” (Zbigniew Bzdak / TNS)
(Zbigniew Bzdak / TNS)
Ammar Campa-Najjar is trying to oust Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter in San Diego County. (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)
(Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune file)
Their campaigns are driven by the election of President Trump, fewer opportunities in Washington, D.C., with Republicans in control of the White House and Congress, and the desire to protect and build upon the former president’s legacy.
“Coming out of the Obama administration, people are particularly motivated by what Donald Trump has been trying to do to this country,” said Bill Burton, who served as a spokesman for Obama during the 2008 campaign and his first term in office and is now a Democratic operative in Southern California.
He added that early Obama supporters who signed on at a time when Hillary Clinton was perceived as the unstoppable nominee have already shown a natural willingness to take on long odds, a quality that can help them achieve their own political goals.
“When I started working for [Obama], the only person in America who thought he was going to win the Iowa caucuses was him,” Burton said.
The congressional candidates in California are all running in districts historically dominated by the GOP.
Sam Jammal is trying to defeat Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton), who has represented Orange County in Congress for nearly 25 years. Jammal said his experience growing up in the district as the child of immigrants, attending law school and then working on Obama’s 2008 campaign and in the Department of Commerce proved to him that anything is possible.
Sam Jammal, a former staffer in President Obama’s Commerce Department, is now a congressional candidate in Orange County.
(Sam Jammal)
“Our story is the embodiment of that,” said Jammal, whose parents are from Jordan and Colombia. “The same day my dad landed here, he was working at a gas station …. For me, his youngest son, I was able to work for the president of the United States. My proudest moment in the administration was taking my parents to a White House naturalization ceremony where they were able to meet President Obama. It’s full circle.”
Others, including Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis, said they expected Clinton to win the November 2016 election, giving them the opportunity to work for the first woman president. The experiences the Sacramento-area native had as Obama’s ambassador to Hungary cemented her desire to continue working in public life once he left office.
“It took me a few months after the election to recalculate how I could best serve,” said Kounalakis, who is one of two Obama alumni running for lieutenant governor. “It [became] clear: It was more important than ever that California lead the way on our values, whether it’s fighting for the climate or supporting and celebrating our immigrant community and our LGBT community.”
Trump’s actions since taking office, including trying to institute a travel ban on people from several Muslim-majority nations and withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, quickened the Obama alums’ resolve. But nearly all said Trump’s recent statements placing neo-Nazis and white supremacists who violently protested in Charlottesville on the same moral plane as those who protested against them exemplified why they decided to run.
“What has happened … with this presidency and what Donald Trump stands for and believes in is in such stark contrast to everything we worked on for eight years,” said Buffy Wicks, a grass-roots organizer who worked on Obama’s campaigns and as the White House deputy director of public engagement. She is now running for the California Assembly.
But an impressive political résumé is no guarantee of success.
Ultimately, the races will come down to how voters connect with the politicians and their policies, said Massachusetts state Sen. Eric Lesser, who went from shepherding luggage during the 2008 campaign to working steps from the Oval Office as the top aide to one of Obama’s must trusted advisors, David Axelrod.
“Show, don’t tell. You have to be elected on your own merits and your own vision, and ideas for your community,” he said.
While Lesser speaks reverently about his time working for Obama and Axelrod and the counsel he received from them during his 2014 campaign, he noted that voters want to hear how a candidate is going to address their needs, not about his time in Washington.
“Expecting people to suddenly be impressed or suddenly open doors because of a previous fancy job is not going to happen,” he said.
Expecting people to suddenly be impressed or suddenly open doors because of a previous fancy job is not going to happen.
— Eric Lesser, former Obama White House aide elected to the Massachusetts state Senate in 2014
Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis, then the U.S. ambassador to Hungary, waves rainbow flags at a gay pride march in Budapest in 2012. She’s now running for lieutenant governor in California.
(Peter Kollanyi / Associated Press)
Lesser recalled that when he mounted his 2014 run, the best advice he received was from Obama, who told him to outhustle his rivals and connect with the people who would become his constituents.
“He asked, ‘How many people are in the district? How many households? How many doors?” Lesser said. “When I ran the numbers, he goes, ‘You can meet all those people.’ I haven’t quite met everyone, but I took his advice to heart.”
