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Where Do The Longhorns Stand in Stadium's Way-Too-Early Top 25? | Behind a host of incoming transfers and returning difference makers, Chris Beard's Longhorns have recorded a good deal of off-season praise The Texas Longhorns men's basketball team has seen a major makeover this offseason, and the pundits are beginning to take notice. On Thursday, Stadium college basketball analyst Jeff Goodman updated his way-too-early preseason top-25 rankings, with the Texas Longhorns and new head coach Chris Beard now sitting with the No. 10 overall ranking "Im betting on Chris Beard and his staff," Goodman said of the Longhorns." He still has to add more pieces to the roster, but hes already brought on four impact transfers and will bring back Jones and Ramey. Theyll be more." READ MORE: Longhorns Basketball Earns Commitment From Standout Vanderbilt Transfer Dylan Disu The Longhorns began their makeover following their early exit from the NCAA tournament when they moved on from former head coach Shaka Smart and hired beard to replace him. Following the hiring of Beard, and the exits of Kai Jones, Kamaka Hepa, Donovan Williams, and Royce Hamm, an influx of transfers began to flood into Austin, including Kentucky transfer Devin Askew, Vanderbilt transfer Dylan Disu, Utah transfer Timmy Allen, and Creighton transfer Christian Bishop. READ MORE: Longhorns Courtney Ramey Announces Return For Final Season Beard was also able to convince starters, Andrew Jones, Brock Cunningham, and Courtney Ramey, as well as role player Jase Febres to return. Beard hopes to do the same with forward Greg Brown and Center Jericho Simms, who are testing the waters of the upcoming 2021 NBA Draft. Comment and join in on the discussion below! Sign up for your premium membership to LonghornsCountry.com today, and get access to the entire Fan Nation premium network! Follow Longhorns Country on Twitter and Facebook | Stadium college basketball analyst Jeff Goodman updated his way-too-early preseason top-25 rankings, with the Texas Longhorns and new head coach Chris Beard now sitting with the No. 10 overall ranking. The Longhorns began their makeover following their early exit from the NCAA tournament when they moved on from former head coach Shaka Smart. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.si.com/college/texas/news/beards-longhorns-ranked-in-top-10-of-stadiums-way-too-early-top-25 | 0.613624 |
Have Australians in India been abandoned because people of colour are seen as less Australian? | You dont look Australian, someone once said to me in a bar overseas, elaborating when quizzed that the typical Aussie look was of blond surfers. I couldnt fault this man for forming that perception. I havent looked Australian my entire life. Because there is a look that is distinctly Australian, one we have long internalised as well as projected to the world. I was taught that in the schoolyard. The Aussies were the kids with white skin with easy-to-sound Anglo names that could be transformed into slang like Jonno. The sense of exclusion, or feeling lesser in this country based on your skin colour or ethnic background does not end in the playground, or the backpacker bar. It is by no means a new revelation. Neither is the idea of a double standard approach based on the ethnic group in question. Peter Dutton made that clear when he sought to provide special attention to white South African farmers facing land confiscation in 2018 while presiding over the indefinite detention of mostly Muslims fleeing conflict and persecution in offshore facilities. So, the decision to criminalise Australians in India for entering the country was not made in a vacuum, or out of context. Its the logical progression for a society that to a large degree still affords different levels of inclusion based on the colour of ones skin, the language spoken, the tone of ones English accent, and the religious customs one exercises or, quite simply, through Othering. Government ministers have insisted that protecting the public health of Australians was the foremost consideration behind its decision. And perhaps that is true, that consciously, our leaders made a snap decision in the best interest of those of us here; to keep our Covid situation under control and our domestic economy moving. So far, the overwhelming majority of Australians have backed their leaders in making the tough calls, including shutting state borders on each other. But its the different approach between how our government has responded to a surge in cases in India versus previous surges in predominantly Anglo-Saxon nations that has brought attention to our unconscious biases. Many of us are conditioned to see people of colour as less Australian. We understand in this country, from quite an early age, how to define Australian and Other. In fact, it was spelt out for us in the white Australia policy 120 years ago. The programme of a white Australia, said Alfred Deakin, the architect of the policy in 1901, means not merely its preservation for the future it means the consideration of those who cannot be classed within the category of whites, but who have found their way into our midst. The success of the policy is that even today, almost half a century after it was abolished, that definition of Australian still informs much of our popular perceptions of who we are. Othering and excluding does not simply come in the form of outspoken Trumpian vitriol, but also subtly - in our daily lexicon and perceptions. For example, the Aussie label is widely understood to be reserved for Anglo-Celtic kids at school. Likewise, asking someone of colour who is born and raised in this country where are you from? or whats your natio? is based on an unwritten social understanding that their non-Anglo attributes exclude them from being from here, from being Australian. For people who dont fit the popular stereotype of what an Australian looks or sounds like, the sense of feeling lesser is understood through these social hints that begin early on and continue throughout life. Acknowledging that we are a society largely conditioned to othering even those among us helps illuminate that what the Morrison government did last Friday was very much in context. It also explains why many of us lack empathy for those we have othered Australias harsh border policies have consistently drawn widespread public support. Part of the process of othering is to dehumanise those we perceive as different, unfamiliar, or a threat to our own sense of self. Abandoning Australian citizens, mostly of Indian heritage, to peril neatly captures the real-life consequence of how we distinguish Australian from Other. When we dehumanise certain corners of our society, we subconsciously absolve ourselves of any responsibility to come to their aid in times of need. We become more detached and less concerned. The white Australia policy is often spoken of as a regrettable relic of our history with a false assumption that weve been dismembered from its ignorance. But we havent, not entirely. Despite the significant progress, both legislatively and culturally, since its abolishment, the policys prejudiced worldview still casts a shadow in the consciousness of many in this society. One obvious lesson from the Black Lives Matter movement is that racism does not need to be intentional or overt. Courtesy of this nations colonial upbringing, many of us instinctively minimise the worth of people of colour without at times being aware of it, and its often demonstrated through an inability to empathise. Just ask the families of the nearly 500 Indigenous people who have died in custody over the last 30 years or, now, the families of Australians in India now abandoned by their own government. This failure of empathy, failure of inclusion, sadly, still influences, consciously and unconsciously, how many in our country continue to perceive each other, and ultimately, how elements of our government act. | The decision to criminalise Australians in India for entering the country was not made in a vacuum, or out of context, says Aussie writer. Aussies are conditioned to see people of colour as less Australian. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2021/may/07/have-australians-in-india-been-abandoned-because-people-of-colour-are-seen-as-less-australian | 0.191586 |
Have Australians in India been abandoned because people of colour are seen as less Australian? | You dont look Australian, someone once said to me in a bar overseas, elaborating when quizzed that the typical Aussie look was of blond surfers. I couldnt fault this man for forming that perception. I havent looked Australian my entire life. Because there is a look that is distinctly Australian, one we have long internalised as well as projected to the world. I was taught that in the schoolyard. The Aussies were the kids with white skin with easy-to-sound Anglo names that could be transformed into slang like Jonno. The sense of exclusion, or feeling lesser in this country based on your skin colour or ethnic background does not end in the playground, or the backpacker bar. It is by no means a new revelation. Neither is the idea of a double standard approach based on the ethnic group in question. Peter Dutton made that clear when he sought to provide special attention to white South African farmers facing land confiscation in 2018 while presiding over the indefinite detention of mostly Muslims fleeing conflict and persecution in offshore facilities. So, the decision to criminalise Australians in India for entering the country was not made in a vacuum, or out of context. Its the logical progression for a society that to a large degree still affords different levels of inclusion based on the colour of ones skin, the language spoken, the tone of ones English accent, and the religious customs one exercises or, quite simply, through Othering. Government ministers have insisted that protecting the public health of Australians was the foremost consideration behind its decision. And perhaps that is true, that consciously, our leaders made a snap decision in the best interest of those of us here; to keep our Covid situation under control and our domestic economy moving. So far, the overwhelming majority of Australians have backed their leaders in making the tough calls, including shutting state borders on each other. But its the different approach between how our government has responded to a surge in cases in India versus previous surges in predominantly Anglo-Saxon nations that has brought attention to our unconscious biases. Many of us are conditioned to see people of colour as less Australian. We understand in this country, from quite an early age, how to define Australian and Other. In fact, it was spelt out for us in the white Australia policy 120 years ago. The programme of a white Australia, said Alfred Deakin, the architect of the policy in 1901, means not merely its preservation for the future it means the consideration of those who cannot be classed within the category of whites, but who have found their way into our midst. The success of the policy is that even today, almost half a century after it was abolished, that definition of Australian still informs much of our popular perceptions of who we are. Othering and excluding does not simply come in the form of outspoken Trumpian vitriol, but also subtly - in our daily lexicon and perceptions. For example, the Aussie label is widely understood to be reserved for Anglo-Celtic kids at school. Likewise, asking someone of colour who is born and raised in this country where are you from? or whats your natio? is based on an unwritten social understanding that their non-Anglo attributes exclude them from being from here, from being Australian. For people who dont fit the popular stereotype of what an Australian looks or sounds like, the sense of feeling lesser is understood through these social hints that begin early on and continue throughout life. Acknowledging that we are a society largely conditioned to othering even those among us helps illuminate that what the Morrison government did last Friday was very much in context. It also explains why many of us lack empathy for those we have othered Australias harsh border policies have consistently drawn widespread public support. Part of the process of othering is to dehumanise those we perceive as different, unfamiliar, or a threat to our own sense of self. Abandoning Australian citizens, mostly of Indian heritage, to peril neatly captures the real-life consequence of how we distinguish Australian from Other. When we dehumanise certain corners of our society, we subconsciously absolve ourselves of any responsibility to come to their aid in times of need. We become more detached and less concerned. The white Australia policy is often spoken of as a regrettable relic of our history with a false assumption that weve been dismembered from its ignorance. But we havent, not entirely. Despite the significant progress, both legislatively and culturally, since its abolishment, the policys prejudiced worldview still casts a shadow in the consciousness of many in this society. One obvious lesson from the Black Lives Matter movement is that racism does not need to be intentional or overt. Courtesy of this nations colonial upbringing, many of us instinctively minimise the worth of people of colour without at times being aware of it, and its often demonstrated through an inability to empathise. Just ask the families of the nearly 500 Indigenous people who have died in custody over the last 30 years or, now, the families of Australians in India now abandoned by their own government. This failure of empathy, failure of inclusion, sadly, still influences, consciously and unconsciously, how many in our country continue to perceive each other, and ultimately, how elements of our government act. | The decision to criminalise Australians in India for entering the country was not made in a vacuum, or out of context, says Aussie writer. Aussies are conditioned to see people of colour as less Australian, writes Aussie author. Aussie government has insisted that protecting the public health of Australians was the foremost consideration behind its decision. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2021/may/07/have-australians-in-india-been-abandoned-because-people-of-colour-are-seen-as-less-australian | 0.298964 |
Can the Oversight Board force Facebook to follow its own rules? | Facebooks Oversight Board finally handed down its most consequential decision to date: whether or not Facebooks indefinite suspension of Donald Trump should be permanent. Except, it only sort of made a decision. In an unexpected twist , the board said that, while it agreed with Facebooks initial call to suspend Trump, it disagreed with its handling of the situation, and that the company should be the ones to decide whether Trump should be able to return to the platform. So, once again, the fate of Donald Trumps Facebook account is up in the air. The social network, led by Nick Clegg, has six months to make up its mind. It could drag on even longer if it's appealed to the Oversight Board for a second time something the boards members readily acknowledged as a distinct possibility. Unsurprisingly, not everyone was happy with this outcome. The Real Facebook Oversight Board, a group of prominent Facebook critics , called the decision a desperate attempt to have it both ways. Todays decision shows that the Facebook Oversight Board experiment has failed, it wrote in a statement . On its part, the Oversight Board has suggested its lack of a clear ruling on Trump was intended to send a strong message to Facebook. In applying an indeterminate and standardless penalty and then referring this case to the Board to resolve, Facebook seeks to avoid its responsibilities, the board wrote in its decision. The Board declines Facebooks request and insists that Facebook apply and justify a defined penalty. In other words: when it comes to Trump, Facebook needs to clean up its own mess. The Trump mess Whatever your opinion of the Oversight Board, this particular decision seems to have caught nearly everyone by surprise. Some have wondered if the board was reacting to widespread criticism that the organization exists merely to provide political cover for Facebook. Sending highly controversial and other borderline cases to the group is, after all, a convenient way for Facebook to avoid making hard and inevitably unpopular decisions (particularly ones that might draw additional regulatory scrutiny). Story continues Facebook, naturally, disagrees. We are trying to hold the decisions that Facebook takes as a private company to the fullest possible account and make it transparent and accountable to an independent body, Clegg said following the boards decision. But the Oversight Boards decision to hand things back to Facebook speaks to issues that run much deeper than just Trump. One of the most notable issues raised by the Oversight Board in its 12,000-word decision is that Facebook isnt particularly good at consistently enforcing its own policies, especially when it comes to politicians and other influential figures. During a call with reporters, both Oversight Board co-chairs, Michale McConnell and Helle Thorning-Schmidt, repeatedly criticized Facebooks ability to apply its own rules in a way that makes sense. The Oversight Board is telling Facebook that they can't just invent new unwritten rules when it suits them, Thorning-Schmidt said. McConnell said that Trumps suspension was merely one example of Facebooks ad hoc-ery, noting that the board has received more than 20,000 appeals from users, many of whom dont understand the social networks policies or reasoning for taking action against their accounts. Influencing Facebook Merely pointing out the holes in Facebooks policies only goes so far, though. The company has for years (often, credibly ) been accused of making up its own rules to accommodate Trump or avoid a politically perilous decision. That the Oversight Board is now echoing some of those same criticisms changes little. But the board does have some ability to influence Facebooks rules, including how it treats Trump. Besides the binary take down/leave up decisions, the group also makes policy recommendations alongside each case. Unlike the specific content moderation issues, Facebook isnt required to do what the board says, but its required to respond and provide an explanation. Its these recommendations where the Oversight Board hopes to prompt meaningful change. In the case of Trumps suspension, it made several recommendations. Among them: Facebook should publicly explain the rules that it uses when it imposes account-level sanctions against influential users. When Facebook implements special procedures that apply to influential users, these should be well documented. Facebook should explain in its Community Standards and Guidelines its strikes and penalties process for restricting profiles, pages, groups and accounts on Facebook and Instagram in a clear, comprehensive, and accessible manner. Facebook must resist pressure from governments to silence their political opposition. In evaluating political speech from highly influential users, Facebook should rapidly escalate the content moderation process to specialized staff who are familiar with the linguistic and political context and insulated from political and economic interference and undue influence. When posts by influential users pose a high probability of imminent harm, as assessed under international human rights standards, Facebook should take action to enforce its rules quickly. Facebook should undertake a comprehensive review of its potential contribution to the narrative of electoral fraud and the exacerbated tensions that culminated in the violence in the United States on January 6, 2021. This should be an open reflection on the design and policy choices that Facebook has made that may enable its platform to be abused. But Facebook has already indicated that its unwilling to fully cooperate. In its decision, the board says that the company failed to answer several crucial questions, including several that speak to the very issues it raises in its policy recommendations. For example, the board states that Facebook wouldnt answer key questions about how News Feed or other Facebook features may have amplified Trumps posts, or whether the company intends to research those design decisions in relation to the events of January 6, 2021. Those questions speak to some of the most fundamental issues surrounding Trumps suspension, including Facebooks role in failing to prevent the Stop the Steal movement . Likewise, the board said Facebook also declined to answer questions relating to its treatment of other politicians, and whether it had been contacted by political officeholders or their staff about the suspension of Mr. Trumps accounts, or whether the suspension affects political advertising. According to the board, Facebook said some of these requests were not reasonably required under the rules that govern the Oversight Board. All that, again, raises questions about how much influence Facebook is willing to let the Oversight Board have. The companys treatment for elected officials, its rules for political ads and the consequences of its algorithms are some of the most consequential issues its currently grappling with. If Facebook was unwilling to even answer questions about these topics, it seems unlikely it would fully embrace all of the Oversight Boards policy changes. | Facebook's Oversight Board said it disagreed with Facebook's initial call to suspend Trump. The board said Facebook should be the ones to decide whether Trump should be able to return to the platform. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://finance.yahoo.com/news/facebook-oversight-board-trump-influence-203741183.html | 0.147915 |
Can the Oversight Board force Facebook to follow its own rules? | Facebooks Oversight Board finally handed down its most consequential decision to date: whether or not Facebooks indefinite suspension of Donald Trump should be permanent. Except, it only sort of made a decision. In an unexpected twist , the board said that, while it agreed with Facebooks initial call to suspend Trump, it disagreed with its handling of the situation, and that the company should be the ones to decide whether Trump should be able to return to the platform. So, once again, the fate of Donald Trumps Facebook account is up in the air. The social network, led by Nick Clegg, has six months to make up its mind. It could drag on even longer if it's appealed to the Oversight Board for a second time something the boards members readily acknowledged as a distinct possibility. Unsurprisingly, not everyone was happy with this outcome. The Real Facebook Oversight Board, a group of prominent Facebook critics , called the decision a desperate attempt to have it both ways. Todays decision shows that the Facebook Oversight Board experiment has failed, it wrote in a statement . On its part, the Oversight Board has suggested its lack of a clear ruling on Trump was intended to send a strong message to Facebook. In applying an indeterminate and standardless penalty and then referring this case to the Board to resolve, Facebook seeks to avoid its responsibilities, the board wrote in its decision. The Board declines Facebooks request and insists that Facebook apply and justify a defined penalty. In other words: when it comes to Trump, Facebook needs to clean up its own mess. The Trump mess Whatever your opinion of the Oversight Board, this particular decision seems to have caught nearly everyone by surprise. Some have wondered if the board was reacting to widespread criticism that the organization exists merely to provide political cover for Facebook. Sending highly controversial and other borderline cases to the group is, after all, a convenient way for Facebook to avoid making hard and inevitably unpopular decisions (particularly ones that might draw additional regulatory scrutiny). Story continues Facebook, naturally, disagrees. We are trying to hold the decisions that Facebook takes as a private company to the fullest possible account and make it transparent and accountable to an independent body, Clegg said following the boards decision. But the Oversight Boards decision to hand things back to Facebook speaks to issues that run much deeper than just Trump. One of the most notable issues raised by the Oversight Board in its 12,000-word decision is that Facebook isnt particularly good at consistently enforcing its own policies, especially when it comes to politicians and other influential figures. During a call with reporters, both Oversight Board co-chairs, Michale McConnell and Helle Thorning-Schmidt, repeatedly criticized Facebooks ability to apply its own rules in a way that makes sense. The Oversight Board is telling Facebook that they can't just invent new unwritten rules when it suits them, Thorning-Schmidt said. McConnell said that Trumps suspension was merely one example of Facebooks ad hoc-ery, noting that the board has received more than 20,000 appeals from users, many of whom dont understand the social networks policies or reasoning for taking action against their accounts. Influencing Facebook Merely pointing out the holes in Facebooks policies only goes so far, though. The company has for years (often, credibly ) been accused of making up its own rules to accommodate Trump or avoid a politically perilous decision. That the Oversight Board is now echoing some of those same criticisms changes little. But the board does have some ability to influence Facebooks rules, including how it treats Trump. Besides the binary take down/leave up decisions, the group also makes policy recommendations alongside each case. Unlike the specific content moderation issues, Facebook isnt required to do what the board says, but its required to respond and provide an explanation. Its these recommendations where the Oversight Board hopes to prompt meaningful change. In the case of Trumps suspension, it made several recommendations. Among them: Facebook should publicly explain the rules that it uses when it imposes account-level sanctions against influential users. When Facebook implements special procedures that apply to influential users, these should be well documented. Facebook should explain in its Community Standards and Guidelines its strikes and penalties process for restricting profiles, pages, groups and accounts on Facebook and Instagram in a clear, comprehensive, and accessible manner. Facebook must resist pressure from governments to silence their political opposition. In evaluating political speech from highly influential users, Facebook should rapidly escalate the content moderation process to specialized staff who are familiar with the linguistic and political context and insulated from political and economic interference and undue influence. When posts by influential users pose a high probability of imminent harm, as assessed under international human rights standards, Facebook should take action to enforce its rules quickly. Facebook should undertake a comprehensive review of its potential contribution to the narrative of electoral fraud and the exacerbated tensions that culminated in the violence in the United States on January 6, 2021. This should be an open reflection on the design and policy choices that Facebook has made that may enable its platform to be abused. But Facebook has already indicated that its unwilling to fully cooperate. In its decision, the board says that the company failed to answer several crucial questions, including several that speak to the very issues it raises in its policy recommendations. For example, the board states that Facebook wouldnt answer key questions about how News Feed or other Facebook features may have amplified Trumps posts, or whether the company intends to research those design decisions in relation to the events of January 6, 2021. Those questions speak to some of the most fundamental issues surrounding Trumps suspension, including Facebooks role in failing to prevent the Stop the Steal movement . Likewise, the board said Facebook also declined to answer questions relating to its treatment of other politicians, and whether it had been contacted by political officeholders or their staff about the suspension of Mr. Trumps accounts, or whether the suspension affects political advertising. According to the board, Facebook said some of these requests were not reasonably required under the rules that govern the Oversight Board. All that, again, raises questions about how much influence Facebook is willing to let the Oversight Board have. The companys treatment for elected officials, its rules for political ads and the consequences of its algorithms are some of the most consequential issues its currently grappling with. If Facebook was unwilling to even answer questions about these topics, it seems unlikely it would fully embrace all of the Oversight Boards policy changes. | Facebook's Oversight Board said it disagreed with Facebook's initial call to suspend Trump. The board said Facebook should be the ones to decide whether Trump should be able to return to the platform. Facebook has six months to make up its mind about whether or not to reinstate Trump. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://finance.yahoo.com/news/facebook-oversight-board-trump-influence-203741183.html | 0.201292 |
How did the Guardian survive 200 years? | On the day the Guardian was born in Manchester on 5 May 1821, the big story was taking place 4,800 miles away on an island in the south Atlantic. The first edition of the Manchester Guardian, published on 5 May 1821. Photograph: Guardian News & Media Archive/The Guardian The fact that it took weeks for news of Napoleon Bonapartes death on St Helena to become known shows how communication has sped up down the years. It also shows just how long the Guardian has been around. This was the world of the first Industrial Revolution, built around steam power and textiles, a time when Manchester businessmen wanted to harness the power of the press to push for the vote. Electric power was a thing of the future. The rich got around on horseback; the poor walked. Back in the spring of 1821, pressure was starting to build for electoral reform. George Stephenson was still some years away from perfecting the Rocket. Charles Dickens was nine and had yet to face the indignity of working in the boot-blacking factory later immortalised in David Copperfield. It would be eight years before Robert Peel established the Metropolitan police. The Tolpuddle martyrs would not be transported to Australia until the middle of the next decade. The first FA Cup final was still almost half a century distant. From politics to transport, from literature to crime, from workers rights to sport, the themes have remained unchanged down the years. The Guardian of 2021 has lived through two centuries of often wrenching change: two world wars; a Great Depression; Britains rise and fall as an industrial powerhouse; the technological innovation that brought the world the internal combustion engine, air travel and the personal computer. While many other companies that existed back in 1821 are no more, what was originally the Manchester Guardian has lived to see the dawning of a fourth Industrial Revolution, in which the commercial breakthroughs are in artificial intelligence and biotechnology. Of the companies that make up the FTSE 100, only six were founded before the Guardian, underlining the message from Alfred Marshall, a Cambridge economist, that just as with the trees in a forest, there would be large and small firms but sooner or later age tells on them all. A study by the economist Les Hannah looked at what happened to the worlds biggest companies between 1912 and 1995. More than a quarter (29%) had gone bankrupt, 48 had disappeared as independent entities and only 28 were larger in 1995 than they had been 73 years earlier. Paul Ormerod, the author of Why Most Things Fail, opened his book by saying: Failure is all around us. Failure is pervasive. Failure is everywhere, across time, across place and across different aspects of life. Even in periods when the world is not being laid low by a pandemic, 10% of US companies disappear each year. All of this makes the Guardian which began life as what would now be called a startup venture something of a rarity: a business that has not gone bust, been taken over or merged into a bigger entity. The site of the Manchester Guardian building in 1821, from The Manchester Guardian A Century of History by W Haslam Mills (London, 1921). Photograph: Illustrator unknown/GNM Archive In truth, 1821 was not the most propitious time to launch a newspaper. Britain was still largely an agrarian economy and the end of the Napoleonic wars had resulted in a severe agricultural depression. They were tough times, too, for the cotton mills of Lancashire, where wages of factory hands fell sharply. Soldiers returning from the Duke of Wellingtons army at the battle of Waterloo found it hard to find work. According to Ormerod, the probability of a firm going under is highest in the first two to three years of its existence, and as the papers former editor Alan Rusbridger says, there was no great business model for serious, awkward, inquiring journalism in 1821 any more than there is today. What the Guardian has always enjoyed is a strong brand and reader loyalty, both vital if a venture is to make it through the inevitable rough patches. The Guardian has always had a distinct position, been the outsiders, Rusbridger says. We were in Manchester when everybody was in London; when everybody was in Fleet Street we were in Farringdon Road, we were left-wing when everybody else was right-wing. The subeditors room at the offices of the Manchester Guardian in 1958. Photograph: Bert Hardy/Getty Images Katharine Viner, the current editor-in-chief, says: Not many brands last for very long, and very few last for two centuries. I think the Guardian has survived because we have been absolutely clear on what were here to do our journalistic purpose, and who we are here to serve. Unlike some newspapers, the Guardian has never had a billionaire sugar daddy, but Viner and Rusbridger point to its unique ownership structure as a factor behind its continued existence. The Scott Trust ownership, since 1936, means that we are able to make decisions for the long term: for example, embracing the digital revolution as an opportunity as well as a threat, Viner says. We realised that we are an organisation that believes in the importance of providing journalism for our readers, not about printing newspapers an important difference. The Guardian is, of course, not the only publication to have shown staying power. The Times dates back to 1785, while the Spectator was first published in 1828. The Observer, the Guardians sister paper, was first printed in 1791. Longevity has not tended to correlate with profitability. Newspapers, the Guardian and the Observer included, have often teetered on the brink of closure. In 1971, to mark the Guardians 150th birthday, the then editor, Alastair Hetherington, wrote an essay in which he freely confessed that the move from Manchester to London in the late 1950s had proved difficult. Trying to do things on a shoestring was the Guardians worst mistake of the postwar era. 119 Farringdon Road pictured in 1976, shortly before the Guardian moved in from its Grays Inn offices. Photograph: Peter Johns/The Guardian For much of its life, along with the rest of the newspaper industry, the Guardians survival was aided by the absence of disruptive technological change. The way papers were printed moved on but the basic business model gather news, print news, fill in the blank spaces with advertising remained the same. Radio and TV were complementary rather than challenger technologies. The digital revolution has forced all newspapers to reassess their business models. For the Guardian, cashing in on its investment in Trader Media Group, the publishers of AutoTrader, has provided financial security. Viner says: There is still a lot of risk, but the Guardians revenues are now well over 60% digital, and driven mostly by our readers. Ultimately, though, the Guardian is clear about who we are and what we stand for, as laid out by CP Scott in his extraordinary essay in 1921: that our values are honesty, integrity, courage, fairness, a sense of duty to the reader and the community; that the Guardian must always be editorially led; and that we put principle before profit. We have roots, we have principles, we have philosophy, we have values. We know who we are. Rusbridger says: If Rupert Murdoch looked at the Guardian he would probably say it was a crap business that nobody ever made any money out of. But here we are 200 years later, its got 1bn in the bank and its nicely set up. Asked if he thinks the Guardian will last for another 200 years, he adds: Its got as good a chance as anybody. | The first edition of the Manchester Guardian was published on 5 May 1821. The Guardian has survived two world wars, a Great Depression and Britains rise and fall as an industrial powerhouse. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/07/guardian-200-how-survive-two-hundred-years | 0.12604 |
How did the Guardian survive 200 years? | On the day the Guardian was born in Manchester on 5 May 1821, the big story was taking place 4,800 miles away on an island in the south Atlantic. The first edition of the Manchester Guardian, published on 5 May 1821. Photograph: Guardian News & Media Archive/The Guardian The fact that it took weeks for news of Napoleon Bonapartes death on St Helena to become known shows how communication has sped up down the years. It also shows just how long the Guardian has been around. This was the world of the first Industrial Revolution, built around steam power and textiles, a time when Manchester businessmen wanted to harness the power of the press to push for the vote. Electric power was a thing of the future. The rich got around on horseback; the poor walked. Back in the spring of 1821, pressure was starting to build for electoral reform. George Stephenson was still some years away from perfecting the Rocket. Charles Dickens was nine and had yet to face the indignity of working in the boot-blacking factory later immortalised in David Copperfield. It would be eight years before Robert Peel established the Metropolitan police. The Tolpuddle martyrs would not be transported to Australia until the middle of the next decade. The first FA Cup final was still almost half a century distant. From politics to transport, from literature to crime, from workers rights to sport, the themes have remained unchanged down the years. The Guardian of 2021 has lived through two centuries of often wrenching change: two world wars; a Great Depression; Britains rise and fall as an industrial powerhouse; the technological innovation that brought the world the internal combustion engine, air travel and the personal computer. While many other companies that existed back in 1821 are no more, what was originally the Manchester Guardian has lived to see the dawning of a fourth Industrial Revolution, in which the commercial breakthroughs are in artificial intelligence and biotechnology. Of the companies that make up the FTSE 100, only six were founded before the Guardian, underlining the message from Alfred Marshall, a Cambridge economist, that just as with the trees in a forest, there would be large and small firms but sooner or later age tells on them all. A study by the economist Les Hannah looked at what happened to the worlds biggest companies between 1912 and 1995. More than a quarter (29%) had gone bankrupt, 48 had disappeared as independent entities and only 28 were larger in 1995 than they had been 73 years earlier. Paul Ormerod, the author of Why Most Things Fail, opened his book by saying: Failure is all around us. Failure is pervasive. Failure is everywhere, across time, across place and across different aspects of life. Even in periods when the world is not being laid low by a pandemic, 10% of US companies disappear each year. All of this makes the Guardian which began life as what would now be called a startup venture something of a rarity: a business that has not gone bust, been taken over or merged into a bigger entity. The site of the Manchester Guardian building in 1821, from The Manchester Guardian A Century of History by W Haslam Mills (London, 1921). Photograph: Illustrator unknown/GNM Archive In truth, 1821 was not the most propitious time to launch a newspaper. Britain was still largely an agrarian economy and the end of the Napoleonic wars had resulted in a severe agricultural depression. They were tough times, too, for the cotton mills of Lancashire, where wages of factory hands fell sharply. Soldiers returning from the Duke of Wellingtons army at the battle of Waterloo found it hard to find work. According to Ormerod, the probability of a firm going under is highest in the first two to three years of its existence, and as the papers former editor Alan Rusbridger says, there was no great business model for serious, awkward, inquiring journalism in 1821 any more than there is today. What the Guardian has always enjoyed is a strong brand and reader loyalty, both vital if a venture is to make it through the inevitable rough patches. The Guardian has always had a distinct position, been the outsiders, Rusbridger says. We were in Manchester when everybody was in London; when everybody was in Fleet Street we were in Farringdon Road, we were left-wing when everybody else was right-wing. The subeditors room at the offices of the Manchester Guardian in 1958. Photograph: Bert Hardy/Getty Images Katharine Viner, the current editor-in-chief, says: Not many brands last for very long, and very few last for two centuries. I think the Guardian has survived because we have been absolutely clear on what were here to do our journalistic purpose, and who we are here to serve. Unlike some newspapers, the Guardian has never had a billionaire sugar daddy, but Viner and Rusbridger point to its unique ownership structure as a factor behind its continued existence. The Scott Trust ownership, since 1936, means that we are able to make decisions for the long term: for example, embracing the digital revolution as an opportunity as well as a threat, Viner says. We realised that we are an organisation that believes in the importance of providing journalism for our readers, not about printing newspapers an important difference. The Guardian is, of course, not the only publication to have shown staying power. The Times dates back to 1785, while the Spectator was first published in 1828. The Observer, the Guardians sister paper, was first printed in 1791. Longevity has not tended to correlate with profitability. Newspapers, the Guardian and the Observer included, have often teetered on the brink of closure. In 1971, to mark the Guardians 150th birthday, the then editor, Alastair Hetherington, wrote an essay in which he freely confessed that the move from Manchester to London in the late 1950s had proved difficult. Trying to do things on a shoestring was the Guardians worst mistake of the postwar era. 119 Farringdon Road pictured in 1976, shortly before the Guardian moved in from its Grays Inn offices. Photograph: Peter Johns/The Guardian For much of its life, along with the rest of the newspaper industry, the Guardians survival was aided by the absence of disruptive technological change. The way papers were printed moved on but the basic business model gather news, print news, fill in the blank spaces with advertising remained the same. Radio and TV were complementary rather than challenger technologies. The digital revolution has forced all newspapers to reassess their business models. For the Guardian, cashing in on its investment in Trader Media Group, the publishers of AutoTrader, has provided financial security. Viner says: There is still a lot of risk, but the Guardians revenues are now well over 60% digital, and driven mostly by our readers. Ultimately, though, the Guardian is clear about who we are and what we stand for, as laid out by CP Scott in his extraordinary essay in 1921: that our values are honesty, integrity, courage, fairness, a sense of duty to the reader and the community; that the Guardian must always be editorially led; and that we put principle before profit. We have roots, we have principles, we have philosophy, we have values. We know who we are. Rusbridger says: If Rupert Murdoch looked at the Guardian he would probably say it was a crap business that nobody ever made any money out of. But here we are 200 years later, its got 1bn in the bank and its nicely set up. Asked if he thinks the Guardian will last for another 200 years, he adds: Its got as good a chance as anybody. | The first edition of the Manchester Guardian was published on 5 May 1821. The newspaper has survived two world wars, a Great Depression and Britains rise and fall as an industrial powerhouse. The Guardian of 2021 has lived through two centuries of often wrenching change. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/07/guardian-200-how-survive-two-hundred-years | 0.148197 |
What did last weeks elections tell us about the GOPs hope for a comeback? | Every four years, a sparse array of local and state contests in the aftermath of a presidential election provides a challenge for politicians and pundits seeking variations in the nations political trends. Often, these races buoyed the party that just lost the White House, either in the inevitable special elections for congressional vacancies or in the two states New Jersey and Virginia that choose governors. Because the 2021 special congressional contests are mainly in safe districts, these races are more likely to follow form than provide revelations. That was certainly true in the Democratic victory in the recent Louisiana race and the fact two Republicans made the runoff Saturday in a suburban Dallas district. But two statewide contests on opposite sides of the country one traditional, one not may provide the best opportunities for testing if the Democrats are maintaining their recent strength or Republicans are beginning to mount a comeback. One is the regularly scheduled gubernatorial election in Virginia, where Republicans hope to end the recent Democratic domination that has seen only one GOP governor elected in the last 20 years. The other is a recall election in California where Republicans hope to unseat a Democratic governor for the second time in this century. For more than four decades with one lone exception the winner of Virginias governorship has been the party that lost the presidential election just 12 months earlier. That was eight years ago, when Democrat Terry McAuliffe was narrowly elected. Since then, Democrats have solidified their hold on the one-time conservative bastion, capturing both houses of the General Assembly as well as the three elected statewide offices. Republicans have not won Virginia in a presidential election since 2004, and President Joe Biden outpaced his national showing there last year with 54% of the vote. Unfortunately for Republican hopes, this years Democratic nominee is again likely to be McAuliffe, who was a popular state executive and is seeking a second non-consecutive term in the only state that still bars its governors from seeking reelection. Polls show the 64-year-old McAuliffe with a commanding lead in the June 8 Democratic primary over four rivals, three of them African Americans. Popular and well-financed, hell be a strong favorite in November. Meanwhile, as elsewhere, the states Republicans are struggling to throw off the shadow of former President Donald Trump, never popular in the state. Fearful that an unabashed Trump supporter, state Sen. Amanda Chase, might win a primary, party leaders opted instead for something of a hybrid, an unassembled state convention being held Saturday in some 40 different locations. It could attract 40,000 participants. Chase has six opponents, the most prominent of whom are two businessmen, Glenn Youngkin and Pete Snyder, and the former GOP speaker of the House of Delegates, Kirk Cox. They are competing with one another in echoing Trumps call for tightening voter laws, though there is no evidence fraud is a problem. The GOPs best hope is a possible backlash against the Democratic legislatures enactment of liberal legislation, including new gun laws, or dissatisfaction over state management of school closings and vaccine distribution during the COVID-19 pandemic. If Virginias election is pretty much politics as usual, Californias is not. For the second time in 18 years, Republicans hope to benefit from the states century-old voter empowerment procedures to recall an elected Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom. In 2003, a similar effort unseated Gov. Gray Davis, whose popularity plunged over his mishandling of energy shortages and state finances. Voters installed movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, as the states governor, and he subsequently won a second term in 2006. Davis, never that popular, had been reelected in 2002 by a relatively modest margin, but voter dissatisfaction dropped his job approval into the 20s. Along with the popular Schwarzenegger, at least one prominent Democrat sought to displace him. Newsom appears in a far stronger position. In the last 20 years, Democrats have solidified their control of California, winning every recent statewide contest by a massive margin. Newsom, formerly San Franciscos mayor and lieutenant governor, was elected in 2018 by nearly 3 million votes and remains relatively popular with job approval in the low 50s. The states finances are excellent, thanks to tax raises on wealthier Californians enacted under former Gov. Jerry Brown. But Newsom got a spate of bad publicity for attending a birthday party for a lobbyist at a posh restaurant when anti-COVID guidelines barred such events, and he incurred the wrath of some conservatives for closings during the pandemic. Critics got the required 1.5 million signatures to force a recall vote, but Democrats so far are united behind Newsom. The four announced Republican opponents are 2018 GOP nominee John Cox, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, former Rep. Doug Ose and Caitlyn Jenner, the reality television star and transgender activist, who is getting help from some former Trump campaign officials. But the recall, not yet scheduled, is at least six months off a lifetime in politics. Much may depend on how Newsom and the national Democratic Party fare between now and then. Both Virginia and California seem uphill for the GOP. But if Republicans can manage to pull off one or both, it would give them a big psychological boost going into the 2022 state and congressional elections. Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of The Dallas Morning News and a frequent contributor. Send a letter to the editor and you just might get published. | John Avlon: Virginia, California gubernatorial races offer clues to GOP's fortunes. He says both states have been dominated by Democrats in recent years. Avlon says the races could provide clues to whether Republicans are making a comeback. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2021/05/06/what-did-last-weeks-elections-tell-us-about-the-gops-hope-for-a-comeback/ | 0.105546 |
Can Guantnamo Ever Be Shut Down? | EDITORS NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch. Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Get The Nations Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nations journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week. Thank you for signing up for The Nations weekly newsletter. Join the Books & the Arts Newsletter Mondays. The best of The Nations Books & the Arts, in your inbox biweekly. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nations journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Mondays. The best of The Nations Books & the Arts, in your inbox biweekly. Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. Sign up for our Wine Club today. The Guantnamo conundrum never seems to end. Twelve years ago, I had other expectations. I envisioned a writing project that I had no doubt would be part of my future: an account of Guantnamos last 100 days. I expected to narrate in reverse, the episodes in a book I had just published, The Least Worst Place: Guantnamos First 100 Days, aboutwell, the title makes it all too obviousthe initial days at that grim offshore prison. They began on January 11, 2002, as the first hooded prisoners of the American war on terror were ushered off a plane at that American military base on the island of Cuba. Needless to say, I never did write that book. Sadly enough, in the intervening years, there were few signs on the horizon of an imminent closing of that US military prison. Weeks before my book was published in February 2009, President Barack Obama did, in fact, promise to close Guantnamo by the end of his first year in the White House. That hope began to unravel with remarkable speed. By the end of his presidency, his administration had, in fact, managed to release 197 of the prisoners held there without chargesmany, including Mohamedou Ould Slahi, the subject of the film The Mauritanian, had also been torturedbut 41 remained, including the five men accused but not yet tried for plotting the 9/11 attacks. Forty remain there to this very day. Nearly 20 years after it began, the war in Afghanistan that launched this countrys Global War on Terror and the indefinite detention of prisoners in that facility offshore of American justice is now actually slated to end. President Biden recently insisted that it is indeed time to end Americas longest war and announced that all American troops would be withdrawn from that country by September 11th, the 20th anniversary of Al Qaedas attack on the United States. It makes sense, of course, that the conclusion of those hostilities would indeed be tied to the closure of the now-notorious Guantnamo Bay detention facility. Unfortunately, for reasons that go back to the very origins of the war on terror, ending the Afghan part of this countrys forever wars may not presage the release of those forever prisoners, as New York Times reporter Carol Rosenberg so aptly labeled them years ago. Biden and Guantnamo Just as President Biden has a history, dating back to his years as Obamas vice president, of wanting to curtail the American presence in Afghanistan, so he called years ago for the closure of Guantnamo. As early as June 2005, then-Senator Biden expressed his desire to shut that facility, seeing it as a stain on this countrys reputation abroad. At the time, he proposed that an independent commission take a look at Guantnamo Bay and make recommendations as to its future. But, he said then, I think we should end up shutting it down, moving those prisoners. Those that we have reason to keep, keep. And those we dont, let go. Sixteen years later, he has indeed put in motion an interagency review to look into that detention facilitys closing. Hopefully, once he receives its report, his administration can indeed begin to shut the notorious island prison down. (And this time, it could even work.) Current Issue View our current issue Its true that, in 2021, the idea of shutting the gates on Guantnamo has garnered some unprecedented mainstream support. As part of his confirmation process, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, for instance, signaled his support for its closure. And Congress, long unwilling to lend a hand, has offered some support as well. On April 16, 24 Democratic senators signed a letter to the president calling that facility a symbol of lawlessness and human rights abuses that continues to harm US national security and demanding that it be shut. As those senators wrote, For nearly two decades, the offshore prison has damaged Americas reputation, fueled anti-Muslim bigotry, and weakened the United States ability to counter terrorism and fight for human rights and the rule of law around the world. In addition to the $540 million in wasted taxpayer dollars each year to maintain and operate the facility, the prison also comes at the price of justice for the victims of 9/11 and their families, who are still waiting for trials to begin. Admittedly, the number of signatories on that letter raises many questions, including why there arent more (and why there isnt a single Republican among them). And theres another disappointment lurking in its text. While those senators correctly demanded a reversal of the Trump administrations erroneous and troubling legal positions regarding the application of international and domestic law to Guantnamo, they failed to expand upon the larger context of that forever nightmare of imprisonment, lawlessness, and cruelty that affected the war-on-terror prisoners at Guantnamo as well as at the CIAs black sites around the world. Still, that stance by those two-dozen senators is significant, since Congress has, in the past, taken such weak positions on closing the prison. As such, it provides some hope for the future. For the rest of Congress and the rest of us, when thinking about finally putting Guantnamo in the history books, its important to remember just what a vast deviation it proved to be from the law, justice, and the norms of this society. Its also worth thinking about the American detainees there in the context of what normally happens when wars end. Prisoners of War Defying custom and law, the American war in Afghanistan broke through norms like a battering ram through a gossamer wall. Guantnamo was created in just that context, a one-of-a-kind institution for this country. Now, so many years later, its poised to break through yet another norm. Usually, at the end of hostilities, battlefield detainees are let go. As Geneva Convention III, the law governing the detention and treatment of prisoners of war, asserts: Prisoners of war shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities. That custom of releasing prisoners has, in practice, pertained not only to those held on or near the battlefield but even to those detained far from the conflict. Before the Geneva Conventions were created, the custom of releasing such prisoners was already in place in the United States. Notably, during World War II, the United States held 425,000 mostly German prisoners in more than 500 camps in this country. When the war ended, however, they were released and the vast majority of them were returned to their home countries. When it comes to the closure of Guantnamo, however, we cant count on such an ending. Two war-on-terror realities stand in the way of linking the coming end of hostilities in Afghanistan to the shutting down of that prison. First, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force that Congress passed right after the 9/11 attacks was not geographically defined or limited to the war in Afghanistan. It focused on but was not confined to two groups, the Taliban and Al Qaeda, as well as anyone else who had contributed to the attacks of 9/11. As such, it was used as well to authorize military engagementsand the capture of prisonersoutside Afghanistan. Since 2001, in fact, it has been cited to authorize the use of force in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere. Of the 780 prisoners held at Guantnamo Bay at one time or another, more than a third came from Afghanistan; the remaining two-thirds were from 48 other countries. A second potential loophole exists when it comes to the release of prisoners as that war ends. The administration of George W. Bush rejected the very notion that those held at Guantnamo were prisoners of war, no matter how or where they had been captured. As non-state actors, according to that administration, they were exempted from prisoner of war status, which is why they were deliberately labeled detainees. Little wonder then that (as The New York Times recently reported), despite Secretary of Defense Austins position on Guantnamo, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby argued that there was no direct link between its future and the coming end to what he called the mission in Afghanistan. In fact, even if that congressional authorization for war and the opening of Guantnamo on which it was based never were solely linked to the conflict in Afghanistan, its time, almost two decades later, to put an end to that quagmire of a prison camp and the staggering exceptions that its woven into this countrys laws and norms since 2002. The closing of Guantnamo would finally signal an end to the otherwise endless proliferation of exceptions to the laws of war as well as to US domestic and military legal codes. As early as June 2004, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OConnor flagged the possibility that a system of indefinite detention at Guantnamo could create a permanent state of endless legal exceptionalism. She wrote an opinion that month in a habeas corpus case for the release of a Guantnamo detainee, the dual US-Saudi citizen Yaser Hamdi, warning that the prospect of turning that military prison into a never-ending exception to wartime detention and its laws posed dangers all its own. As she put it, We understand Congress grant of authority for the use of necessary and appropriate force to include the authority to detain for the duration of the relevant conflict, and our understanding is based on longstanding law-of-war principles. She concluded that if the practical circumstances of a given conflict are entirely unlike those of the conflicts that informed the development of the law of war[the] understanding [of release upon the end of hostilities] may unravel. But that is not the situation we face as of this date. Sadly enough, 17 years later, it turns out that the detention authority may be poised to outlive the use of force. Guantnamo has become an American institution at the cost of $13 million per prisoner annually. The system of offshore injustice has, by now, become part and parcel of the American system of justiceour very own forever prison. The difficulty of closing Guantnamo has shown that once you move outside the laws and norms of this country in a significant way, the return to normalcy becomes ever more problematicand the longer the exception, the harder such a restoration will be. Remember that, before his presidency was over, George W. Bush went on record acknowledging his preference for closing Guantnamo. Obama made it a goal of his presidency from the outset. Biden, with less fanfare and the lessons of their failures in mind, faces the challenge of finally closing Americas forever prison. With all that in mind, let me offer you a positive twist on this seemingly never-ending situation. I wont be surprised if, in fact, President Biden actually does manage to close Guantnamo. He may not do so as a result of the withdrawal of all American forces from Afghanistan but because he seems to have a genuine urge to shut the books on the war on terror, or at least the chapter of it initiated on 9/11. And if he were also to shut down that prison, in the spirit of that letter from the Democratic senators, it would be because of Guantnamos gross violations of American laws and norms. While the letter did not go so far as to name the larger sins of the past War on Terror, it did at least draw attention directly to the wrongfulness of indefinite detention as a system created expressly to evade the lawand one that brought ill-repute to the United States globally. That closure should certainly happen under President Biden. After all, any other course is not only legally unacceptable, but risks perpetuating the idea that this country continues to distrust the principles of law, human rights, and due processindeed, the very fundamentals of a democratic system. | In 2009, President Obama promised to close Guantnamo by the end of his first year in the White House. | pegasus | 0 | https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/close-guantanamo-bay/ | 0.162367 |
