Among the many questions that people have pondered since the draft order became official is whether the 49ers would trade up to secure the coveted “Franchise Quarterback.” There have been good arguments on both sides of that issue, but there’s something else worth wondering: what if the 49ers didn’t have to trade up to get a quarterback in April?
On today’s Niner Nate-tion Podcast, Nate Nelson and Leo Luna took the plunge and made the first 12 picks of a so-called dream mock draft for the 49ers. This wasn’t a fantasyland mock where every team ahead of the 49ers goes insane and passes on Trevor Lawrence, just one of a million possible scenarios that leave a quarterback available after the first 11 picks.
If that were the case, what would Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch do? Almost any member of the front office that has spoken on the record about the draft has mentioned how important restocking the team with young, cheap talent is to the future of the franchise. That would seem to rule out trading up for someone they liked, but if he fell to you? Do Kyle and John take the plunge and make the pick, or do they look to take advantage of a QB-needy team trying to make a big splash of their own? Further still, what if they stay where they are and simply pass on a quarterback?
That would probably be the end of 49ers Twitter, not that Lynch or Shanahan much care about things like that.
So much about the team’s true intentions remains unknown, and, truth be told, we’ll probably never really know for sure what their ideal scenario actually would be. Still, I think it’s fun to think about, and that what today’s show did for me.
You can hear the whole conversation in today’s episode, the player below, or iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Other topics in today’s show
Which free agents stay, and which are shown the door
Who is the one 49er Robert Saleh will do whatever it takes to sign?
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are eager to share their side of the story with Oprah Winfrey.
After several high-profile names and TV networks battled it out for the first sit-down interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, it was the media mogul who received the honor. On Monday, CBS announced the couple will be interviewed by Winfrey, 67. The special, titled “Oprah With Meghan and Harry: A CBS Primetime Special,” will air on Sunday, March 7.
And according to Katie Nicholl, royal correspondent for Vanity Fair, the couple has more freedom to detail their triumphs and struggles on camera.
“It is not known whether Harry and Meghan have discussed the TV interview with the Queen, but they did not consult courtiers at Buckingham Palace before agreeing to the interview,” Nicholl claimed on Tuesday. “A Palace source said that the couple is no longer obliged to inform the Royal Household of their plans now that they are non-working members of the Royal Family.”
While Markle is expected to discuss what it was like to marry into the royal family, as well as touch on the circumstances that drove her and Harry to step down as senior members last year, it is unlikely the duchess will reveal the full details out of respect for Queen Elizabeth II.
The last televised interview Markle, 39, and Harry, 36, gave was for ITV’s Tom Bradby during their tour of South Africa in late 2019. It was during that interview where Harry revealed that he and his brother, Prince William, were on different paths and Markle admitted she was struggling in her new role as a royal.
“Meg’s on a high and so is Harry,” a friend revealed to the outlet. “They are very excited about everything and [are] looking forward to sitting down and sharing some of that happiness with Oprah. It’s a chance for them to give people a glimpse into their new lives and what they are hoping to achieve in the future.”
OPRAH LANDS MEGHAN MARKLE, PRINCE HARRY’S FIRST SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW SINCE ENGAGEMENT
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex currently reside in California. (Reuters)
Former Palace spokesman Dickie Arbiter told the outlet that Markle and Harry will also be careful about any details they share concerning their son Archie, as well as the duchess’ strained relationship with her father Thomas Markle.
Last week, the former “Suits” star won a High Court case against Associated Newspapers over a breach of her privacy and copyright over publishing a private letter she wrote to the former Hollywood lighting director, 76.
QUEEN ELIZABETH ‘DELIGHTED’ OVER MEGHAN MARKLE, PRINCE HARRY BABY NEWS
Prince Harry will be partnering with Oprah Winfrey to create a documentary series on mental health for Apple’s new streaming service. (Getty)
“The Sussexes have an army of professional well-paid advisors so they will go into the interview well-rehearsed and prepared, but they will have to be careful particularly when speaking about their son and Meghan’s father,” Arbiter explained to the outlet.
“Associated Newspapers will, I imagine, be watching the interview very carefully,” he shared. “They want their day in court so I can’t believe Meghan will talk in-depth about the court case and she should be careful when talking about the media because from what I have seen, she hasn’t been harassed by the British media.”
“Meghan is very smart, and I suspect this is more about getting their message out than what’s next for them and what they are going to do in LA,” he continued. “Harry and Meghan aren’t going to make any waves, it’s not worth them upsetting the apple cart.”
The special promises to be “an intimate conversation” with the couple.
MEGHAN MARKLE, PRINCE HARRY EXPECTING BABY NO. 2
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex recently announced they were expecting their second child. (AP)
“Winfrey will speak with Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, in a wide-ranging interview, covering everything from stepping into life as a Royal, marriage, motherhood, philanthropic work to how she is handling life under intense public pressure,” a press release announced.
“Later, the two are joined by Prince Harry as they speak about their move to the United States and their future hopes and dreams for their expanding family.”
The primetime special comes just a day after the royal couple announced they are expecting their second child.
“We can confirm that Archie is going to be a big brother. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are overjoyed to be expecting their second child,” a spokesperson for the couple told Fox News on Sunday. The pair welcomed their firstborn in May 2019.
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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have stepped down as senior members of the British royal family. (Getty)
As for Winfrey, the Emmy-winner attended their royal wedding back in May 2018. Harry is currently working on a docu-series with the legendary daytime host and businesswoman for Apple TV+.
Winfrey also lives in the same neighborhood as Markle and Harry in Southern California, the area they moved to in summer 2020.
Since moving to the United States, the duke and duchess have struck up major production deals with Netflix and Spotify for exclusive content.
Fox News’ Jessica Napoli contributed to this report.
