Eighteen Italian fishermen, held captive in Libya for more than 100 days, have been freed, ending a political standoff between the two countries over the fate of the men.

The prolonged imprisonment of the group had become an embarrassment for Italys government, with critics accusing ministers of failing to stand up to Khalifa Haftar, the military commander who holds sway in eastern Libya.

The Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, and foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, flew to Benghazi for the release of the fishermen, who were on board two Sicilian boats that were seized by Haftars forces on 1 September.

We received phone calls confirming their imminent release, Salvatore Quinci, the mayor of the Sicilian port town of Mazara del Vallo, where the men are from, told Italian media. We are really happy.

Di Maio wrote on Facebook: Our fishermen are free. In a few hours they will be able to hug their families and loved ones again. Thanks to AISE [Italys external intelligence and security agency] and to all the diplomatic corps who worked to bring them home.

The fishermens families, who have held several protests demanding their release, gathered outside Mazara del Vallos town hall after hearing the news.

The fishing crew was onboard two vessels, the Antartide and Medinea, about 80 miles off Benghazi, when they were approached by militia belonging to Haftars Libyan National Army, the major military force in the east of the country.

The militia accused them of fishing in Libyan territorial waters and from there they were taken to a prison close to Benghazi.

The men were accused of fishing for prized red prawns, which can fetch between 50 and 70 a kilo, in a dispute that has dragged on between Sicily and Libya since the mid-1990s.

Senators from the Democratic party, which rules nationally in coalition with the Five Star Movement, presented a motion this week urging the government to move quickly to secure their release.

After more than 100 days of seizure, 18 fishermen are coming home, the senators, led by Andrea Marcucci, said.

Weeks after their capture, Haftar reportedly offered to release the men in exchange for Italy freeing four Libyan footballers convicted of human trafficking.

Seizures of Italian fishing boats became more frequent in 2005, when Muammar Gaddafi unilaterally decided to extend Libyas territorial waters from 12 to 74 miles offshore.

According to data from Sicilys Distretto della Pesca, a cooperative that unites stakeholders in the fishing industry, in the past 25 years more than 50 boats have been seized and two confiscated, while about 30 fishermen were detained and dozens of people injured.

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Italian fishermen held in Libya freed after more than 100 days - The Guardian

1. JUST AS ADVERTISED

The teams who took advantage of and invested in the 2020 all-time great wide receiver class have already seen their selections pay off. Back in April, when general managers hung out with their friends online, thirteen receivers were selected in the first two rounds of the 2020 NFL Draft. This season they have combined for 102 catches for 1,452 yards and 5 touchdowns in three weeks.

This week Justin Jefferson was unleashed. Gary Kubiak read last weeks TEN THINGS and realized that, yes, I should get Jefferson integrated in the offense. Kirk Cousins working out of three step drops under center and trying to complete every pass to Adam Thielen isnt a framework for a successful offense. Jefferson had 7 catches on 9 targets for 175 yards and 1 touchdown.

Jefferson played primarily from the slot at LSU, but he has the skill set to win from any pre-snap alignment on the field. On 2nd & 8, he used a hop release against Malcolm Butler (#21), whos playing press-man. The release gives him inside leverage, and opens up Butlers hips. Conjoined together in motion like this, Jefferson swipes Butler off with his forearm and breaks on the out. After the catch he turns to fight from the bear trap tackle to pick up the first.

This same release was used on 3rd and 3 to beat Butler in man coverage again. This time he doesnt snap off the route. He carries it up field, without squeezing himself into the sideline. His inside arm staves off Butlers near arm, the one closest to the catch point, without fully extending. Butler is turned and chasing. Jefferson leaps over him to high point the ball, and show off his yellow hamburger helper gloves.

He sat in weak spots against zone coverage, used his arm to swipe away limbs and create space, and of course, there was the deep post play action touchdown. On 2nd & 8, the Vikings lined up in an I-formation and motion Thielen across the line of scrimmage to create a twin left wide receiver formation. Against cover one, this puts Johnathan Joseph (#33) against Jefferson, and Butler against Thielen, with Kenny Vacarro (#24) acting as the deep middle defender.

Joseph is unprepared and wishes he built that concrete bunker. He shuffles and attempts to catch Jefferson in a desperate fit. Jefferson takes a slight stab upfield to keep Joseph stuck to the turf, and then busts to the numbers. Then its just called being an athlete. He outruns Josephs diving leg grasping attempt, and cuts inside of Vacarros pursuit angle, before tap dancing into the endzone like that cartoon frog who died in the 1990s.

Minnesotas outside zone play action offense worked the last two seasons because of the dynamics Stefon Diggs and Thielen offered. After a messy breakup, its up to Jefferson to slide into this role and provide the big plays offered against single high defenses stuck filling the box in an attempt to stop Dalvin Cook.

Of this rookie class, Jerry Jeudy is my personal favorite so far. He turns even simple slant routes against man coverage, into a spectacular display of dance.

This is as much as it is a seizure, as it is a shuffle release.

Hes been best from the slot so far, running these crossing routes and winning with speed alone. His vertical game has been limited by his quarterbacks, Drew Lock, whos the anti-Josh Allen, and Jeff Driskel. Hopefully one day hell play with a quarterback who can fully utilize him. For now, its obscene route running, that makes up for the dropsies, and limited route tree.

Im also a fan of his Denver teammate KJ Hamler. Hes more than a return man. His speed on the outside creates meadows of separation between him and the corner. Speed like this opens up digs, outs, and comeback routes. Like Jeudy, hes going to horrifying once the quarterback position is settled.

CeeDee Lamb is the leader entering week four with 245 receiving yards. He looks like hes performing a hyperrealized version of football in a soft drink commercial, than actually playing football. Out in space, hes a great spinning carousel, flashing pastel lights and colors, and if he was a carousel creature, instead of the carousel itself, hed be the ostrich. This out route against Atlanta happened two weeks ago, and Im still wrapped up in it.

Jalen Reagor started the year off with a bomb against the football team. He caught one pass that game for 55 yards. Against quarters coverage a dino route froze the corner, and then liquefied him. The golden retriever frisbee catch turned 3rd and 22 into a first down conversion.

He torched the corner, and split the safety, on a post route that flattened to the sideline, out running the secondary both vertically and horizontally. Carson Wentz was just a little too juiced up.

Unfortunately, Reagor is out until at least week nine because of a thumb injury. Hes lucky thats all he escaped the Rams game with after Wentz led him into the volcano multiple times.

Henry Ruggs III is Jeudys former Alabama teammate. He hasnt contributed much aside from a deep play action catch against Carolina. The speed is easy until he does though.

Tee Higgins caught two easy touchdown passes against Philadelphia. His best catch was a deep out against cover three. Its a great attack at the catch point, and he snags it away from his body. Hes big, and hes from Clemson, and even if he looks a little slow, hes probably going to be good.

Brandon Aiyuk, like Reagor, is a deep play threat. In his second game against New York (G), he caught 5 passes for 70 yards, but it was pretty mild. A lot of squatting against zone, except for his end around touchdown run. Hes almost too fast on this touchdown, and nearly drove his car off the field, and into the ravine along the sideline. Im sure Kyle Shanahan has some great big plans for him that will leave FilmTwitter dripping throughout this season.

Chase Claypool caught a fade route he shouldnt have been able to catch against a deep third vertical defender. The foot race after the catch is awe inspiring, and rarely seen, from a player of his size.

Laviska Shenault Jr., is a running back and a receiver this year. He has 8 carries and 11 catches. As a receiver, hes mainly running crossing patterns and stampeding through the secondary after the catch. Hes like if Cordarrelle Patterson was a worse running back, but a better receiver.

As for the rest, Van Jefferson broke a tackle in week one against Dallas to score, and is fighting for leftover targets with Josh Reynolds. Michael Pittman Jr. sat in zone coverage a few times, but never started his downfield work with Philip Rivers before leg surgery zapped his season. And Denzel Mims is on the injured reserve because of hamstrings, not a hamstring, but hamstrings. Hell be better off waiting until Adam Gase is fired before playing a snap anyways.

Every generation is better than the previous one. Theyll keep pushing the mind and body into undiscovered dimensions and unheard of athletic feats. These receivers seem more than that though. Theyre advanced. A different species birthed from years of incubation in the womb of 7 v. 7 national camps and spread offenses. The speed, skill, and talent, is already superseding what you see from typical rookie receivers.

It hurts my eyes. Theyre little blurs across the screen. I can barely keep up. I dont even know if I like it. But theyre here, and theyre going to transform the league anyways.

2. G-TE COUNTER

After smashing hands until theyre bloody purple mangled mashes, and heads into sternums until there is a dull ringing, pulling is a liberating experience for an offensive lineman. Nothing beats a nice drop step, coming around your teammates hip, and BLAM-O.

My favorite power run play iteration is guard-tight end counter. In the battle of OHIO, the Cleveland Browns ran this play to perfection to hollow out the Cincinnati Bengals front seven.

Since theyre running this play to the weak-side of the formation they end up getting two individual down blocks, and left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. (#71) drives the defensive end out wide on his own. Both Wyatt Teller (1) and Austin Hooper (2) pull to the box linebackers. Its a perfect play for a seven man box, with the strong side alley defender a safety on the opposite side of the formation.

Teller strangles the chest. Hooper, an underrated blocker, has perfect inside head placement to act as a shield between the defender and the ball carrier.

Then, from there, its time for the secondary to tackle Nick Chubb, which is like trying to grind a train to a halt with a lasso.

Minnesota ran the same play to score from 39 yards out against Tennessee. The first play-side double team takes the two tight ends to the first linebacker. The duece between Dru Samia (#73) and Brian ONeill (#75) isnt required to get to the second level. They only have to drive the 3 technique off the line of scrimmage. After that its down blocks to ensure clean pulls, and Dakota Dozier (#78) and Irv Smith Jr. (#84) to lead the way.

Its a great mix up to the outside zone. Front seven defenders flow with the direction of the offensive line and get sucked up away from the play. The down blocks on the play-side get the front moving in this direction. Here, it leads to (1) Kenny Vacarro (#24) breaking away from the play, and scampering back to the ball directly into Dozier. Each double team does its job. Smith Jr., like Hooper, understands the importance of head placement. And Dalvin Cook gets to play race car once the hole materializes.

The Browns and Vikings look into the mirror and see each other. The trunk of both offenses is the outside zone, and other plays are tendrils shooting off it. The lateral movement of the outside zone, hypnotizes the defense into following the movement of the line of scrimmage, instead of the steps themselves. Which then opens up change up plays like this for enormous gains.

Guard-tight end counter rules. Keep your eyes open for it, and off the ball, as you watch more and more football before the Titans ruin it all.

3. JEFFERY

Jeffery Simmons fell in the 2019 NFL Draft because of a torn ACL, and character concerns, which turned a top ten talent into the 19th overall pick. The Titans got their Jurrell Casey replacement who could play every technique on the interior up to the five, and anchor Titans defensive lines in the future. As a rookie, he flashed, but didnt provide consistent production, having to learn the pro game on the fly, while trying to work himself into shape.

After bathing in the lake, and drying off this offseason, Simmons has dived into this season. From the defensive tackle position, he already has 12 tackles, 2 tackles for a loss, 2 quarterback hits, and 1 sack. Against Minnesota, he was tumor that poisoned the Vikings offense.

The entirety of the Vikings interior, Sumia, Garrett Bradbury, and Dozier, were trampled by Simmonss power.

On his first sack, Simmons picked up Dozier (#73) and carried him into Kirk Cousinss lap. He drives him four yards backwards, extends him with his inside arm, and pops over to the top to devour Cousins.

The Vikings are running a quick pitch play. Simmons is the 1 against Bradberry (#56). Immediately off the snap he turns him into soup.

On first and ten, Simmons is the 4i against ONeill (#75). Simmons slants inside with the line backer looping around and ends up crunching ONeill. Hes supposed to create space for the linebacker. Instead, he uses his inside arm to drive ONeill, and swims wide to force a Cousins squirter.

In the run game, he has the strength to take on the entirety of one blocker. He doesnt have to attack half of him to gain control of the block. Two hands punch the chest, extend the blocker, and control the block. Simmons overwhelms two gaps on his own, allowing linebackers to graze freely, and for himself to slip off and strangle the ball carrier.

Against combo blocks, Simmons was able to beat the offensive linemen off the snap, split them, control the blocker stuck to him, and go find the ball. Hes a garbage trunk gurgling in the mud.

And at the end of the game, with the Vikings throwing it down after down to comeback, Simmons cut his ears off and bullrushed the Vikings interior play after play to pressure Cousins, leaving him flapping and trembling unable to find composure in chaos.

In year two, Simmons is already a premier interior defender. He completes every task asked of him. He can shoot one gap to pillage the backfield, control one blocker with both hands to defend two gaps, slant inside to create space for his teammates on stunts, sink the center to detonate the interior of the line of scrimmage, and overwhelm pass protectors with strength and pad level alone. Now, the Titans just need Jadeveon Clowney to get in football shape, to finalize their transition from mediocre to fearsome.

4. MESSING WITH MESH

When John Gruden signed his ten-year $100 million deal with the P.F. Changs appetizer guzzling bowl cut demon, snarky internet football chatter languished the decision, expecting the Raiders to adhere strictly to Triassic era football decisions, and toil in the depths of the league.

This hasnt happened. Instead, the Raiders have put together one of the ten best offenses in the league, based around a bone chewing offensive line, thats surrounded by a first round running back, play action, multiple tight end sets, young wide receivers, a never ending Is he good? questioned quarterback, all because Gruden knows how to manipulate the defense to create easy open throws.

This near touchdown pass to Hunter Renfrow is a perfect example of the opportunities Gruden conjures up. Out of a trips left formation, with the two slot receivers stacked, the Raiders run two shallow crosses. Hunter Renfrow (#13) is running the under. Bryan Edwards (#89) the over. The rest of the routes are made to clear out space and hold the deep middle safety in the center of the field. Carr has Edwards to set up an easier field goal, or, he has Renfrow.

The difference is Renfrow breaks his route upfield once he gets past the safety horizontally.

With great pass protection in front of him, Carr is able to sit and hold the safety, until opening up his heart and tossing a lovely touch pass that sounds like a flute as it spins over the trailing defensive back, and in front of the chasing safety.

The Raiders passing offense is filled with horizontal movement, and sneaky deceptions that open up opportunities for Carr, who has shown, once again, that if he has elite pass protection, he can be one of the leagues better quarterbacks. The real fun is going to be if the Raiders can ever establish a presence out wide.

Ruggs is hurt. Bryan Edwards is fine. Nelson Agholor is stretchy. Renfrow is the archetypal white guy slot receiver. But their best receiver is Darren Waller once again. In the meantime, Gruden is going to have cook up kooky stuff like this to scheme open routes for Carr.

5. TYTUS v. T.J.

Tytus Howard has the perfect body for an offensive tackle. Reminiscent of Duane Brown, hes wider than the planets themselves, has enormous bulky arms, powerful belly, and feet that scurry like mice. But, unlike Brown, he didnt start playing offensive tackle until late in life, played SWAC football in a cheesy college offense, and had a long way to go to learn how to play the position.

