Dec 2 (Reuters) – Florida lawmakers are mulling plans to reverse a move that would strip Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) of its right to operate a private government around its famous theme-parks, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing people briefed on the plan.
In April, lawmakers had given their final approval to a bill ending Walt Disney’s designation as a self-governing entity, in an apparent response to its opposition to a state law limiting the teaching of LGBTQ issues in schools.
The new law would also mean that Disney would have to pay more taxes, state governor Ron DeSantis had said in April when he signed the bill. read more
The state lawmakers are working on a compromise that would allow Disney to keep the arrangement largely in place with a few modifications, the FT report said.
A spokesperson at DeSantis’ office said that the governor “does not make U-turns,” but added that a plan was in the works and would soon be released.
“We will have an even playing field for businesses in Florida, and the state certainly owes no special favors to one company. Disney’s debts will not fall on taxpayers of Florida.”
The FT report added that the return of Bob Iger as CEO last month could help pave the way for a resolution on the law.
The bill signed in spring this year by DeSantis eliminates special governing jurisdiction that allowed the company to operate Walt Disney World Resort as its own city.
Disney had condemned Florida’s LGBTQ legislation dubbed as “don’t say gay” bill by critics, which bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for children in kindergarten through third grade.
Disney did not respond to a request for comment.
Reporting by Akanksha Khushi and Jahnavi Nidumolu in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Rhea Binoy; Editing by Dhanya Ann Thoppil and Shailesh Kuber
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
CINCINNATI — Cincinnati head coach Luke Fickell will be the next head coach at Wisconsin, sources confirmed to The Athletic on Sunday. Fickell informed Cincinnati on Sunday morning he would be leaving to take the new job.
Fickell leaves Cincinnati as the program’s all-time winningest coach with a final record of 57-18 in his six seasons at the helm, including 53-10 during the past five years. He led the Bearcats to the College Football Playoff in 2021 as Cincinnati became the first Group of 5 school to reach the four-team Playoff, and he collected numerous Coach of the Year honors in the process.
Fickell resurrected a sunken program when he took over ahead of the 2017 season, turning Cincinnati into a consistent, legitimate force on the field and in the local recruiting scene, helping deliver the Bearcats to a Power 5 conference. Cincinnati made three straight American Athletic Conference Championship Game appearances from 2019 to 2021, winning the last two and earning back-to-back New Year’s Six bids to the Peach Bowl and Cotton Bowl, the latter being a CFP semifinal. The Bearcats finished the 2022 regular season 9-3 (6-2 AAC) and in third place in the AAC, and officially will join the Big 12 Conference next summer ahead of the 2023 season.
Sources close to Cincinnati’s program told The Athletic on Sunday that high-ranking administrators within the athletic department have been aware and prepared for the possibility of Fickell’s departure for a couple of weeks, with Nebraska and Wisconsin showing interest. A source familiar with the negotiations also told The Athletic that Fickell’s wife, Amy, visited Madison, Wis., this month to explore the Badgers’ interest in Fickell for the head coaching position.
Sources close to Cincinnati told The Athletic that Bearcats administrators have been in conversation with Fickell in recent weeks about what could be done to keep him at Cincinnati, including a willingness to increase the assistant salary pool, among other things, but that when the Wisconsin offer ultimately came, Fickell felt this was the right time and situation for him to pursue.
The Bearcats lost their regular-season finale 27-24 to Tulane on Friday, missing an opportunity to host a third straight AAC Championship Game on Saturday. Cincinnati officially was eliminated from the conference title game Saturday evening.
Asked Friday evening after the Tulane loss how he will approach the potential of an additional week of hiring rumors and his name being mentioned on the coaching carousel, Fickell said: “It’s too hard to think about. Hopefully there are some things that can happen, and we still have a chance to play, so you don’t know. It’s not the time to think about those kinds of things. We have to get back up there and take care of those seniors in particular, make sure their heads are up and they’re ready to roll whatever is thrown our way this next week or two.”
Fickell informed Bearcats administrators of his decision to accept the Wisconsin job Sunday morning and then met with Cincinnati players and staff. There was a previously scheduled team meeting set for 4:30 p.m. Sunday, but that was moved up to 1:15 p.m., and Fickell delivered the news to the team. Bearcats special teams coordinator and cornerbacks coach Kerry Coombs has been named the interim head coach, sources told The Athletic. Athletic director John Cunningham is scheduled to hold a news conference at 6:15 p.m. Sunday on campus.