Fox News senior meteorologist Janice Dean says the media is complicit in New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s cover-up of the ballooning death count in New York nursing homes due to the coronavirus, and has failed to hold him accountable for his fatal policies that caused more than 15,000 elderly people in assisted living to die.
“I think it’s just a good example of the double standard,” Dean told Fox News in an interview Saturday. Her in-laws died last year due to contracting COVID-19 in an assisted living facility, and she has been an outspoken critic of the Democratic governor’s policies ever since.
JANICE DEAN: CUOMO’S COVID NURSING HOME POLICIES ROBBED MY IN-LAWS OF THEIR 60TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
“It was infuriating because not only did they [the media] protect Cuomo, but they encouraged him to promote himself,” Dean said of the lack of media coverage following the bombshell admission this week by a top Cuomo aide that the administration purposely withheld COVID-19 data amid a Justice Department probe of nursing home fatalities in four states, including New York.
“All of the major news networks were showing fluff pieces of him and his family, his book. He sold a poster showing that COVID mountain and the fact that he had flattened the curve. He was promoting himself and making money off of the deaths of 40,000 New Yorkers,” Fox News’ senior meteorologist said.
Dean said her family didn’t even know her husband’s dad was ill until one Saturday morning in late March when they got a phone call from the nursing home he was in.
“We were in quarantine so we weren’t able to see them,” she said. “The people who worked at the nursing home were eyes and ears for us. We didn’t even know he was sick. We got a call saying he wasn’t feeling well and three hours later we got a call back saying he was dead. We didn’t know he died of COVID until the death certificate.”
DE BLASIO CALLS FOR ‘FULL ACCOUNTING’ OF CUOMO NURSING HOME COVER-UP ALLEGATIONS
Dean’s mother-in-law also met a similar fate.
“My mother in law got COVID in an assisted living facility and she died in the hospital. And her number doesn’t count,” Dean said, referring to the tally the state keeps of COVID-related deaths.
Dee and Mickey Newman and one of their grandsons. (Courtesy Janice Dean)
Cuomo’s administration admitted in a letter to New York lawmakers Wednesday that the actual death toll for seniors in nursing homes was 15,049 — nearly 10,000 more than the health department reported at the end of January.
“We knew this whole time,” Dean said. “That’s why I’ve been speaking out since May. We knew that they were not reporting the total number because they weren’t counting the number of dead in the hospital that got COVID from their nursing homes, like my mother-in-law.”
Dean is pushing for lawmakers to open up an investigation into Cuomo’s leadership throughout the pandemic and be held accountable for the deaths that resulted from his earlier directive for nursing homes in the Empire State to accept patients who had or were suspected of having COVID-19.
CUOMO’S ALLEGED NURSING HOME COVER-UP DRAWS THE IRE OF NY LAWMAKERS
“I think now they have to do something now that there is a senior-level official on tape basically saying they covered up the numbers. They have to do something now. They’re sort of backed into a corner,” she said of the Democratic leadership in New York’s state Assembly.
“Now that there’s sort of safety in numbers and knowing that there’s a smoking gun out there and knowing that their constituents are interested in the story because it’s affected so many New Yorkers and shouldn’t have a political affiliation.”
Dean also blasted Cuomo’s handling of recent nursing home visitation, which remains extremely limited amid the pandemic.
“I talk to people all the time who are at their wit’s end because they still can’t to this day go in and see their loved ones and there’s all sorts of talk about going to sporting events and having rapid testing and that sort of thing well why can’t they see their family members? Even people in jail, there’s a protocol that they can go see their loved ones or whoever but they can’t go see them in a nursing home,” she said.
Cuomo has authorized limited visitation, mostly outdoors, during the pandemic, but for elderly patients who are bed-bound or who are unable to go outside due to frigid winter weather, the options are few and far between.
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“From the very beginning, Cuomo does not listen to science,” she added. “I think he listens to people who line his pockets and I think that this is a corrupt administration. There needs to be a lot of investigation into how he leads, why he has so much power.”
Cuomo’s office did not return Fox News’ repeated requests for comment.
The sum of all our mask-wearing, distancing, business closures, and other, however imperfect, precautions haven’t been enough to stop the Covid-19 pandemic in its tracks. But there’s a silver lining: It has been enough to virtually wipe out the flu this season.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that as of January 30, there have been just 1,316 positive flu cases in its clinical surveillance network since September. Around this time last year, it had logged 129,997 positive flu cases in the same time frame.
Some of the drop may be because people aren’t going in and getting tested for the flu, or they’re staying home fearing their symptoms might be a Covid-19 infection. But researchers think the decline in actual cases is real and steep.
It’s not just confirmed cases that are down. The CDC’s syndromic surveillance system — which tries to track the disease based on people showing up to clinics with symptoms — is showing historically low levels of the flu.
The number of confirmed flu samples in the CDC’s surveillance network. These numbers are more of a snapshot of the seasonal trend; they aren’t meant to be a comprehensive tally of everyone who has the flu in a given season. Tim Ryan Williams/Vox
Last flu season, the CDC estimated the virus was responsible for “38 million illnesses, 18 million medical visits, 405,000 hospitalizations, and 22,000 deaths.”
The flu trends of this year mean “we have found a way to potentially decrease tens of thousands of deaths each year,” Seema Lakdawala, a flu researcher at the University of Pittsburgh says.
This news contains both a silver lining and a warning.
The good news is that we’ve seen how effective our collective behavior can be in diminishing the burden of the flu. And because of this experience, we may be more prepared to stop a future flu pandemic dead in its tracks.