Reed Galen, who worked for President George W. Bush, said that while some administration posts could be particularly relevant to a race — one Obama administration official who worked on the auto industry bailout is now running for Congress in Michigan, for example — most candidates with such experience probably worked in a vast bureaucracy that few voters know or care about.
“My guess is most of these folks, the best thing they have going for them is a picture of them and the president [that shows] Barack Obama reasonably knows who I am,” said Galen, a former California GOP operative who worked on both of Bush’s campaigns and in his administration.
The greater advantages, he said, are the relationships forged with donors, leaders, strategists and the alumni network that remains tightly knit after their tenure ends.
Wicks’ fundraisingreport illustrates the political value of the connections that come from working for Obama. Axelrod, elected officials including former Rep. Gabby Giffords of Arizona, and scores of people from Washington, D.C., have donated to her campaign, names unlikely to appear on the donor list for most other California legislative candidates.
Buffy Wicks, center, who worked in the Obama White House and for the Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigns, is running for the state Assembly.
(Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
Wicks’ campaign also follows a grass-roots blueprint she helped craft for Obama when he was unknown, introducing himself to voters in diners and coffee shops and talking about their concerns.
“I’m doing house parties all over the district, really spending a lot of time in living rooms, 20 to 30 people at a time and having a really thoughtful conversation about what kind of community do we want to live in,” she said. “It’s a way to build relationships with voters, investing on the front end of that relationship and not just plying you with direct mail pieces and television ads.”
And for those who lack Wicks’ campaign experience, the connections to some of the top Democrats in the nation is invaluable.
“When you haven’t been an elected official before, you have a lot of questions .… You understand the policies, you know what your positions are, but the actual architecture of running a campaign is something that’s inherently new,” said Brian Forde, who worked on technology in the Obama administration and is now trying to topple Republican Rep. Mimi Walters in Orange County.
“What’s most helpful is being able to pick up the phone or send a text message to a friend who was a speechwriter for the president or the first lady, or someone who did work on communications who does understand all of these things because they worked on the campaign,” Forde said.
Jaren Jackson Jr. scored 21 of his 31 points in the first half and Cam Spencer added a career-high 27 points as the Memphis Grizzlies beat the Clippers 121-103 on Monday night.
Jaylen Wells scored 16 points and rookie Cedric Coward had 12 as the Grizzlies earned a victory over the Clippers for the third time in less than three weeks. Ja Morant also scored 12 points for Memphis in his second game since returning from a calf injury.
While Morant has returned, Grizzlies center Zach Edey missed his second game of an extended absence because of a left ankle injury. Santi Aldama started at center for the second consecutive game and was held to just three points with two rebounds.
James Harden was held to 13 points, while John Collins and Jordan Miller each had 10 for Los Angeles in its eighth straight home loss. The Clippers last won in their own building on Oct. 31.
The Clippers led 64-63 on Leonard’s three-pointer just before the midpoint of the third quarter. The Grizzlies took charge from there, going on a 9-0 run for a 72-64 lead, while taking a 90-76 advantage into the fourth quarter. Wells had four points in the run.
Spencer made four three-pointers in less than six minutes of the fourth quarter and made a career high seven shots from long range on 10 attempts.
Jackson scored 20 points for the first time in six games, after he averaged 10.2 points over the previous five contests while shooting 42.6%. He was 13 of 18 (72.2%) from the floor.
That was the Ventura football team’s mindset Friday night at Fullerton High.
The Cougars drove 99 yards in eight plays and scored on a 12-yard pass from Derek Garcia to Tristan Phillips on fourth and goal to pull within a touchdown with 2:40 left, but San Francisco St. Ignatius College Prep recovered the ensuing onside kick and gained a first down to run out the clock and hang on for a 42-35 victory in the CIF state Division 3-AA bowl game.
“You are true competitors,” Derek’s father and head coach Tim Garcia told his dejected players minutes later. “We fought, kept fighting, just came up a little short, but let’s not forget what you guys accomplished. You won the Channel League, you won CIF, you won regionals and are state runner-up.”
Ventura defenders Nathan Radwich and Tristan Phillips tackle San Francisco St. Ignatius College Prep receiver Ty Hicks in the first half Friday.