GO DEEPER
Kerry Coombs is back home in Cincinnati
The question for many Bearcats faithful in the wake of Fickell’s departure is: Why now? After a decade spent in realignment wilderness, Cincinnati is set to finally join the Big 12 and a Power 5 conference in a matter of months, in no small part due to the sustained success Fickell achieved on the field. He signed a new contract extension in February through the 2028 season that paid him $5 million a year, increased his annual salary pool to $5.2 million and included promises of a new permanent indoor practice facility, those last two being top priorities for Fickell. The practice facility, which is slated to be built on the existing footprint of Cincinnati’s current Sheakley Athletics Center practice field, has been estimated at a total cost of $100 million and is in the planning stages. Cincinnati’s program has long been a stepping-stone job, dating to Mark Dantonio, Brian Kelly and Butch Jones. But so many of the resources and benefits Bearcats head coaches have long sought, Fickell included, finally were available.
There’s also the fact Fickell either has deferred or declined interest and offers from numerous Power 5 programs during his six years at Cincinnati, starting with West Virginia after the Bearcats’ surprising 2018 campaign, as well as Florida State, Baylor and, most notably, Michigan State after the 2019 season. The same for interest from USC and Notre Dame last year, the latter being a job always believed to be coveted by Fickell and one of the few that might be able to pry him away from a comfortable fit and situation at Cincinnati. But Fickell wouldn’t entertain other jobs while the Bearcats were in the hunt for a spot in the Playoff last season, and Notre Dame wound up hiring former Fickell assistant and mentee Marcus Freeman.
The sense among numerous sources close to Fickell is that the experience with Notre Dame last year, along with other previous coaching opportunities, had an impact on his decision to be more proactive as the carousel ramped up this year and led to his taking the Wisconsin job.
The culture, evaluation and development shepherded by Fickell at Cincinnati elevated the Bearcats to the four-team Playoff and garnered a Big 12 invite, as well as increased resources, season ticket sales and general investment from the university and community. But the team also felt the impact of losing nine NFL Draft picks off of last season’s Playoff roster, including four-year starting quarterback Desmond Ridder and first-team All-Americans Sauce Gardner and Coby Bryant. The Bearcats have continued to recruit at a power-conference level, and even have seen an uptick with the impending move to the Big 12, yet the athletic department has been slightly behind in terms of establishing and fostering NIL avenues. (Cincy Reigns, an all-sports collective intending to benefit Bearcats athletes, was launched and announced last week after being in the works for months.) Fickell, who has been hesitant to embrace NIL as a recruiting tool, has been frustrated by numerous decommitments and lost recruiting battles due to NIL in recent months, sources told The Athletic.
Even as Fickell stayed at Cincinnati despite constant and considerable outside interest, he has had to deal with regular churn among his assistants and support staff. Freeman left to be defensive coordinator at Notre Dame after 2020, and four assistants left this past offseason for top-tier Power 5 positions or the NFL.
In the end, the sense among sources familiar with the process and Fickell’s decision is that there was no singular issue or topic that instigated his departure from Cincinnati. The latest contract extension, Big 12 move, forthcoming practice facility, new NIL collective, offers for an increased salary pool and other resources were not enough to offset the money, resources and infrastructure in place at Wisconsin and in the Big Ten, a conference Fickell is extremely familiar with and fond of from his playing days and coaching career at Ohio State.
The addition of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten, and anticipated move away from divisions, no doubt will make it more difficult for the Badgers to be perennial contenders alongside Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, USC and others. But Fickell always has been drawn to the culture- and program-building aspects of college coaching. As the Playoff is set to expand to 12 teams, and as the Big Ten and SEC further separate financially from the other Power 5 conferences, Fickell viewed the opportunity to build something at Wisconsin — where winning a national championship is at least on the list of potential possibilities, perhaps more readily than Cincinnati — as too good to pass up.
The other obvious and immediate question for the Bearcats is who will be tabbed to replace Fickell and the sizable shadow he leaves behind. Coombs and offensive coordinator Gino Guidugli, a former Bearcats quarterback, are two likely internal candidates, but as Cunningham displayed during the search for men’s basketball coach Wes Miller, he is known for keeping things tight-lipped and is not afraid to go for an off-the-radar candidate.
Whoever becomes the next head coach of Cincinnati football will assume a mix of significant challenges, advantages and aspirations. As painful as Fickell’s departure will be for Bearcats stakeholders, the truth is that he stayed for six seasons — an eternity in Clifton — and lifted the program from rock bottom to unexpected, unprecedented and celestial heights.
During the past few seasons, so many of the great players who came through under Fickell have talked about leaving the program better than they found it. There’s no denying Fickell did that, to an extraordinary degree. The next head coach will be tasked with doing the same. It will be a much different and more attractive challenge than the one Fickell inherited, but with far greater scrutiny and expectations.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange chief tells ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ he tried to warn about SBF
Sam Bankman-Fried is facing an onslaught of legal repercussions over his involvement in the collapse of FTX, the cryptocurrency trading platform he founded in 2019, with congressional investigations set to take off over the course of the upcoming weeks.