The warning: Since people aren’t getting the flu this year, that means more people will be susceptible to catching it next year. Kids are especially vulnerable to catching the flu, and next year there will be more children than ever who have never gotten the flu in their lives. This will also make them more likely to spread it. Some adults might also be more vulnerable to get sick with the flu next year. Immunological memory of the virus fades over time, and by the time the next flu season begins, it will have been a year since many adults last received a flu shot.
To lessen the overall burden of future flu seasons, we’ll need to remember some of what we’ve learned during the pandemic. It won’t be tenable to keep all the Covid-19 precautions going after the pandemic wanes. But we should spend some time thinking carefully about what changes ought to remain.
The flu season that wasn’t
This flu season, more or less, hasn’t really happened. It’s not entirely a surprise: During the southern hemisphere’s flu season last year (which occurs during the northern summer — May through September) cases and deaths also fell.
That said, researchers didn’t take it for granted that the flu wouldn’t spread this winter.
“Up until a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t feel like we were out of the woods yet,” Shweta Bansal, a Georgetown University epidemiologist and biologist says. But now that it’s February — typically when the flu season peaks in the US — she feels like a wave of flu just isn’t coming. And it’s not just the flu: Other respiratory viruses, with the exception of rhinoviruses, have fallen dramatically as well.
This is a huge relief: Earlier in the pandemic, scientists were very worried about the strain on our health care systems if the flu was circulating on a large scale alongside Covid-19. The quiet flu season means there are more hospital beds and equipment available for Covid-19 patients, and the health care workers treating those patients are less strained than during a typical flu year.
Researchers don’t think the steep declines are due to more people getting flu vaccines this year. “The vaccination is helping, but there’s absolutely no way that increased vaccination on its own is responsible for this,” Stephen Kissler, an epidemiologist at Harvard says. Yes, flu vaccine uptake is up (around 15.5 million more doses), but it’s not enough to explain what happened to the flu. (The flu is also more commonly spread from contaminated surfaces. So routine surface cleanings may be hygiene theater when it comes to Covid-19, but it could be helping out when it comes to the flu.)
What is responsible? “As far as I can tell, the most consistent explanation is simply that wearing masks and distancing has really done it,” Kissler says.
Why the flu was defeated, but not Covid-19
How could mask-wearing and distancing bring the flu to a halt, while Covid-19 rages on?
It goes back to something scientists were saying at the beginning of the pandemic: Covid-19 is way, way worse than the seasonal flu because it’s more contagious.
Scientists describe the contagiousness of a disease with a figure called R0 (pronounced r-naught). The number describes, on average, how many new cases each case of a disease goes on to generate. For the seasonal flu, the R0 is between 1 and 2. For Covid-19, it’s more likely between 2 and 3, if not a little higher.
Our collective actions have brought the effective R number for Covid-19 down to a little more than 1. As long as the R number is greater than 1, the virus will keep spreading. But, when it comes to the flu, all that collective action has indeed brought the effective R for the flu below 1.
To Kissler, this is textbook epidemiology: “Anything that is less contagious [than Covid], but that spreads in a similar way, is going to be brought well below that R threshold of 1, and it’s just going to be wiped out.”
We can feel good that our efforts wiped out the flu. It’s one less burden to deal with during an already difficult year. But there are some optimistic takeaways for the future, too. Let’s say there’s another pandemic respiratory virus, but it’s a little less contagious than Covid-19. If we were to bring the same force of collective action to contain the new virus as now, that pandemic would likely be halted.
We’ll learn more about flu transmission as society returns to normal
Scientists don’t know, precisely, which Covid-19 public health steps are contributing most to the drop in flu cases. But they have suspicions. “It is the lack of travel, the school closures, and the distancing and masking that are making the biggest difference,” says Helen Chu, a physician and epidemiologist at the University of Washington who studies the flu.
It’s hard to definitively say which contributes the most. “The flu disproportionately makes children sick or puts them in the hospital, and so things like school closures have a greater effect on flu than they would for SARS-CoV-2,” Chu says.
But then, “I can’t imagine school closures are doing most of it, because so many places have managed to keep schools open and they still don’t have flu: Australia, for example. They still kept the schools open, and they had no flu.”
While scientists don’t currently know how much each intervention is contributing to the drop in flu this year, they see opportunities to learn more.
“I hope somebody is going to look at this across the United States and try to tease this out by state, because there are so many regional differences in the uptake of masking and social distancing, and school closures,” Chu says. Perhaps those differences in policy and behavior can be correlated with cold or flu outcomes to better understand what worked.
One thing that will help even more: Scientists will watch what happens as Covid-19 precautions are lifted. “We will start to see the circulation of flu and other respiratory viruses,” Kissler says.
So scientists can potentially see which restrictions and behavior changes lead to a higher resurgence in respiratory viruses.
We can reduce the burden of the seasonal flu — without going into lockdown
We can use the pandemic to think of how society can shift to prevent more of these infections and deaths in the future. “Seasonal influenza viruses are still a large public health burden,” Lakdawala says. That will still be true after the pandemic ends, and we should remember some lessons from the pandemic to address it.
For instance, in the past, if I had been exposed to someone with the flu, or maybe just a cold, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. In the future, after the pandemic, I’d consider not getting together with friends or going into the office after an exposure (the flu has a shorter incubation time than Covid-19, so you wouldn’t need to quarantine as long, likely just up to four days). And I’d be sure to wear a mask in public when sick or after being exposed to the virus. The flu, like Covid-19, can spread in the absence of symptoms and people can infect others before they feel sick.
We might even want to be more cautious during flu season and wear masks around others regardless. “Wearing masks in the wintertime, I think it’s something that might be here to stay,” Kissler says. Overall, there should be a greater acceptance of wearing masks in public, so it won’t be as likely to attract stares or confusion.
In the future, employers and employees might have a clearer understanding of the importance of staying home, and getting sick leave when ill with the virus.