(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)
Garcia, who is headed for Nevada Las Vegas, entered the game having thrown for 3,369 yards, 36 touchdowns and nine interceptions. He added to that impressive total by completing 15 of 26 passes for 208 yards and two scores.
James Watson had 10 carries for 152 yards and two touchdowns and Western Colorado-bound receiver Jack Cunningham, who entered with a Ventura Country record 116 catches for 2,041 yards and 26 touchdowns, had seven catches for 67 yards.
St. Ignatius (9-6) finished the season on a seven-game winning streak thanks in large part to senior quarterback Caedon Afsharipour, who threw a touchdown pass and ran for the winning score.
The Cougars (13-3) had their 10-game winning streak snapped. The lead changed hands five times in the first half.
Ventura quarterback Derek Garcia passes against St. Ignatius College Prep on Friday night.
(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)
James Watson scored on runs of 13 and 31 yards on consecutive drives to give Ventura its first lead, 14-7, with 2:33 left in the first quarter.
Steve Malone broke loose for a 44-yard touchdown on the first play of the second quarter and scored on a 27-yard run to put the Wildcats up 20-14, but the extra point was blocked.
Tristan Savage’s one-yard run capped an eight-play, 69-yard drive that put Ventura back on top, 21-20, but St. Ignatius answered on a 61-yard touchdown run by Luke Tribolet and a two-point pass from Afsharipour to Hawkes Packard to take a 28-21 lead into halftime.
Packard caught a 65-yard touchdown pass to extend the North region winners’ lead to 35-21 on the first play of the second half.
Garcia hit Cunningham in stride for a 31-yard touchdown to pull the Cougars within 35-28 at the 3:49 mark of the third quarter. However, Afsharipour’s 27-yard touchdown scamper pushed the Wildcats’ lead back to two scores early in the fourth quarter.
“We’ve done it before a couple times this season … we’ve battled back and come out on top,” Derek Garcia said as reality set in that his high school career was over. “I tried to stay in the present. I’m done being a Ventura Cougar, but now I look forward to the next chapter.”
Though he’s lost lawsuits for his election denials, he is still saying that the 2020 election was stolen.
He enters a crowded field of Republicans vying for Gov. Tim Walz’s office, including speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives Lisa Demuth, former state senator and 2022 Republican nominee for governor Scott Jensen, lawyer Chris Madel and state Rep. Kristin Robbins.
Walz’s campaign is already attacking Lindell for his ties to Trump, labeling him “the far-right CEO, election denier, and Donald Trump’s top ally in Minnesota.”
“Mike Lindell is selling conspiracies, MAGA extremism, and pillows. He has no business holding the highest office in our state,” Walz’s campaign said in a fundraising email last week.
Lindell announced his campaign on Thursday, with an eight-minute video filmed on the factory floor of his MyPillow company. He claimed that the President Joe Biden administration “targeted my banks, they targeted my suppliers, they even took my phone.”
He said he wants to stop the “rampant fraud” in Walz’s administration, stop rising property taxes and “the crime that threatens you and your family.” He also wants to change the state’s voting system so that voters submit paper ballots that are then hand-counted.
The fraud Lindell references comes from an investigation of dozens of people who allegedly stole from the state’s program to feed children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several Somali immigrants allegedly created small companies that billed state agencies for millions in social services that never went to the intended people. Walz has said that anyone who stole from the government will be prosecuted.
Lindell told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he told Trump he was thinking of running for governor back in August, but he wouldn’t say what Trump’s response was.
But Trump didn’t back him in his bid for chair of the Republican National Committee in 2023. He only got four votes in that election.
Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani now works for Lindell on his media network, LindellTV, and he’s been giving Lindell political advice.
“He’s been part of many campaigns,” Lindell told the Star Tribune. “He knows what he’s doing.”
LindellTV now has credentials to cover the White House and the Pentagon, The New York Times reported.
Lindell calls his story “the American Dream on steroids,” touting his rise from crack cocaine addiction to successful business owner. He considers himself the frontrunner in the field of candidates and said, “I believe I will stand on my own merit,” Lindell said.