Last season there were sparkly run game blocks. The body was beautiful. Even if his pass set was wonky, because of his girth, it was a cross country drive for defensive linemen to get around him and attack the quarterback. He survived his rookie season, until an injury knocked him out, but he was far and away from being an actual offensive tackle.

To start 2020 he had similar run game issues. Hes been meek at the point of attack when pulling. He, along with Zach Fulton, are high and pushing in the run game, nauseating and green. Stunt and blitz pickup issues have poisoned him, like the rest of the offensive line. And hes been late and rigid off the snap a few times in pass protection, giving up immediate pressure.

All that being said, Howard was revelatory against T.J. Watt in pass protection last week. Without chips, he was able to meet Watt fairly square at the point of attack. Latching onto his inside half, and extinguishing his rushes. The punch timing was perfect. And Watt rarely tried to take an inside path because of Howards red spot size. Play after play, Watt was neutralized when rushing against Howard. With blitz pickup improvement, and Laremy Tunsil sticking Bud Dupree on the other side, the Texans pass protection was competent for the majority of the game against one of the best fronts in the league.

Out of all of his reps, this one was his best. Howard is lined up against Watt (#90) who is a wide jet rusher. Despite how detached Watt is from the end of the line of scrimmage, Howard is still able to take a flat pass set. He isnt vertical and giving Watt an easy inside path. Although he opens up the gate a little early; its acceptable.

The key to this rep is his punch timing. Watt is looking to chop Howards punch away, rip around the outside shoulder, bend, and attack Deshaun Watson. Rather than play frenetically, Howard is zen, patient and calm, a forest creek humming over rock. He waits for Watt to show his cards first, while keeping his hands ready at his side. Watt raises his tomahawk.

And after he slices downwards, Howards hands follow over the top of it, and catch Watt. His inside hand is on his chest, and his outside hand is on his inside shoulder.

In this position, his feet dance along with Watts along the curvature of the pocket. Watt loses his momentum, and Howard rock bottoms him. This wide rush attempt opens up the entire B gap, giving Watson space to glide through, and create an easy completion on the run.

The majority of Howards day against Watt looked like this. Heres every rep he had against Watt without a chip involved.

Houston also used chips sporadically to help Howard. The chips closed doors for Watt, forcing him to chase after the quarterback in specific ways, making the infinite finite. It messed with his timing. And in the back of his head, whenever a receiver was lined up in the slot, he had to expect a knife in his side. The chips worked even when they werent used by fogging up Watts brain with caution. Heres every pass rush with a chip involved.

The chips worked until they didnt. Howard set too wide, and it looked like he wasnt expecting Darren Fells (#87) to shove Watt inside. Someone give Fells a half a sack for this sling-shot.

To start the 2020 season, the Texans offensive line has been a hindrance to their offensive production. The run blocking is sickening. The blitz pickup had been just has bad until last week was fine most of the time. That being said, Howard and Tunsils bookend pass protection has been the only bright spot from the front five. This development from Howard is especially beautiful. Howards body gives him an enormous margin of error, but his performance against Watt, was more than being a galactic body, it was a combination of skill and athletic prowess, with some help sprinkled on top.

Now, someone just needs to pierce his septum, twist his nipples, and give him rose colored goggles on run downs.

6. YOUR JOSH ALLEN HIGHLIGHTS FOR THIS WEEK, AND BY YOUR, I MEAN MINE

Orange juice, and roses, the world has awakened to the beauty of Josh Allen. This year hes providing great quarterback play with the absurd and absolutely stupid, instead of last season, when he combined the absurd and absolutely stupid with somewhat competence.

Last week against Los Angeles it was all on display. Downfield lasers, sideline touch passes, easy arm strength, who do you think you are pocket dodging, hornets nest scampering, facemask clenching, deranged locomotive throws, and a game winning drive only Allen could pull off. Here are your highlights for the week.

Im one of those sick souls, who is cautious of things that are too popular. I like specific things that are just for me. They are special, and not watered down and tempered by others thoughts and feelings. Its sordid, and its gross, and Ive always been this way.

The breakout Josh Allen season is hurting my heart. Its painful reading the takes that I typed out two years ago become the forefront, and listening to the podcast clips that regurgitate what I said on Battle Red Radio, that place for cool people to hang out while they do cool things, a year ago. What was once mine is now everyones.

That being said, Allen is too beautiful, and too tremendous to lose because his play is ubiquitous now. It exists for everyone, and not just for me, and not just for those living in yellowing western New York. I guess this is what Matthew, or Peter, or James felt. And I guess thats fine, its just one of those things.

7. KANSAS CITY SCREENING

Andy Reid has been the king of screen passes going back to his Alex Smith days, when he turned the football field into a basketball court, making Smith a point guard, distributing quick and short and horizontal passes across the field, so his light bending skill players could outrun defenders after the catch.

The previous two seasons Reid has turned Patrick Mahomes into the best quarterback of the league, a demigod parading the brands of mass produced products, a MVP, a Superbowl Champion, the face of the league. He took what was horizontal and made it vertical. Injected the air-raid into the NFL, and scorching defenses, doing doughnuts in the parking lot, ruining grass and turf with tire tracks and skidmarks.

To start 2020, the Chiefs offense has been more horizontal than vertical. Theyve taken more of a suit and tie approach. Saving the deep heaving partying for when they need it, and using the 2020 regular season as a warm up for January.

The best screen pass they have going on right now is this multi-layered one. Each outside receiver is running vertical to draw the corners. Out of a split shotgun backfield, Patrick Mahomes fakes the swing pass left, then flips, and rolls right. Both end blockers are blocking the first edge defender. The right guard and tackle, show pass, then follow the linebackers, flat and into the alley. During this confusion, Travis Kelce (#87) tosses his block and leaks up the seam, wide open, and all alone.

The timing here is perfect. Immediately after Kelce flings his defender, Mahomes puts the ball on him. Once the catch is made the only thing in front of him is the deep middle safety. Fortunately, for Baltimore, the linebacker quickly chases back and saves this from being an enormous gain.

This play has two fakes before the ball is dumped off to Kelce. And, of course, if the inside linebacker sits on Kelce, Mahomes can throw the screen with two blockers against one, giving the back ample space to take off.

And if that wasnt rude enough, along with the rest of their passing attack this game, the Chiefs were able to hit Eric Fisher on a touchdown. Last week this space discussed delayed tight end releases. This week the Chiefs used a delayed offensive tackle release.

Kansas City has anointed themselves as the best team in the league once again after baking the Ravens into a pie. Baltimore fell behind early, their rushing attack isnt as good as it was last year, they kicked a cowards field goal, and as good as Lamar Jackson is, his passing ability is in a lesser universe than Mahomess. The first matchup wasnt the riveting call the babysitter game it was expected to be. If theres a second one, hopefully Baltimore can work out the wrinkles in their rushing attack to be better prepared for it.

8. PLAYS WHILE LEADING

Entering this season, I picked the Falcons to win a wildcard spot. Theres no question the team has the talent of a top offense, and enough defensive talent to be below average, but so far, theyve choked on their own success, and blown two games with a 29-10 and 26-10 lead. At 0-3, with the Packers coming up, this is probably going to be an Atlanta season similar to the previous two Atlanta seasons, except this time, the offense is better, and somehow, the defense is worse.

Next summer, if Im still doing this, Ill finally do something Ive always wanted to do. Ill build a model that creates a score to measure how fortunate teams are. Turning wins over Pythogorean total, turnover differential, schedule difficulty, and adjusted games lost, into a nice easy number. For this, instead of one possession record, I would want to use plays while leading instead.

Ive always had this hunch, that plays while leading is a better indicator of success than anything else is, and can act as a replacement for one possession record, which is an enormous net that has no room for specific details. Plays while leading captures teams that blow close games, and removes the misery from falling short in comeback attempts that they never should have had anyways. This, too, could be turned into some expected games won model. For now, its all just stuff stuck in the puddy of my gray and soggy brain.

This season, the Falcons have run 123 offensive plays with a lead. The third most, behind only the Buffalo Bills with 131, and the San Francisco 49ers with 148.

An absolutely bonkers number, the result of a horrendous tackling secondary, and an offense, that gets bogged down by incompletions and a poor rushing attack that elongates the game, giving offenses additional cracks at Isaiah Oliver and company. A team with this many offensive plays run with a lead should be at least 2-1. Instead, the Falcons find themselves 0-3. I wonder, what they exchanged in the underworld to find themselves up 28-3 a long time ago.

Oh, and if youre wondering where Houston is, theyre 27th with 29 plays run with a lead.

9. BIG BLITZING

The Buccaneers defense is insidious. Like Pittsburgh, they have the front four that can create pressure on their own, but that isnt enough, they have to blitz and blitz and blitz, and vivisect and splay out the quarterback so they can inspect his entrails, and then, only then, can they be sure a pass cant be completed.

Close to their own goal line, with backup quarterback Jeff Driskel leading the team, the Broncos operated out of the shotgun with 11 personnel. Tampa matched with their Nickle defense. On 3rd and 15, they of course bring six, because four is never enough.

The Broncos are sliding the right side of their line over one gap, and blocking man on man to the left, with Melvin Gordon (#25) picking up the blitzing linebacker Devin White (#45). Tampa has a defender filling each gap along the left side of the line. Simple enough. The devilish aspect, is the stunt on the right side. Ndauakong Suh (#93) is playing the B gap. Theyre blitzing a defensive back off screen from the edge. And Shaq Barrett is looping over Suh and into the interior.

By doing so, Barrett is looping not only over Suh, but over Whites rush as well. Gordon is able to shove White wide, which forces Driskell to slide left in the pocket. Barrett takes an outside path around Lloyd Cushenberry (#79), so when Driskell resets in the pocket, after maneuvering from the path of one rusher, he walks right up into Barrett. Settling for a safety, Driskell is lucky he didnt lose the ball and give up more.

10. ALVIN, THEODORE

Without Michael Thomas, Alvin Kamara is the entirety of the Saints offense, and not only that, hes the best quarterback on their roster. Through three games Kamara has 438 yards from scrimmage. The Saints as a team have 1,092 total yards. Kamara has accounted for 40.1% of their total offensive production from the running back position. Who says running backs dont matter?

Against Green Bay last week, Kamara took passes hovering along the line of scrimmage, and broke them into deep passing plays.

On 3rd and 15 he turned one air yard into 21 yards, to convert the first down.

On first and ten, with nothing open downfield, Drew Brees labored a dump off into the flat, that was four yards behind the line of scrimmage, and Kamara transmogrified it into a 52 yard touchdown.

He slaughtered the linebacker on an angle route after following Jared Cooks corner route.

View post:

Ten Things I Liked About Week Three - Battle Red Blog

Boulder County Public Health announced Tuesday that the county is seeing an increase in new coronavirus cases among all age groups, putting it at greater risk of being forced to move into Safer-at-Home level 3 restrictions in the future.

The county is in the red zone for new cases, with more than 350 cases per 100,000 people, a news release from the department states, and the positivity rate is in the yellow zone, between 5% and 10%. Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment monitors these metrics to determine what restriction level a county is designated in its statewide COVID-19 dial framework.

The countys increase in cases could affect area businesses, the news release notes, because the state and county could decide that further mitigation measures are necessary. Occupancy limits, including whether certain businesses may remain open, are based on the number of new cases, the positivity percentage and hospitalization rates.

Although we have seen a downward trend in the number of new cases among 18-22-year-old residents over the last week, we are seeing increases in cases in all other age groups, Boulder County Public Health Executive Director Jeff Zayach stated in the release. This downward trend in the 18-22-year-old age group is a good indication that the strategies weve implemented are starting to work.

The University of Colorado Boulder switched to fully remote learning on Wednesday. On Thursday, Boulder County issued an order halting gatherings for Boulder college-age residents in order to slow the spread of the virus, but the order was amended Monday to allow groups of up to two people to ensure safety.

The health department on Wednesday will submit a formal mitigation plan to the state health department and on Thursday the two will meet to determine if any additional mitigation measures including additional orders or further gatherings restrictions may be necessary, the release states.

This is a heads-up to the community to remain diligent in following personal steps to protect themselves, Zayach stated. While the number of new cases in each age group remain low, this increase is concerning. I want to stress how critically important it is for each and every individual in the community to help slow the spread of COVID-19 by socially distancing, wearing a face covering, limiting gatherings, and staying home when sick.

Public Health Spokeswoman Chana Goussetis said the department is confident in its plan.

We are naturally concerned about the possibility of the county moving to tighter restrictions of safer-at-home level 3, she said. That said, we feel confident that the mitigation steps weve put in place are sound and were hopeful we will continue to see the downward trend in new cases.

Boulder police issued five citations for public health order violations between Thursday and Sunday, according to spokesperson Shannon Aulabaugh. Three of the citations were issued to people between ages 18 and 22, though none were issued on Boulders University Hill, she said.

Boulder on Friday issued an emergency order prohibiting alcohol sales at bars, restaurants and clubs after 10 p.m. A news release from the city stated new cases were on the rise for nearly three weeks in the county, with the vast majority due to transmission among people 18-22, particularly those attending the University of Colorado Boulder and living in the University Hill neighborhood.

CU Boulder Professor and epidemiologist Matt McQueen said the current downward trend in 18- to 22-year-olds is likely due to students following the recommended self-quarantine announced Sept. 15.

The adherence among students to public health guidelines combined with the additional measures announced last week continue to make an impact on the recent decrease in cases, he said. The progress is encouraging, but we need this trend to continue. We will need to have everyone strengthen their commitment to slowing down the spread of COVID-19.

Goussetis said the department has not determined why other age groups other than college-aged residents are seeing a rise in cases.

Of course, the more people with the disease in the community, the more likely it will spread if isolation and quarantine requirements arent followed, she said, adding that public health is not seeing a pattern of the new cases tied to any geographic area.

Also on Tuesday, the county reported 36 new coronavirus cases and CU Boulders online dashboard showed 32 coronavirus cases returned from Monday testing.

The total number of coronavirus cases reported in the county since mid-March is now 4,452. Of those, 209 have been hospitalized and 1,042 have recovered. There are 198 disease investigations in progress and the death toll remains at 79.

On Monday, CU Boulder administered 165 coronavirus tests and 1,055 saliva-based tests monitoring tests. The dashboard states 167 isolations spaces are in use, or 27% of the available units. Since Aug. 24, 4,485 on-campus tests have been administered with 1,051 returning positive, and 25,743 saliva-based monitoring tests have been performed.

The five-day average of new daily cases in the county on Tuesday is 39.8. One week ago, the five-day average was 155.4.

Statewide, there have been 70,025 positive or probable cases. There have been 12,046 deaths among the cases, and of those, there have been 1,952 deaths due to the coronavirus. There have been 7,588 people hospitalized. Of Colorados roughly 5.7 million population, 902,242 people have been tested for the virus.