“We have many studies that have asked people, ‘Did you stay home because you had the flu? And they would say, ‘No,’” Chu says. “We think coming to work is critical. And we think to stay home when you’re sick is a sign of weakness. I think that’s going to change completely.” Additionally, parents taking care of a child with the flu should be given the time and resources to stay home, so they don’t spread it to others.
Schools could also use remote learning more judiciously. If a district notes a flu outbreak in its schools, they could temporarily shift to remote learning to avoid a larger outbreak in the community.
All of these actions should come on top of making sure as many people as possible get flu shots. The shots are typically only 40 to 60 percent effective at preventing someone from developing flu symptoms, so even if everyone got vaccinated every year (and typically only about half of Americans do), we should still enlist the new lessons we’ve learned.
We need to be vigilant going into the next flu season
We don’t need lockdowns to mitigate future flu seasons. They would be too burdensome — and unnecessarily excessive — in a typical flu season.
But still, we’ll need a good deal of vigilance, particularly next flu season. Scientists aren’t exactly sure how the flu will evolve in response to this weird new environment.
“We have no idea how obliterating the flu for an entire year affects its evolution,” Kissler says. That might make it harder for vaccine developers to pick the right strains for next year’s vaccines. “We don’t know if it’s going to be easier to predict next year’s flu strain, because it hasn’t been spreading as much. Or if it’s going to be a lot harder, because it’s gone through this really tight what we call an evolutionary bottleneck.”
Here’s what we do know: We can beat back the flu with our behavior. Covid-19, in part, “has shown us how to do it,” Kissler says.
The author of the Cracked Market blog, Jani Ziedins, last week warned the traders piling into the videogames retailer GameStop not to get greedy — or more specifically, not to be a pig.
Well.
As the chart shows, that short squeeze worked until it didn’t. Momentum fizzled after Robinhood and other brokerages limited access to trading in GameStop
GME,
-42.11%
and other securities that were surging in popularity. As to why, there will be Congressional hearings to find out the culprit — hedge funds or good-old-fashioned margin requirements — but the end result is the same.
GameStop may still have its moments. “As for what comes next, GME will be insanely volatile for weeks and even months. That means 50% and 100% moves in both directions. But at this point, a 50% bounce only gets us back to $75. Maybe we get back to $100 or even $125, but waiting for anything higher is just wishful thinking,” Ziedins says.
Here’s Ziedins’ advice now. “For those that still have money left in the market, there is no reason to ride this all the way into the dirt. Cash in what you have left, learn from this lesson, and come back to the market better prepared next time,” says the Cracked Market blogger.
Cue, Frank Sinatra.
And those traders are inexperienced. Cardify, a consumer-data firm, did a survey of 1,600 self-directed investors in GameStop and cinema chain AMC Entertainment
AMC,
-20.96%
and found that most were inexperienced investors — 44% having less than 12 months of experience, and another quarter with one to two years’ experience. Nearly half made their biggest-ever do-it-yourself trading investment in the last four weeks, according to the survey that ended on Monday.
Why? Of these overwhelmingly young and male investors, 45% said for quick financial profits. Nearly 20% said it was part of a long-term investing strategy, and 16% said to spite big hedge funds and institutional investors, according to Cardify.
The buzz
The U.S. added 49,000 nonfarm payrolls jobs in January while the unemployment rate fell to 6.3%, according to the Labor Department.
The U.S. Senate in the early hours of the morning approved a budget resolution that will allow for a fast tracking of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan proposed by the Biden administration to be approved without Republican support. Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tiebreaking vote. Johnson & Johnson
JNJ,
+0.93%
meanwhile submitted its coronavirus vaccine for Food and Drug Administration approval.
Pinterest
PINS,
+0.91%
shares jumped 11% in premarket trade, as the art-sharing social-media service reported forecast-beating earnings on a 76% jump in revenue during the fourth quarter. Another social-media service, Snap
SNAP,
-1.60%,
also beat expectations. Besides using social media, people stuck at home were playing videogames, as Activision Blizzard
ATVI,
-0.10%
gained 8% after it reported stronger earnings and bookings than expected, increased its dividend by 15%, and authorized a $4 billion share buyback plan.
Ford Motor Co.
F,
+1.52%
reported a surprise profit and topped expectations.
Exercise-bike maker Peloton Interactive
PTON,
+7.04%
slumped 7% as it did beat on earnings but flagged a rise in shipping and other costs. T-Mobile US
TMUS,
+0.95%,
the mobile service operator, also beat earnings expectations but guided to a softer 2021 than expected.
Luckin Coffee, the U.S.-listed Chinese coffee retailer, filed for bankruptcy protection, less than a year after an accounting scandal.
The market
After the S&P 500
SPX,
+1.09%
ended Thursday at a record for the sixth time in 2021, U.S. stock futures
ES00,
+0.37%
NQ00,
+0.20%
pointed to another day of gains.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury
TMUBMUSD10Y,
1.158%
moved up to 1.16%, after ending Thursday at its highest in 11 months.
The chart
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Today’s technology giants are following a similar trajectory to the radio makers of the 1920s, as well as the dot-com era around the turn of the century. “So the point is that you can be a firm believer in tech’s ability to transform our lives but still think valuations might be in a bubble,” said Jim Reid, strategist at Deutsche Bank.
Random reads
This local government meeting over Zoom
ZM,
+2.50%
turned into a chaotic, internet sensation.
Chocolate sales were 40% to 50% higher in areas with an increased number of COVID-19 cases, according to confectioner Hershey
HSY,
+0.44%.
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George Clooney, depicted with his wife Amal Clooney, says he steered clear of Hollywood-sounding names for their children. (Photo: Mondadori via Getty Images/Archivio Mondadori via Getty Images/Mondadori via Getty Images)
George Clooney and wife Amal gave their children traditional names to spare them more attention as famous offsprings, he explained in a new interview with AARP.
