Lions haven't taken any opponent lightly on the way to 9-1 record

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Lions haven't taken any opponent lightly on the way to 9-1 record

2024-11-19 09:29 Last Updated At：09:32

DETROIT (AP) — The Detroit Lions were on the verge of their first Super Bowl appearance, but couldn't finish off the San Francisco 49ers in last season's NFC championship game.

This year, they have developed a killer instinct.

Entering their matchup Sunday with Mac Jones and the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Lions were favored by two touchdowns for the first time in 47 years. In the past, they might have taken a win for granted.

They didn't overlook the Jaguars.

The Lions (9-1) set franchise records for margin of victory (46 points) and yards gained (645) in a 52-6 rout. They scored touchdowns on their first seven possessions, a field goal on the eighth and took a knee to end the game on the ninth. Defensively, they held Jacksonville to two field goals and 170 yards of offense — their 475-yard advantage was the NFL's biggest margin since 1979.

“When you score seven touchdowns and hold the opponents to two field goals, you obviously had a number of guys who played very, very well,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “Man, they finished today. They started it and they finished it. That's awesome.”

The Lions are only seven-point favorites for Sunday's visit to Indianapolis, but they know they should win, especially if they play like they did against the Jaguars.

“We've got to go to Indianapolis and play a team that is very much in the playoff race,” Campbell said. “They are going to be ready to go. So are we.”

The Lions are leading the NFL in scoring at 33.6 points per game on the 80th anniversary of the last time they finished first in that category.

They are fourth in passing touchdowns (22) and second in rushing touchdowns (18), so teams can't load up their defenses to take away their strengths.

“It all starts with our offensive line,” Campbell said. “When they play the way they played yesterday, it doesn't matter what (plays) we call. We can do anything.”

DE Za'Darius Smith made his Lions debut after being acquired at the trade deadline. Campbell has stressed that Smith isn't expected to fill Aidan Hutchinson's shoes — no one could reasonably be expected to do that — but he can be part of Detroit's attempt to replace the league's best pass rusher in the aggregate.

It wasn't a spectacular debut. Smith combined with Jack Campbell on Detroit's only sack, but only assisted on one tackle in a game where the Lions registered three quarterback hits.

After throwing five interceptions against Houston, Jared Goff only had five incompletions against the Jaguars. He finished 24 of 29 for 412 yards, four touchdowns and a perfect 158.3 passer rating.

Goff became the first quarterback in NFL history to have multiple games with a perfect rating, 400-plus yards and four-plus touchdowns — he also did it for the Rams in 2018 — and his 82.8% completion percentage made him the first to have five games over 80% in the same season.

P Jack Fox is having a great season — his net average is over 45 yards and he's put 45.2% of his punts inside the 20 — but, through no fault of his own, he only got on the field Sunday to hold for extra points and field goals. It was the second time the Lions haven't punted this season. Fox wasn't needed in the 47-9 win in Dallas on Oct. 13.

LB Alex Anzalone will miss 4-to-6 weeks with a broken right forearm, adding to a depth problem at linebacker. Derrick Barnes and Jalen Reeves-Maybin are on injured reserve, along with both starting defensive ends — Hutchinson and Marcus Davenport.

8.5 — Detroit's average yards per play against the Jaguars, the second highest in team history. The Lions were at 8.8 in the final minute — good enough to break a 43-yard-old record of 8.6 — but backup quarterback Hendon Hooker took a knee on the last two plays.

If the Lions have one weakness, it is defending mobile quarterbacks, so Anthony Richardson could be an issue on Sunday.

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Brazil’s G20 summit produces a broad declaration that’s short on specifics

2024-11-19 09:27 Last Updated At：09:31

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The summit of the Group of 20 leading economies in Rio de Janeiro produced a joint declaration Monday that, while not totally endorsed by one of the group's members, succeeded in addressing most topics host Brazil had prioritized addressing: both ongoing major wars, a global pact to fight hunger, taxation of the world’s wealthiest people and changes to global governance.

Experts had doubted Brazil 's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva could convince assembled leaders to hammer out agreement given uncertainty about the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and heightened global tensions amid the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Further dimming prospects of consensus, Argentina’s negotiators challenged some of the draft language — and ultimately refrained from endorsing the complete document.

“Although generic, it is a positive surprise for Brazil,” said Thomas Traumann, an independent political consultant and former Brazilian minister. “There was a moment when there was risk of no declaration at all. Despite the caveats, it is a good result for Lula.”

Militant group Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel occurred one month after last year’s G20 summit. It was thus unclear how this year’s statement might address Israel’s campaign of retaliation, which has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health officials, and more than 3,500 people in Lebanon in Israel's offensive against Hezbollah, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.

The G20 declaration referred to the “catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza and the escalation in Lebanon,” and stressed the urgent need to expand humanitarian assistance and reinforce protection of civilians.

“Affirming the Palestinian right to self-determination, we reiterate our unwavering commitment to the vision of the two-State solution where Israel and a Palestinian State live side by side in peace,” it said.