Some data may be missing due to ongoing disease investigations and reporting delays, the health department notes.

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Boulder County now in red zone for new cases as positive tests increase across all ages - The Daily Camera

Cars with presidential history don't come up for auction all that often, despite the fact that there are so many with White House connections. The history of most of these cars is well documented, and most of them now sit in various presidential libraries or trade hands among collectors of limousines and other historical cars.

But anything tied to the presidency of John F. Kennedy tends to inspire plenty of interest from collectors of presidential items.

In a couple of weeks Bonhams Auctions will offer just such a item, when the 1963 Lincoln Continental dubbed "Limo One," the car used by John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy on the morning of November 22, 1963, rolls across the auction block.

This is the car that drove the pair, along with Texas governor John Connally, to Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth on November 22, having been loaned by local car dealer Bill Golightly to the president and his entourage as an official vehicle during their time in Fort Worth on November 21 and 22. So this is not the car in which Kennedy was shot that was a different, black Continental open-top car used by the Secret Service.

Bonhams

"The President and Jackie Kennedy woke up at the Fort Worth Hotel the morning of November 22, 1963, made a call to their hosts to thank them for the care they had been shown, and were transported by this brand new white Lincoln Continental that had been loaned by local car dealer Bill Golightly to a breakfast where President spoke to a sizable crowd in a light rain," Bonhams notes. "People had turned out in large numbers to see the President and First Lady, and as they proceeded to Carswell Air Force Base to board Air Force One, they took their time, basking in the warm reception. Exiting the vehicle, they boarded the waiting plane for the fateful trip to Dallas where the death of the President would shock a nation."

This was was then returned to Golightly, and was sold to David Pelham of Dallas the following year, and three years later was sold to L. H. Hough, joining the Museum of American Tragedy. This is where it remained until 1998 until it was sold to John Reznikoff, who kept it for a number of years until the car changed hands once again at an auction titled Camelot: 50 Years After Dallas, in 2013.

The car has been restored by Lincoln specialist Baker Restoration of Putnam, Connecticut, and has received a replacement engine as well as a repaint, but the red leather interior has been kept original. Evidently, the car had aged a bit even in the care of a museum, which often happens, and needed more than a simple recommissioning.

Bonhams

"This lot is being offered for sale as a Collectible," Bonhams notes. "As such, this lot may not be operable as a vehicle, suitable for any particular purpose (including transportation), registrable or 'street legal' and/or may not pass any applicable smog or similar state or local mechanical vehicle certification."

This Lincoln is estimated to bring between $300,000 and $500,000 on auction day, representing a fairly liberal range that reflects the unpredictable nature of such auction lots. The car changed hands for $318,000 when Reznikoff parted with it at the Camelot: 50 Years After Dallas auction back in 2013, on which we reported at the time. The work carried out by Putnam took place prior to that auction as well, so the car likely has not changed condition in the past seven years.

Whether it will be able to reach that mark again, or perhaps exceed it greatly, remains to be seen. This year is not the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's death, but interest in his personal items, a number of which will be offered by Bonhams, remains high. The full auction lot list is perhaps worth a look for all the other items that aren't presidential limousines there are plenty of much more affordable but much smaller items there.

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JFK Convertible Heads to Auction for Second Time in a Decade - Autoweek

Boris Johnson is bidding to head off a Tory rebellion over emergency coronavirus legislation as he prepares to give his latest update on the COVID-19 crisis from Downing Street.

The prime minister - who was forced to apologise for getting confused by his own coronavirus regulations - is facing the prospect of a Conservative revolt when MPs are asked to renew the emergency powers that were given to ministers to deal with the pandemic back in March.

Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the influential 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, is leading an effort to alter legislation so as to allow the House of Commons to debate and vote on new COVID-19 measures before they come into force.

There are said to be 80 Tory MPs backing Sir Graham's proposed amendment to the Coronavirus Act, with one ringleader having told Sky News he is "certain" the group has enough votes to defeat the government.

Former Brexit minister Steve Baker, who has recently been spotted in Westminster wearing a T-shirt declaring "2020 is the new 1984", said an "absolutely huge rebellion" was brewing.

However, the government is still attempting to reach a compromise with the rebels, with talks due to be held between the group's leaders and Conservative chief whip Mark Spencer on Wednesday morning.

Ministers will be careful not to concede too much that might impinge on their ability to act urgently when necessary, with coronavirus cases continuing to rise in the UK.

It was announced on Tuesday that 7,143 cases of coronavirus had been recorded in the UK over the past 24 hours - the biggest rise since the pandemic began.

Yet, even if a compromise isn't reached between the chief whip and rebels, ministers might also be saved by Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle not accepting Sir Graham's proposed amendment.

Constitutional experts have said the circumstances of Wednesday's vote - which does not create new legislation but instead gives a choice over whether to continue existing law - means Sir Lindsay might be unlikely to allow any amendments.

In addition to the rebels' efforts, Mr Johnson has also been warned by a committee of senior MPs that, without a greater say for parliament over coronavirus restrictions, the government's rules could be challenged in court.

Sir Bernard Jenkin, the chair of the Commons liaison committee, wrote in a letter to the prime minister: "Various proposals are being made that would require the approval by a vote of the House of Commons before or immediately after new restrictions come into force.

"The majority of us support this principle and expect that the government will also wish to accept it.

"The idea that such restrictions can be applied without express parliamentary approval, except in dire emergency, is not widely acceptable and indeed may be challenged in law."

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As well the pressure to cede to the latest calls from MPs for a greater say over COVID-19 restrictions, Mr Johnson faces a busy schedule on Wednesday as he deals with a second wave of coronavirus infections in the UK.

After an expected meeting with his cabinet, the prime minister will head to the House of Commons for Prime Minister's Questions.

Mr Johnson will face Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer a day after he apologised for having "misspoke" about the latest coronavirus restrictions in northeast England.

The prime minister was forced to clarify that the new rules mean local residents cannot meet people from different households in social settings indoors, including in pubs and restaurants.

After Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson is due to appear at a Downing Street news conference alongside England's chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, and the government's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, to give the latest update on the COVID-19 crisis.

Last week, Sir Patrick said the UK could soon see 49,000 new cases of coronavirus every day unless action is taken to drive down the rate of infection - a warning that preceded Mr Johnson's decision to introduce a 10pm curfew for bars, pubs and restaurants.

Downing Street has not ruled out the introduction of further restrictions in an attempt to limit the spread of COVID-19.

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Coronavirus: Boris Johnson bids to head off Conservative rebellion over COVID-19 rules - Sky News

Babacar Niang has already racked up some decent honors in his two-year Pennington career.

He was the fourth Pennington player in a row to win the Area Player of the Year award (Satchel Cortet, 2015, Ibrahima Diop, 2016 and 2017, and Mansour Diop, 2018), after leading the Red Raiders to a fifth straight Mercer County Tournament title in stunning fashion, thanks to his 15 goals and 17 assists.

And now, heading (hopefully) into his senior campaign under Chad Bridges, Niang has just picked up an incredibly prestigious honor: he has been named as a First Team All-America by Top Drawer Soccer for the season.

Niang will head off to Wake Forest University, a 2019 NCAA Final Four participant which finished the season ranked number 3 in the nation, next fall. But before he goes, he wants to make sure he finishes off his high school experience in the best way possible.

I have to just keep working hard, Niang said. "The All-America award is very special to me, but it also gives me a little more motivation to continue getting better. I know with the help of my team mates, and the Pennington coaches and faculty, I can do that. I get so much support from the people here at the school, and they make my life easier.

I just have to keep working out there on the field.

Pennington's (8) Babacar Niang heads the ball away from Hightstown's Bryan Ortega as Pennington Boys Soccer defeats Hightstown 3-0 to move on to the MCT Final on Thursday at TCNJ. Larry Murphy | For The Times of Trenton

Niang will get some help from a returning All-Area player in the squad, and one that is returning to the fold. Junior defender Lucas Gessner is back to shore up the defense, while senior midfielder Jack Borden, who was All-Area as a freshman and sophomore before playing for the Red Bulls Academy last season, is back to solidify the middle of the pitch. There is also a strong group of freshmen coming into the program to replace three departed All-Area players: Luis Paul and Ousmane Gueye (who scored the double OT game-winner in the 2019 MCT Final) graduated, while 2018 Area Player of the Year Mansour Diop has left to join the Philadelphia Union Academy.

For now, there is the uncertainty hanging over the campaign due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Niang and the rest of the team are just preparing as though there will be soccer in October, and if there are no games, the scrimmages at practice might be better than most games they would have played anyway.

Right now, we have to just work hard, and get ready to play, Niang said. "We have to defend the Pennington legacy. It is hard for everyone right now, but we hope we are going to have a couple games in October.

We have such a good roster, and our practices are so competitive. We push each other to be better. We have some really good kids that came in: the freshman class is very, very good. We have Jack back, and Lucas, plus the rest of the older kids. We just hope we can play some games.

Whether or not they play, though, Niang continues the legacy of Pennington soccer with his awards, and is the clear favorite to repeat as Area POY if there is a season. It is something that he always thought he could do when he came to Pennington from Senegal, as long as he put in the time and effort.

For me, this award (All-America) is not a surprise, Niang said. Of course I thought it was possible. I know I have the talent to be there, I just have to keep working.

***

The 2019 Colonial Valley Conference Player of the Year is also back with his team for 2020.

Evan Egnatovich was one of just two CVC players to make the All-Area squad last season, and one of four underclassmen. Egnatovich, who had 13 goals and 12 assists from the attacking midfielder position, will lead Allentown in search of a Colonial Division title.

Allentown's (5) Evan Egnatovich looks to advance the ball as Allentown Boys Soccer defeats Northern Burlington 4-1 in the CJ Group 3 Quarterfinals on 11/1/2019Larry Murphy | For The Times of Trenton

Originally posted here:

All-America Babacar Niang, the reigning Area Player of Year, back to lead Pennington - nj.com

U.S. President Donald Trump Speaks during a campaign rally at Harrisburg International Airport in September 2020. (Ron Adar / Shutterstock)

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The white mobs didnt care whom they killed as long as the victims were Black. They murdered people in public with guns and rocks. They set fire to houses and slaughtered families trying to escape the flames. In East St. Louis in July 1917, white vigilantes lynched Blacks with impunity.Ad Policy

It was the prelude to what civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson would ultimately call Red Summer. The red referred to the blood that ran in the streets. The summer actually referred to the months from April to October 1919, when violence against African Americans peaked in this country.

In reality, though, that Red Summer stretched across six long years, beginning in East St. Louis in 1917 and ending with the destruction of the predominantly African American town of Rosewood, Fla., in 1923. During that time, white mobs killed thousands of Blacks in 26 cities, including Chicago, Houston, and Washington. In 1921, in a slaughter that has been well documented, white citizens of Tulsa, Oklahoma, destroyed the countrys wealthiest African American community (Black Wall Street, as it was then known), burning down more than 1,000 houses as well as churches, schools, and even a hospital.

During this period of violence, the mobs sometimes cooperated with the authorities. Just as often, however, they ignored the police, even breaking through jail walls with sledgehammers to gain access to Black detainees whom they executed in unspeakable ways. In Tulsa, for example, that campaign of murder and mayhem began only after the local sheriff refused to hand over a Black teenager accused of sexual assault.

Although white America repressed the memories of Red Summer for many decades, that shameful chapter of our history has gained renewed scrutiny in this era of Black Lives Matter. The Tulsa massacre, for instance, features prominently in the recent Watchmen series on HBO and several documentaries are in the works for its centennial anniversary in 2021. Other recent documentaries have chronicled killings that took place in the immediate aftermath of World War I in Elaine, Ark., and Knoxville, Tenn.

But memories of that Red Summer are resurfacing for another, more ominous reason.

White mobs have once again moved out of the shadows and into the limelight during this Trump moment. Militia movements and right-wing extremists are starting to turn out in force to intimidate racial justice and anti-Trump demonstrators. Predominantly white and often explicitly racist, these groups now regularly use social media to threaten their adversaries. This election season, theyre gearing up to defend their president with an astonishing degree of support from Republican Party regulars.Current Issue

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According to a January 2020 survey by political scientist Larry Bartels, most Republicans believe the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it. More than 40 percent agree that a time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands. In a recent essay on his surveys findings, Bartels concludes that ethnic antagonism has a substantial negative effect on Republicans commitment to democracy.

As the 2020 election nears, that party is also desperately trying to flip the script by using fear of their mobs and Antifa terrorists to drive its base to the polls. We have a Marxist mob perpetrate historic levels of violence & disorder in major American cities,tweeted Florida Senator Marco Rubio in response to the Democratic National Convention in August. Not to be outdone, the president promptly said, Im the only thing standing between the American dream and total anarchy, madness, and chaos.

Of course, this country has no such Marxist mobs. The only real groups of vigilantes with a demonstrated history of violence and the guns to back up their threats congregate on the far right. The white supremacist Atomwaffen Division, for instance, has been linked to at least five killings since 2017. In late May and early June, members of the far-right Boogaloo Bois conducted two ambushes of police officers and security personnel, killing two of them and injuring three more. Over the summer, as far-right organizations spread the meme All Lives Splatter around the internet, dozens of right-wingers drove vehicles of every sort into crowds of Black Lives Matter protesters.

The prospect of far-right vigilantes or militias heading into the streets to contest the results of the November election has even mainstream institutions worried. Right-wing extremists perpetrated two thirds of the attacks and plots in the United States in 2019 and over 90 percent between January 1 and May 8, 2020,reports the centrist think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies. If President Trump loses the election, some extremists may use violence because they believehowever incorrectlythat there was fraud or that the election of Democratic candidate Joe Biden will undermine their extremist objectives.

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As the violence of Red Summer demonstrated, such acts were once a mainstay of American life. Indeed, the not-so-hidden history of this country has featured periodic explosions of mob violence. Racial justice activists rightly call for the radical reform of police departments. As November approaches, however, uniformed representatives of the state are hardly the only perpetrators of racist violence. Beware the white mobs, militias, and posses that are desperate to establish their own brand of justice.

When Donald Trump paints a picture of lawlessness sweeping through the United States, hes effectively accusing the institutions of government of not doing their jobs. In a September 2 memo, the Trump administration laid out its charges: For the past few months, several State and local governments have contributed to the violence and destruction in their jurisdictions by failing to enforce the law, disempowering and significantly defunding their police departments, and refusing to accept offers of Federal law enforcement assistance.

As president, Donald Trump has refused to take responsibility for anything, not the more than 200,000 Covid-19 deaths in the United States, not the pandemic-induced economic collapse, and certainly not the racial injustices that prompted this summers wave of protests. Simultaneously above the law and outside it, the president consistently portrays himself as a populist leader who must battle the elite and its deep state. With conspiracy-tinged tirades about Democrat-run cities failing to enforce the law, he has already symbolically put himself at the head of a mobfor this is just how such groups justified their extra-legal actions throughout our history.