In the virtual conversation, George, 59, who directed and starred in the Netflix sci-fi film The Midnight Sky, spoke warmly of family life, including his habit of writing letters to Amal, 42, and why they named their three-year-old twin children Alexander and Ella.
“I didn’t want, like, weird-ass names for our kids,” he told the outlet. “They’re already going to have enough trouble. It’s hard being the son of somebody famous and successful.” He explained, “Paul Newman’s son killed himself. Gregory Peck’s son killed himself. Bing Crosby had two sons kill themselves. I have an advantage because I’m so much older that by the time my son would feel competitive, I’ll literally be gumming bread.”
George became a father in 2017, news the couple announced humorously. “…Ella, Alexander and Amal are all healthy, happy and doing fine. George is sedated and should recover in a few days.” It seemed like a wink at the actor’s age and his bachelor rep — although he was once married to actress Talia Balsam (from 1989 to 1993), and dated women including Renée Zellweger and Elisabetta Canalis, George famously avoided long-term commitment. Well, until Amal came along in 2013.
“I was like, ‘I’m never getting married. ‘I’m not gonna have kids,’” George told GQ in November. “I’m gonna work, I’ve got great friends, my life is full, I’m doing well. And I didn’t know how un-full it was until I met Amal. And then everything changed. And I was like, ‘Oh, actually, this has been a huge empty space.’”
The actor popped the question in April 2014, less than one year after meeting the human rights lawyer through a mutual friend. And he adjusted to fatherhood with similar ease, calling it “fulfilling.”
Makes family memories is so important, said George, that during yearly weekend getaways with Amal (presumably taken before the coronavirus pandemic), they wrote their children detailed letters about their journey.
The couple also swaps letters every few months. “Even in lockdown, I’ll write a letter and slip it on her desk, or she’ll write a letter and leave it under the pillow,” George told AARP. “I’m a big believer in letters. I have letters from Paul Newman, Walter Cronkite, Gregory Peck. I have them framed. I put them in the house. If it were a text, it would feel different. Maybe that’s a generational thing, and maybe it won’t be that way 20 years from now, but for me, somebody sat down and wrote it.”
If you or someone you know are experiencing suicidal thoughts, call 911, or call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.
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Former Houston Texans wide receiver Andre Johnson blasted the organization two weeks ago and defended Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson while taking a direct shot at Jack Easterby, the executive of football operations amid the trade rumors involving the team’s franchise QB.
“If I’m @deshaunwatson I will stand my ground,” Johnson wrote at the time. “The Texans organization is known for wasting players careers. Since Jack Easterby has walk into the building nothing good has happened in/for the organization and for some reason someone can’t seem to see what’s going on. Pathetic!!!”
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Now, two weeks later, another great player who used to play for the franchise decided it was his turn to take a shot at the organization. Running back Arian Foster, who is the leading rusher (6,472 yards) in franchise history, discussed the team and how they treated star players poorly.
“I do know that the organization had their troubles bringing in free agents, which I never really understood,” Foster said during an appearance on “The Gems and Juice” podcast. “They have their struggles in communicating with players. I’ve always thought this about the NFL in general, but my experience with Houston is that they really didn’t give a f–k about how you felt and what you said. It was like ‘you do what we say.’ And that’s another variable as to why I was like disassociated from the wins and losses s–t.
DESHAUN WATSON WANTS OUT NO MATTER WHO NEXT TEXANS COACH IS: REPORT
“It was like, ya’ll don’t give a f–k about my input. Maybe three coaches — tops — played at that level, [the others] just [have] been around the game,” Foster continued. “And so how the f–k can you not have input from people doing it at a high level, who are in it? I never understood that s–t. And so once you realize that you’re just a chess piece, then for me, it was just like, ‘alright, I’m just going to do what I can…I’m gonna play hard…do my thing…take care of my dues…but I’m here for a purpose.'”
Right now, the Texans are the only team in the NFL without a head coach, and even if they decide to hire Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy as the successor to Bill O’Brien, Watson reportedly still wants nothing to do with the franchise.
TEXANS GREAT ANDRE JOHNSON BLASTS ORGANIZATION AMID DESHAUN WATSON TRADE RUMORS
Originally, Watson reportedly wanted the Texans to ask for his input on their open general manager and head coaching positions, but the team’s owner Cal McNair went ahead and hired Nick Caserio from the New England Patriots for the general manager opening.
No matter who the Texans hire next it won’t change Watson’s mind and he is expected to still want out, ESPN reported.
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As trade rumors continue to circulate around Watson since reports came out that he was unhappy, the New York Jets appeared to have turned into a true contender to land one of the best quarterbacks in all of football.
Watson finished the 2020 NFL season with a league-high 4,823 passing yards to go along with 33 touchdowns and a career-low seven interceptions. The Texans, however, finished with a 4-12 record, and they were at the bottom of the barrel in the AFC South.
NEW YORK (CNN) — Most people who buy things online just have to worry about their deliveries being delayed or never arriving. But some people are dealing with a different problem altogether: getting weird stuff like hair clippers, face creams and sunglasses they never even ordered at all.
The Federal Trade Commission and cyber experts have been warning consumers about these deliveries, which can be part of something known as “brushing” scams.
Here’s how these scams work: Third-party sellers on Amazon, eBay and other online marketplaces pay people to write fake, positive reviews about their products, or do it themselves. To be able to post the reviews, these so-called “brushers” need to trick the site into making it appear that a legitimate transaction took place. So they’ll use a fake account to place gift orders and address them to a random person whose name and address they find online. Then, instead of actually mailing the item for which they want to post a review, the brushers will send a cheap, often lightweight item that costs less to ship.
