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Tag Archives: Neutral
NFL ponders taking conference championship games to neutral sites
For years, Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt pushed for the NFL to move conference championship games to a neutral site. Every time Hunt brought the proposal to ownership, ownership voted it down.
Now, as Hunt’s Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills stand one win each away from the first ever neutral-site conference title game, Hunt’s vision may be moving toward becoming a reality.
The premature public proclamation that Bills and Chiefs fans bought 50,000 tickets in 24 hours becomes circumstantial evidence that the league is thinking about making all conference championship games neutral-site contests. Privately, we’ve tracked down some direct evidence of the NFL’s intentions.
Within the league office, the interest in neutral-site title games has become very real. The NFL envies the atmosphere of major college bowl games, where a 50/50 mix of fans are decked out in team colors. It’s one thing about college football that pro football does not fully replicate.
The Super Bowl, which has been played at a neutral site from its inception (the last two Super Bowl were coincidentally played in the home stadium of one of the two teams), lacks the same vibe as a major college bowl game. The crowd itself at a Super Bowl is often too neutral. Many who attend a Super Bowl do so for the experience, and because they can afford it. Also, for the fans of the teams that qualify, two weeks before kickoff is too late to score tickets — other than the limited amount made available to each franchise.
For a conference championship game at a neutral site, the tickets presumably would be handled in the same way they’ve been distributed for this year’s possible test run: half to the season-ticket holders of one team, half to the season-ticket holders of the other.
It’s one thing for some within the league’s power structure to want neutral-site conference championship games. It’s another for at least 24 owners to vote for it. But even if the Bills and Chiefs don’t make it to the next round this year, the league’s decision to tout the ticket sales becomes the foundation for the NFL to sell the possibility to owners and fans (many of whom aren’t interested in a neutral-site conference championship game) as innovative and ground-breaking and the next step in growing the game, by taking two more of its most significant events to different cites and stadiums, every year.
It doesn’t hurt that cities will jockey (and pay) for the privilege of hosting the conference championship games.
Yes, it robs the higher seed of the ability to host the game, one of the very real advantages of earning a higher spot on the playoff tree. It also impacts some of the profit generated by the home team. But not as much as a regular home game.
Although, as we understand it, the team that hosts a conference championship currently gets its expenses reimbursed (not to exceed 15 percent of the gross ticket revenue), the rest of the money goes to the league for distribution to all teams. The only real profit for hosting such games comes from parking, concessions, and some ancillary hospitality.
Fans won’t like it, in theory. If it happens this year, fans will get to witness it — and the league will get to hype it up, relentlessly. Even if that’s not enough to sway public opinion, public opinion hasn’t stopped the league from making other innovations.
Fans didn’t like the exportation of regular-season home games to Europe. And it’s been happening, and growing, for 15 years.
What will we do, not watch the conference championship games? The league knows we can’t get enough of the NFL, and our appetite will not decline by even the slightest if/when conference championships are played at a neutral site.
NFL picks possible neutral site location for possible AFC Championship game following Bills-Bengals cancellation
CNN
—
The NFL has announced Atlanta as the host city for the AFC Championship game should the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs meet in the conference title game.
Previously, the NFL owners approved the unprecedented post-season plan to host a game at a neutral site following the cancellation of the Bills’ game against the Cincinnati Bengals on January 2.
The game was initially suspended and then postponed after Damar Hamlin collapsed, suffering a cardiac arrest.
The post-season scenario was put in place due to the Bills having played one less game than the Chiefs and not having a fair opportunity to secure the No. 1 seed in the AFC.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta will host the game should the two teams meet.
“We are heartened by the continued improvement and progress of Damar Hamlin in his recovery, and Damar and his family remain top of mind for the entire NFL community,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell stated Thursday.
“We are also grateful to Arthur Blank and the Atlanta Falcons for agreeing to host the AFC Championship Game in Atlanta should the Bills and Chiefs advance. We thank both of those clubs for their assistance in the planning process.”
The NFL said Thursday that the league had designated Atlanta as a possible host site for displaced postseason games prior to the start of the season.
The NFL noted that Atlanta “is almost equidistant from both potential participating teams’ cities.”
Jennifer Lopez introduces one of her twins with gender neutral pronouns
The pair – who last made headlines for performing together when Lopez co-headlined the Super Bowl LIV Pepsi halftime show in 2020 – took to the stage recently at the LA Dodgers Blue Diamond Gala.
Lopez introduced Emme using the gender neutral pronouns they and them.
“The last time we performed together was in a big stadium like this,” Lopez said in a video of the moment shared by TikTok user @christinathesupermom. “And I ask them to sing with me all the time and they won’t.”
“So this is a very special occasion. They are very, very busy. Booked. And pricey,” Lopez went on to say. “They cost me when they come out. But they’re worth every single penny because they’re my favorite duet partner of all time.”