The right-wing racists who currently bear arms in defense of the president are part of a long tradition of Americans resorting to vigilantism when they believe the law is not protecting their interests. Whether it was the displacement and massacre of Native Americans, the horrors that slave owners inflicted on African Americans, the wave of lynching that followed Reconstruction, the bloodletting of Red Summer around World War I, the murders conducted by the Ku Klux Klan and other extremist organizations, or even everyday resistance to federal policies like school desegregation, gangs of Americans have repeatedly taken the law into their own hands on behalf of white supremacy.

To be sure, mobs are hardly responsible for all the racist ills of this country. America has always been a place of institutional racism and violence. Slavery, after all, was legal until 1865. The US government and its military did the bulk of the dispossessing of Native Americans. Police departments cooperated early on with the Ku Klux Klan and todays police officers continue to kill a disproportionate number of African Americans. Mobs have eagerly cooperated with state institutions on the basis of shared racism. But they have also stood at the ready to enforce the dictates of white supremacy even when the police and other guardians of order treat everyone equally before the law.

The mob has occupied an unusually prominent place in our history because Americans have cultivated a unique hostility toward the state and its institutions that goes back to the early years of the Republic. As historian Michael Pfeifer notes in his groundbreaking book, The Roots of Rough Justice, the violent libertarianism associated with the American Revolution and the subsequent lack of a strong, centralized state gave rise to mob violence that gathered force before the Civil War. He writes, Antebellum advocates of vigilantism in the Midwest, South, and West drew on Anglo-American and American revolutionary traditions of community violence that suggested that citizens might reclaim the functions of government when legal institutions could not provide sufficient protections to persons or their property.

Those mobs didnt necessarily think of themselves as antidemocratic. Rather, they imagined that they were improving on democracy. As Pfeifer points out, many of the vigilante outfits that targeted minorities practiced democratic procedures of a sort. Some adopted bylaws and even elected their own leaders. They held mock trials and votes on what punishments to mete out: hanging or burning alive.

Such mobs functioned both as a parallel military and, to a certain extent, a parallel state.

The two, in fact, went hand in hand. German sociologist Max Weber famously defined the state as possessing a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force, but that was the German tradition. In the United States, particularly during its first 150 years, the state only aspired to possess such a monopoly.

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Instead, a rough form of frontier justice often prevailed. Before and just after the American Revolution, even whites were its targets, but increasingly its victims were people of color. Slave owners, slave patrols, and ad hoc mobs dispensed justice throughout antebellum America and the tradition of Judge Lynch continued long after the abolition of slavery. The pushing of the frontier westward involved not only the Armys killing of Native Americans but also extrajudicial violence by bands of settlers. Historian Benjamin Madley estimates that the Native population in California declined by more than 80 percent between 1846 and 1873, with as many as 16,000 killings in 370-plus massacres. This winning of the West also involved the widespread lynching of Latinos.

Mobs were able to dispense frontier justice not only thanks to a strong libertarian tradition and a weak state, but also because of the widespread availability of guns. Coming out of the Civil War, this country developed a distinct gun culture sustained by a surge in firearm production. Gun prices fell and so guns fell into the hands of more and more citizens.

Mobs used firearms in the infamous Draft Riot in New York in 1863, which ended up targeting the citys Black community, and in New Orleans in 1866 when enraged whites attacked a meeting of Republicans determined to extend civil rights protections to African Americans. In their drive westward, settlers favored Winchester rifles with magazines that could fire 15 rounds, giving them a staggering advantage over the people they were displacing. Early gun control laws seldom prevented whites from acquiring firearms because they were mainly designed to keep guns out of the hands of Blacks and other racial minorities.

Even today, widespread gun ownership distinguishes the United States from every other country. Approximately 40 percent of American households own one or more firearms, a figure that has remained remarkably consistent for the last 50 years. If you look at guns per capita, the United States ranks number one in the world at 120 firearms per 100 civilians. The next country on the list, war-torn Yemen, comes in a distant second with 52 per hundred. With more guns than people within its borders, its no wonder that the federal government has often struggled to maintain its monopoly over the legitimate use of physical force.

Gun enthusiasts have erroneously enlisted the Constitution to justify this extreme democracy of firepower. To guard against tyrannical federal behavior, the Second Amendment of the Constitution preserved the right of state militias to bear arms. However, organizations like the National Rifle Association have campaigned for years to reinterpret that amendment as giving any individual the right to bear arms.

That has, in turn, provided ammunition for both the castle doctrine (the right to use armed force to defend ones own home) and stand your ground laws (the right to use force in self-defense). Armed extremist groups now imagine themselves as nothing less than the Second Amendments well-regulated Militia with a constitutionally given right to own weapons and defend themselves against the federal government (or anyone else they disapprove of).

Improbably enough, for the last four years, the head of the federal government has become one of their chief supporters.

Long before becoming president, Donald Trump was already acting as if he were the head of a lynch mob. In 1989, he published full-page ads in The New York Times and three other local papers calling for New York City to reinstate the death penalty in response to a brutal gang rape in Central Park. He swore that the city was then ruled by the law of the streets and that muggers and murderersshould be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes.

It was language distinctly reminiscent of white mobs bitter about the failure of local law enforcement to execute Blacks accused of crimes. Like many of their predecessors, the accused Black and Latino teenagers were, in the end, found to be quite innocent of the crime. After a long legal struggle, the Central Park Five (as they came to be known) were released from prison. Trump has never apologized for his campaign to kill innocent people.

When he ran for president, he quickly moved beyond mere law and order rhetoric. In his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump deliberately cultivated a following among armed extremists. At a rally in North Carolina, for instance, he warned of what might happen to the Supreme Court if Hillary Clinton were to win.

If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks, he lamented. Then he added in his typically confused and elliptical manner of speaking, Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I dont know. He was, in other words, suggesting that followers with guns could do something about Clintons choices by shooting her or her judicial picks.

Throughout that campaign season, he regularly retweeted white supremacist claims and memes. At the time, it was estimated that more than 60 percent of the accounts he was retweeting had links to white supremacists. At his rallies, he encouraged his supporters to get rough with protesters.

As president, hes continued to side with the mob. He infamously refused to denounce neo-Nazis gathering in Charlottesville in August 2017, applauded the armed demonstrators who demanded the reopening of the economy in the pandemic spring of 2020, and defended 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse after he killed two Black Lives Matter protesters in Kenosha, Wis., in August.

Trump has stood up for the Confederate flag, Confederate statues, and keeping the names of Confederate generals on US military bases. In a recent speech denouncing school curricula that teach about slavery and other unsavory aspects of our history, he pledged to erect a statue of a slave owner in a project hes been promotingbuilding a National Garden of American Heroes park. The current administration has cultivated direct links to white nationalists through disgraced figures like Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, as well as current advisers like Stephen Miller.

In his reelection bid, Trump pointedly held his first pandemic rally in Tulsa, Okla., where he excoriated Democrats who want to take away your guns through the repeal of your Second Amendment and left-wing radicals [who] burn down buildings, loot businesses, destroy private property, injure hundreds of dedicated police officers. In a literal whitewashing of history, he made no mention of the white mobs that had looted businesses and destroyed property in that very city in 1921.

Trumps exhortations to his followers over the heads of state and local officials appeal to the mob belief that citizens must reclaim the functions of government, if necessary through force. Right-wing militias explicitly embrace that history. The Three Percenters, a militia movement that emerged in 2008 after the election of Barack Obama, purports to protect Americans from tyrannical government. Their name derives from the inaccurate belief that only 3 percent of Americans took up arms to fight the British empire in the 18th century.

Of course, less than 3 percent of Americans are now members of such militias and white nationalist movements, but their numbers are on the rise. White nationalist groups increased from 100 in 2017 to 155 in 2019. The several hundred militia groups now in existence probably have a total of 15,000 to 20,000 members, including an increasing number of veterans with combat experience. Far from a homogeneous force, some are focused on patrolling the southern border and targeting the undocumented. Others are obsessed with resisting the federal government, even in a few cases opposing Trumps various power grabs.

West Virginia University professor John Temple argues, in fact, that not all right-wing militias hold extremist views. I have listened to many hours of patriot conversations that didnt sound all that different from what you would hear during a typical evening on Fox News, he writes. Many seemed to have joined the cause for social reasons, or because they liked guns, or because they wanted to be part of something they saw as historic and grandiosenot because their views were far more radical than those of typical right-leaning Americans.

This is not exactly reassuring, since the politics of right-leaning, Fox Newswatching Americans have grown more extreme. With nearly half of the Republicans surveyed by Larry Bartels prepared to take the law into their own hands, Trump has nearly succeeded in transforming his party into a mob of vigilantes.

Dont be fooled into thinking that the president is a law-and-order candidate. He flourishes in chaos and routinely flouts the law. By siding with right-wing militias and their ilk, he daily undermines the states monopoly on legitimate violence.

The debate over defunding the police must be seen in this context. In a country awash in guns and grassroots racism, with a major party flirting with mob violence, getting rid of police departments would be akin to jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire of uncontained extremism. Sure, local law enforcement needs major reforms, massive civic oversight, and right-sized budgets. Police departments must be purged of white nationalists and neo-Nazis. The Pentagon has to stop supplying the cops with military-grade weaponry.

But remember: The police can be reformed. What was once an all-white force now better reflects Americas diversity. The mob, by definition, is not subject to reforms or any oversight whatsoever.

This is no time to permit the return of frontier justice administered by white mobs and a lawless president, especially with a critical election looming. Mob violence has often accompanied elections in the past, with rival factions fighting over the results, as in the street battles of 1874 in New Orleans between Republican integrationists and racist Democrats. Like 19th century Louisiana, the struggle this November is not just about Democrats versus Republicans. Its about the rule of law versus racist vigilantism.

White supremacy is not going to give up its hold on power without a fight. If you thought youd seen real American carnage in Trumps four years in office, prepare yourself for the chaotic aftermath of the November election. The mob is itching to take the law into its own hands one more time on behalf of its very own mobster in chief.

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White Mob Violence Is Back Thanks to Trump - The Nation

Heres what you need to know:President Trumps fans watched the presidential debate in Katy, Texas. Mr. Trump implored his supporters to act as poll watchers, in line with his repeated attempts to undermine faith in the electoral process.Credit...Mark Felix/Agence France-Presse Getty Images

President Trump used his biggest television audience of the campaign to try to undermine confidence in the integrity of the election as no modern president has ever done, using the debate to urge his supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully and continuing to suggest, despite no evidence of widespread problems, that the vote would be fraudulent.

The barrage of accusations from a president who is behind in the polls and who refused, when asked by the moderator, Chris Wallace, to say whether he would pledge not to declare victory until the election was independently certified or urge his supporters to stay calm after the election alarmed scholars who study election monitoring around the world, who said the comments laid the groundwork for political violence.

This is the type of comment that international observers typically would latch onto as an attempt at foul play, said Judith Kelley, the Dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, who has studied international election monitoring. As far as the rest of the world, this is the kind of comment we would expect in a more authoritarian environment. Certainly not in a country that purports to be a beacon of democracy.

Authorized election observers are typically trained to follow guidelines to ensure that they do not intimidate voters, she noted.

In an environment where we want both to de-densify the polling station environment to keep it as safe as possible from a public health standpoint, and an environment where there is ongoing civil unrest that has turned violent at times, Trumps urging is even more concerning, she wrote in an email.

Thomas Carothers, the senior vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that it is unprecedented in modern U.S. history having a sitting U.S. president attack the integrity of the election before an election there is no parallel.

Mr. Carothers said that the presidents call for his supporters to go into the polls to watch raised concerns about possible voter intimidation, noting that he had just spoken to a friend who had gone to vote early in Virginia only to be met by a small crowd of Trump supporters.

Mr. Trumps remarks, he said, threaten to make his supporters believe that if he loses, it is only because the election was not fair.

Hes preparing the ground for violent conflict over the election, and preparing the ground for a lack of legitimacy for the process, he said.

Rosa Brooks, a professor at Georgetown Law who organized a series of exercises in June aimed at identifying potential risks to the election and transition, said that election monitors and political violence experts would view the presidents language as a major early indicator of potential problems.

His rhetoric is dangerously and profoundly anti-democratic, she wrote in an email. Its the kind of language you might expect from a dictator, not from the supposed leader of the free world. His job should be to unite Americans and foster stability. Instead, Trumps comments increase the risk of political violence which is shockingly irresponsible from the president of the United States.

transcript

transcript

You have repeatedly criticized the vice president for not specifically calling out antifa and other left-wing Thats right. extremist groups. But are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups Sure. and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities, as we saw in Kenosha and as weve seen in Portland. Sure, Im willing to do that, but Then do it. Go ahead, sir. I would say, I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing. So what are you, what are you saying Im willing to do anything I want to see peace. Then do it, sir. Say it. Do it. Say it. You want to call them what do you want to call them? Give me a name, give me a name. White supremacists and Go ahead, who would you like me to condemn? Proud Boys. Who? White supremacists and right-wing militia. Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But Ill tell you what, Ill tell you what. Somebodys got to do something about antifa and the left, because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing His own F.B.I. director said the threat comes from white supremacists. Antifas an idea, not an organization Oh, youve got to be kidding. not a militia. Thats what his F.B.I, his F.B.I. director has said. Well then, you know what? Hes wrong.

President Trump refused to categorically denounce white supremacists on Tuesday night, diverting a question about right-wing extremist violence in Charlottesville, Va., and Portland, Ore., into an attack on left-wing protesters.

Are you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha and as weve seen in Portland? Chris Wallace, the moderator, asked the president.

Sure. Im willing to do that, said Mr. Trump, but quickly added, Almost everything I see is from the left wing. Not from the right wing.

When Mr. Wallace pressed on, the president asked, What do you want to call them?

White supremacists and right-wing militias, the moderator replied, as Joseph R. Biden Jr. mentioned the Proud Boys, a far-right group that has endorsed violence.

Proud Boys, stand back and stand by, Mr. Trump said. But Ill tell you what. Ill tell you what. Somebodys got to do something about antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem. This is a left-wing problem.

When Mr. Biden pointed out that Mr. Trumps own F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, had said that antifa was an idea, not an organization, the president replied, Oh, youve got to be kidding. (Mr. Wray also said this month that racially motivated violent extremism, mostly from white supremacists, had made up a majority of domestic terrorism threats.)

The presidents words prompted celebration by members of the Proud Boys. Within minutes, they were posting in private social media channels, calling the presidents comments historic. In one channel dedicated to the Proud Boys on Telegram, a private messaging app, group members called the presidents comment a tacit endorsement of their violent tactics.

In another message, a member commented that the group was already seeing a spike in new recruits.

Mr. Biden noted that the group was celebrating Mr. Trumps remark, pointing in a retweet to some of the comments being made.