Can Guantnamo Ever Be Shut Down? | EDITORS NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch. Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Get The Nations Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nations journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week. Thank you for signing up for The Nations weekly newsletter. Join the Books & the Arts Newsletter Mondays. The best of The Nations Books & the Arts, in your inbox biweekly. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nations journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Mondays. The best of The Nations Books & the Arts, in your inbox biweekly. Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. Sign up for our Wine Club today. The Guantnamo conundrum never seems to end. Twelve years ago, I had other expectations. I envisioned a writing project that I had no doubt would be part of my future: an account of Guantnamos last 100 days. I expected to narrate in reverse, the episodes in a book I had just published, The Least Worst Place: Guantnamos First 100 Days, aboutwell, the title makes it all too obviousthe initial days at that grim offshore prison. They began on January 11, 2002, as the first hooded prisoners of the American war on terror were ushered off a plane at that American military base on the island of Cuba. Needless to say, I never did write that book. Sadly enough, in the intervening years, there were few signs on the horizon of an imminent closing of that US military prison. Weeks before my book was published in February 2009, President Barack Obama did, in fact, promise to close Guantnamo by the end of his first year in the White House. That hope began to unravel with remarkable speed. By the end of his presidency, his administration had, in fact, managed to release 197 of the prisoners held there without chargesmany, including Mohamedou Ould Slahi, the subject of the film The Mauritanian, had also been torturedbut 41 remained, including the five men accused but not yet tried for plotting the 9/11 attacks. Forty remain there to this very day. Nearly 20 years after it began, the war in Afghanistan that launched this countrys Global War on Terror and the indefinite detention of prisoners in that facility offshore of American justice is now actually slated to end. President Biden recently insisted that it is indeed time to end Americas longest war and announced that all American troops would be withdrawn from that country by September 11th, the 20th anniversary of Al Qaedas attack on the United States. It makes sense, of course, that the conclusion of those hostilities would indeed be tied to the closure of the now-notorious Guantnamo Bay detention facility. Unfortunately, for reasons that go back to the very origins of the war on terror, ending the Afghan part of this countrys forever wars may not presage the release of those forever prisoners, as New York Times reporter Carol Rosenberg so aptly labeled them years ago. Biden and Guantnamo Just as President Biden has a history, dating back to his years as Obamas vice president, of wanting to curtail the American presence in Afghanistan, so he called years ago for the closure of Guantnamo. As early as June 2005, then-Senator Biden expressed his desire to shut that facility, seeing it as a stain on this countrys reputation abroad. At the time, he proposed that an independent commission take a look at Guantnamo Bay and make recommendations as to its future. But, he said then, I think we should end up shutting it down, moving those prisoners. Those that we have reason to keep, keep. And those we dont, let go. Sixteen years later, he has indeed put in motion an interagency review to look into that detention facilitys closing. Hopefully, once he receives its report, his administration can indeed begin to shut the notorious island prison down. (And this time, it could even work.) Current Issue View our current issue Its true that, in 2021, the idea of shutting the gates on Guantnamo has garnered some unprecedented mainstream support. As part of his confirmation process, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, for instance, signaled his support for its closure. And Congress, long unwilling to lend a hand, has offered some support as well. On April 16, 24 Democratic senators signed a letter to the president calling that facility a symbol of lawlessness and human rights abuses that continues to harm US national security and demanding that it be shut. As those senators wrote, For nearly two decades, the offshore prison has damaged Americas reputation, fueled anti-Muslim bigotry, and weakened the United States ability to counter terrorism and fight for human rights and the rule of law around the world. In addition to the $540 million in wasted taxpayer dollars each year to maintain and operate the facility, the prison also comes at the price of justice for the victims of 9/11 and their families, who are still waiting for trials to begin. Admittedly, the number of signatories on that letter raises many questions, including why there arent more (and why there isnt a single Republican among them). And theres another disappointment lurking in its text. While those senators correctly demanded a reversal of the Trump administrations erroneous and troubling legal positions regarding the application of international and domestic law to Guantnamo, they failed to expand upon the larger context of that forever nightmare of imprisonment, lawlessness, and cruelty that affected the war-on-terror prisoners at Guantnamo as well as at the CIAs black sites around the world. Still, that stance by those two-dozen senators is significant, since Congress has, in the past, taken such weak positions on closing the prison. As such, it provides some hope for the future. For the rest of Congress and the rest of us, when thinking about finally putting Guantnamo in the history books, its important to remember just what a vast deviation it proved to be from the law, justice, and the norms of this society. Its also worth thinking about the American detainees there in the context of what normally happens when wars end. Prisoners of War Defying custom and law, the American war in Afghanistan broke through norms like a battering ram through a gossamer wall. Guantnamo was created in just that context, a one-of-a-kind institution for this country. Now, so many years later, its poised to break through yet another norm. Usually, at the end of hostilities, battlefield detainees are let go. As Geneva Convention III, the law governing the detention and treatment of prisoners of war, asserts: Prisoners of war shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities. That custom of releasing prisoners has, in practice, pertained not only to those held on or near the battlefield but even to those detained far from the conflict. Before the Geneva Conventions were created, the custom of releasing such prisoners was already in place in the United States. Notably, during World War II, the United States held 425,000 mostly German prisoners in more than 500 camps in this country. When the war ended, however, they were released and the vast majority of them were returned to their home countries. When it comes to the closure of Guantnamo, however, we cant count on such an ending. Two war-on-terror realities stand in the way of linking the coming end of hostilities in Afghanistan to the shutting down of that prison. First, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force that Congress passed right after the 9/11 attacks was not geographically defined or limited to the war in Afghanistan. It focused on but was not confined to two groups, the Taliban and Al Qaeda, as well as anyone else who had contributed to the attacks of 9/11. As such, it was used as well to authorize military engagementsand the capture of prisonersoutside Afghanistan. Since 2001, in fact, it has been cited to authorize the use of force in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere. Of the 780 prisoners held at Guantnamo Bay at one time or another, more than a third came from Afghanistan; the remaining two-thirds were from 48 other countries. A second potential loophole exists when it comes to the release of prisoners as that war ends. The administration of George W. Bush rejected the very notion that those held at Guantnamo were prisoners of war, no matter how or where they had been captured. As non-state actors, according to that administration, they were exempted from prisoner of war status, which is why they were deliberately labeled detainees. Little wonder then that (as The New York Times recently reported), despite Secretary of Defense Austins position on Guantnamo, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby argued that there was no direct link between its future and the coming end to what he called the mission in Afghanistan. In fact, even if that congressional authorization for war and the opening of Guantnamo on which it was based never were solely linked to the conflict in Afghanistan, its time, almost two decades later, to put an end to that quagmire of a prison camp and the staggering exceptions that its woven into this countrys laws and norms since 2002. The closing of Guantnamo would finally signal an end to the otherwise endless proliferation of exceptions to the laws of war as well as to US domestic and military legal codes. As early as June 2004, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OConnor flagged the possibility that a system of indefinite detention at Guantnamo could create a permanent state of endless legal exceptionalism. She wrote an opinion that month in a habeas corpus case for the release of a Guantnamo detainee, the dual US-Saudi citizen Yaser Hamdi, warning that the prospect of turning that military prison into a never-ending exception to wartime detention and its laws posed dangers all its own. As she put it, We understand Congress grant of authority for the use of necessary and appropriate force to include the authority to detain for the duration of the relevant conflict, and our understanding is based on longstanding law-of-war principles. She concluded that if the practical circumstances of a given conflict are entirely unlike those of the conflicts that informed the development of the law of war[the] understanding [of release upon the end of hostilities] may unravel. But that is not the situation we face as of this date. Sadly enough, 17 years later, it turns out that the detention authority may be poised to outlive the use of force. Guantnamo has become an American institution at the cost of $13 million per prisoner annually. The system of offshore injustice has, by now, become part and parcel of the American system of justiceour very own forever prison. The difficulty of closing Guantnamo has shown that once you move outside the laws and norms of this country in a significant way, the return to normalcy becomes ever more problematicand the longer the exception, the harder such a restoration will be. Remember that, before his presidency was over, George W. Bush went on record acknowledging his preference for closing Guantnamo. Obama made it a goal of his presidency from the outset. Biden, with less fanfare and the lessons of their failures in mind, faces the challenge of finally closing Americas forever prison. With all that in mind, let me offer you a positive twist on this seemingly never-ending situation. I wont be surprised if, in fact, President Biden actually does manage to close Guantnamo. He may not do so as a result of the withdrawal of all American forces from Afghanistan but because he seems to have a genuine urge to shut the books on the war on terror, or at least the chapter of it initiated on 9/11. And if he were also to shut down that prison, in the spirit of that letter from the Democratic senators, it would be because of Guantnamos gross violations of American laws and norms. While the letter did not go so far as to name the larger sins of the past War on Terror, it did at least draw attention directly to the wrongfulness of indefinite detention as a system created expressly to evade the lawand one that brought ill-repute to the United States globally. That closure should certainly happen under President Biden. After all, any other course is not only legally unacceptable, but risks perpetuating the idea that this country continues to distrust the principles of law, human rights, and due processindeed, the very fundamentals of a democratic system. | In 2009, President Obama promised to close Guantnamo by the end of his first year in the White House. By the end of his presidency, his administration had, in fact, managed to release 197 of the prisoners held there without charges. | pegasus | 1 | https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/close-guantanamo-bay/ | 0.157645 |
Are SSDs Really More Reliable? Or Are Hard Disks Harder Than We Thought? | A new study looks very good for the SSDs, but closer inspection of the results suggests its actually too early to call. Online backup service, Backblaze, has this week published one of its regular studies of disk failures across its data centers. The company has more than 175,000 drives of various types spread across four data centers, so its in a strong position to evaluate the longevity of the two different types of disk. The direct comparison between SSDs and hard disks focuses on a much smaller subset of boot drives, of which 1,669 were hard drives and 1,518 were SSDs. On first inspection, the results look like a home run for the SSDs, which showed a much lower failure rate than the traditional hard disks. Comparison of SSD and hard disk failure rates Backblaze The SSDs had an annualized failure rate of only 0.58% - or roughly 1 in every 200 drives. The traditional hard disk drives, with their moving parts and fragile glass platters, had a failure rate of 10.56% - or just over 1 in 10 - which is an order of magnitude worse. However, before you rush out and decide to replace all your hard disks with expensive SSDs, theres a big factor that needs to be taken into account here: the age of the drives. Disk drives of all types are more likely to fail with age. The average age of the hard disk drives in Backblazes study was 49.63 months or just over four years old. The average age of the SSDs was only 12.66 months or just over a year old. Basically, the timelines for the age of the SSD and HDD drives dont overlap very much and in general, drive failure rates typically increase as drive population ages, writes Backblazes Andy Klein, in a detailed blog of the companys results. These two considerations make the conclusion that SSDs fail less often than HDD drives not as clear cut as it first seems. Klein adds that in the coming months, the company will attempt compare hard disk drives and SSDs of a similar age so as to reach a fairer comparison. Long-lasting hard disks Backblazes research is actually very reassuring for users who are still using traditional hard disks for storage. When the company examined the 171,919 hard disks it uses for storage across its data centers, the failure rates were very low indeed - even for drives that had been in active service for many years. Hard disks are very durable Backblaze The annualized failure rate of all the hard disks in Backblazes farm was only 1.49% - the lowest value recorded since it began recording that data in 2013. Its worth noting that Backblazes data center usage will be different from typical consumer usage, and that the disks will have been racked in strict temperature-controlled environments with little or no physical movement. Thats in stark contrast to, say, a laptop that might be bashed around in a bag on a daily commute. Nevertheless, those spinning hard disks are literally not giving up without a fight. | Online backup service, Backblaze, has published a study of disk failures across its data centers. On first inspection, the results look like a home run for the SSDs, which showed a much lower failure rate than the traditional hard disks. The average age of the hard disk drives in the study was 49.63 months or just over four years old. | bart | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2021/05/07/are-ssds-really-more-reliable-or-are-hard-disks-harder-than-we-thought/ | 0.134526 |
Why Do Small Business Owners Miss Opportunities? | Marek Niedzwiedz is the CEO of aeXea Capital and the founder of YourNonExecCFO.com. getty The small business world is big and terrific. At the same time, it is pretty bizarre. According to The World Bank, SMEs represent "about 90% of businesses and more than 50% of employment worldwide." So clearly, it is a significant and incredible world. However, when you go into the details about how SMEs operate their business models, the financials, etc. you will see some oddities. Small business owners usually have excellent practical and industry knowledge. However, they often do not apply academic knowledge, such as finance, management, marketing, organizational behavior and psychology. Lacking any one of these may lead to inadequate decision making, missing opportunities, self-deception or confirmation biases. Many small business owners frequently lack future trend knowledge in the context of economy or society. As they say, "We are too busy to watch and be up to date with all of it." What is even more relevant, SMEs do not have the same access to capital as their larger competitors have and the gap in this area is enormous. Often, SMEs give their operators a good lifestyle, but at the same time, many owners claim they have ideas on how to grow the business further. However, they do not always act on those ideas as they do not see an immediate need. They are too busy working in the business, not on the business. Therefore, it is unlikely they will grow past a certain threshold. Successful companies are 80% good teams/management and 20% good idea, not the other way around. Many SME entrepreneurs think that a good idea and hard work are enough, but they struggle to progress through not having the critical skills on their board. In reality, they do not compete. Instead, they try to operate among different niches and different customer bases than the more prominent companies do. They tend to overcome the gap by working longer hours and being more flexible, and they do well in this space. Well, it can be achieved by leveraging two areas that I already mentioned skills and capital. I am aware that it may be a vicious cycle having no capital causes challenges to access skills and vice versa. But it is superable, in the current world particularly. For example, a business owner may hire non-exec specialists, pay the talents in stock options and grow geometrically by M&A or direct listing. There are certainly more opportunities out there in the current business world, but let's look more closely at this last option as a way to grow your SME cost-effectively. Direct listing is the process through which a private company becomes listed on a stock exchange without using an investment banking firm, making the process much more affordable. Regardless of size, sector or country, any company can go public in this way. The company can then be listed on one of the major stock exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange or Euronext. However, suppose the business is very small. In that case, it can be listed on smaller or alternative markets, such as AIM London, Nasdaq Nordic, NewConnect, Nordic Growth Market or, one of the newest and smallest in Europe, Aquis Exchange. These markets are affordable in terms of cost (with the whole process ranging between $200K-$500K) and requirements for a small business. To start the process of going public, it would be beneficial to do your research on which market may be best for your company, as it will depend on: the size of your business, the industry the company operates in and the goals you want to achieve. Then, the company must carry out an audit of its books if not already in place. The next step would be filing with a regulatory authority, such as the SEC in the U.S. or the FCA in the U.K. The final step is filing with the stock exchange or market makers. Each step will take about two to three months, so your company can expect to become publicly traded in six to nine months. Getting your company publicly traded can be an incredible tool to raise equity quickly or debt financing, recruit or reward top talent, complete acquisitions and garner more attention in your respective industry. There are some downsides of going public, such as higher ongoing accounting and legal costs or more business information disclosure requirements. But generally, going public is excellent for maximizing creating significant long-term wealth and shareholder value. Your company can complete acquisitions with shares, sometimes even without raising any capital. You may buy your competitor out one day. This is just one opportunity and way to grow your business. There are, of course, many others. If you are a small business owner, I would encourage you to break the vicious cycle and avoid missing future opportunities. Stop working in your business and start working on your business today. Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. | Marek Niedzwiedz is the CEO of aeXea Capital and the founder of YourNonExecCFO.com. He says many small business owners miss opportunities because they are too busy. He suggests hiring non-exec specialists, direct listing or M&A. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2021/05/07/why-do-small-business-owners-miss-opportunities/ | 0.682193 |
Did Steelers Fix the Run Game? | The top of the Pittsburgh Steelers' to-do list read 'fix the run game.' Head coach Mike Tomlin and general manager Kevin Colbert went into the 2021 NFL Draft with one objective above the rest - fixing the ground attack. After nine picks, eight undrafted free agents and a new superstar running back, the biggest question surrounding Pittsburgh is whether or not they solved their most pressing issue. Improving from the leagues' worst run numbers isn't a hard task to accomplish. The Steelers are starting at the bottom with three new starters on the offensive line and Chukwuma Okorafor switching sides from right to left tackle. They're also adding a first-round running back. The issue is whether or not the problem is solved right now. The Steelers have plenty of potential for the future in players like Kendrick Green and Dan Moore, but neither seems destined to start in 2021. Therefore, it's B.J. Finney (or J.C. Hassenauer) and Okorafor filling the needs at center and left tackle. Maybe, overall, having Zach Banner back and Kevin Dotson starting full-time makes enough of a difference. Maybe, Okorafor plays better with better talent across the o-line. And maybe, just maybe, Finney is the guy many expected to replace Ramon Foster last season. The definite answer is we don't know. It all depends on how much playing time these rookies need to handle and how much better the offensive line is with new faces and younger talent. No one's questioning Najee Harris' ability out of the backfield. The 24th overall pick is coming off a 30-touchdown season, a unanimous All-American selection and the Doak Walker Award. Chances are he's ready to contribute, and contribute well, in an NFL offense. Down the road, the Steelers run game is fixed. They answered the call and got the pieces for a successful transition from one generation of o-linemen to the next. The running back is a star and the rest of the offense takes a large chunk of the defense's attention away. But right now, it's still a mystery whether or not the Steelers are in a place where dead-last goes to top half. Noah Strackbein is a Publisher with AllSteelers. Follow Noah on Twitter @NoahStrack, and AllSteelers @si_steelers. | The Pittsburgh Steelers had the worst run numbers in the NFL last season. The team added a star running back in Najee Harris. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.si.com/nfl/steelers/gm-report/did-pittsburgh-steelers-fix-run-game | 0.153938 |
Did Steelers Fix the Run Game? | The top of the Pittsburgh Steelers' to-do list read 'fix the run game.' Head coach Mike Tomlin and general manager Kevin Colbert went into the 2021 NFL Draft with one objective above the rest - fixing the ground attack. After nine picks, eight undrafted free agents and a new superstar running back, the biggest question surrounding Pittsburgh is whether or not they solved their most pressing issue. Improving from the leagues' worst run numbers isn't a hard task to accomplish. The Steelers are starting at the bottom with three new starters on the offensive line and Chukwuma Okorafor switching sides from right to left tackle. They're also adding a first-round running back. The issue is whether or not the problem is solved right now. The Steelers have plenty of potential for the future in players like Kendrick Green and Dan Moore, but neither seems destined to start in 2021. Therefore, it's B.J. Finney (or J.C. Hassenauer) and Okorafor filling the needs at center and left tackle. Maybe, overall, having Zach Banner back and Kevin Dotson starting full-time makes enough of a difference. Maybe, Okorafor plays better with better talent across the o-line. And maybe, just maybe, Finney is the guy many expected to replace Ramon Foster last season. The definite answer is we don't know. It all depends on how much playing time these rookies need to handle and how much better the offensive line is with new faces and younger talent. No one's questioning Najee Harris' ability out of the backfield. The 24th overall pick is coming off a 30-touchdown season, a unanimous All-American selection and the Doak Walker Award. Chances are he's ready to contribute, and contribute well, in an NFL offense. Down the road, the Steelers run game is fixed. They answered the call and got the pieces for a successful transition from one generation of o-linemen to the next. The running back is a star and the rest of the offense takes a large chunk of the defense's attention away. But right now, it's still a mystery whether or not the Steelers are in a place where dead-last goes to top half. Noah Strackbein is a Publisher with AllSteelers. Follow Noah on Twitter @NoahStrack, and AllSteelers @si_steelers. | The Pittsburgh Steelers had the worst run numbers in the NFL last season. The team added a star running back, Najee Harris, in the draft. The question is whether or not the run game is fixed. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.si.com/nfl/steelers/gm-report/did-pittsburgh-steelers-fix-run-game | 0.12491 |
Did Steelers Fix the Run Game? | The top of the Pittsburgh Steelers' to-do list read 'fix the run game.' Head coach Mike Tomlin and general manager Kevin Colbert went into the 2021 NFL Draft with one objective above the rest - fixing the ground attack. After nine picks, eight undrafted free agents and a new superstar running back, the biggest question surrounding Pittsburgh is whether or not they solved their most pressing issue. Improving from the leagues' worst run numbers isn't a hard task to accomplish. The Steelers are starting at the bottom with three new starters on the offensive line and Chukwuma Okorafor switching sides from right to left tackle. They're also adding a first-round running back. The issue is whether or not the problem is solved right now. The Steelers have plenty of potential for the future in players like Kendrick Green and Dan Moore, but neither seems destined to start in 2021. Therefore, it's B.J. Finney (or J.C. Hassenauer) and Okorafor filling the needs at center and left tackle. Maybe, overall, having Zach Banner back and Kevin Dotson starting full-time makes enough of a difference. Maybe, Okorafor plays better with better talent across the o-line. And maybe, just maybe, Finney is the guy many expected to replace Ramon Foster last season. The definite answer is we don't know. It all depends on how much playing time these rookies need to handle and how much better the offensive line is with new faces and younger talent. No one's questioning Najee Harris' ability out of the backfield. The 24th overall pick is coming off a 30-touchdown season, a unanimous All-American selection and the Doak Walker Award. Chances are he's ready to contribute, and contribute well, in an NFL offense. Down the road, the Steelers run game is fixed. They answered the call and got the pieces for a successful transition from one generation of o-linemen to the next. The running back is a star and the rest of the offense takes a large chunk of the defense's attention away. But right now, it's still a mystery whether or not the Steelers are in a place where dead-last goes to top half. Noah Strackbein is a Publisher with AllSteelers. Follow Noah on Twitter @NoahStrack, and AllSteelers @si_steelers. | Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin and general manager Kevin Colbert went into the 2021 NFL Draft with one objective above the rest - fixing the run attack. After nine picks, eight undrafted free agents and a new superstar running back, the biggest question surrounding Pittsburgh is whether or not they solved their most pressing issue. | pegasus | 2 | https://www.si.com/nfl/steelers/gm-report/did-pittsburgh-steelers-fix-run-game | 0.269505 |
Can Canada's oil-rich Alberta capture a low-carbon future? | Article content * Alberta has one of the worlds largest deposits of crude oil * Canada recently increased its 2030 emissions reduction target We apologize, but this video has failed to load. tap here to see other videos from our team. Back to video * Carbon capture tech seen as key to cut fossil fuel emissions By Jack Graham TORONTO, May 7 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) At a research site in rural Alberta, carbon dioxide is injected deep into the ground. Using remote sensors, scientists monitor its movement to ensure the planet-heating gas does not migrate upwards. Basically, think of ultrasound on bodies were doing ultrasound on the earth, said Don Lawton, director of the Containment and Monitoring Institute and a geophysics professor at the University of Calgary. The research findings are shared with oil and gas companies exploring ways to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) during production before the greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere, and storing it underground or using it for other purposes. Its got lots of little holes in it, Lawton said. Those have held oil and gas for millions of years, so the conclusion is then theyll be able to hold CO2 as well. The oil sands in the western Canadian province of Alberta contain one of the worlds largest deposits of crude oil, with more than 165 billion barrels of bitumen in the ground, according to the Alberta Energy Regulator. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content But Albertas oil and gas industry has also contributed to making Canada the worlds fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter per capita, and the only G7 nation whose emissions have risen every year since the Paris Agreement came into force in 2016. Aiming to change course, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently committed to almost halving the countrys emissions by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. For Alberta, capturing and storing carbon could prove a key tool for cutting those emissions and smoothing its transition from Canadas largest polluter to a lower-carbon economy. The technology received a boost in Aprils federal budget, with Ottawa announcing a tax credit for capital invested in Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) projects, to cut combined emissions by at least 15 megatons of CO2 annually. The Alberta government is also collaborating on a CCUS working group with federal agency Natural Resources Canada. EXPENSIVE TECHNOLOGY Recognizing its unique geography for storing carbon, Alberta has invested in carbon capture projects since the 2000s and boasts two major projects out of just a few dozen large-scale operations globally. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content Shells Quest facility has stored 5 megatons of CO2 from oil sands operations since 2015, while the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line (ACTL), a 240-km (149-mile) CO2 pipeline, opened last year. According to the U.S. Department of Energys Carbon Storage Atlas, Alberta has the capacity to sequester an estimated 78 gigatons of CO2, such as in depleted oil and gas reservoirs. But building facilities to capture carbon dioxide during production is extremely expensive. Capture has always been the big price monster, said Rick Chalaturnyk, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Alberta. Quest, for example, got $865 million from the governments of Canada and Alberta to build and operate its facility, though it has said construction would cost 30% less today. Uncertainty around government policies and carbon taxation has also made it hard for businesses to invest heavily in carbon capture, Chalaturnyk said. These projects are built based on 20-plus-year lives and long pay-backs, so regulation that has the risk of disappearing in four years is challenging, said Kevin Jabusch, chief executive of Enhance Energy, part of a consortium that owns and operates the ACTL. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content The CO2 pipeline was built with government support to serve as a distribution system once more heavy industries in Alberta such as cement manufacturers start capturing carbon. It is currently at just 10-15% capacity, Jabusch said. If we look at the goals for 2030 and the carbon price, there is definitely a moment in the next decade when the economics work, said Alison Cretney, managing director of the Energy Futures Lab, a nonprofit research group. Canadas federal carbon tax is set to rise gradually to $170 per ton by 2030 from $30 today, while the new CCUS incentive is inspired by a U.S. tax credit called 45Q which has encouraged U.S. oil companies to capture carbon. Projects like the ACTL have been economically viable due to capturing carbon for enhanced oil recovery, where pressurized CO2 is injected into oil fields to boost the amount of oil extracted. However, Cretney said it should eventually be possible to fund emissions capture through storage or selling carbon for new uses, such as incorporating it into cement. GETTING CLEAN As Alberta looks to lower greenhouse gas emissions, calls have been growing to diversify the economy more quickly beyond oil and gas particularly as depressed oil prices have caused significant economic pain since 2014. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content In the long-run, the demand for oil and gas is going to go down as countries start to very deliberately move away from using fossil fuels, said Chris Severson-Baker, Alberta regional director at the Pembina Institute, a think-tank. A report released by TD Economics in April found that three-quarters of Canadas oil and gas sector workers 450,000 people could lose their jobs by 2050, most of whom work in Alberta. I think we only do ourselves harm if we dont recognize that and start planning for it, Severson-Baker said, adding that emerging industries like geothermal energy have struggled to get government attention due to the focus on oil and gas. However, Albertas Minister of Energy Sonya Savage said her government had moved fast since coming to power in 2019, including to develop a regulatory framework for geothermal energy and set up an advisory panel on mining minerals like lithium for batteries. What youre seeing in Alberta is a remarkable transformation of the energy sectors, and we have a strong future ahead in oil and gas, she said. Savage argued continued global demand for oil and gas means stopping production in Alberta would only increase it elsewhere in the world under lower environmental standards. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content We would actually not be doing anything to reduce global emissions by phasing out oil and gas in Alberta, she said. Its not the oil and gas that is a concern, its the carbon emissions. However, the oil sands industry is more carbon-intensive than other forms of oil extraction, including lighter and more accessible oils, and investors are putting more pressure on companies to publish decarbonization plans. Investors have chosen to leave more oil in the ground thats already happening, said Jason Switzer, director of the Alberta Clean Technology Industry Alliance. I dont think were going to see the kind of development that was originally forecast for the Canadian oil sands, he added. Switzer has been mapping new clean technology projects such as for greener fuels like hydrogen, and said Alberta has one of the densest clean tech ecosystems in the world. According to a recent forecast by the Canada Energy Regulator, Alberta is expected to see the fastest growth in renewable energy capacity from 2018-2023 of all provinces. Switzer said decarbonization efforts are being bolstered by Albertas concentration of researchers, technical professionals and entrepreneurs who understand large industry and its needs. A lot of smart people have been working on these issues for a long time, he said. (Reporting by Jack Graham; Editing by Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org) Share this article in your social network Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Shopping essentials Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. NP Posted Sign up to receive the daily top stories from the National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. Email Address There was an error, please provide a valid email address. By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You may unsubscribe any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails. Postmedia Network Inc. | 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4 | 416-383-2300 Thanks for signing up! A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it please check your junk folder. The next issue of NP Posted will soon be in your inbox. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again Trending | Canada's oil-rich Alberta has one of the worlds largest deposits of crude oil. Canada recently increased its 2030 emissions reduction target. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://nationalpost.com/pmn/environment-pmn/can-canadas-oil-rich-alberta-capture-a-low-carbon-future | 0.156176 |
Can Canada's oil-rich Alberta capture a low-carbon future? | Article content * Alberta has one of the worlds largest deposits of crude oil * Canada recently increased its 2030 emissions reduction target We apologize, but this video has failed to load. tap here to see other videos from our team. Back to video * Carbon capture tech seen as key to cut fossil fuel emissions By Jack Graham TORONTO, May 7 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) At a research site in rural Alberta, carbon dioxide is injected deep into the ground. Using remote sensors, scientists monitor its movement to ensure the planet-heating gas does not migrate upwards. Basically, think of ultrasound on bodies were doing ultrasound on the earth, said Don Lawton, director of the Containment and Monitoring Institute and a geophysics professor at the University of Calgary. The research findings are shared with oil and gas companies exploring ways to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) during production before the greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere, and storing it underground or using it for other purposes. Its got lots of little holes in it, Lawton said. Those have held oil and gas for millions of years, so the conclusion is then theyll be able to hold CO2 as well. The oil sands in the western Canadian province of Alberta contain one of the worlds largest deposits of crude oil, with more than 165 billion barrels of bitumen in the ground, according to the Alberta Energy Regulator. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content But Albertas oil and gas industry has also contributed to making Canada the worlds fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter per capita, and the only G7 nation whose emissions have risen every year since the Paris Agreement came into force in 2016. Aiming to change course, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently committed to almost halving the countrys emissions by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. For Alberta, capturing and storing carbon could prove a key tool for cutting those emissions and smoothing its transition from Canadas largest polluter to a lower-carbon economy. The technology received a boost in Aprils federal budget, with Ottawa announcing a tax credit for capital invested in Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) projects, to cut combined emissions by at least 15 megatons of CO2 annually. The Alberta government is also collaborating on a CCUS working group with federal agency Natural Resources Canada. EXPENSIVE TECHNOLOGY Recognizing its unique geography for storing carbon, Alberta has invested in carbon capture projects since the 2000s and boasts two major projects out of just a few dozen large-scale operations globally. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content Shells Quest facility has stored 5 megatons of CO2 from oil sands operations since 2015, while the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line (ACTL), a 240-km (149-mile) CO2 pipeline, opened last year. According to the U.S. Department of Energys Carbon Storage Atlas, Alberta has the capacity to sequester an estimated 78 gigatons of CO2, such as in depleted oil and gas reservoirs. But building facilities to capture carbon dioxide during production is extremely expensive. Capture has always been the big price monster, said Rick Chalaturnyk, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Alberta. Quest, for example, got $865 million from the governments of Canada and Alberta to build and operate its facility, though it has said construction would cost 30% less today. Uncertainty around government policies and carbon taxation has also made it hard for businesses to invest heavily in carbon capture, Chalaturnyk said. These projects are built based on 20-plus-year lives and long pay-backs, so regulation that has the risk of disappearing in four years is challenging, said Kevin Jabusch, chief executive of Enhance Energy, part of a consortium that owns and operates the ACTL. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content The CO2 pipeline was built with government support to serve as a distribution system once more heavy industries in Alberta such as cement manufacturers start capturing carbon. It is currently at just 10-15% capacity, Jabusch said. If we look at the goals for 2030 and the carbon price, there is definitely a moment in the next decade when the economics work, said Alison Cretney, managing director of the Energy Futures Lab, a nonprofit research group. Canadas federal carbon tax is set to rise gradually to $170 per ton by 2030 from $30 today, while the new CCUS incentive is inspired by a U.S. tax credit called 45Q which has encouraged U.S. oil companies to capture carbon. Projects like the ACTL have been economically viable due to capturing carbon for enhanced oil recovery, where pressurized CO2 is injected into oil fields to boost the amount of oil extracted. However, Cretney said it should eventually be possible to fund emissions capture through storage or selling carbon for new uses, such as incorporating it into cement. GETTING CLEAN As Alberta looks to lower greenhouse gas emissions, calls have been growing to diversify the economy more quickly beyond oil and gas particularly as depressed oil prices have caused significant economic pain since 2014. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content In the long-run, the demand for oil and gas is going to go down as countries start to very deliberately move away from using fossil fuels, said Chris Severson-Baker, Alberta regional director at the Pembina Institute, a think-tank. A report released by TD Economics in April found that three-quarters of Canadas oil and gas sector workers 450,000 people could lose their jobs by 2050, most of whom work in Alberta. I think we only do ourselves harm if we dont recognize that and start planning for it, Severson-Baker said, adding that emerging industries like geothermal energy have struggled to get government attention due to the focus on oil and gas. However, Albertas Minister of Energy Sonya Savage said her government had moved fast since coming to power in 2019, including to develop a regulatory framework for geothermal energy and set up an advisory panel on mining minerals like lithium for batteries. What youre seeing in Alberta is a remarkable transformation of the energy sectors, and we have a strong future ahead in oil and gas, she said. Savage argued continued global demand for oil and gas means stopping production in Alberta would only increase it elsewhere in the world under lower environmental standards. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content We would actually not be doing anything to reduce global emissions by phasing out oil and gas in Alberta, she said. Its not the oil and gas that is a concern, its the carbon emissions. However, the oil sands industry is more carbon-intensive than other forms of oil extraction, including lighter and more accessible oils, and investors are putting more pressure on companies to publish decarbonization plans. Investors have chosen to leave more oil in the ground thats already happening, said Jason Switzer, director of the Alberta Clean Technology Industry Alliance. I dont think were going to see the kind of development that was originally forecast for the Canadian oil sands, he added. Switzer has been mapping new clean technology projects such as for greener fuels like hydrogen, and said Alberta has one of the densest clean tech ecosystems in the world. According to a recent forecast by the Canada Energy Regulator, Alberta is expected to see the fastest growth in renewable energy capacity from 2018-2023 of all provinces. Switzer said decarbonization efforts are being bolstered by Albertas concentration of researchers, technical professionals and entrepreneurs who understand large industry and its needs. A lot of smart people have been working on these issues for a long time, he said. (Reporting by Jack Graham; Editing by Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org) Share this article in your social network Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Shopping essentials Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. NP Posted Sign up to receive the daily top stories from the National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. Email Address There was an error, please provide a valid email address. By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You may unsubscribe any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails. Postmedia Network Inc. | 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4 | 416-383-2300 Thanks for signing up! A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it please check your junk folder. The next issue of NP Posted will soon be in your inbox. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again Trending | Canada's oil-rich Alberta has one of the worlds largest deposits of crude oil. Alberta has invested in carbon capture projects since the 2000s. Canada recently increased its 2030 emissions reduction target. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://nationalpost.com/pmn/environment-pmn/can-canadas-oil-rich-alberta-capture-a-low-carbon-future | 0.420859 |
Can Canada's oil-rich Alberta capture a low-carbon future? | Article content * Alberta has one of the worlds largest deposits of crude oil * Canada recently increased its 2030 emissions reduction target We apologize, but this video has failed to load. tap here to see other videos from our team. Back to video * Carbon capture tech seen as key to cut fossil fuel emissions By Jack Graham TORONTO, May 7 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) At a research site in rural Alberta, carbon dioxide is injected deep into the ground. Using remote sensors, scientists monitor its movement to ensure the planet-heating gas does not migrate upwards. Basically, think of ultrasound on bodies were doing ultrasound on the earth, said Don Lawton, director of the Containment and Monitoring Institute and a geophysics professor at the University of Calgary. The research findings are shared with oil and gas companies exploring ways to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) during production before the greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere, and storing it underground or using it for other purposes. Its got lots of little holes in it, Lawton said. Those have held oil and gas for millions of years, so the conclusion is then theyll be able to hold CO2 as well. The oil sands in the western Canadian province of Alberta contain one of the worlds largest deposits of crude oil, with more than 165 billion barrels of bitumen in the ground, according to the Alberta Energy Regulator. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content But Albertas oil and gas industry has also contributed to making Canada the worlds fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter per capita, and the only G7 nation whose emissions have risen every year since the Paris Agreement came into force in 2016. Aiming to change course, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently committed to almost halving the countrys emissions by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. For Alberta, capturing and storing carbon could prove a key tool for cutting those emissions and smoothing its transition from Canadas largest polluter to a lower-carbon economy. The technology received a boost in Aprils federal budget, with Ottawa announcing a tax credit for capital invested in Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) projects, to cut combined emissions by at least 15 megatons of CO2 annually. The Alberta government is also collaborating on a CCUS working group with federal agency Natural Resources Canada. EXPENSIVE TECHNOLOGY Recognizing its unique geography for storing carbon, Alberta has invested in carbon capture projects since the 2000s and boasts two major projects out of just a few dozen large-scale operations globally. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content Shells Quest facility has stored 5 megatons of CO2 from oil sands operations since 2015, while the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line (ACTL), a 240-km (149-mile) CO2 pipeline, opened last year. According to the U.S. Department of Energys Carbon Storage Atlas, Alberta has the capacity to sequester an estimated 78 gigatons of CO2, such as in depleted oil and gas reservoirs. But building facilities to capture carbon dioxide during production is extremely expensive. Capture has always been the big price monster, said Rick Chalaturnyk, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Alberta. Quest, for example, got $865 million from the governments of Canada and Alberta to build and operate its facility, though it has said construction would cost 30% less today. Uncertainty around government policies and carbon taxation has also made it hard for businesses to invest heavily in carbon capture, Chalaturnyk said. These projects are built based on 20-plus-year lives and long pay-backs, so regulation that has the risk of disappearing in four years is challenging, said Kevin Jabusch, chief executive of Enhance Energy, part of a consortium that owns and operates the ACTL. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content The CO2 pipeline was built with government support to serve as a distribution system once more heavy industries in Alberta such as cement manufacturers start capturing carbon. It is currently at just 10-15% capacity, Jabusch said. If we look at the goals for 2030 and the carbon price, there is definitely a moment in the next decade when the economics work, said Alison Cretney, managing director of the Energy Futures Lab, a nonprofit research group. Canadas federal carbon tax is set to rise gradually to $170 per ton by 2030 from $30 today, while the new CCUS incentive is inspired by a U.S. tax credit called 45Q which has encouraged U.S. oil companies to capture carbon. Projects like the ACTL have been economically viable due to capturing carbon for enhanced oil recovery, where pressurized CO2 is injected into oil fields to boost the amount of oil extracted. However, Cretney said it should eventually be possible to fund emissions capture through storage or selling carbon for new uses, such as incorporating it into cement. GETTING CLEAN As Alberta looks to lower greenhouse gas emissions, calls have been growing to diversify the economy more quickly beyond oil and gas particularly as depressed oil prices have caused significant economic pain since 2014. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content In the long-run, the demand for oil and gas is going to go down as countries start to very deliberately move away from using fossil fuels, said Chris Severson-Baker, Alberta regional director at the Pembina Institute, a think-tank. A report released by TD Economics in April found that three-quarters of Canadas oil and gas sector workers 450,000 people could lose their jobs by 2050, most of whom work in Alberta. I think we only do ourselves harm if we dont recognize that and start planning for it, Severson-Baker said, adding that emerging industries like geothermal energy have struggled to get government attention due to the focus on oil and gas. However, Albertas Minister of Energy Sonya Savage said her government had moved fast since coming to power in 2019, including to develop a regulatory framework for geothermal energy and set up an advisory panel on mining minerals like lithium for batteries. What youre seeing in Alberta is a remarkable transformation of the energy sectors, and we have a strong future ahead in oil and gas, she said. Savage argued continued global demand for oil and gas means stopping production in Alberta would only increase it elsewhere in the world under lower environmental standards. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content We would actually not be doing anything to reduce global emissions by phasing out oil and gas in Alberta, she said. Its not the oil and gas that is a concern, its the carbon emissions. However, the oil sands industry is more carbon-intensive than other forms of oil extraction, including lighter and more accessible oils, and investors are putting more pressure on companies to publish decarbonization plans. Investors have chosen to leave more oil in the ground thats already happening, said Jason Switzer, director of the Alberta Clean Technology Industry Alliance. I dont think were going to see the kind of development that was originally forecast for the Canadian oil sands, he added. Switzer has been mapping new clean technology projects such as for greener fuels like hydrogen, and said Alberta has one of the densest clean tech ecosystems in the world. According to a recent forecast by the Canada Energy Regulator, Alberta is expected to see the fastest growth in renewable energy capacity from 2018-2023 of all provinces. Switzer said decarbonization efforts are being bolstered by Albertas concentration of researchers, technical professionals and entrepreneurs who understand large industry and its needs. A lot of smart people have been working on these issues for a long time, he said. (Reporting by Jack Graham; Editing by Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org) Share this article in your social network Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Shopping essentials Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. NP Posted Sign up to receive the daily top stories from the National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. Email Address There was an error, please provide a valid email address. By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You may unsubscribe any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails. Postmedia Network Inc. | 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4 | 416-383-2300 Thanks for signing up! A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it please check your junk folder. The next issue of NP Posted will soon be in your inbox. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again Trending | Canada's oil-rich Alberta has one of the worlds largest deposits of crude oil. Alberta has invested in carbon capture projects since the 2000s and boasts two major projects out of just a few dozen large-scale operations globally. Canada recently increased its 2030 emissions reduction target. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://nationalpost.com/pmn/environment-pmn/can-canadas-oil-rich-alberta-capture-a-low-carbon-future | 0.507255 |
What Do Facebook Ads Have To Do With The Uyghur Genocide? | In recent months, several reports suggested a concerning link between Facebook ads and the Uyghur genocide. In March 2021, Epoch Times reported on evidence linking Facebook ad revenue to Chinese companies profiting from that genocide. They indicated that one of the companies continues selling through Facebook hair it admitted was from Uyghurs. Similar companies suggested by the social media platform appear also to be selling Uyghur hair. Since a womans long hair is highly valued in Uyghur culture, the hair products being sold are almost certainly a product of the ongoing persecution, and not donated or sold freely. These allegations come months after, in August 2020, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) seized over 13 tons of human hair products from Xinjiang. In this photo illustration a Facebook logo seen displayed on a smartphone. (Photo Illustration: ... [+] Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Facebook did not respond to these allegations that it profited from ads linked to Uyghur genocide. Yet it did not take long before Facebook became the centre of attention again, because of its links with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) which stands accused of committing genocide against the Uyghurs. In April 2021, the WSJ reported that some Facebook staff are raising concerns on internal message boards and in other employee discussions that the company is being used as a conduit for state propaganda, highlighting sponsored posts from Chinese organizations that purport to show Muslim ethnic minority Uyghurs thriving in Chinas Xinjiang region, according to people familiar with the matter. Reportedly, a Facebook spokesman said that the ads taken out by Beijing pertaining to Xinjiang dont violate current policies so long as the advertisers follow Facebooks rules when purchasing them. He said the company is monitoring reports of the situation in Xinjiang to help inform our approach and due diligence on this issue. WSJ further reported that Facebook hasnt determined whether to act on the concerns, say people familiar with the matter. The company is watching how international organizations such as the United Nations respond to the situation in Xinjiang, one of the people said. The U.N. this week called on firms conducting Xinjiang-linked business to undertake meaningful human rights due diligence on their operations. Such responses to very serious allegations of benefiting from Uyghur genocide are highly inadequate. We are talking about atrocities targeting a religious group with methods including torture and abuse, rape and sexual violence, separation of children from their parents, forced sterilizations, forced abortions, forced labor and much more. Waiting for the response from the U.N. cannot be seen as the right policy to address serious allegations of genocidal atrocities, especially considering stagnation at the U.N. and Chinas powerful position there. While States and U.N. experts have been calling for action, and among others, for unfettered access to Xinjiang, this request has been ignored by the Chinese government. And so the vicious circle of impunity continues. One would expect that Facebook would conduct a comprehensive review of the allegations and evidence in support. Ultimately, Facebook should make sure that they sever any ties with atrocities against the Uyghurs. | In recent months, several reports suggested a concerning link between Facebook ads and the Uyghur genocide. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) seized over 13 tons of human hair products from Xinjiang. | bart | 1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2021/05/07/what-do-facebook-ads-have-to-do-with-the-uyghur-genocide/ | 0.13007 |
What Do Facebook Ads Have To Do With The Uyghur Genocide? | In recent months, several reports suggested a concerning link between Facebook ads and the Uyghur genocide. In March 2021, Epoch Times reported on evidence linking Facebook ad revenue to Chinese companies profiting from that genocide. They indicated that one of the companies continues selling through Facebook hair it admitted was from Uyghurs. Similar companies suggested by the social media platform appear also to be selling Uyghur hair. Since a womans long hair is highly valued in Uyghur culture, the hair products being sold are almost certainly a product of the ongoing persecution, and not donated or sold freely. These allegations come months after, in August 2020, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) seized over 13 tons of human hair products from Xinjiang. In this photo illustration a Facebook logo seen displayed on a smartphone. (Photo Illustration: ... [+] Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Facebook did not respond to these allegations that it profited from ads linked to Uyghur genocide. Yet it did not take long before Facebook became the centre of attention again, because of its links with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) which stands accused of committing genocide against the Uyghurs. In April 2021, the WSJ reported that some Facebook staff are raising concerns on internal message boards and in other employee discussions that the company is being used as a conduit for state propaganda, highlighting sponsored posts from Chinese organizations that purport to show Muslim ethnic minority Uyghurs thriving in Chinas Xinjiang region, according to people familiar with the matter. Reportedly, a Facebook spokesman said that the ads taken out by Beijing pertaining to Xinjiang dont violate current policies so long as the advertisers follow Facebooks rules when purchasing them. He said the company is monitoring reports of the situation in Xinjiang to help inform our approach and due diligence on this issue. WSJ further reported that Facebook hasnt determined whether to act on the concerns, say people familiar with the matter. The company is watching how international organizations such as the United Nations respond to the situation in Xinjiang, one of the people said. The U.N. this week called on firms conducting Xinjiang-linked business to undertake meaningful human rights due diligence on their operations. Such responses to very serious allegations of benefiting from Uyghur genocide are highly inadequate. We are talking about atrocities targeting a religious group with methods including torture and abuse, rape and sexual violence, separation of children from their parents, forced sterilizations, forced abortions, forced labor and much more. Waiting for the response from the U.N. cannot be seen as the right policy to address serious allegations of genocidal atrocities, especially considering stagnation at the U.N. and Chinas powerful position there. While States and U.N. experts have been calling for action, and among others, for unfettered access to Xinjiang, this request has been ignored by the Chinese government. And so the vicious circle of impunity continues. One would expect that Facebook would conduct a comprehensive review of the allegations and evidence in support. Ultimately, Facebook should make sure that they sever any ties with atrocities against the Uyghurs. | In recent months, several reports have suggested a concerning link between Facebook ads and the Uyghur genocide. Facebook did not respond to these allegations that it profited from ads linked to UyGHur genocide, yet it did not take long before Facebook became the centre of attention again, because of its links with the Chinese Communist Party. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2021/05/07/what-do-facebook-ads-have-to-do-with-the-uyghur-genocide/ | 0.165053 |
Whats to play for on the last day of the Womens Super League season? | Defending champions Chelsea remain on course to win another Womens Super League title as they head into the final match of the season against Reading. Here, the PA news agency takes a look at some of the key questions ahead of Sundays last round of games. Victory over Reading would clinch the title for Emma Hayes side (Adam Davy/PA) Emma Hayes Chelsea will wrap up the title with a victory over Reading. They would also clinch top spot with a draw as long as Manchester City do not beat West Ham by three goals or more. Gareth Taylors City need the Champions League finalists to drop points to have any chance of lifting the trophy. Pernille Harder celebrates scoring in Chelseas Champions League semi-final win over Bayern Munich (John Walton/PA) Yes. Theyre chasing a quadruple, while City could still win a double. Lifting the title would be the Blues second piece of silverware this season, having already won the League Cup. Both teams are into the last 16 of the FA Cup, while Chelsea face Barcelona in the Champions League final a week on Sunday. Chelsea and City have mathematically secured their places, while Arsenal are all-but certain to be the third and final qualifier. Joe Montemurros side beat Everton 2-1 on Monday thanks to Kim Littles stoppage-time winner. That gives the Gunners a three-point and 26-goal advantage over fourth-placed Manchester United, so it would take something extraordinary to deny them. One game to go #BarclaysFAWSL pic.twitter.com/xDcBHcIyyp Barclays FA Women's Super League (@BarclaysFAWSL) May 5, 2021 Just three points separate the bottom four teams but Bristol Citys goal difference means it is a straight fight between them and Aston Villa to avoid being the one team relegated to the Championship. City will have to beat Brighton and hope Villa lose to Arsenal to avoid the drop. Not necessarily. Birmingham, one of the teams three points clear with a far superior goal difference, are awaiting the outcome of a Football Association charge for fielding Ruesha Littlejohn when she was due to serve a suspension. They could receive a points deduction. Chelseas Sam Kerr has 20 goals to her name in the Womens Super League this season (Mike Egerton/PA) Chelseas Sam Kerr leads the way in the race for the golden boot with 20 goals, while Arsenals Vivianne Miedema remains two behind. At the other end, Chelsea goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger and Manchester Citys Ellie Roebuck have both kept 11 clean sheets. Englands most-capped player Fara Williams will be calling time on her career, which has spanned more than two decades. Williams has been with Reading since 2017 and will play her final match against Chelsea on Sunday. Arsenal manager Montemurro is also stepping down at the end of the season, having led the club since 2017 and delivered their first league title in seven years. | Chelsea face Reading in the final game of the Women's Super League season. The Blues are on course to win their second title in three years. | bart | 0 | https://sports.yahoo.com/play-last-day-women-super-122941247.html?src=rss | 0.264986 |
Whats to play for on the last day of the Womens Super League season? | Defending champions Chelsea remain on course to win another Womens Super League title as they head into the final match of the season against Reading. Here, the PA news agency takes a look at some of the key questions ahead of Sundays last round of games. Victory over Reading would clinch the title for Emma Hayes side (Adam Davy/PA) Emma Hayes Chelsea will wrap up the title with a victory over Reading. They would also clinch top spot with a draw as long as Manchester City do not beat West Ham by three goals or more. Gareth Taylors City need the Champions League finalists to drop points to have any chance of lifting the trophy. Pernille Harder celebrates scoring in Chelseas Champions League semi-final win over Bayern Munich (John Walton/PA) Yes. Theyre chasing a quadruple, while City could still win a double. Lifting the title would be the Blues second piece of silverware this season, having already won the League Cup. Both teams are into the last 16 of the FA Cup, while Chelsea face Barcelona in the Champions League final a week on Sunday. Chelsea and City have mathematically secured their places, while Arsenal are all-but certain to be the third and final qualifier. Joe Montemurros side beat Everton 2-1 on Monday thanks to Kim Littles stoppage-time winner. That gives the Gunners a three-point and 26-goal advantage over fourth-placed Manchester United, so it would take something extraordinary to deny them. One game to go #BarclaysFAWSL pic.twitter.com/xDcBHcIyyp Barclays FA Women's Super League (@BarclaysFAWSL) May 5, 2021 Just three points separate the bottom four teams but Bristol Citys goal difference means it is a straight fight between them and Aston Villa to avoid being the one team relegated to the Championship. City will have to beat Brighton and hope Villa lose to Arsenal to avoid the drop. Not necessarily. Birmingham, one of the teams three points clear with a far superior goal difference, are awaiting the outcome of a Football Association charge for fielding Ruesha Littlejohn when she was due to serve a suspension. They could receive a points deduction. Chelseas Sam Kerr has 20 goals to her name in the Womens Super League this season (Mike Egerton/PA) Chelseas Sam Kerr leads the way in the race for the golden boot with 20 goals, while Arsenals Vivianne Miedema remains two behind. At the other end, Chelsea goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger and Manchester Citys Ellie Roebuck have both kept 11 clean sheets. Englands most-capped player Fara Williams will be calling time on her career, which has spanned more than two decades. Williams has been with Reading since 2017 and will play her final match against Chelsea on Sunday. Arsenal manager Montemurro is also stepping down at the end of the season, having led the club since 2017 and delivered their first league title in seven years. | Chelsea face Reading in the final game of the Women's Super League season. The Blues are on course to win their second title in three years. Manchester City need to beat West Ham to have any chance of lifting the trophy. | bart | 1 | https://sports.yahoo.com/play-last-day-women-super-122941247.html?src=rss | 0.306987 |