The Senate Agriculture Committee, which is tasked with oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), is planning to hold a hearing on the rapid collapse of FTX this week, with the office of GOP Ranking Member John Boozman of Arkansas giving FOX Business details about the hearing. Boozman’s office said the hearing will feature CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam and focus on “the need to bring transparency and accountability to the crypto market.”
“We have previously held hearings on the CFTC’s role in regulating digital assets, and Chairwoman Stabenow and Ranking Member Boozman introduced legislation on it, but the committee is revisiting the issue in light of the events of the past few weeks,” a spokesperson for Boozman said in a statement.
“The hearing will give us an opportunity to ask Chairman Behnam what the CFTC needs from Congress to establish a regulatory framework that will give consumers greater confidence that their investments are safe,” the statement continued.
FTX FOUNDER SAM BANKMAN-FRIED’S FAMILY BOASTS DEEP TIES TO DEMOCRAT POWER PLAYERS
Sam Bankman-Fried speaks during the Institute of International Finance’s annual membership meeting on Oct. 13. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Boozman’s office also pointed to the senator’s statement on the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act of 2022, the legislation he and Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., introduced following FTX’s collapse.
Earlier this month, the Bahamas-based FTX filed for bankruptcy after a liquidity crisis led to a mass exodus of customers from the platform. Bankman-Fried had allegedly transferred $10 billion worth of customer credit from FTX to sister firm Alameda Research, according to multiple reports.
Amid the company’s demise, Bankman-Fried’s estimated net worth plummeted from more than $15 billion to no material wealth in just days. The former billionaire issued a public apology admitting he had “f—ed up” and the new FTX CEO stated during court proceedings that he had never before seen “such a complete failure.”
TROUBLED CRYPTO BOSS SAM BANKMAN-FRIED, WHO LOST $15B IN A WEEK, FUNNELED MILLIONS TO DEMS, FAR-LEFT CAUSES
“From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented,” the company’s new CEO John Ray III said on Nov. 17.
Ray III previously oversaw the bankruptcy proceedings of failed emery company Enron in early the 2000s. The FTX collapse has also been compared to scandals involving Lehman Brothers and the Ponzi scheme masterminded by former NASDAQ Chairman Bernie Madoff.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, left, is pictured last year alongside other Senate Democratic leaders and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. (Craig Hudson/Bloomberg / Getty Images)
House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and the panel’s top Republican, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., also announced a hearing to investigate FTX. In their joint announcement, the two leaders said their hearings would take place in December and are expected to feature Bankman-Fried as well as other leaders from FTX and Alameda Research.
“The fall of FTX has posed tremendous harm to over one million users, many of whom were everyday people who invested their hard-earned savings into the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, only to watch it all disappear within a matter of seconds,” Waters said on Nov. 16.
INSIDE THE COLLAPSE OF CRYPTO EXCHANGE FTX: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW
And Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, the chairman of the Banking Committee and a member of the Finance Committee, said he was planning to lead investigations of his own, but worried that some lawmakers would have conflicts of interest given their financial ties to the crypto industry. Bankman-Fried alone gave tens of millions of dollars to Democrats ahead of the midterm election and about $10 million to help President Biden get elected in 2020.
“It’s difficult when a whole lot of members here, particularly the more pro-bank, pro-corporate members, have taken money from crypto companies and have sung their praises in the halls of the Senate,” Brown told Fox News on Nov. 17.
“That’s the fundamental problem. That’s why I’m pushing, especially pushing, the [Securities] Exchange Commission (SEC) to crack down and make sure that they are held accountable for what they’ve done,” he said.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, is pictured during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Sept. 28, 2021. (Kevin Dietsch/Pool via Reuters / Reuters Photos)
Bankman-Fried contributed to both Boozman and Stabenow’s campaigns this year, according to Federal Election Commission data. He wired $50,000 to the group Heartland Resurgence which primarily supported Boozman and opposed his Republican challenger during his state’s primary, $20,800 to the Stabenow Victory Fund and maximum individual donations worth $5,800 to each of the lawmakers’ individual campaigns.
Boozman’s campaign previously told FOX Business that it would donate funds received from Bankman-Fried to charity.
Meanwhile, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., a member of the Judiciary Committee, asked several top federal regulators to hand over relevant information regarding FTX and their investigations into the platform. Like Brown, he warned that some politicians tasked with looking into the crisis could be compromised.