Sending an item (even the wrong one) creates a tracking number, and when the package is delivered, it enables brushers to write a verified review. If you’re on the receiving end, you usually aren’t charged for the purchase and your real account isn’t hacked — but you are left in the dark as to who is repeatedly sending the mystery packages. In many cases, there’s no return address. You don’t need to worry that anything bad has happened to you or will happen to you if you get a package that might be part of a brushing scam, experts say. But we all need to be concerned about the scams affecting reviews we rely on when buying products.
Brushing scams reportedly took off on e-commerce sites in China around five years ago. They resurfaced in headlines last summer, when all 50 states issued warnings about mysterious, unsolicited packages of seeds that people across the nation received in the mail.
But it’s not just seeds. Unsuspecting recipients have also found boxes with goods ranging from dog pooper-scoopers to power cords to soap dispensers on their doorsteps.
Jen Blinn of Thousand Oaks, California, told CNN Business she has been receiving random packages since June, including most recently a briefcase, a backpack, a hair straightener and a coffee-cup warmer.
“Every two weeks … I get another package in the mail of just random stuff I never ordered,” she said. Blinn notified Amazon of the issue, but a customer service agent “didn’t really understand what I was saying. She obviously didn’t know about it,” she said. The agent looked at Blinn’s account and found nothing wrong with it.
It’s not illegal to send customers unordered merchandise. But “the [Federal Trade Commission] has long gone after marketers that use fake reviews,” said David Vladeck, a former director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection and a law professor at Georgetown University.
Amazon says its policy prohibits sellers sending unsolicited merchandise to customers, and that sellers can be removed from the site for doing so.
“Third-party sellers are prohibited from sending unsolicited packages to customers and we take action on those who violate our policies, including withholding payments, suspending or removing selling privileges, or working with law enforcement,” an Amazon spokesperson said in an email. Amazon would not say how how many brushing scams have been found on the site or how many sellers have been removed due to these scams.
An eBay spokesperson said in an email that brushing schemes “do not appear to be highly prevalent” on the site. It violates eBay policy to send unsolicited merchandise to customers or falsify reviews and can result in eBay restricting sellers’ accounts or suspending them from the site.
Experts also say it’s difficult to quantify the frequency of such scams because it can be hard for companies to know whether reviews are fake, and scams often go unreported by consumers.
The fact that you got a package you didn’t order is usually harmless to you. The harm is to people who rely on reviews when deciding on a purchase, said Chris McCabe, a former policy enforcement investigator at Amazon tasked with stopping scams and fraud. He is now a consultant to sellers on the site.
The real losers here are the consumers who are possibly believing many of these fake positive reviews, or this artificial padding of reviews, because they might see 100 positive reviews, and then there may only be 60 or 70 of them that are legitimate.
–Chris McCabe
“The real losers here are the consumers who are possibly believing many of these fake positive reviews, or this artificial padding of reviews, because they might see 100 positive reviews, and then there may only be 60 or 70 of them that are legitimate,” he said.
The likelihood that a consumer will buy a product that has five reviews is 270% higher than the likelihood they will buy a product with zero reviews, according to a 2017 report by Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center.
Some fake reviews are also being driven by Facebook groups where sellers offer buyers money if they write positive product reviews, said McCabe. Amazon and Facebook should work together to crack down on these groups, he said.
An Amazon spokesperson said that the company analyzes more than 10 million reviews every week to try to keep fake ones from being published and that it provides details of its investigations to social media companies “so they can stop these bad actors from abusing their platforms.”
A Facebook spokesperson said in an email that when the company is told of groups that may encourage fake reviews, it reviews them and removes them if they violate its policies.
Unwanted sheets and Shiatsu massagers
For consumers, the unexpected deliveries can be jarring. The packages Ashanté Nicole never ordered started arriving at her home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2019.
iPhone and portable car chargers. An iPad case. A heated shiatsu massage. A nail cleaning brush and a blow dryer. Sheets. A mattress cover. A floppy fish toy.
They didn’t have return addresses, so Nicole wasn’t sure who was sending the packages. She reached out to Amazon to try to stop them from coming, but they still keep arriving at her doorstep.
“It was just kind of a little bit concerning because I don’t know who has my information,” she said. “I don’t know what they’re going to send me. Like they could send something illegal and then I’m in trouble because I didn’t know whoever that person was or what they were sending me.”
If you get merchandise you didn’t order, it could mean that scammers have created an account in your name or taken over your account, an FTC spokesperson said in an email. Scammers may have even created new accounts in other names tied to your address, allowing them to post lots of seemingly-real reviews.
“We recommend keeping an eye on your online shopping accounts. If you spot activity that isn’t yours, report it to the site right away, and think about changing your password for that site,” the spokesperson said.
Nicole feels she has done all she can by alerting Amazon each time unsolicited packages from the retailer arrive at her doorstep.
“There’s literally nothing I can do besides tell Amazon every time it happens. And that hasn’t really done much,” she said.
Amazon declined to comment directly on Nicole and Blinn’s accounts, but said if a customer receives a package that was unsolicited, they should contact Amazon’s customer service team.
Nicole said she hopes Amazon will do more to stop brushing and ban sellers who participate in the scams.
“I just think they need to be a little bit more concerned with shutting those stores down and making sure those sellers can’t use the platform.”