Whats to play for on the last day of the Womens Super League season? | Defending champions Chelsea remain on course to win another Womens Super League title as they head into the final match of the season against Reading. Here, the PA news agency takes a look at some of the key questions ahead of Sundays last round of games. Victory over Reading would clinch the title for Emma Hayes side (Adam Davy/PA) Emma Hayes Chelsea will wrap up the title with a victory over Reading. They would also clinch top spot with a draw as long as Manchester City do not beat West Ham by three goals or more. Gareth Taylors City need the Champions League finalists to drop points to have any chance of lifting the trophy. Pernille Harder celebrates scoring in Chelseas Champions League semi-final win over Bayern Munich (John Walton/PA) Yes. Theyre chasing a quadruple, while City could still win a double. Lifting the title would be the Blues second piece of silverware this season, having already won the League Cup. Both teams are into the last 16 of the FA Cup, while Chelsea face Barcelona in the Champions League final a week on Sunday. Chelsea and City have mathematically secured their places, while Arsenal are all-but certain to be the third and final qualifier. Joe Montemurros side beat Everton 2-1 on Monday thanks to Kim Littles stoppage-time winner. That gives the Gunners a three-point and 26-goal advantage over fourth-placed Manchester United, so it would take something extraordinary to deny them. One game to go #BarclaysFAWSL pic.twitter.com/xDcBHcIyyp Barclays FA Women's Super League (@BarclaysFAWSL) May 5, 2021 Just three points separate the bottom four teams but Bristol Citys goal difference means it is a straight fight between them and Aston Villa to avoid being the one team relegated to the Championship. City will have to beat Brighton and hope Villa lose to Arsenal to avoid the drop. Not necessarily. Birmingham, one of the teams three points clear with a far superior goal difference, are awaiting the outcome of a Football Association charge for fielding Ruesha Littlejohn when she was due to serve a suspension. They could receive a points deduction. Chelseas Sam Kerr has 20 goals to her name in the Womens Super League this season (Mike Egerton/PA) Chelseas Sam Kerr leads the way in the race for the golden boot with 20 goals, while Arsenals Vivianne Miedema remains two behind. At the other end, Chelsea goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger and Manchester Citys Ellie Roebuck have both kept 11 clean sheets. Englands most-capped player Fara Williams will be calling time on her career, which has spanned more than two decades. Williams has been with Reading since 2017 and will play her final match against Chelsea on Sunday. Arsenal manager Montemurro is also stepping down at the end of the season, having led the club since 2017 and delivered their first league title in seven years. | Chelsea face Reading in the final match of the Women's Super League season. The Blues are on course to win their second title in three years. Manchester City need to beat West Ham to have any chance of lifting the trophy. Arsenal are all-but certain to be the third and final qualifier for the Champions League. | bart | 2 | https://sports.yahoo.com/play-last-day-women-super-122941247.html?src=rss | 0.409031 |
Can a patient ask whether the health care workers they see are vaccinated against COVID and do they have to answer? | It is a question patients might not get answered. State and federal laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, fondly known as HIPAA, protect the medical privacy of nurses and doctors, just as it does for patients. Regardless of medical privacy laws, patients are still asking the COVID-19 vaccination status of health care professionals. We delve into how Seattle area hospitals are handling this question for this weeks FAQ Friday. HIPAA sets the floor for patient privacy laws, and then states can layer their own regulations on top of it. The act was passed in 1996 in an effort to let people more easily change jobs with their health insurance and to limit insurance companies from denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions. The act also included an often-cited privacy rule. Yes, but perhaps not as many as you might think, even though they were among the first in line for coveted, early doses of COVID-19 vaccine. Advertising A Kaiser Family Foundation/Washington Post poll showed a bit more than half of the nations front-line health workers were vaccinated as of early March. An additional 19% said they planned to get the shots. The undecided made up 12% of those polled and about 18% dont plan on getting the shots. State-level numbers arent available for Washington. It depends. A patient doesnt have the legal right to know if a health care worker has been vaccinated just like anyone else protected by medical privacy laws. But a person can always ask the question of their nurse practitioner or whomever else they are interacting with. Its not a right that a patient has to know. That is something that a health care provider may be comfortable in sharing but also may not, said Dr. Thomas May, the Floyd and Judy Rogers endowed professor at Washington State Universitys Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. The majority of UW Medicines clinical workforce has been vaccinated for COVID-19 and the staff is not required to disclose their vaccination status, but can if they choose, said Susan Gregg, spokesperson for UW Medicine. It is private, protected health care information, she said. Kaiser Permanente Washington and Swedish Medical Center also leave it up to staffers if they want to let patients know they have been vaccinated. Swedish employees were told they can share their vaccination status but can cite HIPAA if they chose not to. Virginia Mason Franciscan Health is encouraging employees eligible to be vaccinated to do so. Because being vaccinated isnt a requirement for employment any hospital employee being vaccinated is treated as a patient, said Cary Evans, vice president of communications at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health. Advertising They are not required to disclose this personal health information, which is shielded by federal law protecting patient privacy, he wrote in an email. It is each team members choice how they respond to question about their vaccination status. Because of the suspicion some people have in regard to COVID-19 and the vaccines, health care professionals might feel an obligation to be an example and let patients know that they are willing to do it, May said. A lot of physicians will think, Well, Im confident in the safety and I want to demonstrate that to my patients by being public with my vaccination status, he said. | A patient doesnt have the legal right to know if a health care worker has been vaccinated. | pegasus | 0 | https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/can-a-patient-ask-whether-the-health-care-workers-they-see-are-vaccinated-against-covid-and-do-they-have-to-answer/ | 0.18288 |
Can a patient ask whether the health care workers they see are vaccinated against COVID and do they have to answer? | It is a question patients might not get answered. State and federal laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, fondly known as HIPAA, protect the medical privacy of nurses and doctors, just as it does for patients. Regardless of medical privacy laws, patients are still asking the COVID-19 vaccination status of health care professionals. We delve into how Seattle area hospitals are handling this question for this weeks FAQ Friday. HIPAA sets the floor for patient privacy laws, and then states can layer their own regulations on top of it. The act was passed in 1996 in an effort to let people more easily change jobs with their health insurance and to limit insurance companies from denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions. The act also included an often-cited privacy rule. Yes, but perhaps not as many as you might think, even though they were among the first in line for coveted, early doses of COVID-19 vaccine. Advertising A Kaiser Family Foundation/Washington Post poll showed a bit more than half of the nations front-line health workers were vaccinated as of early March. An additional 19% said they planned to get the shots. The undecided made up 12% of those polled and about 18% dont plan on getting the shots. State-level numbers arent available for Washington. It depends. A patient doesnt have the legal right to know if a health care worker has been vaccinated just like anyone else protected by medical privacy laws. But a person can always ask the question of their nurse practitioner or whomever else they are interacting with. Its not a right that a patient has to know. That is something that a health care provider may be comfortable in sharing but also may not, said Dr. Thomas May, the Floyd and Judy Rogers endowed professor at Washington State Universitys Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. The majority of UW Medicines clinical workforce has been vaccinated for COVID-19 and the staff is not required to disclose their vaccination status, but can if they choose, said Susan Gregg, spokesperson for UW Medicine. It is private, protected health care information, she said. Kaiser Permanente Washington and Swedish Medical Center also leave it up to staffers if they want to let patients know they have been vaccinated. Swedish employees were told they can share their vaccination status but can cite HIPAA if they chose not to. Virginia Mason Franciscan Health is encouraging employees eligible to be vaccinated to do so. Because being vaccinated isnt a requirement for employment any hospital employee being vaccinated is treated as a patient, said Cary Evans, vice president of communications at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health. Advertising They are not required to disclose this personal health information, which is shielded by federal law protecting patient privacy, he wrote in an email. It is each team members choice how they respond to question about their vaccination status. Because of the suspicion some people have in regard to COVID-19 and the vaccines, health care professionals might feel an obligation to be an example and let patients know that they are willing to do it, May said. A lot of physicians will think, Well, Im confident in the safety and I want to demonstrate that to my patients by being public with my vaccination status, he said. | More than half of the nations front-line health workers were vaccinated as of early March. A patient doesnt have the legal right to know if a health care worker has been vaccinated. | pegasus | 1 | https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/can-a-patient-ask-whether-the-health-care-workers-they-see-are-vaccinated-against-covid-and-do-they-have-to-answer/ | 0.193652 |
Can a patient ask whether the health care workers they see are vaccinated against COVID and do they have to answer? | It is a question patients might not get answered. State and federal laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, fondly known as HIPAA, protect the medical privacy of nurses and doctors, just as it does for patients. Regardless of medical privacy laws, patients are still asking the COVID-19 vaccination status of health care professionals. We delve into how Seattle area hospitals are handling this question for this weeks FAQ Friday. HIPAA sets the floor for patient privacy laws, and then states can layer their own regulations on top of it. The act was passed in 1996 in an effort to let people more easily change jobs with their health insurance and to limit insurance companies from denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions. The act also included an often-cited privacy rule. Yes, but perhaps not as many as you might think, even though they were among the first in line for coveted, early doses of COVID-19 vaccine. Advertising A Kaiser Family Foundation/Washington Post poll showed a bit more than half of the nations front-line health workers were vaccinated as of early March. An additional 19% said they planned to get the shots. The undecided made up 12% of those polled and about 18% dont plan on getting the shots. State-level numbers arent available for Washington. It depends. A patient doesnt have the legal right to know if a health care worker has been vaccinated just like anyone else protected by medical privacy laws. But a person can always ask the question of their nurse practitioner or whomever else they are interacting with. Its not a right that a patient has to know. That is something that a health care provider may be comfortable in sharing but also may not, said Dr. Thomas May, the Floyd and Judy Rogers endowed professor at Washington State Universitys Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. The majority of UW Medicines clinical workforce has been vaccinated for COVID-19 and the staff is not required to disclose their vaccination status, but can if they choose, said Susan Gregg, spokesperson for UW Medicine. It is private, protected health care information, she said. Kaiser Permanente Washington and Swedish Medical Center also leave it up to staffers if they want to let patients know they have been vaccinated. Swedish employees were told they can share their vaccination status but can cite HIPAA if they chose not to. Virginia Mason Franciscan Health is encouraging employees eligible to be vaccinated to do so. Because being vaccinated isnt a requirement for employment any hospital employee being vaccinated is treated as a patient, said Cary Evans, vice president of communications at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health. Advertising They are not required to disclose this personal health information, which is shielded by federal law protecting patient privacy, he wrote in an email. It is each team members choice how they respond to question about their vaccination status. Because of the suspicion some people have in regard to COVID-19 and the vaccines, health care professionals might feel an obligation to be an example and let patients know that they are willing to do it, May said. A lot of physicians will think, Well, Im confident in the safety and I want to demonstrate that to my patients by being public with my vaccination status, he said. | State and federal laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act protect the medical privacy of nurses and doctors. Patients are still asking the COVID-19 vaccination status of health care professionals. A Kaiser Family Foundation/Washington Post poll showed a bit more than half of the nations front-line health workers were vaccinated. | bart | 2 | https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/can-a-patient-ask-whether-the-health-care-workers-they-see-are-vaccinated-against-covid-and-do-they-have-to-answer/ | 0.414072 |
Can Ohio State football continue its 2021 running back recruiting success in 2022? | COLUMBUS, Ohio -- No member of Ohio State footballs coaching staff had a better 2021 recruiting cycle than Tony Alford. Alford has long been one of the best recruiters on the staff but hadnt found success within his own position room since bringing in J.K. Dobbins in 2017. He followed up the future second-round NFL Draft pick with a top 100 recruit in 2018, but off-the-field issues ended that OSU career before it ever really got started. Then came the misses, close calls and what-could-have-been during the 2019 and 2020 cycles that led to lower-rated commits and flipping in-state players from Iowa State late in the process. That background is what made 2021 so significant. The year provided a chance to right some wrongs. Three years of underwhelming running back recruiting meant Alford couldnt just go out and get one high-quality player and call it a day. Hed need to get greedy. Just as Ryan Day had gone out to get two quarterbacks with top 100 talent in 2020, Alford would need to do the same in his room in 2021. Hed have to go get Evan Pryor out of North Carolina as the No. 82 player and. No. 2 all-purpose back in the country. Then follow that up with TreVeyon Henderson as the No. 22 player and top running back 11 days later. Alford would have to sell them on the idea of a potential two-back system and keep them on the same page even though other schools would try to use that approach to pull them apart. Evan committed first, and he helped recruit Trey, Alford said during the spring. Those guys helped recruit one another. They were talking all the time. So when you thrust them into a room together, theyre already friends. They already know each other and are comfortable with one another. I think they all understand that for one of them to have success, they better hope their buddy behind them can have success because you need more than one guy that can play. So now the question is, how do you follow up that level of recruiting success. Alford has offered 10 running backs in 2022, and only Jaydon Blue (Texas) and Jadarian Price (Notre Dame) are the only two that have come off the board. Three have emerged as the favorites, and the order for which they stand continues to come into form every day. Theres also plenty of time for others to potentially add their name to the list of 2022 running back targets. Ohio State swung for the fences in 2017 and hit a home run by finding Dobbins, then applied the same approach its next few at-bats only to strike out and get sent back to the dugout. It took four cycles to finally connect again. But when it happened, it resulted in a grand slam by way of Henderson and Pryor. The Buckeyes dont need that in 2022. They just need to get on base. The options available give them more than six months to make that happen. If youve never listened to Buckeye Talk, try it now. And subscribe to Buckeye Talk on any of these podcast platforms or wherever you listen to podcasts. Nick James, 2022 DT, names Ohio State among final six Why springtime wins and losses position OSU for a summer payoff OSUs 2021 draft class lacked elite defensive punch needed this fall: Buckeye Take | Ohio State running backs coach Tony Alford has been one of the best recruiters on the staff. He had a chance to right some wrongs in the 2021 recruiting cycle. Alford has offered 10 running backs in 2022. | pegasus | 1 | https://www.cleveland.com/osu/2021/05/can-ohio-state-football-continue-its-2021-running-back-recruiting-success-in-2022.html | 0.319697 |
Can Ohio State football continue its 2021 running back recruiting success in 2022? | COLUMBUS, Ohio -- No member of Ohio State footballs coaching staff had a better 2021 recruiting cycle than Tony Alford. Alford has long been one of the best recruiters on the staff but hadnt found success within his own position room since bringing in J.K. Dobbins in 2017. He followed up the future second-round NFL Draft pick with a top 100 recruit in 2018, but off-the-field issues ended that OSU career before it ever really got started. Then came the misses, close calls and what-could-have-been during the 2019 and 2020 cycles that led to lower-rated commits and flipping in-state players from Iowa State late in the process. That background is what made 2021 so significant. The year provided a chance to right some wrongs. Three years of underwhelming running back recruiting meant Alford couldnt just go out and get one high-quality player and call it a day. Hed need to get greedy. Just as Ryan Day had gone out to get two quarterbacks with top 100 talent in 2020, Alford would need to do the same in his room in 2021. Hed have to go get Evan Pryor out of North Carolina as the No. 82 player and. No. 2 all-purpose back in the country. Then follow that up with TreVeyon Henderson as the No. 22 player and top running back 11 days later. Alford would have to sell them on the idea of a potential two-back system and keep them on the same page even though other schools would try to use that approach to pull them apart. Evan committed first, and he helped recruit Trey, Alford said during the spring. Those guys helped recruit one another. They were talking all the time. So when you thrust them into a room together, theyre already friends. They already know each other and are comfortable with one another. I think they all understand that for one of them to have success, they better hope their buddy behind them can have success because you need more than one guy that can play. So now the question is, how do you follow up that level of recruiting success. Alford has offered 10 running backs in 2022, and only Jaydon Blue (Texas) and Jadarian Price (Notre Dame) are the only two that have come off the board. Three have emerged as the favorites, and the order for which they stand continues to come into form every day. Theres also plenty of time for others to potentially add their name to the list of 2022 running back targets. Ohio State swung for the fences in 2017 and hit a home run by finding Dobbins, then applied the same approach its next few at-bats only to strike out and get sent back to the dugout. It took four cycles to finally connect again. But when it happened, it resulted in a grand slam by way of Henderson and Pryor. The Buckeyes dont need that in 2022. They just need to get on base. The options available give them more than six months to make that happen. If youve never listened to Buckeye Talk, try it now. And subscribe to Buckeye Talk on any of these podcast platforms or wherever you listen to podcasts. Nick James, 2022 DT, names Ohio State among final six Why springtime wins and losses position OSU for a summer payoff OSUs 2021 draft class lacked elite defensive punch needed this fall: Buckeye Take | Ohio State running backs coach Tony Alford has been one of the best recruiters on the staff. He had a chance to right some wrongs in the 2021 recruiting cycle. Alford has offered 10 running backs in 2022, and only Jaydon Blue and Jadarian Price are the only two that have come off the board. | pegasus | 2 | https://www.cleveland.com/osu/2021/05/can-ohio-state-football-continue-its-2021-running-back-recruiting-success-in-2022.html | 0.36931 |
Is Money A Core Value? | Carrie-Ann Barrow, PCC, specializes in coaching leaders , helping them to imagine whats possible and make their boldest visions real. getty Identifying personal core values is one of the first exercises I do with my coaching clients. This is a universal foundation for all coaching topics. I ask them to create and explain a short list of core values that resonates with them. This process helps us both gain clarity about what is most meaningful to them and why. Once we understand their why, we can start to align it with their motivations and decisions. During this values exercise, what comes up most frequently is the question, Is money a core value? And it doesnt come alone. Its often accompanied by guilt, embarrassment and shame. I work with high-achieving leaders and entrepreneurs, the majority of whom are women , and I see a common pattern in our money conversations. The topic inevitably surfaces deeply embedded messages and doubts theyve been carrying with them for years, such as: There's something wrong with wanting to be rich Its shallow to enjoy expensive things and luxurious experiences. My work shouldn't be about the money, it should be about helping people. No pain, no gain: if I didn't work really hard for this money, then I don't deserve it. If you dont question these messages and figure out whats really behind them, you begin to internalize them as facts instead of beliefs. They can become a running loop of negative self-talk, preventing you from creating a life that fits with your values and desires and even happiness. Lets go back to that question: Is money a core value? No, its not. But money is a tool and like any other tool, the better you use it, the more you can accomplish with it. Money can help you honor and realize your core values and perhaps, according to a recent study, it can even lead to greater well-being. Ask yourself these three questions to re-examine your internal messages around money and live more confidently in your deepest values. 1. Maybe its financial security that you value. Maybe its power and influence or freedom and flexibility. Reflect on the feelings you associate with money, and dig deeper than just the surface-level emotions. I spoke with a client recently who felt guilty because she was getting excited thinking about the money she was making that day. Shes a wellness professional and chided herself for focusing on anything other than caring for her patients, saying, All day long, I kept thinking, I just made $75 or $100. And then I thought, I shouldnt feel this way. Aren't you allowed to value wealth-building and providing great care for your patients? Of course! She was excited about the money and, on further exploration, connected it to her core values, like creating more flexibility in her life and spending more time with her family. Theres nothing wrong with wanting wealth, especially when you link it with what is meaningful to you. We need to push back on the messages from our culture especially directed toward women. Dont be afraid to ask for, even demand, what youre worth and celebrate when you get it. 2. Think about what you want to spend money on to build a richer life. Perhaps you daydream about traveling to beautiful places, and its adventure or beauty that you value. Perhaps you crave more vacation time with your family and friends , and its the togetherness and connection that you value. I love recalling the look on a clients face, an entrepreneur who came from very little and made it big, when she had an aha moment with this question. Because her family didnt have close to the wealth shed created, she felt guilty about money. When discussing her core values, she gave me four or five safe values such as integrity, family and compassion. I am not discounting those values at all, but I had been working with her for over a year and knew her pretty well. My coaching style is direct, and I called BS. What do you absolutely love to do? We did some visualization work and revisited peak moments in her life, which revolved around traveling with family and friends. She kept going and discovered that the moments that really stuck out were when she traveled on a private jet, spent time on a yacht and dined at amazing restaurants. She opened her eyes and realized that yes, she values relationships, and she also values luxury. She works hard and earns that luxury, and has nothing to feel guilty about. 3. Think about a past purchase that you might be reluctant to share with others because it seems too extravagant or indulgent. Then try removing the judgment and just focusing on what it gave you. If that $2,000 pair of Louis Vuitton blue python boots made you feel sexy as hell (OK, that was me), perhaps you value looking and, as a result, feeling your best. Maybe you value the beauty of nature while hiking in the mountains in boots and a backpack. Or maybe you value the view of an amazing island escape from the deck of a 100-foot yacht while being served a bottle of champagne. Your values are just that: yours. It takes time to break past bias and judgment about spending to honor what you want. Stick with it, and remember that money is a tool nothing more, nothing less. Be bold about wanting to earn more, demand what youre worth and go after the things you value. Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. | Carrie-Ann Barrow, PCC, specializes in coaching leaders. Barrow: "Is money a core value? No, its not. But money can help you honor and realize your core values. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2021/05/07/is-money-a-core-value/ | 0.348182 |
Is Money A Core Value? | Carrie-Ann Barrow, PCC, specializes in coaching leaders , helping them to imagine whats possible and make their boldest visions real. getty Identifying personal core values is one of the first exercises I do with my coaching clients. This is a universal foundation for all coaching topics. I ask them to create and explain a short list of core values that resonates with them. This process helps us both gain clarity about what is most meaningful to them and why. Once we understand their why, we can start to align it with their motivations and decisions. During this values exercise, what comes up most frequently is the question, Is money a core value? And it doesnt come alone. Its often accompanied by guilt, embarrassment and shame. I work with high-achieving leaders and entrepreneurs, the majority of whom are women , and I see a common pattern in our money conversations. The topic inevitably surfaces deeply embedded messages and doubts theyve been carrying with them for years, such as: There's something wrong with wanting to be rich Its shallow to enjoy expensive things and luxurious experiences. My work shouldn't be about the money, it should be about helping people. No pain, no gain: if I didn't work really hard for this money, then I don't deserve it. If you dont question these messages and figure out whats really behind them, you begin to internalize them as facts instead of beliefs. They can become a running loop of negative self-talk, preventing you from creating a life that fits with your values and desires and even happiness. Lets go back to that question: Is money a core value? No, its not. But money is a tool and like any other tool, the better you use it, the more you can accomplish with it. Money can help you honor and realize your core values and perhaps, according to a recent study, it can even lead to greater well-being. Ask yourself these three questions to re-examine your internal messages around money and live more confidently in your deepest values. 1. Maybe its financial security that you value. Maybe its power and influence or freedom and flexibility. Reflect on the feelings you associate with money, and dig deeper than just the surface-level emotions. I spoke with a client recently who felt guilty because she was getting excited thinking about the money she was making that day. Shes a wellness professional and chided herself for focusing on anything other than caring for her patients, saying, All day long, I kept thinking, I just made $75 or $100. And then I thought, I shouldnt feel this way. Aren't you allowed to value wealth-building and providing great care for your patients? Of course! She was excited about the money and, on further exploration, connected it to her core values, like creating more flexibility in her life and spending more time with her family. Theres nothing wrong with wanting wealth, especially when you link it with what is meaningful to you. We need to push back on the messages from our culture especially directed toward women. Dont be afraid to ask for, even demand, what youre worth and celebrate when you get it. 2. Think about what you want to spend money on to build a richer life. Perhaps you daydream about traveling to beautiful places, and its adventure or beauty that you value. Perhaps you crave more vacation time with your family and friends , and its the togetherness and connection that you value. I love recalling the look on a clients face, an entrepreneur who came from very little and made it big, when she had an aha moment with this question. Because her family didnt have close to the wealth shed created, she felt guilty about money. When discussing her core values, she gave me four or five safe values such as integrity, family and compassion. I am not discounting those values at all, but I had been working with her for over a year and knew her pretty well. My coaching style is direct, and I called BS. What do you absolutely love to do? We did some visualization work and revisited peak moments in her life, which revolved around traveling with family and friends. She kept going and discovered that the moments that really stuck out were when she traveled on a private jet, spent time on a yacht and dined at amazing restaurants. She opened her eyes and realized that yes, she values relationships, and she also values luxury. She works hard and earns that luxury, and has nothing to feel guilty about. 3. Think about a past purchase that you might be reluctant to share with others because it seems too extravagant or indulgent. Then try removing the judgment and just focusing on what it gave you. If that $2,000 pair of Louis Vuitton blue python boots made you feel sexy as hell (OK, that was me), perhaps you value looking and, as a result, feeling your best. Maybe you value the beauty of nature while hiking in the mountains in boots and a backpack. Or maybe you value the view of an amazing island escape from the deck of a 100-foot yacht while being served a bottle of champagne. Your values are just that: yours. It takes time to break past bias and judgment about spending to honor what you want. Stick with it, and remember that money is a tool nothing more, nothing less. Be bold about wanting to earn more, demand what youre worth and go after the things you value. Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. | Carrie-Ann Barrow, PCC, specializes in coaching leaders. Barrow: "Is money a core value? No, it's not. But money can help you honor and realize your core values and perhaps, according to a recent study, it can even lead to greater well-being. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2021/05/07/is-money-a-core-value/ | 0.423994 |
Who are Dolphins longest tenured players after Bobby McCain release? | The Miami Dolphins have bid farewell to one of their longest tenured players this week, releasing defensive back Bobby McCain after six seasons together in South Florida. McCain, who as a 5th-round draft choice by the Dolphins out of Memphis in 2015, enjoyed a better career than most drafted in his range of the draft a testament to his versatility as a defender. McCain, during his time with Miami, played nickel corner, outside cornerback and free safety over four different head coaches: Joe Philbin, Dan Campbell, Adam Gase and Brian Flores. With McCain now on the outs, there is just one player who stands alone as the Dolphins longest tenured player wide receiver DeVante Parker. Parker has logged the same number of seasons in Miami as McCain, but Parker was drafted two nights earlier in the 1st-round of the 2015 NFL Draft. But even when you extend the window to account for the three longest tenured Dolphins, the list is still quite recent. WR DeVante Parker (1st-round, 2015) CB Xavien Howard (2nd-round, 2016) WR/KR Jakeem Grant (6th-round, 2016) Grant is yet another player whose hold on a roster spot appears to be in jeopardy, as well. His receiving resume has been underwhelming and any time the Dolphins look to provide him with a bigger role, durability issues and drops spring up. Grants most appealing asset is his kick return duties but Miami has drafted players with prominent return skills with two of their first three selections in this years draft: Jaylen Waddle & Jevon Holland. Should Grant get the axe, OL Jesse Davis would move into the No. 3 spot on the list of longest tenured Dolphins. He was signed as a free agent in 2017. No other players remain on Miamis roster from that offseason, either. One player from the 2015 offseason. Two from 2016 (and one seemingly on the outs). And another one from 2017. This is the price you pay as an organization when youre constantly playing musical chairs with head coaches and general managers and stability seems to escape you at every turn. They appear to have the right leadership in place, which means the Dolphins can start to further retain talent because it suits the long-term vision for the team. But either way, it is quite startling to look over the Dolphins roster and realize that you can count on one hand the number of players who have been with the Dolphins for more than three seasons. | Just one player stands alone as the Dolphins longest tenured player wide receiver DeVante Parker. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://sports.yahoo.com/dolphins-longest-tenured-players-bobby-131506565.html?src=rss | 0.31619 |
Who are Dolphins longest tenured players after Bobby McCain release? | The Miami Dolphins have bid farewell to one of their longest tenured players this week, releasing defensive back Bobby McCain after six seasons together in South Florida. McCain, who as a 5th-round draft choice by the Dolphins out of Memphis in 2015, enjoyed a better career than most drafted in his range of the draft a testament to his versatility as a defender. McCain, during his time with Miami, played nickel corner, outside cornerback and free safety over four different head coaches: Joe Philbin, Dan Campbell, Adam Gase and Brian Flores. With McCain now on the outs, there is just one player who stands alone as the Dolphins longest tenured player wide receiver DeVante Parker. Parker has logged the same number of seasons in Miami as McCain, but Parker was drafted two nights earlier in the 1st-round of the 2015 NFL Draft. But even when you extend the window to account for the three longest tenured Dolphins, the list is still quite recent. WR DeVante Parker (1st-round, 2015) CB Xavien Howard (2nd-round, 2016) WR/KR Jakeem Grant (6th-round, 2016) Grant is yet another player whose hold on a roster spot appears to be in jeopardy, as well. His receiving resume has been underwhelming and any time the Dolphins look to provide him with a bigger role, durability issues and drops spring up. Grants most appealing asset is his kick return duties but Miami has drafted players with prominent return skills with two of their first three selections in this years draft: Jaylen Waddle & Jevon Holland. Should Grant get the axe, OL Jesse Davis would move into the No. 3 spot on the list of longest tenured Dolphins. He was signed as a free agent in 2017. No other players remain on Miamis roster from that offseason, either. One player from the 2015 offseason. Two from 2016 (and one seemingly on the outs). And another one from 2017. This is the price you pay as an organization when youre constantly playing musical chairs with head coaches and general managers and stability seems to escape you at every turn. They appear to have the right leadership in place, which means the Dolphins can start to further retain talent because it suits the long-term vision for the team. But either way, it is quite startling to look over the Dolphins roster and realize that you can count on one hand the number of players who have been with the Dolphins for more than three seasons. | Just one player stands alone as the Dolphins longest tenured player wide receiver DeVante Parker. The Dolphins have released defensive back Bobby McCain after six seasons together. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://sports.yahoo.com/dolphins-longest-tenured-players-bobby-131506565.html?src=rss | 0.653208 |
Who are Dolphins longest tenured players after Bobby McCain release? | The Miami Dolphins have bid farewell to one of their longest tenured players this week, releasing defensive back Bobby McCain after six seasons together in South Florida. McCain, who as a 5th-round draft choice by the Dolphins out of Memphis in 2015, enjoyed a better career than most drafted in his range of the draft a testament to his versatility as a defender. McCain, during his time with Miami, played nickel corner, outside cornerback and free safety over four different head coaches: Joe Philbin, Dan Campbell, Adam Gase and Brian Flores. With McCain now on the outs, there is just one player who stands alone as the Dolphins longest tenured player wide receiver DeVante Parker. Parker has logged the same number of seasons in Miami as McCain, but Parker was drafted two nights earlier in the 1st-round of the 2015 NFL Draft. But even when you extend the window to account for the three longest tenured Dolphins, the list is still quite recent. WR DeVante Parker (1st-round, 2015) CB Xavien Howard (2nd-round, 2016) WR/KR Jakeem Grant (6th-round, 2016) Grant is yet another player whose hold on a roster spot appears to be in jeopardy, as well. His receiving resume has been underwhelming and any time the Dolphins look to provide him with a bigger role, durability issues and drops spring up. Grants most appealing asset is his kick return duties but Miami has drafted players with prominent return skills with two of their first three selections in this years draft: Jaylen Waddle & Jevon Holland. Should Grant get the axe, OL Jesse Davis would move into the No. 3 spot on the list of longest tenured Dolphins. He was signed as a free agent in 2017. No other players remain on Miamis roster from that offseason, either. One player from the 2015 offseason. Two from 2016 (and one seemingly on the outs). And another one from 2017. This is the price you pay as an organization when youre constantly playing musical chairs with head coaches and general managers and stability seems to escape you at every turn. They appear to have the right leadership in place, which means the Dolphins can start to further retain talent because it suits the long-term vision for the team. But either way, it is quite startling to look over the Dolphins roster and realize that you can count on one hand the number of players who have been with the Dolphins for more than three seasons. | The Miami Dolphins have bid farewell to one of their longest tenured players this week, releasing defensive back Bobby McCain. McCain enjoyed a better career than most drafted in his range of the draft. With McCain now on the outs, there is just one player who stands alone as the Dolphins longest tenured player wide receiver DeVante Parker. | pegasus | 2 | https://sports.yahoo.com/dolphins-longest-tenured-players-bobby-131506565.html?src=rss | 0.673376 |
Did the Bengals Find Their Kicker Of the Future In Evan McPherson? | The luxury of having an automatic kicker at the collegiate and NFL ranks can elevate a team to the next level. As the player that usually holds the most points scored come the season's close, it is vital to have a talented and accurate leg on your roster, given their propensity to make game-changing or game-deciding plays. Looking to turn around their kicking room next season ranked 21st in field goal percentage last season at 79.4 percent in 2020 the Cincinnati Bengals chose to select Florida Gators placekicker Evan McPherson with the 149th overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. From the early-to-mid-2010s, the Florida Gators struggled heavily to knock through field goals on a consistent basis. Playing into heartbreaking losses and growing unrest within the fan base, the kicking game plagued an already stagnant scoring offense for UF. Turning over a new leaf when Eddy Pieiro stepped into the mix, Florida has found their widths about them in that department. Continued by McPherson from 2018 to 2020, the Gators have had little worries about missing opportunities in scoring position. As the epitome of consistency during his time at Florida, McPherson knocked through 85 percent of his field goals in his career and made all but one of his 150 attempted extra points. Kicking with great technique on a leg swing that packs explosiveness at the contact point, McPherson was a legitimate weapon for Dan Mullens squad when the offense stalled. Despite struggling in 2020 down the stretch of the season, the Fort Payne (Ala.) native displayed an automatic nature inside 40 yards, connecting on all 11 kicks from that range. While his accuracy began to taper off as he approached the high-40s in yardage, McPherson consistently showed his leg was powerful enough to connect from that distance. In fact, in the season opener against Ole Miss, McPherson punched a ball through from 55 yards out to give the Gators a 38-21 lead. Criticized for his lack of experience kicking in the clutch, McPherson rarely had the opportunity to showcase his ability to hit wall-offs to seal a Gators victory. In the one game he did have that opportunity, McPherson hooked a 51-yard attempt just left of the upright as time expired. Bouncing back with a stellar pro day performance in March that showcased his impeccable skillset by knocking through 21 of his 22 attempts on the day, including a 60-plus yarder. As a result, Cincinnati was impressed to a point that special teams coordinator Darrin Simmons used his influence on the draft process to persuade the Bengals to take McPherson in the fifth round, making McPherson the first and only kicker taken in the draft. Looking to add competition besides last year's incumbent Austin Seibert following the loss of Randy Bullock the Bengals expect McPherson to win the job for next season given the capital they expended to bring him in. The re-acclamation from college to the pro game may be one that takes some time for McPherson in the early portions of camp, but the luxury (or lack thereof) of having to kick in the elements every practice as Cincinnati does not have an indoor practice facility could pay dividends for his progression. All in all, Bengals fans are likely to grow accustomed to hearing McPhersons name next season as the unrivaled leader of the field goal kicking department. | The Cincinnati Bengals chose Florida Gators placekicker Evan McPherson with the 149th overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. | bart | 0 | https://www.si.com/college/florida/football/florida-gators-evan-mcpherson-cincinnati-bengals-fit-analysis | 0.23268 |
Did the Bengals Find Their Kicker Of the Future In Evan McPherson? | The luxury of having an automatic kicker at the collegiate and NFL ranks can elevate a team to the next level. As the player that usually holds the most points scored come the season's close, it is vital to have a talented and accurate leg on your roster, given their propensity to make game-changing or game-deciding plays. Looking to turn around their kicking room next season ranked 21st in field goal percentage last season at 79.4 percent in 2020 the Cincinnati Bengals chose to select Florida Gators placekicker Evan McPherson with the 149th overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. From the early-to-mid-2010s, the Florida Gators struggled heavily to knock through field goals on a consistent basis. Playing into heartbreaking losses and growing unrest within the fan base, the kicking game plagued an already stagnant scoring offense for UF. Turning over a new leaf when Eddy Pieiro stepped into the mix, Florida has found their widths about them in that department. Continued by McPherson from 2018 to 2020, the Gators have had little worries about missing opportunities in scoring position. As the epitome of consistency during his time at Florida, McPherson knocked through 85 percent of his field goals in his career and made all but one of his 150 attempted extra points. Kicking with great technique on a leg swing that packs explosiveness at the contact point, McPherson was a legitimate weapon for Dan Mullens squad when the offense stalled. Despite struggling in 2020 down the stretch of the season, the Fort Payne (Ala.) native displayed an automatic nature inside 40 yards, connecting on all 11 kicks from that range. While his accuracy began to taper off as he approached the high-40s in yardage, McPherson consistently showed his leg was powerful enough to connect from that distance. In fact, in the season opener against Ole Miss, McPherson punched a ball through from 55 yards out to give the Gators a 38-21 lead. Criticized for his lack of experience kicking in the clutch, McPherson rarely had the opportunity to showcase his ability to hit wall-offs to seal a Gators victory. In the one game he did have that opportunity, McPherson hooked a 51-yard attempt just left of the upright as time expired. Bouncing back with a stellar pro day performance in March that showcased his impeccable skillset by knocking through 21 of his 22 attempts on the day, including a 60-plus yarder. As a result, Cincinnati was impressed to a point that special teams coordinator Darrin Simmons used his influence on the draft process to persuade the Bengals to take McPherson in the fifth round, making McPherson the first and only kicker taken in the draft. Looking to add competition besides last year's incumbent Austin Seibert following the loss of Randy Bullock the Bengals expect McPherson to win the job for next season given the capital they expended to bring him in. The re-acclamation from college to the pro game may be one that takes some time for McPherson in the early portions of camp, but the luxury (or lack thereof) of having to kick in the elements every practice as Cincinnati does not have an indoor practice facility could pay dividends for his progression. All in all, Bengals fans are likely to grow accustomed to hearing McPhersons name next season as the unrivaled leader of the field goal kicking department. | Cincinnati Bengals select Florida Gators placekicker Evan McPherson with 149th overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. McPhersson was the epitome of consistency during his time at Florida. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.si.com/college/florida/football/florida-gators-evan-mcpherson-cincinnati-bengals-fit-analysis | 0.225012 |
Did the Bengals Find Their Kicker Of the Future In Evan McPherson? | The luxury of having an automatic kicker at the collegiate and NFL ranks can elevate a team to the next level. As the player that usually holds the most points scored come the season's close, it is vital to have a talented and accurate leg on your roster, given their propensity to make game-changing or game-deciding plays. Looking to turn around their kicking room next season ranked 21st in field goal percentage last season at 79.4 percent in 2020 the Cincinnati Bengals chose to select Florida Gators placekicker Evan McPherson with the 149th overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. From the early-to-mid-2010s, the Florida Gators struggled heavily to knock through field goals on a consistent basis. Playing into heartbreaking losses and growing unrest within the fan base, the kicking game plagued an already stagnant scoring offense for UF. Turning over a new leaf when Eddy Pieiro stepped into the mix, Florida has found their widths about them in that department. Continued by McPherson from 2018 to 2020, the Gators have had little worries about missing opportunities in scoring position. As the epitome of consistency during his time at Florida, McPherson knocked through 85 percent of his field goals in his career and made all but one of his 150 attempted extra points. Kicking with great technique on a leg swing that packs explosiveness at the contact point, McPherson was a legitimate weapon for Dan Mullens squad when the offense stalled. Despite struggling in 2020 down the stretch of the season, the Fort Payne (Ala.) native displayed an automatic nature inside 40 yards, connecting on all 11 kicks from that range. While his accuracy began to taper off as he approached the high-40s in yardage, McPherson consistently showed his leg was powerful enough to connect from that distance. In fact, in the season opener against Ole Miss, McPherson punched a ball through from 55 yards out to give the Gators a 38-21 lead. Criticized for his lack of experience kicking in the clutch, McPherson rarely had the opportunity to showcase his ability to hit wall-offs to seal a Gators victory. In the one game he did have that opportunity, McPherson hooked a 51-yard attempt just left of the upright as time expired. Bouncing back with a stellar pro day performance in March that showcased his impeccable skillset by knocking through 21 of his 22 attempts on the day, including a 60-plus yarder. As a result, Cincinnati was impressed to a point that special teams coordinator Darrin Simmons used his influence on the draft process to persuade the Bengals to take McPherson in the fifth round, making McPherson the first and only kicker taken in the draft. Looking to add competition besides last year's incumbent Austin Seibert following the loss of Randy Bullock the Bengals expect McPherson to win the job for next season given the capital they expended to bring him in. The re-acclamation from college to the pro game may be one that takes some time for McPherson in the early portions of camp, but the luxury (or lack thereof) of having to kick in the elements every practice as Cincinnati does not have an indoor practice facility could pay dividends for his progression. All in all, Bengals fans are likely to grow accustomed to hearing McPhersons name next season as the unrivaled leader of the field goal kicking department. | Cincinnati Bengals select Florida Gators placekicker Evan McPherson with 149th overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. McPhersson was the epitome of consistency during his time at Florida, knocking through 85 percent of his field goals in his career and made all but one of his 150 attempted extra points. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.si.com/college/florida/football/florida-gators-evan-mcpherson-cincinnati-bengals-fit-analysis | 0.259265 |
How different will Falcons offense look under Arthur Smith? | Nobody ran more 12 personnel looks in 2020 than Arthur Smith did as offensive coordinator of the Tennessee Titans. Smith, who took over as the new head coach of the Atlanta Falcons a few months ago, ran the 12 personnel 15 percent more than the league average. Furthermore, Smiths offense was in 11 personnel 25 percent less than the league average. Going back to 2018, former Falcons offensive coordinators Dirk Koetter (2019-2020) and Steve Sarkisian (2017-2018) have utilized the 11 personnel 61 percent of the time. Thats right on par with the league average, which has been steadily increasing each year over the past decade. For the ones who dont understand the numerical description, here is a quick run down. The 12 personnel grouping means that there is one running back to two tight ends. Thus, an 11 personnel signals one running back and one tight end, while 21 personnel means there is only one tight end to two running backs. So, when someone uses 00 personnel, that signals there being five wide receivers due to process of elimination. As Smith takes over in Atlanta, he brings an entirely new offensive makeup that should be fairly similar to what he ran in Tennessee. Here is a look at the three most prevalent personnel groupings used by the Falcons and Titans during the 2020 season. 2020 11 Personnel Total % % of All Run Success Rate % of All Pass Success Rate Falcons 61 % 45 % 49 % 71 % 47 % Titans 38 % 29 % 58 % 48 % 48 % 2020 12 Personnel Total % % of All Run Success Rate % of All Pass Success Rate Falcons 16 % 18 % 48 % 14 % 58 % Titans 35 % 39 % 52 % 31 % 54 % 2020 21 Personnel Total % % of All Run Success Rate % of All Pass Success Rate Falcons 12 % 20 % 43 % 8 % 46 % Titans 10 % 14 % 62 % 7 % 44 % The biggest takeaway here is how successful the Titans were at running the football with only one tight end on the field. As fo the Falcons, they averaged one yard less per carry in 11 personnel than the Titans, and 1.6 yards per carry less in 21 personnel. Story continues Some may point to Derrick Henry as the main difference here, and while Henry has played a large role in the development of Tennessees offense, he didnt become the player we know at the NFL level until Smith took over as the offensive coordinator in 2019. Upons Smiths arrival, one immediate area of improvement was in the success rate of running plays from the 11 and 12 personnel groups. Tennessee had a 10 percent increase in the success rate of plays called out of the 12 personnel, and an eight percent increase from the 11 personnel on runs in 2019 compared to 2018. In these three main personnel sets, the Falcons average success rate (46 percent) is more than 10 percent less than the Titans rate (57 percent) when running the football. Transitioning to the passing game, when using 11 personnel, quarterback Matt Ryan had a passer rating of 90.2 and a 2-to-1.2 touchdown-to-interception ratio on his 470 drop backs. This is much lower than Ryan Tannehills 104.2 passer rating and 5-to-1.3 touchdown-to-interception ratio on just 252 drop backs. Another set the Falcons will run is the 13 personnel group. In fact, this personnel set could be used a lot in 2021 in order to get both Kyle Pitts and Hayden Hurst on the field together. Not only does this allow for two pass-catching tight ends, but also allows for Smith to bring in a specific blocking tight end, such as recently acquired veteran Lee Smith. Tight ends coach Justin Peelle talking with the media says both Hayden Hurst and Kyle Pitts will be in the field at the same time. Peelle says Hurst has really improved since he evaluated him coming out of the draft #Falcons Kelsey Conway (@FalconsKelsey) May 5, 2021 Only one team (Cleveland) used the 13 personnel grouping more than Tennessee in 2020. The Titans ran this look on 11 percent of their running plays and seven percent of passing plays. For reference, Atlanta used this set less than five percent overall in 2020. To sum everything up, the Falcons should see a more balanced offensive attack in 2021. Not only that, but they should become more successful when running the ball. Free-agent running back Mike Davis will go into the season as the presumptive starter and hopefully bring some of that bowling ball mentality that Henry brought when Smith was his play-caller. Related | Arthur Smith ran the 12 personnel set 15 percent more than the league average. The Falcons will run the 11 personnel set 61 percent of the time in 2020. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://sports.yahoo.com/different-falcons-offense-look-under-150051837.html?src=rss | 0.11612 |
How different will Falcons offense look under Arthur Smith? | Nobody ran more 12 personnel looks in 2020 than Arthur Smith did as offensive coordinator of the Tennessee Titans. Smith, who took over as the new head coach of the Atlanta Falcons a few months ago, ran the 12 personnel 15 percent more than the league average. Furthermore, Smiths offense was in 11 personnel 25 percent less than the league average. Going back to 2018, former Falcons offensive coordinators Dirk Koetter (2019-2020) and Steve Sarkisian (2017-2018) have utilized the 11 personnel 61 percent of the time. Thats right on par with the league average, which has been steadily increasing each year over the past decade. For the ones who dont understand the numerical description, here is a quick run down. The 12 personnel grouping means that there is one running back to two tight ends. Thus, an 11 personnel signals one running back and one tight end, while 21 personnel means there is only one tight end to two running backs. So, when someone uses 00 personnel, that signals there being five wide receivers due to process of elimination. As Smith takes over in Atlanta, he brings an entirely new offensive makeup that should be fairly similar to what he ran in Tennessee. Here is a look at the three most prevalent personnel groupings used by the Falcons and Titans during the 2020 season. 2020 11 Personnel Total % % of All Run Success Rate % of All Pass Success Rate Falcons 61 % 45 % 49 % 71 % 47 % Titans 38 % 29 % 58 % 48 % 48 % 2020 12 Personnel Total % % of All Run Success Rate % of All Pass Success Rate Falcons 16 % 18 % 48 % 14 % 58 % Titans 35 % 39 % 52 % 31 % 54 % 2020 21 Personnel Total % % of All Run Success Rate % of All Pass Success Rate Falcons 12 % 20 % 43 % 8 % 46 % Titans 10 % 14 % 62 % 7 % 44 % The biggest takeaway here is how successful the Titans were at running the football with only one tight end on the field. As fo the Falcons, they averaged one yard less per carry in 11 personnel than the Titans, and 1.6 yards per carry less in 21 personnel. Story continues Some may point to Derrick Henry as the main difference here, and while Henry has played a large role in the development of Tennessees offense, he didnt become the player we know at the NFL level until Smith took over as the offensive coordinator in 2019. Upons Smiths arrival, one immediate area of improvement was in the success rate of running plays from the 11 and 12 personnel groups. Tennessee had a 10 percent increase in the success rate of plays called out of the 12 personnel, and an eight percent increase from the 11 personnel on runs in 2019 compared to 2018. In these three main personnel sets, the Falcons average success rate (46 percent) is more than 10 percent less than the Titans rate (57 percent) when running the football. Transitioning to the passing game, when using 11 personnel, quarterback Matt Ryan had a passer rating of 90.2 and a 2-to-1.2 touchdown-to-interception ratio on his 470 drop backs. This is much lower than Ryan Tannehills 104.2 passer rating and 5-to-1.3 touchdown-to-interception ratio on just 252 drop backs. Another set the Falcons will run is the 13 personnel group. In fact, this personnel set could be used a lot in 2021 in order to get both Kyle Pitts and Hayden Hurst on the field together. Not only does this allow for two pass-catching tight ends, but also allows for Smith to bring in a specific blocking tight end, such as recently acquired veteran Lee Smith. Tight ends coach Justin Peelle talking with the media says both Hayden Hurst and Kyle Pitts will be in the field at the same time. Peelle says Hurst has really improved since he evaluated him coming out of the draft #Falcons Kelsey Conway (@FalconsKelsey) May 5, 2021 Only one team (Cleveland) used the 13 personnel grouping more than Tennessee in 2020. The Titans ran this look on 11 percent of their running plays and seven percent of passing plays. For reference, Atlanta used this set less than five percent overall in 2020. To sum everything up, the Falcons should see a more balanced offensive attack in 2021. Not only that, but they should become more successful when running the ball. Free-agent running back Mike Davis will go into the season as the presumptive starter and hopefully bring some of that bowling ball mentality that Henry brought when Smith was his play-caller. Related | Arthur Smith ran the 12 personnel set 15 percent more than the league average. The Falcons will run the 11 personnel set 61 percent of the time in 2020. The 13 personnel set could be used a lot in 2021 to get both Kyle Pitts and Kyle Bradshaw on the field. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://sports.yahoo.com/different-falcons-offense-look-under-150051837.html?src=rss | 0.10852 |
Will the Saints Pursue Another Linebacker in Free Agency? | Last weekend, New Orleans added Pete Werner in second-round to their linebacking corps with 2020 third-rounder Zack Baun. Linebacker Kwon Alexander helped to elevate the New Orleans Saints defense to an elite level in 2021. Alexander, a seven-year veteran, was acquired in a mid-season trade with the San Francisco 49ers. His outstanding athleticism and pass coverage skills meshed perfectly with the all-pro abilities of linebacker Demario Davis. Alexander suffered an Achilles injury late in the season - this makes his availability for the Saints season's opener in question. In addition, the team released him for salary cap reasons. He remains a free agent, but a reunion between Alexander and New Orleans is highly possible. His loss and departure of linebacker Alex Anzalone in free agency left many to believe the team would bring in another athletic linebacker this offseason. Alabama receiver DeVonta Smith (6) is hit by Ohio State linebacker Pete Werner (20) in the 2021 College Football Playoff National Championship Game. Mandatory Credit: Douglas DeFelice-USA TODAY Sports New Orleans selected Ohio State linebacker Pete Werner in the second round of the 2021 NFL Draft. He is a throwback defender with excellent instincts. The linebacking corps also look for significant improvements and contributions from last year's third-round choice Zack Baun and the 2019 seventh-round pick Kaden Elliss. Still, some expect New Orleans to sign another veteran to complement Demario Davis before the regular season. Alexander, who turns 27 in August, is the most logical solution. Here are some other options at linebacker still available on the free-agent market. K.J. WRIGHT (31 - SEAHAWKS) 64 246-Lbs. Seattle Seahawks linebacker K.J. Wright (50). Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports K.J. Wright is one of the biggest names left on the free-agent market. Perhaps last season was the best of his ten-year Seahawk career. After playing most of his career at middle linebacker, Wright switched and handled the strongside duties in 2020. He had 1 interception, broke up 10 passes, forced or recovered 3 fumbles, recorded 11 tackles for loss, had 2 sacks, and added 6 QB pressures. Wright has a nose for the football and is always in the middle of the action. He has terrific coverage ability for his size and routinely takes on opposing tight ends. Wright had eight seasons with at least 85 tackles and has 66 career stops for loss. In his NFL career, Wright has intercepted 6 passes, broken up 54 others, been responsible for 20 fumbles forced or recovered, and recorded 13.5 sacks and 27 QB hits. DE'VONDRE CAMPBELL (28 - CARDINALS) 64 232-Lbs. Arizona Cardinals outside linebacker De'Vondre Campbell (59). Mandatory Credit: Paul Rutherford-USA TODAY De'Vondre Campbell's first four years in the NFL were with the Atlanta Falcons before joining the Arizona Cardinals in 2020. He contributed with 99 tackles (7 for a loss), 2 sacks, 3 passes broken up, and a forced fumble with Arizona. In his five-year career, he has 3 interceptions, 19 passes broken up, 6 forced fumbles, 7.5 sacks, and four straight seasons with at least 90 tackles. Campbell is a fast sideline-to-sideline defender capable of playing either inside or outside linebacker. He excels in open space and covers tight ends well. Campbell is one of the few linebackers in the league who could match Alvin Kamara athletically during his time with the Falcons. TAHIR WHITEHEAD (31 - Panthers) 62 241-Lbs. Carolina Panthers middle linebacker Tahir Whitehead (52) hits Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert (10). Mandatory Credit: Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY Sports Whitehead is a tackling machine during his first six seasons with the Detroit Lions. He has been with two teams in the last three years. He had 51 tackles in 14 games with Carolina in 2020, his lowest total since 2013. The nine-year veteran had at least 108 tackles in four seasons before last year and has 38 career tackles for loss. Whitehead has 6 career interceptions, and 25 passes broken up, recovering 6 fumbles and forcing 3 others. He may have lost a step in downfield coverage but still has good sideline-to-sideline range. B.J. GOODSON (28 - BROWNS) 61 241-Lbs. Cleveland Browns middle linebacker B.J. Goodson (93) tackles Ravens running back Gus Edwards (35). Mandatory Credit: Scott Galvin-USA TODAY Sports Goodson spent his first three seasons with the New York Giants before playing with Green Bay and Cleveland in each of the last two years. He achieved career-highs with 2 interceptions, 6 passes broken up, and 91 tackles for the Browns in 2020. Goodson has a nice range and is competent in zone coverages with good enough athleticism to handle tight ends in man coverage. He has played inside for most of his career but could also handle strongside duties. Other names to watch: Avery Williamson (29 - Steelers) Patrick Onwuasor (29 - Jets) Todd Davis (29 - Vikings) Reuben Foster (27 - Redskins) Kwon Alexander would be the best fit for the Saints. He knows the system, is outstanding coverage skills, and has excellent chemistry with Demario Davis. If they cannot bring Alexander back, then one of the above linebackers could be an intriguing addition while young players like Pete Werner and Zack Baun continue to develop. | Kwon Alexander helped elevate the New Orleans Saints defense to an elite level in 2021. He remains a free agent, but a reunion between Alexander and New Orleans is highly possible. Here are some other options at linebacker still available on the free-agent market. | pegasus | 2 | https://www.si.com/nfl/saints/editorial-opinion/will-the-saints-pursue-another-linebacker-in-free-agency | 0.110192 |
