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The NFL’s two biggest draws combined with the Thanksgiving holiday netted the league a new regular-season viewership record.

By a lot.

The Dallas Cowboys’ 31-28 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday, Nov. 27 pulled in 57.2 million viewers on CBS, the network announced.

The previous record for most-watched regular season game was 42.1 million from a Thanksgiving matchup in 2022 between the Cowboys and New York Giants.

The early-window game between the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers on Thanksgiving drew 47.7 million viewers, according to FOX, which also broke the previous record and is now the second most-watched regular-season game

Going into the season, NFL officials recognized the significance of putting the Chiefs-Cowboys game on Thanksgiving, a holiday synonymous with football.

Nielsen revamped its ratings reporting prior to the start of the 2025 NFL season to account for more fans who watch on smartphones or smart TVs, in addition to its continuing enhancement of out-of-home viewing data.

From international games to ‘Thursday Night Football’ to the traditional Sunday afternoon windows, NFL ratings are up in 2025 and following the upward trajectory from the nadir of the 2020 season.

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Jerry Jeudy and Shedeur Sanders don’t plan on allowing their heated sideline exchange to fester.

Speaking Wednesday for the first time since a clip of his clash with Sanders during the Cleveland Browns’ 26-8 loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday went viral, Jeudy said he and the quarterback were ‘good’ and that there was no lingering issues to be sorted out.

‘Stuff like that happens,’ Jeudy said in a news conference. ‘Y’all gonna make it bigger than what it is because the media, you know, that’s what y’all feed off of – negativity. … We move on from it.

‘I live in real life. What happens in this locker room, it’s real, not what’s going on on social media and everything.’

At the start of the fourth quarter on Sunday, the CBS broadcast showed Jeudy getting animated with Sanders while the two reviewed a play. The receiver clapped his hands multiple times while offering his own take. Sanders shook his head before center Ethan Pocic stepped in two separate the two.

Jeudy offered scant details about the argument, saying only it was regarding ‘a play’ and that he wished he had spoken with Sanders ‘off camera.’

‘It’s an emotional sport,’ Jeudy said. ‘Things like that happen. It’s football.’

Sanders echoed Jeudy’s sentiments.

‘We resolved that,’ Sanders said Wednesday. ‘(We’re) not gonna speak on that.’

Sanders finished with 149 yards and one touchdown on 16-of-25 passing in his first home start. Jeudy had 26 yards on three catches, with Sanders overshooting the receiver on a deep throw in the first quarter.

After the game, Sanders said fostering a proper connection with Jeudy would take time.

‘We’re going to have sparks here and there, but it’s going to take time to be able to develop that chemistry with everybody, to be on the same page with Jerry,’ Sanders said. ‘Of course you want to be able to get him the ball, but you got to understand it takes time. I’m more of a trust person, and that’s just what it boils down to. So, we have to spend time on task with all those guys, and be able to trust and be able to see things at the same lens.’

‘Football is an emotional sport,’ Stefanski said. ‘Certainly, when you’re a family like we are, you can have your disagreements. Sometimes they’re for everybody to see. Sometimes it’s behind closed doors. Like a family, we move on, we talk about it, so not worried about it.’

The Browns host the 1-11 Tennessee Titans on Sunday.

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One of college football’s most heralded assistants has gotten his first head-coaching job.

He’ll replace Alex Golesh, who left the Bulls to become the head coach at Auburn three days earlier.

Hartline has been at Ohio State since 2017 and has been instrumental in the Buckeyes’ rise as an offensive powerhouse centered around college-turned-NFL stars at wide receiver. Among the players Hartline has coached are Jeremiah Smith, Marvin Harrison Jr., Chris Olave, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Emeka Egbuka and Garrett Wilson. Over the past four years, five wide receivers that Hartline coached have been taken in the first round of the NFL draft.

A former Ohio State wide receiver himself, the 37-year-old Hartline is in his third season as the Buckeyes’ offensive coordinator. He shared the title last season with Chip Kelly when Ohio State won the national championship.

