Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Nov. 24 that the defense team and prosecutors failed to agree on a number of disputed issues in the case of Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab and former Halkbank deputy general manager Mehmet Hakan Atilla. The court in New York announced its ruling on a total of 10 issues that should be agreed on regarding the case ahead of the election of the jury on Nov. 27. Judge Richard Berman accepted one of seven demands from the prosecution while denying all three demands from Atilla’s lawyers.

United States President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke on the phone on Nov. 24 only days after a Russia-Turkey-Iran summit on Syria, with Ankara saying that Washington has pledged not to send weapons to the People’s Protection Units (YPG) any more. “President Trump instructed [his generals] in a very open way that the YPG will no longer be given weapons. He openly said that this absurdity should have ended much earlier,” Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told reporters after the phone call.

Leading MIT Professor Daron Acemoğlu has received the “2017 Rahmi M. Koç Medal of Science” for his “distinguished contributions to the economic realm globally,” according to Koç University, which presented him with the award on Nov. 22. Acemoğlu’s name has repeatedly been mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in economics. Recently, he has gained popularity through his book “Why Nations Fail,” co-authored by political scientist James Robinson.

MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. -- Atlantis Management Group (AMG) has acquired Food Bag, a convenience-store chain and CITGO-branded petroleum marketer. The transaction includes the purchase of more than 50 fee-simple sites and a transportation company. Kensington, Conn.-based General Equities Inc. operates the Food Bag stores, which have provided convenience-store products and motor fuel to customers in Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida for more than 57 years.