Can Warriors catch Lakers, Blazers in No. 6 NBA playoff seed quest? | Warriors destined for eighth, will need help to rise higher originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea Sixth place in the Western Conference was, 10 days ago for the Warriors, a distant island visible only by nautical telescope from their sinking ship. Now, it is close enough to see with routine binoculars. Seventh place, the goal expressed most recently, is visible to the naked eye. That doesnt mean the Warriors will get to either, but seeing them makes it conceivable. Sixth place is shared by the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers, who meet Friday in Portland, with their season-series tie-breaker at stake. The winner takes sole possession of sixth, which is crucial insofar as the seventh-place finisher is shoved into the play-in tournament. In a season in which the Warriors have been boxed in by their defective qualities, getting to seventh will require outside help and internal perfection. Getting to sixth will require even more of each. At 34-33, the Warriors trail Portland and LA (both 37-29) by three-and-a-half games. A tiny opening exists mostly because each team is vulnerable. The Lakers: After missing two months with a calf injury, Anthony Davis returned only to tweak an ankle and leave the game Thursday against the Los Angeles Clippers with back spasms. LeBron James missed six weeks with an ankle injury, lasted two games before aggravating the injury and now hopes to return for the last three regular-season games. Dennis Schroder wont be back until the final weekend of the regular season. LA is a mess right now. After Portland, its back home to face the hot Phoenix Suns, the hotter New York Knicks and the speed-bump Houston Rockets. The Lakers finish on the road, at Indiana and New Orleans. Seventh place is not out of the question. At all. The Blazers: Guard Norman Powell is limping on a tender knee but hopes to return Friday. Damian Lillard is playing through a foot contusion. Portlands health is relatively good, but the end of the schedule is a beast: A back-to-back at Utah and Phoenix, followed by a home game against the Denver -- three teams destined to finish in the top half of the conference. Story continues Its altogether possible, even probable, that Golden State will face either the Lakers or the Blazers in the play-in tournament. These teams likely will fill seeds No. 6, No. 7 and No. 8 -- though the Memphis Grizzlies, currently ninth, are only one-half game behind the Warriors. Though the Warriors have their own health issues, their advantage over the competition is that their final six games are at home and theyve already won the first one, a 118-97 lashing over the modestly skilled Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday. The Warriors will have picked up a half-game on the Lakers-Blazers loser by the time they return to Chase Center on Saturday for another game against OKC. The Warriors should prevail, rather easily. The margin here is so small that they cannot afford another loss to a team outside the race. And not with a Monday-Tuesday back-to-back against the Jazz and Suns. Thats where the internal perfection comes in. Playing as they did Thursday night was good enough to beat the Thunder but wouldnt be competitive against the Jazz or Suns, the two teams vying for the overall No. 1 seed. All three Warriors that met with media after the game mentioned one priority that could determine where they finish: Turnovers. Definitely taking care of the ball, Kent Bazemore said. We kept our turnovers a little lower than usual tonight, and thats something that were going to want to continue to see down the stretch, said Mychal Mulder, who scored 25 points in 20 minutes off the bench. We went out there and executed, Kevon Looney said, explaining the victory. We didn't turn the ball over that much. The Warriors committed 14 turnovers, a passable number, but too many were of the live-ball variety. OKC scored 18 points, nearly one-fifth of its total, off Golden State gifts. Such largesse would be lethal against Utah or Phoenix, and probably the last two opponents, New Orleans and Memphis. To slide up to sixth, the Warriors probably have to end the season on a six-game win streak, a gargantuan task for a team that has won four in a row only once all season, with only one of those wins against a playoff team (the Nuggets). To slide up to seventh, the Warriors probably have to go at least 5-1. The history of the 2020-21 season would indicate they finish the homestand at 4-2. In which case theyd have 37 wins and eighth place would beckon. And theyd go to Portland or LA to play a game theyd much rather have at home. Download and subscribe to the Dubs Talk Podcast | Warriors destined for eighth, will need help to rise higher. Sixth place is shared by the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers. | bart | 0 | https://sports.yahoo.com/warriors-catch-lakers-blazers-no-143207497.html?src=rss | 0.143195 |
Can Warriors catch Lakers, Blazers in No. 6 NBA playoff seed quest? | Warriors destined for eighth, will need help to rise higher originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea Sixth place in the Western Conference was, 10 days ago for the Warriors, a distant island visible only by nautical telescope from their sinking ship. Now, it is close enough to see with routine binoculars. Seventh place, the goal expressed most recently, is visible to the naked eye. That doesnt mean the Warriors will get to either, but seeing them makes it conceivable. Sixth place is shared by the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers, who meet Friday in Portland, with their season-series tie-breaker at stake. The winner takes sole possession of sixth, which is crucial insofar as the seventh-place finisher is shoved into the play-in tournament. In a season in which the Warriors have been boxed in by their defective qualities, getting to seventh will require outside help and internal perfection. Getting to sixth will require even more of each. At 34-33, the Warriors trail Portland and LA (both 37-29) by three-and-a-half games. A tiny opening exists mostly because each team is vulnerable. The Lakers: After missing two months with a calf injury, Anthony Davis returned only to tweak an ankle and leave the game Thursday against the Los Angeles Clippers with back spasms. LeBron James missed six weeks with an ankle injury, lasted two games before aggravating the injury and now hopes to return for the last three regular-season games. Dennis Schroder wont be back until the final weekend of the regular season. LA is a mess right now. After Portland, its back home to face the hot Phoenix Suns, the hotter New York Knicks and the speed-bump Houston Rockets. The Lakers finish on the road, at Indiana and New Orleans. Seventh place is not out of the question. At all. The Blazers: Guard Norman Powell is limping on a tender knee but hopes to return Friday. Damian Lillard is playing through a foot contusion. Portlands health is relatively good, but the end of the schedule is a beast: A back-to-back at Utah and Phoenix, followed by a home game against the Denver -- three teams destined to finish in the top half of the conference. Story continues Its altogether possible, even probable, that Golden State will face either the Lakers or the Blazers in the play-in tournament. These teams likely will fill seeds No. 6, No. 7 and No. 8 -- though the Memphis Grizzlies, currently ninth, are only one-half game behind the Warriors. Though the Warriors have their own health issues, their advantage over the competition is that their final six games are at home and theyve already won the first one, a 118-97 lashing over the modestly skilled Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday. The Warriors will have picked up a half-game on the Lakers-Blazers loser by the time they return to Chase Center on Saturday for another game against OKC. The Warriors should prevail, rather easily. The margin here is so small that they cannot afford another loss to a team outside the race. And not with a Monday-Tuesday back-to-back against the Jazz and Suns. Thats where the internal perfection comes in. Playing as they did Thursday night was good enough to beat the Thunder but wouldnt be competitive against the Jazz or Suns, the two teams vying for the overall No. 1 seed. All three Warriors that met with media after the game mentioned one priority that could determine where they finish: Turnovers. Definitely taking care of the ball, Kent Bazemore said. We kept our turnovers a little lower than usual tonight, and thats something that were going to want to continue to see down the stretch, said Mychal Mulder, who scored 25 points in 20 minutes off the bench. We went out there and executed, Kevon Looney said, explaining the victory. We didn't turn the ball over that much. The Warriors committed 14 turnovers, a passable number, but too many were of the live-ball variety. OKC scored 18 points, nearly one-fifth of its total, off Golden State gifts. Such largesse would be lethal against Utah or Phoenix, and probably the last two opponents, New Orleans and Memphis. To slide up to sixth, the Warriors probably have to end the season on a six-game win streak, a gargantuan task for a team that has won four in a row only once all season, with only one of those wins against a playoff team (the Nuggets). To slide up to seventh, the Warriors probably have to go at least 5-1. The history of the 2020-21 season would indicate they finish the homestand at 4-2. In which case theyd have 37 wins and eighth place would beckon. And theyd go to Portland or LA to play a game theyd much rather have at home. Download and subscribe to the Dubs Talk Podcast | Warriors destined for eighth, will need help to rise higher. Sixth place is shared by the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers. Golden State will face either the Lakers or the Blazers in the play-in tournament. | bart | 1 | https://sports.yahoo.com/warriors-catch-lakers-blazers-no-143207497.html?src=rss | 0.207602 |
Can Warriors catch Lakers, Blazers in No. 6 NBA playoff seed quest? | Warriors destined for eighth, will need help to rise higher originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea Sixth place in the Western Conference was, 10 days ago for the Warriors, a distant island visible only by nautical telescope from their sinking ship. Now, it is close enough to see with routine binoculars. Seventh place, the goal expressed most recently, is visible to the naked eye. That doesnt mean the Warriors will get to either, but seeing them makes it conceivable. Sixth place is shared by the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers, who meet Friday in Portland, with their season-series tie-breaker at stake. The winner takes sole possession of sixth, which is crucial insofar as the seventh-place finisher is shoved into the play-in tournament. In a season in which the Warriors have been boxed in by their defective qualities, getting to seventh will require outside help and internal perfection. Getting to sixth will require even more of each. At 34-33, the Warriors trail Portland and LA (both 37-29) by three-and-a-half games. A tiny opening exists mostly because each team is vulnerable. The Lakers: After missing two months with a calf injury, Anthony Davis returned only to tweak an ankle and leave the game Thursday against the Los Angeles Clippers with back spasms. LeBron James missed six weeks with an ankle injury, lasted two games before aggravating the injury and now hopes to return for the last three regular-season games. Dennis Schroder wont be back until the final weekend of the regular season. LA is a mess right now. After Portland, its back home to face the hot Phoenix Suns, the hotter New York Knicks and the speed-bump Houston Rockets. The Lakers finish on the road, at Indiana and New Orleans. Seventh place is not out of the question. At all. The Blazers: Guard Norman Powell is limping on a tender knee but hopes to return Friday. Damian Lillard is playing through a foot contusion. Portlands health is relatively good, but the end of the schedule is a beast: A back-to-back at Utah and Phoenix, followed by a home game against the Denver -- three teams destined to finish in the top half of the conference. Story continues Its altogether possible, even probable, that Golden State will face either the Lakers or the Blazers in the play-in tournament. These teams likely will fill seeds No. 6, No. 7 and No. 8 -- though the Memphis Grizzlies, currently ninth, are only one-half game behind the Warriors. Though the Warriors have their own health issues, their advantage over the competition is that their final six games are at home and theyve already won the first one, a 118-97 lashing over the modestly skilled Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday. The Warriors will have picked up a half-game on the Lakers-Blazers loser by the time they return to Chase Center on Saturday for another game against OKC. The Warriors should prevail, rather easily. The margin here is so small that they cannot afford another loss to a team outside the race. And not with a Monday-Tuesday back-to-back against the Jazz and Suns. Thats where the internal perfection comes in. Playing as they did Thursday night was good enough to beat the Thunder but wouldnt be competitive against the Jazz or Suns, the two teams vying for the overall No. 1 seed. All three Warriors that met with media after the game mentioned one priority that could determine where they finish: Turnovers. Definitely taking care of the ball, Kent Bazemore said. We kept our turnovers a little lower than usual tonight, and thats something that were going to want to continue to see down the stretch, said Mychal Mulder, who scored 25 points in 20 minutes off the bench. We went out there and executed, Kevon Looney said, explaining the victory. We didn't turn the ball over that much. The Warriors committed 14 turnovers, a passable number, but too many were of the live-ball variety. OKC scored 18 points, nearly one-fifth of its total, off Golden State gifts. Such largesse would be lethal against Utah or Phoenix, and probably the last two opponents, New Orleans and Memphis. To slide up to sixth, the Warriors probably have to end the season on a six-game win streak, a gargantuan task for a team that has won four in a row only once all season, with only one of those wins against a playoff team (the Nuggets). To slide up to seventh, the Warriors probably have to go at least 5-1. The history of the 2020-21 season would indicate they finish the homestand at 4-2. In which case theyd have 37 wins and eighth place would beckon. And theyd go to Portland or LA to play a game theyd much rather have at home. Download and subscribe to the Dubs Talk Podcast | Warriors destined for eighth, will need help to rise higher. Sixth place is shared by the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers. Golden State will have picked up a half-game on the Lakers-Blazers loser by the time they return to Chase Center. | bart | 2 | https://sports.yahoo.com/warriors-catch-lakers-blazers-no-143207497.html?src=rss | 0.182406 |
Is Aaron Rodgers laying the foundation to return to the Packers? | Its still unknown what Aaron Rodgers wants from the Packers because he still hasnt said what he wants publicly. Indeed, he hasnt said anything about the current situation publicly. Theres nevertheless reason to believe that Rodgers who is sufficiently brilliant to be presumed to have a plan has been using other ways to send messages via the media. In recent days, for example, former teammates who have spoken with Rodgers have found their way to microphones with their characterizations of what Aaron wants. Obviously, if Aaron didnt authorize guys like John Kuhn and James Jones to speak on the quarterbacks behalf, they risk landing on Rodgers personal sh-t list. (Ive been there for more than a decade; like a hot bath, you get used to it.) If thats true, these former teammates could be laying the foundation for Rodgers to eventually yield in his desire to leave the Packers, given that the Packers arent inclined to grant his wish to be traded. And since its too late for Rodgers to personally put the toothpaste back in the toothpaste holder (not everyone says tube, as we learned this week on PFT PM), the next best thing could be using surrogates to gradually and persistently change the narrative. Enter Kuhn, who appeared Wednesday on CBS Sports Radio. He outlined a path toward a resolution to the problem, and he pushed back against the prevailing belief that Rodgers wants out. I truly believe Aaron wants to come back to Green Bay, but he doesnt want to do it on a lame-duck contract which, even though theres three years on his contract if you really look at the terms of it, it pretty much sets up for a clean break at the end of the 2021 season for the Packers himself considering that Jordan Love is on a rookie salary, Kuhn said. So I think that he wants more insurance that hes going to be a long-term starting quarterback option for the Green Bay Packers and that I believe is something that would intrigue him to make amends with the team and come back to this season. Story continues On Thursday, former Packers receiver James Jones appeared on NFL Network. He repeatedly called the situation between Rodgers and the Packers fixable, and that Jones doesnt believe Rodgers will hold out. If these messages take root, and there could be more in coming days from former or current Packers, a sense will emerge that the storm of reports from last week were overblown. Even if they werent. Even if Rodgers had every reason to knock them down on camera last weekend with Mike Tirico and declined to do so. Even if Rodgers left Tirico with the distinct impression that there is a fissure and a chasm between player and team. The reality is that, if the Packers arent going to trade Rodgers, he has two options: Play for the Packers or play for no one (and give up nearly $30 million in unearned bonus money). Hes not inclined (obviously) to take his beef public personally, likely because he doesnt want to become Public Enemy No. 1 in Green Bay. Unless and until he is, if he wants to play football, hes going to have to play for the team for which he reportedly doesnt want to play. Enter players with whom he used to play, who can say enough to potentially soften the blow to his ego and pride that will happen when he shows up for work like Costanza the Monday after he quit. originally appeared on Pro Football Talk | It's still unknown what Aaron Rodgers wants from the Packers. Former teammates who have spoken with Rodgers have found their way to microphones with their characterizations. John Kuhn and James Jones could be laying the foundation for Rodgers to eventually yield. | pegasus | 1 | https://sports.yahoo.com/aaron-rodgers-laying-foundation-return-143456717.html?src=rss | 0.259044 |
Is Aaron Rodgers laying the foundation to return to the Packers? | Its still unknown what Aaron Rodgers wants from the Packers because he still hasnt said what he wants publicly. Indeed, he hasnt said anything about the current situation publicly. Theres nevertheless reason to believe that Rodgers who is sufficiently brilliant to be presumed to have a plan has been using other ways to send messages via the media. In recent days, for example, former teammates who have spoken with Rodgers have found their way to microphones with their characterizations of what Aaron wants. Obviously, if Aaron didnt authorize guys like John Kuhn and James Jones to speak on the quarterbacks behalf, they risk landing on Rodgers personal sh-t list. (Ive been there for more than a decade; like a hot bath, you get used to it.) If thats true, these former teammates could be laying the foundation for Rodgers to eventually yield in his desire to leave the Packers, given that the Packers arent inclined to grant his wish to be traded. And since its too late for Rodgers to personally put the toothpaste back in the toothpaste holder (not everyone says tube, as we learned this week on PFT PM), the next best thing could be using surrogates to gradually and persistently change the narrative. Enter Kuhn, who appeared Wednesday on CBS Sports Radio. He outlined a path toward a resolution to the problem, and he pushed back against the prevailing belief that Rodgers wants out. I truly believe Aaron wants to come back to Green Bay, but he doesnt want to do it on a lame-duck contract which, even though theres three years on his contract if you really look at the terms of it, it pretty much sets up for a clean break at the end of the 2021 season for the Packers himself considering that Jordan Love is on a rookie salary, Kuhn said. So I think that he wants more insurance that hes going to be a long-term starting quarterback option for the Green Bay Packers and that I believe is something that would intrigue him to make amends with the team and come back to this season. Story continues On Thursday, former Packers receiver James Jones appeared on NFL Network. He repeatedly called the situation between Rodgers and the Packers fixable, and that Jones doesnt believe Rodgers will hold out. If these messages take root, and there could be more in coming days from former or current Packers, a sense will emerge that the storm of reports from last week were overblown. Even if they werent. Even if Rodgers had every reason to knock them down on camera last weekend with Mike Tirico and declined to do so. Even if Rodgers left Tirico with the distinct impression that there is a fissure and a chasm between player and team. The reality is that, if the Packers arent going to trade Rodgers, he has two options: Play for the Packers or play for no one (and give up nearly $30 million in unearned bonus money). Hes not inclined (obviously) to take his beef public personally, likely because he doesnt want to become Public Enemy No. 1 in Green Bay. Unless and until he is, if he wants to play football, hes going to have to play for the team for which he reportedly doesnt want to play. Enter players with whom he used to play, who can say enough to potentially soften the blow to his ego and pride that will happen when he shows up for work like Costanza the Monday after he quit. originally appeared on Pro Football Talk | Aaron Rodgers hasn't said what he wants from the Packers, but there's reason to believe he has a plan. Former teammates who have spoken with Rodgers have found their way to microphones with their characterizations of what Aaron wants. If that's true, these former teammates could be laying the foundation for Rodgers to eventually yield in his desire to leave. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://sports.yahoo.com/aaron-rodgers-laying-foundation-return-143456717.html?src=rss | 0.1355 |
How do the 5 first-round quarterbacks fit with their new NFL offenses? | The picks are in for the 2021 NFL draft, and the early run on quarterbacks likely will be a big part of this class' legacy. The five QBs selected in the first 15 overall picks also could help elevate or sink their respective franchises, depending on how they work out. But we decided to move the ball downfield a bit and take a look at how those five quarterbacks will fit in their new offensive systems and when we might expect to see them on the field. Some will start immediately. Others will require some patience. And there might be one or more whose athletic traits are featured early on in a non-starting role prior to being handed the keys to the full offense. Here they are in the order they were selected: Trevor Lawrence Jacksonville Jaguars (1st overall) Weve had months to mull this pick. Its been as good as locked in since the time Urban Meyer said yes to the job offer. But now comes the hard part. Yes, hes the overwhelming favorite to start all 17 games, assuming hes healthy. At Clemson, Lawrence ran an offense that was highly scripted. There were ample predetermined reads and half-field reads, which made Lawrence a big robootic at times in his execution. (Thats not necessarily a bad thing either.) Jaguars offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell joins Meyer, along with passing-game coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, to help build the offense both to tailor it to Lawrences strengths and also expand his duties to see how much they can squeeze out of a terrific talent. Trevor Lawrence could have a longer leash and more decision-making opportunities in Jacksonville than he had at Clemson. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File) Bevell was Russell Wilsons offensive coordinator during his rookie season, and Meyer pointed out that it was a big part of why Bevell was hired. His ability to get Russell Wilson in the NFL and performing at a high level rather quickly was a big reason why he's here," Meyer said. Bevells offense in Seattle was built around moving pockets, a zone run game, play action and option routes in the pass game. He also coached Brett Favre, tutored Aaron Rodgers as a rookie and helped Matthew Stafford to two strong seasons in 2019 and 2020. Story continues With Wilson, the zone-read game was very much in play; with Favre and Stafford, it wasnt as much. Lawrences athleticism and run skill likely would try to feature that aspect in the offense. Meyers experience in the spread-option game certainly will have an influence on the offenses makeup. Meyer also placed a high emphasis on adding speed and big-play ability in the offseason, which is another way to help ease Lawrences transition. Big plays were absent on offense last year, and we have to get better, Meyer said, and a lot of it is [based on] speed. Based on talent, experience and Lawrences draft position, it would be a stunning upset if he wasnt the Week 1 starter. Even so, Meyer said the Jaguars are going to be cautious in picking their opening-game QB. The most important thing for Trevor is to learn the offense, it's not to sell billboards around the state of Florida, Meyer said. Zach Wilson New York Jets (2nd overall) Even before the Jets selected Wilson with the second overall pick in 2021, new head coach Robert Saleh a defensive guy most of his life touted the new offensive system that coordinator Mike LaFleur will run as the best scheme in the world. After the pick was made official, Saleh expounded on what that meant. I just think this system is built for quarterbacks, Saleh said. It is a quarterback-friendly system, its designed to help these kids. Its pitch and catch, max protection, two-man concepts, balls [are] out of their hands, and its in and out of their hands as quickly as possible. You need to have an accurate quarterback who has a tremendous amount of mental horsepower, and hes got all of it. Wilson had a somewhat up-and-down first two seasons at BYU as he and the team were jelling. But by the 2020 season, Wilson and the offense realized their full potential. It featured a wide-open passing game. and concepts that helped take advantage of Wilson's athletic gifts, too. Former BYU offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes borrowed elements of several offensive systems for their playbook the 1970s and 1980s BYU offense that was a progenitor to the Air Raid, staples from the early 2000s Boise State offense that tried to stretch the field horizontally (think screens, drags and fly sweeps) and Matt Canadas playbook from LSU, which melded the power run, the outside zone series, play action, vertical shots and plenty of trick plays and misdirection. LaFleur brother of Green Bay Packers head coach Matt has spent the past seven seasons coaching alongside West Coast offense disciple Kyle Shanahan. So we can expect a lot of that offense to be brought to the Big Apple. That means it figures to be a West Coast-steeped system tweaked with plenty of pocket movement and play action. Zach Wilson should see some familiarity in the playbooks of BYU and the New York Jets. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) And though LaFleur wasnt with Shanahan in Washington for Robert Griffin IIIs rookie season, Shanahan was wise enough then to realize how valuable adding the zone-read series into the playbook. It paid off with Griffin winning the 2012 Rookie of the Year Award, as Griffin led the NFL in interception percentage (1.3%), yards per attempt (8.1) and yards per carry (6.7). It would only figure that LaFleur does the same. In 2020, as Grimes offense reached peak efficiency, Wilson logged a 33-3 TD-INT ratio, 11.1 yards per pass attempt and (taking out sacks) averaged 5.3 yards per rush and ran for 10 scores. When you look at Zack, a lot of the principles that he played in college you can see it they ran a lot of our system, Saleh said. And so, you can see him making all those throws. You can see the deep bench routes to the sideline. You can see the over-the-middle throws. You can see the boots, the play-action pass game. You can see all of it. And during his pro day, they ran a lot of the routes that we run. They made all those throws. So, you could see him have success in our system. So, theres going to be some carryover. Wilson, like Lawrence, is considered the heavy favorite to start from the get-go, even if the Jets arent ready to proclaim that. But with more offensive firepower added through free agency (WR Corey Davis) and the draft (OG Alijah Vera-Tucker, WR Elijah Moore, RB Michael Carter), along with the crossover of Wilsons college offense and what the Jets will run, its expected to be a doable transition from the start. Trey Lance San Francisco 49ers (3rd overall) The most fascinating Round 1 QB landed in the hands of Shanahan, which makes for an experiment that could lead the 49ers to the promised land or loom as one of the biggest leaps of faith in recent draft memory. Lances 17-game career at FCS-level North Dakota State was prolific, completing 65.4% of his passes for 2,947 yards and a 30-1 TD-INT ratio, as well as running for 1,325 yards (a 6.9-yard average) and 18 TDs. What made it more impressive is that Lance was tasked with making protection changes at the line and making full-read progressions on some throws all at the age of 19. The Bisons offensive scheme was vast and diverse a hodgepodge of pro concepts, power sets (multiple tight ends and fullbacks), the QB run game and play action run from under center, the shotgun and the pistol. Lance and Robert Griffin III are two different styles of quarterbacks, but it wouldnt be difficult to imagine Shanahan dipping into his 2012 playbook for ideas to unleash Lances running ability the way he did with Griffin in that Rookie of the Year season. Trey Lance could be used as a running threat early before he gets his starting shot with the 49ers. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak) When you add on a type of running element which Ive always been intrigued with but when youve got a guy whos got the skill sets, as far as speed and size to where youre not going to make them a runner, Shanahan said, but if you can get in certain formations where the defense knows you will run them, if they dont honor them, now everythings different. Its easy to see how Lances skills might mesh with Shanahans system. Theres good reason why the 49ers have eight running backs, four tight ends and two fullbacks (including do-it-all Kyle Juszczyk) on the roster. Of course, they also currently have six quarterbacks, too. The only one that really matters, as it relates to when Lance might take over, is incumbent starter Jimmy Garoppolo. After missing two chunks of last season with an ankle injury, Garoppolo seemingly has fallen out of favor, but 15 months ago he had the 49ers up two scores midway through the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. Shanahan said Garoppolo is the starter now. When Lance takes over for good is anyones guess now, and it largely will depend on whether Garoppolo can regain his 2019 form and whether Lance is ready for the enormous challenge. But in the interim it wouldnt be a shock to see Lance be sprinkled in as a runner much in the way Colin Kaepernick was early in his 49ers career, or similar to how the Saints have unleashed a package with Taysom Hill. Forcing defenses to honor the run threat and play more 11-on-11 football could help add a dimension to the 49ers offense that has been missing for some time. Justin Fields Chicago Bears (11th overall) Bears fans were over the moon when GM Ryan Pace slid up nine spots giving up their 2022 first-rounder, plus more, to do so to land Fields. Whereas the Mitch Trubisky trade-up pick confused a lot of Bears fans four years earlier, this one felt like a reason to dance naked on Michigan Avenue. The Bears have said Andy Dalton is their starter, but coaches say things like this all the time with fingers crossed behind their backs. Even still, Fields probably needs to clearly outplay Andy Dalton to make this a Week 1 thing. There have been a lot of comparisons to the situation Bears head coach Matt Nagy oversaw in his final years in Kansas City with Patrick Mahomes sitting (save for one Week 17 start) behind Alex Smith before getting his shot the following year. This is different. If Fields is ready now, he should play. Dalton is what he is at this stage of his career, and Nagy and GM Ryan Pace might be fighting for jobs. Rookie quarterbacks have a built-in excuse for occasionally poor play and they offer hope for the future. Justin Fields' aggressiveness and downfield passing could make him the Chicago Bears' starter fairly quickly. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) Next weeks schedule release also could give us an idea how and when that baton pass could occur. "So how great is that for a young rookie to come on in and learn from a guy like [Dalton] and Nick Foles and see there's things that he can take from them and really put into his toolbox and use to make him be the greatest quarterback he can possibly be," Nagy said after the Bears picked Fields. "As everybody has talked about, I went through that in 2017. I don't know. But at least we have some type of blueprint to at least work off of and be able to just kinda use that to start and see where it goes." Fields, unlike Dalton, is an elite athlete with an aggressive approach to vertical passing. Dalton has made his career on shorter, safer passes and avoiding turnovers. Their styles are pretty different. What Fields most was nicked for in his 2020 play at Ohio State was his slightly slow processing speed and anticipation. Hes more of a see-it, throw-it QB at this stage, and it could take some time for that to change especially against faster-moving (and more complex) NFL defenses. The Bears might be spurred into making a QB change if Dalton plays too conservatively. This is not an offense replete with make-you-miss receivers and dynamic individual playmakers, outside of Allen Robinson. Fields has the athletic ability to add a run dimension to the offense. But do not overlook his downfield aggressiveness as a factor that could tilt things in Fields favor eventually. That is a strength of his. And maybe with him weve gotta go [with a] touchdown-to-touchdown mentality get some of that, Nagy said. Thats where that needs to go with all of our quarterbacks, but youre hitting to the point of what one of his strengths is. Mac Jones New England Patriots (15th overall) As Yahoo Sports Jay Busbee pointed out this week, being a rookie quarterback for Bill Belichick often requires a lot of clipboard duty. Not many rookies historically have played period under Belichick. If theyve seen the field it often has been in mop-up duty. But something about the Patriots picking Jones feels a little different. First off, its the highest Belichick ever has drafted a QB; the previous high was Garoppolo at No. 62 overall. Second, the Patriots quarterback situation remains murky. Cam Newton is the Patriots quarterback, Belichick said almost immediately after drafting Jones. Somebody will have to play better than [Cam] does, Belichick added. In Newtons first three games with New England last season, he completed 62 of 91 passes (68.1%) for 714 yards, two TDs and two INTs. After a bout with COVID-19, Newton returned and struggled. In his next 11 games, Newton completed 159 of 247 passes (64.4%) for a mere 1,701 yards, three TDs and eight INTs. Newton ran the ball effectively most of the season and capped the year with a 3-TD, no-pick performance over the hapless Jets. He was hurt by signing late and not having an offseason program or a full camp, and he was held back by the Patriots limited weaponry at the skill positions. Mac Jones will have to bide his time in New England before starting, but more than one coach believes he's ready for action now. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Even so, Jones performance during Alabamas championship season, running through a gauntlet of opponents during a 13-0 campaign, cant go overlooked. His numbers stacked up with those of his predecessor, Tua Tagovailoa, as Jones completed an NCAA-record 77.4% of his passes in 2020 for 4,500 yards, 41 TDs and four interceptions. As you no doubt have heard, his game more resembles Tom Brady as a pocket passer than it does Newton has a dual threat. Jones was credited with having some Brady-esque qualities: toughness, smarts, precision and mental readiness. Ive been on record saying this: I honestly think hes the most qualified rookie quarterback to start in Year 1, said former Alabama offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian, who now is head coach at Texas Tech. One veteran outsider agrees. Former college and NFL head coach June Jones, who already extolled the virtues of Mac Jones to Yahoo Sports previously, touting Jones as a better prospect than even Trevor Lawrence, is doubling down on his Jones love. Mac will be the rebirth of Tom Brady, June Jones told us recently. I still say he is more ready to play in an NFL system that all of the players in this draft, even more so than [Zach] Wilson, whom I really like as well, as you dont have to put in plays for quarterback-type runs, [which] will have to take place for Trevor and Trey [Lance] to play right away. But it comes down to Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels to make the call. How theyll juggle the disparate skills of Newton and Mac Jones will be fun to watch play out in camp and in the preseason, but its anyones guess when a potential switch might happen. Whenever it does, expect the Patriots offense to resemble what Brady ran early in his career and what Matt Cassel ran in the 2008 season when he replaced Brady (torn ACL) in Week 1: a pared-down version of the Patriots hybrid passing scheme that Brady helped turn into one of the leagues best eventually. More from Yahoo Sports: | Five quarterbacks were selected in the first 15 overall picks in the 2021 NFL draft. The early run on quarterbacks likely will be a big part of this class' legacy. Some will start immediately, others will require some patience. | pegasus | 1 | https://sports.yahoo.com/how-do-the-5-first-round-quarterbacks-fit-with-their-new-nfl-offenses-155402849.html?src=rss | 0.108902 |
How do the 5 first-round quarterbacks fit with their new NFL offenses? | The picks are in for the 2021 NFL draft, and the early run on quarterbacks likely will be a big part of this class' legacy. The five QBs selected in the first 15 overall picks also could help elevate or sink their respective franchises, depending on how they work out. But we decided to move the ball downfield a bit and take a look at how those five quarterbacks will fit in their new offensive systems and when we might expect to see them on the field. Some will start immediately. Others will require some patience. And there might be one or more whose athletic traits are featured early on in a non-starting role prior to being handed the keys to the full offense. Here they are in the order they were selected: Trevor Lawrence Jacksonville Jaguars (1st overall) Weve had months to mull this pick. Its been as good as locked in since the time Urban Meyer said yes to the job offer. But now comes the hard part. Yes, hes the overwhelming favorite to start all 17 games, assuming hes healthy. At Clemson, Lawrence ran an offense that was highly scripted. There were ample predetermined reads and half-field reads, which made Lawrence a big robootic at times in his execution. (Thats not necessarily a bad thing either.) Jaguars offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell joins Meyer, along with passing-game coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, to help build the offense both to tailor it to Lawrences strengths and also expand his duties to see how much they can squeeze out of a terrific talent. Trevor Lawrence could have a longer leash and more decision-making opportunities in Jacksonville than he had at Clemson. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File) Bevell was Russell Wilsons offensive coordinator during his rookie season, and Meyer pointed out that it was a big part of why Bevell was hired. His ability to get Russell Wilson in the NFL and performing at a high level rather quickly was a big reason why he's here," Meyer said. Bevells offense in Seattle was built around moving pockets, a zone run game, play action and option routes in the pass game. He also coached Brett Favre, tutored Aaron Rodgers as a rookie and helped Matthew Stafford to two strong seasons in 2019 and 2020. Story continues With Wilson, the zone-read game was very much in play; with Favre and Stafford, it wasnt as much. Lawrences athleticism and run skill likely would try to feature that aspect in the offense. Meyers experience in the spread-option game certainly will have an influence on the offenses makeup. Meyer also placed a high emphasis on adding speed and big-play ability in the offseason, which is another way to help ease Lawrences transition. Big plays were absent on offense last year, and we have to get better, Meyer said, and a lot of it is [based on] speed. Based on talent, experience and Lawrences draft position, it would be a stunning upset if he wasnt the Week 1 starter. Even so, Meyer said the Jaguars are going to be cautious in picking their opening-game QB. The most important thing for Trevor is to learn the offense, it's not to sell billboards around the state of Florida, Meyer said. Zach Wilson New York Jets (2nd overall) Even before the Jets selected Wilson with the second overall pick in 2021, new head coach Robert Saleh a defensive guy most of his life touted the new offensive system that coordinator Mike LaFleur will run as the best scheme in the world. After the pick was made official, Saleh expounded on what that meant. I just think this system is built for quarterbacks, Saleh said. It is a quarterback-friendly system, its designed to help these kids. Its pitch and catch, max protection, two-man concepts, balls [are] out of their hands, and its in and out of their hands as quickly as possible. You need to have an accurate quarterback who has a tremendous amount of mental horsepower, and hes got all of it. Wilson had a somewhat up-and-down first two seasons at BYU as he and the team were jelling. But by the 2020 season, Wilson and the offense realized their full potential. It featured a wide-open passing game. and concepts that helped take advantage of Wilson's athletic gifts, too. Former BYU offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes borrowed elements of several offensive systems for their playbook the 1970s and 1980s BYU offense that was a progenitor to the Air Raid, staples from the early 2000s Boise State offense that tried to stretch the field horizontally (think screens, drags and fly sweeps) and Matt Canadas playbook from LSU, which melded the power run, the outside zone series, play action, vertical shots and plenty of trick plays and misdirection. LaFleur brother of Green Bay Packers head coach Matt has spent the past seven seasons coaching alongside West Coast offense disciple Kyle Shanahan. So we can expect a lot of that offense to be brought to the Big Apple. That means it figures to be a West Coast-steeped system tweaked with plenty of pocket movement and play action. Zach Wilson should see some familiarity in the playbooks of BYU and the New York Jets. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) And though LaFleur wasnt with Shanahan in Washington for Robert Griffin IIIs rookie season, Shanahan was wise enough then to realize how valuable adding the zone-read series into the playbook. It paid off with Griffin winning the 2012 Rookie of the Year Award, as Griffin led the NFL in interception percentage (1.3%), yards per attempt (8.1) and yards per carry (6.7). It would only figure that LaFleur does the same. In 2020, as Grimes offense reached peak efficiency, Wilson logged a 33-3 TD-INT ratio, 11.1 yards per pass attempt and (taking out sacks) averaged 5.3 yards per rush and ran for 10 scores. When you look at Zack, a lot of the principles that he played in college you can see it they ran a lot of our system, Saleh said. And so, you can see him making all those throws. You can see the deep bench routes to the sideline. You can see the over-the-middle throws. You can see the boots, the play-action pass game. You can see all of it. And during his pro day, they ran a lot of the routes that we run. They made all those throws. So, you could see him have success in our system. So, theres going to be some carryover. Wilson, like Lawrence, is considered the heavy favorite to start from the get-go, even if the Jets arent ready to proclaim that. But with more offensive firepower added through free agency (WR Corey Davis) and the draft (OG Alijah Vera-Tucker, WR Elijah Moore, RB Michael Carter), along with the crossover of Wilsons college offense and what the Jets will run, its expected to be a doable transition from the start. Trey Lance San Francisco 49ers (3rd overall) The most fascinating Round 1 QB landed in the hands of Shanahan, which makes for an experiment that could lead the 49ers to the promised land or loom as one of the biggest leaps of faith in recent draft memory. Lances 17-game career at FCS-level North Dakota State was prolific, completing 65.4% of his passes for 2,947 yards and a 30-1 TD-INT ratio, as well as running for 1,325 yards (a 6.9-yard average) and 18 TDs. What made it more impressive is that Lance was tasked with making protection changes at the line and making full-read progressions on some throws all at the age of 19. The Bisons offensive scheme was vast and diverse a hodgepodge of pro concepts, power sets (multiple tight ends and fullbacks), the QB run game and play action run from under center, the shotgun and the pistol. Lance and Robert Griffin III are two different styles of quarterbacks, but it wouldnt be difficult to imagine Shanahan dipping into his 2012 playbook for ideas to unleash Lances running ability the way he did with Griffin in that Rookie of the Year season. Trey Lance could be used as a running threat early before he gets his starting shot with the 49ers. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak) When you add on a type of running element which Ive always been intrigued with but when youve got a guy whos got the skill sets, as far as speed and size to where youre not going to make them a runner, Shanahan said, but if you can get in certain formations where the defense knows you will run them, if they dont honor them, now everythings different. Its easy to see how Lances skills might mesh with Shanahans system. Theres good reason why the 49ers have eight running backs, four tight ends and two fullbacks (including do-it-all Kyle Juszczyk) on the roster. Of course, they also currently have six quarterbacks, too. The only one that really matters, as it relates to when Lance might take over, is incumbent starter Jimmy Garoppolo. After missing two chunks of last season with an ankle injury, Garoppolo seemingly has fallen out of favor, but 15 months ago he had the 49ers up two scores midway through the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. Shanahan said Garoppolo is the starter now. When Lance takes over for good is anyones guess now, and it largely will depend on whether Garoppolo can regain his 2019 form and whether Lance is ready for the enormous challenge. But in the interim it wouldnt be a shock to see Lance be sprinkled in as a runner much in the way Colin Kaepernick was early in his 49ers career, or similar to how the Saints have unleashed a package with Taysom Hill. Forcing defenses to honor the run threat and play more 11-on-11 football could help add a dimension to the 49ers offense that has been missing for some time. Justin Fields Chicago Bears (11th overall) Bears fans were over the moon when GM Ryan Pace slid up nine spots giving up their 2022 first-rounder, plus more, to do so to land Fields. Whereas the Mitch Trubisky trade-up pick confused a lot of Bears fans four years earlier, this one felt like a reason to dance naked on Michigan Avenue. The Bears have said Andy Dalton is their starter, but coaches say things like this all the time with fingers crossed behind their backs. Even still, Fields probably needs to clearly outplay Andy Dalton to make this a Week 1 thing. There have been a lot of comparisons to the situation Bears head coach Matt Nagy oversaw in his final years in Kansas City with Patrick Mahomes sitting (save for one Week 17 start) behind Alex Smith before getting his shot the following year. This is different. If Fields is ready now, he should play. Dalton is what he is at this stage of his career, and Nagy and GM Ryan Pace might be fighting for jobs. Rookie quarterbacks have a built-in excuse for occasionally poor play and they offer hope for the future. Justin Fields' aggressiveness and downfield passing could make him the Chicago Bears' starter fairly quickly. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) Next weeks schedule release also could give us an idea how and when that baton pass could occur. "So how great is that for a young rookie to come on in and learn from a guy like [Dalton] and Nick Foles and see there's things that he can take from them and really put into his toolbox and use to make him be the greatest quarterback he can possibly be," Nagy said after the Bears picked Fields. "As everybody has talked about, I went through that in 2017. I don't know. But at least we have some type of blueprint to at least work off of and be able to just kinda use that to start and see where it goes." Fields, unlike Dalton, is an elite athlete with an aggressive approach to vertical passing. Dalton has made his career on shorter, safer passes and avoiding turnovers. Their styles are pretty different. What Fields most was nicked for in his 2020 play at Ohio State was his slightly slow processing speed and anticipation. Hes more of a see-it, throw-it QB at this stage, and it could take some time for that to change especially against faster-moving (and more complex) NFL defenses. The Bears might be spurred into making a QB change if Dalton plays too conservatively. This is not an offense replete with make-you-miss receivers and dynamic individual playmakers, outside of Allen Robinson. Fields has the athletic ability to add a run dimension to the offense. But do not overlook his downfield aggressiveness as a factor that could tilt things in Fields favor eventually. That is a strength of his. And maybe with him weve gotta go [with a] touchdown-to-touchdown mentality get some of that, Nagy said. Thats where that needs to go with all of our quarterbacks, but youre hitting to the point of what one of his strengths is. Mac Jones New England Patriots (15th overall) As Yahoo Sports Jay Busbee pointed out this week, being a rookie quarterback for Bill Belichick often requires a lot of clipboard duty. Not many rookies historically have played period under Belichick. If theyve seen the field it often has been in mop-up duty. But something about the Patriots picking Jones feels a little different. First off, its the highest Belichick ever has drafted a QB; the previous high was Garoppolo at No. 62 overall. Second, the Patriots quarterback situation remains murky. Cam Newton is the Patriots quarterback, Belichick said almost immediately after drafting Jones. Somebody will have to play better than [Cam] does, Belichick added. In Newtons first three games with New England last season, he completed 62 of 91 passes (68.1%) for 714 yards, two TDs and two INTs. After a bout with COVID-19, Newton returned and struggled. In his next 11 games, Newton completed 159 of 247 passes (64.4%) for a mere 1,701 yards, three TDs and eight INTs. Newton ran the ball effectively most of the season and capped the year with a 3-TD, no-pick performance over the hapless Jets. He was hurt by signing late and not having an offseason program or a full camp, and he was held back by the Patriots limited weaponry at the skill positions. Mac Jones will have to bide his time in New England before starting, but more than one coach believes he's ready for action now. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Even so, Jones performance during Alabamas championship season, running through a gauntlet of opponents during a 13-0 campaign, cant go overlooked. His numbers stacked up with those of his predecessor, Tua Tagovailoa, as Jones completed an NCAA-record 77.4% of his passes in 2020 for 4,500 yards, 41 TDs and four interceptions. As you no doubt have heard, his game more resembles Tom Brady as a pocket passer than it does Newton has a dual threat. Jones was credited with having some Brady-esque qualities: toughness, smarts, precision and mental readiness. Ive been on record saying this: I honestly think hes the most qualified rookie quarterback to start in Year 1, said former Alabama offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian, who now is head coach at Texas Tech. One veteran outsider agrees. Former college and NFL head coach June Jones, who already extolled the virtues of Mac Jones to Yahoo Sports previously, touting Jones as a better prospect than even Trevor Lawrence, is doubling down on his Jones love. Mac will be the rebirth of Tom Brady, June Jones told us recently. I still say he is more ready to play in an NFL system that all of the players in this draft, even more so than [Zach] Wilson, whom I really like as well, as you dont have to put in plays for quarterback-type runs, [which] will have to take place for Trevor and Trey [Lance] to play right away. But it comes down to Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels to make the call. How theyll juggle the disparate skills of Newton and Mac Jones will be fun to watch play out in camp and in the preseason, but its anyones guess when a potential switch might happen. Whenever it does, expect the Patriots offense to resemble what Brady ran early in his career and what Matt Cassel ran in the 2008 season when he replaced Brady (torn ACL) in Week 1: a pared-down version of the Patriots hybrid passing scheme that Brady helped turn into one of the leagues best eventually. More from Yahoo Sports: | Five quarterbacks were selected in the first 15 overall picks in the 2021 NFL draft. The early run on quarterbacks likely will be a big part of this class' legacy. Some will start immediately, others will require some patience. And there might be one or more whose athletic traits are featured early on in a non-starting role. | pegasus | 2 | https://sports.yahoo.com/how-do-the-5-first-round-quarterbacks-fit-with-their-new-nfl-offenses-155402849.html?src=rss | 0.197199 |
Where do Giants land in Touchdown Wires post-draft power rankings? | The New York Giants went hog wild in free agency and had a strong draft last week in Cleveland. At the end of the 2020 season, the Giants were officially ranked 22nd in the NFL with a 6-10 record, hence they held the 11th pick in this years draft. List 9 Giants who must step up in 2021 In Touchdown Wires post draft power rankings, all the Giants maneuvering hasnt moved the needle at all, per columnist Doug Farrar. 23: New York Giants Two things happened in the 2021 draft were not at all used to: Giants general manager Dave Gettleman kept trading down, and the picks Gettleman and his staff made werent really called into question. There were a lot of As and A-pluses for a guy whose transactions have generally been seen as well, capricious. Gettleman has been saying since January that he wants to get as many weapons as possible for quarterback Daniel Jones, and Floridas Kadarius Toney certainly qualifies. Between Toney and former Lions receiver Kenny Golladay, acquired in free agency, Jones is going to be light on excuses. And Georgia pass rusher Azeez Ojulari in the second round is a great value pick. Ojulari is more about athletic potential than dominant technique at this point, but defensive coordinator Patrick Graham has proven the ability to scheme up his lines as well as anybody in the league. The Giants finished 6-10 a season ago, and as much as theyve improved, theyll struggle to move too far past that if Jones doesnt make the jump the team has set him up to achieve. The bottom line here is.we still have to see results. Farrar is correct in not placing the Giants further up in the rankings while not dropping them too far down, either. The Giants have been changing the faces for several years now and have not really changed their place in the standings. When they prove they can win consistently and Jones can play cleaner and more efficiently, then pundits will begin to have more confidence is their future. | The New York Giants were ranked 22nd in the NFL with a 6-10 record at the end of the 2020 season. In Touchdown Wires post draft power rankings, all the Giants maneuvering hasnt moved the needle at all, per columnist Doug Farrar. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://sports.yahoo.com/where-giants-land-touchdown-wire-160010575.html?src=rss | 0.388236 |
What Is Needed To Vaccinate Everyone, Everywhere? | The last two weeks have seen a big shift in gears in the Biden Administrations global pandemic response efforts. The Presidents announcements that the US will firstly donate 60 million AstraZeneca doses, and secondly support a temporary IP waiver for COVID-19 vaccines, are both evidence of just the sort of leadership that will be needed to achieve a rapid scale up in global vaccination. The recent variants of the COVID-19 virus have shown us that we are in a race against time to achieve global, collective immunity now sooner than later. Most importantly, we need to avoid more deaths. Today, more than 3.22 million people have died from COVID and the surge in India is a terrible reminder that the death toll is increasing day by day. Ultimately, the only way the world will achieve collective immunity and break the chain of transmissions is to build on the US Administrations latest announcements and adopt a bold roadmap for achieving global vaccine coverage. Though the threshold for herd immunity hasnt been defined yet for COVID-19, the WHO estimates that at least 70% of the global population will need to be vaccinated to ensure the global safety of those who cannot be exposed to the vaccine. This is also the threshold that the EU for instance has set itself, with a roadmap to achieve this before the end of summer. However, globally, we have to date lacked such a roadmap for achieving 70% coverage at the global level. COVAX, which is the multilateral body for equitable access to the vaccines, has set an objective of 30% of the population in low- and lower-middle income countries being vaccinated by the end of the year. There are also efforts to go beyond the 30% coverage offered by COVAX such as through the dose sharing initiated by certain countries like France, Norway, Spain and now it seems the US. These commitments head in the right direction. But there is no master plan yet, and our current ad hoc efforts are simply not enough: its now been six months since the first high-income country started vaccinating. In North America, nearly 1 in 3 people have had their first shot; in Africa, its 1 in 100. Overall, of the total 1.2 billion doses that have been administered, only 0.4% have been administered in the poorest countries. Not having a global, comprehensive plan is no longer an option - and time is no longer an excuse, one year after the start of the pandemic. A global roadmap to achieve collective immunity would allow us to streamline different efforts and most importantly scale them, not just through governments and multilateral bodies but also ensuring that private companies, and in particular pharmaceuticals, do their part. If we dont set ourselves a common objective, and reverse engineer what it means to vaccinate 70% or more of the world population in record time, it simply wont happen. Collective immunity is an immense challenge which will require quick scaling of production, effective delivery in countries, overcoming vaccine hesitancy and much more. It is a historic challenge that needs everyone and we wont achieve it by chance or as a by-product of our current efforts. The very first step is to define a threshold based on scientific recommendations (for example, 70%) and set an ambitious date by when the international community wants to achieve it. The roadmap should be based on this and include all options that can help achieve the objective - none should be left unused, none should be delayed. Some of the key ingredients needed should include: Dose sharing: Governments should share 100% of excess doses ordered beyond the sizes of their national populations with countries in need, and do so through, or in coordination with, COVAX and in parallel to domestic vaccination efforts. Vaccine dose sharing should start as soon as possible as it is the only way of dealing with the current production bottleneck and help remedy, at least in the short term, the inequitable distribution in vaccines. France has already shipped a first batch through COVAX to Mauritania, and other governments are stepping up such as Spain . Pharmaceutical contracts: In parallel, all vaccine manufacturers should enter into additional agreements with COVAX and directly with poorer nations where requested, at the scale and schedule needed and, critically, at not for profit pricing. These contracts should allow for the delivery of a bigger number of vaccines to COVAX and developing nations as early as possible this year. For instance, while Modernas deal with COVAX is a welcome development, only 34 million of the overall 500 million doses that form part of the deal would be delivered by the end of this year. As the Duke and Duchess of Sussex outline in this open letter to the CEOs of the leading manufacturers , including Moderna, we cannot settle for such deals if we want to end the pandemic as soon as possible. Manufacturing capacity: Another track that needs urgent action is the expansion of global manufacturing capacity to overcome the current global supply shortage in vaccines. Additional manufacturing capacity needs to be identified and put to good use, and where possible, additional production sites built in regions around the world, including in developing countries. While this will require public investments, the production crunch will not be addressed unless pharmaceutical companies either agree, or are otherwise compelled by governments, to share technology and know-how. Without such investments, licensing agreements (compulsory or otherwise) and policy changes, the current pandemic will be prolonged and countries will be left ill prepared for the next one. Momentum has begun shifting in the right direction with everyone from President Biden to The Pope, as part of Vax Live, supporting temporary suspension of IP for COVID-19 vaccines. Funding: We must fully fund the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) and COVAX, which is still only half funded, after one year into the pandemic. While $19 billion sounds like a lot, it is a fraction of the $9 trillion estimated to be lost if we do not end the pandemic for everyone. Therefore, alongside governments, it is in the interest of businesses to also contribute what they can directly to support ACT-A and fortunately many are beginning to step up, small to big, east to west. Through the Vax Live campaign, over $50M has already been mobilized from the private sector to support COVAX . Contributions range from Cisco contributing $5 million all the way through to those from smaller SMEs, such as my friend Taufiq Rahims Globesight, which contributed enough to purchase an additional 20,000 doses through COVAX. Finally, and in addition to private and philanthropic contributions, governments should also urgently finalize the use of IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to make up the funding shortfall for achieving vaccine equity. In the end, ending the pandemic is a question of political will and not a budgetary decision. Ultimately, a roadmap to achieve collective, global immunity needs to ensure that we have the capacity to produce and deliver enough vaccines within the timeframe set, equitably across the globe. It should also allow us to produce and distribute enough vaccines to maintain collective immunity in the longer term, through regular vaccination efforts if needed, and lay the ground for better pandemic preparedness more broadly. So far, during the pandemic, we have too often thought and acted based on what seemed possible - now we need to reverse this mindset. Our action needs to be guided by what is needed to achieve the objective of collective immunity. With the change in posture from the US administration, now is the time to embrace a bold strategy and target date to achieve this goal and truly end the pandemic for everyone. | The WHO estimates that at least 70% of the global population will need to be vaccinated to ensure the global safety of those who cannot be exposed to the vaccine. Of the total 1.2 billion doses that have been administered, only 0.4% has been administered in the poorest countries. | bart | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/globalcitizen/2021/05/07/what-is-needed-to-vaccinate-everyone-everywhere/ | 0.114463 |