Twitter and Facebook both suspended the Proud Boys from their platforms in 2018. Since then, the group has continued to expand its numbers on other social media platforms, and has become more visible at protests.

transcript

transcript

Last nights debate and this election is supposed to be about you, Tiffany, about you and all the people I grew up with in Scranton and people in Youngstown and Claymont, Del., and all the people who make a difference. You know and does any president, does your president understand at all what youre going through, what so many other people are going through? Question is, does he see you where you are and where you want to be? Does he care has he tried to walk in your shoes to understand whats going on in your life or does he just ignore you, and all the folks all over America who are in a similar situation? Ill always tell you the truth. Ill always care about you, whether you vote for me or not. If elected, Im not going to be a Democratic president. Im going to be an American president. Whether you voted for me or not, Im going to be your president. And Ill never forget the people, the working people of this country, because thats where Ive come from. And that, if given just half a chance, the American people can do anything.

ALLIANCE, Ohio A day after a staggeringly contentious first debate, Joseph R. Biden Jr. sought again to put President Trump on the defensive on Wednesday by courting some of the voters who propelled him to the White House in 2016.

In his most vigorous day of campaigning in months, Mr. Biden embarked on a train tour that was to bring him to Pittsburgh as well as a host of smaller towns in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania where in 2016 Mr. Trump won over working-class white voters who had traditionally voted for Democrats.

Mr. Biden began the tour with a speech at Clevelands Amtrak station, where he was introduced by a teacher whose husband worked at the General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, that closed last year.

Mr. Biden said the debate on Tuesday night was supposed to be about you and all the people I grew up with in Scranton, his Pennsylvania hometown.

Does your president understand at all what youre going through, what so many other people are going through? Mr. Biden asked. The question is: Does he see you where you are and where you want to be? Does he care? Has he tried to walk in your shoes, to understand whats going on in your life? Or does he just ignore you and all the folks all over America who are in a similar situation?

After his speech, Mr. Biden boarded a chartered Amtrak train and headed to his next stop, the town of Alliance in northeast Ohio, where he kept up his criticism of Mr. Trump.

What I saw last night was all about him, he said. He didnt speak to you or your concerns or the American people even once.

Taking questions from reporters, Mr. Biden said Mr. Trump did what I expected him to do last night. He called the debate a wake-up call for all Americans, and said the way Mr. Trump conducted himself was a national embarrassment.

For 90 minutes, he tried everything to distract everything possible, Mr. Biden said. It just didnt work.

Mr. Biden has been open in his ambition to win over voters who supported President Barack Obama and himself before flipping to back Mr. Trump, honing a populist economic message that casts the contest as a choice between Scranton and Park Avenue.

There are limits to that goal: According to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll of Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump has double-digit leads over Mr. Biden among white voters without four-year college degrees and among rural voters.

But the same poll showed why the Biden team sees an opportunity: Mr. Trump, who won Pennsylvania by less than a percentage point in 2016, is underperforming with those voters now, and Mr. Biden has a chance to cut further into his margins.

How much time he intends to devote to that effort remains an open question: Amid the pandemic, Mr. Biden has been deeply cautious about campaign travel, causing concern among Democrats in both Ohio and Pennsylvania. But in recent weeks he has stepped up his schedule.

A longer-shot victory in Ohio, which Mr. Trump carried by eight points in 2016, is the stuff of Democratic dreams, while the surprise defeat Mr. Trump dealt Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania is a source of nightmares for many Democrats who are still wary of believing polls showing Mr. Biden with a stable lead there.

Katie Glueck reported from Alliance, and Thomas Kaplan from Washington.

President Trumps refusal to explicitly condemn white supremacy and right-wing extremist groups during the first presidential debate drew muted concern from some Republicans on Capitol Hill, as the highest-ranking Republican in the House sought to defend his remarks.

Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the lone Black Republican in the Senate, said he believed Mr. Trump had misspoken and that the president should clarify his remarks.

I think he misspoke, I think he should correct it, Mr. Scott told reporters. If he doesnt correct it, I guess he didnt misspeak.

Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota sought to equate right-wing extremists with groups on the left, even though the F.B.I. and the Homeland Security Department have singled out white supremacists as the primary domestic terrorism threat.

Mr. Trump should have made it very clear that theres no room for people on the far left or the far more far right when it comes to antifa or these white supremacist groups, Mr. Rounds said. I was hoping for more clarity.

Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader, defended Mr. Trumps answer, arguing that the president has been very clear that hes against anybody for committing violence in the streets and pointing to a recent pledge by the president to classify both the Ku Klux Klan and antifa as terrorist organizations.

Pressed by reporters, Mr. McCarthy chafed at the suggestion that Mr. Trump should have explicitly denounced specific right-wing extremist groups.

How many times does he have to say it, if the question is, Would you denounce it and the answer is yes? Mr. McCarthy said. He did that.

When Chris Wallace, the debate moderator, asked Mr. Trump Tuesday whether he would condemn white supremacy and distance himself from extremist groups, Mr. Trump replied, Sure. But when Mr. Biden mentioned the Proud Boys, a far-right group, Mr. Trump refused to condemn them and instead suggested they stand back and stand by.

Senator Todd Young, Republican of Indiana, lamented on Wednesday that we didnt get great clarity from the debate last night about the differences in vision of the future of this country, and I did think that that was unfortunate.

He would not address Mr. Trumps remarks specifically, but made a point of personally condemning white supremacy. I think that all of these groups are equal, and I condemn them on the strongest terms and we need to remain one nation under God.

On the other side of the Capitol, Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a sharp rebuke of the comments on MSNBCs Morning Joe, calling the moment the capstone of really a sad night for our country and accusing Mr. Trump of intimidating voters.

Ms. Pelosi also expressed concern that Mr. Trump would cause chaos by questioning the election results, after the president said during the debate Tuesday night that he was counting on a conservative Supreme Court to determine the victor.

He wants to cause chaos, take it to the courts; when he takes it to the courts, prolong the process, she said. What is this?

Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trumps Supreme Court nominee, participated in her second day of private meetings with senators on Wednesday, sitting down with Republicans eager to approve her confirmation before the general election on Nov. 3.

Judge Barrett received unanimous praise from the handful of Republican senators she met with on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. The effusive support for Judge Barrett, who was confirmed to the appeals court in Chicago in 2017, underscored the likelihood that Senate Republicans would succeed in completing the confirmation process in about a month.

Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, was the first senator to meet with Judge Barrett Wednesday, joking that after being quizzed in college, he was looking forward to the opportunity to return the fire to turn the tables, if you will to ask a question or two of a former law professor.

He added, Im sure well have a very interesting and informative opportunity to speak with each other.

Mr. Romney, like several senators on Tuesday, declined to answer a question about whether Judge Barrett should recuse herself from any election-related cases that appear before the Supreme Court if she is confirmed.

Judge Barrett is also meeting with Senators Tim Scott of South Carolina, Todd Young and Mike Braun of Indiana, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, John Cornyn of Texas and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi.

Seven female Republican senators also held a news conference to rally support for Judge Barrett, arguing she should be celebrated for being a woman of faith with seven children and saying they were defending her from what they viewed as unfair personal attacks.

Folks, this is what a mom can do, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa said.

Senator Martha McSally of Arizona condemned what she said was the hypocrisy were seeing from some of the media and the left attacking her for being a mom.

Asked for evidence of the unfair attacks on Judge Barrett, Republican staff members referenced a 2017 comment from Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, that the dogma lives loudly within her, an apparent reference to her Catholicism. They did not produce evidence of attacks on her motherhood.

Noticeably absent from the news conference were Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who have urged the Senate to wait until after the presidential election to vote on a new Supreme Court justice.

A few Democratic senators, including Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Cory Booker of New Jersey, have indicated that they will speak with Judge Barrett before hearings begin next month, even as several of their colleagues have said they plan to boycott the usual courtesy meeting. They are fiercely opposed to filling the seat when voting is underway in many states, accusing Republicans who refused to consider President Barack Obamas Supreme Court nominee in 2016 of rank hypocrisy.

The best thing we can do is basically expose this process for what it is, Ms. Klobuchar said on Tuesday.

With little power to block the nomination, Democrats have sought to frame the confirmation battle as a referendum on health care, given that the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a case that could overturn the Affordable Care Act in the days after the election.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, on Tuesday successfully set up votes on legislation that would prevent the Justice Department from moving to strike down the Affordable Care Act, ensuring that Senate Republicans would have to vote on health care legislation before the election.

transcript

transcript

The last four years, you have promised to repeal and replace Obamacare, but you have never in these four years come up with a plan, a comprehensive plan Yes, I have. to replace Obamacare. Of course I have. Well, Ill give you We got rid of the individual mandate. Im going to give you an opportunity Excuse me. I got rid of the individual mandate. Im not here to call out his lies everybody knows hes a liar. But you agreed Joe, youre the liar. I want to make sure You graduated last in your class, not first in your class. I [laughs] God. I want to make sure Mr. President, could you let him finish, sir? The question is, the question is A lot of new Supreme Court justices, radical left Will you shut up, man? One of the big debates we had with 23 of my colleagues trying to win the nomination that I won were saying that Biden wanted to allow people to have private insurance still. They can, they do, they will, under my proposal. Thats not what youve said, and its not what your party has said. That is simply a lie. Your party doesnt say it your party wants to go socialist medicine. My party is me. Right now, I am the Democratic Party. And theyre going to dominate you, Joe, you know that. I am the Democratic Party right now. The platform of the Democratic Party Not according to Harris. is what I, in fact, approved of. Is it true that you paid $750 in federal income taxes each of those two years? Ive paid millions of dollars in taxes, millions of dollars of income tax. Let me just say something, that it was the tax laws. I dont want to pay tax. Before I came here, I was a private developer, I was a private business people. Like every other private person, unless theyre stupid, they go through the laws, and thats what it is. Im going to eliminate the Trump tax cuts. Good. And were going to, Im going to eliminate those tax cuts OK. and make sure that we invest in the people who in fact need the help. People out there need help. But why didnt you do it over 20, the last 25 years? Because you werent because you werent president screwing things up. You were a senator Youre the worst president America has ever had. Come on. You have repeatedly criticized the vice president for not specifically calling out antifa and other left-wing Thats right. extremist groups. But are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups Sure. and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities, as we saw in Kenosha and as weve seen in Portland. Sure, Im willing to do that, but Then do it. Go ahead, sir. I would say, I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing. So what are you, what are you saying Im willing to do anything I want to see peace. Well, then do it, sir. Say it. Do it. Say it. You want to call them what do you want to call them? Give me a name, give me a name. White supremacists and Go ahead, who would you like me to condemn? Proud Boys. Who? White supremacists and right-wing militia. Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But Ill tell you what, Ill tell you what. Somebodys got to do something about antifa and the left, because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing His own F.B.I. director said the threat is Are you questioning No, I think masks are OK. You have to understand, if you look, I mean, I have a mask right here. I put a mask on, you know, when I think I need it. Tonight as an example, everybodys had a test, and youve had social distancing and all of the things that you have to but I wear masks when needed. When needed, I wear masks. OK, let me ask I dont wear masks like him every time you see him, hes got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from he shows up with the biggest mask Ive ever seen. Masks make a big difference. His own head of the C.D.C. said if we just wore masks between now if everybody wore masks in social distance between now and January, wed probably save up to 100,000 lives. It matters. And theyve also said the opposite. Theyve also said No serious person said the opposite. The fact is that there are going to be millions of people because of Covid that are going to be voting by mail-in ballots, like he does by the way. And this is all about trying to dissuade people from voting, because hes trying to scare people into thinking that its not going to be legitimate. As far as the ballots are concerned, its a disaster. A solicited ballot, OK? Solicited is OK. Youre soliciting, youre asking. They send it back. You send it back. I did that. This is going to be a fraud like youve never seen. The other thing: Its nice, on Nov. 3, youre watching and you see who won the election. And I think were going to do well, because people are really happy with the job weve done. But you know what? We wont know, we might not know for months because these ballots are going to be all over. Now that millions of mail-in ballots have gone out, what are you going to do about it? And are you counting on the Supreme Court, including a Justice Barrett, to settle any dispute? Yeah, I think Im counting on them to look at the ballots, definitely. I dont think well I hope we dont need them in terms of the election itself, but for the ballots, I think so. I am urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully because thats what has to happen. I am urging them to do it. I am urging my people I hope its going to be a fair election. If its a fair election Youre urging them what? I am 100 percent on board. But if I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, I cant go along with that. Heres the deal: They count the ballots. As youve pointed out, some of these ballots in some states cant even be opened until Election Day. And if theres thousands of ballots, its going to take time to do it. No one has established at all that there is fraud related to mail-in ballots, that somehow its a fraudulent process. Its already been established. He has no idea what hes talking about. Heres the deal. The fact is, I will accept it, and he will too. You know why? Because once the winner is declared, after all the ballots are counted, all the votes are counted, that will be the end of it.

The first presidential debate between President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. unraveled into an ugly melee on Tuesday, as Mr. Trump hectored and interrupted Mr. Biden nearly every time he spoke and the former vice president denounced the president as a clown and told him to shut up.

In a chaotic, 90-minute back-and-forth, the two major party nominees expressed a level of acrid contempt for each other unheard-of in modern American politics.

Mr. Trump, trailing in the polls and urgently hoping to revive his campaign, was plainly attempting to be the aggressor. But he interjected so insistently that Mr. Biden could scarcely answer the questions posed to him, forcing the moderator, Chris Wallace of Fox News, to repeatedly urge the president to let his opponent speak.

Will you shut up, man? Mr. Biden demanded of Mr. Trump at one point in obvious exasperation. This is so unpresidential.

Yet Mr. Biden also lobbed a series of bitingly personal attacks of his own.

Youre the worst president America has ever had, he said to Mr. Trump.

The presidents bulldozer-style tactics represented a significant risk for an incumbent whos trailing Mr. Biden because voters, including some who supported him in 2016, are so fatigued by his near-daily attacks and outbursts. Yet the former vice president veered between trying to ignore Mr. Trump by speaking directly into the camera to the voters, and giving in to temptation by hurling insults at the president. Mr. Biden called Mr. Trump a liar and a racist.

Mr. Trump peppered his remarks with misleading claims and outright lies, predicting that a coronavirus vaccine was imminent when his own chief health advisers say otherwise, claiming that his rollback of fuel-efficiency standards would not increase pollution and insisting that a political adviser, Kellyanne Conway, had not described riots as useful to Mr. Trumps campaign, even though she did so on television.

And even as he went on the offensive against Mr. Biden on matters of law and order, Mr. Trump declined to condemn white supremacy and right-wing extremist groups when prompted by Mr. Wallace and Mr. Biden. When Mr. Wallace asked him whether he would be willing to do so, Mr. Trump replied, Sure, and asked the two men to name a group they would like him to denounce.

President Trump on Wednesday morning continued his angry and misleading tirade from Tuesday nights debate, tweeting false and exaggerated accusations about Joseph R. Biden Jr.

In one tweet, Mr. Trump claimed that Mr. Biden refused to use the term law and order during the debate even though the Democratic nominee used the term several times.