This season, with Hartline as the sole offensive coordinator, the No. 1 Buckeyes are averaging 37 points per game heading into Saturday’s Big Ten championship game against No. 2 Indiana. It’s the 13th-highest mark among 136 FBS programs.

South Florida is 9-3 this season and went 23-15 in three seasons under Golesh. Given the size of the school, the program’s location in a talent-rich state and the opening of a new stadium in the next few years, South Florida is widely considered one of the best jobs outside of the Power Four conferences.

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Lane Kiffin followed Nick Saban’s footsteps, trading the postseason for LSU.
College football calendar not to blame for Lane Kiffin taking LSU job, not coaching Ole Miss in playoff.
Nick Saban left Michigan State for LSU. Would have have stayed with Spartans if 12-team playoff existed? Hmm.

BATON ROUGE, LA – Imagine a college sports world in which the transfer portal didn’t exist and national signing day didn’t occur until after the season.

Now, imagine LSU had a coaching vacancy in that world.

When would LSU make the hire? Would LSU wait until after the season, and would its top target wait to accept?

We know that wouldn’t happen, because we’ve lived in the world I asked you to imagine. We saw what happened.

In 1999, the college football calendar looked much different. The transfer portal didn’t exist. Neither did a December signing period. The lone signing period occurred in February, after the season.

And what happened in 1999?

Well, on Nov. 30 that year, LSU announced it had poached a gentleman named Nicholas Lou Saban Jr. from Michigan State to be its coach.

This fella named Saban — have you heard of him? — accepted the job, quit on his 10th-ranked Michigan State team, and vamoosed to Baton Rouge before the postseason.

“I mean, what about the bowl game?” one Michigan State student said to ESPN after Saban’s exit.

Pfft. You think Saban cared about the Citrus Bowl? He had a better job on the line. Adios!

Fast-forward 26 years to the day, and LSU hired a gentleman named Lane Kiffin on Nov. 30. Heard of him?

Kiffin, like his mentor Saban before him, hopped on a plane instead of staying put and coaching in the postseason.

So, when Saban and Kiffin blame the college football calendar for this situation of a coach bolting for a new job rather than staying put and coaching in the postseason, you must realize they’re absolutely full of it.

Only a sheep would believe the GOAT that the calendar is responsible and that some magical coaching carousel ethics would leap out of the weeds, if only the portal dates got shifted and the signing period got bumped back.

If the calendar was constructed differently, do you know when the Tigers would have hired Kiffin to replace Brian Kelly, whom LSU fired on Oct. 26?

“I would anticipate they would be making the hire in virtually this exact same time frame,” said one Power Four athletic director, granted anonymity to speak on the realities of the hiring cycle. “I do agree the calendar is a problem, but, even with a change, it wouldn’t impact the hiring time frame.”

Bingo.

We can debate the pros and cons of a December signing period or whether shifting the portal from January to May would be a good idea.

But, don’t kid yourself that making any of those changes would have stopped LSU from hiring Kiffin ASAP or stopped Kiffin from choosing the Tigers instead of Ole Miss and the playoff.

Don’t let yourself be distracted by Saban trying to provide Kiffin some cover by blaming this on the mean, mean calendar that coaches and their bosses helped create.

“We shouldn’t have an early signing date that conflicts with people wanting to hire an early coach, a portal situation where you’ve got to hire an early coach, fire your coach early,” Saban said recently on ESPN, while ignoring his history of leaving Michigan State for LSU in November.

“So, if we did all that in May, … we wouldn’t have all these issues.”

You’ve got to be kidding me, right? I’d like to meet this magical genie who will suddenly appear and solve college football’s bankruptcy of ethics, if only the portal window and signing period shifted to May.

Other pundits parroted Saban’s messaging faulting the calendar. Kiffin latched onto the propaganda, too.

“It’s a bad scheduling system of how it’s set up,” Kiffin said at his LSU introduction.