Is Virtual The Future Of Executive Coaching? | Virtual coaching getty I am a face-to-face guy. When I meet people for the first time, you see them in their physical entirety. In the words of a previous generation, you size them up for yourself. In our age of video chat, meeting people virtually can be a good substitute. And this is especially true in executive coaching. Executive coaching is the process of enabling an individual to see him/herself in a new light. You provide illumination via feedback from colleagues, and together you explore how that feedback can help them shape new behaviors that will enable them to manage and lead more effectively. I asked four of my colleagues, all experienced executive coaches and each a member of Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches, a group of seasoned thought leaders in business, academia, and human development, how they viewed virtual coaching. Benefits of virtual coaching Cynthia Burnham, an executive coach, based in Southern California, says, "Virtual coaching helps people go deeper faster. The medium creates an interesting combination of intimate-yet-safe. You are both very close and yet at a remove - looking into the computer is like being in a small box with someone at less than cocktail party distance. At the same time, you are discernably not in the same space, and the other person isn't entirely real, so it's somehow easier for clients to open up. Evelyn Rodstein, an executive coach based in New York City, says, Virtual sessions force the coach and the coachee to focus intently on each other. No distractions. This process creates a new kind of intimacy. I find when I am coaching someone who is very reserved and private, the distance of the technology makes it easier for them to be open and expressive." Anna Yusim, M.D., also based in New York City, is both an executive coach and psychiatrist. "With the unanticipated stressors of this pandemic, I have had many former clients from all over the world call me for an appointment, which I was able to accommodate because of the virtual nature of our appointments." She adds, "you can treat people from all over the world without either you or your client having to leave your home. This vital benefit cannot be overstated and, in consequences, makes top coaches and doctors accessible to anybody, anywhere." [Dr. Yusim notes that while coaching is not subject to state laws, the practice of medicine is so psychiatrists cannot practice in another state without obtaining a temporary or permanent license in that state.] Drawbacks to virtual coaching Not everything about virtual coaching is positive. One particular drawback to virtual coaching," says Eddie Turner, an executive coach based in Houston says, is that your coaching is happening on a device that can derail being present as a coach. Being on the computer or mobile device itself is a barrier between you and the client. The computer or mobile device will have alerts, apps, and other tools that will inevitably pop up from time to time and distract youdespite the fact you thought you turned everything off. Dr. Yusim says, The first of these [drawbacks] is the inability to sit face and face with your client and look them in the eye. Sharing the same space and breathing the same air as another human being imparts a type of vitality in a doctor-patient or coach-client relationship that telehealth cannot fully replicate. Being in the same room enables you to pick up the nuances of expression and subtleties of emotion that are difficult to capture over telehealth. It's the difference between a two-dimensional vs. a three-dimensional connection. Cynthia Burnham notes, "you don't see as much of their body language and expressions to help you accurately interpret [their true reactions]. Even a client sitting in-person behind a desk gives you more information you get on the average video call and depending on someone's camera, lighting, and internet bandwidth, facial expressions can be muted." Burnham adds a cautionary note. "Because virtual coaching can increase depth and intimacy, there is a potential danger for executive coaches to stray into areas more appropriately handled by people in the psychological therapy world. Coaches need to be extra-vigilant and clear on when a client may be in areas the coach is not qualified to address. Additionally, virtual coaching excludes seeing how the individual interacts with colleagues. Also, you do not have the opportunity to see the person outside the workplace, for example, over lunch or dinner. Seeing the individual in a non-work setting is helpful to acquiring a better understanding of the whole person. Cynthia Burnham believes virtual coaching "is cost- and energy-effective, and the results appear to be equivalent, especially as new technologies allow for things like virtual whiteboarding and so on. I also believe that the hybrid workplace will be a new reality, so leaders must be comfortable leading in the virtual world, and coaching can be practice and guidance for that!" "We have all gotten used to it," says Eddie Turner. "Many will certainly want more in-person coaching, but the idea that virtual coaching is not as good as in-person has been proven false by the pandemic. Virtual coaching is how many survived and thrived during the pandemic. There's no going back now." Dr. Yusim believes that virtual presence is not necessarily an ideal alternative to in-person sessions, virtual coaching and telemedicine offer distinct advantages and are believe are most definitely here to stay in the new normal. Evelyn Rodstein adds, "We have all gotten used to it. Many will certainly want more in-person coaching, but the idea that virtual coaching is not as good as in-person has been proven false by the pandemic. Likely a hybrid model will evolve with a mix of in-person and virtual sessions. But virtual coaching is how many survived and thrived during the pandemic. Theres no going back now. | Executive coaching is the process of enabling an individual to see him/herself in a new light. Virtual sessions force the coach and the coachee to focus intently on each other. | bart | 1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbaldoni/2021/05/07/is-virtual-the-future-of-executive-coaching/ | 0.119967 |
Is Virtual The Future Of Executive Coaching? | Virtual coaching getty I am a face-to-face guy. When I meet people for the first time, you see them in their physical entirety. In the words of a previous generation, you size them up for yourself. In our age of video chat, meeting people virtually can be a good substitute. And this is especially true in executive coaching. Executive coaching is the process of enabling an individual to see him/herself in a new light. You provide illumination via feedback from colleagues, and together you explore how that feedback can help them shape new behaviors that will enable them to manage and lead more effectively. I asked four of my colleagues, all experienced executive coaches and each a member of Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches, a group of seasoned thought leaders in business, academia, and human development, how they viewed virtual coaching. Benefits of virtual coaching Cynthia Burnham, an executive coach, based in Southern California, says, "Virtual coaching helps people go deeper faster. The medium creates an interesting combination of intimate-yet-safe. You are both very close and yet at a remove - looking into the computer is like being in a small box with someone at less than cocktail party distance. At the same time, you are discernably not in the same space, and the other person isn't entirely real, so it's somehow easier for clients to open up. Evelyn Rodstein, an executive coach based in New York City, says, Virtual sessions force the coach and the coachee to focus intently on each other. No distractions. This process creates a new kind of intimacy. I find when I am coaching someone who is very reserved and private, the distance of the technology makes it easier for them to be open and expressive." Anna Yusim, M.D., also based in New York City, is both an executive coach and psychiatrist. "With the unanticipated stressors of this pandemic, I have had many former clients from all over the world call me for an appointment, which I was able to accommodate because of the virtual nature of our appointments." She adds, "you can treat people from all over the world without either you or your client having to leave your home. This vital benefit cannot be overstated and, in consequences, makes top coaches and doctors accessible to anybody, anywhere." [Dr. Yusim notes that while coaching is not subject to state laws, the practice of medicine is so psychiatrists cannot practice in another state without obtaining a temporary or permanent license in that state.] Drawbacks to virtual coaching Not everything about virtual coaching is positive. One particular drawback to virtual coaching," says Eddie Turner, an executive coach based in Houston says, is that your coaching is happening on a device that can derail being present as a coach. Being on the computer or mobile device itself is a barrier between you and the client. The computer or mobile device will have alerts, apps, and other tools that will inevitably pop up from time to time and distract youdespite the fact you thought you turned everything off. Dr. Yusim says, The first of these [drawbacks] is the inability to sit face and face with your client and look them in the eye. Sharing the same space and breathing the same air as another human being imparts a type of vitality in a doctor-patient or coach-client relationship that telehealth cannot fully replicate. Being in the same room enables you to pick up the nuances of expression and subtleties of emotion that are difficult to capture over telehealth. It's the difference between a two-dimensional vs. a three-dimensional connection. Cynthia Burnham notes, "you don't see as much of their body language and expressions to help you accurately interpret [their true reactions]. Even a client sitting in-person behind a desk gives you more information you get on the average video call and depending on someone's camera, lighting, and internet bandwidth, facial expressions can be muted." Burnham adds a cautionary note. "Because virtual coaching can increase depth and intimacy, there is a potential danger for executive coaches to stray into areas more appropriately handled by people in the psychological therapy world. Coaches need to be extra-vigilant and clear on when a client may be in areas the coach is not qualified to address. Additionally, virtual coaching excludes seeing how the individual interacts with colleagues. Also, you do not have the opportunity to see the person outside the workplace, for example, over lunch or dinner. Seeing the individual in a non-work setting is helpful to acquiring a better understanding of the whole person. Cynthia Burnham believes virtual coaching "is cost- and energy-effective, and the results appear to be equivalent, especially as new technologies allow for things like virtual whiteboarding and so on. I also believe that the hybrid workplace will be a new reality, so leaders must be comfortable leading in the virtual world, and coaching can be practice and guidance for that!" "We have all gotten used to it," says Eddie Turner. "Many will certainly want more in-person coaching, but the idea that virtual coaching is not as good as in-person has been proven false by the pandemic. Virtual coaching is how many survived and thrived during the pandemic. There's no going back now." Dr. Yusim believes that virtual presence is not necessarily an ideal alternative to in-person sessions, virtual coaching and telemedicine offer distinct advantages and are believe are most definitely here to stay in the new normal. Evelyn Rodstein adds, "We have all gotten used to it. Many will certainly want more in-person coaching, but the idea that virtual coaching is not as good as in-person has been proven false by the pandemic. Likely a hybrid model will evolve with a mix of in-person and virtual sessions. But virtual coaching is how many survived and thrived during the pandemic. Theres no going back now. | Virtual coaching can be a good substitute for face-to-face meetings. Experts say virtual coaching can help people go deeper faster. There are some drawbacks to virtual coaching, such as distractions and a lack of intimacy. The future of executive coaching may be in video chat, experts say. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbaldoni/2021/05/07/is-virtual-the-future-of-executive-coaching/ | 0.586938 |
Will The Government's New Broadband Subsidies Close The Digital Divide For Older Americans? | By Arlene Weintraub, Next Avenue getty Only 58% of Americans age 65 or older have broadband internet access at home, which means 22 million people that age lack it, according to the nonprofit Older Adult Technology Services (OATS). This became especially problematic during the pandemic, when so many people needed to get on the internet for telehealth appointments and to book a Covid-19 vaccination appointment. One reason many older Americans don't have broadband: affordability. But now, the U.S. government is about to step up to try addressing this problem. The New Emergency Broadband Benefit Program On May 12, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will launch the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program, which will have internet service providers give low-income Americans who qualify up to $50 off per month for broadband service, plus a one-time $100 discount for a new computer or tablet. The $3.2 billion in subsidies are part of the economic stimulus law Congress passed in December 2020 and signed by President Donald Trump. "Online access is a lifeblood for families right now," said the provision's co-sponsor Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) at the time. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel recently said that as a result of the program, "we will have a new way for disconnected Americans to access the internet to carry out their day-to-day life." Eligible households will be able to apply for the broadband discounts in one of two ways: They can enroll directly with their internet service provider. Or they can fill out an application at the federal website, Getemergencybroadband.org. Who Will Qualify for the Broadband Subsidies Among households who will qualify are: people who lost jobs and have seen their income substantially reduced since Feb. 29, 2020 (maximum income: $99,000 for singles; $198,000 for joint filers); those on Medicaid or with ones with incomes equal to 135% or less of the federal poverty guidelines, which is about $23,500 for two-person households in most states. So far, AT&T T Verizon VZ and Comcast CMCSA have said they'll be providing the broadband subsidies to some new and existing customers. Comcast already offers an Internet Essential program, with low-income households paying $10 a month for broadband service. The National Council on Aging has a benefits checkup tool that can point users to utility providers with discounts based on their ZIP code. Advocates for older adults say the government's new broadband subsidies are a good step towards closing the digital divide but that much more will need to be done to get them on the internet. One problem is that the subsidy money could run out within a year, at which point broadband pricing could go right back up, says Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, an advocacy group for expanding broadband access. Older Adults Technology Services Big Issues: Internet Skills and Security Concerns But a bigger issue, Siefer says, is that many older Americans lack basic internet skills and that some have security concerns keeping them offline altogether. "Digital literacy is a really huge issue," Siefer says. Vivian Nava-Schellinger, director of national and community partnerships and network activation at the National Council on Aging, says: "It's not just about giving seniors broadband access. It's also about giving them the information they need to engage safely online." Still, about 96% of people between 50 and 64 report use the internet today, up from 77% a decade ago, according to the Pew Research Center. And among those over 65, internet usage has grown from 46% to 75% over that period. The pandemic has also encouraged many Americans over 50 to upgrade the technology they use to get online. A recent AARP survey found that people 50+ spent an average of $1,144 on tech in 2020, nearly triple the $394 they spent in 2019. "The need for [older] people to get the Covid-19 vaccine and to use telehealth to connect to their doctors made them more aware of the benefits of the internet," says Carol McDonough, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. "What we need now is to bring in the laggards, and they're going to need some handholding." Where Older Adults Can Get Internet Training Broadband newcomers looking for help learning how to use the internet safely can often find it through libraries and senior centers. "We're seeing more and more community-based organizations creating training programs, not just for older adults, but for their caregivers, as well," says Nava-Schellinger. Some financial services companies have stepped up with training courses, too. For instance, Capital One partners with senior centers to train older adults in online banking. The workshops, dubbed "Ready, Set, Bank," include lessons on how to recognize phishing attacks and other scams. Verizon is partnering with the National 4-H Council to teach digital skills in rural communities. Given the expected rapid depletion of the new broadband subsidies, some federal lawmakers are pushing for additional money to be allocated to expanding online access. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) have introduced a bill that would order the U.S. government to spend $94 billion expanding broadband infrastructure in underserved communities. "In 2021, we should be able to bring high-speed internet to every family in America regardless of their ZIP code," Klobuchar said in a statement. President Joe Biden has also included $100 billion in spending on broadband access as part of his proposed $2.3 trillion infrastructure package. Vice President Kamala Harris has been tapped to spearhead closing the nation's digital divide. | The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will launch the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program, which will give low-income Americans up to $50 off per month for broadband service, plus a one-time $100 discount for a new computer or tablet. Advocates for older adults say the government's new broadband subsidies are a good step towards closing the digital divide. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2021/05/07/will-the-governments-new-broadband-subsidies-close-the-digital-divide-for-older-americans/ | 0.53132 |
Should the Cleveland Indians consider adding future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols? | Register for Indians Subtext to hear your Tribe questions answered exclusively on the show. Send a text to 216-208-4346 to subscribe for $3.99/mo. CLEVELAND, Ohio Thursdays big news that the Angels are releasing future Hall of Fame slugger Albert Pujols immediately sparked speculation as to where the aging superstar will end up finishing his career. Paul Hoynes and Joe Noga look at the extremely slim chances of the Indians signing Pujols for the rest of the year and what that would mean to Clevelands lineup on Thursdays podcast. Click here. We have an Apple podcasts channel exclusively for this podcast. Subscribe to it here. You can also subscribe on Google Play and listen on Spotify. Search Cleveland Baseball Talk Podcast or download the audio here. - New Indians face masks for sale: Heres where you can buy Cleveland Indians-themed face coverings for coronavirus protection, including a single mask ($14.99) and a 3-pack ($24.99). All MLB proceeds donated to charity. Podcast Prez on 10-day IL with finger fracture, Ren Rivera promoted On the latest center fielder, winning and compromises: Hoynes Angel Hernandez admits he guessed on a missed call Shane Bieber looks to add to his record Wednesday: Crowquill Patience paying off for Josh Naylor and 5 other things | The Cleveland Indians could be in the market for Albert Pujols. The Angels are releasing the future Hall of Famer. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.cleveland.com/tribe/2021/05/should-the-cleveland-indians-consider-adding-future-hall-of-famer-albert-pujols.html | 0.413118 |
Should the Cleveland Indians consider adding future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols? | Register for Indians Subtext to hear your Tribe questions answered exclusively on the show. Send a text to 216-208-4346 to subscribe for $3.99/mo. CLEVELAND, Ohio Thursdays big news that the Angels are releasing future Hall of Fame slugger Albert Pujols immediately sparked speculation as to where the aging superstar will end up finishing his career. Paul Hoynes and Joe Noga look at the extremely slim chances of the Indians signing Pujols for the rest of the year and what that would mean to Clevelands lineup on Thursdays podcast. Click here. We have an Apple podcasts channel exclusively for this podcast. Subscribe to it here. You can also subscribe on Google Play and listen on Spotify. Search Cleveland Baseball Talk Podcast or download the audio here. - New Indians face masks for sale: Heres where you can buy Cleveland Indians-themed face coverings for coronavirus protection, including a single mask ($14.99) and a 3-pack ($24.99). All MLB proceeds donated to charity. Podcast Prez on 10-day IL with finger fracture, Ren Rivera promoted On the latest center fielder, winning and compromises: Hoynes Angel Hernandez admits he guessed on a missed call Shane Bieber looks to add to his record Wednesday: Crowquill Patience paying off for Josh Naylor and 5 other things | The Cleveland Indians could be in the market for Albert Pujols. The Angels are releasing the future Hall of Famer. Click here for more Cleveland Baseball Talk podcast news. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.cleveland.com/tribe/2021/05/should-the-cleveland-indians-consider-adding-future-hall-of-famer-albert-pujols.html | 0.387203 |
Should the Cleveland Indians consider adding future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols? | Register for Indians Subtext to hear your Tribe questions answered exclusively on the show. Send a text to 216-208-4346 to subscribe for $3.99/mo. CLEVELAND, Ohio Thursdays big news that the Angels are releasing future Hall of Fame slugger Albert Pujols immediately sparked speculation as to where the aging superstar will end up finishing his career. Paul Hoynes and Joe Noga look at the extremely slim chances of the Indians signing Pujols for the rest of the year and what that would mean to Clevelands lineup on Thursdays podcast. Click here. We have an Apple podcasts channel exclusively for this podcast. Subscribe to it here. You can also subscribe on Google Play and listen on Spotify. Search Cleveland Baseball Talk Podcast or download the audio here. - New Indians face masks for sale: Heres where you can buy Cleveland Indians-themed face coverings for coronavirus protection, including a single mask ($14.99) and a 3-pack ($24.99). All MLB proceeds donated to charity. Podcast Prez on 10-day IL with finger fracture, Ren Rivera promoted On the latest center fielder, winning and compromises: Hoynes Angel Hernandez admits he guessed on a missed call Shane Bieber looks to add to his record Wednesday: Crowquill Patience paying off for Josh Naylor and 5 other things | The Cleveland Indians could be in the market for Albert Pujols. The Angels are releasing the future Hall of Famer. Click here for more Cleveland Baseball Talk podcast news. The latest from the team's spring training camp includes a look at the new Indians face mask. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.cleveland.com/tribe/2021/05/should-the-cleveland-indians-consider-adding-future-hall-of-famer-albert-pujols.html | 0.421693 |
How will Broncos handle the JaWuan James injury? | The Denver Broncos suddenly find themselves in a delicate spot regarding the tug of war between the NFL and the NFL Players Association over offseason workouts. With right tackle JaWuan James suffering a potentially season-ending Achilles tendon tear during an off-site workout, the Broncos have the contractual right under the Collective Bargaining Agreement to not pay James his eight-figure salary in 2021. But the Broncos arent required to stiff James. The league office, which seized on the incident in an effort to persuade all players to return for voluntary offseason workouts, will surely want the Broncos to extend James no courtesies for following the unions recommendation to stay away. The union will try to get players to pressure the Broncos to take care of James. The Broncos ultimately will have to make the best decision for their organization. It doesnt help James that he appeared in only three games in 2019, the first season of his four-year, $51 million contract. James received a $12 million signing bonus and a $5 million salary a total payout of $17 million during that first season with the Broncos. It would be easy for the Broncos to justify cutting James off, given how little theyve gotten from him. Indeed, given his current contractual situation (and in light of the fact that he opted out in 2020), James had even more reason to show up for offseason workouts at the team facility. The fact that the NFLPA has tried to wedge the square peg of the James injury into the round hole of a workplace injury wont necessarily help James cause. Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the workout program that James contends he was following wasnt recommended; it was presented as voluntary options to players. More importantly, the letter attaching the voluntary options for off-site workouts cautioned players in red print and with underlining that the team is not responsible for any injuries that occur away from the team facility. Its possible that, if/when the Broncos place James on the non-football injury list, team and player will strike a deal. The Broncos have the leverage, and they arguably can dictate the terms. Whatever James may eventually get through a negotiated settlement, it will be far less than the 100 cents on the dollar he would have received if the injury had happened at the teams facility. originally appeared on Pro Football Talk | JaWuan James suffered a potentially season-ending Achilles tendon tear during an off-site workout. The Broncos have the contractual right under the Collective Bargaining Agreement to not pay James his eight-figure salary in 2021. | bart | 1 | https://sports.yahoo.com/broncos-handle-ja-wuan-james-170322854.html?src=rss | 0.224471 |
How will Broncos handle the JaWuan James injury? | The Denver Broncos suddenly find themselves in a delicate spot regarding the tug of war between the NFL and the NFL Players Association over offseason workouts. With right tackle JaWuan James suffering a potentially season-ending Achilles tendon tear during an off-site workout, the Broncos have the contractual right under the Collective Bargaining Agreement to not pay James his eight-figure salary in 2021. But the Broncos arent required to stiff James. The league office, which seized on the incident in an effort to persuade all players to return for voluntary offseason workouts, will surely want the Broncos to extend James no courtesies for following the unions recommendation to stay away. The union will try to get players to pressure the Broncos to take care of James. The Broncos ultimately will have to make the best decision for their organization. It doesnt help James that he appeared in only three games in 2019, the first season of his four-year, $51 million contract. James received a $12 million signing bonus and a $5 million salary a total payout of $17 million during that first season with the Broncos. It would be easy for the Broncos to justify cutting James off, given how little theyve gotten from him. Indeed, given his current contractual situation (and in light of the fact that he opted out in 2020), James had even more reason to show up for offseason workouts at the team facility. The fact that the NFLPA has tried to wedge the square peg of the James injury into the round hole of a workplace injury wont necessarily help James cause. Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the workout program that James contends he was following wasnt recommended; it was presented as voluntary options to players. More importantly, the letter attaching the voluntary options for off-site workouts cautioned players in red print and with underlining that the team is not responsible for any injuries that occur away from the team facility. Its possible that, if/when the Broncos place James on the non-football injury list, team and player will strike a deal. The Broncos have the leverage, and they arguably can dictate the terms. Whatever James may eventually get through a negotiated settlement, it will be far less than the 100 cents on the dollar he would have received if the injury had happened at the teams facility. originally appeared on Pro Football Talk | JaWuan James suffered a potentially season-ending Achilles tendon tear during an off-site workout. The Broncos have the contractual right under the Collective Bargaining Agreement to not pay James his eight-figure salary in 2021. The league office will surely want the Broncos to extend James no courtesies for following the union's recommendation to stay away. | bart | 2 | https://sports.yahoo.com/broncos-handle-ja-wuan-james-170322854.html?src=rss | 0.35159 |
Where Does Longhorns DeMarvion Overshown Rank As Potential 2022 NFL Draft Pick? | ESPN released its most intriguing 2022 draft picks, and Texas Longhorns DeMarvion Overshown made the list In the 2021 NFL Draft, five Longhorns were selected through the seven-round event, the most since 2015. Now, head coach Steve Sarkisian and his new staff will seek to elevate the bar even more. Looking ahead, some intriguing prospects could find themselves drafted in early rounds. Most notably, DeMarvion Overshown is the Longhorns projected best defenseman. Staff writer Dave Wilson had this to say on Overshown who sits in the No.21 spot in ESPNs most intriguing 2022 NFL draft prospects: In seven seasons at Washington, new Longhorns defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski had 17 players drafted. He'll have a versatile new defender to utilize in DeMarvion Overshown this season in Austin. Overshown, a 6-4, 217-pound former safety, showed flashes of brilliance in his first season as a linebacker, culminating with MVP honors in the Alamo Bowl after he had six tackles, an interception, a fumble recovery and two quarterback hurries against Colorado. Most recently, Overshown gave a reassuring update about his rehab: Rehab update: I went toe to toe with this death machine today and Im happy to say I took the dub!! ArmBandit 1 - SM 1 Last season, Overshown broke out with 60 total tackles, two forced fumbles, and two interceptions. Overshown concluded his junior campaign as the 2020 Valero Alamo Bowl Defensive MVP. As reported by ESPN, new Texas defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski will have a positive impact on the versatile Overshown, allowing him to continue climbing draft boards. Comment and join in on the discussion below! Sign up for your premium membership to LonghornsCountry.com today, and get access to the entire Fan Nation premium network! Follow Longhorns Country on Twitter and Facebook | ESPN named DeMarvion Overshown as one of the most intriguing 2022 NFL draft prospects. The versatile defender is expected to start at linebacker for the Texas Longhorns this season. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.si.com/college/texas/football/where-does-longhorns-demarvion-overshown-rank-as-potential-2022-nfl-draft-pick | 0.136284 |
Where Does Longhorns DeMarvion Overshown Rank As Potential 2022 NFL Draft Pick? | ESPN released its most intriguing 2022 draft picks, and Texas Longhorns DeMarvion Overshown made the list In the 2021 NFL Draft, five Longhorns were selected through the seven-round event, the most since 2015. Now, head coach Steve Sarkisian and his new staff will seek to elevate the bar even more. Looking ahead, some intriguing prospects could find themselves drafted in early rounds. Most notably, DeMarvion Overshown is the Longhorns projected best defenseman. Staff writer Dave Wilson had this to say on Overshown who sits in the No.21 spot in ESPNs most intriguing 2022 NFL draft prospects: In seven seasons at Washington, new Longhorns defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski had 17 players drafted. He'll have a versatile new defender to utilize in DeMarvion Overshown this season in Austin. Overshown, a 6-4, 217-pound former safety, showed flashes of brilliance in his first season as a linebacker, culminating with MVP honors in the Alamo Bowl after he had six tackles, an interception, a fumble recovery and two quarterback hurries against Colorado. Most recently, Overshown gave a reassuring update about his rehab: Rehab update: I went toe to toe with this death machine today and Im happy to say I took the dub!! ArmBandit 1 - SM 1 Last season, Overshown broke out with 60 total tackles, two forced fumbles, and two interceptions. Overshown concluded his junior campaign as the 2020 Valero Alamo Bowl Defensive MVP. As reported by ESPN, new Texas defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski will have a positive impact on the versatile Overshown, allowing him to continue climbing draft boards. Comment and join in on the discussion below! Sign up for your premium membership to LonghornsCountry.com today, and get access to the entire Fan Nation premium network! Follow Longhorns Country on Twitter and Facebook | ESPN named DeMarvion Overshown as one of the most intriguing 2022 NFL draft prospects. The versatile defender is expected to be the Longhorns best defenseman in his second season at Texas. The former safety was named the 2020 Valero Alamo Bowl Defensive MVP. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.si.com/college/texas/football/where-does-longhorns-demarvion-overshown-rank-as-potential-2022-nfl-draft-pick | 0.151567 |
Whats top of mind for candidates in Cap-Pel? | Cap-Pel will see the return of Serge Lger as mayor by acclaimation, while an election will be held on May 10 to decide who will sit in the remaining five council seats. There are eight candidates vying for five seats: Rachel Boudreau, Wendy Bourque, Hector Cormier, Mario Cormier, Gerard Landry, Eric LeBlanc, Yvonne LeBlanc and Louis Legr. Home to approximately 2,500 residents, Cap-Pel is on the Northumberland Strait and is home to the famous Aboiteau Beach. Lger said continued growth, affordable housing and re-establishing itself after the pandemic in terms of tourism and other activities will likely dominate the villages agenda in the term ahead. The Times & Transcript asked the candidates to describe issues top-of-mind for Cap-Pele, and their ideas to tackle the issues. Responses from those who returned our request by press time are listed below in alphabetical order. Rachel Boudreau: Boudreau said too often people are forced to leave the village of Cap-Pel when they need residential care at levels 3 to 4. I want to work hard so that the government will grant us a licence for a level 3 to 4 nursing home here in Cap-Pel, so that all citizens can stay in the area where they lived, worked and paid taxes throughout their lives. Mental health services, resources for seniors and those with disabilities or those with low income, and ensuring existing services are known is also important, she said. Wendy Bourque: My priority is to listen to residents of all ages and cultural backgrounds, and to bring forth their suggestions and concerns to the municipal council, said Bourque. She is proud that Cap-Pel continues to move forward in an inclusive way and wants all residents to have a sense of belonging so they will want to live in Cap-Pel for the long term. Progressing and growing in important while maintaining the quality of life for which small villages are known, she said. Hector Cormier: Development is top of mind for Hector Cormier. In particular, he said, the community needs apartments both to keep people living in Cap-Pel and to improve the tax base. He also wants to see Cap-Pel on a main highway sign on Rte 15, noting that Shediac, Port Elgin and other communities are specifically indicated. This would be useful for tourism and other reasons, he said. Mario Cormier: Collaboration with surrounding communities is key to ensure Cap-Pel keeps progressing and improves services for residents, said Mario Cormier. We need to generate tourism as an all-year experience. We need to have sustainable development while protecting our environment. We have huge opportunities in front of us, and they need to be well protected and well managed, he said. Eric LeBlanc: I am passionate about working toward our economic development and community infrastructures and will work hard to ensure the construction of the intergenerational centre. Furthermore, if given the chance, I am excited to work with all the people who are making their home in the beautiful village of Cap-Pel, which is filled with cultural diversity, he said. Yvonne LeBlanc: Yvonne LeBlanc said working toward successfully completing the development of the community recreation centre is a priority. Sustained development and fixing infrastructure are concerns more broadly. She is a hopeful a way to allow seniors to stay somewhere in the community who need higher levels of support than is currently offered can be reached. Louis Lger: COVID remains the biggest challenge, he said. The price increase of building a community recreation centre will be the biggest issue in the term ahead. Keeping development progressing in general amid challenges of extra costs in construction right now will be one of the biggest challenges. Lger said he has a lot of construction and business experience he is hoping will help council through some of the hurdles ahead. | There are eight candidates vying for five seats on Cap-Pel's municipal council. The Times & Transcript asked the candidates to describe issues top-of-mind for Cap-Pele, and their ideas to tackle the issues. The results will be published on May 10. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/05/07/whats-top-of-mind-for-candidates-in-cap-pel.html | 0.132572 |
Should the state automatically expunge past marijuana misdemeanor and felony convictions from peoples records? | Adam Fine Massachusetts in 2016 became one of the first two states east of the Mississippi to legalize adult-use cannabis, (cq) a distinction for which we should be proud. Legalization has helped displace the illicit market and has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in new tax revenues for the state and thousands of new jobs. But when it comes to expunging prior criminal convictions for cannabis offenses in other words, wiping the slate clean for residents convicted of offenses that are no longer crimes the Bay State is trailing the pack. Advertisement As a former public defender, Ive seen how cannabis convictions can hinder employment, jeopardize housing opportunities, thwart adoption desires, and block volunteer eligibility in schools, sports teams, or civic boards. Convictions are especially problematic for people seeking financial stability in this COVID-recovering economy. Our current expungement policy in Massachusetts a cumbersome and expensive process involving petitioning, court appearances, and adjudication needs to change. We can look to two of our border states for inspiration. Just this year, Vermont and New York both adopted measures that automatically expunge misdemeanor criminal records relating to cannabis convictions. (cq) These new policies eliminate the need to pursue lengthy, costly processes to erase what wouldnt even be considered crimes today. Massachusetts should go even further than these states by mandating that automatic expungement cover all misdemeanor and felony cannabis convictions prior to 2016 with the exception of sales to minors. This would parallel the approach taken by the state Cannabis Control Commission in assessing the conviction history of cannabis license applicants. (cq) Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, in announcing some 500,000 expungements for cannabis offenses earlier this year, (cq) put the argument for reversing cannabis convictions quite well. Referencing the historic disproportionate impact of drug arrests upon communities of color, he said that government will never be able to fully remedy the depth of the damage. But we can govern with the courage to admit the mistakes of our past. (cq) Advertisement Massachusetts should be leading, not trailing, other states in adopting cannabis expungement policies. Automatic expungement for cannabis convictions, both misdemeanors and felonies, would be a fitting next step for one of the first eastern states to end cannabis prohibition and its massive injustices. NO William G. Brooks III Norwood police chief; past president, Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association; board member, International Association of Chiefs of Police William G. Brooks III I am not opposed to expunging past convictions for possession of marijuana from peoples criminal records, but we need to draw the line at simple possession and not stray into the area of dealing. I have never thought that completely legalizing marijuana was a good idea and I still dont but thats now the law in our state and for that reason alone, peoples past convictions for a crime that no longer exists should not follow them. But there may not be as many of these cases as people expect. Dating back to 1975, anyone convicted of a first offense of marijuana possession in Massachusetts was placed on probation, and upon successful completion of that probation their case was dismissed and their record of the offense sealed. The law provided that a court could file a written memorandum explaining why that was not done, (cq) but I never saw that happen. Advertisement In reality, most cases of marijuana possession never got that far; cases were routinely continued without a finding or outright dismissed, often upon payment of nominal court costs. In my experience, those who ended up with a guilty verdict on their record had often been arrested for multiple charges and had marijuana on them, and the marijuana count was pled out as part of a broader plea. Someone arrested in a housebreak who had weed on him might receive a guilty finding for that charge when he pled guilty to the other charges, for instance. In my view, drug dealing and trafficking are a different story. Those acts are still considered criminal and should remain on a defendants record. In Massachusetts, dealing marijuana is actually a misdemeanor unless the dealer sells 50 pounds or more, which would trigger a trafficking charge. Believe it or not, selling 20 pounds of weed to an undercover police officer is a misdemeanor here. (cq) Although a guilty finding for marijuana possession is unlikely to be a stumbling block for most people these days, it is just and fair to remove it from a persons record. But convictions for drug sales of any class should remain on their criminal history record. As told to Globe correspondent John Laidler. To suggest a topic, please contact laidler@globe.com. Tis is not a scientific survey. Please only vote once. Advertisement | Adam Fine: Massachusetts should follow Vermont and New York in expunging past marijuana convictions. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/05/07/metro/should-state-automatically-expunge-past-marijuana-misdemeanor-felony-convictions-peoples-records/ | 0.132355 |
Should the state automatically expunge past marijuana misdemeanor and felony convictions from peoples records? | Adam Fine Massachusetts in 2016 became one of the first two states east of the Mississippi to legalize adult-use cannabis, (cq) a distinction for which we should be proud. Legalization has helped displace the illicit market and has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in new tax revenues for the state and thousands of new jobs. But when it comes to expunging prior criminal convictions for cannabis offenses in other words, wiping the slate clean for residents convicted of offenses that are no longer crimes the Bay State is trailing the pack. Advertisement As a former public defender, Ive seen how cannabis convictions can hinder employment, jeopardize housing opportunities, thwart adoption desires, and block volunteer eligibility in schools, sports teams, or civic boards. Convictions are especially problematic for people seeking financial stability in this COVID-recovering economy. Our current expungement policy in Massachusetts a cumbersome and expensive process involving petitioning, court appearances, and adjudication needs to change. We can look to two of our border states for inspiration. Just this year, Vermont and New York both adopted measures that automatically expunge misdemeanor criminal records relating to cannabis convictions. (cq) These new policies eliminate the need to pursue lengthy, costly processes to erase what wouldnt even be considered crimes today. Massachusetts should go even further than these states by mandating that automatic expungement cover all misdemeanor and felony cannabis convictions prior to 2016 with the exception of sales to minors. This would parallel the approach taken by the state Cannabis Control Commission in assessing the conviction history of cannabis license applicants. (cq) Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, in announcing some 500,000 expungements for cannabis offenses earlier this year, (cq) put the argument for reversing cannabis convictions quite well. Referencing the historic disproportionate impact of drug arrests upon communities of color, he said that government will never be able to fully remedy the depth of the damage. But we can govern with the courage to admit the mistakes of our past. (cq) Advertisement Massachusetts should be leading, not trailing, other states in adopting cannabis expungement policies. Automatic expungement for cannabis convictions, both misdemeanors and felonies, would be a fitting next step for one of the first eastern states to end cannabis prohibition and its massive injustices. NO William G. Brooks III Norwood police chief; past president, Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association; board member, International Association of Chiefs of Police William G. Brooks III I am not opposed to expunging past convictions for possession of marijuana from peoples criminal records, but we need to draw the line at simple possession and not stray into the area of dealing. I have never thought that completely legalizing marijuana was a good idea and I still dont but thats now the law in our state and for that reason alone, peoples past convictions for a crime that no longer exists should not follow them. But there may not be as many of these cases as people expect. Dating back to 1975, anyone convicted of a first offense of marijuana possession in Massachusetts was placed on probation, and upon successful completion of that probation their case was dismissed and their record of the offense sealed. The law provided that a court could file a written memorandum explaining why that was not done, (cq) but I never saw that happen. Advertisement In reality, most cases of marijuana possession never got that far; cases were routinely continued without a finding or outright dismissed, often upon payment of nominal court costs. In my experience, those who ended up with a guilty verdict on their record had often been arrested for multiple charges and had marijuana on them, and the marijuana count was pled out as part of a broader plea. Someone arrested in a housebreak who had weed on him might receive a guilty finding for that charge when he pled guilty to the other charges, for instance. In my view, drug dealing and trafficking are a different story. Those acts are still considered criminal and should remain on a defendants record. In Massachusetts, dealing marijuana is actually a misdemeanor unless the dealer sells 50 pounds or more, which would trigger a trafficking charge. Believe it or not, selling 20 pounds of weed to an undercover police officer is a misdemeanor here. (cq) Although a guilty finding for marijuana possession is unlikely to be a stumbling block for most people these days, it is just and fair to remove it from a persons record. But convictions for drug sales of any class should remain on their criminal history record. As told to Globe correspondent John Laidler. To suggest a topic, please contact laidler@globe.com. Tis is not a scientific survey. Please only vote once. Advertisement | Adam Fine: Massachusetts should follow Vermont and New York in expunging past marijuana convictions. William Brooks: We need to draw the line at simple possession and not stray into the area of dealing. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/05/07/metro/should-state-automatically-expunge-past-marijuana-misdemeanor-felony-convictions-peoples-records/ | 0.111589 |
Should the state automatically expunge past marijuana misdemeanor and felony convictions from peoples records? | Adam Fine Massachusetts in 2016 became one of the first two states east of the Mississippi to legalize adult-use cannabis, (cq) a distinction for which we should be proud. Legalization has helped displace the illicit market and has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in new tax revenues for the state and thousands of new jobs. But when it comes to expunging prior criminal convictions for cannabis offenses in other words, wiping the slate clean for residents convicted of offenses that are no longer crimes the Bay State is trailing the pack. Advertisement As a former public defender, Ive seen how cannabis convictions can hinder employment, jeopardize housing opportunities, thwart adoption desires, and block volunteer eligibility in schools, sports teams, or civic boards. Convictions are especially problematic for people seeking financial stability in this COVID-recovering economy. Our current expungement policy in Massachusetts a cumbersome and expensive process involving petitioning, court appearances, and adjudication needs to change. We can look to two of our border states for inspiration. Just this year, Vermont and New York both adopted measures that automatically expunge misdemeanor criminal records relating to cannabis convictions. (cq) These new policies eliminate the need to pursue lengthy, costly processes to erase what wouldnt even be considered crimes today. Massachusetts should go even further than these states by mandating that automatic expungement cover all misdemeanor and felony cannabis convictions prior to 2016 with the exception of sales to minors. This would parallel the approach taken by the state Cannabis Control Commission in assessing the conviction history of cannabis license applicants. (cq) Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, in announcing some 500,000 expungements for cannabis offenses earlier this year, (cq) put the argument for reversing cannabis convictions quite well. Referencing the historic disproportionate impact of drug arrests upon communities of color, he said that government will never be able to fully remedy the depth of the damage. But we can govern with the courage to admit the mistakes of our past. (cq) Advertisement Massachusetts should be leading, not trailing, other states in adopting cannabis expungement policies. Automatic expungement for cannabis convictions, both misdemeanors and felonies, would be a fitting next step for one of the first eastern states to end cannabis prohibition and its massive injustices. NO William G. Brooks III Norwood police chief; past president, Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association; board member, International Association of Chiefs of Police William G. Brooks III I am not opposed to expunging past convictions for possession of marijuana from peoples criminal records, but we need to draw the line at simple possession and not stray into the area of dealing. I have never thought that completely legalizing marijuana was a good idea and I still dont but thats now the law in our state and for that reason alone, peoples past convictions for a crime that no longer exists should not follow them. But there may not be as many of these cases as people expect. Dating back to 1975, anyone convicted of a first offense of marijuana possession in Massachusetts was placed on probation, and upon successful completion of that probation their case was dismissed and their record of the offense sealed. The law provided that a court could file a written memorandum explaining why that was not done, (cq) but I never saw that happen. Advertisement In reality, most cases of marijuana possession never got that far; cases were routinely continued without a finding or outright dismissed, often upon payment of nominal court costs. In my experience, those who ended up with a guilty verdict on their record had often been arrested for multiple charges and had marijuana on them, and the marijuana count was pled out as part of a broader plea. Someone arrested in a housebreak who had weed on him might receive a guilty finding for that charge when he pled guilty to the other charges, for instance. In my view, drug dealing and trafficking are a different story. Those acts are still considered criminal and should remain on a defendants record. In Massachusetts, dealing marijuana is actually a misdemeanor unless the dealer sells 50 pounds or more, which would trigger a trafficking charge. Believe it or not, selling 20 pounds of weed to an undercover police officer is a misdemeanor here. (cq) Although a guilty finding for marijuana possession is unlikely to be a stumbling block for most people these days, it is just and fair to remove it from a persons record. But convictions for drug sales of any class should remain on their criminal history record. As told to Globe correspondent John Laidler. To suggest a topic, please contact laidler@globe.com. Tis is not a scientific survey. Please only vote once. Advertisement | Massachusetts in 2016 became one of the first two states east of the Mississippi to legalize adult-use cannabis. When it comes to expunging prior criminal convictions for cannabis offenses, the Bay State is trailing the pack. Vermont and New York both adopted measures that automatically expunge misdemeanor criminal records relating to cannabis convictions. | pegasus | 2 | https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/05/07/metro/should-state-automatically-expunge-past-marijuana-misdemeanor-felony-convictions-peoples-records/ | 0.214381 |
Why did Berkshire Hathaways share price threaten Nasdaq? | BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY shares have climbed steadily in value over nearly six decades. Other companies would have split their shares, lowering the unit price to make them more attractive to a range of investors. In 1995 Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaways boss, rejected this idea, saying that it might result in an awful lot of people buying it who didnt have the faintest idea what they were doing. Now his stance has had an unintended consequence. The recent stockmarket rally has pushed Berkshire Hathaways Class A shares so high that they have threatened to break the pricing and reporting system of the Nasdaq stock exchange. The shares, valued at more than $435,000 each on May 6th, tripped up computer systems unprepared for values quite so large. Nasdaqs are not the only systems to be dumbfounded by big numbers. YouTube, the worlds biggest video-sharing site, once struggled with a similar problem. Its all about the bits. Computers use binary digits, or bits, that can store 0 or 1 as a potential value, grouped typically into units of eight digits. An eight-digit binary number, which can represent values from 0 to 255, is called a byte. Larger numbers are represented using multiple bytes. Two bytes (or 16 bits) can represent numbers from 0 to 65,535; four bytes (or 32 bits) can represent numbers from 0 to 4,294,967,295; and so on. Programmers determine the highest possible value that a system needs to represent, and no larger, to conserve memory and reduce the burden on calculation. Nasdaqs pricing system relies for price quotations on 32-bit integers. Nobody conceived that a share price might exceed $429,496.7295, as Berkshire Hathaways has. (Nasdaq marks prices to hundredths of a cent.) This assumption seemed reasonable: only in recent years has Berkshire Hathaway flown so close to the value. The share price of NVR Inc, a construction-and-mortgage company that comes second to Berkshire Hathaway among public companies for sticker shock, is not far above $5,000. But now it is causing trouble. Although orders for Berkshire Hathaway shares were largely unaffectedit is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, which says it can handle high numbers just fineNasdaq and some smaller exchanges were unable to include the company in some stock-price feeds or to accept certain share orders. Nasdaqs engineers are rushing to update their systems to accommodate higher prices. Nasdaq isnt the first system to struggle with this problem. Players of Final Fantasy 7, a video game from 1997, could cause the game to glitch by registering a score so high that it overflowed the 32-bit number used to store it. In 2014 Gangnam Style, a music video by Psy, a Korean pop star, approached 2,147,483,648 views on YouTube. YouTubes system kept one bit in reserve for a positive or negative sign, halving the maximum value it could handle compared with Nasdaq. YouTube had to upgrade its system in light of Psys popularity (the new maximum view-count is over nine quintillion, or nine followed by 18 zeros). A Gangnam-style limit also approaches for older versions of the Unix operating system and its derivatives, which power Android and Apple phones, Mac computers and internet servers. In 2038 the number of seconds since January 1st 1970 will exceed 2,147,483,647. That date was the arbitrary starting point from which the systems time is derived. (Although most modern operating systems have already been fixed to last beyond 2038.) Nasdaq says it will have a fix in place by May 17th for its pricing feeds. Changes typically involve refactoring code, or rewriting existing software to give it newer capabilities, such as using a 64-bit number instead. Developers and traders who lived through the advent of the new millennium will recall similar scrambles to smooth the transition of dozens of countries to the euro, the switch of Americas stockmarkets from pricing in sixteenths of a dollar to decimalisation, and the Y2K problem, in which elderly financial and other systems assumed all years were preceded by 19. If Nasdaqs programmers opt for a 64-bit number, Berkshire Hathaways share price will have plenty of headroom. Revised systems could theoretically handle a stock price of $1,844,674,407,370,954.1615. | The recent stockmarket rally has pushed Berkshire Hathaways shares so high that they have threatened to break the Nasdaq stock exchange. | pegasus | 0 | https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2021/05/07/why-did-berkshire-hathaways-share-price-threaten-nasdaq | 0.308798 |
Why did Berkshire Hathaways share price threaten Nasdaq? | BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY shares have climbed steadily in value over nearly six decades. Other companies would have split their shares, lowering the unit price to make them more attractive to a range of investors. In 1995 Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaways boss, rejected this idea, saying that it might result in an awful lot of people buying it who didnt have the faintest idea what they were doing. Now his stance has had an unintended consequence. The recent stockmarket rally has pushed Berkshire Hathaways Class A shares so high that they have threatened to break the pricing and reporting system of the Nasdaq stock exchange. The shares, valued at more than $435,000 each on May 6th, tripped up computer systems unprepared for values quite so large. Nasdaqs are not the only systems to be dumbfounded by big numbers. YouTube, the worlds biggest video-sharing site, once struggled with a similar problem. Its all about the bits. Computers use binary digits, or bits, that can store 0 or 1 as a potential value, grouped typically into units of eight digits. An eight-digit binary number, which can represent values from 0 to 255, is called a byte. Larger numbers are represented using multiple bytes. Two bytes (or 16 bits) can represent numbers from 0 to 65,535; four bytes (or 32 bits) can represent numbers from 0 to 4,294,967,295; and so on. Programmers determine the highest possible value that a system needs to represent, and no larger, to conserve memory and reduce the burden on calculation. Nasdaqs pricing system relies for price quotations on 32-bit integers. Nobody conceived that a share price might exceed $429,496.7295, as Berkshire Hathaways has. (Nasdaq marks prices to hundredths of a cent.) This assumption seemed reasonable: only in recent years has Berkshire Hathaway flown so close to the value. The share price of NVR Inc, a construction-and-mortgage company that comes second to Berkshire Hathaway among public companies for sticker shock, is not far above $5,000. But now it is causing trouble. Although orders for Berkshire Hathaway shares were largely unaffectedit is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, which says it can handle high numbers just fineNasdaq and some smaller exchanges were unable to include the company in some stock-price feeds or to accept certain share orders. Nasdaqs engineers are rushing to update their systems to accommodate higher prices. Nasdaq isnt the first system to struggle with this problem. Players of Final Fantasy 7, a video game from 1997, could cause the game to glitch by registering a score so high that it overflowed the 32-bit number used to store it. In 2014 Gangnam Style, a music video by Psy, a Korean pop star, approached 2,147,483,648 views on YouTube. YouTubes system kept one bit in reserve for a positive or negative sign, halving the maximum value it could handle compared with Nasdaq. YouTube had to upgrade its system in light of Psys popularity (the new maximum view-count is over nine quintillion, or nine followed by 18 zeros). A Gangnam-style limit also approaches for older versions of the Unix operating system and its derivatives, which power Android and Apple phones, Mac computers and internet servers. In 2038 the number of seconds since January 1st 1970 will exceed 2,147,483,647. That date was the arbitrary starting point from which the systems time is derived. (Although most modern operating systems have already been fixed to last beyond 2038.) Nasdaq says it will have a fix in place by May 17th for its pricing feeds. Changes typically involve refactoring code, or rewriting existing software to give it newer capabilities, such as using a 64-bit number instead. Developers and traders who lived through the advent of the new millennium will recall similar scrambles to smooth the transition of dozens of countries to the euro, the switch of Americas stockmarkets from pricing in sixteenths of a dollar to decimalisation, and the Y2K problem, in which elderly financial and other systems assumed all years were preceded by 19. If Nasdaqs programmers opt for a 64-bit number, Berkshire Hathaways share price will have plenty of headroom. Revised systems could theoretically handle a stock price of $1,844,674,407,370,954.1615. | The recent stockmarket rally has pushed Berkshire Hathaways Class A shares so high that they have threatened to break the pricing and reporting system of the Nasdaq stock exchange. | bart | 1 | https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2021/05/07/why-did-berkshire-hathaways-share-price-threaten-nasdaq | 0.334627 |
Why did Berkshire Hathaways share price threaten Nasdaq? | BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY shares have climbed steadily in value over nearly six decades. Other companies would have split their shares, lowering the unit price to make them more attractive to a range of investors. In 1995 Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaways boss, rejected this idea, saying that it might result in an awful lot of people buying it who didnt have the faintest idea what they were doing. Now his stance has had an unintended consequence. The recent stockmarket rally has pushed Berkshire Hathaways Class A shares so high that they have threatened to break the pricing and reporting system of the Nasdaq stock exchange. The shares, valued at more than $435,000 each on May 6th, tripped up computer systems unprepared for values quite so large. Nasdaqs are not the only systems to be dumbfounded by big numbers. YouTube, the worlds biggest video-sharing site, once struggled with a similar problem. Its all about the bits. Computers use binary digits, or bits, that can store 0 or 1 as a potential value, grouped typically into units of eight digits. An eight-digit binary number, which can represent values from 0 to 255, is called a byte. Larger numbers are represented using multiple bytes. Two bytes (or 16 bits) can represent numbers from 0 to 65,535; four bytes (or 32 bits) can represent numbers from 0 to 4,294,967,295; and so on. Programmers determine the highest possible value that a system needs to represent, and no larger, to conserve memory and reduce the burden on calculation. Nasdaqs pricing system relies for price quotations on 32-bit integers. Nobody conceived that a share price might exceed $429,496.7295, as Berkshire Hathaways has. (Nasdaq marks prices to hundredths of a cent.) This assumption seemed reasonable: only in recent years has Berkshire Hathaway flown so close to the value. The share price of NVR Inc, a construction-and-mortgage company that comes second to Berkshire Hathaway among public companies for sticker shock, is not far above $5,000. But now it is causing trouble. Although orders for Berkshire Hathaway shares were largely unaffectedit is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, which says it can handle high numbers just fineNasdaq and some smaller exchanges were unable to include the company in some stock-price feeds or to accept certain share orders. Nasdaqs engineers are rushing to update their systems to accommodate higher prices. Nasdaq isnt the first system to struggle with this problem. Players of Final Fantasy 7, a video game from 1997, could cause the game to glitch by registering a score so high that it overflowed the 32-bit number used to store it. In 2014 Gangnam Style, a music video by Psy, a Korean pop star, approached 2,147,483,648 views on YouTube. YouTubes system kept one bit in reserve for a positive or negative sign, halving the maximum value it could handle compared with Nasdaq. YouTube had to upgrade its system in light of Psys popularity (the new maximum view-count is over nine quintillion, or nine followed by 18 zeros). A Gangnam-style limit also approaches for older versions of the Unix operating system and its derivatives, which power Android and Apple phones, Mac computers and internet servers. In 2038 the number of seconds since January 1st 1970 will exceed 2,147,483,647. That date was the arbitrary starting point from which the systems time is derived. (Although most modern operating systems have already been fixed to last beyond 2038.) Nasdaq says it will have a fix in place by May 17th for its pricing feeds. Changes typically involve refactoring code, or rewriting existing software to give it newer capabilities, such as using a 64-bit number instead. Developers and traders who lived through the advent of the new millennium will recall similar scrambles to smooth the transition of dozens of countries to the euro, the switch of Americas stockmarkets from pricing in sixteenths of a dollar to decimalisation, and the Y2K problem, in which elderly financial and other systems assumed all years were preceded by 19. If Nasdaqs programmers opt for a 64-bit number, Berkshire Hathaways share price will have plenty of headroom. Revised systems could theoretically handle a stock price of $1,844,674,407,370,954.1615. | The recent stockmarket rally has pushed Berkshire Hathaways Class A shares so high that they have threatened to break the pricing and reporting system of the Nasdaq stock exchange. The shares, valued at more than $435,000 each on May 6th, tripped up computer systems unprepared for values so large. | bart | 2 | https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2021/05/07/why-did-berkshire-hathaways-share-price-threaten-nasdaq | 0.398081 |