Mr. Trump insisted in another tweet that Mr. Biden wants to Pack the Supreme Court, even though the former vice president repeatedly refused to say whether he supports that idea; that Mr. Biden wants no fracking, overstating his rivals plan for limits on the practice; and that the Second Amendment is DEAD if Mr. Biden is elected, a clear exaggeration of his position.

The tone of the presidents tweets mirrored the aggressive approach he took during the debate, interrupting and heckling Mr. Biden throughout the proceedings.

Nobody wants Sleepy Joe as a leader, including the Radical Left (which he lost last night!), Mr. Trump tweeted, attempting to drive a wedge between Mr. Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders, who lost the Democratic nomination to the former vice president. He disrespected Bernie, effectively calling him a loser!

The unedifying spectacle of Tuesday nights presidential debate produced some shock, some sadness and some weariness among both Americas allies and its rivals on Wednesday.

As President Trump bellowed, blustered and shouted down both the moderator, Chris Wallace, and his opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and as Mr. Biden responded by calling Mr. Trump a clown, many wondered if the chaos and tenor of the event said something more fundamental about the state of American democracy.

Of course, the ultimate arbiter will be the American voter, said Ulrich Speck, an analyst with the German Marshall Fund in Berlin. But there is a consensus in Europe that this is getting out of hand, and this debate is an indicator of the bad shape of the American democracy.

There was always a sense among allies that in America, despite political disagreement, there is one republic, and conflict will be solved by debate and compromise, and that power was married to some kind of morality, Mr. Speck said.

But that view is being questioned now, he said: The debate was really no debate at all, but two people pursuing their strategies.

John Sawers, a former British diplomat and head of a risk analysis firm, said simply: My own response is that it makes me despondent about America. The country we have looked to for leadership has descended into an ugly brawl.

THE UPSHOT

In the wake of Tuesdays messy debate, we got a different kind of survey: a so-called instapoll of people who agreed to watch it. These surveys are quirky, but they do a decent job of helping us gauge a debates effect. This time, the news was generally good for Joseph R. Biden Jr.

CNNs viewer poll found that Mr. Biden decisively won the debate, 60 percent to 28 percent, while CBS News and an early cut from a Data for Progress poll found far closer seven- and 12-point margins for Mr. Biden.

Instant-reaction poll subjects do not represent the overall electorate: They have agreed to take a poll before a debate, agreed to take a poll afterwards, and presumably watched the debate itself. Pollsters have to decide whether or how to undo those biases.

See the original post:

2020 Debate and Election Updates: Trump vs. Biden - The New York Times

Ryan Reynolds shares a new set photo from Red Notice, joking he was thinking about how co-star Dwayne Johnson would look with bangs when it was taken.

Ryan Reynolds shares a new set photo from Red Notice, joking he was thinking about how co-star Dwayne Johnson would look with bangs when it was taken. Reynolds and Johnson are officially teaming up for the first time on the action-comedy. However, it will be their second film together following Reynolds' unexpected cameo inHobbs and Shaw.The plot ofRed Notice revolves around Johnson's Interpol agent, who is tasked with tracking down the world's greatest art thief after a global alert, the title's 'red notice' is issued for her arrest.

Gal Gadot takes on the role of the art thief, while Reynolds plays the world's greatest con man. Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, who also helmed Johnson's movies Central Intelligence and Skyscraper, the film was initially scheduled to be released in late 2020 or mid-2021 but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Shooting began earlier this month, with both Reynolds and Gadot posting images of their coronavirus tests before returning to set. Johnson revealed the COVID protocols on the movie are the mostaggressiveof any film in the world.

Related:Every Upcoming Dwayne Johnson Movie & TV Show

Reynolds has taken to Instagram to post a brand new set photo from the movie, showing him talking to Thurber during set-up for a scene. In the accompanying caption, Reynolds jokes that while he might be making eye contact with Thurber, his mind is wandering, and he's thinking about what the famously bald Johnson would look like with bangs. You can see the post below:

Besides putting the horrifying image of Johnson with bangs in his fan's heads, Reynolds' post also reveals some of the strict COVID safety protocols in place on set, showing Thurber wearing both a face mask as well as a face shield while he talks to Reynolds. The crew in the background, too, are wearing masks, making theRed Notice set look very different from how a set looked just a few months ago. Hopefully, the precautions will ensure no one on set contracts the virus, unlike other productions, such asThe Batman andScream 5, which have both been affected by positive tests of cast and crew members.

The photo also proves that Reynolds' ever-present sense of humor won't even be affected during the pandemic, and also shows he's exceptionally brave, considering that few would dare to mock Johnson about his lack of hair. The bonhomie between the pairis genuine and should hopefully translate into good chemistry on screen, whether they end up playing foes or friends. With filming seemingly in full gear, hopefully,Red Noticewill still be able to get a 2021 release date on Netflix.

Next:Every Upcoming Ryan Reynolds Movie

Source: Ryan Reynolds/Instagram

Theory: Godzilla & Kong Team Up Against Mechagodzilla AND Mecha-King Ghidorah

Daniel Gillespie has been a writer and editor for the past 11 years. His favourite filmmakers include Stanley Kubrick, Denis Villeneuve, Christopher Nolan, Wes Anderson, Edgar Wright and the Coens. Currently working out of New York City, he is a film-obsessed immigrant from Cape Town, South Africa. When he isn't watching, writing about or thinking about films, Daniel likes to go hiking in the mountains with his wife.

Original post:

Ryan Reynolds Is Thinking About Dwayne Johnson With Bangs In Red Notice Set Photo - Screen Rant

Much of eastern South Dakotas duck season opened Saturday, Sept. 26 and prospects for 2020 are very good, according to one official.

Rocco Murano, South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department waterfowl biologist, said there was banner production for all of the normal puddle ducks in South Dakota.

Typically, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducts an annual aerial flight to count waterfowl in the Prairie Pothole Region, which includes eastern South Dakota, eastern North Dakota, western Minnesota and large areas of Canada. Due to COVID-19, the flight had its first year off since 1955.

Anecdotally, though, we had phenomenal production conditions, Murano said.

Murano said officials banded just shy of 3,000 ducks this year in South Dakota, with about 90% being hatch-year birds.

Here are some facts about South Dakotas duck hunting season:

Shooting hours: One-half hour before sunrise to sunset.

Season dates: The Low Plains North and Low Plains Middle both opened Saturday, Sept. 26 and run through Dec. 8. The High Plains Zone, which is West River South Dakota, runs Oct. 10-Jan. 14. The Low Plains South, which is the southern border of the state, runs Oct. 24-Jan. 5. See the GF&P website for specific information.

Limits: Six ducks and comprised of no more than five mallards, which may include no more than two hens; one scaup (bluebill); three wood ducks; two redheads; one pintail; two canvasbacks; and hunters get two bonus blue-winged teal for the first 16 days of season only.

RELATED: Read more hunting stories on Northland Outdoors

Dropping numbers: Duck hunter numbers are dropping significantly nationwide and in South Dakota. In 1999, South Dakota estimated there were 26,172 duck hunters in the state. Last year, that number was at 11,295, a drop of about 15,000 in two decades. To help reactivate and recruit hunters in the future, South Dakota and Nebraska will be conducting a new option beginning in 2021 called the three-splash rule.

The change is for people who may otherwise be hesitant to try waterfowl hunting due to worry of identifying ducks and staying within harvest limits. They will be able to harvest three ducks of any species or sex as their limit.

The three-splash rule is not mandated for everyone, and those people who do not want to participate can stick with the regular limit (this year its six ducks) with specific species limitations.

Go here to read the rest:

Here's what you need to know about duck hunting in South Dakota - Pine Journal

LITTLE People stars Jeremy and Audrey Roloff may be caught up in a feud with their siblings.

But they are taking time out to plan a road trip to visit Jeremy's sister Molly.

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Audrey, 29, revealed they were hitting the road for a two week camping trip and will see Molly and her husband Joel, who live in Spokane, Washington.

The couple - who have two children, Ember and Bode - told fans they were "excited" to see Molly - who also no longer appears on the show.

"Today we are getting ready to leave for a two week camping trip up through Washington, Idaho, and Montana!," Audrey wrote to her fans.

She revealed details of the trip, writing: "We are super excited to visit Jeremys sister Molly and her husband Joel up in Spokane, and then explore some of the epic lakes in Idaho and Montana!"

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Molly also left the show when she moved out of state, and left Zach as the only sibling still appearing on it.

Audrey and Jeremy's brother Jacob have been vocal about their differences, with the feud erupting online in June.

Jacob - a self-described agnostic - has clashed with his Christian sister-in-law and older sibling over their conservative views since their marriage in 2014.

Jacob, 23, has vocally supportedliberalpolicies such as the legalization of marijuana, racial injustice and gun control since he was a teenager.

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Meanwhile Audrey, 28, has come under fire over the years for various controversial comments, including her past anti-gay remarks in her religious blog post.

During the lastPresidential election, the pair butted heads for their opposing views on who should be commander-in-chief.

TheLPBWalum tweeted in October 2016: What does it mean for Trump to say 'I don't accept the results of this election?' Clinton can just go on being President

And he can go on being a total clown, sputtering out of relevance, and business. Pathetically still upset he lost.

The same day, the red-headed reality star posted several Instagram Stories that celebratedDonald Trump, 74, during the debates.

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She posted a clip that heard POTUS say: We cannot take four more years of Barack Obama, and thats what you get if you vote for Hillary Clinton.Right after, a female voice - seemingly Audrey - cheered and yelled that was good!

After a year of tensity, Jacob unfollowed the mom-of-two on Instagram for the first time in December 2017,RadarOnlinereported.

At the time, he still followed Audreys husband, Jeremy, and his other older siblings, Zach and Molly - who he remains close with to this day.

One month later, their feud reached new heights when The Marriage Journal author appeared to slam Jacobs engagement to hisIsabel Rock.

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The ex TLC star was thrilled to reveal he popped-the-question to his now-wife in Iceland on Christmas Day 2017.

While Amy and Matt Roloffs youngest son was congratulated by most family members, Audrey took to her blog soon after and wrote a critical message that seemed to be aimed at the couple.

She fired off in January 2018: Some words on dating from a Christian perspective

Lets just say you recently hurried into a relationship, dabbled with sexual intimacy, and then became emotionally attached.

The scathing post continued: As time passes, your friends and family may raise concerns about the person youre dating.

But you wont be able to rationalize with them because all you will see is perfection. This is a titanic problem, she blasted.

In March 2018, it was revealed that Jeremy, 30, and his wife would write a tell-all book together just after Jacobs own novel, Out To See, was released.

Tension between Jacob and Jeremy along with his wife seemed to have improved later that year however, their feud was reignited once again in January 2019.

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A source toldRadarOnlinethat Jacob was yet again attempting to distance himself from the pair.

People already know that he doesnt really get along with Audrey.

"He thinks shes too judgmental, and Im guessing he just didnt want to see her on his brothers account anymore, the insider said.

In the time since, it appears Jacob re-followed his sister-in-law but earlier this month, heunfollowed her againafter he slammed herBlack Lives Matterpost.

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Responding to the ongoing protests due toGeorge Floyds death in May, Audrey reposted her brother's video about unity to her Instagram Stories.

Jacob - who has attended multiple protests with his wife - called thevideo "police propagandaand emphasized it was not activism.

The following day, Audrey posted that she was weathering a shame storm.

Jacob appeared to have once again slammed his brother and sister-in-laws apparentsupport for Trumpthis month.

On June 1, he tweeted: I, too, am embarrassed to be related to Trump voters.

Continued here:

Little Peoples Audrey and Jeremy Roloff head to visit his sister Molly in two-week trailer trip amid family f - The Sun

Cleanse the toxins from your body with the help of fresh vegetables. Cabbage, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts are a few of natures detoxifiers.

You can add variety to your garden and diet by including green, red or Savoy cabbage. Its fun and easy to grow in the garden or a container and can be used in a variety of healthful dishes.

There is still time to add cabbage to your garden. Cabbage grows best in cooler temperatures. Those in the northern half of the country can plant seeds directly in the garden in early July for a fall harvest. Those in hotter regions should wait another month. Simply check the number of days from seed to harvest and count backwards from the average first fall frost. That will be the time to plant. Those in the far south should plant seeds or transplants in fall or early winter for a winter harvest.

Be sure to allow enough room for the plants to grow to mature size. Space plants at least 12 inches apart in the garden and grow in a sunny to lightly shaded location.

Protect cabbage plantings from pests with floating row covers. Made of polypropylene spun material, the covers allow air, light, and water through while preventing cabbage worms from laying their eggs on the plants. This means no green worms eating holes in the leaves or ending up on your dinner plate.

Loosely cover the planting with the fabric and anchor the edges with boards, pipes, stones, or wickets. Leave enough slack for the plants to grow. The plants support the fabric, so no frames or construction is needed.

Increase your gardens productivity by interplanting the cabbage with quick maturing radishes, beets and heat tolerant greens. Youll harvest these short season crops at about the time the cabbage needs the space.

Harvest cabbage when the heads are firm and full size. Use a sharp knife to remove just the cabbage head, leaving the lower leaves and roots intact. Four to six new heads will arise from buds around the stem. These smaller heads can reach four or five inches in diameter.

Remove any wilted or damaged leaves before storing cabbage in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. If using only half a head of cabbage, wrap the cut end in plastic wrap.

A medium head of cabbage weighs about one and a half pounds and yields about five to six and a half cups of shredded cabbage. A few heads of cabbage can turn into lots of slaw, stuffed cabbage rolls and other tasty cabbage dishes.

Preserve some of your harvest for winter meals. Freeze cabbage by cutting it into coarse shreds, thin wedges or by separating the leaves. It can also be dehydrated and used as a base for casseroles or added to soups and stews.

Consider turning it into sauerkraut with simple fermentation. Make large batches in crocks then can or freeze when fermentation is complete. Smaller batches can be processed in mason jars and stored in the refrigerator.

No matter how you prepare it, cabbage makes a great addition to the garden and your meals.

Melinda Myers is the author of more than 20 gardening books and hosts The Great Courses How to Grow Anything DVD series and the nationally syndicatedMelindas Garden Moment TV & radio program. She is a columnist and contributing editor forBirds & Bloomsmagazine. Visit MelindaMyers.com.

Read more here:

Grow and eat bold, beautiful and healthful cabbage - The Oakland Press

Valtteri Bottas celebrated his brand new Mercedes contract for 2021 by heading the first Free Practice session of the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix weekend, pipping team mate Lewis Hamilton by 0.138s, with Red Bulls Max Verstappen 0.727s behind Bottas in P3.

At a balmy Silverstone, with air temperature up around 28 degrees Celsius, British Grand Prix winner Hamilton was initially the faster of the two Mercedes. But Bottas, lapping on the C4 soft tyres which Pirelli have been brought in for this weekend, beat him on his second flying lap, eventually stopping the clocks with a 1m 26.166s, over a second quicker than Verstappen managed in FP1 at the track last week.