Do you really believe if the calendar was different, LSU would have let interim coach Frank Wilson ply his trade for three months while waiting until after the season to hire Kiffin, and risk someone else swooping in first?

Not a chance.

You could change the calendar, and sure as the sun rises on the Bayou, schools would keep trying to hire their next coach as swiftly as possible after firing their last coach, even if it means trampling on Michigan State’s 1999 bowl team or Mississippi’s playoff squad.

The Spartans, by the way, won the Citrus Bowl without Saban.

Just in case Kiffin was wondering.

The real change inside college football since Saban’s heel turn is not the calendar, but rather the creation of a 12-team College Football Playoff.

Coaches used to accept new jobs and skip out on bowls. Now, Kiffin has become the first coach to swap the playoff for a step up the perceived food chain.

If the 12-team playoff had been in place in 1999, I wonder whether Kiffin would be making this history. Or, would history of a playoff-skipping coach already have been made?

The 1999 Spartans would have qualified for a 12-team playoff, and when Saban boarded a plane bound for LSU, he would’ve been fast at work engineering a scapegoat to blame for the predicament his ego and ambitions created.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.

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FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino pushed back against a blistering report from an alliance of active-duty and retired FBI personnel that portrayed the bureau as directionless under its new leadership, defending sweeping reforms they say have delivered major gains in accountability and public safety.

‘When the director and I moved forward with these reforms, we expected some noise from the small circle of disgruntled former agents still loyal to the old Comey–Wray model,’ Bongino told Fox News Digital Wednesday. 

‘That was never our audience. Our responsibility is to the American people. And under the new leadership team, the bureau is delivering results this country hasn’t seen in decades — tighter accountability, tougher performance standards, billions saved and a mission-first culture. That’s how you restore trust.’

New York Post columnist and Fox News contributor Miranda Devine said last week that an internal 115-page report from FBI active-duty and retired agents and analysts heavily criticized Patel and Bongino since they took on their respective jobs earlier this year.

The alliance criticized Patel as ‘in over his head’ and Bongino as ‘something of a clown,’ according to The New York Post.

The outlet said the 115-page assessment was written in the style of an FBI intelligence product and analyzed reports from 24 FBI sources and sub-sources who described their experiences inside the bureau.

Devine said Patel was described by multiple internal sources as inexperienced, with one source saying he ‘has neither the breadth of experience nor the bearing an FBI director needs to be successful.’

Patel told Fox News Digital the FBI is ‘operating exactly as the country expects.’

‘Every reform we carried out this year had a single goal — build an FBI that is faster, stronger, more accountable and fully aligned with protecting the American people. We streamlined the structure, pushed talent from Washington back into the field, expanded our national security capabilities with new tools like the counter-drone school, overhauled FOIA responsiveness and eliminated billions in waste,’ he said.

‘The impact is undeniable — historic drops in crime, major takedowns of criminal and extremist networks and record-setting arrests across violent crime, espionage, terrorism and child exploitation.’

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Tech billionaires Michael and Susan Dell announced Tuesday that they are pledging $6.25 billion to create some 25 million additional ‘Trump Accounts’ for children across the country.

These accounts will be seeded with $250 each, and available for children who missed the eligibility cutoff for the $1,000 federally funded ‘Trump Accounts’ for babies born after Jan. 1, 2025.

Children living in ZIP codes with median incomes below $150,000 will be the first to receive the funds, the White House said.

‘The greatest investment that we could possibly make is in children,’ Susan Dell said alongside President Donald Trump at the White House.

‘It’s really an amazing moment that two people would do that kind of a contribution,’ Trump said.

The president said he was also talking to other wealthy donors and friends to potentially make similar contributions.

Michael Dell; President Donald Trump.Errich Petersen; Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Asked how this donation came to be, Michael Dell said: ‘We started talking about Texas only at the beginning. And then we thought about it some more, and we went back and forth, as we do on these things, and this is where we ended up.’