Is The Variant From India The Most Contagious Coronavirus Mutant On The Planet? | Back in the fall, Tom Wenseleers made a bold claim on Twitter. He tweeted that the new coronavirus variant emerging in the U.K. was more transmissible or could spread more quickly than over versions of the virus. "I posted a graph [on Twitter] showing the U.K. variant had a transmission advantage over the other types of the virus," says Wenseleers, who's an evolutionary biologist at the University of Leuven in Belgium. At first, many scientists didn't believe his analysis. Many people thought the big COVID surge in England was due to holiday travel and shopping, he says. But after many follow-up studies, Wenseleers was proven correct. The variant from U.K., called B.1.1.7, is indeed more transmissible and likely the most contagious version of the virus known. Now Wenseleers has performed similar analyses on data from India, and he's feeling a bit of a deja vu. "Based on this data, the new variant from India has a very big transmission or growth advantage," even over B.1.1.7, he says. "It's kind of like the U.K. variant squared." This advantage, Wenseleers believes, is fueling the massive outbreak in India, on top of other contributing factors, such as recent mass gatherings, election rallies and relaxing of precautions. Over the winter, the situation in India looked great. COVID-19 case numbers were flat and even dropping. Then in the middle of February and early March, the situation quickly shifted. The virus surged explosively. Now India is battling a horrific second wave of COVID-19, reporting about 400,000 cases and more than 3,500 deaths every day. At the same time, the new variant in India, known as B.1.617, began to dominate the outbreak in several Indian states. This variant has more than a dozen mutations, including several that are known to enhance transmissibility and help the virus evade the immune system. Several other variants are also circulating in India, including B.1.351 from South Africa and B.1.1.7 from the U.K. To figure out which variant is spreading the fastest, Wenseleers used a mathematical model to estimate how quickly cases of each variant are rising in several regions. He found cases of B.1.617 to be rising at a faster rate than cases of B.1.1.7 in three states in India and in the U.K. "If you take all these pieces of evidence together, I'm fairly confident that the variant from India has a growth advantage and that is a reason for the current epidemic in India," he says. Of course, there are several caveats here. The findings are preliminary and haven't been published, except on Twitter. "And the data are still very limited," he says. "The number of variant sequences that's available for India is quite small, especially considering the size of the country and the population." For these reasons, other researchers are again dubious of Wenseleers' findings. Karthik Gangavarapu, who's a computational biologist at Scripps Research Institute, is one of them. "I don't think the story is clear yet," he says. "I'm not saying B.1.617 isn't more transmissible than B.1.1.7, I'm just saying there's a burden of proof you need to establish before you can say that." Still though, Gangavarapu says, there's no question the variant in India is worrisome and something the whole world needs to try and stop together. | A new coronavirus variant from India is more transmissible than one from the U.K. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/05/07/994710459/is-the-variant-from-india-the-most-contagious-coronavirus-mutant-on-the-planet | 0.124509 |
Is The Variant From India The Most Contagious Coronavirus Mutant On The Planet? | Back in the fall, Tom Wenseleers made a bold claim on Twitter. He tweeted that the new coronavirus variant emerging in the U.K. was more transmissible or could spread more quickly than over versions of the virus. "I posted a graph [on Twitter] showing the U.K. variant had a transmission advantage over the other types of the virus," says Wenseleers, who's an evolutionary biologist at the University of Leuven in Belgium. At first, many scientists didn't believe his analysis. Many people thought the big COVID surge in England was due to holiday travel and shopping, he says. But after many follow-up studies, Wenseleers was proven correct. The variant from U.K., called B.1.1.7, is indeed more transmissible and likely the most contagious version of the virus known. Now Wenseleers has performed similar analyses on data from India, and he's feeling a bit of a deja vu. "Based on this data, the new variant from India has a very big transmission or growth advantage," even over B.1.1.7, he says. "It's kind of like the U.K. variant squared." This advantage, Wenseleers believes, is fueling the massive outbreak in India, on top of other contributing factors, such as recent mass gatherings, election rallies and relaxing of precautions. Over the winter, the situation in India looked great. COVID-19 case numbers were flat and even dropping. Then in the middle of February and early March, the situation quickly shifted. The virus surged explosively. Now India is battling a horrific second wave of COVID-19, reporting about 400,000 cases and more than 3,500 deaths every day. At the same time, the new variant in India, known as B.1.617, began to dominate the outbreak in several Indian states. This variant has more than a dozen mutations, including several that are known to enhance transmissibility and help the virus evade the immune system. Several other variants are also circulating in India, including B.1.351 from South Africa and B.1.1.7 from the U.K. To figure out which variant is spreading the fastest, Wenseleers used a mathematical model to estimate how quickly cases of each variant are rising in several regions. He found cases of B.1.617 to be rising at a faster rate than cases of B.1.1.7 in three states in India and in the U.K. "If you take all these pieces of evidence together, I'm fairly confident that the variant from India has a growth advantage and that is a reason for the current epidemic in India," he says. Of course, there are several caveats here. The findings are preliminary and haven't been published, except on Twitter. "And the data are still very limited," he says. "The number of variant sequences that's available for India is quite small, especially considering the size of the country and the population." For these reasons, other researchers are again dubious of Wenseleers' findings. Karthik Gangavarapu, who's a computational biologist at Scripps Research Institute, is one of them. "I don't think the story is clear yet," he says. "I'm not saying B.1.617 isn't more transmissible than B.1.1.7, I'm just saying there's a burden of proof you need to establish before you can say that." Still though, Gangavarapu says, there's no question the variant in India is worrisome and something the whole world needs to try and stop together. | A new coronavirus variant from India is more transmissible than one from the U.K. The new variant has more than a dozen mutations, including several that are known to enhance transmissibility. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/05/07/994710459/is-the-variant-from-india-the-most-contagious-coronavirus-mutant-on-the-planet | 0.191259 |
Is The Variant From India The Most Contagious Coronavirus Mutant On The Planet? | Back in the fall, Tom Wenseleers made a bold claim on Twitter. He tweeted that the new coronavirus variant emerging in the U.K. was more transmissible or could spread more quickly than over versions of the virus. "I posted a graph [on Twitter] showing the U.K. variant had a transmission advantage over the other types of the virus," says Wenseleers, who's an evolutionary biologist at the University of Leuven in Belgium. At first, many scientists didn't believe his analysis. Many people thought the big COVID surge in England was due to holiday travel and shopping, he says. But after many follow-up studies, Wenseleers was proven correct. The variant from U.K., called B.1.1.7, is indeed more transmissible and likely the most contagious version of the virus known. Now Wenseleers has performed similar analyses on data from India, and he's feeling a bit of a deja vu. "Based on this data, the new variant from India has a very big transmission or growth advantage," even over B.1.1.7, he says. "It's kind of like the U.K. variant squared." This advantage, Wenseleers believes, is fueling the massive outbreak in India, on top of other contributing factors, such as recent mass gatherings, election rallies and relaxing of precautions. Over the winter, the situation in India looked great. COVID-19 case numbers were flat and even dropping. Then in the middle of February and early March, the situation quickly shifted. The virus surged explosively. Now India is battling a horrific second wave of COVID-19, reporting about 400,000 cases and more than 3,500 deaths every day. At the same time, the new variant in India, known as B.1.617, began to dominate the outbreak in several Indian states. This variant has more than a dozen mutations, including several that are known to enhance transmissibility and help the virus evade the immune system. Several other variants are also circulating in India, including B.1.351 from South Africa and B.1.1.7 from the U.K. To figure out which variant is spreading the fastest, Wenseleers used a mathematical model to estimate how quickly cases of each variant are rising in several regions. He found cases of B.1.617 to be rising at a faster rate than cases of B.1.1.7 in three states in India and in the U.K. "If you take all these pieces of evidence together, I'm fairly confident that the variant from India has a growth advantage and that is a reason for the current epidemic in India," he says. Of course, there are several caveats here. The findings are preliminary and haven't been published, except on Twitter. "And the data are still very limited," he says. "The number of variant sequences that's available for India is quite small, especially considering the size of the country and the population." For these reasons, other researchers are again dubious of Wenseleers' findings. Karthik Gangavarapu, who's a computational biologist at Scripps Research Institute, is one of them. "I don't think the story is clear yet," he says. "I'm not saying B.1.617 isn't more transmissible than B.1.1.7, I'm just saying there's a burden of proof you need to establish before you can say that." Still though, Gangavarapu says, there's no question the variant in India is worrisome and something the whole world needs to try and stop together. | A new coronavirus variant from India is more transmissible than one from the U.K. The new variant has more than a dozen mutations, including several that are known to enhance transmissibility. Other researchers are dubious of the findings. The findings are preliminary and haven't been published, except on Twitter. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/05/07/994710459/is-the-variant-from-india-the-most-contagious-coronavirus-mutant-on-the-planet | 0.249987 |
What Tight End Options Remain for Titans? | General manager Jon Robinson did not address the position in the 2021 NFL Draft, which means free agents are now front and center. Despite being close a couple of times, according to general manager Jon Robinson, the Tennessee Titans did not address one of their biggest needs at an offensive skill position in the 2021 NFL Draft. They added a pair of wide receivers on the third day with the selections of Dez Fitzpatrick (Louisville) in the fourth round, and Racey McMath (LSU) in the sixth round. However, they stood pat, at least for the time being, with players they currently have in the tight end room. It was expected that the Titans would add a tight end at some point in the draft after Jonnu Smith, their No. 1 tight end from the past two seasons, signed a four-year deal with the Patriots in free agency. The Titans subsequently re-signed role players Anthony Firkser, who could produce more with a larger role, and Geoff Swaim, a veteran who prides himself on his blocking. In addition to those two, the Titans have several untested players (Parker Hesse, Tommy Hudson and Jared Pickney). While Robinson expressed confidence in that group, he did not rule out the possibility of making an addition to the tight end room at some point ahead of the 2021 season. ... We'll continue to evaluate players that are available here after the Draft as we start that process, he said. I've gotten several calls from general managers on other teams that have players on their roster, so the roster building process is never over. But we are excited with the group that we've got back and see how those guys come in and compete and continue to evaluate the players that are available as we continue to move through the offseason. Considering what Robinson said, heres a look at potential free-agent options for the Titans: Delanie Walker: The Titans cut him last March after injuries shortened his final two seasons with the team. He took this past season off to heal and get back into football shape and said teams know what I can do. Ill come back next year strong, faster and healthier. The Titans know very well what Walker can do in full health. He holds the franchises record for receptions by a tight end with 381 for 4,423 yards and 24 touchdowns. A call to the three-time Pro Bowler wouldnt hurt. MyCole Pruitt: Pruitt (pictured) spent each of the last three seasons with the Titans, who did not re-sign him after his contract expired at the conclusion of the 2020 season. He does not add much as a pass-catcher (his career-high is 10 receptions in a season). Like Walker, though, he wouldnt have to acclimate to what the Titans want to accomplish offensively. In his post-draft press conference, Robinson said there is no reason why the Titans wouldnt be interested in bringing Pruitt back. Yeah, we'll see kind of how it goes here and like I said in the post-draft, and as we inch closer to mandatory minicamp and the offseason and training camp, and (Pruitt) has played a lot of good snaps for us, Robinson said. He's done nothing to warrant not being under consideration to come back here. Trey Burton: Burton had a role in one of the most iconic plays in Super Bowl history. In the Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl LII victory over New England, Burton took a pitch pass, rolled to his right and threw a touchdown pass to quarterback Nick Foles on a fourth-and-goal late in the second quarter. After four seasons with the Eagles, Burton has played for the Chicago Bears (2018, 2019) and Indianapolis Colts this past season. He has 159 receptions for 1,432 yards and 15 touchdowns in his seven-year career. Tyler Eifert: A first-round pick by the Cincinnati Bengals in 2013, Eifert made the Pro Bowl in 2015 after a career season in which he caught 52 passes for 615 yards and 13 touchdowns. He hasnt had the same production since then, though, and has a lengthy injury history, including a dislocated elbow in 2014 and a handful of ankle injuries. Eifert spent seven seasons with the Bengals before signing with the Jacksonville Jaguars last season. For his career, he has 221 receptions for 2,501 yards and 26 touchdowns. | The Tennessee Titans did not address a tight end in the 2021 NFL Draft. The Titans currently have several untested players in the tight end room. Free-agent options for the Titans include Delanie Walker, Trey Burton and MyCole Pruitt. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.si.com/nfl/titans/news/tennessee-titans-nfl-free-agency-ti | 0.568616 |
What Tight End Options Remain for Titans? | General manager Jon Robinson did not address the position in the 2021 NFL Draft, which means free agents are now front and center. Despite being close a couple of times, according to general manager Jon Robinson, the Tennessee Titans did not address one of their biggest needs at an offensive skill position in the 2021 NFL Draft. They added a pair of wide receivers on the third day with the selections of Dez Fitzpatrick (Louisville) in the fourth round, and Racey McMath (LSU) in the sixth round. However, they stood pat, at least for the time being, with players they currently have in the tight end room. It was expected that the Titans would add a tight end at some point in the draft after Jonnu Smith, their No. 1 tight end from the past two seasons, signed a four-year deal with the Patriots in free agency. The Titans subsequently re-signed role players Anthony Firkser, who could produce more with a larger role, and Geoff Swaim, a veteran who prides himself on his blocking. In addition to those two, the Titans have several untested players (Parker Hesse, Tommy Hudson and Jared Pickney). While Robinson expressed confidence in that group, he did not rule out the possibility of making an addition to the tight end room at some point ahead of the 2021 season. ... We'll continue to evaluate players that are available here after the Draft as we start that process, he said. I've gotten several calls from general managers on other teams that have players on their roster, so the roster building process is never over. But we are excited with the group that we've got back and see how those guys come in and compete and continue to evaluate the players that are available as we continue to move through the offseason. Considering what Robinson said, heres a look at potential free-agent options for the Titans: Delanie Walker: The Titans cut him last March after injuries shortened his final two seasons with the team. He took this past season off to heal and get back into football shape and said teams know what I can do. Ill come back next year strong, faster and healthier. The Titans know very well what Walker can do in full health. He holds the franchises record for receptions by a tight end with 381 for 4,423 yards and 24 touchdowns. A call to the three-time Pro Bowler wouldnt hurt. MyCole Pruitt: Pruitt (pictured) spent each of the last three seasons with the Titans, who did not re-sign him after his contract expired at the conclusion of the 2020 season. He does not add much as a pass-catcher (his career-high is 10 receptions in a season). Like Walker, though, he wouldnt have to acclimate to what the Titans want to accomplish offensively. In his post-draft press conference, Robinson said there is no reason why the Titans wouldnt be interested in bringing Pruitt back. Yeah, we'll see kind of how it goes here and like I said in the post-draft, and as we inch closer to mandatory minicamp and the offseason and training camp, and (Pruitt) has played a lot of good snaps for us, Robinson said. He's done nothing to warrant not being under consideration to come back here. Trey Burton: Burton had a role in one of the most iconic plays in Super Bowl history. In the Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl LII victory over New England, Burton took a pitch pass, rolled to his right and threw a touchdown pass to quarterback Nick Foles on a fourth-and-goal late in the second quarter. After four seasons with the Eagles, Burton has played for the Chicago Bears (2018, 2019) and Indianapolis Colts this past season. He has 159 receptions for 1,432 yards and 15 touchdowns in his seven-year career. Tyler Eifert: A first-round pick by the Cincinnati Bengals in 2013, Eifert made the Pro Bowl in 2015 after a career season in which he caught 52 passes for 615 yards and 13 touchdowns. He hasnt had the same production since then, though, and has a lengthy injury history, including a dislocated elbow in 2014 and a handful of ankle injuries. Eifert spent seven seasons with the Bengals before signing with the Jacksonville Jaguars last season. For his career, he has 221 receptions for 2,501 yards and 26 touchdowns. | The Tennessee Titans did not address a tight end in the 2021 NFL Draft. The Titans currently have several untested players in the tight end room. Tight end options for the Titans include Delanie Walker, Trey Burton, MyCole Pruitt and Jared Pickney, among others. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.si.com/nfl/titans/news/tennessee-titans-nfl-free-agency-ti | 0.711627 |
How did Packers address needs in 2021 NFL draft? | During the lead-up to the 2021 NFL draft, Packers Wire ranked the teams needs by position, highlighting the areas of the roster general manager Brian Gutekunst might want to address over three days of acquiring players. A year after planning for the future in a very obvious way, the Packers were surprisingly focused on filling in the cracks of the current roster entering this season, checking off positional needs one by one over nine total draft picks. Heres a quick breakdown of how the team attacked needs in the 2021 draft: 1. Cornerback: The Packers selected Eric Stokes in the first round and Shemar Jean-Charles in the fifth round, providing immediate competition for returning starters Kevin King and Chandon Sullivan and potential future starters opposite Jaire Alexander and in the slot. The Packers clearly saw cornerback as the top need and attacked it in this draft. This position will be competitive this summer and far more stable past 2021. 2. Offensive line: The Packers lost Corey Linsley, Rick Wagner and Lane Taylor this offseason, so Gutekunst drafted three offensive linemen for the second straight year. Josh Myers (second round) could immediately replace Linsley at center, Royce Newman (fourth round) provides much-needed depth at right tackle and Cole Van Lanen (sixth round) will get a chance to compete for a backup job at guard. Gutekunst wasnt going to leave offensive line coach Adam Stenavich short-handed. Feeding the ascending young position coach with moldable players looks like a strong strategy for keeping the offensive line a strength long-term. 3. Defensive line: The class of defensive linemen wasnt a strong one, so the Packers waited until Day 3 to add a big body up front on defense. Tedarrell Slaton might never be a three-down player, but hes 330 pounds and surprisingly athletic, giving him a chance to eventually play a role as a two-gapping run-plugger. This underwhelming position group probably needed a bigger investment this offseason, but the Packers are bringing back their top four defensive linemen from 2020 and now Slaton can fill the Snacks Harrison role. Story continues (AP Photo/Mark Wallheiser, File) 4. Wide receiver: The Packers didnt take a receiver in the first round, but help here through the draft finally arrived. Gutekunst traded up in the third round to get Amari Rodgers, providing the slot/gadget playmaker that Matt LaFleurs diverse offense probably needs to operate at maximum capacity. It was a moderate surprise that the Packers didnt take a receiver on Day 3, given the contract situation at the position after 2021, 5. Inside linebacker: With far more important needs to address, inside linebacker was mostly neglected again. Isaiah McDuffie can run and he flew around the field at Boston College, but the sixth-round pick probably isnt a long-term answer here. However, he should give the special teams a boost. Thats still a win for a team that was so poor in the third phase in 2020. 6. Safety: The Packers didnt draft a safety, but undrafted free agent Christian Uphoff might have a real chance to make the roster and be an option as the third safety, especially after Raven Greene signed in Tampa Bay. Uphoff was one of the best undrafted free agent safeties available, so this is a little bit like having a 10th draft pick. 7. Edge rusher: No pick here. This felt like a sneaky need, given the fact that Preston Smith probably wont be on the roster in 2022, but the Packers never saw an opportunity to add to this room during the draft. It will be a strong position group in 2021, but an investment might be required in next years draft. 8. Running back: The Packers addressed this need as many expected them to with a Day 3 pick. Smart. Seventh-round pick Kylin Hill is a talented tackle-breaker and could have Jamaal Williams-like versatility as a pro. Strong replacement option for cheap. 9. Tight end: No need for help here. The Packers love providing Matt LaFleur with tight ends, but this position group is at least five players deep with capable options entering 2021. 10. Specialists: A couple of long snappers were drafted, but not by the Packers. The roster already has two players at kicker, punter and long snapper, so using a draft pick on any of the three positions wasnt required. 11. Quarterback: In hindsight, this position needed to be quite a ways up the list, given the Aaron Rodgers conflict. The Packers still didnt draft a quarterback, and theyve yet to sign an undrafted free agent. Two future additions here are likely. Thoughts: The Packers spent their first seven picks on the top four positions in our rankings entering the draft. Almost methodically, Gutekunst went down the needs list and crossed off positions, adding strong competition at key positions and eliminating obvious areas of instability both in 2021 and 2022. There wasnt much help for the defensive front, mostly because the early investments were focused so heavily on the top needs. Also, the class wasnt particularly strong along the defensive line or inside linebacker, but it was at cornerback, offensive line and receiver, so the Packers made use. This was a draft class heavily influenced by need. List | Packers Wire ranked the team's needs by position ahead of the 2021 NFL draft. The Packers picked three offensive linemen and a wide receiver in the 2021 draft. They didn't pick a safety or an edge rusher. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://sports.yahoo.com/did-packers-address-needs-2021-205208774.html?src=rss | 0.560623 |
How did Packers address needs in 2021 NFL draft? | During the lead-up to the 2021 NFL draft, Packers Wire ranked the teams needs by position, highlighting the areas of the roster general manager Brian Gutekunst might want to address over three days of acquiring players. A year after planning for the future in a very obvious way, the Packers were surprisingly focused on filling in the cracks of the current roster entering this season, checking off positional needs one by one over nine total draft picks. Heres a quick breakdown of how the team attacked needs in the 2021 draft: 1. Cornerback: The Packers selected Eric Stokes in the first round and Shemar Jean-Charles in the fifth round, providing immediate competition for returning starters Kevin King and Chandon Sullivan and potential future starters opposite Jaire Alexander and in the slot. The Packers clearly saw cornerback as the top need and attacked it in this draft. This position will be competitive this summer and far more stable past 2021. 2. Offensive line: The Packers lost Corey Linsley, Rick Wagner and Lane Taylor this offseason, so Gutekunst drafted three offensive linemen for the second straight year. Josh Myers (second round) could immediately replace Linsley at center, Royce Newman (fourth round) provides much-needed depth at right tackle and Cole Van Lanen (sixth round) will get a chance to compete for a backup job at guard. Gutekunst wasnt going to leave offensive line coach Adam Stenavich short-handed. Feeding the ascending young position coach with moldable players looks like a strong strategy for keeping the offensive line a strength long-term. 3. Defensive line: The class of defensive linemen wasnt a strong one, so the Packers waited until Day 3 to add a big body up front on defense. Tedarrell Slaton might never be a three-down player, but hes 330 pounds and surprisingly athletic, giving him a chance to eventually play a role as a two-gapping run-plugger. This underwhelming position group probably needed a bigger investment this offseason, but the Packers are bringing back their top four defensive linemen from 2020 and now Slaton can fill the Snacks Harrison role. Story continues (AP Photo/Mark Wallheiser, File) 4. Wide receiver: The Packers didnt take a receiver in the first round, but help here through the draft finally arrived. Gutekunst traded up in the third round to get Amari Rodgers, providing the slot/gadget playmaker that Matt LaFleurs diverse offense probably needs to operate at maximum capacity. It was a moderate surprise that the Packers didnt take a receiver on Day 3, given the contract situation at the position after 2021, 5. Inside linebacker: With far more important needs to address, inside linebacker was mostly neglected again. Isaiah McDuffie can run and he flew around the field at Boston College, but the sixth-round pick probably isnt a long-term answer here. However, he should give the special teams a boost. Thats still a win for a team that was so poor in the third phase in 2020. 6. Safety: The Packers didnt draft a safety, but undrafted free agent Christian Uphoff might have a real chance to make the roster and be an option as the third safety, especially after Raven Greene signed in Tampa Bay. Uphoff was one of the best undrafted free agent safeties available, so this is a little bit like having a 10th draft pick. 7. Edge rusher: No pick here. This felt like a sneaky need, given the fact that Preston Smith probably wont be on the roster in 2022, but the Packers never saw an opportunity to add to this room during the draft. It will be a strong position group in 2021, but an investment might be required in next years draft. 8. Running back: The Packers addressed this need as many expected them to with a Day 3 pick. Smart. Seventh-round pick Kylin Hill is a talented tackle-breaker and could have Jamaal Williams-like versatility as a pro. Strong replacement option for cheap. 9. Tight end: No need for help here. The Packers love providing Matt LaFleur with tight ends, but this position group is at least five players deep with capable options entering 2021. 10. Specialists: A couple of long snappers were drafted, but not by the Packers. The roster already has two players at kicker, punter and long snapper, so using a draft pick on any of the three positions wasnt required. 11. Quarterback: In hindsight, this position needed to be quite a ways up the list, given the Aaron Rodgers conflict. The Packers still didnt draft a quarterback, and theyve yet to sign an undrafted free agent. Two future additions here are likely. Thoughts: The Packers spent their first seven picks on the top four positions in our rankings entering the draft. Almost methodically, Gutekunst went down the needs list and crossed off positions, adding strong competition at key positions and eliminating obvious areas of instability both in 2021 and 2022. There wasnt much help for the defensive front, mostly because the early investments were focused so heavily on the top needs. Also, the class wasnt particularly strong along the defensive line or inside linebacker, but it was at cornerback, offensive line and receiver, so the Packers made use. This was a draft class heavily influenced by need. List | Packers Wire ranked the team's needs by position ahead of the 2021 NFL draft. The Packers picked three offensive linemen and a wide receiver in the 2021 draft. They didn't pick a safety or an edge rusher in the first round of this year's draft. Click here to read the full list of Packers Wire's positional needs. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://sports.yahoo.com/did-packers-address-needs-2021-205208774.html?src=rss | 0.626188 |
What if the Yankees Signed Patrick Corbin? | Once upon a time, the New York Yankees made a significant play at signing starting pitcher Patrick Corbin in free agency. Despite his brother wearing a Yankees cap at his wedding, trying to convince him to join the Bronx Bombers, Corbin ultimately chose to sign a six-year, $140 million deal with the Washington Nationals. And as they say, the rest is history. Corbin had a stellar 2019 campaign with the Nationals, going 14-7 with a 3.25 ERA and 238 strikeouts in his first season in D.C. The southpaw took home the Warren Spahn Award, given out to the best left-handed pitcher in baseball. The left-hander was also sensational in the World Series that year, pitching to a 3.60 ERA and picking up the win in Game 7 to help the Nationals capture their first title in franchise history. Throughout the playoffs, Corbin recorded 13.886 strikeouts per nine innings, the third-best strikeout-per-nine ratio in baseball history in a single postseason. While Corbin was dominant from start to finish in his first season with the Nats, he's hit a rough patch ever since. In a COVID-shortened campaign last year, Corbin went 2-7 with a 4.66 ERA, giving up the most hits (85) and posting the highest WHIP (1.569) among qualified pitchers. And this year, he's off to a tough start again with a 1-3 record to go along with an abysmal 8.10 ERA. Ace-less Despite missing out on the Corbin sweepstakes in 2019, the Yankees went out the next offseason and backed up the Brinks truck for ace Gerrit Cole. Cole signed a record nine-year contract worth $324 million. Since then, the right-hander has an 11-4 record with the Yankees, dominating with a 2.38 ERA and striking out 160 batters in 19 starts. During that span, Corbin has been one of the worst pitchers in baseball with a 3-10 record, 5.56 ERA and 78 strikeouts. If the Yankees initially splurged on Corbin the year before, they might have been able to get over the hump in '19 and capture a World Series title. That's a big if, as their bats went cold in their ALCS loss to the Houston Astros, falling in six games. Had Corbin been the ace they chose, it also would've likely meant that New York would not have been able to sign Cole the following offseason. Although the Nationals are grateful for the World Series title he helped them win, Corbin's contract is looking an albatross at the moment given how poorly he's performed as of late. They are still on the hook to pay him big money for the rest of this season, and the next three years after that, as well. Cole on the other hand has pitched like a Cy Young. Without having him as the No. 1 starter in their rotation, the Yankees would be stuck with an underperforming, high-priced lefty in Corbin. So, while it's always fun to reminisce and take a look at the what ifs, in this particular situation, the Yankees have dodged a long-term bullet and were rewarded with one of the best starters in the game. When all is said and done, Corbin might have been the best move that general manager Brian Cashman and the Yankees didn't make. MORE: Follow Pat Ragazzo on Twitter (@ragazzoreport). Be sure to bookmark Inside The Pinstripes and check back daily for news, analysis and more. | The New York Yankees missed out on signing Patrick Corbin in 2019. Corbin had a stellar 2019 season with the Washington Nationals. The Yankees signed Gerrit Cole instead. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.si.com/mlb/yankees/news/what-if-the-new-york-yankees-signed-washington-nationals-starting-pitcher-patrick-corbin-free-agency | 0.122818 |
What Position are the 49ers Lacking at the Most? | The 49ers solidified a lot of positions this offseason, but there is still one specific area that they are lacking at severely. The 49ers solidified a lot of positions this offseason. They found their franchise quarterback in Trey Lace, beefed up their interior offensive line, and even locked up the running back spot for years to come. However, there is still one specific area that is the Achilles heel of the 49ers. Cornerback. It doesn't take too much brainpower to figure that one out. As it stands, the starting corners for the 49ers are Jason Verrett, K'Waun Williams, and Emmanuel Moseley. Not too shabby of a starting trio at cornerback, but there are certainly concerns. For starters, all three of these players have been dealt injuries the last two years. They are not really the most comfortable players to roll out without fear of injury. Ambry Thomas and Deommodore Lenoir are there for depth purposes. Rolling them out due to injury is not ideal for the 49ers. These two players are better suited to be brought along slowly, not thrown into the fire if someone is injured. That someone who gets injured is likely Verrett. Even though he demonstrated his return to a high level in 2020, he still showed that he consistently sustains injuries. He started out 2020 that way. As great of a player he is, once he falls, the 49ers will be begging offenses to pick them apart. It doesn't matter if the pass rush is strong if the corners cannot hold up. This is why Richard Sherman being rumored to return to the 49ers is a thing. They know they are unfit at the position and need another proven player. However, Sherman is at the end of his rope. He can't really hold up in coverage anymore. Not to mention he also adds to the group of injury prone players, so adding him doesn't really increase the quality of the position. Even if the 49ers looked elsewhere with free agents, there isn't much out there. Cornerback is going to need to be an area where the 49ers emphasize development. They need Thomas and Lenoir to reach an adequate level. Not immediately, but hopefully as mid-season starts to pass. It is definitely a large demand of them and creates a ton of pressure. However, these two players have the mettle to meet that demand. Defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans will have to have something brewing up his sleeve to make up for the lacking cornerback position. Expect a more aggressive defense out of the 49ers this upcoming season. | Cornerback is the 49ers Achilles heel. The 49ers have a starting trio at the position, but there are certainly concerns. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.si.com/nfl/49ers/news/what-position-are-the-49ers-lacking-at-the-most | 0.332588 |
What Position are the 49ers Lacking at the Most? | The 49ers solidified a lot of positions this offseason, but there is still one specific area that they are lacking at severely. The 49ers solidified a lot of positions this offseason. They found their franchise quarterback in Trey Lace, beefed up their interior offensive line, and even locked up the running back spot for years to come. However, there is still one specific area that is the Achilles heel of the 49ers. Cornerback. It doesn't take too much brainpower to figure that one out. As it stands, the starting corners for the 49ers are Jason Verrett, K'Waun Williams, and Emmanuel Moseley. Not too shabby of a starting trio at cornerback, but there are certainly concerns. For starters, all three of these players have been dealt injuries the last two years. They are not really the most comfortable players to roll out without fear of injury. Ambry Thomas and Deommodore Lenoir are there for depth purposes. Rolling them out due to injury is not ideal for the 49ers. These two players are better suited to be brought along slowly, not thrown into the fire if someone is injured. That someone who gets injured is likely Verrett. Even though he demonstrated his return to a high level in 2020, he still showed that he consistently sustains injuries. He started out 2020 that way. As great of a player he is, once he falls, the 49ers will be begging offenses to pick them apart. It doesn't matter if the pass rush is strong if the corners cannot hold up. This is why Richard Sherman being rumored to return to the 49ers is a thing. They know they are unfit at the position and need another proven player. However, Sherman is at the end of his rope. He can't really hold up in coverage anymore. Not to mention he also adds to the group of injury prone players, so adding him doesn't really increase the quality of the position. Even if the 49ers looked elsewhere with free agents, there isn't much out there. Cornerback is going to need to be an area where the 49ers emphasize development. They need Thomas and Lenoir to reach an adequate level. Not immediately, but hopefully as mid-season starts to pass. It is definitely a large demand of them and creates a ton of pressure. However, these two players have the mettle to meet that demand. Defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans will have to have something brewing up his sleeve to make up for the lacking cornerback position. Expect a more aggressive defense out of the 49ers this upcoming season. | Cornerback is the 49ers Achilles heel. The 49ers have a starting trio of Jason Verrett, K'Waun Williams, and Emmanuel Moseley. Richard Sherman is at the end of his rope at the position. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.si.com/nfl/49ers/news/what-position-are-the-49ers-lacking-at-the-most | 0.248089 |
What Position are the 49ers Lacking at the Most? | The 49ers solidified a lot of positions this offseason, but there is still one specific area that they are lacking at severely. The 49ers solidified a lot of positions this offseason. They found their franchise quarterback in Trey Lace, beefed up their interior offensive line, and even locked up the running back spot for years to come. However, there is still one specific area that is the Achilles heel of the 49ers. Cornerback. It doesn't take too much brainpower to figure that one out. As it stands, the starting corners for the 49ers are Jason Verrett, K'Waun Williams, and Emmanuel Moseley. Not too shabby of a starting trio at cornerback, but there are certainly concerns. For starters, all three of these players have been dealt injuries the last two years. They are not really the most comfortable players to roll out without fear of injury. Ambry Thomas and Deommodore Lenoir are there for depth purposes. Rolling them out due to injury is not ideal for the 49ers. These two players are better suited to be brought along slowly, not thrown into the fire if someone is injured. That someone who gets injured is likely Verrett. Even though he demonstrated his return to a high level in 2020, he still showed that he consistently sustains injuries. He started out 2020 that way. As great of a player he is, once he falls, the 49ers will be begging offenses to pick them apart. It doesn't matter if the pass rush is strong if the corners cannot hold up. This is why Richard Sherman being rumored to return to the 49ers is a thing. They know they are unfit at the position and need another proven player. However, Sherman is at the end of his rope. He can't really hold up in coverage anymore. Not to mention he also adds to the group of injury prone players, so adding him doesn't really increase the quality of the position. Even if the 49ers looked elsewhere with free agents, there isn't much out there. Cornerback is going to need to be an area where the 49ers emphasize development. They need Thomas and Lenoir to reach an adequate level. Not immediately, but hopefully as mid-season starts to pass. It is definitely a large demand of them and creates a ton of pressure. However, these two players have the mettle to meet that demand. Defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans will have to have something brewing up his sleeve to make up for the lacking cornerback position. Expect a more aggressive defense out of the 49ers this upcoming season. | Cornerback is the 49ers Achilles heel. The 49ers have a starting trio of Jason Verrett, K'Waun Williams, and Emmanuel Moseley. Richard Sherman is at the end of his rope, so adding him doesn't really increase the quality of the position. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.si.com/nfl/49ers/news/what-position-are-the-49ers-lacking-at-the-most | 0.235736 |
Where do Bengals stand in post-draft power rankings? | Now that the Cincinnati Bengals have completed most of the offseasons roster overhaul and have official dates for rookie minicamps, OTAs and training camp, its time to review. Meaning power rankings, of course. Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire has us covered on that front, listing the Bengals 29th in his post-draft rankings: Well, this matters: The Bengals lost their two best defenders (edge rusher Carl Lawson and cornerback William Jackson III) in free agency and failed to replace them with equivalent talents. The 4-11-1 Bengals could be in for a tough go, though the passing game will be fun to watch. Its all fair, too. As weve written here often, the Bengals will take a big gamble on whether Trey Hendrickson can keep producing at a high level after an outlier of a season and the cornerback room will feature its first three or four names making debuts with the team in Week 1. But as always, the Bengals will have to prove doubters wrong on the field to really start seeing some change in the power rankings. Keep in mind a brand new offensive line is a big part of the equation too. List | Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire lists the Bengals 29th in his post-draft rankings. | pegasus | 0 | https://sports.yahoo.com/where-bengals-stand-post-draft-222413606.html?src=rss | 0.523519 |
Where do Bengals stand in post-draft power rankings? | Now that the Cincinnati Bengals have completed most of the offseasons roster overhaul and have official dates for rookie minicamps, OTAs and training camp, its time to review. Meaning power rankings, of course. Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire has us covered on that front, listing the Bengals 29th in his post-draft rankings: Well, this matters: The Bengals lost their two best defenders (edge rusher Carl Lawson and cornerback William Jackson III) in free agency and failed to replace them with equivalent talents. The 4-11-1 Bengals could be in for a tough go, though the passing game will be fun to watch. Its all fair, too. As weve written here often, the Bengals will take a big gamble on whether Trey Hendrickson can keep producing at a high level after an outlier of a season and the cornerback room will feature its first three or four names making debuts with the team in Week 1. But as always, the Bengals will have to prove doubters wrong on the field to really start seeing some change in the power rankings. Keep in mind a brand new offensive line is a big part of the equation too. List | The Cincinnati Bengals have completed most of the offseasons roster overhaul. Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire lists the Bengals 29th in his post-draft rankings. The Bengals lost their two best defenders in free agency. | bart | 1 | https://sports.yahoo.com/where-bengals-stand-post-draft-222413606.html?src=rss | 0.59658 |
Where do Bengals stand in post-draft power rankings? | Now that the Cincinnati Bengals have completed most of the offseasons roster overhaul and have official dates for rookie minicamps, OTAs and training camp, its time to review. Meaning power rankings, of course. Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire has us covered on that front, listing the Bengals 29th in his post-draft rankings: Well, this matters: The Bengals lost their two best defenders (edge rusher Carl Lawson and cornerback William Jackson III) in free agency and failed to replace them with equivalent talents. The 4-11-1 Bengals could be in for a tough go, though the passing game will be fun to watch. Its all fair, too. As weve written here often, the Bengals will take a big gamble on whether Trey Hendrickson can keep producing at a high level after an outlier of a season and the cornerback room will feature its first three or four names making debuts with the team in Week 1. But as always, the Bengals will have to prove doubters wrong on the field to really start seeing some change in the power rankings. Keep in mind a brand new offensive line is a big part of the equation too. List | The Cincinnati Bengals have completed most of the offseasons roster overhaul. Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire lists the Bengals 29th in his post-draft rankings. The Bengals will have to prove doubters wrong on the field to really start seeing some change in the power rankings. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://sports.yahoo.com/where-bengals-stand-post-draft-222413606.html?src=rss | 0.687555 |
Is there a place to report obnoxious spam emails? | Two weeks ago a site called Conservative Blabber Buzz that I know I never signed up for started sending me literally seven spam emails a day and they havent let up. Ive not clicked their unsubscribe link for fear of malware or just not wanting to confirm my email address. But its a really high level of obnoxiousness, and Id like to report them somewhere in addition to flagging them as junk on my filters, which Ive done. Paul Loeb A: If someone loses money in a scam that started with an email, they are advised to report it to the Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov/complaint. Otherwise, the government now advises spam recipients to report the spam to their email provider and to the senders email provider, if that can be determined. But the fact is reporting spam is unlikely to produce significant results, since its so easy for spammers to disguise themselves. There is as yet no foolproof way to block spam. Most email programs include spam filters, and you can configure those to be very aggressive in filtering out spam. Of course, it may also filter out some emails you want to receive, so youll want to check the spam filter on a regular basis. Another strategy I use is to reserve one of my email addresses for dealing with companies and other organizations that might be the source of mailing lists raided by spammers. And, just as with the spam filter, I scan that address inbox for email I care about before deleting the massive amounts of spam that I regularly find there. And yes, youre wise not to click on the unsubscribe link in suspected spam. Advertising Related Tech Q&As Read more from Patrick Marshall here >> The only way I can see of finally putting an end to spam is to charge a small fee for all mails sent over the internet. Spam is currently cost-effective because it is essentially free. But if each sent email cost a penny or 5 cents Even if internet service providers agreed to such charges, however, that would further incite spammers to hack into innocent peoples email accounts to send spam. The long and the short of it is that no one has as yet come up with a good solution, alas. Q: My OS used to be Windows 7, within which (as I recall) Outlook would notify me by an alert pop-up on my desktop when a calendar event start time arrived. I migrated to Windows 10 about a year ago and have been unable to replicate this. Obviously, this has resulted in many events being ignored, lost in the hustle of other daily activities. Note: The fact that a calendar and list of upcoming events is off to the right of my Outlook screen is not effective, especially as events, on the arrival of their start time, are automatically removed! I wish that didnt happen as well. Advertising In summary: I want Outlook to notify me by an alert pop-up on my desktop when an Outlook calendar event start time arrives. Ideally, the pop-up should remain until it is cleared. Thomas D. Gaffney A: Its a puzzle to me why that option isnt available on all versions of Outlook but it isnt. If youre using Outlook in Microsoft 365, also known as Office 365, you can set alerts to pop up over other applications in version Version 1804 (Build 9226.2114) or higher. The option is not available in Outlook 2013 or Outlook 2019. If youre using Outlook 365, click on the File menu, then Options and finally Advanced. Scroll down and youll see a section for setting Reminders. There are four checkboxes: show reminders, play reminder sound, show reminders on top of other windows, automatically dismiss reminders for past calendar events. Just click on the checkboxes for all the options you want. | Spam is currently cost-effective because it is essentially free. The only way to put an end to spam is to charge a small fee for all mails sent over the internet. The Federal Trade Commission advises spam recipients to report the spam to their email provider and to the senders email provider. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.seattletimes.com/business/technology/is-there-a-place-to-report-obnoxious-spam-emails/ | 0.185038 |
How do I know when to change my wiper blades? | If you cant remember when it was, chances are its time to do so. In fact, manufacturers recommend you replace your wiper blades anywhere from every six months to a year, or as soon as you notice a difference in driving visibility whichever comes first. There are a number of reasons why your blades will deteriorate, both due to the environment and wear and tear from use. For example, it can be caused by ultraviolet light from the sun, exhaust or oil from your vehicle, salt water or acid rain, and debris like sand and mud. These factors can all have an impact on how the wiper blade makes contact with the windshield and can cause it to skip, smear, squeak and ultimately reduce your ability to see the roadway and surrounding traffic properly. As well as performance, manufacturer SilBlade recommends you also inspect your blades regularly for any signs of tears, cracking and discoloration. It suggests maintaining them by wiping them down every three months to remove any dirt and grime that might accumulate around the edge of the blade and where it meets the bracket. As you are doing this, Rain-X suggests you check the blade frame for any broken or detached parts, any corrosion of the metal and that you flex the squeegee-like part to ensure it is flexible and can adjust to the shape of your windshield. Finally, to ensure your wipers last as long as they are recommended to, clean your windshield when you stop for gas by using the squeegees provided at most stations to remove any dirt (check the squeegee to make sure it is clean first), and try not to use your wipers when your windshield is dry. Torstar News Service | Manufacturers recommend you replace your wiper blades anywhere from every six months to a year, or as soon as you notice a difference in driving visibility. | bart | 0 | https://www.thestar.com/autos/advice/2021/05/08/how-do-i-know-when-to-change-my-wiper-blades.html | 0.319273 |
How do I know when to change my wiper blades? | If you cant remember when it was, chances are its time to do so. In fact, manufacturers recommend you replace your wiper blades anywhere from every six months to a year, or as soon as you notice a difference in driving visibility whichever comes first. There are a number of reasons why your blades will deteriorate, both due to the environment and wear and tear from use. For example, it can be caused by ultraviolet light from the sun, exhaust or oil from your vehicle, salt water or acid rain, and debris like sand and mud. These factors can all have an impact on how the wiper blade makes contact with the windshield and can cause it to skip, smear, squeak and ultimately reduce your ability to see the roadway and surrounding traffic properly. As well as performance, manufacturer SilBlade recommends you also inspect your blades regularly for any signs of tears, cracking and discoloration. It suggests maintaining them by wiping them down every three months to remove any dirt and grime that might accumulate around the edge of the blade and where it meets the bracket. As you are doing this, Rain-X suggests you check the blade frame for any broken or detached parts, any corrosion of the metal and that you flex the squeegee-like part to ensure it is flexible and can adjust to the shape of your windshield. Finally, to ensure your wipers last as long as they are recommended to, clean your windshield when you stop for gas by using the squeegees provided at most stations to remove any dirt (check the squeegee to make sure it is clean first), and try not to use your wipers when your windshield is dry. Torstar News Service | Manufacturers recommend you replace your wiper blades anywhere from every six months to a year, or as soon as you notice a difference in driving visibility whichever comes first. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.thestar.com/autos/advice/2021/05/08/how-do-i-know-when-to-change-my-wiper-blades.html | 0.303006 |
How do I know when to change my wiper blades? | If you cant remember when it was, chances are its time to do so. In fact, manufacturers recommend you replace your wiper blades anywhere from every six months to a year, or as soon as you notice a difference in driving visibility whichever comes first. There are a number of reasons why your blades will deteriorate, both due to the environment and wear and tear from use. For example, it can be caused by ultraviolet light from the sun, exhaust or oil from your vehicle, salt water or acid rain, and debris like sand and mud. These factors can all have an impact on how the wiper blade makes contact with the windshield and can cause it to skip, smear, squeak and ultimately reduce your ability to see the roadway and surrounding traffic properly. As well as performance, manufacturer SilBlade recommends you also inspect your blades regularly for any signs of tears, cracking and discoloration. It suggests maintaining them by wiping them down every three months to remove any dirt and grime that might accumulate around the edge of the blade and where it meets the bracket. As you are doing this, Rain-X suggests you check the blade frame for any broken or detached parts, any corrosion of the metal and that you flex the squeegee-like part to ensure it is flexible and can adjust to the shape of your windshield. Finally, to ensure your wipers last as long as they are recommended to, clean your windshield when you stop for gas by using the squeegees provided at most stations to remove any dirt (check the squeegee to make sure it is clean first), and try not to use your wipers when your windshield is dry. Torstar News Service | Manufacturers recommend you replace your wiper blades anywhere from every six months to a year, or as soon as you notice a difference in driving visibility. There are a number of reasons why your blades will deteriorate, both due to the environment and wear and tear from use. | bart | 2 | https://www.thestar.com/autos/advice/2021/05/08/how-do-i-know-when-to-change-my-wiper-blades.html | 0.433715 |