By Wonderwall.com Editors 2:33pm PST, Jan 22, 2021
Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles’ romance was apparently no secret on set
Within the “tight-knit group” working on the set of Olivia Wilde’s upcoming thriller, “Don’t Worry Darling,” the director’s romance with leading man, Harry Styles, was apparently not something the two kept under wraps. In a new report from ET, an insider explains that between Olivia’s penchant for creating “a little community” on her sets and the social limitations involved in working on any production during the coronavirus pandemic, the cast and crew have become extremely close. Given the communal vibe, the blossoming relationship between Olivia, 36, and Harry, 26, was “not a secret on set,” according to ET’s source. The insider also assures the outlet the couple isn’t letting their romance interfere with their work. “Don’t Worry Darling,” stars Florence Pugh as the “unhappy housewife” of Harry’s devoted husband character, who nonetheless has a “dark secret” he’s hiding. No release date has been announced yet, but multiple outlets have reported we can expect a late 2021 premiere.
Keep reading to find out which veteran journalist is retiring after 55 years and more …
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Tom Brokaw retires from NBC after 55 years
After 55 years with NBC News, Tom Brokaw is moving on. The award-winning, veteran journalist announced his retirement on Friday, Jan. 22, in a press release. “During one of the most complex and consequential eras in American history, a new generation of NBC News journalists, producers and technicians is providing America with timely, insightful and critically important information, 24/7. I could not be more proud of them,” he said in a statement, per People. Tom, 80, began his NBC career in 1966 as an anchor for KNBC in Los Angeles. From 1976 until 1981, he co-anchored the “Today” show, then moved to “NBC Nightly News” in 1982, staying on the program until 2004. Also a former “Meet the Press” host, Tom most recently served as a senior correspondent for NBC News. Looking ahead, his retirement announcement said Tom, “will continue to be active in print journalism, authoring books and articles, and spend time with his wife, Meredith, three daughters and grandchildren.”
RELATED: Stars turning 80 in 2021
Ricky Martin shows off a new look
“When bored, bleach.” That’s how Ricky Martin captioned an easy-on-the-eyes selfie that showed off his newly platinum-ified beard on Instagram on Thursday, Jan. 21. The new look quickly earned the singer a whole lot of thumbs up, as family, friends and followers — including Ricky’s husband, Jwan Yosef, and pal, Melanie Griffith — chimed in with their stamps of approval. Ricky’s not the only celeb, of course, who’s adopted the “when bored …” approach to styling. Since the coronavirus pandemic sparked lockdowns around the world last spring, celebs like Sarah Hyland and Sarah Michelle Gellar have gone pink, Hilary Duff’s tried out turquoise locks and Chris Noth and Colton Underwood have experimented with DIY head shaving.
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Zayn Malik gets his new daughter’s name tattooed on his wrist
This week, Gigi Hadid shared her new daughter’s name in the most low-key way when she added “Khai’s mom” to her Instagram bio. The tweak apparently prompted fans to pore over the details of an Instagram Live session Khai’s dad, Zayn Malik, appeared in a few days prior. That’s where they noticed a new addition to the singer’s abundance of tattoos. Written in Arabic in red ink, the new art reads, “Khai,” according to multiple fan-sleuths. Another user chimed in to note that the Arabic word “khai” translates to “crown” or “crowned.” And as still other fans later pointed out on Twitter, Gigi’s paternal grandmother’s name is Khairiah and her sister, Bella Hadid’s middle name is Khair.
Britney Spears’ conservatorship is the focus of a new documentary from the New York Times Presents
Next month, a judge will decide who should manage Britney Spears’ financial, career, health and other affairs as her current conservatorship either comes to an end or is once again extended. As its expiration date nears, FX’s The New York Times Presents series is taking a closer look at the situation, which has kept the 39-year-old pop star under the thumb of her father, Jamie Spears, for more than a decade. In “Framing Britney Spears,” out Feb. 5, “People close to” the singer “and lawyers tied to her conservatorship … reassess her career as she battles her father in court over who should control her life,” according to a FX’s teaser description. Last year, Britney told the court she’s “strongly opposed” to having her father continue on in the role he assumed after she was hospitalized for psychiatric reasons in 2008. Jamie is currently sharing co-conservator duties with the financial company Bessemer Trust, which Britney requested to have put in charge. But she’s still fighting to have her father removed entirely. Meanwhile, a legion of the singer’s fans have taken to posting under the hashtag, #FreeBritney, and occasionally protesting on her behalf in the streets.
Garth Brooks thanks Lady Gaga’s glam team for their inauguration hair and makeup help
Even cowboys need glam teams — and Lady Gaga’s hair and makeup stylists were apparently happy to jump in and give Garth Brooks a little spiff-up before he performed at Joe Biden’s inauguration this week. “@LadyGaga, you were fabulous today and everyday. A national treasure,” Garth gushed on Twitter on Wednesday, Jan. 20, after she sang the National Anthem on Inauguration Day. “Please tell Frederick and Miss Sarah thank you for me! They saved a cowboy today. Oh, and tell Miss Sarah to hug her momma for me! love, g.” Turns out Frederic is Gaga’s hair guru, Frederic Aspiras, and Sarah is her makeup artist, Sarah Tanno-Stewart, both of whom reposted the country star’s kind words. “It was an honor helping you with hair for your beautiful inauguration performance,” Frederic wrote. Sarah, meanwhile, captioned her retweet, “BTW, making this a shirt.”
John Krasinski to host ‘SNL’ for Jan. 30 return
Nearly a year after his planned hosting gig on “Saturday Night Live” was canceled due to COVID-19 concerns, John Krasinski is set to helm the “SNL” when the returns on Jan. 30, Deadline reported this week. John, who’s an “SNL” hosting newbie, will be joined by musical guest Machine Gun Kelly. After that, Dan Levy takes over the stage at 30 Rock, with some help from singer-songwriter, Phoebe Bridgers, followed by a Regina King hosting slot, accompanied by musical guest Nathaniel Rateliff. Like John, Dan and Regina will be first-time hosts.