The Dells said they considered making the pledge for a long time. But they said they didn’t want the pledge to be the end of their involvement.

Michael Dell encouraged states to ‘really grow financial literacy’ to help educate families about how the accounts and markets work.

‘These deposits will reach the accounts of most children age 10 and under who were born prior to the qualifying date for the federal newborn contribution,’ the Dells said in a statement issued by their foundation.

‘Children older than 10 may benefit, too, if funds remain available after initial sign-ups,’ the Dell family said. ‘It is an incredibly practical and direct step to help families begin saving today.’

The Dells say they ‘believe this effort will expand opportunity, strengthen communities, and help more children take ownership of their future.’

The Dell family gift “is expected to reach nearly 80% of children age 10 and under across 75% of U.S. zip codes,” according to the nonprofit Invest America.

Children born after Jan. 1 and until Dec. 31, 2028, will receive an account infused with a $1,000 investment from the U.S. Treasury, as part of the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill.

The accounts will open and begin accepting contributions starting on July 4, 2026. The accounts will initially be held by a financial firm designated by the Treasury Department, but later will be able to be transferred to any brokerage firm.

Those accounts will also be eligible for additional contributions of up to $5,000 per year until the beneficiary child reaches age 18. Withdrawals from the accounts are not permitted until the children reach that age.

Trump accounts can be invested only in low-cost index funds or ETFs that either mirror the S&P 500 or ‘another American stock index,’ according to the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

‘These investment accounts are simple, secure, and structured to grow in value through market returns over time,’ the Dell family said.

‘Trump Accounts represent a potentially valuable tool for building up savings and tapping the power of compound growth for the young,’ Charles Schwab tax planning director Hayden Adams recently wrote.

If a family could contribute and invest the maximum $5,000 per year in the accounts, and with a reasonable growth rate of about 6%, ‘by age 18, the child’s account would hold around $191,000 in assets.’

Once a child turns 18, the accounts are eligible to be converted to a traditional individual retirement account, ‘meaning it could continue to accumulate potential gains on a tax-free basis’ for many years.

The Dells are one of the wealthiest families in America, with a fortune of nearly $150 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires. The family’s primary source of wealth is Dell Technologies, the company founded by Michael Dell in 1984.

In recent years, the value of Dell shares have been fueled by the booming AI revolution, for which Dell is a supplier of servers and other technology.

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MILAN — The Prada Group announced Tuesday that it has officially purchased Milan fashion rival Versace in a 1.25 billion euro (nearly $1.4 billion) deal that puts the fashion house known for its sexy silhouettes under the same roof as Prada’s “ugly chic” aesthetic and Miu Miu’s youth-driven appeal.

The highly anticipated deal is expected to relaunch Versace’s fortunes, after middling post-pandemic performance as part of the U.S. luxury group Capri Holdings.

Prada said in a one-line statement that the acquisition had been completed after receiving all regulatory clearances.

Prada heir Lorenzo Bertelli will steer Versace’s next phase as executive chairman, in addition to his roles as group marketing director and sustainability chief.

The son of co-creative director Miuccia Prada and longtime Prada Group chairman Patrizio Bertelli has said he doesn’t expect to make any swift executive changes at Versace. But Bertelli has said that the company, which places among the top 10 most recognized brands in the world, has long been underperforming in the market.

Prada has underlined that the 47-year-old Versace brand offered “significant untapped growth potential.’’

Versace has been in the midst of a creative relaunch under a new designer, Dario Vitale, who previewed his first collection during Milan Fashion Week in September. He had previously been head of design at Miu Miu, but his move to Versace was unrelated to the Prada deal, executives have said.

Capri Holdings, which owns Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo, paid $2 billion for Versace in 2018, but had been struggling to position Versace’s bold profile in the recent era of “quiet luxury.″

Versace represented 20% of Capri Holdings 2024 revenue of 5.2 billion euros. An analyst presentation for the Prada deal said that Versace would represent 13% of the Prada Group’s pro-forma revenues, with Miu Miu coming in at 22% and Prada at 64%. The Prada Group, which also includes Church’s footwear, reported a 17% boost in revenues to 5.4 billion euros last year.