“To be clear, Mr. Bankman-Fried funded his lavish donations to the Democratic Party through rampant fraud,” Hawley wrote to the heads of the Department of Justice (DOJ), SEC and CFTC, in a letter on Nov. 18. “The net result was that billions of dollars were stolen from investors and handed over to Democrats and left-wing organizations.”
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Bankman-Fried has reportedly cooperated with authorities in the Bahamas where he remains. The federal government may seek to extradite Bankman-Fried to the U.S. as part of ongoing criminal probes.
The DOJ and SEC are among the U.S. agencies to have initiated probes of their own into the FTX founder.
Stabenow’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
One of the best iPhone 14 Pro deals from Black Friday is still available as Cyber Monday rolls in, with Verizon offering customers the chance to score not one but two free (or heavily discounted) iPhones, as well as a free Apple Watch SE, iPad, and Beats Fit Pro headphones. Check out the details below on one of our most popular deals this weekend.
You can save up to $1,000 by trading in an old device on select unlimited plans, and you’ll get $200 when you switch.
You can get up to $800 off another iPhone 14 Pro on select 5G unlimited plans, and another $200
You’ll get a free Apple Watch SE (2nd generation) when you buy the iPhone 14 Pro.
You’ll also get a free Apple iPad (9th generation) (64GB)
You’ll also get $70 off Beats Fit Pro headphones, and Verizon will reimburse you for the rest of the cost by way of a Virtual Prepaid Mastercard.
This deal is only available on the iPhone 14 Pro, and you need to pick up a 5G unlimited plan to take full advantage of the offer.
(Image credit: Future)
The iPhone 14 Pro is the best iPhone Apple has ever created, with all-new Dynamic Island, Always-on Display, 48MP camera, and more. Apple’s 9th generation iPad is the company’s best entry-level iPad and is perfect for watching movies or browsing the web. The Apple Watch SE serves as a tremendous fitness tracker and health device, and Apple’s Beats Fit Pro are fantastic noise-canceling headphones. Get all of this included when you pick up an iPhone 14 Pro from Verizon. Move fast, the deal ends Sunday.
After 50 years of playing at the famed Kauffman Stadium, the Kansas City Royals announced their intentions to move to a new stadium.
In an open letter, principal owner John Sherman updated the fanbase about the team’s ongoing search for venues across Kansas City.
“We are excited to now share that we have several leading locations under close consideration, both in downtown Kansas City and close to it,” Sherman said.
Sherman addressed the idea of renovating Kauffman Stadium, but the ballpark would need an extensive face-lift which would cost much more than building a new ballpark.
Kauffman Stadium is the sixth oldest in the MLB and last underwent renovations in 2009.
An artist rendering showing the new stadium surrounded by the ballpark district.Kansas City Royals
The new project is estimated to cost $2 billion, which would be the most expensive private-public development project in the city’s history. Sherman added the new venture would not increase taxes to the Jackson County taxpayers and would bring in $60 million in new tax revenue.
Along with the stadium itself, Sherman said a “ballpark district” would be created that would give fans a “revitalized” surrounding area.
“We envision local restaurants and shops, office spaces, hotels, and a variety of housing opportunities accessible for Kansas Citians from all walks of life,” Sherman said, adding new public transportation options would be created for the area.
The idea of surrounding a new stadium with a modern community is not new but has become increasingly popular in recent years with the Atlanta Braves’ Truist Park, Texas Rangers’ Globe Life Field, and the proposed new NYCFC stadium in Willets Point, Queens.
Artist renderings show the ballpark, fit with features taken from Kauffman Stadium including an overhang over the top of the grandstand, the popular outfield water fountain, and a crown on top of the scoreboard that has been moved to left field. High rises can be seen in the outfield with plenty of grassy seating areas.
The new stadium will feature an overhang and outfield water fountain similar to those at Kauffman Stadium pictured during a game in 2019.Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
According to the open letter, the construction of the new stadium would create 200,000 new jobs, $1.4 billion in labor income, and $2.8 billion in total economic output.
Kauffman Stadium along with GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium form the Harry S. Truman Sports Complex. The complex is approximately 8 miles southeast of downtown Kansas City, and public transit could take up to an hour to get to the stadium.
Owner John Sherman, who took over in 2019, has made it his goal to keep the Royals in Kansas City.Getty Images
The Royals become the third major league team to be actively searching for a new stadium after the Tampa Bay Rays and the Oakland Athleticsboth expressed interest in leaving their current aging ballparks.
The new ballpark and development district around the stadium still has a long way to go before the Royals’ lease at Kauffman stadium ends in 2030, including finalizing the site, design, and approval from Jackson County and the state of Missouri.