Gabourey Sidibe gets candid about how depression fueled her eating disorder
For Gabourey Sidibe, bulimia was once the self-defense mechanism she used to survive depression. In a new sneak peek for Taraji P. Henson’s next edition of “Peace of Mind with Taraji” on Facebook Watch, Gabourey speaks candidly about how one illness fueled the other. “It wasn’t even about other people. It was about me surviving the day. I was so embarrassed and I hated crying so much. I hated it,” she explains in the clip. “I found a fun little button. I found a button and on top of that, people were like, ‘You’re looking good.’ So I’m like, ‘Why would I stop?'” The actress goes on to say her eating disorder was never “about losing weight.” Instead, she says, “It truly was about how it stopped me from crying.” Eventually, though, she says things became “out of control,” even as she believed she was “controlling” her depression. “I was getting worse,” she recalls. “Being depressed is one thing. If you add an eating disorder to that, that’s a whole other monster that you have to fight.” Gabourey’s “Peace of Mind” appearance airs on Facebook Watch on Monday, Jan. 25.
Priyanka Chopra jokes that she still likes her husband, Nick Jonas, after months of quarantine
After spending much of her second year of marriage in lockdown with her husband, Nick Jonas, Priyanka Chopra Jonas is pleased to be able to say, “we still like each other,” as she joked to Stephen Colbert this week on “The Late Show.” “That’s important,” she noted. “We both have had such individual careers that I don’t think we would’ve had six months with each other ever, so that’s really a blessing,” Priyanka explained. “I was really happy to be able to have that time with each other.” Priyanka and Nick tied the knot twice in 2018 — once in a Christian ceremony and a second time in a traditional Hindu ceremony, both of which followed a week of pre-wedding events in India.
Jennifer Lopez shares advice for fans on finding their calling
Jennifer Lopez is still working to achieve her best version of self-love. “I remember when I was going through therapy, in the beginning, kind of in my late 30s, and there was a lot of talk about loving yourself,” she recently told Jay Shetty on the Coach Conversations series, “What’s Your Calling?” (via ET). “And I was like, ‘I love myself.’ But obviously I was doing all these things, like my personal relationships didn’t seem like I was loving myself. I didn’t even understand the concept of it. It took time and it’s a journey and it’s still a journey for me.” J.Lo also opened up about her goals for 2021 and how what she sees as her “calling” fits into that picture. “My dream is that together, this year, we can make a more unified, more loving, more accepting, more understanding world,” she said. “I always want to inspire, inspire different things in people … and in these times, where all of us can feel lost, I want to give people some hope and some direction.” While she said she knows her “calling is to empower, inspire and entertain,” the singer and actress acknowledged the “pressure” people feel when it comes to determining what path to take in life to fulfill their purpose. “The most important thing is you have to listen to yourself, and the words that you tell yourself,” she said. “What you say and what you think — and I tell this to my kids all the time — becomes your reality.”
‘It definitely wasn’t me’: Casey Affleck CONFIRMS he didn’t throw out Ana de Armas cutout after her split with his brother Ben
By Dailymail.com Reporter
Published: | Updated:
Casey Affleck on Thursday denied that he was in disguise at his brother Ben Affleck’s house earlier this week, dressed as a landscaper tossing in the trash a cardboard figure of Ana de Armas following Ben’s split with the actress.
‘No, that’s not me,’ the 45-year-old actor told ET correspondent Rachel Smith Thursday. ‘A bunch of people sent that picture to me and I was gonna tweet some, like, joke, response or something.
‘And then I couldn’t think of one and a joke didn’t seem appropriate. And I don’t have Twitter so that wasn’t going to work. But it definitely wasn’t me.’
The latest: Casey Affleck, 45, on Thursday denied that he was in disguise at his brother Ben Affleck’s house earlier this week, dressed as a landscaper tossing in the trash a cardboard figure of Ana de Armas following Ben’s split with the actress
The Academy Award-winning actor told the outlet that he couldn’t even confirm the breakup of the celeb couple, saying, ‘I can’t even really say if they have totally broken up for good or whatever. I would leave that to them to speak to.’
The Manchester By the Sea star, without getting into specifics, pointed to strain on ‘people in relationships’ brought about by the coronavirus lockdown implemented last March amid the spread of the pandemic.
‘The reality is, I think that this year has been really hard on people in relationships,’ Affleck said. ‘I wouldn’t know because I’ve been single, but I bet there are a lot of people that have, you know, it’s been challenging to relationships.
‘And I think that Ana is just the sweetest, funniest, smartest, most charming person. I think she won’t have any problems meeting somebody else.’
Praise: Casey called de Armas ‘just the sweetest, funniest, smartest, most charming person.’ She was snapped in Paris last year
Loyal: Casey said he’d ‘be there to carry Ben through it, but I don’t think he’ll have any problems;’ Affleck was snapped last year in LA
Popular: The idea it was the Oscar-winner tossing the cutout spurred chat on Twitter
The father of two – to sons 16-year-old Indiana and 13-year-old Atticus, with ex Summer Phoenix, 42 – told the outlet he has ‘no idea’ if his sibling and the actress will get back together, noting he’d ‘be sorry if it doesn’t work out.’
He continued: ‘I think she’s a catch in every way. And I’ll be there to carry Ben through it, but I don’t think he’ll have any problems. My advice to them would be like, “Yes, think long and hard about it, because quarantine is not fun if you’re single.”‘
The Massachusetts native touted de Armas’s work in the yet-to-be-released movie Blonde, saying the actress could ‘win an Oscar next year’ for her work in the Andrew Dominik-directed film, which also features Bobby Cannavale and Adrien Brody.
‘I saw her performance as Marilyn Monroe in this movie called Blonde, which hasn’t come out, and I would bet a lot that she’s gonna pick up every single award,’ Affleck said. ‘She’s gonna have a good year. I’m not too worried about her.’