But it made no mention of Israel’s suffering or some 100 hostages that remain in Hamas captivity. Israel isn’t a G20 member.

That lack of acknowledgment appeared to run contrary to U.S. President Joe Biden’s consistent backing of Israel's right to defend itself. It's something Biden dutifully notes in public, even when speaking about the deprivation of Palestinians caused by the grinding war. During a meeting with G20 leaders before the declaration was hammered home, Biden expressed his view that Hamas is solely to blame for the war and called on fellow leaders to “increase the pressure on Hamas” to accept a cease-fire deal.

Looming large on Monday was news of Biden's decision to ease restrictions on Ukraine’s use of longer-range U.S. missiles to allow that country to strike more deeply inside Russia.

“The United States strongly supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Everyone around this table in my view should, as well,” Biden said during the summit.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is the summit’s most notable absentee. The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant that obliges member states to arrest him, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attended instead.

The G20 declaration highlighted the human suffering in Ukraine while calling for peace, but without naming Russia.

“The declaration avoids pointing the finger at the culprits,” said Paulo Velasco, an international relations professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. “That is, it doesn’t make any critical mention of Israel or Russia, but it highlights the dramatic humanitarian situations in both cases.”

Such lack of specificity is true of the entire declaration, Velasco added. “It is very much in line with what Brazil hoped for ... but if we really analyze it carefully, it is very much a declaration of intent. It is a declaration of good will on various issues, but we have very few concrete, tangible measures.”

In working group meetings in the run-up to the G20, ministers and negotiators discussed Brazil’s proposal to tax billionaires' incomes by 2%. According to French economist Gabriel Zucman, who worked as a consultant for Lula’s administration on the topic, such a measure would affect some 3,000 people around the world, of whom 100 are in Latin América.

At the start of the leaders’ afternoon session, Lula reiterated his call for the tax.

That made it into the final declaration, but there had been considerable doubt it would. One official from Brazil and one from another G20 nation say Argentine negotiators most vehemently opposed the clause — which they had previously accepted, in July — and another promoting gender equality. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

In the end, Argentina signed the G20 declaration while partially dissenting from certain aspects, it said in a statement on X. That included content related to the U.N.’s previous 2030 sustainable development agenda that right-wing President Javier Milei has referred to as “a supranational program of a socialist nature.” It also objected to the regulation of hate speech on social media, action by global institutions like the U.N. that the libertarian president has criticized as infringement on national sovereignty, and the idea that increased state intervention is the way to fight hunger.

Argentina’s presidency didn’t respond to requests for comment clarifying specifically which clauses it opposed. The official from the G20 nation with knowledge of the negotiations said Argentina adopted the statement under intense pressure from world powers. The X statement, the official said, was aimed at a domestic audience that appeared to relish Milei's Trump-like role as spoiler in the multilateral talks hosted by his outspoken critic, Lula.

Much of the declaration focuses on the eradication of hunger — a priority for Lula.

Brazil’s government previously stressed that Lula’s launch of the global alliance against hunger and poverty on Monday was as important as the final declaration. As of Monday, 82 nations had signed onto the plan, Brazil’s government said. It is also backed by organizations including the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

A demonstration Sunday on Rio’s Copacabana beach featured 733 empty plates spread across the sand to represent the 733 million people who went hungry in 2023, according to United Nations data, and called on leaders to take action.

Viviana Santiago, a director at Oxfam, an anti-poverty nonprofit, praised Brazil for using its G20 presidency “to respond to people’s demands worldwide to tackle extreme inequality, hunger and climate breakdown, and particularly for rallying action on taxing the super-rich.”

“Brazil has lit a path toward a more just and resilient world, challenging others to meet them at this critical juncture,” she said in a statement.

Leaders pledged to work for “transformative reform” of the U.N. Security Council so that it aligns “with the realities and demands of the 21st century, makes it more representative, inclusive, efficient, effective, democratic and accountable.”

Lula has been calling for reform of the powerful Security Council since his first two terms in power, from 2003-2010, but had gained little traction. Charged with maintaining international peace and security, it has not changed from its original 1945 configuration. Five countries that were dominant powers at the end of World War II have veto power — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France — while 10 countries from different regions serve two-year terms.

Virtually all countries agree that nearly eight decades after the United Nations was established, the Security Council should be expanded to reflect the world in the 21st century and include more voices. But the central quandary — and the biggest disagreement — remains how to do it. The G20 declaration doesn’t answer that question.

“We call for an enlarged Security Council composition that improves the representation of the underrepresented and unrepresented regions and groups, such as Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean,” the declaration said.

The United States announced shortly before a U.N. summit in September that it supports two new permanent seats for African countries without veto power, and a first-ever non-permanent seat for a small island developing nation. But as examples, the Group of Four – Brazil, Germany, India and Japan – support each other’s bid for permanent seats. And the larger Uniting for Consensus group of a dozen countries including Pakistan, Italy, Turkey and Mexico wants additional non-permanent seats with longer terms.

Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani in Rio de Janeiro, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Isabel DeBre in La Paz, Bolivia contributed.