Changpeng Zhao and Sam Bankman-Fried.Horacio Villalobos/CorbisAlex Wong/Getty Images
Sam Bankman-Fried regrets the feud that may have helped cause the collapse of his crypto empire.
The relationship between Bankman-Fried and Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao soured when Bankman-Fried pushed for crypto regulation.
“It was not a good strategic move on my part,” Bankman-Fried told the New York Times in an interview.
Sam Bankman-Fried regrets the feud that may have cost him his crypto empire.
The former FTX CEO said criticizing Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, known as “CZ,” “was not a good strategic move on my part,” in an interview with the New York Times on Sunday.
The clash between the two is key to understanding one of the most dramatic collapses ever in the crypto world.
How it started
Zhao and Bankman-Fried started friendly: Binance, a rival cryptocurrency exchange, invested in FTX in 2019. However, the relationship soured when Bankman-Fried pushed for regulation of the crypto industry, something Zhao opposes.
The New York Times reported that Bankman-Fried used his growing influence in Washington to criticize Zhao in private meetings.
“I was pretty frustrated at a lot of what I saw happening, but I should’ve understood that it was not a good decision of me to express that,” Bankman-Fried told the New York Times.
The dispute between the two billionaires came to a head early last week when Zhao announced that Binance would sell all of its FTT holdings, a cryptocurrency created by FTX.
“We gave support before, but we won’t pretend to make love after divorce… we won’t support people who lobby against other industry players behind their backs,” Zhao tweeted.
The outcome
Binance’s sale spooked the market, causing investors to flood FTX with requests to pull their funds, causing a multi-billion dollar liquidity crisis.
Binance initially agreed to buy FTX to save it from a dire financial situation but later called off the deal.
“I shouldn’t throw stones in a glass house, so I’ll hold back a bit,” Bankman-Fried told employees, according to The Times. “Except to say: probably they never really planned to go through with the deal.”
FTX unsuccessfully attempted to find other investors, eventually filing for bankruptcy on Friday. One week earlier, the cryptocurrency exchange was worth $32 billion.
Bankman-Fried faces multiple investigations and allegations that he misused FTX customer funds by reportedly funneling them into a separate entity, his crypto trading fund, Alameda Research.
Russia’s military said on Friday that it had completed its withdrawal from the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, the only regional capital that Vladimir Putin’s invading army had managed to capture since he launched his full-scale war at the end of February. The military said “not a single piece of military equipment” was left on the western bank of the Dnipro River, which bisects the wider Kherson region, with the city of the same name sitting on its west bank.
In a statement, military commanders in Moscow said “all Russian servicemen crossed” the river without sustaining “losses of personnel, weapons, military equipment and material.” The announcement came just two days after Russia’s defense chief ordered the retreat from Kherson city, with his top commander in Ukraine telling him in a televised conversation that it was “not easy” to make the call, but that it would “save the lives of our military.”
There was no immediate word from Ukrainian or U.S. military officials to confirm the Russian announcement, but Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Goncharenko told CBS News correspondent Chris Livesay that his country’s forces were in the city of Kherson on Friday morning. He had said earlier in a tweet that Ukrainian troops were “already in Kherson.”
An image from a video posted on the Telegram social media app on November 11, 2022, which CBS News could not independently verify but which corroborated information provided by multiple sources, shows a civilian hugging a Ukrainian soldier after a Ukrainian national flag was hung in front of the Kherson police station, not long after Russia declared its retreat from the city complete.
Telegram
Images quickly emerged on social media showing Ukraine’s national flag flying in front of the regional administration building. Videos showed civilians hugging Ukrainian soldiers and helping them hang Ukrainian flags on other buildings, including the city’s police headquarters.
There were claims by Ukrainian civilians on social media that some Russian troops had put on civilian clothes and remained behind, and Ukrainian troops were entering cautiously, wary of mines and boobytraps.
Ukrainian and U.S. officials were skeptical of the Russian withdrawal announcement from the moment it was issued on Wednesday, suggesting it could be a trap to lure Ukraine’s forces eastward, toward entrenched Russian positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro.
A map shows the oblasts, or politically administered regions of Ukraine and their regional capitals.
Getty/iStock
As of Thursday evening in Ukraine, U.S. officials told CBS News they had seen no signs of Russian troops moving in significant numbers across the river. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin said that wasn’t necessarily viewed as evidence that the withdrawal announcement was a ruse, just that it would likely take time.
While there was no official confirmation of the status of the Russian withdrawal from Ukrainian commanders, unverified videos posted online showed what appeared to be Russian troops crossing a pontoon bridge across the Dnipro on foot. The bridge sat right next to the larger Antonivskiy Bridge, which multiple videos showed completely unusable, with a large section destroyed.