President Donald Trump stands with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a black tie dinner at the White House in Washington, on November 18, 2025. Photo by Anna Rose Layden/UPI | License Photo
Silver prices continued to rise on Wednesday, hovering at around $62 per ounce after trading at roughly $50 in late November. That represents a significant jump from the metal’s average price of around $30 at the beginning of the year.
The price jump follows news that the US administration is interviewing final candidates to replace current Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. Investors are also expecting the Fed to cut its benchmark rate after its meeting later on Wednesday.
The top three candidates for the chair job, and in particular the reported frontrunner Kevin Hassett, the director of Donald Trump’s National Economic Council, are expected to implement more aggressive rate cuts — while Powell has overseen a slower pace of easing.
Since January, the Fed under Powell has cut rates in two quarter-point increments, once in September and once in October.
This steady easing has pushed down returns on interest-bearing assets, increasing the attractiveness of silver as an investor alternative.
Silver, like gold, pays no interest or dividends, so it tends to fall out of favour when US interest rates are high and investors can earn more attractive returns on cash and bonds.
The metal’s value has roughly doubled this year, even surpassing gold’s 60% increase — which brought bullion to record highs.
At the same time, traders are also seeking clarity on whether the US will impose tariffs on silver.
In early November, the US government added the metal to its 2025 Critical Minerals List, a designation normally reserved for materials seen as strategically important to the economy and national security.
That new status also puts silver within the scope of possible Section 232 investigations, the same legal tool previously used to justify tariffs on steel and aluminium.
Section 232 investigations allow the US government to apply tariffs, import quotas, or other limits on products believed to create an overreliance on sources outside the country, harming national security interests.
For now, no such probe has been launched and no tariffs have been announced. Even so, the prospect alone is enough to make traders nervous, since any future duties on imported silver could disrupt trade flows and push up costs for manufacturers. Such expectations have prompted an increase in silver stockpiling.
Increased demand from certain manufacturers is pushing prices up further. Silver is a key material in the production of electric vehicles and solar panels, and industrial demand accounts for more than half of total silver consumption.
Dec. 8 (UPI) — Former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred announced Monday he’s dropping his U.S. Senate campaign and will instead run for a newly redrawn district on the U.S. House of Representatives.
In a statement posted to X, Allred said he wants to avoid a “bruising” Democratic primary for the Senate.
“In the past few days, I’ve come to believe that a bruising Senate Democratic primary and runoff would prevent the Democratic Party from going into this critical election unified against the danger posed to our communities and our Constitution by [President] Donald Trump and one of his Republican bootlickers,” he said, referring to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.
“That’s why I’ve made the difficult decision to end my campaign for the U.S. Senate.”
Allred is instead running for the 33rd Congressional District, which is currently represented in the House by Rep. Marc Veasey, a Democrat. But after Texas redrew its congressional map this year, Veasey’s base was no longer in the 33rd District; he plans to run for the 30th District next year, an unnamed source told The Texas Tribune.
Both the old and new boundaries of the 33rd District is a meandering region including parts of Dallas and Tarrant Counties, and the eastern half of Fort Worth. The new map, reaches farther north and changes some of the boundaries in western Dallas County.
Allred was elected in 2018 to the U.S. House to represent the 32nd District, which encompassed a swath of eastern Dallas County. He flipped the district from red to blue.
“The 33rd District was racially gerrymandered by Trump in an effort to further rig our democracy, but it’s also the community where I grew up attending public schools and watching my mom struggle to pay for our groceries,” Allred said in his Monday statement.
Voting rights advocates and Democrats took the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature to the Supreme Court over the redrawn congressional map, accusing the Republicans of gerrymandering based on racial population. The high court last week gave Texas permission to use the new map in the next midterm elections.
“On January 6th, I was prepared to physically fight to defend our democracy,” Allred said. “Today, the danger we face from Donald Trump is even greater and has added a level of corruption and rigging of our economy that has made it harder than ever for Texans.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi (C), FBI Director Kash Patel (R), U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro and others hold a press conference at the Department of Justice Headquarters on Thursday. The FBI arrested Brian Cole of Virginia, who is believed to be responsible for placing pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic party headquarters the night before the January 6, 2021, insurrection. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