Verstappens time for third meanwhile, was just 0.049s quicker than Racing Points Nico Hulkenberg. Its been quite the morning for both the driver and the team, with Hulkenberg confirmed as Sergio Perezs replacement for this weekend two hours before the session start after another positive Covid-19 test for the Mexican while Renaults protest against Racing Points RP20 was upheld in the lead-up to FP1, costing the team 400,000 and 15 constructors championship points.

READ MORE: Racing Point deducted 15 points and fined heavily as Renault protest into car legality upheld

FP1 Highlights: 70th Anniversary Grand Prix

It was therefore an especially impressive session from Hulkenberg, who took fourth while team mate Lance Stroll could only manage P8, nearly six-tenths off the German.

Between those two drivers, Charles Leclerc was fifth for Ferrari, ahead of the Red Bull of Alex Albon who complained of understeer and the second Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel, the four-time champ once again looking the less comfortable of the two Scuderia drivers with the teams low-downforce set-up on the SF1000.

Following his big crash at last weekends British Grand Prix which led to a tyre barrier being installed at the exit of Maggotts Daniil Kvyat was ninth for AlphaTauri, ahead of the Renault of Esteban Ocon in 10th.

Meanwhile, there appears to be more to come from McLaren, after the team who had both drivers in Q3 last weekend couldnt crack the top 10 in FP1, Lando Norris taking P12, while Carlos Sainz was P14, with Sainz's sparring partner from last weekend Romain Grosjean in between for Haas and P6 to P16 covered by less than a second.

There's probably more to come from Renault's Daniel Ricciardo too, after the Australian, who finished P4 last weekend, could only manage P17.

70th Anniversary GP FP1: Mercedes run Sir Stirling Moss tribute

Bringing up the rear of the field, meanwhile, Kimi Raikkonen overcame a small off at Aintree an off that Vettel replicated later in the session to finish in P18, ahead of Robert Kubica, who took over the C39 of Antonio Giovinazzi this morning, while Haas Kevin Magnussen was last, after the Dane went off at Vale and flat-spotted his tyre on his push lap.

George Russell was once again the lead Williams driver in P15, just one spot in front of team mate Nicholas Latifi, as the Grove team look to try and crack Q2 for the fourth race in a row once qualifying kicks off on Saturday.

So, its Mercedes who, rather unsurprisingly, strike the first blow of the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix weekend. But there looks to be a fascinating scrap for the second-best team brewing this weekend between Red Bull and that contentious Racing Point, with Ferrari in touching distance too judging by the evidence of FP1. Lets see how that pans out across the rest of Friday.

READ MORE: Mercedes to run Stirling Moss horseshoe tribute on Bottas and Hamilton's cars this weekend

The rest is here:

FP1: Bottas heads Hamilton in opening 70th Anniversary GP session as Hulkenberg takes P4 - Formula 1 RSS UK

A woman stands in an otherworldly landscape, looking out. The landscape is sublime, though not the European sublime of cliffs, peaks, and mist. Here the sublime is African. It has many texturesconglomerations of stone, waterfalls, verdant grasslandsand may remind Nigerians of their own Jos Plateau. The woman stands with her left leg raised, surveying it all, with no sense of urgency; indeed, she appears to be in a state of philosophical contemplation. She seems assured both of her mastery over this land and of her natural right to it. This sovereignty is expressed primarily by her bodythe fabrics she wears, the pose she strikes, all of which find their reflection in the land around her. The same dark lines tracing her impressive musculature render the rippling rocks; the ridges of her bald head match the ridges in the stone; the luxurious folds of the fabric are answered by the intricate layering of the earth beneath her feet. Toyin Ojih Odutolas The Ruling Class (Eshu) appears, at first glance, to be a portrait of dominion. For to rule is to believe the land is made in your image, and, moreover, that everyone within it submits to you. Structurally, it recalls Caspar David Friedrichs depiction of Enlightenment dominion, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog: the same raised left leg, the same contemplation of power in tranquillity, the echoes of hair, pose, and fabric in the textured landscape. But the red-headed man with the cane and his back to us has been replaced by a black woman with a staff, facing forward. The script has been flipped.

The show containing this image is called A Countervailing Theory. Countervail: to offset the effect of something by countering it with something of equal force. The word could not be more apposite. We are in a cultural moment of radical countervailing, perhaps as potent as that experienced in the sixties, when what was offered as counter to the power of the gun, for example, was a daisy placed in its barrel. A period of hierarchical reversal, or replacement, of this for that. And The Ruling Class might seem wholly part of this countervailing movement, oppositional and constructed of opposites: black replacing white, by way of a restricted black-and-white palette of charcoal, chalk, and pastel. A picture that offers a new image of power as counter to an old one.

But thats not the whole story. And Ojih Odutolawho was born in 1985, in Ife, Nigeriais an unusually story-driven visual artist. Her 2017 breakout show, at the Whitney Museum, To Wander Determined, with its depiction of two imagined Nigerian dynasties united in marriage, involved world-building equal to that of any novel, and in A Countervailing Theory the story, as the title implies, is not merely a flipped script but also a theory concerning countervailing itself. The forty pictures in the show are hung on a curving wall at the Barbican, in London, and unfold sequentially, like a Chinese scroll. Together, they lead us deep into the wilderness of our present ideas about powerwho should have it, how it should be wieldedand then out again, a journey as much philosophical as visual. What are the possibilities and the limits of countervailing, as a political or an aesthetic project? Is it sufficient merely to counter? Or might a higher synthesis be conceivable?

The project started, according to Ojih Odutola, with a wandering charcoal line, which she followed, rather blindly, letting my mark making guide me... to see what aesthetic characteristics and proclivities recur and how to incorporate these as motifs in the work. (Though Ojih Odutolas images are often mistaken for painting, she has so far worked exclusively in pen, pencil, charcoal, and pastel.) Following this line, she arrived at an unexpected destination, framed as a question. What would it look like if women were the only imperialists in known histories across the globe? Which led to another: If the powerful women she was drawing were the masters, over whom did they have mastery? The story developed:

My initial aim was to tell a tale of two beings, one born, another made/manufactured, who exist within a system that enterprises and stratifies war, imperialism and hierarchiesand how these two mitigate their respective lives within it to, ultimately, cross over and come together to bring the whole system down. But they fail.

The two beings are Akanke, who is a member of the Eshuthe ruling class of womenand Aldo, one of the Koba, male humanoids manufactured to work for the Eshu, mining and cultivating food. The Koba far outnumber the Eshujust as slave populations usually dwarf their overseersbut, like slaves, their lives are not their own and they live in fear that their masters will decommission them at any time, for any reason. The first eight pictures give us an idea of what it is to be Aldo. Like all Koba, seams run through his body, etched into the skin, through a process implemented, as another image, This Is How You Were Made; Final Stages, suggests, by the Eshu. And, as is true for all beings, Aldos own existence seems to be a puzzlement to him, although perhaps, as an oppressed being, he puzzles over it more intensely than the ruling class, who, in their tranquillity, tend to think only of their own power. In Introductions: Early Embodiment (Koba), this existential anxiety is expressed through the depiction of hard-to-parse liminal spaces, for Koba seem to come into being in a zone somewhere between the bardo, the depths of a mine, and a penal colonyamid circles, lines, waves, and shadows, where it is difficult to say what is floor or ceiling, ground or sky. In this strange, transitional place, Koba avert their eyes; they seem fearful; each grips his own naked body, which appears to be his only possession.

The contrast with what we glimpse, in Unsupervised Education, of Eshu childhood is striking. Young girls, future rulers, roam their environment freely, evidently curious, touching and examining the land, even breaking off pieces of it, at ease within their surroundings and never doubting that ease. When Ojih Odutola was asked about some of her sources of inspiration for Eshu society, she offered a line of Camille PagliasSociety is a system of inherited forms reducing our humiliating passivity to natureand also the geometric costumery of the Dutch designer Iris van Herpen. It is easy to see, in the imperious Eshu, the ways in which this feared vulnerability is systemically disguised and obscured, by staffs and helmets, by bodies trained to show no sign of weakness or potential decay, and by clothing that, like van Herpens, mimics the patterns of nature and aspires to natures authority of form.

See the article here:

Toyin Ojih Odutolas Visions of Power - The New Yorker

While Red XIII wasn't fully introduced in Final Fantasy 7 Remake's first outing, he'll likely be redeemed in the next episode.

Red XIII unfortunately got the short-end of the stick this year inFinal Fantasy 7 Remake. While the red lion was one of the central characters players meet at the beginning ofFinal Fantasy 7, he was not playable in the first episode of the remake. Instead, he served as an additional AI teammate that players were unable to control or equip any materia. But according to the game's co-director Naoki Hamaguchi, Red XIII will almost certainly become a playable party member inFinal Fantasy 7 Remake's part 2. NOTE: This article contains spoilers from the original FF7 that could appear in part 2.

Of course, for fans of the original game, this would've seemed obvious. Not only is Red XIII a very strong member of the main party in the originalFinal Fantasy 7, but his presence in the story is also arguably more important. The lineage of Nanaki and his connection to the overarching storyis central toFinal Fantasy 7, and will likely remain the same inFinal Fantasy 7 Remake. For fans who were disappointed by Red XIII's appearance in the first episode, his character will be far more prominent inFinal Fantasy 7 Remake's second episode.

RELATED:Final Fantasy 7 Remake Devs Explain Why Red XIII Isn't Playable

At a bare minimum,Red XIII should absolutely become a core member of the party inFinal Fantasy 7 Remake's next episode. While he was relegated to an unplayable teammate and assistant for a platforming section, Red XIII should join the roster with his unique four-legged fighting style. Some fans got a glimpse of how the character may play in the next episode through aFinal Fantasy 7 Remake save editor, but obviously the restrictive nature of an NPC means there's not much to him. The main idea behind making him a sort-of "guest" character was because Red XIII would've been introduced as a party member far too late into the story for it to reasonably make sense.

However, in the second episode ofFinal Fantasy 7 Remake, the fully designed and animated Red XIII should be a core party member for the rest ofRemake's story. Of course, designing a non-humanoid playable character comes with its own challenges, butRed XIII's original design in particular could be harder to adapt forRemake. Red XIII's battle characteristics functioned more as an all-rounder, similar to Kimahri fromFinal Fantasy 10. While Red XIII has a particularly high speed stat and strong magic builds in the original game, he was still very adaptable and could be successful in any combat role. Remakecould make him a fast brawler with solid magic affinity, but his balanced stat distribution from the original game may make his design a bit harder to realize inFinal Fantasy 7 Remake's combat system.

Outside of his battle capabilities,Red XIII's origin story and his connection to the story ofFinal Fantasy 7are far more prominent in the events after the Midgar escape. While in pursuit of Sephiroth, Cloud and the party eventually end up in Red XIII's home of Cosmo Canyon. Here is where players learn off Red XIII's legacy, along with the history of the planet as told by the elder of Red XIII's tribe, Bugenhagen. Players learn all of the details about the Lifestream and how Shinra's Mako harvestation is destroying the planet from Bugenhagen's observatory. This is also where players learn about Red XIII's origins as a spiritual warrior, as Red XIII discovers things even he didn't know.

Initially, Red XIII resents his father Seto because he believes he died a coward who wasn't able to defend Cosmo Canyon from a rival tribe. This is where Cloud and the party learns of Red XIII's lineage, and how his father actually sacrificed himself to stop the rival Gi tribe from overtaking Cosmo Canyon. After exploring the Cave of the Gi, Red XIII discovers his dead father Seto, who has been immortalized in stone after being killed by petrified arrows. Upon learning Seto's true demise, Red XIII vows to protect the planet in the name of his father's sacrifice. It's a touching character moment that, while only tangentially related toFinal Fantasy 7's main conflict, is one of the best moments and character growths throughout the entire originalFinal Fantasy 7.

RELATED:New Party Members Likely to Appear in Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2

Based on what's been seen of Red XIII so far,Final Fantasy 7 Remake appears to be emphasizing his more spiritual warrior personality.Red XIII's character adaptation is one of a calm and intelligent warrior, full of knowledge about the planet's spiritual entities like the Whispers. He's a tough warrior who doesn't mince words, but he does occasionally give off a subtle charm when butting heads with Barret. ThroughoutFinal Fantasy 7 Remake's subsequent episodes, Red XIII will likely be recurring source of information about things like the Lifestream and perhaps even more specific information like the Cetra.

Red XIII's appearance throughout the rest ofFinal Fantasy 7 Remake should be fascinating, especially with how Square Enix's reimagining will tell his origin story. The iconic red lion has one of the most interesting character growths among all the other supporting cast members inFinal Fantasy 7. His knowledge of the planet and the Whispers will almost certainly come in handy later on.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2is reportedly in development.

MORE:Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2's Cait Sith May Be Another Red XIII Situation

Red Dead Redemption 2 Fan Creates Model of In-Game Location Out of Matchsticks

Not actually a distant relative of Bob Dole, Rob Dolen is a Features Writer for Game Rant. Big fan of expansive lore and game analysis, video games are cool. Freedom Fighters is underrated. Probably not good at competitive Halo anymore.

Read more:

Red XIII Should Have a Much Bigger Role in Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2 - GameRant

If youre seeing red scrolling through your Instagram feed lately, youre not alone.

From copper colours and peachy hues to ginger sheens it feels as though many of our favourite celebs and reality stars have changed their look.

WATCH:MAFS' Martha Kalifatidis has a MAJOR hair transformation

What could have initially been passed off as another isolation transformation, or two, is fast becoming a growing hair trend.

Theres more to this hair colour than the isolation boredom fads we've become accustomed to (read: home-cut bangs and pastel wash outs).

Bold enough to make a statement yet natural enough to pass as your everyday colour, its no surprise so many stars are turning heads with a new copper colour.

Whether its a subtle wash to liven up your brunette locks or you go all out with a vivacious hue and highlights, theres a look to suit every style.

Take a peek below at the stars who are making a case for a rusty chic change.

Abbie

Instagram

We had serious curl envy when Abbie Chatfield wandered into The Bachelor mansion to meet Matt Agnew.

And now, shes added a killer colour to top it off.

The Bachelor In Paradise star recently swapped her bronde colour for a Ginger Spice look, complete with fringe highlights albeit much more subtle and stylish (sorry Geri!).

I take back every ranga joke I made circa 2009, she wrote when debuting her new look.

Martha

Instagram

If theres one reality stars beauty choices we watch closely, its Marthas.

The Married At First Sight bride always looks glamourous, and luckily for us, is always sharing her tips, tricks and favourite products with her followers.

When she began her transformation from a dark brunette to blonde, we relished the few weeks she spent as a red-head. And, so did she!

I wanted to keep this colour...@_ellewilliamson_said no. What do you think? she asked fans when making the transition.

Lauren

Instagram

Fellow MAFS star Lauren Huntriss swapped her blonde bob for a stunning red colour.

Floating between a bright copper colour and a subtle peachy hue, Lauren is a hair colour chameleon we can all take inspiration from.