Emme then appeared on stage, carrying a rainbow microphone to sing Christina Perri’s hit, “A Thousand Years.”
Lopez shares Emme and twin brother Max with her ex husband, singer and actor Marc Anthony.
CNN has reached out to Lopez for comment.
The ‘Cosmic Dawn’ of Our Universe Ended Far Later Than We Thought
For tens of millions of years, our newborn Universe was shrouded in hydrogen. Bit by bit, this vast mist was torn apart by the light of the very first stars in a dawn that defined the shape of the emerging cosmos.
Having a timeline for this colossal shift would go a long way in helping us understand the Universe’s evolution, yet so far our best attempts have been fuzzy estimates based on low-quality data.
An international team of astronomers led by the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany used the light from dozens of distant objects called quasars to strip away uncertainties, determining the last major wisps of hydrogen ‘fog’ burned away far later than we first thought, more than a billion years after the Big Bang.
The first 380,000 years were a static hiss of subatomic particles congealing out of the cooling vacuum of expanding space-time.
Once the temperature dropped, hydrogen atoms formed – simple structures consisting of solitary protons teaming up with single electrons.
Soon the entire Universe was filled with uncharged atoms, a sea of them bobbing back and forth in the infinite darkness.
Where crowds of the neutral hydrogen atoms collected under the unpredictable nudge of quantum laws, gravity took over, pulling more and more gas into balls where nuclear fusion could erupt.
This first sun-rise – the breaking of cosmic dawn – bathed the surrounding hydrogen fog in radiation, driving their electrons from their protons and turning the atoms back into the ions they once were.
Just how long this dawn took, from the first light of those early stars to the reionization of the last remaining pockets of primordial hydrogen, has never been clear.
Studies conducted more than 50 years ago made use of the way light from violently active galactic cores (called quasars) was absorbed by interceding gas floating about in the nearby intergalactic medium. Find a series of quasars stretching into the distance, you can effectively see a timeline of neutral hydrogen gas being ionized.
Knowing the theory is one thing. In practical terms, it’s hard to interpret a precise timeline from a handful of quasars. Not only is their light distorted by the expansion of the Universe, but it also passes through pockets of neutral hydrogen formed well after the cosmic dawn.
To get a better sense of this stutter of ionized hydrogen across the sky, researchers supersized their sample, tripling the previous number of high-quality spectral data by analyzing the light from a total of 67 quasars.
The goal was to better understand the impact of these fresher pockets of hydrogen atoms, allowing the researchers to better identify more distant bursts of ionization.
According to their own figures, the last dregs of original hydrogen fell to the rays of first-generation starlight around 1.1 billion years after the Big Bang.
“Until a few years ago, the prevailing wisdom was that reionization completed almost 200 million years earlier,” says astronomer Frederick Davies from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany.
“Here we now have the strongest evidence yet that the process ended much later, during a cosmic epoch more readily observable by current generation observational facilities.”
Future technology capable of directly detecting the spectral lines emitted by the reionization of hydrogen should be able to further clarify not just when this epoch ended, but provide critical details on how it unfolded.
“This new dataset provides a crucial benchmark against which numerical simulations of the Universe’s first billion years will be tested for years to come,” says Davies.
This research was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Fed Governor Christopher Waller says he’s prepared to take rates past ‘neutral’ to fight inflation
Christopher Waller, U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee for governor of the Federal Reserve, listens during a Senate Banking Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020.
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said Monday he sees interest rate increases continuing through the rest of the year as part of an effort to bring inflation under control.
Specifically, the central bank official said he would support hikes that exceed the “neutral” level considered neither supportive nor restrictive for growth.
Estimates Fed officials provided in March point to a 2.5% neutral level, so that means Waller sees rates increasing at least another 2 percentage points from here.
“Over a longer period, we will learn more about how monetary policy is affecting demand and how supply constraints are evolving,” Waller said in remarks delivered in Frankfurt, Germany. “If the data suggest that inflation is stubbornly high, I am prepared to do more.”
The statements support sentiment reflected in minutes from the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee meeting held in early May. The meeting summary said officials believe “a restrictive stance of policy may well become appropriate depending on the evolving economic outlook and the risks to the outlook.”
Markets currently are expecting the Fed to raise benchmark borrowing rates to a range between 2.5%-2.75%, in line with a neutral rate. However, if inflation continues to rise, the Fed likely will go even further. The fed funds rate currently is set between 0.75% and 1%.
Minutes also indicated that policymakers see rates rising by 50 basis points at the next several meetings. Waller said he is on board with that position, as the Fed seeks to tame inflation running close to its highest level in more than 40 years.