Can virtual meeting spaces save us all from Zoom fatigue? | Im playing online Pictionary while chatting with five people Ive never met. This is not at all how I usually spend my Thursdays. Weve all dropped into a virtual meeting space on a site called gather.town, which provides free customisable spaces for anyone who wants to organise a get-together without using Zoom. Gather is a virtual world and you choose an avatar before entering it: imagine a mid-80s Super Mario game in which, instead of jumping over his enemies, Mario has to go to the office. There are pixelated potted palms dotted about my screen, a couple of banks of desks and a sofa area, all rendered in that very specific 2D map style common to early computer games. Im represented by a tiny, blocky avatar: a collection of dots arranged to look a bit like a person. As I move it around with keyboard keys, I can enter and leave conversations when I do so, a small live video of whoever Im talking to appears above the main screen. It might all sound mad, but Gather is 18 months old, has 4 million users, and recently raised $26m in investment. Universities use it to create virtual campuses; individuals use it to host games nights; groups of friends throw parties on it and workers are collaborating on it. It is trying, like hundreds of other new platforms, sites and apps, to provide us all with a solution to a very 2021 problem: despite being ubiquitous since early 2020, video calls arent necessarily helping us work or stay connected effectively. Recent research from Stanford University provided evidence that the Zoom fatigue many of us feel is real. The study showed that the cognitive load of video conferencing is far higher than phone calls or in-person conversation. Where normally we pick up and give out valuable non-verbal cues from body language, theyre missing from videos flat, sometimes delayed and often blurry images. We find the sustained, but often off-kilter, eye contact inherent in video calls hard to tolerate. We find seeing ourselves on screen stressful, too, and being tied to a screen cuts down our mobility (unlike a phone call, during which we can move). James Bore, a cybersecurity expert who runs Bores Consultancy, hosts this open office for a couple of hours every week, inviting anyone working in his field via Twitter and LinkedIn to drop in to discuss issues or make new contacts (he also has a remote office for his own team, and hosts a pub night in a separate room for more informal networking, as well as helping other businesses organise events online through his company ReuniVous). Inviting people to play games such as Pictionary lightens the tone. Virtual meeting space Gather, whose 4 million users are represented by tiny, blocky avatars. Almost every other video platform is very one way, he says. Not on Gather. People can talk at the same time, Bore says. If you move your avatar farther away from someone, their voice will get quieter but you can still catch a bit of the conversation. You can walk up to people, go sit at a table with people, jump into a private chat, play games. You can also walk out of a conversation. Its more natural. Despite attending real-life industry events for years, Bore reckons hes gained far more useful connections in this open office with its random attendees. While some remote workers mourn spontaneous chats and water-cooler moments, serendipity actually happens here, he says. Almost all of the video-conferencing software requires a reason for the conversation. You cant just pop in and say, Lets have a chat like you can here. Gathers other neat trick is keeping the video component low-key the videos are ranged across the top of the screen, rather than dominating, which forces you to look at just one person at a time as they speak, rather than everyone at once, just as in face-to-face conversations. There are hundreds of other sites, platforms and apps vying to become the next Zoom or Microsoft Teams, offering remote workers more than just a gallery of faces on a screen. Some are small, such as the micro-social network phone app Totem, developed to deepen connections within a business and used by companies such as John Lewis as a sort of private Facebook; staff are encouraged to share team successes alongside photos of pets (it also churns out data on engagement and morale). Others are larger, such as Wonder, which provides a simple webpage full of bubbles, each containing a photo of a guest, moving between white circles meant to represent tables on which people can video chat with each other; Wonder raised 11m in seed funding late last year, and counts Deloitte and Harvard as users. Ninety-seven per cent of training now takes place online and, although 70% of it is done via Microsoft Teams, according to research by HR analysts Fosway, companies including insurers Hiscox and the restaurant chain Leon are using gamified training apps. These can allow staff to be put into situations that would be hard to replicate in real life (or on a video call), while also handing out dopamine-inducing micro-rewards, as stars or points. It has increased by a third, to an average of 40% of our waking hours, during the pandemic. Rahaf Harfoush, a digital anthropologist, is director of Red Thread Institute of Digital Culture and an adjunct professor at Sciences Po in Paris. The digitalisation of in-real-life [IRL] experiences is what a lot of companies rushed to do when the pandemic struck, she says. Their thinking was: If we did it in person, lets do it on Zoom. Many of these applications dont make sense and can add to technological fatigue. Nottopia, set up on Mozilla Hubs by Professor Gary Burnett (in avatar form at front) for his students at Nottingham University. Photograph: courtesy of Nottopia Professor Gary Burnett, from Nottingham University, was keenly aware of this risk when he moved one of his engineering degree modules online last autumn. Rather than defaulting to the better-known platforms, he spent much of last summer trialling different fully virtual worlds to host his classes, before settling on Mozilla Hubs, a 3D-rendered meeting space used by Nasa. As I click a link into Nottopia, Burnett or rather his cartoon-like avatar, a floating, hoodie-wearing, grey-haired head and torso meets me in the lobby, a semi-open air vaulted space, next to a large digitised lake. He leads me, still floating, into the virtual pavilion where hes about to hold a product design lesson in creating a driverless taxi. My avatar is a small, red cartoon fox, but I could have chosen from thousands of options, or built my own. Im also floating; I move by using the arrow keys on my keyboard, changing my gaze with the cursor so that I can look around the large room, which has a mixture of bare brick and white walls, and a pale grey floor. Sunlight seems to pour in through the glass roof, casting natural-looking shadows, and most spaces have a view towards blue sky and realistic clouds. Steps and doorways lead into other spaces a smaller area with armchairs for more private meetings, and other larger rooms for exhibitions; one huge wall is taken up by a virtual fish tank. Theres no video here we speak via our avatars, who wobble or move in a human-like way to show who is talking. Joining in as an avatar gives you a veil of anonymity that has made everyone less awkward about speaking up This is a virtual world where practically anything is possible, so Burnett can conjure up a 3D taxi that hovers in the centre of the group as they discuss its features. At one point, several students enable flying mode and hover high above the car. To examine another bit of tech, they all pile inside the taxi, laughing. (Its all the funnier as one students avatar is an astronaut, anothers is a parrot, and a thirds seems to be a rainbow-coloured ghost. Burnett says the students often choose avatars that reflect their personalities the person with the parrot avatar likes ornithology.) Theres no live video involved, and no PowerPoint or slides, just genuine and playful interaction. When a chart appears on the wall, the students whip out virtual pens and start annotating it, and Burnett has placed 3D objects around the room for them to use as they experiment and discuss. Three-quarters of his students report that Mozilla Hubs has helped them with social isolation, Burnett says. You can see that in the way I teach its not a one-way flow of information. His students like Nottopia so much that they come here, via a link, outside lessons and show their friends around (occasionally leaving behind vast joke 3D models, or virtual replicas of Nottinghams famous Canada geese). Joining in as an avatar gives you a veil of anonymity that has made everyone less awkward about speaking up in class, says Rebekah Kay, who is doing a masters in mechanical engineering. In some ways, I feel more present than if I was physically there. Hubs and Gather are genuinely fun to use (and currently free). But there is a more corporate side to virtual life, too. The UKs in-person events and conferencing industry was worth 42.3bn in 2018 (800bn, globally) and, one way or another, the industry wants to get back some of that revenue. At the beginning of the pandemic, there were probably six platforms for virtual events, and now there are more than 100, says Vanessa Lovatt, chief evangelist (her real job title) for Glisser, one such platform, which runs events for Facebook, Uber and the NHS. When we speak she is about to rehearse an online event for 47,000 people; theyve tested the site with an audience of 170,000. A virtual event hosted by the Virtulab. As with much of the so-called future of work, its still early days, both for the tech and, perhaps, for its users. This was painfully evident at the Tory partys virtual conference last October, which was plagued by technical glitches, and criticised by everyone from attendees who couldnt log on and speakers who had no audiences to thinktanks and exhibitors who paid for virtual pitches, at least one of whom reportedly requested a refund. At the time, MP Tim Loughton told PoliticsHome: My first fringe meeting, we had to wait over 10 minutes for the panel to be let in; then we were all cut off and had to be sent a new link, meaning we started again almost half an hour later [Then] it turned out in the first part we had just been talking to ourselves and there was no audience. A slicker attempt at recreating in-person networking has been made by the Virtulab, a British digital technology company that has developed an immersive virtual venue rather like a digitised version of the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. It can be hired in exactly the same way, and already has been by TEDx events and the Institute of People Management. But as an avatar version of me strolls through the cavernous digital hall on my laptop screen, my non-gamer head is spinning. There are realistic-looking bot people on hand to help me if I get stuck, booths to walk into just as at a real trade show staffed by other avatar people who I can speak to in real time (with or without video). There are speed-networking zones and branded video screens on the walls. I can chat with the avatar people I pass and walk around the venue, or teleport between different areas. There are auditoriums where speakers can present to an avatar audience either as their avatar selves or via live video links. The virtual reality office looks like a grey office building, as if their designers recreated a business park in Reading The experience is pretty smooth, if disconcerting its strange not knowing who any of the avatars around me might be (or if they have people attached to them at all the auditorium auto-populates to fill all the seats, so no one has to give a talk to an empty room). Perhaps Im a misanthrope, but I like no longer having to visit exhibition centres several times a year. (I write a lot about hospitality and, pre-Covid, often travelled to the ExCeL centre in Londons Docklands to attend expos about things like packaging, food technology or free-from foods.) I can see how this would be great for brands and event organisers, but Im not totally sold that its good for the rest of us. Dave Cummins, executive director at the Virtulab, disagrees. For him, this isnt a temporary fix while we wait for the pandemic to blow over. We see this from an eco perspective, via the reduction in travel there is a cost in server burn, but its nowhere near what you get from an event. If a virtual reality conference sounds a bit out there, imagine logging into a virtual reality office every day, from home another Virtulab offering. If youre yearning to get back to the office with its random conversations and predictable routines this could be your answer. Although subscribers can build any office they want, the immersive version I visited, via my laptop screen, created for two clients, an events company and a petrochemical company, looked exactly like a normal, grey office building. Its as if they got their best designers to perfectly recreate a business park in Reading. Unlike conventional remote-work platforms, this one also uses lifelike avatars: mine arrives at the building and walks along a corridor, before opening a door, entering an office and choosing a desk. If I was working here for real, Id be able to access things like my companys storage drives, too. The idea is that you come into the platform, open up your browser and start using it just like this is your office, Cummins says. If youre not in a meeting, you can open the door so avatars can just walk in. Were trying to empower that water-cooler moment. If you would come and see me at 10 oclock in the morning in real life, then you would come and see me here. Women working in virtual and augmented reality network on Mozilla Hubs, a 3D-rendered space also used by Nasa. Photograph: courtesy of Mozilla Hubs Businesses such as Green Building Council SA, an association for green companies, and AI Laith Dubai, an events company, are early adopters of the Virtulab. (Other organisations are working on VR offices: Facebook is developing a remote office requiring a VR headset, slated to launch later this year.) For me, the best part is that it recreates access to colleagues: as long as theyre logged on and available, you can talk as the avatar, and with your voice rather than video whenever you fancy, with no need to create a link or calendar invite. There could be downsides, though. A virtual office can create the expectation that you will be digitally present for a traditional eight-hour day, robbing homeworkers of the flexibility they have enjoyed in recent months. Remote-work tools and platforms could easily shade into digitally surveilling employees, even if only in terms of tracking how long you are at your computer. (As well as raising multiple privacy issues, this can be detrimental to engagement and retention: a 2017 study showed that monitoring makes employees feel their organisation is unethical.) One of the best ways for a business to create an insider threat people who will attack your company from within, whether maliciously or through negligence is failing to trust your staff, Bore tells me. When people feel constrained, they will find ways around it. When they feel trusted and accountable for what theyre doing, you prevent insider threats not by saying you must be at your online desk from nine to five. As many as one in five businesses already use surveillance software to monitor staff as they work from home, including French company Teleperformance, which employs 380,000 people in 34 countries. In March, it launched a webcam security system called TP Observer, which uses an AI system with the ability to watch home-working call centre staff, or to track unauthorised phone usage or unknown persons appearing at the desk, and to send screenshots to supervisors. The company insists that webcams for UK staff would be voluntary, and would be used only for meetings and training, or pre-scheduled desk checks, and would not be used for random surveillance, but adds that levels of scrutiny will vary in other countries. On your lunch break, you grab a sandwich and come back to your desk, and race cars, or play golf, or do an escape room Of course, you dont necessarily need new tech to watch your staff Microsoft Teams, for instance, logs screen minutes, number of calls, chats or meetings, collating them into a handy graph for managers. The Virtulab doesnt expect its remote-office platform to be used to track staff attendance (although thats up to the end user). But it does want to keep you in its virtual world. Were looking at gamification, Cummins says. During your lunch break, you grab a sandwich and come back to your desk, and race cars, or play golf, or do an escape room. Its a chance to team-build, and get away from the monotony. He says there are also art galleries and gardens to amble around, though I think Id rather spend my lunch break in an actual park. We do our own health and safety assessments as a company seating positions, desks, chairs and so on. Employers probably want to help people gel, but they risk trying to do too much, says Dr Linda Kaye, who studies the psychology of gaming and online behaviour. Im not saying its not useful in a work context, but when you force it on people it becomes inauthentic. Her research reflects the fact that valuable social connections can be forged online. We see this from an eco perspective, via the reduction in travel: a Virtulab event. Photograph: courtesy of Virtulab Ellie Gibson, a games journalist and host of the Extra Life gaming podcast, is enthusiastic about avatar games where she gets to create an alter ego. I play as a 7ft tall Viking called Avril who is nothing like me. I wouldnt want to be myself, a 43-year-old woman from Catford. She worries about the implications of coming up with an avatar version of yourself in a working environment where presumably the expectation is that you try to represent yourself realistically. For people who have issues with body image, I can imagine this being anxiety-inducing. If youre a larger person thinking: Im going to a meeting, and Im supposed to create this avatar of myself. How am I supposed to do that? Would there be a temptation to make yourself look fatter, to be the first to make a joke of it? Thats why the avatar isnt a 360 capture of your body, Cummins says. It can look like you or someone else. If youve got a harsh workplace, it could be an issue. Much depends on the type of workplace youre in its culture and the sector in which it operates. While Hubs, the platform used by the engineers at the University of Nottingham, could work brilliantly for design, technology or architectural businesses, Im not sure I can see social workers holding a case conference in a virtual world. Similarly, its hard to imagine holding a disciplinary session as a cartoon version of yourself. For some teams and clients, working in a virtual office could feel even more torturous than video calling already is. Aspects of the online work boom will inevitably disappear as pandemic restrictions ease and we are able to pick and choose rather than being forced online. It could be that platforms with fewer frills prove more enduring. One online space that has exploded since launching in spring 2020 is the invite-only social audio app Clubhouse, which already claims to have 10 million users. Social audio is exactly the same as social media you follow individuals and join groups but with live speech rather than text or images. Clubhouse is a simple platform where users create rooms, to have real-time, audio-only conversations about anything they want; Twitter is close behind with its new creation, Spaces. Michael Liskin is an LA-based virtual facilitation expert who has worked as a beta tester for social audio apps. The next big thing isnt as fancy as we might think, he tells me. There is potential for social audio to provide a kind of middle ground, one between fatiguing video conferencing and text-based interaction like Slack, which can be labour intensive and not as intimate. Rather than using virtual-world platforms, he is helping teams connect using Clubhouse. There will soon be a bunch of social audio apps optimised for happy hours, workshops, team-building, book clubs, mentorship and much more. Social audio fosters intimacy. And, as Liskin points out, because its audio rather than video, it can be in your pocket while youre out on a bike. There are even rooms on Clubhouse where people meet to work, mainly in silence, collectively but remotely. Back on gather.town, weve moved on to the pub, much as you might at the end of a traditional working day, and a tiny snowman avatar is playing really the pubs piano. Bore has no intention of calling time on his pub once the real ones reopen. It has put me in contact with people in my field who I would never have been able to reach otherwise, people from all over the world, he says. Its almost impossible to explain unless youre doing it, he laughs. The moment youre in here, it immediately makes sense. | Gather is an 18-month-old site that lets people organise meetings online. It aims to solve the problem of Zoom fatigue, where we find video conferencing stressful. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/may/08/work-can-virtual-meeting-spaces-save-us-all-from-zoom-fatigue | 0.210405 |
Can virtual meeting spaces save us all from Zoom fatigue? | Im playing online Pictionary while chatting with five people Ive never met. This is not at all how I usually spend my Thursdays. Weve all dropped into a virtual meeting space on a site called gather.town, which provides free customisable spaces for anyone who wants to organise a get-together without using Zoom. Gather is a virtual world and you choose an avatar before entering it: imagine a mid-80s Super Mario game in which, instead of jumping over his enemies, Mario has to go to the office. There are pixelated potted palms dotted about my screen, a couple of banks of desks and a sofa area, all rendered in that very specific 2D map style common to early computer games. Im represented by a tiny, blocky avatar: a collection of dots arranged to look a bit like a person. As I move it around with keyboard keys, I can enter and leave conversations when I do so, a small live video of whoever Im talking to appears above the main screen. It might all sound mad, but Gather is 18 months old, has 4 million users, and recently raised $26m in investment. Universities use it to create virtual campuses; individuals use it to host games nights; groups of friends throw parties on it and workers are collaborating on it. It is trying, like hundreds of other new platforms, sites and apps, to provide us all with a solution to a very 2021 problem: despite being ubiquitous since early 2020, video calls arent necessarily helping us work or stay connected effectively. Recent research from Stanford University provided evidence that the Zoom fatigue many of us feel is real. The study showed that the cognitive load of video conferencing is far higher than phone calls or in-person conversation. Where normally we pick up and give out valuable non-verbal cues from body language, theyre missing from videos flat, sometimes delayed and often blurry images. We find the sustained, but often off-kilter, eye contact inherent in video calls hard to tolerate. We find seeing ourselves on screen stressful, too, and being tied to a screen cuts down our mobility (unlike a phone call, during which we can move). James Bore, a cybersecurity expert who runs Bores Consultancy, hosts this open office for a couple of hours every week, inviting anyone working in his field via Twitter and LinkedIn to drop in to discuss issues or make new contacts (he also has a remote office for his own team, and hosts a pub night in a separate room for more informal networking, as well as helping other businesses organise events online through his company ReuniVous). Inviting people to play games such as Pictionary lightens the tone. Virtual meeting space Gather, whose 4 million users are represented by tiny, blocky avatars. Almost every other video platform is very one way, he says. Not on Gather. People can talk at the same time, Bore says. If you move your avatar farther away from someone, their voice will get quieter but you can still catch a bit of the conversation. You can walk up to people, go sit at a table with people, jump into a private chat, play games. You can also walk out of a conversation. Its more natural. Despite attending real-life industry events for years, Bore reckons hes gained far more useful connections in this open office with its random attendees. While some remote workers mourn spontaneous chats and water-cooler moments, serendipity actually happens here, he says. Almost all of the video-conferencing software requires a reason for the conversation. You cant just pop in and say, Lets have a chat like you can here. Gathers other neat trick is keeping the video component low-key the videos are ranged across the top of the screen, rather than dominating, which forces you to look at just one person at a time as they speak, rather than everyone at once, just as in face-to-face conversations. There are hundreds of other sites, platforms and apps vying to become the next Zoom or Microsoft Teams, offering remote workers more than just a gallery of faces on a screen. Some are small, such as the micro-social network phone app Totem, developed to deepen connections within a business and used by companies such as John Lewis as a sort of private Facebook; staff are encouraged to share team successes alongside photos of pets (it also churns out data on engagement and morale). Others are larger, such as Wonder, which provides a simple webpage full of bubbles, each containing a photo of a guest, moving between white circles meant to represent tables on which people can video chat with each other; Wonder raised 11m in seed funding late last year, and counts Deloitte and Harvard as users. Ninety-seven per cent of training now takes place online and, although 70% of it is done via Microsoft Teams, according to research by HR analysts Fosway, companies including insurers Hiscox and the restaurant chain Leon are using gamified training apps. These can allow staff to be put into situations that would be hard to replicate in real life (or on a video call), while also handing out dopamine-inducing micro-rewards, as stars or points. It has increased by a third, to an average of 40% of our waking hours, during the pandemic. Rahaf Harfoush, a digital anthropologist, is director of Red Thread Institute of Digital Culture and an adjunct professor at Sciences Po in Paris. The digitalisation of in-real-life [IRL] experiences is what a lot of companies rushed to do when the pandemic struck, she says. Their thinking was: If we did it in person, lets do it on Zoom. Many of these applications dont make sense and can add to technological fatigue. Nottopia, set up on Mozilla Hubs by Professor Gary Burnett (in avatar form at front) for his students at Nottingham University. Photograph: courtesy of Nottopia Professor Gary Burnett, from Nottingham University, was keenly aware of this risk when he moved one of his engineering degree modules online last autumn. Rather than defaulting to the better-known platforms, he spent much of last summer trialling different fully virtual worlds to host his classes, before settling on Mozilla Hubs, a 3D-rendered meeting space used by Nasa. As I click a link into Nottopia, Burnett or rather his cartoon-like avatar, a floating, hoodie-wearing, grey-haired head and torso meets me in the lobby, a semi-open air vaulted space, next to a large digitised lake. He leads me, still floating, into the virtual pavilion where hes about to hold a product design lesson in creating a driverless taxi. My avatar is a small, red cartoon fox, but I could have chosen from thousands of options, or built my own. Im also floating; I move by using the arrow keys on my keyboard, changing my gaze with the cursor so that I can look around the large room, which has a mixture of bare brick and white walls, and a pale grey floor. Sunlight seems to pour in through the glass roof, casting natural-looking shadows, and most spaces have a view towards blue sky and realistic clouds. Steps and doorways lead into other spaces a smaller area with armchairs for more private meetings, and other larger rooms for exhibitions; one huge wall is taken up by a virtual fish tank. Theres no video here we speak via our avatars, who wobble or move in a human-like way to show who is talking. Joining in as an avatar gives you a veil of anonymity that has made everyone less awkward about speaking up This is a virtual world where practically anything is possible, so Burnett can conjure up a 3D taxi that hovers in the centre of the group as they discuss its features. At one point, several students enable flying mode and hover high above the car. To examine another bit of tech, they all pile inside the taxi, laughing. (Its all the funnier as one students avatar is an astronaut, anothers is a parrot, and a thirds seems to be a rainbow-coloured ghost. Burnett says the students often choose avatars that reflect their personalities the person with the parrot avatar likes ornithology.) Theres no live video involved, and no PowerPoint or slides, just genuine and playful interaction. When a chart appears on the wall, the students whip out virtual pens and start annotating it, and Burnett has placed 3D objects around the room for them to use as they experiment and discuss. Three-quarters of his students report that Mozilla Hubs has helped them with social isolation, Burnett says. You can see that in the way I teach its not a one-way flow of information. His students like Nottopia so much that they come here, via a link, outside lessons and show their friends around (occasionally leaving behind vast joke 3D models, or virtual replicas of Nottinghams famous Canada geese). Joining in as an avatar gives you a veil of anonymity that has made everyone less awkward about speaking up in class, says Rebekah Kay, who is doing a masters in mechanical engineering. In some ways, I feel more present than if I was physically there. Hubs and Gather are genuinely fun to use (and currently free). But there is a more corporate side to virtual life, too. The UKs in-person events and conferencing industry was worth 42.3bn in 2018 (800bn, globally) and, one way or another, the industry wants to get back some of that revenue. At the beginning of the pandemic, there were probably six platforms for virtual events, and now there are more than 100, says Vanessa Lovatt, chief evangelist (her real job title) for Glisser, one such platform, which runs events for Facebook, Uber and the NHS. When we speak she is about to rehearse an online event for 47,000 people; theyve tested the site with an audience of 170,000. A virtual event hosted by the Virtulab. As with much of the so-called future of work, its still early days, both for the tech and, perhaps, for its users. This was painfully evident at the Tory partys virtual conference last October, which was plagued by technical glitches, and criticised by everyone from attendees who couldnt log on and speakers who had no audiences to thinktanks and exhibitors who paid for virtual pitches, at least one of whom reportedly requested a refund. At the time, MP Tim Loughton told PoliticsHome: My first fringe meeting, we had to wait over 10 minutes for the panel to be let in; then we were all cut off and had to be sent a new link, meaning we started again almost half an hour later [Then] it turned out in the first part we had just been talking to ourselves and there was no audience. A slicker attempt at recreating in-person networking has been made by the Virtulab, a British digital technology company that has developed an immersive virtual venue rather like a digitised version of the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. It can be hired in exactly the same way, and already has been by TEDx events and the Institute of People Management. But as an avatar version of me strolls through the cavernous digital hall on my laptop screen, my non-gamer head is spinning. There are realistic-looking bot people on hand to help me if I get stuck, booths to walk into just as at a real trade show staffed by other avatar people who I can speak to in real time (with or without video). There are speed-networking zones and branded video screens on the walls. I can chat with the avatar people I pass and walk around the venue, or teleport between different areas. There are auditoriums where speakers can present to an avatar audience either as their avatar selves or via live video links. The virtual reality office looks like a grey office building, as if their designers recreated a business park in Reading The experience is pretty smooth, if disconcerting its strange not knowing who any of the avatars around me might be (or if they have people attached to them at all the auditorium auto-populates to fill all the seats, so no one has to give a talk to an empty room). Perhaps Im a misanthrope, but I like no longer having to visit exhibition centres several times a year. (I write a lot about hospitality and, pre-Covid, often travelled to the ExCeL centre in Londons Docklands to attend expos about things like packaging, food technology or free-from foods.) I can see how this would be great for brands and event organisers, but Im not totally sold that its good for the rest of us. Dave Cummins, executive director at the Virtulab, disagrees. For him, this isnt a temporary fix while we wait for the pandemic to blow over. We see this from an eco perspective, via the reduction in travel there is a cost in server burn, but its nowhere near what you get from an event. If a virtual reality conference sounds a bit out there, imagine logging into a virtual reality office every day, from home another Virtulab offering. If youre yearning to get back to the office with its random conversations and predictable routines this could be your answer. Although subscribers can build any office they want, the immersive version I visited, via my laptop screen, created for two clients, an events company and a petrochemical company, looked exactly like a normal, grey office building. Its as if they got their best designers to perfectly recreate a business park in Reading. Unlike conventional remote-work platforms, this one also uses lifelike avatars: mine arrives at the building and walks along a corridor, before opening a door, entering an office and choosing a desk. If I was working here for real, Id be able to access things like my companys storage drives, too. The idea is that you come into the platform, open up your browser and start using it just like this is your office, Cummins says. If youre not in a meeting, you can open the door so avatars can just walk in. Were trying to empower that water-cooler moment. If you would come and see me at 10 oclock in the morning in real life, then you would come and see me here. Women working in virtual and augmented reality network on Mozilla Hubs, a 3D-rendered space also used by Nasa. Photograph: courtesy of Mozilla Hubs Businesses such as Green Building Council SA, an association for green companies, and AI Laith Dubai, an events company, are early adopters of the Virtulab. (Other organisations are working on VR offices: Facebook is developing a remote office requiring a VR headset, slated to launch later this year.) For me, the best part is that it recreates access to colleagues: as long as theyre logged on and available, you can talk as the avatar, and with your voice rather than video whenever you fancy, with no need to create a link or calendar invite. There could be downsides, though. A virtual office can create the expectation that you will be digitally present for a traditional eight-hour day, robbing homeworkers of the flexibility they have enjoyed in recent months. Remote-work tools and platforms could easily shade into digitally surveilling employees, even if only in terms of tracking how long you are at your computer. (As well as raising multiple privacy issues, this can be detrimental to engagement and retention: a 2017 study showed that monitoring makes employees feel their organisation is unethical.) One of the best ways for a business to create an insider threat people who will attack your company from within, whether maliciously or through negligence is failing to trust your staff, Bore tells me. When people feel constrained, they will find ways around it. When they feel trusted and accountable for what theyre doing, you prevent insider threats not by saying you must be at your online desk from nine to five. As many as one in five businesses already use surveillance software to monitor staff as they work from home, including French company Teleperformance, which employs 380,000 people in 34 countries. In March, it launched a webcam security system called TP Observer, which uses an AI system with the ability to watch home-working call centre staff, or to track unauthorised phone usage or unknown persons appearing at the desk, and to send screenshots to supervisors. The company insists that webcams for UK staff would be voluntary, and would be used only for meetings and training, or pre-scheduled desk checks, and would not be used for random surveillance, but adds that levels of scrutiny will vary in other countries. On your lunch break, you grab a sandwich and come back to your desk, and race cars, or play golf, or do an escape room Of course, you dont necessarily need new tech to watch your staff Microsoft Teams, for instance, logs screen minutes, number of calls, chats or meetings, collating them into a handy graph for managers. The Virtulab doesnt expect its remote-office platform to be used to track staff attendance (although thats up to the end user). But it does want to keep you in its virtual world. Were looking at gamification, Cummins says. During your lunch break, you grab a sandwich and come back to your desk, and race cars, or play golf, or do an escape room. Its a chance to team-build, and get away from the monotony. He says there are also art galleries and gardens to amble around, though I think Id rather spend my lunch break in an actual park. We do our own health and safety assessments as a company seating positions, desks, chairs and so on. Employers probably want to help people gel, but they risk trying to do too much, says Dr Linda Kaye, who studies the psychology of gaming and online behaviour. Im not saying its not useful in a work context, but when you force it on people it becomes inauthentic. Her research reflects the fact that valuable social connections can be forged online. We see this from an eco perspective, via the reduction in travel: a Virtulab event. Photograph: courtesy of Virtulab Ellie Gibson, a games journalist and host of the Extra Life gaming podcast, is enthusiastic about avatar games where she gets to create an alter ego. I play as a 7ft tall Viking called Avril who is nothing like me. I wouldnt want to be myself, a 43-year-old woman from Catford. She worries about the implications of coming up with an avatar version of yourself in a working environment where presumably the expectation is that you try to represent yourself realistically. For people who have issues with body image, I can imagine this being anxiety-inducing. If youre a larger person thinking: Im going to a meeting, and Im supposed to create this avatar of myself. How am I supposed to do that? Would there be a temptation to make yourself look fatter, to be the first to make a joke of it? Thats why the avatar isnt a 360 capture of your body, Cummins says. It can look like you or someone else. If youve got a harsh workplace, it could be an issue. Much depends on the type of workplace youre in its culture and the sector in which it operates. While Hubs, the platform used by the engineers at the University of Nottingham, could work brilliantly for design, technology or architectural businesses, Im not sure I can see social workers holding a case conference in a virtual world. Similarly, its hard to imagine holding a disciplinary session as a cartoon version of yourself. For some teams and clients, working in a virtual office could feel even more torturous than video calling already is. Aspects of the online work boom will inevitably disappear as pandemic restrictions ease and we are able to pick and choose rather than being forced online. It could be that platforms with fewer frills prove more enduring. One online space that has exploded since launching in spring 2020 is the invite-only social audio app Clubhouse, which already claims to have 10 million users. Social audio is exactly the same as social media you follow individuals and join groups but with live speech rather than text or images. Clubhouse is a simple platform where users create rooms, to have real-time, audio-only conversations about anything they want; Twitter is close behind with its new creation, Spaces. Michael Liskin is an LA-based virtual facilitation expert who has worked as a beta tester for social audio apps. The next big thing isnt as fancy as we might think, he tells me. There is potential for social audio to provide a kind of middle ground, one between fatiguing video conferencing and text-based interaction like Slack, which can be labour intensive and not as intimate. Rather than using virtual-world platforms, he is helping teams connect using Clubhouse. There will soon be a bunch of social audio apps optimised for happy hours, workshops, team-building, book clubs, mentorship and much more. Social audio fosters intimacy. And, as Liskin points out, because its audio rather than video, it can be in your pocket while youre out on a bike. There are even rooms on Clubhouse where people meet to work, mainly in silence, collectively but remotely. Back on gather.town, weve moved on to the pub, much as you might at the end of a traditional working day, and a tiny snowman avatar is playing really the pubs piano. Bore has no intention of calling time on his pub once the real ones reopen. It has put me in contact with people in my field who I would never have been able to reach otherwise, people from all over the world, he says. Its almost impossible to explain unless youre doing it, he laughs. The moment youre in here, it immediately makes sense. | Gather is an 18-month-old site that lets people organise meetings online. It aims to solve the problem of Zoom fatigue, where video conferencing becomes too taxing on the brain. Gather allows users to enter and leave conversations by moving their avatar around. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/may/08/work-can-virtual-meeting-spaces-save-us-all-from-zoom-fatigue | 0.259239 |
Do Dundee Utd need to reach Scottish Cup final to have good season? | Scottish Cup semi-finals: Dundee United v Hibernian Venue: Hampden Park, Glasgow Date: Saturday 8 May Time: 16:00 BST Coverage: Live commentary on Sportsound and text updates on the BBC Sport website & app, plus extended highlights on Sportscene from 22:40 BST Assessing if this been a good season for Dundee United or not depends on who you ask. Some will point to the turbulent summer that bled into their campaign, to the manager appointed late and in haste, and to the fact they have avoided a relegation scrap in their first term in the top flight since 2016. But others will speak of a top-six budget, of a relatively well-appointed squad, and the lingering status of a club more accustomed to jousting with giants. What might unite those disparate groups, though, would be a Scottish Cup final appearance. United face Hibernian on Saturday with not only a place in the 22 May showpiece and a big shiny pot at stake, but also guaranteed European football until December and an estimated 3m wedge for their troubles. Eye-watering money normally, never mind after a season without gate receipts. This season's cup winners will go directly into the Europa League play-off round next term. The opposition will be stiff - we're talking the likes of FC Copenhagen, Cluj, Genk and Alkmaar - but even if they lose, they are assured of a place in the group stage of the new Europa Conference League. Ach, just the likes of Liverpool, Real Betis, Borussia Monchengladbach, Marseille and United's old adversaries Roma. Plenty to play for, then, when Micky Mellon's team trot out at Hampden on Saturday. The latest appearance of the latter came against relegation-threatened Ross County on Tannadice last Saturday. Granted, the visitors were the team with skin in the game, but United's performance was abject. "If you are playing against a team with a bit of pressure on them, it can be difficult to get it right," Mellon said on Thursday as he reflected on that defeat. "As much as you say to them 'get focussed', it can be difficult.' "When the pressure comes off, it seems to be difficult for us. We showed against Aberdeen that we need to be fighting for something. You don't quite see what your team is like until the real bullets start flying." 'Overall it's been successful season' - analysis Former Scotland midfielder Michael Stewart on Sportscene The levels that they reached against Aberdeen were phenomenal, but against Ross County they just did not defend well enough. Micky Mellon must be thinking 'Where is the performance from Pittodrie' because that is what they will need against Hibs. Former Scotland forward James McFadden on Sportscene If you're defending the players [after the County defeat], they've got a huge game coming up and maybe their minds were on that. All season, United have been very up and down. But overall I think it's been a successful season for them. | Dundee United face Hibernian in Scottish Cup semi-final. Tie takes place at Hampden Park in Glasgow on Saturday. Tie is a repeat of last season's final, which United won. United are in their first season in the Scottish top flight since 2016. | pegasus | 2 | https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56993618 | 0.134036 |
Did a University of Toronto Donor Block the Hiring of a Scholar for Her Writing on Palestine? | In late April, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, which unites a majority of college faculty in the country, took the extraordinary step of censuring the University of Toronto, Canadas top-ranked institution of higher learning. The move amounts to a boycott: the association is asking members not to accept job offers or attend conferences at the school. The censure vote came at the end of a nearly eight-month controversy, which centers on a single rescinded job offer from a tiny program at a small school within a very large university. The entire affair, however, resides at the precise intersection of scholarly freedom, the place of the university in broader political conversations, and the influence that financial donors wield over academic institutions. Last summer, a search committee at the University of Toronto interviewed Valentina Azarova, a human-rights lawyer and scholar based in Germany, for the director job of its International Human Rights Program (I.H.R.P. ), which is housed in the law school. Azarova has worked in the academy and in the field. Early in her career, she focussed primarily on the Israeli occupation of Palestine, writing papers on a variety of legal issues such as the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the legal responsibilities of Israels diplomatic and trade partners. Azarovas more recent work looked at migrant rights, structural violence at international borders, and the use of European Union funds by war criminals. She was an inspired choice, and she had her own reasons to be interested in the job. Azarovas partner of nine years, who is also a human-rights researcher, is a Canadian citizen; his school-age children and elderly parents live in the Toronto area. Suddenly, these things aligned, Azarova told me by phone last fall. The three-person search committee was unanimous. In August, Azarova started corresponding with the university administration and its lawyers, negotiating the terms of her employment and the visa, residency, and work-authorization arrangements that she would need to make. The university wanted her to begin as soon as possible and to relocate to Toronto by the end of 2020. On September 10th, an assistant dean called Azarova to tell her that the law school would not be offering her the job after all; there seemed to be issues with finding a workable visa and contract solution. It was a peculiar conclusion for at least two reasons. A member of the search committee and chair of the faculty advisory committee to the I.H.R.P., Audrey Macklin, who is a leading immigration-law scholar, had been confident that work authorization wouldnt be an issue. And the I.H.R.P., like the rest of the university, was functioning online because of the pandemic, making the directors physical presence almost irrelevant. On September 14th, the dean of the law school, Edward Iacobucci, announced that the search for a program director had been called off for the year. Over the next couple of weeks, Azarova, members of the law schools faculty, other interested parties, and, finally, the Canadian media pieced together what had happened. It emerged that, on September 4th, a high-level university administrator spoke on the phone with David E. Spiro, a tax judge who, individually and as a member of a wealthy family, is a major donor to the law school. Spiro expressed concern about Azarovas work on the Israeli occupation and suggested that her appointment would damage the universitys reputation. The university administrator alerted the leadership of the law faculty, who, in turn, contacted the search committee. Soon Iacobucci reversed the process of Azarovas hiring. (I attempted to reach Spiro through the tax court and a Jewish community organization with which he is affiliated, but he did not respond.) As details emerged, protest took shape. Several members of the law faculty signed a letter opposing the decision to withdraw Azarovas offer, and outside scholars expressed their dismay. Macklin resigned from her post as chair of the faculty advisory committee; the rest of the committee followed. Human Rights Watch discontinued a program affiliated with the I.H.R.P., and Amnesty International threatened to do the same. Samer Muscati, the former head of the I.H.R.P., (now of Human Rights Watch), told me by Zoom, in November, that with these losses the program was effectively dead. Such an intervention in hiring due to political considerations may undermine the project of clinical legal education as a whole, Itamar Mann, an Israeli human-rights lawyer and professor who served as one of Azarovas references, wrote to Iacobucci. He added that it may embolden efforts to boycott Israeli universities, as a form of retaliation for such influence on the part of Jewish organizations. This will doubtlessly be counter-productive from the point of view of supporters of Israel, who I presume would like to help encourage academic exchanges between Israeli universities and universities outside of Israel. In October, the Canadian Association of University Teachers started discussing the possibility of censuring the University of Toronto. The university continued to deny that Azarovas offer was withdrawn because of Spiros intervention. In the face of mounting criticism, it commissioned a retired Supreme Court justice, Thomas A. Cromwell, to conduct an independent inquiry. Cromwell submitted his report in March. What followed resembled the release of the independent counsel Robert Muellers 2019 report on Russian interference in the U.S. Presidential election: exonerating top line, damning body text. Cromwell wrote, Having reviewed all of the relevant facts as fully as I can, I would not draw the inference that external influence played any role in the decision to discontinue the recruitment of the Preferred Candidate. The President of the University of Toronto, Meric Gertler, issued a statemen leading with this quote from the Cromwell report. Gertler expressed hope that the law faculty could move on from the divisive experience, and, separately, sent a letter to Azarova in which he apologized on behalf of the university for the fact that confidentiality was not maintained in the search process. (Gertlers office proceeded to send the letter to an incorrect e-mail address, prompting a second, effusive apology and the promise to ask the accidental recipient of the first e-mail to delete it without reading.) In response to my request for comment from Gertler, the University of Toronto referred me back to the Cromwell report. The seventy-eight-page report itself, however, confirmed the facts that had so upset Azarovas supporters and others back in the fall. Cromwell found that a judge and donor (Cromwell did not identify Spiro by name) learned of the results of the confidential candidate search in an e-mail forwarded from a professor at another institution. The subject line of the e-mail was U of T pending appointment of major anti-Israel activist to important law school position. The e-mail urged quiet discussions with the university to scuttle the appointment. During a scheduled fund-raising call with the universitys assistant vice-president, the judge brought up his concerns, handily summarized by one of the assistant deans: The Jewish community would not be pleased by the Preferred Candidates appointment. I cant understand how, based on the facts, one could conclude there was no interference, Muscati texted me after he read the report. Vincent Wong, a member of the search committee who quit his job at the law school in protest, last fall, said in an e-mail that Cromwell, seeing no conclusive proof that the interference was the sole reason for withdrawing the job offer, took the opportunity to exonerate the university. It is very reminiscent of a lot of human rights cases in which, for instance, sexism or racism cannot be pointed to as the primary factor motivating a decision (because there was no admission, no direct slur, no smoking gun) but all the contextual factors point to discriminatory treatment, Wong wrote. He pointed out, too, that a powerful white man was investigating the conduct of other powerful white menthe university president and the law dean. Folks who brought up the issue (all of whom were not white men), first internally, and then as whistleblowers to the media, are chastised in the report, Wong wrote. Now, he added, Palestinian rights and international law with respect to the Israel/Palestine situation are now demonstrably a taboo subject in the law school. | The University of Toronto rescinded Valentina Azarova's job offer because of her work on the Israeli occupation of Palestine. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/did-a-university-of-toronto-donor-block-the-hiring-of-a-scholar-for-her-writing-on-palestine | 0.344422 |
Did a University of Toronto Donor Block the Hiring of a Scholar for Her Writing on Palestine? | In late April, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, which unites a majority of college faculty in the country, took the extraordinary step of censuring the University of Toronto, Canadas top-ranked institution of higher learning. The move amounts to a boycott: the association is asking members not to accept job offers or attend conferences at the school. The censure vote came at the end of a nearly eight-month controversy, which centers on a single rescinded job offer from a tiny program at a small school within a very large university. The entire affair, however, resides at the precise intersection of scholarly freedom, the place of the university in broader political conversations, and the influence that financial donors wield over academic institutions. Last summer, a search committee at the University of Toronto interviewed Valentina Azarova, a human-rights lawyer and scholar based in Germany, for the director job of its International Human Rights Program (I.H.R.P. ), which is housed in the law school. Azarova has worked in the academy and in the field. Early in her career, she focussed primarily on the Israeli occupation of Palestine, writing papers on a variety of legal issues such as the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the legal responsibilities of Israels diplomatic and trade partners. Azarovas more recent work looked at migrant rights, structural violence at international borders, and the use of European Union funds by war criminals. She was an inspired choice, and she had her own reasons to be interested in the job. Azarovas partner of nine years, who is also a human-rights researcher, is a Canadian citizen; his school-age children and elderly parents live in the Toronto area. Suddenly, these things aligned, Azarova told me by phone last fall. The three-person search committee was unanimous. In August, Azarova started corresponding with the university administration and its lawyers, negotiating the terms of her employment and the visa, residency, and work-authorization arrangements that she would need to make. The university wanted her to begin as soon as possible and to relocate to Toronto by the end of 2020. On September 10th, an assistant dean called Azarova to tell her that the law school would not be offering her the job after all; there seemed to be issues with finding a workable visa and contract solution. It was a peculiar conclusion for at least two reasons. A member of the search committee and chair of the faculty advisory committee to the I.H.R.P., Audrey Macklin, who is a leading immigration-law scholar, had been confident that work authorization wouldnt be an issue. And the I.H.R.P., like the rest of the university, was functioning online because of the pandemic, making the directors physical presence almost irrelevant. On September 14th, the dean of the law school, Edward Iacobucci, announced that the search for a program director had been called off for the year. Over the next couple of weeks, Azarova, members of the law schools faculty, other interested parties, and, finally, the Canadian media pieced together what had happened. It emerged that, on September 4th, a high-level university administrator spoke on the phone with David E. Spiro, a tax judge who, individually and as a member of a wealthy family, is a major donor to the law school. Spiro expressed concern about Azarovas work on the Israeli occupation and suggested that her appointment would damage the universitys reputation. The university administrator alerted the leadership of the law faculty, who, in turn, contacted the search committee. Soon Iacobucci reversed the process of Azarovas hiring. (I attempted to reach Spiro through the tax court and a Jewish community organization with which he is affiliated, but he did not respond.) As details emerged, protest took shape. Several members of the law faculty signed a letter opposing the decision to withdraw Azarovas offer, and outside scholars expressed their dismay. Macklin resigned from her post as chair of the faculty advisory committee; the rest of the committee followed. Human Rights Watch discontinued a program affiliated with the I.H.R.P., and Amnesty International threatened to do the same. Samer Muscati, the former head of the I.H.R.P., (now of Human Rights Watch), told me by Zoom, in November, that with these losses the program was effectively dead. Such an intervention in hiring due to political considerations may undermine the project of clinical legal education as a whole, Itamar Mann, an Israeli human-rights lawyer and professor who served as one of Azarovas references, wrote to Iacobucci. He added that it may embolden efforts to boycott Israeli universities, as a form of retaliation for such influence on the part of Jewish organizations. This will doubtlessly be counter-productive from the point of view of supporters of Israel, who I presume would like to help encourage academic exchanges between Israeli universities and universities outside of Israel. In October, the Canadian Association of University Teachers started discussing the possibility of censuring the University of Toronto. The university continued to deny that Azarovas offer was withdrawn because of Spiros intervention. In the face of mounting criticism, it commissioned a retired Supreme Court justice, Thomas A. Cromwell, to conduct an independent inquiry. Cromwell submitted his report in March. What followed resembled the release of the independent counsel Robert Muellers 2019 report on Russian interference in the U.S. Presidential election: exonerating top line, damning body text. Cromwell wrote, Having reviewed all of the relevant facts as fully as I can, I would not draw the inference that external influence played any role in the decision to discontinue the recruitment of the Preferred Candidate. The President of the University of Toronto, Meric Gertler, issued a statemen leading with this quote from the Cromwell report. Gertler expressed hope that the law faculty could move on from the divisive experience, and, separately, sent a letter to Azarova in which he apologized on behalf of the university for the fact that confidentiality was not maintained in the search process. (Gertlers office proceeded to send the letter to an incorrect e-mail address, prompting a second, effusive apology and the promise to ask the accidental recipient of the first e-mail to delete it without reading.) In response to my request for comment from Gertler, the University of Toronto referred me back to the Cromwell report. The seventy-eight-page report itself, however, confirmed the facts that had so upset Azarovas supporters and others back in the fall. Cromwell found that a judge and donor (Cromwell did not identify Spiro by name) learned of the results of the confidential candidate search in an e-mail forwarded from a professor at another institution. The subject line of the e-mail was U of T pending appointment of major anti-Israel activist to important law school position. The e-mail urged quiet discussions with the university to scuttle the appointment. During a scheduled fund-raising call with the universitys assistant vice-president, the judge brought up his concerns, handily summarized by one of the assistant deans: The Jewish community would not be pleased by the Preferred Candidates appointment. I cant understand how, based on the facts, one could conclude there was no interference, Muscati texted me after he read the report. Vincent Wong, a member of the search committee who quit his job at the law school in protest, last fall, said in an e-mail that Cromwell, seeing no conclusive proof that the interference was the sole reason for withdrawing the job offer, took the opportunity to exonerate the university. It is very reminiscent of a lot of human rights cases in which, for instance, sexism or racism cannot be pointed to as the primary factor motivating a decision (because there was no admission, no direct slur, no smoking gun) but all the contextual factors point to discriminatory treatment, Wong wrote. He pointed out, too, that a powerful white man was investigating the conduct of other powerful white menthe university president and the law dean. Folks who brought up the issue (all of whom were not white men), first internally, and then as whistleblowers to the media, are chastised in the report, Wong wrote. Now, he added, Palestinian rights and international law with respect to the Israel/Palestine situation are now demonstrably a taboo subject in the law school. | The University of Toronto rescinded Valentina Azarova's job offer because of her work on the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The university's search committee was unanimous in its decision to rescind the job offer. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/did-a-university-of-toronto-donor-block-the-hiring-of-a-scholar-for-her-writing-on-palestine | 0.366315 |
Did a University of Toronto Donor Block the Hiring of a Scholar for Her Writing on Palestine? | In late April, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, which unites a majority of college faculty in the country, took the extraordinary step of censuring the University of Toronto, Canadas top-ranked institution of higher learning. The move amounts to a boycott: the association is asking members not to accept job offers or attend conferences at the school. The censure vote came at the end of a nearly eight-month controversy, which centers on a single rescinded job offer from a tiny program at a small school within a very large university. The entire affair, however, resides at the precise intersection of scholarly freedom, the place of the university in broader political conversations, and the influence that financial donors wield over academic institutions. Last summer, a search committee at the University of Toronto interviewed Valentina Azarova, a human-rights lawyer and scholar based in Germany, for the director job of its International Human Rights Program (I.H.R.P. ), which is housed in the law school. Azarova has worked in the academy and in the field. Early in her career, she focussed primarily on the Israeli occupation of Palestine, writing papers on a variety of legal issues such as the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the legal responsibilities of Israels diplomatic and trade partners. Azarovas more recent work looked at migrant rights, structural violence at international borders, and the use of European Union funds by war criminals. She was an inspired choice, and she had her own reasons to be interested in the job. Azarovas partner of nine years, who is also a human-rights researcher, is a Canadian citizen; his school-age children and elderly parents live in the Toronto area. Suddenly, these things aligned, Azarova told me by phone last fall. The three-person search committee was unanimous. In August, Azarova started corresponding with the university administration and its lawyers, negotiating the terms of her employment and the visa, residency, and work-authorization arrangements that she would need to make. The university wanted her to begin as soon as possible and to relocate to Toronto by the end of 2020. On September 10th, an assistant dean called Azarova to tell her that the law school would not be offering her the job after all; there seemed to be issues with finding a workable visa and contract solution. It was a peculiar conclusion for at least two reasons. A member of the search committee and chair of the faculty advisory committee to the I.H.R.P., Audrey Macklin, who is a leading immigration-law scholar, had been confident that work authorization wouldnt be an issue. And the I.H.R.P., like the rest of the university, was functioning online because of the pandemic, making the directors physical presence almost irrelevant. On September 14th, the dean of the law school, Edward Iacobucci, announced that the search for a program director had been called off for the year. Over the next couple of weeks, Azarova, members of the law schools faculty, other interested parties, and, finally, the Canadian media pieced together what had happened. It emerged that, on September 4th, a high-level university administrator spoke on the phone with David E. Spiro, a tax judge who, individually and as a member of a wealthy family, is a major donor to the law school. Spiro expressed concern about Azarovas work on the Israeli occupation and suggested that her appointment would damage the universitys reputation. The university administrator alerted the leadership of the law faculty, who, in turn, contacted the search committee. Soon Iacobucci reversed the process of Azarovas hiring. (I attempted to reach Spiro through the tax court and a Jewish community organization with which he is affiliated, but he did not respond.) As details emerged, protest took shape. Several members of the law faculty signed a letter opposing the decision to withdraw Azarovas offer, and outside scholars expressed their dismay. Macklin resigned from her post as chair of the faculty advisory committee; the rest of the committee followed. Human Rights Watch discontinued a program affiliated with the I.H.R.P., and Amnesty International threatened to do the same. Samer Muscati, the former head of the I.H.R.P., (now of Human Rights Watch), told me by Zoom, in November, that with these losses the program was effectively dead. Such an intervention in hiring due to political considerations may undermine the project of clinical legal education as a whole, Itamar Mann, an Israeli human-rights lawyer and professor who served as one of Azarovas references, wrote to Iacobucci. He added that it may embolden efforts to boycott Israeli universities, as a form of retaliation for such influence on the part of Jewish organizations. This will doubtlessly be counter-productive from the point of view of supporters of Israel, who I presume would like to help encourage academic exchanges between Israeli universities and universities outside of Israel. In October, the Canadian Association of University Teachers started discussing the possibility of censuring the University of Toronto. The university continued to deny that Azarovas offer was withdrawn because of Spiros intervention. In the face of mounting criticism, it commissioned a retired Supreme Court justice, Thomas A. Cromwell, to conduct an independent inquiry. Cromwell submitted his report in March. What followed resembled the release of the independent counsel Robert Muellers 2019 report on Russian interference in the U.S. Presidential election: exonerating top line, damning body text. Cromwell wrote, Having reviewed all of the relevant facts as fully as I can, I would not draw the inference that external influence played any role in the decision to discontinue the recruitment of the Preferred Candidate. The President of the University of Toronto, Meric Gertler, issued a statemen leading with this quote from the Cromwell report. Gertler expressed hope that the law faculty could move on from the divisive experience, and, separately, sent a letter to Azarova in which he apologized on behalf of the university for the fact that confidentiality was not maintained in the search process. (Gertlers office proceeded to send the letter to an incorrect e-mail address, prompting a second, effusive apology and the promise to ask the accidental recipient of the first e-mail to delete it without reading.) In response to my request for comment from Gertler, the University of Toronto referred me back to the Cromwell report. The seventy-eight-page report itself, however, confirmed the facts that had so upset Azarovas supporters and others back in the fall. Cromwell found that a judge and donor (Cromwell did not identify Spiro by name) learned of the results of the confidential candidate search in an e-mail forwarded from a professor at another institution. The subject line of the e-mail was U of T pending appointment of major anti-Israel activist to important law school position. The e-mail urged quiet discussions with the university to scuttle the appointment. During a scheduled fund-raising call with the universitys assistant vice-president, the judge brought up his concerns, handily summarized by one of the assistant deans: The Jewish community would not be pleased by the Preferred Candidates appointment. I cant understand how, based on the facts, one could conclude there was no interference, Muscati texted me after he read the report. Vincent Wong, a member of the search committee who quit his job at the law school in protest, last fall, said in an e-mail that Cromwell, seeing no conclusive proof that the interference was the sole reason for withdrawing the job offer, took the opportunity to exonerate the university. It is very reminiscent of a lot of human rights cases in which, for instance, sexism or racism cannot be pointed to as the primary factor motivating a decision (because there was no admission, no direct slur, no smoking gun) but all the contextual factors point to discriminatory treatment, Wong wrote. He pointed out, too, that a powerful white man was investigating the conduct of other powerful white menthe university president and the law dean. Folks who brought up the issue (all of whom were not white men), first internally, and then as whistleblowers to the media, are chastised in the report, Wong wrote. Now, he added, Palestinian rights and international law with respect to the Israel/Palestine situation are now demonstrably a taboo subject in the law school. | The University of Toronto rescinded Valentina Azarova's job offer because of her work on the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The university's search committee was unanimous in its decision to rescind the job offer, but a major donor to the law school expressed concern about Azarov's work. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/did-a-university-of-toronto-donor-block-the-hiring-of-a-scholar-for-her-writing-on-palestine | 0.505754 |
Should lakefront property owners have to grant public waterfront access for erosion-control loans? | In a successful and pioneering program, the city of Euclid successfully got lakefront property owners to agree to public access in exchange for erosion control work, but the program was voluntary. Cuyahoga County seized on the idea as a possible model for lakefront trails extending over county borders. Now, a new lakefront district has been formed in an agreement among Euclid and 12 Lake County communities to offer lakefront owners low-interest loans for erosion control that the property owners would pay for. The loans would be made possible by a bond issue underwritten by an assessment on participating property owners, with a $300,000 public subsidy aiming at lowering interest costs. Under the plan, there would not be any requirement to allow expanded lakefront access in exchange for participation, but planners believe that more public trails along private lakefront land will be the result. In addition to handling the erosion work themselves, lakefront property owners who participate would be responsible for getting needed permits, with the lakefront district helping them navigate that process. In Greater Cleveland where regionalism is a bad word, the district could also become a model for other lakefront districts formed across county and municipal lines. With heavier rainfall recently and a rising Lake Erie, lakefront erosion poses significant hazards. At the same time, erosion is reducing lakefront homeowners land boundaries under a controversial 2011 high court ruling (sought by property owners at the time) that decreed property rights end at the waters edge -- presumably, wherever that edge may be. Our Editorial Board Roundtable surveys the landscape. Thomas Suddes, editorial writer: Good, but State ex rel. Merrill v. Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (2011) demands revision: As the Great Lakes Law website put it at an earlier phase of the case, the Ohio Supreme Court ruling equates to saying that, the public has a right to walk along Lake Eries shore, but only by keeping their feet wet when doing so. The ruling undercut the public interest. At the same time, piecemeal erosion control wont work. So, lakefront land owners need to either pick up their share of the cost, or give up their right to restrict public access. Eric Foster, columnist: Shoreline special improvement districts were created to incentivize lakefront property owners to prioritize erosion control. Erosion is an issue that these financially better-off landowners will face, regardless. If they do nothing, their property loses value. Giving private landowners the opportunity to leverage public resources to reduce the cost of erosion control should require that the public get a benefit. Lisa Garvin, editorial board member: An unbroken bulwark along the entire Lake County coastline is the only way to tackle worsening erosion. I hope homeowners will see the bigger picture and capitalize on this rare opportunity to fix their problem while improving lakefront access. If public money is involved, encouraging property owners to grant trail easements should be a key focus of the improvement district. Victor Ruiz, editorial board member: Property owners need to do their part to ensure that our lake and natural resources are properly maintained and preserved. If they need public assistance, then the tradeoff is that they give up access. If they do not want to give up access, then they need to take care of the land on their own. Mary Cay Doherty, editorial board member: The lakefront districts low-interest loans to homeowners will save taxpayers money. If homes fall into the lake, roads will be next. As such, public access should not be a loan requirement. A 30-mile Cuyahoga County lake-access trail thats now being discussed also seems unlikely given probable high costs and the difficulty in securing waterfront access. A public-private partnership to improve lakefront erosion control and also engage waterfront property owners in a process that could lead to improved Lake Erie access for the public sounds like a win-win. Lets not lose sight of the forest for the trees. * Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication. * Email general questions about our editorial board or comments on this editorial board roundtable to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com. | A new lakefront district has been formed among Euclid and 12 Lake County communities. lakefront owners would pay for erosion control that the property owners would pay for. | pegasus | 1 | https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2021/05/should-lakefront-property-owners-have-to-grant-public-waterfront-access-for-erosion-control-loans.html | 0.17381 |