The Prada Group has already begun preparations to incorporate crosstown rival Versace into its Italian manufacturing system, a point of pride for the group.

“Making a bag for one brand or another, the know-how is the same,″ Bertelli told reporters last week at the group’s Scandicci leather goods factory, which already makes bags for the Prada and Miu Miu brands and will soon add Versace.

The Prada Group’s has invested 60 million euros in its supply chain this year, including a new leather goods factory near Siena, a new knitwear factory near Perugia as well as increasing production at its factory Church’s footwear factory in Britain and expanding another Tuscan factory. That’s on top of 200 million euros in investments from 2019-24.

Prada’s efforts include an academy that has trained some 570 new artisans over the last 25 years in an in-house training academy operating in the Tuscany, Marche, Veneto and Umbria regions.

Last year, Prada hired 70% of the 120 artisans who trained in the academy. The number of trainees rose by 28% to 152 this year.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

Outages on Shopify’s e-commerce platform have been resolved, the company said late Monday, bringing to an end a daylong glitch on the annual ‘Cyber Monday’ shopping day.

Some merchants that use Shopify’s service to sell goods online said they experienced issues with checkouts through the company’s point-of-sale system.

Businesses that run on Shopify also had trouble logging into their administrative portals.

In a statement, Shopify said: ‘We had a system degradation that has now been mitigated.’

Throughout the day, business owners posted angry messages directed at the company on X, where Shopify President Harvey Finkelstein had posted ‘HAPPY CYBER MONDAY! Let’s finish strong!’ earlier in the day, with an emoji of a flexed arm.

One business, Costack Spices, based in London, replied: ‘How??? [We] cannot fulfill orders or log on,’ with three red-faced emojis. In a follow-up, the company posted, ‘This is unbelievable.’

Another user wrote, ‘@ShopifySupport I haven’t been able to access it for the last couple hours.’

Shopify replied to most users on X with the same message: ‘We are aware of an issue with Admins impacting selected stores, and are working to resolve it.’

In 2024, merchants using Shopify services recorded $11.5 billion in sales from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, the company said, with more than 76 million customers buying from businesses powered by the platform.

Shopify provides website design tools, online checkout services and digital advertising products to businesses of all sizes. The company says that millions of merchants use its services.

While Shopify’s share of Cyber Monday sales may be limited, smaller businesses that rely on the company to process their transactions may have missed out on crucial sales at the start of the all-important holiday season.

Total Cyber Monday sales are expected to be more than $53 billion, according to Salesforce.

Shopify stock ended the trading day down 5.9%.

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Dallas Stars forward Tyler Seguin is expected to be out for the rest of the season after injuring his ACL in a loss to the New York Rangers.

He was injured on Tuesday, Dec. 2, when Rangers defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov fell on his right leg during the first period.

‘He’s got an ACL and he’ll be out for months,’ Stars coach Glen Gulutzan told reporters on Wednesday, Dec. 3. ‘We didn’t get great news today. I haven’t spoken to Tyler yet, but letting everybody know that he’s going to be out for a significant amount of time, probably the rest of the season.’

Tyler Seguin injury update

Seguin is expected to miss the rest of the season with the injury. It’s his second consecutive season with a major injury. Last season, he was limited to 20 games in the regular season after hip surgery, though he was able to return in the season finale and the playoffs.

He had played all 27 games this season before his knee injury, recording seven goals and 17 points.

Seguin has a history of injuries, including being cut by a skate on two separate occasions.

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While most of you were sleeping, the Los Angeles Clippers sent one of the game’s future Hall of Famers home.

On Wednesday, Dec. 3, at nearly 3 a.m. ET, the Clippers announced that point guard Chris Paul would not be part of the team moving forward, in a fairly stunning move that has tacked onto Los Angeles’ struggles this season.