“In particular, I am not taking 50 basis-point hikes off the table until I see inflation coming down closer to our 2 percent target,” Waller said. “And, by the end of this year, I support having the policy rate at a level above neutral so that it is reducing demand for products and labor, bringing it more in line with supply and thus helping rein in inflation.”
Data released Friday indicated that inflation still accelerated in April but at a slower pace. Core personal consumption expenditures, which is the metric the Fed watches closest, increased 4.9% for the month from a year ago, down from 5.2% in March. Headline PCE inflation, including food and energy costs, rose 6.3%, compared to 6.6% the previous month.
Waller added that he thinks the Fed can raise rates and tamp down demand without causing a severe economic downturn. In part, the Fed’s aim will be to reduce labor demand without causing a big rise in the unemployment rate. There are currently 5.6 million more job openings than there are available workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Of course, the path of the economy depends on many factors, including how the Ukraine war and COVID-19 evolve. From this discussion, I am left optimistic that the strong labor market can handle higher rates without a significant increase in unemployment,” he said.
U.S. to issue gender neutral passports, take steps to combat anti- transgender laws
WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) – Americans will be allowed to choose an X for gender on their passport applications and select their sex on Social Security cards, the Biden administration said on Thursday in announcing measures to support transgender Americans against wave of state laws targeting them.
The State Department in June said U.S. citizens could select their gender on applications without having to submit medical documentation. In October, it issued the first American passport with an “X” gender marker, designed to give nonbinary, intersex and gender-nonconforming people an option other than male or female on their travel document.
“Starting on April 11, U.S. citizens will be able to select an X as their gender marker on their U.S. passport application, and the option will become available for other forms of documentation next year,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
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Americans will also be able to select and add their gender to U.S. Social Security cards without medical documentation, beginning in the fall, the Social Security Administration said. The cards currently do not include gender indicators.
The changes were among several measures announced by the Biden administration to mark a “Transgender Day of Visibility,” a day after the Republican governors of Oklahoma and Arizona signed bills banning transgender athletes from girls’ sports in schools. read more
They joined a growing list of states that have passed or enacted similar laws on a contentious election-year issue. Transgender rights have been pushed to the forefront of the culture wars playing out in parts of the United States in recent years, together with issues such as reproductive rights.
“The administration once again condemns the proliferation of dangerous anti-transgender legislative attacks that have been introduced and passed in state legislatures around the country,” the White House said in a statement on initiatives it would take aimed at taking down barriers for transgender people.
They include easing travel, providing resources for transgender children and their families, improving access to federal services and benefits and advancing inclusion and visibility in federal data.
The Transportation Security Administration will implement gender-neutral screening at its checkpoints with changes in imaging technology, reducing the number of pat-down screenings, removing gender identification from checkpoint screenings and updating TSA PreCheck to include an “X” gender marker on its application.
The Department of Health and Human Services released a new website that offers resources for transgender and LGBTQI+ youth, their parents, and providers.
Other agencies will announce new actions to expand the collection and use of sexual orientation and gender identity data, the White House said.
“Every American deserves the freedom to be themselves. But far too many transgender Americans still face systemic barriers, discrimination, and acts of violence,” the White House said.
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Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by William Maclean and Bill Berkrot
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Ukraine ready to discuss adopting neutral status in Russia peace deal, Zelenskiy says
LVIV, Ukraine, March 27 (Reuters) – Ukraine is prepared to discuss adopting a neutral status as part of a peace deal with Russia but such a pact would have to be guaranteed by third parties and put to a referendum, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in remarks aired on Sunday.
Zelenskiy was speaking to Russian journalists in a 90 minute video call, an interview that Moscow authorities had pre-emptively warned Russian media to refrain from reporting. Zelenskiy spoke in Russian throughout, as he has done in previous speeches when targeting a Russian audience.
Zelenskiy said Russia’s invasion had caused the destruction of Russian-speaking cities in Ukraine, with damage worse than the Russian wars in Chechnya.
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“Security guarantees and neutrality, non-nuclear status of our state. We are ready to go for it. This is the most important point,” Zelenskiy said.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine refused to discuss certain other Russian demands, such as the demilitarisation of the country.
Speaking more than a month after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Zelenskiy said no peace deal would be possible without a ceasefire and troop withdrawals.
He ruled out trying to recapture all Russian-held territory by force, saying it would lead to a third world war, and said he wanted to reach a “compromise” over the eastern Donbas region, held by Russian-backed forces since 2014.
Russia says it is conducting a “special military operation” in Ukraine with the aim of demilitarising its neighbour. Ukraine and its Western allies call this a pretext for an unprovoked invasion.
‘HUMANITARIAN CATASTROPHE’
Zelenskiy focused on the fate of the eastern port city of Mariupol, under siege for weeks. Once a city of 400,000 people, it has undergone prolonged Russian bombardment.