Read the original:

The unexpected hair trend for 2020 every reality star is wearing right now - Who

Disclaimer: The list in this essay comes from a collective collaboration of Black Indigenous people of color (BIPOC) and other marginalized administrators and faculty members who wish to remain anonymous. As colleges and universities undergo restructuring due to COVID-19 and make new commitments to address systemic failings as invoked by the recent public murder of George Floyd, new spaces for revisioning real structural changes have materialized. Such attempts to address structural changes are a reminder that we continue to live in a culture where racial and gendered disparity and violence are pervasive, persistent, insidious and deep-seated.

Diversity workers, according to Sara Ahmed, are institutional mechanics, and like mechanics, they complain about various malfunctions that obstruct their work. In other words, filing complaints is a form of diversity work, according to Ahmed.

Unfortunately, when institutions target their own diversity workers for complaining that those institutions are failing to uphold their mission of enforcing best practices in diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice initiatives, we begin to lose our best and most idealistic professionals. Such targeting of diversity workers also creates purposefully hostile work environments.

Institutions continue to have various administrators and faculty members, predominantly white, whose primary function is to do damage control. Rather than developing a new culture of equity and justice that could move toward the creation of just colleges and universities, they actively participate in active and covert efforts to block such initiatives so as to protect white supremacist structures.

Additionally, human resource departments that should be protecting the most vulnerable and marginalized staff and faculty members (who are instrumental in systemic change) end up protecting the status quo of the most toxic individuals at many institutions.

While equity work requires constant disruptions, the disrupters are often punished. Disrupters are often courageous whistle-blowers, yet institutions are notorious for not protecting the inconvenient truths that whistle-blowers reveal. As you read these lists, you may hear your own experience in them, or you may start to wonder if that colleague who was deemed to be a problem and then left or dismissed was actually a whistle-blower who was summarily fired and slapped with a nondisclosure agreement to continue a culture of silencing.

Cornel West says, Justice is what love looks like in public. As you engage in these calls for justice and systemic change, we offer two sets of red flags to review regarding toxic environments in academe and encourage you to think whether your workplace would pass Wests litmus test.

We also encourage you to think about how you can use your platform and position of power to effect change instead of being a passive bystander next to someone who has been transitioned out for allying with BIPOC and GLBTQI students and faculty. As campuses rush to open in the fall while the threats of the pandemic still loom above our heads, we want you to think how you can advocate for administrators, faculty members and students using an equity lens to protect those who have much less power than you do.

Red Flags: Toxic Administrative Work Environments

The first set of red flags includes the following.

If reading this list made you uncomfortable, we suggest that you examine your complicity in creating toxic work environments. Racial literacy cannot be accomplished by reading the latest books. We recommend that you engage in active dialogue by discussing, questioning and interrogating your own racialized desire to maintain the race, gender and class caste system at work. Please make your actions match the Black Lives Matter sign on your car (and the BLM message youve been meaning to send out to the campus). Trust that your paycheck will continue to come and your whiteness will not be automatically undone. In the meantime, please pick up a new tool, because the masters house is coming down whether you and higher ed are ready for the collapse or not.

In a follow-up essay, we will discuss the second list of red flags, which is related to toxic faculty-related work environments.

More here:

Some red flags related to people's experiences working in institutions that suffer from toxic whiteness (opinion) - Inside Higher Ed

The Perseverance rover vehicle will take about 7 months to travel to the red planet.

An international collaboration is taking technology from gas measurement expert Vaisala and the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) to Mars onboard NASAs Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. The rover was launched on 30 July 2020. Vaisalas sensor technology combined with FMIs measurement instrumentation are being used to obtain pressure and humidity data from the surface of the red planet.

The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) is among the scientific partners providing measurement equipment for the new Perseverance rover, expected to land on Mars in February 2021. The pressure and humidity measurement devices developed by the FMI are based on Vaisalas sensor technology and are similar but more advanced than the ones sent to Mars on the first Curiosity rover in 2012.

While working on Mars, the Curiosity and Perseverance roverswillform a small-scale observation network. The network is onlythefirst step, anticipating a much more extensive observation network to be situated on Mars in the future.

Gathering knowledge about the Martian atmosphereThe Mars 2020 mission is part of NASAs Mars Exploration Program. In order to obtain data from the surface of the Red Planet, NASA selected trusted partners to provide measurement instruments for installation on the Mars rover. A Spanish-led European consortium is providing the rover with the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA), a set of sensors that provide measurements of temperature, wind speed and direction, pressure, relative humidity, and the amount and size of dust particles.

As part of the consortium, FMI is delivering instrumentation to MEDA for humidity and pressure measurements based on Vaisalas sensors.

Mars, as well as Venus, the other sister planet of Earth, is a particularly important area of atmospheric investigations due to its similarities to Earth. Studying Mars helps us also better understand the behavior of Earths atmosphere, commented Maria Genzer, Head of the Planetary Research and Space Technology group at FMI.

The harsh conditions of Mars present a requirement for the most reliable sensor technology capable of providing accurate data and without the possibility of maintenance or repair.

We are honored that Vaisalas core sensor technologies have been selected to provide accurate and reliable measurement data on Mars. In line with our mission to enable observations for a better world, we are excited to be part of this collaboration. Hopefully the measurement technology will provide tools for finding answers to the most pressing challenges of our time, such as climate change, said Liisa strm, Vice President, Products and Systems of Vaisala.

Same technology, different planetIn theextreme conditions of the Martian atmosphere, NASA will be able to obtainaccurate readings of pressure and humidity levels with VaisalasHUMICAP and BAROCAP sensors.The sensors long-term stability and accuracy, as well as their ability to tolerate dust, chemicals, and harsh environmental conditions, make them suitable for very demanding measurement situations, including in space. The same technology is used in industrial and environmental applications such as weather stations, radiosondes, greenhouses and data centres.

The humidity measurement device MEDA HS, developed by FMI for Perseverance, utilizes standard Vaisala HUMICAP humidity sensors. HUMICAP is a capacitive thin-film polymer sensor consisting of a substrate on which a thin film of polymer is deposited between two conductive electrodes. The humidity sensor onboard is a new generation sensor, with superior performance optimised for the low pressure conditions expected on the red planet.

In addition to humidity measurements, FMI has developed a device for pressure measurement, MEDA PS, which uses customized Vaisala BAROCAP pressure sensors, optimized to operate in the Martian climate. BAROCAP is a silicon-based micromechanical pressure sensor that offers reliable performance in a wide variety of applications, from meteorology to pressure sensitive industrial equipment in semiconductor industry and laboratory pressure standard measurements. Combining two powerful technologies single-crystal silicon material and capacitive measurement BAROCAP sensors feature low hysteresis combined with excellent accuracy and long-term stability, both essential for measurements in space.

Our sensor technologies are used widely in demanding everyday measurement environments here on Earth. And why not if they work on Mars, they will work anywhere, strm concluded.

You can follow live updates on NASAs Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission at space.com.

View post:

Gas sensor technology heads to Mars on board NASA's Perseverance rover - Envirotec

Good news from the Union Square Greenmarket: When I arrived around 10 a.m. this past Saturday, there was no line to get in, whereas a couple months ago the wait at the three entrance portals was 15 to 20 minutes. In the hot sun, that can be unpleasant. Part of the reason for the lack of delay is that the market has expanded onto the cobbled street called Union Square West. There are now multiple means of entrance to the Greenmarket, making it easier to get in while preserving social distancing. And everyone I saw was wearing a mask unless they were eating something.

On that new cobbled extension of the Greenmarket, find S&SO Produce Farms from Goshen, New York. Its lengthy counter held more forms of lettuce than Ive ever seen at a single market stall, including red Boston, green Boston, frisee, red salad bowl, green salad bowl, green leaf, red leaf, lola rosa, romaine, red romaine, and summer crisp (a cross between iceberg and green leaf), in addition to radicchio, escarole, and treviso. Gosh, what a salad you can make.

When selecting lettuce, one is better off picking smaller, younger heads due to the tenderness of the leaves. Since lettuce is often sold per head, rather than by weight, its tempting to pick the largest head for the purpose of economy. If going that route, the inner leaves can be used raw, and the tougher outer leaves briefly poached and used in a salad or cooked vegetable melange.

This week, stone fruits are at the height of their availability. Freestone peaches, as well as doughnut peaches, are available at multiple stalls, with apricots near the end of their season. Plums are at their peak, and I counted several varieties, including red plums, shiro plums, sugar plums (a relatively modern variety named to take advantage of a Christmas poem), and plumcots, a dark-colored apricot-plum hybrid.

By the way, stone fruits are often hard when bought, and need to ripen a day or two before consumption. If you want to use them right away, the hard fruit does very well cut into small pieces and used in a salad.

Tomatoes have descended somewhat in price, and nearly all that youll encounter are field tomatoes rather than greenhouse grown. Dont miss the so-called Jersey tomatoes, big, bright red specimens that are as at home in a Caprese salad as in gazpacho. These are going for a standard price of $3 per pound, while heirloom varieties of which I saw a dozen or so, varying in color from purple to yellow to streaky green are available at a typical price of $5 per pound. Remember to use the heirlooms the evening they are bought, since they are way more perishable than Jersey tomatoes.

Corn is just arriving in area farmers markets. There are three common varieties: white, bicolor, and yellow, of which the white appears first. All the corn Ive seen so far is white, with small kernels and more sweetness than the same variety last year. It is currently a bit expensive at 80 cents per ear, but the price will come down as it becomes less scarce.

Now for some of the oddities Ive seen in my last couple of farmers market visits fruits and vegetables seen less frequently, often with short seasons. I stumbled on some cranberry beans, beautiful legumes with an ivory color and undulant, dark pink streaks. They must be shelled and soaked before being cooked, which means boiling at least 10 minutes. Dont be tempted to eat them raw, since they contain a toxin destroyed by boiling. Im using mine with fresh corn in a succotash.

Husk cherries are tiny and yellow, filled with seeds, like a tomato, that dribble out when bitten into, and covered with a papery husk that must be peeled off. They taste a little sweet and a little soapy, and at $10 a pint are way too expensive, but if youre looking for an exotic salad ingredient or an unusual birthday present, consider undergoing the expense.

TriStar strawberries are now available at Mountain Sweet Berry Farm at $5 a pint. Eat them immediately, because they soften and liquefy quickly. The taste is said to be much like that of wild strawberries, with a concentrated flavor. The stall also sells popsicles made of these berries, which concentrate the flavor further and make a nice break from shopping in the hot sun. But maybe step into the park or onto a side street to eat them, so as not to be too close to fellow shoppers.

Other interesting products which should be available for a short time: fresh horseradish with edible greens; bitter melon, an indispensable ingredient in Chinese and Indian cooking; turmeric rhizomes; sansho, green leaves with a peppery taste used in Japanese and Korean cooking; and green millet seeds in their husks, making them difficult to mill for eating, but constituting great bird food or an ornamental green. When dehusked, millet is used to make porridge in many West African cuisines.

Check out what was in the Greenmarkets a month ago.

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New Yorks Greenmarkets Boast Stone Fruit, Lettuce, and Cherries This Week - Eater NY

By Tony Massarotti, 98.5 The Sports Hub

This is almost a week late, so bear with me. But during a pandemic, amidst of flurry of sports leagues reactivating, the Red Sox played a game on Saturday night in which it certainly feels like J.D. Martinez refused to pinch hit in a situation where he would have represented the tying run.

If that doesnt bother you, it should.

In fact, its the kind of thing that should send you into orbit.

Lets back up here for minute.

In Mondays Boston Globe, Red Sox beat reporter Pete Abraham reported the following:

Saturday nights 5-2 loss against the Yankees was a good example. With J.D. Martinez available to pinch hit, Andrew Benintendi took his turn at the plate and struck out on four pitches to end the game. That left him 2 for 24 on the season.

Martinez at that point had hit .320 against the Yankees with a 1.022 OPS since joining the Red Sox.

But he was not available. Here was how manager Ron Roenicke explained it.

He had been in the cages trying to get loose. Its a little harder to get J.D. quickly loose. But we had given him a couple of innings before and talked to him about it.

Hes used to certain routines that he goes through and he knows different situations when they come up that there may be an opportunity. But Jerry [Narron, the bench coach] had gone down there a couple of innings before and just kind of gave him a heads up to be ready.

I would rather give him the day off, which we did. But if we needed it to win a ballgame we thought we may put him up there.

So he could have hit?

We could have, Roenicke said. Again, both of us probably rather would have not, him and us. Thats kind of what the decision came to.

Excuse me?

Before I go any further, let me make this clear: this isnt about the manager. There is a tendency in baseball and, for that matter, life to blame the boss for everything, which is fine. But lets not be ridiculous or disingenuous. Everyone knows that Ron Roenicke ended up as manager of the Red Sox through a series of events didnt leave the team with many options. You, I and everyone else will be shocked if Roenicke is still the manager of the team on Opening Day 2021.

So please, dont make this about the manager. Its deflecting the argument and, more importantly, letting Martinez off the hook.

Now lets get back to the crux of that Abraham report, specifically this line: both of us probably rather would have not, him and us. And again, before we make this about Roenicke, we all know the reindeer games that teams and managers play. Roenicke wasnt about to throw Martinez under the bus by putting it all on him, so he was sure to say him and us.

I think Roenicke is deflecting blame here. I think Martinez didnt want to hit. And I think the manager is covering for him because as a longtime, respected baseball guy and man who is refreshingly decent and gentlemanly Roenicke is covering for his player because he understands the magnitude of Martinez transgression and the pure selfishness with which the player acted.

MAZZ: We'll Still Learn Plenty About Who These Red Sox Are

Seriously, is everyone really OK with this? Have we reached that point of apathy? The Red Sox had played eight games entering Saturdays affair against Yankees. They were 3-5. We all know Bostons pitching staff was assembled from yard sales and clearance bins, but Martinez is the highest-paid player on the active roster. He is also one of the most senior. He loves to paint himself as a hitting guru who imparts wisdom on his younger teammates, mostly through the use of the infamous tablet he uses during games.

How many times have you read that Martinez makes the other Red Sox better in a multitude of games?

But this?

This made them much worse.

At the moment, the Red Sox dont have a ton to hang their hats on. The pitching stinks. Chief baseball office Chaim Bloom was hired to rebuild the Red Sox from the inside out in the image of the Tampa Bay Rays mostly on the pitching staff but here is something that obviously hasnt been instilled yet: the Rays, in good years or in bad, always play hard, maximize their talent. They certainly dont quit.

Martinez? Unless or until we find out more in a world with limited media access, he has no defense or excuse. It sure feels like Captain Video pulled a Manny Ramirez in New York last weekend, refusing to hit in one of the few games where the Red Sox have had a chance this season. Whether they won or lost the game is irrelevant. The whole point, this year especially, is to try.

But if Martinez, in particular, cant even do that, well then why is even playing this year at all?

You can hear Tony Massarotti weekdays from 2-6 p.m. EST on the Felger & Massarotti program. Follow him on Twitter @TonyMassarotti.

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Mazz: Did JD Martinez quit on the Red Sox? - 98.5 The Sports Hub