Should lakefront property owners have to grant public waterfront access for erosion-control loans? | In a successful and pioneering program, the city of Euclid successfully got lakefront property owners to agree to public access in exchange for erosion control work, but the program was voluntary. Cuyahoga County seized on the idea as a possible model for lakefront trails extending over county borders. Now, a new lakefront district has been formed in an agreement among Euclid and 12 Lake County communities to offer lakefront owners low-interest loans for erosion control that the property owners would pay for. The loans would be made possible by a bond issue underwritten by an assessment on participating property owners, with a $300,000 public subsidy aiming at lowering interest costs. Under the plan, there would not be any requirement to allow expanded lakefront access in exchange for participation, but planners believe that more public trails along private lakefront land will be the result. In addition to handling the erosion work themselves, lakefront property owners who participate would be responsible for getting needed permits, with the lakefront district helping them navigate that process. In Greater Cleveland where regionalism is a bad word, the district could also become a model for other lakefront districts formed across county and municipal lines. With heavier rainfall recently and a rising Lake Erie, lakefront erosion poses significant hazards. At the same time, erosion is reducing lakefront homeowners land boundaries under a controversial 2011 high court ruling (sought by property owners at the time) that decreed property rights end at the waters edge -- presumably, wherever that edge may be. Our Editorial Board Roundtable surveys the landscape. Thomas Suddes, editorial writer: Good, but State ex rel. Merrill v. Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (2011) demands revision: As the Great Lakes Law website put it at an earlier phase of the case, the Ohio Supreme Court ruling equates to saying that, the public has a right to walk along Lake Eries shore, but only by keeping their feet wet when doing so. The ruling undercut the public interest. At the same time, piecemeal erosion control wont work. So, lakefront land owners need to either pick up their share of the cost, or give up their right to restrict public access. Eric Foster, columnist: Shoreline special improvement districts were created to incentivize lakefront property owners to prioritize erosion control. Erosion is an issue that these financially better-off landowners will face, regardless. If they do nothing, their property loses value. Giving private landowners the opportunity to leverage public resources to reduce the cost of erosion control should require that the public get a benefit. Lisa Garvin, editorial board member: An unbroken bulwark along the entire Lake County coastline is the only way to tackle worsening erosion. I hope homeowners will see the bigger picture and capitalize on this rare opportunity to fix their problem while improving lakefront access. If public money is involved, encouraging property owners to grant trail easements should be a key focus of the improvement district. Victor Ruiz, editorial board member: Property owners need to do their part to ensure that our lake and natural resources are properly maintained and preserved. If they need public assistance, then the tradeoff is that they give up access. If they do not want to give up access, then they need to take care of the land on their own. Mary Cay Doherty, editorial board member: The lakefront districts low-interest loans to homeowners will save taxpayers money. If homes fall into the lake, roads will be next. As such, public access should not be a loan requirement. A 30-mile Cuyahoga County lake-access trail thats now being discussed also seems unlikely given probable high costs and the difficulty in securing waterfront access. A public-private partnership to improve lakefront erosion control and also engage waterfront property owners in a process that could lead to improved Lake Erie access for the public sounds like a win-win. Lets not lose sight of the forest for the trees. * Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication. * Email general questions about our editorial board or comments on this editorial board roundtable to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com. | A new lakefront district will offer low-interest loans for erosion control. The loans would be made possible by a bond issue underwritten by an assessment on participating property owners. Under the plan, there would not be any requirement to allow expanded lakefront access. Our Editorial Board Roundtable surveys the landscape. | bart | 2 | https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2021/05/should-lakefront-property-owners-have-to-grant-public-waterfront-access-for-erosion-control-loans.html | 0.417463 |
What Is The Best Career Path For Balancing Work And Family? | getty My first concern when I read this question was how binary the choice seemed to this reader yes, you can have a satisfying career and family life, or no, you cant! This makes clear that the primary assumption is Yes, it can be done! The only issue is how one might do it. Finding the physical energy, mental bandwidth and emotional constitution to shine at both work and home is already challenging. This pandemic, with school, activity and childcare options diminished and boundaries between work and home also diminished, has been particularly hard on working moms. There are fewer working moms now about 1.4 million fewer as of January 2021 than at that same time last year. If youre unhappy at your current job and looking for something different, it does take time to find a new job thats additional time from what you spend working That additional time is probably all earmarked for family right now, so youre stuck. Taking a break from work so you can focus on your next move and still have time for family seems appealing. Im all for taking breaks everything short of quitting. Build in proper lunch breaks, take a sick day, use a few days of vacation or ask for a longer leave. If you think your manager wont approve vacation or sabbatical, nows the time to negotiate hard the alternative is quitting with nothing. A big downside of quitting outright is that it just trades one problem (lack of time) for another (lack of a job now creates financial pressure and a red flag for prospective employers). You also cant assume you can readily ramp back up when youre rested and want to work again. If you can afford the cut in pay that likely will result from decreasing your hours, then building a career out of part-time jobs may be one path to better balance work and family. Your current employer is a logical first step to explore this option. They know your work quality and the value you bring so are the most likely to approve a drop to part-time. You also know the environment so can more easily adjust. A part-time schedule allows you to stay involved in your career, maintain your skills and network and still contribute, just at a slower pace. One downside of dropping to a part-time schedule is that you dont really save on the hours; rather, you simply make less. If youre an exempt professional paid for results or a specific scope of work, not by the hour, you may find that youre expected to produce not that much less output as a part-time employee. You also may still get contacted on your off days. Preserving your part-time status will require strong boundary management. Yet another career path is to shift from traditional employment, or working for someone else, to working for yourself either building a business or working in the gig economy as a freelancer. This path gives you maximum flexibility to design the career that works for you the schedule, the responsibilities, the people you serve. Your earning potential is limited only by how much business you can generate. You are the CEO, which can be a satisfying change from middle management or being an individual contributor. With these rewards come the risks of business-building mainly that you have to build the business. You are in charge of selling, pricing, marketing and then doing the work. It takes time and energy to get the business started, or as a new freelancer, to find companies to contract with. You dont earn until you sell so there is money lost and potentially money spent on starting up the business (e.g., licenses if needed, equipment or space, website and other marketing). There is also a risk that if you try the entrepreneurial route and dont like it, you cant readily return to traditional employment. There are multiple career paths, and they all could work Having raised two daughters, now adults, I used all of the above options. I took almost a year off in between traditional jobs, I have worked part-time and I now run a business. Power Moms by Joann S. Lublin features dozens of real-life examples of working moms with satisfying careers and full family lives, and the stories all differ in how each mom came to her balance point. Multiple career paths can work. If we return to the original question that started this post, it depends on how you define satisfying and sacrificing. These are your priorities. These define your boundaries. | There are fewer working moms now about 1.4 million fewer as of January 2021 than at that same time last year. Taking a break from work so you can focus on your next move and still have time for family seems appealing. Building a career out of part-time jobs may be one path to better balance work and family. | pegasus | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinecenizalevine/2021/05/08/what-is-the-best-career-path-for-balancing-work-and-family/ | 0.417106 |
Has there ever been a more important Boston sports figure with a more anonymous profile than Ernie Adams? | In the words of the late, great David Halberstam, Adams was Belichicks Belichick. Adams was Belichicks sounding board, confidant, and consigliere. He was The Man To See and The Decider. Adams was Belichicks Dick Cheney, trusted, invisible, and happy to be in a position of power without ever having to explain himself. He was the J.D. Salinger, New England footballs Garbo in khaki pants, a mystery wrapped inside an enigma. When Ernie worked for Belichick in Cleveland in the 1990s, Browns owner Art Modell famously said, Ill pay anyone $10,000 if they can tell me what Ernie Adams does. Sixty-eight-year-old Ernie Adams retired this past week after serving as Bill Belichicks football research director for 21 seasons and nine Super Bowl appearances. Nobody stepped forward to collect the Ernie bounty. Advertisement I did a deep dive on Adams before Super Bowl XLIX in Arizona in February 2015 (thats the one when Ernie worked on the Go Malcolm goal-line call in the hotel ballroom walkthrough the day before the game). It was at the height of the Deflategate nonsense and the dominant Patriots had not won a Super Bowl in 10 years. Adams did not agree to be interviewed (still wont, and cant say thats a bad call by him), but I interviewed more than a dozen football folks who had seen Adams climb through the Patriot organization starting in 1975 to his position as Bills silent, aide-de-camp. No one was able to explain what Ernie Adams did. We knew there was a dedicated Ernie phone on the Patriots sideline. We knew Adams was in Bills ear the entire game (What have we got, Ernie?) telling Belichick whether or not to throw a challenge flag. We knew Adams ran downstairs to make recommendations at halftime and that the Patriots had an amazing history of great third-quarter play. Advertisement The "Ernie" phone, pictured at Gillette in 2014. Jim Davis/Globe Staff I called Bill Parcells, a Pro Football Hall of Famer who restored the Patriots to respectability in the mid-1990s, to ask about Ernie Adams. I cant really tell you anything about him," said Parcells. I just dont know the guy." Swell. But Bill, I postured, the Giants press guide says that Ernie Adams was your director of pro personnel when you were head coach of the team in 1983 and 1984. He was? Parcells asked, incredulously. I dont remember that. I dont remember him being on my staff. If he was on my coaching staff, I dont remember what he was doing. And I . . . have a pretty good memory. And I didnt have any interaction with him. Perfect. Only Ernie Adams could be director of pro personnel for a Hall of Fame NFL coach and inspire no recollection decades later. It was ever the Ernie Way. Adams was with Parcells in the 1980s because Belichick was with the Giants in those years, winning his first two Super Bowl rings under the Tuna. Belichick and Adams go way back all the way to prep school. Bill and Ernie played offensive line at Phillips Andover in the 1970s and forged a football bond that was not broken until this week when Adams voluntarily stepped down from his ambiguous but important position with the Patriots. Advertisement Adams was an NFLs Rain Man, a grid savant who dazzled Chuck Fairbankss staff in the 1970s, memorizing playbooks in a single day when he worked in the bowels of old Schaefer Stadium. In 1979, at the age of 26, he was Phil Simmss quarterback coach with the Giants. Adams left football in the late 1980s to make a bundle on Wall Street for a few years, but came back to the NFL when Belichick was hired as head coach of the Browns in 1991. For the next 30 years, he was Belichicks Belichick. Last Saturday, in a surprise move, Belichick took a moment to cite Ernies contributions and announce that it would be Adamss final draft with the team. Belichick said he wanted to thank Ernie for all hes done and recognize all that hes done. Three days later, the Patriots announced that Adams was officially retired, effective immediately. There was never anyone like him. There will never be anyone like him. Adams was the power behind the throne. He was legit. A football force. His retirement is the end of an era. Belichick and the Patriots are going to miss him. The Red Sox cost-cutting plan came back to bite them last weekend in Texas. Brock Holt beat Boston with a two-run single Sunday. Holt was let go after 2019 because the Sox wanted cheaper options for a Swiss Army knife reserve player. On the same day Holt beat the Sox, Andrew Benintendi had two more hits, giving him five hits and two homers over two days for the first-place Royals. Meanwhile, Franchy Cordero, the cheaper alternative the Sox acquired for Benintendi, made the final out in Texas on his way to a hitless streak of 0 for 25. Advertisement All those who believe Madison Bumgarner should have been credited with a no-hitter for his seven inning complete game against the Braves, consider this: According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Nolan Ryan on 23 occasions pitched seven hitless innings. Elias counted 497 instances of a starter pitching seven-plus innings of no-hit ball between 1961-2021. Headline last week in the New York Daily News: Hold on to your trash cans, Astros are comin to town. This was followed by WELCOME CHEATERS! one day later, while the New York Post settled on, TAKE OUT THE TRASH! A Globe commenter submitted, Bang The Trash Can Slowly. Just too easy. Quiz: Whitey Ford faced 18 batters at least 100 times. Only one batted over .300 against Ford, hitting .339 off the Chairman of the Board. Name him (answer below). Oscar Robertson compiled 181 triple-doubles while playing in an era that made no note of the distinction. The Big O averaged a triple-double in his second NBA season. Wizards guard Russell Westbrook averaged a triple-double with the Thunder in 2016-17, 2017-18, and 2018-19, and goes into the final week of this season with a chance to pass Robertsons career total. Westbrook had 180 triple-doubles going into the final week of regular-season play. Advertisement Folks from Our Lady of the Valley Regional School in Uxbridge on Thursday broke ground on the Grace Rett Athletic Complex. Rett, a Holy Cross rower, was killed in a Florida traffic crash en route to a training session with her teammates in 2020. The project posthumously fulfills Retts longtime dream for her elementary and middle school to have its own indoor athletic space. The New York Times this past week reported that 78,000 unvaccinated volunteers are scheduled to work the Olympic Games in Tokyo in July. Unless they qualify for vaccination through Japans slow age-based rollout, they will not be inoculated against the coronavirus, the Times reported. For protection, volunteers are being offered little more than a couple of cloth masks, a bottle of sanitizer, and mantras about social distancing. On his way to his fourth MVP award, Mike Trout hit .413 in his first 23 games. Sort of. It turns out Trout is a lifetime .304 hitter against Boston with 9 home runs, 28 RBIs, and 8 stolen bases in 49 games. The Angels make their only trip to Fenway next weekend. Mac Jones and Christian Barmore are the 11th and 12th Nick Saban players drafted by Belichick. Pass Go! and collect $200 if you knew that Barry Bonds hit three of his 73 homers against Curt Schilling in 2001. Mets franchise shortstop Francisco Lindor ($341 million) had a horrible April and got booed by hometown fans, so the Mets fired hitting coaches Chili Davis and Tom Slater. Veteran eyeballs were replaced by analytics. Weak. The late, great Stan Musial would be happy to know he is not forgotten. In a random note about baseball symmetry last week, I failed to mention that Stan the Man had exactly 1,815 hits at home and 1,815 on the road. No less than 20 readers reached out to give Musial his due. The number is engraved in the minds of seamheads. Stan Kasten, one of the Dodgers owners, is a superstitious guy. When the Dodgers led the Rays, 3-2, in last years World Series, Kasten went to the potential clinching game with one of his sons and visited the restroom at Globe Life Field while the Dodgers trailed in the bottom of the sixth. We scored and took the lead while I was in there, so I couldnt leave the [expletive] bathroom," acknowledged Kasten. I ended up watching us win the World Series on a concourse monitor in front of the bathroom." Willie Mays, the Say Hey Kid, turned 90 Thursday. Go to ESPN.com and read Tim Kurkjians Cooperstown-worthy piece on Mays. Kurkjian has first-hand accounts from Mays, Reggie Jackson, Ken Griffey Jr., Pete Rose, Juan Marichal, and just about everyone else who matters. A must-read. Theres a real possibility that the Celtics regular-season finale against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden could have important playoff implications regarding seeding and the play-in round, which will take place May 18-21. Folks at NBC Sports Boston need to stop blaming referees when the Celtics lose. Theyre making NESN look like 60 Minutes." Set against the backdrop of the wartime home front, the tome explores the 1942 Hale America National Open, which Hogan won, and the controversy attached to the USGA decision not to count it as an official US Open. Hogan went to his grave believing hed won five. Quiz answer: Al Kaline. Kaline (April 6) and Ford (Oct. 8) both died in 2020. Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at daniel.shaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @dan_shaughnessy. | Ernie Adams was Bill Belichick's sounding board, confidant, and consigliere. Adams was Belichicks Dick Cheney, trusted, invisible, and happy to be in a position of power without ever having to explain himself. | bart | 1 | https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/05/08/sports/has-there-ever-been-more-important-boston-sports-figure-with-more-anonymous-profile-than-ernie-adams/ | 0.219851 |
Has there ever been a more important Boston sports figure with a more anonymous profile than Ernie Adams? | In the words of the late, great David Halberstam, Adams was Belichicks Belichick. Adams was Belichicks sounding board, confidant, and consigliere. He was The Man To See and The Decider. Adams was Belichicks Dick Cheney, trusted, invisible, and happy to be in a position of power without ever having to explain himself. He was the J.D. Salinger, New England footballs Garbo in khaki pants, a mystery wrapped inside an enigma. When Ernie worked for Belichick in Cleveland in the 1990s, Browns owner Art Modell famously said, Ill pay anyone $10,000 if they can tell me what Ernie Adams does. Sixty-eight-year-old Ernie Adams retired this past week after serving as Bill Belichicks football research director for 21 seasons and nine Super Bowl appearances. Nobody stepped forward to collect the Ernie bounty. Advertisement I did a deep dive on Adams before Super Bowl XLIX in Arizona in February 2015 (thats the one when Ernie worked on the Go Malcolm goal-line call in the hotel ballroom walkthrough the day before the game). It was at the height of the Deflategate nonsense and the dominant Patriots had not won a Super Bowl in 10 years. Adams did not agree to be interviewed (still wont, and cant say thats a bad call by him), but I interviewed more than a dozen football folks who had seen Adams climb through the Patriot organization starting in 1975 to his position as Bills silent, aide-de-camp. No one was able to explain what Ernie Adams did. We knew there was a dedicated Ernie phone on the Patriots sideline. We knew Adams was in Bills ear the entire game (What have we got, Ernie?) telling Belichick whether or not to throw a challenge flag. We knew Adams ran downstairs to make recommendations at halftime and that the Patriots had an amazing history of great third-quarter play. Advertisement The "Ernie" phone, pictured at Gillette in 2014. Jim Davis/Globe Staff I called Bill Parcells, a Pro Football Hall of Famer who restored the Patriots to respectability in the mid-1990s, to ask about Ernie Adams. I cant really tell you anything about him," said Parcells. I just dont know the guy." Swell. But Bill, I postured, the Giants press guide says that Ernie Adams was your director of pro personnel when you were head coach of the team in 1983 and 1984. He was? Parcells asked, incredulously. I dont remember that. I dont remember him being on my staff. If he was on my coaching staff, I dont remember what he was doing. And I . . . have a pretty good memory. And I didnt have any interaction with him. Perfect. Only Ernie Adams could be director of pro personnel for a Hall of Fame NFL coach and inspire no recollection decades later. It was ever the Ernie Way. Adams was with Parcells in the 1980s because Belichick was with the Giants in those years, winning his first two Super Bowl rings under the Tuna. Belichick and Adams go way back all the way to prep school. Bill and Ernie played offensive line at Phillips Andover in the 1970s and forged a football bond that was not broken until this week when Adams voluntarily stepped down from his ambiguous but important position with the Patriots. Advertisement Adams was an NFLs Rain Man, a grid savant who dazzled Chuck Fairbankss staff in the 1970s, memorizing playbooks in a single day when he worked in the bowels of old Schaefer Stadium. In 1979, at the age of 26, he was Phil Simmss quarterback coach with the Giants. Adams left football in the late 1980s to make a bundle on Wall Street for a few years, but came back to the NFL when Belichick was hired as head coach of the Browns in 1991. For the next 30 years, he was Belichicks Belichick. Last Saturday, in a surprise move, Belichick took a moment to cite Ernies contributions and announce that it would be Adamss final draft with the team. Belichick said he wanted to thank Ernie for all hes done and recognize all that hes done. Three days later, the Patriots announced that Adams was officially retired, effective immediately. There was never anyone like him. There will never be anyone like him. Adams was the power behind the throne. He was legit. A football force. His retirement is the end of an era. Belichick and the Patriots are going to miss him. The Red Sox cost-cutting plan came back to bite them last weekend in Texas. Brock Holt beat Boston with a two-run single Sunday. Holt was let go after 2019 because the Sox wanted cheaper options for a Swiss Army knife reserve player. On the same day Holt beat the Sox, Andrew Benintendi had two more hits, giving him five hits and two homers over two days for the first-place Royals. Meanwhile, Franchy Cordero, the cheaper alternative the Sox acquired for Benintendi, made the final out in Texas on his way to a hitless streak of 0 for 25. Advertisement All those who believe Madison Bumgarner should have been credited with a no-hitter for his seven inning complete game against the Braves, consider this: According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Nolan Ryan on 23 occasions pitched seven hitless innings. Elias counted 497 instances of a starter pitching seven-plus innings of no-hit ball between 1961-2021. Headline last week in the New York Daily News: Hold on to your trash cans, Astros are comin to town. This was followed by WELCOME CHEATERS! one day later, while the New York Post settled on, TAKE OUT THE TRASH! A Globe commenter submitted, Bang The Trash Can Slowly. Just too easy. Quiz: Whitey Ford faced 18 batters at least 100 times. Only one batted over .300 against Ford, hitting .339 off the Chairman of the Board. Name him (answer below). Oscar Robertson compiled 181 triple-doubles while playing in an era that made no note of the distinction. The Big O averaged a triple-double in his second NBA season. Wizards guard Russell Westbrook averaged a triple-double with the Thunder in 2016-17, 2017-18, and 2018-19, and goes into the final week of this season with a chance to pass Robertsons career total. Westbrook had 180 triple-doubles going into the final week of regular-season play. Advertisement Folks from Our Lady of the Valley Regional School in Uxbridge on Thursday broke ground on the Grace Rett Athletic Complex. Rett, a Holy Cross rower, was killed in a Florida traffic crash en route to a training session with her teammates in 2020. The project posthumously fulfills Retts longtime dream for her elementary and middle school to have its own indoor athletic space. The New York Times this past week reported that 78,000 unvaccinated volunteers are scheduled to work the Olympic Games in Tokyo in July. Unless they qualify for vaccination through Japans slow age-based rollout, they will not be inoculated against the coronavirus, the Times reported. For protection, volunteers are being offered little more than a couple of cloth masks, a bottle of sanitizer, and mantras about social distancing. On his way to his fourth MVP award, Mike Trout hit .413 in his first 23 games. Sort of. It turns out Trout is a lifetime .304 hitter against Boston with 9 home runs, 28 RBIs, and 8 stolen bases in 49 games. The Angels make their only trip to Fenway next weekend. Mac Jones and Christian Barmore are the 11th and 12th Nick Saban players drafted by Belichick. Pass Go! and collect $200 if you knew that Barry Bonds hit three of his 73 homers against Curt Schilling in 2001. Mets franchise shortstop Francisco Lindor ($341 million) had a horrible April and got booed by hometown fans, so the Mets fired hitting coaches Chili Davis and Tom Slater. Veteran eyeballs were replaced by analytics. Weak. The late, great Stan Musial would be happy to know he is not forgotten. In a random note about baseball symmetry last week, I failed to mention that Stan the Man had exactly 1,815 hits at home and 1,815 on the road. No less than 20 readers reached out to give Musial his due. The number is engraved in the minds of seamheads. Stan Kasten, one of the Dodgers owners, is a superstitious guy. When the Dodgers led the Rays, 3-2, in last years World Series, Kasten went to the potential clinching game with one of his sons and visited the restroom at Globe Life Field while the Dodgers trailed in the bottom of the sixth. We scored and took the lead while I was in there, so I couldnt leave the [expletive] bathroom," acknowledged Kasten. I ended up watching us win the World Series on a concourse monitor in front of the bathroom." Willie Mays, the Say Hey Kid, turned 90 Thursday. Go to ESPN.com and read Tim Kurkjians Cooperstown-worthy piece on Mays. Kurkjian has first-hand accounts from Mays, Reggie Jackson, Ken Griffey Jr., Pete Rose, Juan Marichal, and just about everyone else who matters. A must-read. Theres a real possibility that the Celtics regular-season finale against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden could have important playoff implications regarding seeding and the play-in round, which will take place May 18-21. Folks at NBC Sports Boston need to stop blaming referees when the Celtics lose. Theyre making NESN look like 60 Minutes." Set against the backdrop of the wartime home front, the tome explores the 1942 Hale America National Open, which Hogan won, and the controversy attached to the USGA decision not to count it as an official US Open. Hogan went to his grave believing hed won five. Quiz answer: Al Kaline. Kaline (April 6) and Ford (Oct. 8) both died in 2020. Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at daniel.shaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @dan_shaughnessy. | Ernie Adams was Bill Belichick's sounding board, confidant, and consigliere. Adams was Belichick's Dick Cheney, trusted, invisible, and happy to be in a position of power without ever having to explain himself. He was the J.D. Salinger, New England football's Garbo in khaki pants. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/05/08/sports/has-there-ever-been-more-important-boston-sports-figure-with-more-anonymous-profile-than-ernie-adams/ | 0.327899 |
Can Eagles Compete to win NFC East This Season? | Not many are giving them a chance to do much in 2021, even the owner expressed his interest in looking beyond this season, but stranger things have happened PHILADELPHIA Not many believe the Eagles have a chance at doing much this season, not after Jeffrey Lurie, sort of, set the expectation that the 2021 season was going to be about building toward a bigger goal in the year or so that follows. Even Vegas doesnt believe in the Eagles this season. After the draft www.BetOnlin.ag set the Eagles over-under win total at a not-so-robust 6.5. Now, Vegas has been off before. That was four wins for those with short memories. So, theres a chance they could be off again. Just look at Nick Sirianni. When weve glimpsed the new head coach in his handful of media snippets, he is an arm-waving, hand-swinging ball of passion and energy. That may invigorate a locker room that has begun a transition to youth. There are still enough veterans that know how to win and will pass that tricky recipe on down the younguns. Throw in the fact that this is the NFC East were talking about, where there hasnt been a repeat winner since the Eagles did in 17 years ago and smelled like rotten eggs last year, and well, maybe it wouldnt be wise to count out the Eagles making some kind of playoff push. In 2016, people were telling us it was going to take five years and we did it (win a Super Bowl) in 12 months, said GM Howie Roseman earlier in the week on the teams flagship radio station, 94WIP. Thats a challenge we want to be better on. We want to do it quicker. We want to win as many games as possible. Everyone is sitting there thinking a certain thing about our football team. We have a lot of good players. We have a lot of good people and we have to keep building on top of that to climb that mountain again and thats what were going to do. Were going to try to win as many games as possible and were going to continue to build the roster. The roster building continues a week after the 2021 NFL Draft when the Eagles claimed RB Kerryon Johnson off waivers from the Detroit Lions. As Roseman added, We dont spend all year trying to make this team as good as possible to not try to compete. Thats crazy. Washington wears the crown of division champs heading into this year, but they won the East in 2020 with just seven wins. Dallas is the favorite this year, per Vegas, with an over-under win total set at 9 games. The Football Team is second at 8.5 with the Giants at 7. The Eagles are last, that doesnt mean thats where they will finish. Here is what each of their rivals did in the draft: COWBOYS Round 1: (No. 12) Micah Parsons, LB, Penn State Round 2: (44) Kelvin Joseph, CB, Kentucky Round 3: (75) Osa Odighizuwa, DL, UCLA (84) Acquired from Eagles in the move down two spots in the first round: Chauncey Golston, DE, Iowa (99) Nashon Wright, CB, Oregon State Round 4: (115) Jabril Cox, LB, LSU (138) Josh Ball, OT, Marshall Round 5: (179) Simi Fehoko, WR, Stanford Round 6: (192) Quinton Bohanna, DT, Kentucky (227) Israel Mukuamu, CB, South Carolina Round 7: (238) Matt Farniok, OG, Nebraska FOOTBALL TEAM Round 1: (19) Jamin Davis, LB, Kentucky Round 2: (51) Sam Cosmi, OT, Texas Round 3: (74) Benjamin St-Juste, CB, Minnesota (82) Dyami Brown, WR, North Carolina Round 4: (124) John Bates, TE, Boise State Round 5: (163) Darrick Forrest, S, Cincinnati Round 6: (225) Camaron Cheeseman, LS, Michigan Round 7: (240) Will Bradley-King, DE, Baylor (246) Shaka Toney, DE, Penn State (258) Dax Milne, WR, BYU GIANTS Round 1: (20) Kadarius Toney, WR, Florida Round 2: (50) Azeez Ojulari, OLB, Georgia Round 3: (71) Aaron Robinson, CB, UCF Round 4: (116) Elerson Smith, OLB, Northern Iowa Round 6: (196) Gary Brightwell, RB, Arizona (201) Rodarius Williams, CB, Oklahoma State Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.coms EagleMaven and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze. | Not many believe the Eagles have a chance at doing much this season. The Eagles are expected to finish last in the NFC East, but that doesn't mean that's where they will finish. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.si.com/nfl/eagles/news/can-eagles-compete-to-win-nfc-east-this-season | 0.191597 |
Can Eagles Compete to win NFC East This Season? | Not many are giving them a chance to do much in 2021, even the owner expressed his interest in looking beyond this season, but stranger things have happened PHILADELPHIA Not many believe the Eagles have a chance at doing much this season, not after Jeffrey Lurie, sort of, set the expectation that the 2021 season was going to be about building toward a bigger goal in the year or so that follows. Even Vegas doesnt believe in the Eagles this season. After the draft www.BetOnlin.ag set the Eagles over-under win total at a not-so-robust 6.5. Now, Vegas has been off before. That was four wins for those with short memories. So, theres a chance they could be off again. Just look at Nick Sirianni. When weve glimpsed the new head coach in his handful of media snippets, he is an arm-waving, hand-swinging ball of passion and energy. That may invigorate a locker room that has begun a transition to youth. There are still enough veterans that know how to win and will pass that tricky recipe on down the younguns. Throw in the fact that this is the NFC East were talking about, where there hasnt been a repeat winner since the Eagles did in 17 years ago and smelled like rotten eggs last year, and well, maybe it wouldnt be wise to count out the Eagles making some kind of playoff push. In 2016, people were telling us it was going to take five years and we did it (win a Super Bowl) in 12 months, said GM Howie Roseman earlier in the week on the teams flagship radio station, 94WIP. Thats a challenge we want to be better on. We want to do it quicker. We want to win as many games as possible. Everyone is sitting there thinking a certain thing about our football team. We have a lot of good players. We have a lot of good people and we have to keep building on top of that to climb that mountain again and thats what were going to do. Were going to try to win as many games as possible and were going to continue to build the roster. The roster building continues a week after the 2021 NFL Draft when the Eagles claimed RB Kerryon Johnson off waivers from the Detroit Lions. As Roseman added, We dont spend all year trying to make this team as good as possible to not try to compete. Thats crazy. Washington wears the crown of division champs heading into this year, but they won the East in 2020 with just seven wins. Dallas is the favorite this year, per Vegas, with an over-under win total set at 9 games. The Football Team is second at 8.5 with the Giants at 7. The Eagles are last, that doesnt mean thats where they will finish. Here is what each of their rivals did in the draft: COWBOYS Round 1: (No. 12) Micah Parsons, LB, Penn State Round 2: (44) Kelvin Joseph, CB, Kentucky Round 3: (75) Osa Odighizuwa, DL, UCLA (84) Acquired from Eagles in the move down two spots in the first round: Chauncey Golston, DE, Iowa (99) Nashon Wright, CB, Oregon State Round 4: (115) Jabril Cox, LB, LSU (138) Josh Ball, OT, Marshall Round 5: (179) Simi Fehoko, WR, Stanford Round 6: (192) Quinton Bohanna, DT, Kentucky (227) Israel Mukuamu, CB, South Carolina Round 7: (238) Matt Farniok, OG, Nebraska FOOTBALL TEAM Round 1: (19) Jamin Davis, LB, Kentucky Round 2: (51) Sam Cosmi, OT, Texas Round 3: (74) Benjamin St-Juste, CB, Minnesota (82) Dyami Brown, WR, North Carolina Round 4: (124) John Bates, TE, Boise State Round 5: (163) Darrick Forrest, S, Cincinnati Round 6: (225) Camaron Cheeseman, LS, Michigan Round 7: (240) Will Bradley-King, DE, Baylor (246) Shaka Toney, DE, Penn State (258) Dax Milne, WR, BYU GIANTS Round 1: (20) Kadarius Toney, WR, Florida Round 2: (50) Azeez Ojulari, OLB, Georgia Round 3: (71) Aaron Robinson, CB, UCF Round 4: (116) Elerson Smith, OLB, Northern Iowa Round 6: (196) Gary Brightwell, RB, Arizona (201) Rodarius Williams, CB, Oklahoma State Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.coms EagleMaven and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze. | Not many believe the Eagles have a chance at doing much this season. The Eagles are expected to finish last in the NFC East, but that doesn't mean that's where they will finish. There are still enough veterans that know how to win and will pass that tricky recipe on down the younguns. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.si.com/nfl/eagles/news/can-eagles-compete-to-win-nfc-east-this-season | 0.249709 |
Which of the Jets undrafted rookies are most likely to make the team? | Jets TE Kenny Yeboah at Ole Miss The Jets rookie minicamp got underway on Friday with the team confirming the signing of 12 undrafted free agents. Joe Douglas has been praised for how he moved quickly to acquire a few players many expected to be drafted and wasnt afraid to splash the cash in terms of guaranteed salaries and bonus payments to land his targets. Last years undrafted rookies included four players who remain on the roster for 2021. Cornerback Lamar Jackson started six games and edge rusher Bryce Huff and receiver Lawrence Cager each saw action off the bench. However, the best pickup might have been slot cornerback Javelin Guidry who contributed late in the season, leading the team with four forced fumbles. The lack of resources allocated to the slot cornerback position in the offseason perhaps suggests the Jets anticipate Guidry playing a key role in his second season. Lets consider three of the candidates G Tristen Hoge - BYU One common theme when draft analysts were evaluating Zach Wilson was concern over the fact that he rarely seemed to be under pressure. However, the Jets instead used this to inspire one of their undrafted pickups. Hoge started 25 games at right guard over the past three years and didnt give up a sack in eight 2020 appearances. While he might lack the athletic ability of most of the Jets recent additions, he flashes signs of physical dominance and may bring some versatility because he has worked at center in the past. At 24, Hoge is an older prospect and has some durability concerns having missed games due to injury and illness over the past few years so its easy to see why he didnt get drafted. However, hell give Wilson a familiar face to go through his first offseason with and will compete for a role on a Jets offensive line that is looking for young players to step up and establish themselves as potential long-term contributors. Story continues OLB Hamilcar Rashed Jr. - Oregon State Amazingly, Rashed went from earning some potential first-rounder buzz to completely undrafted in less than a year. Having broken onto the scene as a junior, Rashed almost entered the 2020 draft but his decision to stay in school backfired badly. His production fell off a cliff in 2020 as he dealt with injury issues and criticisms over his effort levels. Rasheds 2019 season had made NFL scouts sit up and take notice as he racked up 14 sacks, led the nation in tackles for loss and was a first team All-American. While questions surrounding effort levels are troubling, its notable that his relentless work ethic was widely praised during and after the 2019 season. Clearly, if he can rediscover the form that led him to register those numbers, Rashed could be a bargain for the Jets. They certainly wasted no time in securing his agreement because he was the first undrafted player reported to have agreed terms with any team. While hes primarily a pass rusher, Rashed also exhibits some ability to set the edge against the run and drop back and match up in coverage. This would make him an interesting fit within the Jets system and a potential candidate to compete for time at the strong side linebacker position. TE Kenny Yeboah - Ole Miss Many were shocked when Yeboah went undrafted following a breakout senior campaign which saw him rack up 524 yards and six touchdowns in just seven games. The Jets, having not addressed the tight end position with any of their 10 draft picks, went above and beyond to get Yeboah signed, as they reportedly agreed to give him $200,000 in guarantees to outbid a few other teams. After four years at Temple, Yeboah transferred to Ole Miss where he thrived as a teammate of Jets second round pick Elijah Moore. Hes more of a pass catching threat than a blocker but is versatile enough to line up in the slot, out wide or in the backfield. The Jets added Tyler Kroft to their tight end room during the offseason so there should be a good competition for roles between him, Chris Herndon, Ryan Griffin and Trevon Wesco. Yeboah, however, arguably has higher upside than any of them, so the Jets could look to find a spot for him if he impresses during the offseason. | Tristen Hoge, Hamilcar Rashed Jr. and Kenny Yeboah are among the undrafted players the Jets have signed so far this offseason. Hoge and Rashed are the most likely to make the team. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://sports.yahoo.com/jets-undrafted-rookies-most-likely-135616420.html?src=rss | 0.737521 |
Which of the Jets undrafted rookies are most likely to make the team? | Jets TE Kenny Yeboah at Ole Miss The Jets rookie minicamp got underway on Friday with the team confirming the signing of 12 undrafted free agents. Joe Douglas has been praised for how he moved quickly to acquire a few players many expected to be drafted and wasnt afraid to splash the cash in terms of guaranteed salaries and bonus payments to land his targets. Last years undrafted rookies included four players who remain on the roster for 2021. Cornerback Lamar Jackson started six games and edge rusher Bryce Huff and receiver Lawrence Cager each saw action off the bench. However, the best pickup might have been slot cornerback Javelin Guidry who contributed late in the season, leading the team with four forced fumbles. The lack of resources allocated to the slot cornerback position in the offseason perhaps suggests the Jets anticipate Guidry playing a key role in his second season. Lets consider three of the candidates G Tristen Hoge - BYU One common theme when draft analysts were evaluating Zach Wilson was concern over the fact that he rarely seemed to be under pressure. However, the Jets instead used this to inspire one of their undrafted pickups. Hoge started 25 games at right guard over the past three years and didnt give up a sack in eight 2020 appearances. While he might lack the athletic ability of most of the Jets recent additions, he flashes signs of physical dominance and may bring some versatility because he has worked at center in the past. At 24, Hoge is an older prospect and has some durability concerns having missed games due to injury and illness over the past few years so its easy to see why he didnt get drafted. However, hell give Wilson a familiar face to go through his first offseason with and will compete for a role on a Jets offensive line that is looking for young players to step up and establish themselves as potential long-term contributors. Story continues OLB Hamilcar Rashed Jr. - Oregon State Amazingly, Rashed went from earning some potential first-rounder buzz to completely undrafted in less than a year. Having broken onto the scene as a junior, Rashed almost entered the 2020 draft but his decision to stay in school backfired badly. His production fell off a cliff in 2020 as he dealt with injury issues and criticisms over his effort levels. Rasheds 2019 season had made NFL scouts sit up and take notice as he racked up 14 sacks, led the nation in tackles for loss and was a first team All-American. While questions surrounding effort levels are troubling, its notable that his relentless work ethic was widely praised during and after the 2019 season. Clearly, if he can rediscover the form that led him to register those numbers, Rashed could be a bargain for the Jets. They certainly wasted no time in securing his agreement because he was the first undrafted player reported to have agreed terms with any team. While hes primarily a pass rusher, Rashed also exhibits some ability to set the edge against the run and drop back and match up in coverage. This would make him an interesting fit within the Jets system and a potential candidate to compete for time at the strong side linebacker position. TE Kenny Yeboah - Ole Miss Many were shocked when Yeboah went undrafted following a breakout senior campaign which saw him rack up 524 yards and six touchdowns in just seven games. The Jets, having not addressed the tight end position with any of their 10 draft picks, went above and beyond to get Yeboah signed, as they reportedly agreed to give him $200,000 in guarantees to outbid a few other teams. After four years at Temple, Yeboah transferred to Ole Miss where he thrived as a teammate of Jets second round pick Elijah Moore. Hes more of a pass catching threat than a blocker but is versatile enough to line up in the slot, out wide or in the backfield. The Jets added Tyler Kroft to their tight end room during the offseason so there should be a good competition for roles between him, Chris Herndon, Ryan Griffin and Trevon Wesco. Yeboah, however, arguably has higher upside than any of them, so the Jets could look to find a spot for him if he impresses during the offseason. | Tristen Hoge, Hamilcar Rashed Jr. and Kenny Yeboah are among the undrafted players the Jets have signed so far this offseason. Hoge and Rashed are two of the most likely to make the team in the next few years. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://sports.yahoo.com/jets-undrafted-rookies-most-likely-135616420.html?src=rss | 0.744054 |
Can Jason Kenney stare down Albertas COVID compliance problem? | MIRROR, ALTA.On a sunny afternoon outside the Whistle Stop Caf, Chris Scott stood in arm-crossed defiance. The restaurant hes owned for almost two years is the size of a two-car garage and sits just off a barren stretch of highway near the Alberta hamlet of Mirror. This week, it had been shut down by authorities, the front door secured with an orange padlock and metal chain. Alberta Health Services says Scotts business has been the subject of a whopping 413 public health complaints this calendar year, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Scott says hes surprised its not more. Ive been pushing back against these restrictions since Jan. 21, he says. Those people that dont believe in our rights and freedoms and believe that the government needs to keep them safe they have a problem with this. Alberta has been wrestling with the highest COVID-19 rates in North America. Its hospital system is, according to officials, nearing a point of crisis. Amid that state of affairs, Premier Jason Kenney has said his province has a compliance problem when it comes to health restrictions. If thats so, Scott and his restaurant are one face of it. The movement against COVID-19 restrictions represents a minority of Albertans, by all accounts. The degree to which their defiance is contributing to the spread of the virus in the province is impossible to pinpoint. There are other factors, such as variants, demographics and even politics, that are also playing their role. But resistance to government-imposed limitations or lockdowns has emerged as a defining challenge of Albertas crisis with anger boiling over on all sides. People gathered outside the Whistle Stop on Wednesday to drink beer, eat burgers and show support for Scott after Albertas health authority announced it was physically shutting him down after several weeks of trying to work collaboratively with him. We did follow the restrictions at first, says Scott, calling it the perpetual two weeks to flatten the curve. Asked if he was concerned about people catching the virus at his restaurant, Scott said he wouldnt want that, and that he hasnt heard from anyone who has been infected after being there aside from a few on Facebook, but they werent able to back that up, he said. Among the two dozen people who showed up to the Whistle Stop, the mood was relaxed, but the air was full of anti-government sentiment and conversations about bogus public health restrictions. Trucks passing by let out long drawls on their horns; some supporters cheered across the dirt parking lot in response. Such scenes are a worrying prospect for the provincial government, and pose a challenge for Kenney, the leader of a supposedly united Conservative government. Kenney has been roundly criticized by those on the left for failing to take strong enough action during the pandemic amid his extolling of personal responsibility and the importance of protecting business in his freedom-loving province. His government has also been fighting with health-care workers over a contract dispute and facing fierce criticism from teachers throughout the pandemic. A chunk of his own caucus MLAs, mostly from rural ridings, have also openly revolted against public health measures his government has put in place. Kenneys popularity currently sits at the lowest its been since last year, with an Angus Reid poll in April finding about 75 per cent of people said he was doing a bad job during the pandemic. Frank Graves, a pollster with the firm EKOS, suggests Kenney faces a problem in Alberta that is unique in its intensity. Graves has been studying the links between anti-restriction convictions and a political outlook he terms ordered populism, which helped predict who would vote for former U.S. President Donald Trump and which, by Graves research, is represented in Alberta more than any other Canadian province. The people who have this kind of view tend to have a very negative view of government, public institutions, science, climate change, he said. This group, found throughout Canada but more common in Alberta, is likely to oppose coronavirus restrictions heavily. Its not just: I dont like these ideas. Its: Im defiant. Its an affront to my personal liberties, the virus is a hoax its wildly exaggerated, he said. Kenney has struggled during the pandemic because many of his decisions have been based on political interests, said Lori Williams, a policy studies professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary. Part of that was his attempt to appeal to libertarian populists who make up a chunk of rural voters, she said, because it led to mixed messaging. One day, hell say he doesnt think lockdowns work, then the next hell introduce more restrictions, Williams said. This is somebody who was making decisions based on what he thought would benefit him politically instead of what would help with the virus or the economy, said Williams. If hed been more nimble, in terms of how he responded, a lot of things might have been different. Its not that Albertas complex situation is all his fault, she added, but he very much wears this. Kenney this week outlined some factors he said were contributing to his provinces current lot a case count of 308 per 100,000 people, as of last week, which was higher than anywhere else in Canada or the United States. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... He cited the fact the province has the youngest population in Canada, and COVID-19 tends to spread more quickly among them. Albertans work more, he said, with a higher labour force participation rate resulting in more people mixing with others. The variants of the virus have taken hold in Alberta, too. Out of the 24,156 active cases in the province, 14,358 are linked to a variant of concern. And, Kenney who rolled out a slate of stricter health measures and penalties on Tuesday acknowledged, some people have flouted the rules the government has tried to impose. Obviously, compliance is a critical part of it. During a Facebook Live event Tuesday night, Kenney said its reached a point where there have been threats directed at him and at members of his family. He referenced one statement made online by Ty Northcott, the organizer of the anti-lockdown rodeo, which seemed to reference conspiracy theories and called Kenney a tyrannical being. Tyrannical beings, not even human beings, the tyrannical beings of the current world. What the heck does that mean? Kenney asked on the livestream as comments streamed in. Is that now merging with the David Icke lizard people conspiracy theory? People who are making death threats against me and my family, and are talking about the tyrannical beings that are taking over the world, no theyre not my base, theyre not Alberta conservatives. Theyre not mainstream Albertans. Part of the problem that Kenney faces is that, although it is not a mainstream belief that COVID-19 is a conspiracy orchestrated by tyrants, it is one that lingers in his province. Research by the polling agency EKOS shows that while about 15 per cent of Canadians hold strong anti-government views associated with resisting lockdowns, its closer to 30 per cent of Albertans. Kenneys task therefore, said Graves, is to right the ship using blunt tools such as enforcing restrictions through fines and legal penalties. You dont have time to engage and educate and use moral suasion, so you have to use much blunter tools, he said. No more violins, its hammers now. In the work Graves has done polling people on their willingness to comply with pandemic measures, hes found those most adamantly opposed are unlikely to respond to scientific evidence theyre entrenched in their views and consuming misinformation online. What may make a difference is not Kenneys scolding, but seeing real-life consequences for not complying. I believe a deal-closer will be vaccine passports, Graves said. The private sector is going to do that. It may make a difference if you cant go to an Eric Church tour or get on a plane without a vaccine certificate. One thing Kenney tried to do was appeal to the law-and-order side of people, saying that, even if you dont like it, these restrictions are the law and will be enforced. Luanne Whitmarsh, a Calgary woman who said three family members and 11 friends have died during the pandemic, was glad to see Kenney cracking down. She said the attitude of a minority of fellow Albertans who strongly oppose restrictions is creating a more dangerous and distressing situation for everyone else. Until youve lost someone, it might not mean the same to you that were all at risk, Whitmarsh said. The scenes of Albertans gathered at a protest rally last weekend, and of churches holding large services in defiance of COVID-19 rules, are particularly infuriating to her. What I think is happening, I just think that everyones mad and they dont know who to be mad at so theyre mad at everything, she said. All this Youre infringing on my rights nonsense those people are infringing on my rights because this could have been over. Read more about: | Alberta has been wrestling with the highest COVID-19 rates in North America. Jason Kenney has said his province has a compliance problem when it comes to health restrictions. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/05/08/can-jason-kenney-stare-down-albertas-covid-compliance-problem.html | 0.240094 |
Can Jason Kenney stare down Albertas COVID compliance problem? | MIRROR, ALTA.On a sunny afternoon outside the Whistle Stop Caf, Chris Scott stood in arm-crossed defiance. The restaurant hes owned for almost two years is the size of a two-car garage and sits just off a barren stretch of highway near the Alberta hamlet of Mirror. This week, it had been shut down by authorities, the front door secured with an orange padlock and metal chain. Alberta Health Services says Scotts business has been the subject of a whopping 413 public health complaints this calendar year, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Scott says hes surprised its not more. Ive been pushing back against these restrictions since Jan. 21, he says. Those people that dont believe in our rights and freedoms and believe that the government needs to keep them safe they have a problem with this. Alberta has been wrestling with the highest COVID-19 rates in North America. Its hospital system is, according to officials, nearing a point of crisis. Amid that state of affairs, Premier Jason Kenney has said his province has a compliance problem when it comes to health restrictions. If thats so, Scott and his restaurant are one face of it. The movement against COVID-19 restrictions represents a minority of Albertans, by all accounts. The degree to which their defiance is contributing to the spread of the virus in the province is impossible to pinpoint. There are other factors, such as variants, demographics and even politics, that are also playing their role. But resistance to government-imposed limitations or lockdowns has emerged as a defining challenge of Albertas crisis with anger boiling over on all sides. People gathered outside the Whistle Stop on Wednesday to drink beer, eat burgers and show support for Scott after Albertas health authority announced it was physically shutting him down after several weeks of trying to work collaboratively with him. We did follow the restrictions at first, says Scott, calling it the perpetual two weeks to flatten the curve. Asked if he was concerned about people catching the virus at his restaurant, Scott said he wouldnt want that, and that he hasnt heard from anyone who has been infected after being there aside from a few on Facebook, but they werent able to back that up, he said. Among the two dozen people who showed up to the Whistle Stop, the mood was relaxed, but the air was full of anti-government sentiment and conversations about bogus public health restrictions. Trucks passing by let out long drawls on their horns; some supporters cheered across the dirt parking lot in response. Such scenes are a worrying prospect for the provincial government, and pose a challenge for Kenney, the leader of a supposedly united Conservative government. Kenney has been roundly criticized by those on the left for failing to take strong enough action during the pandemic amid his extolling of personal responsibility and the importance of protecting business in his freedom-loving province. His government has also been fighting with health-care workers over a contract dispute and facing fierce criticism from teachers throughout the pandemic. A chunk of his own caucus MLAs, mostly from rural ridings, have also openly revolted against public health measures his government has put in place. Kenneys popularity currently sits at the lowest its been since last year, with an Angus Reid poll in April finding about 75 per cent of people said he was doing a bad job during the pandemic. Frank Graves, a pollster with the firm EKOS, suggests Kenney faces a problem in Alberta that is unique in its intensity. Graves has been studying the links between anti-restriction convictions and a political outlook he terms ordered populism, which helped predict who would vote for former U.S. President Donald Trump and which, by Graves research, is represented in Alberta more than any other Canadian province. The people who have this kind of view tend to have a very negative view of government, public institutions, science, climate change, he said. This group, found throughout Canada but more common in Alberta, is likely to oppose coronavirus restrictions heavily. Its not just: I dont like these ideas. Its: Im defiant. Its an affront to my personal liberties, the virus is a hoax its wildly exaggerated, he said. Kenney has struggled during the pandemic because many of his decisions have been based on political interests, said Lori Williams, a policy studies professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary. Part of that was his attempt to appeal to libertarian populists who make up a chunk of rural voters, she said, because it led to mixed messaging. One day, hell say he doesnt think lockdowns work, then the next hell introduce more restrictions, Williams said. This is somebody who was making decisions based on what he thought would benefit him politically instead of what would help with the virus or the economy, said Williams. If hed been more nimble, in terms of how he responded, a lot of things might have been different. Its not that Albertas complex situation is all his fault, she added, but he very much wears this. Kenney this week outlined some factors he said were contributing to his provinces current lot a case count of 308 per 100,000 people, as of last week, which was higher than anywhere else in Canada or the United States. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... He cited the fact the province has the youngest population in Canada, and COVID-19 tends to spread more quickly among them. Albertans work more, he said, with a higher labour force participation rate resulting in more people mixing with others. The variants of the virus have taken hold in Alberta, too. Out of the 24,156 active cases in the province, 14,358 are linked to a variant of concern. And, Kenney who rolled out a slate of stricter health measures and penalties on Tuesday acknowledged, some people have flouted the rules the government has tried to impose. Obviously, compliance is a critical part of it. During a Facebook Live event Tuesday night, Kenney said its reached a point where there have been threats directed at him and at members of his family. He referenced one statement made online by Ty Northcott, the organizer of the anti-lockdown rodeo, which seemed to reference conspiracy theories and called Kenney a tyrannical being. Tyrannical beings, not even human beings, the tyrannical beings of the current world. What the heck does that mean? Kenney asked on the livestream as comments streamed in. Is that now merging with the David Icke lizard people conspiracy theory? People who are making death threats against me and my family, and are talking about the tyrannical beings that are taking over the world, no theyre not my base, theyre not Alberta conservatives. Theyre not mainstream Albertans. Part of the problem that Kenney faces is that, although it is not a mainstream belief that COVID-19 is a conspiracy orchestrated by tyrants, it is one that lingers in his province. Research by the polling agency EKOS shows that while about 15 per cent of Canadians hold strong anti-government views associated with resisting lockdowns, its closer to 30 per cent of Albertans. Kenneys task therefore, said Graves, is to right the ship using blunt tools such as enforcing restrictions through fines and legal penalties. You dont have time to engage and educate and use moral suasion, so you have to use much blunter tools, he said. No more violins, its hammers now. In the work Graves has done polling people on their willingness to comply with pandemic measures, hes found those most adamantly opposed are unlikely to respond to scientific evidence theyre entrenched in their views and consuming misinformation online. What may make a difference is not Kenneys scolding, but seeing real-life consequences for not complying. I believe a deal-closer will be vaccine passports, Graves said. The private sector is going to do that. It may make a difference if you cant go to an Eric Church tour or get on a plane without a vaccine certificate. One thing Kenney tried to do was appeal to the law-and-order side of people, saying that, even if you dont like it, these restrictions are the law and will be enforced. Luanne Whitmarsh, a Calgary woman who said three family members and 11 friends have died during the pandemic, was glad to see Kenney cracking down. She said the attitude of a minority of fellow Albertans who strongly oppose restrictions is creating a more dangerous and distressing situation for everyone else. Until youve lost someone, it might not mean the same to you that were all at risk, Whitmarsh said. The scenes of Albertans gathered at a protest rally last weekend, and of churches holding large services in defiance of COVID-19 rules, are particularly infuriating to her. What I think is happening, I just think that everyones mad and they dont know who to be mad at so theyre mad at everything, she said. All this Youre infringing on my rights nonsense those people are infringing on my rights because this could have been over. Read more about: | Alberta has been wrestling with the highest COVID-19 rates in North America. Premier Jason Kenney has said his province has a compliance problem when it comes to health restrictions. A restaurant owner says he's surprised it's not more than 413 public health complaints. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/05/08/can-jason-kenney-stare-down-albertas-covid-compliance-problem.html | 0.373507 |
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