Russian soldiers walking across a pontoon bridge just next to the destroyed Antonovsky Bridge in Kherson region. pic.twitter.com/528rIt0YSY
— Clash Report (@clashreport) November 11, 2022
While it wasn’t immediately clear what caused the collapse of the road bridge, BBC News reported that the key piece of infrastructure had been “gradually damaged by Ukrainian missiles” during Russia’s months-long occupation of Kherson city and much of the surrounding region.
Russia’s invading forces have suffered setbacks for the last couple months, retreating from towns and villages west of Kherson, and in areas north of that region, amid a Ukrainian counteroffensive bolstered by the huge influx of Western weapons.
An image from video posted on the Telegram messaging app on November 11, 2022 shows what is described as a soldier holding a Ukrainian national flag in the village of Klapaya, about 10 miles west of the city of Kherson, after the village was retaken from Russia’s invading forces.
Telegram
While the Ukrainian advance has pushed the Russians back quickly, the U.S. has been reluctant to grant country’s requests for even more advanced weapons systems, and many analysts expect the rapid shift in the front lines of the last couple months to slow as winter sets in and Russia entrenches in positions it has held for years further in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian soldiers just a few miles from enemy lines have been using Western-supplied drones to hone in on Russian positions. But the Russians can also see the Ukrainians coming.
Russia’s relatively new commander in the war — dubbed “General Armageddon” — has shown he is willing to use devastating tactics, relying on long-range missile and drone strikes to pummel civilian areas in a bid to decrease Ukrainian morale.
Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid leave 4.5 million without power
05:29
The strikes have knocked out power and water supplies to millions of Ukrainians, and as CBS News correspondent Chris Livesay reports, Russia’s retreating forces have also left behind them a deadly trail of landmines and boobytraps.
Even if and when Ukraine does confirm that Russia’s forces have pulled out of Kherson, the Russian threat, with its indiscriminate firepower, will still lie entrenched just across the river. And despite mounting calls for peace talks, there’s little to suggest the war that has raged for more than eight months, and simmered for more than eight years before that, is about to end.
So far, U.S. officials estimate the war has claimed the lives of roughly 40,000 Ukrainian civilians, while some 100,000 of the country’s forces have been killed or injured. Russian forces are believed to have sustained a similar number of casualties.
CBS News producer Erin Lyall contributed to this report.
Tucker Reals
Tucker Reals is the CBSNews.com foreign editor, based at the CBS News London bureau.
When a good song comes on, people can’t help but move with the music, nodding their heads or tapping their feet in time with the rhythm. This ability to perceive the beat and move in sync with it was previously thought to exist only in humans and a small group of other species.
But rats can keep the beat too, according to a study published Friday in the journal Science Advances. Researchers in Japan played Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major (K. 448) for 10 rats, and tiny wireless accelerometers affixed to the animals’ heads revealed that the rodents subtly nodded in sync with the musical beat.
The research undercuts a longstanding theory that the ability to sync body movements with musical rhythms is found only in animals that can change the sounds they produce in response to experiences. These so-called vocal learners include some birds, bats, elephants, whales, dolphins and seals, in addition to humans.
Since rats aren’t vocal learners but bopped to the beat anyway, “beat synchronization might be more widespread across the animal kingdom than previously thought,” said Juan Manuel Toro, a comparative cognition researcher at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona who wasn’t involved in the research.
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“This is the kind of work that needs to be done if we are going to uncover the vast abilities that other species have to connect with the world that we’re not yet aware of,” said Nina Kraus, a professor of neurobiology at Northwestern University who wasn’t involved in the new research.
Dr. Kraus said the finding didn’t surprise her. “It may be they’ve had these skills all the time,” she said of rats. “It’s just been scientists who have been slow to measure them.”
Previous research looked at rats’ ability to perceive and move in sync with musical rhythms. But those efforts involved analyzing video footage of the animals’ movements, which are “too small to be captured by visual inspection,” said Hirokazu Takahashi, an associate professor in the University of Tokyo mechanical-engineering department and a co-author of the new study.
Dr. Takahashi’s research team played 60-second clips of the sonata at four different tempos. Data from the accelerometers showed that five of the 10 rats moved their heads in time with the sonata when it was played at its original tempo of 132 beats per minute, or bpm. The researchers also saw a similar effect when the sonata was played at 75% of its original speed.
“At first the rats wait and see, then they begin to move and then those movements get stronger,” Dr. Takahashi said, adding that only some rats move rhythmically in response to music. “Some humans show very large movements in response to music, but others are very shy,” he said. “There are a lot of individual differences in rats as well.”
At faster tempos—when the sonata was played at double and quadruple the original speed—the rats didn’t move much.