The Clippers have started 5-16, which currently ranks them second-to-last in the Western Conference. They have lost five consecutive games and are in the middle of a road trip on the East Coast; the team was in Atlanta Wednesday when the news dropped.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Chris Paul situation with the Los Angeles Clippers:

Why did the Clippers send Chris Paul home?

This is, in simplest terms, a wildly unconventional move.

Though he may have had his detractors across the league, Paul is widely seen as a player with solid stature among the league, a veteran leader with ample experience and tenacity and a probable first-ballot Hall of Famer, once eligible.

Paul also served as president of the National Basketball Players Association, overseeing the negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement, in a mostly successful eight-season term from 2013-21.

For a team to unceremoniously send him home in the middle of a road trip may suggest that there was some internal disagreement. To that point, ESPN reported that Paul’s leadership style clashed with Clippers management, specifically coach Tyronn Lue. Per ESPN, Lue and Paul were not on speaking terms for several weeks, and Paul was reportedly vocal in holding management, coaches and players accountable. According to ESPN, the team found this to be disruptive.

This is not just any team making this decision; Paul is arguably the best Clipper in franchise history, leading the team in assists (4,076) and analytics metrics such as plus/minus (8.3) and value over replacement (36.6).

The Clippers were in Atlanta, preparing for their game later that night against the Hawks, when news of the move broke. Assuming Paul did not ask for this, the decision borders on being disrespectful, though it’s unclear though it’s unclear how much his leadership style may have chafed against L.A.’s vision.

Granted, the Clippers have to reassess the direction their franchise will take for the remainder of the season. They entered as the oldest team in the league and held expectations to compete for a championship behind Kawhi Leonard and James Harden.

It has fallen apart, and Paul, 40, has looked every bit his age, averaging career lows across most major statistics.

For the Clippers to execute the move, they will have three options.

They can waive him, which would force them to pay his one-year salary of $3.6 million, per Spotrac.com. They could also offer a buyout, to which Paul would need to agree, or they could trade him after Monday, Dec. 15.

A trade, however, might be difficult to execute, given what should be a depressed market for Paul after his slow start to the season.

Chris Paul landing spots

It’s tough to project exactly where Paul might end up, or even if he’s actively seeking to play somewhere else. Paul had announced Saturday, Nov. 22 that this would be his final season in the NBA. Presumably, Paul, who has never won an NBA Finals, would want to join a contender.

His family is also closely tied to the Los Angeles area, so the Lakers could be an option. Paul and LeBron James are close, and the Lakers might be looking to add depth at point guard. The Lakers, however, have subtly shifted away from the influence and sway James holds with the team, indicating they would be building around Luka Dončić.

The Rockets, a team Paul played for from 2017-19, are looking for a point guard after Fred VanVleet tore his anterior cruciate ligament prior to the start of the season. The Celtics are also in need of a veteran point guard.

Retirement, however, might be the most likely scenario.

What has Chris Paul said about the Clippers matter?

In a message that posted early Wednesday, Dec. 3 to his Instagram account, Paul wrote: “Just Found Out I’m Being Sent Home,” adding a peace sign emoji.

What have the Clippers said about the Chris Paul matter?

In a statement issued early Wednesday morning, Clippers president Lawrence Frank announced the move, saying the team was not blaming Paul for its record.

‘We are parting ways with Chris and he will no longer be with the team,’ Frank said. ‘We will work with him on the next step of his career. Chris is a legendary Clipper who has had a historic career. I want to make one thing very clear. No one is blaming Chris for our underperformance. I accept responsibility for the record we have right now. There are a lot of reasons why we’ve struggled. We’re grateful for the impact Chris has made on the franchise.”

Chris Paul stats

In his 21st season, Paul is averaging career lows in most major statistics, including points (2.9 per game), assists (3.3), rebounds (1.8), steals (0.7), field goal percentage (32.1%) and minutes (14.3).

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