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The rats also heard songs by Lady Gaga, Queen, Michael Jackson and Maroon 5. But the study focused on data collected when the animals were exposed to the sonata, which, according to Dr. Takahashi, has been widely used in other studies on rodent cognition and behavior.
The researchers also recorded neural activity in a different set of rats while exposing them to clicking sounds at various tempos. Using electrodes affixed to the animals’ brains, they examined the auditory cortex, a brain region that processes sound. The scientists found that activity there synced with the beat of rhythmic sounds with a tempo falling between 120 bpm and 140 bpm.
The research also included human study participants who listened to the sonata at the four tempos using headphones fitted with accelerometers. Like the rats, the humans’ movements synced most distinctly to tempos between 120 bpm and 140 bpm. That makes sense, according to Dr. Takahashi, as evidenced by the fact that popular music frequently employs tempos in that range.
“The study is interesting because it shows beat synchronization in rats, and more importantly, it shows that the preferred tempos for such synchronization are the same ones observed in humans,” Dr. Toro said. “This provides evidence for biological bases of musical preferences that are shared between humans and other species.”
Henkjan Honing, a professor of music cognition at the University of Amsterdam who wasn’t involved in the new research, criticized its methodology. The rats’ head movements may simply have been a startle response to certain loud passages of music, he said.
“They’re scared basically,” he said of the rats.
To prove that the rats are perceiving and syncing up with the beat, Dr. Honing said, researchers would have to show that the animals’ movements came a few milliseconds before the beats. “It should sort of be slightly early and a bit predictive,” he said, adding that the rats in the study reacted to the beat rather than anticipating it.
One convincing follow-up to this study, he said, would be if researchers slowly sped up or slowed the music during the experiment and examined whether the rats’ physical responses changed over time and adapted to a new beat.
Though the new study presents no evidence that rats can anticipate the beat, “that’s not to say that it doesn’t exist,” Dr. Kraus said. “It may be we just haven’t been clever enough to figure out how to measure it yet.”
France’s far-right this weekend selected a party leader from outside the Le Pen dynasty for the first time in its 50-year history — the latest sign of the movement’s bid to convince voters it has swapped extremism for professionalism.
Before a cheering auditorium, Marine Le Pen announced on Saturday evening that her protégé Jordan Bardella, a 27-year-old member of the European parliament, had won the vote to succeed her at the helm of the Rassemblement National (National Rally). “I will pass on a re-founded and revitalised party . . . that is proving every day that it is a real party of government, the party that will govern tomorrow,” the 54-year-old said. “We must be ready!”
The succession will not alter the power dynamics — Le Pen remains the RN’s uncontested boss. Bardella, in a relationship with her niece, is almost family. Nor is Le Pen’s long-held strategy of detoxifying the RN’s image and courting new voters by focusing on the cost of living crisis gripping Europe expected to change.
But the shift comes at a difficult moment. Old demons resurfaced last week when Grégoire de Fournas, a RN lawmaker, was sanctioned for shouting “Go back to Africa” as a black MP was speaking about dangers migrants faced in parliament.
The incident is the party’s first mis-step since its unexpected win in June legislative elections that made it the biggest opposition party just as President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance lost its majority. It now has 89 MPs, its biggest haul, and up from just seven in 2017.
The win, which came less than two months after Le Pen lost her third presidential bid and hinted she could retire, transformed the party’s fortunes and rekindled hopes they could win in the next presidential election in 2027.
Although the RN cannot pass laws alone, it is for the first time playing a role in day-to-day lawmaking, occupying prestigious posts in the National Assembly, and training up a group of experienced national leaders.
Jean-Yves Camus, a political scientist who specialises in European nationalist movements, said the elevation of Bardella was another sign of how the RN was seeking to move on from the era of founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was convicted of racist speech and Holocaust denial.
“There is a new generation of politicians in the RN who came of age under Marine and not her father,” he said. “The election of the 89 MPs is an earthquake, but it’s a victory that brings new obligations. They must show that their MPs are mainstream and respectable, they do the work, and that they do not go off the rails.”
Things got off to a good start in the National Assembly. Le Pen positioned the RN as the responsible, suit and tie-clad opposition that was fighting for French people, in contrast with the leftwing Nupes alliance, who she slammed as rowdy and unpatriotic.
RN votes helped the Macron government pass a key law to protect households and companies from rising energy costs. But then it wrongfooted everyone by changing position to vote for a no-confidence motion in Macron’s government sponsored by the left. The motion failed, but Le Pen’s pivot put the government on notice that the RN might one day help bring it down.
Most importantly for the chronically indebted RN, the 89 MPs represent an annual cash infusion of about €10mn — double the amount in the last parliamentary session. Under France’s public financing system, parties get payments for each elected official and their overall vote tally. Party officials said they would use the funds to gradually pay back a contentious loan from a Russian bank taken out in 2014.
Renaud Labaye, the general secretary of the RN group, likened the change to a small family company scaling up into a corporation. “When I was Marine Le Pen’s parliamentary assistant in 2017, we had seven MPs, maybe a dozen staffers, and managed to ask only two questions at the weekly session of questions to the government in five years,” he said in an interview. “Now we have 89 MPs and around 110 staffers, hold two of the six assembly vice-presidents, and get to ask four questions per week!”
But the momentum came to a crashing halt on Thursday, when de Fournas’s yelling led the parliamentary session to be immediately suspended. De Fournas denied any racist intention, saying he was talking about the boats and migrants rather than Carlos Martens Bilongo, his fellow MP, who was calling on France to increase co-operation with EU countries in assisting African migrants rescued from the Mediterranean Sea.
On Friday, a parliamentary disciplinary panel sanctioned de Fournas with the maximum penalty of a 15-day suspension and a temporary pay cut for “provoking a tumult” in the assembly.
Publicly, Le Pen and other RN officials fiercely defended de Fournas and accused their opponents of manipulating the episode, but in private some admitted the MP’s words were “catastrophic” and “lacking humanity”.
It is too soon to know what impact the outburst could have on public opinion. Before it occurred, the RN had been tied with the Greens as the most popular political party in France, according to a recent Ifop poll, a 12-point progression since 2017. Le Pen herself regularly ranks in the top three most popular politicians in France, and Bardella recently cracked the top 15.
During the party congress on Saturday, Bardella also defended de Fournas, and vowed to strictly regulate immigration and reserve social welfare programmes such as housing subsidies for French citizens.
“The vast majority of people in France is with us and approves of such policies,” he said.
“We are only one step away from power” he concluded. “The last efforts are ahead of us that will lead to a change in leadership that the country and the French so need.”
It’s not hyperbole to say that the 2022 NFL Trade Deadline was the craziest deadline in league history. There were 12 trades made on Tuesday leading up to the 4 p.m. ET deadline, which was the most ever made on deadline day. Not only were there a large number of deals struck, but there were also a number of blockbuster moves, including Bradley Chubb heading to Miami and T.J. Hockenson staying in the NFC North but being dealt to the Vikings.
Here’s a quick rundown of some of the more notable deals that occurred:
Most surprising trade
I don’t think it’s much of a debate to say that Calvin Ridley being shipped to the Jaguars is the most surprising deal of the day. Was anyone even thinking about the now former Falcons receiver lately? After all, Ridley is suspended for the entirety of this season after he was caught betting on NFL games during an absence from football. He can apply for reinstatement in February and this is a pretty complex deal because of his uncertain status.
If Ridley reportedly is reinstated by a certain date, the Falcons will receive a 2023 fifth round pick. If he is not reinstated by the date, it’s a 2023 sixth-round pick. After that, Atlanta receives a 2024 selection that could escalate all the way to a second rounder if he reaches certain milestones.
On top of this simply being a fascinating trade from a logisitical standpoint, it also has the potential to be a game-changer for the Jacksonville offense as early as 2023. Ridley was regarded as one of the bright, young pass catchers in the NFL and now has the potential of being Trevor Lawrence’s go-to weapon.
Big picture storyline
Two of the more notable trades of the day were Bradley Chubb to the Dolphins and Chase Claypool to the Bears. One thing that those two trades have in common is the stamp of approval they give to their respective quarterbacks, Tua Tagovailoa and Justin Fields.
With Tagovailoa, the Dolphins traded away their 2023 first-round pick (among others) to acquire Chubb. That pick (from the 49ers) was their only first-round pick this coming spring after their own was forfeited as a result of the Tom Brady tampering investigation. Not only is that willingness to give up the first rounder a sign that the front office believes this team can make a push this season, but it also put them out of the quarterback market in this coming draft. That’s as big of a stamp of approval that you’ll see from the front office with Tagovailoa outside of a contract extension.
On a similar tone, the Bears seem to be rewarding Justin Fields’ strong play as of late by giving him a much-needed pass-catching weapon in Chase Claypool. The fact that they were willing to give up their own second round pick — arguably a lofty price to pay — is a sign that they believe in what the young quarterback is doing.
So, we have two quarterback who we questioned coming into the year if they were truly going to be “franchise guys” have their teams make moves that directly or indirectly show their long-term support of them.
To relive everything that went down as it happened, check out our live blog below. Also, check out how CBS Sports graded each trade.