“All entries and exits from the city of Mariupol are blocked,” Zelenskiy said. “The port is mined. A humanitarian catastrophe inside the city is unequivocal, because it is impossible to go there with food, medicine and water,” he said.
“I don’t even know who the Russian army has ever treated like this,” he said, adding that, compared to Russian wars in Chechnya, the volume of destruction “cannot be compared”.
Russia has denied targeting civilians in Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine have traded blame for a failure to open humanitarian corridors.
Zelenskiy pushed back against allegations from Moscow that Ukraine had curbed the rights of Russian speakers, saying it was Russia’s invasion that wiped Russian-speaking cities “off the face of the earth”.
He also dismissed as “a joke” allegations made by Russia that Ukraine had nuclear or chemical weapons.
Russian prosecutors said a legal opinion would be made on the statements made in the interview and on the legality of publishing the interview. [ read more ]
Commenting afterwards, Zelenskiy said Russia destroyed the freedom of speech in its own country.
“The Russian censorship agency came out with a threat,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “It would be ridiculous if it weren’t so tragic.”
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Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Oleksandr Oleksandr Kozhukhar;
Writing by Matthias Williams and Lidia Kelly;
Editing by Pravin Char and Stephen Coates
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Zelensky opens door to making neutral status part of peace deal
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that his country would consider neutral status as part of a peace deal if such an agreement was guaranteed by third parties and put to a referendum.
“Security guarantees and neutrality, non-nuclear status of our state. We are ready to go for it. This is the most important point,” Zelensky said, according to Reuters.
Zelensky also said that his country was considering using Russian language in Ukraine as part of its talks with Russia, but the president refused to discuss Moscow’s other demands.
His remarks came in a 90-minute video call with Russian journalists. Russian authorities had previously warned Russian media that they should not report on the call, Reuters noted.
Over one month into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova said on Sunday that a failure to preserve Ukraine’s sovereignty would mean that “brutality, oligarchy and war criminals prevail on our planet.”
“There is no independent republics on the territory of Ukraine. Russia attacked us in 2014. Russia illegally occupied Crimea and part of Donetsk and Luhansk. Russia, illegally, are waging full fledged war on the independent country now,” Markarova added.
Also on Sunday, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that two humanitarian corridors have been agreed upon in Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine, according to CNBC.
That announcement comes after the United Nations human rights office announced that 1,119 civilians have been killed in the invasion, in addition to 1,790 civilian injuries since the invasion began on Feb. 24.
Neutral Finland, Sweden warm to idea of NATO membership
HELSINKI (AP) — Through the Cold War and the decades since, nothing could persuade Finns and Swedes that they would be better off joining NATO — until now.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has profoundly changed Europe’s security outlook, including for Nordic neutrals Finland and Sweden, where support for joining NATO has surged to record levels.
A poll commissioned by Finnish broadcaster YLE this week showed that, for the first time, more than 50% of Finns support joining the Western military alliance. In neighboring Sweden, a similar poll showed those in favor of NATO membership outnumber those against.
“The unthinkable might start to become thinkable,” tweeted former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, a proponent of NATO membership.
Neither country is going to join the alliance overnight. Support for NATO membership rises and falls, and there’s no clear majority for joining in their parliaments.
But the signs of change since Russia began its invasion last week are unmistakable.
The attack on Ukraine prompted both Finland and Sweden to break with their policy of not providing arms to countries at war by sending assault rifles and anti-tank weapons to Kyiv. For Sweden, it’s the first time it’s offering military aid since 1939, when it assisted Finland against the Soviet Union.
Apparently sensing a shift among its Nordic neighbors, the Russian Foreign Ministry last week voiced concern about what it described as efforts by the United States and some of its allies to “drag” Finland and Sweden into NATO and warned that Moscow would be forced to take retaliatory measures if they joined the alliance.
The governments of Sweden and Finland retorted that they won’t let Moscow dictate their security policy.
“I want to be extremely clear: It is Sweden that itself and independently decides on our security policy line,” Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said.
Finland has a conflict-ridden history with Russia, with which it shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border. Finns have taken part in dozens of wars against their eastern neighbor, for centuries as part of the Swedish Kingdom, and as an independent nation including two fought with the Soviet Union from 1939-40 and 1941-44.
In the postwar period, however, Finland pursued pragmatic political and economic ties with Moscow, remaining militarily nonaligned and a neutral buffer between East and West.
Sweden has avoided military alliances for more than 200 years, choosing a path of peace after centuries of warfare with its neighbors.
Both countries put an end to traditional neutrality by joining the European Union in 1995 and deepening cooperation with NATO. However, a majority of people in both countries remained firmly against full membership in the alliance — until now.
The YLE poll showed 53% were in favor of Finland joining NATO, with only 28% against. The poll had an error margin of 2.5 percentage points and included 1,382 respondents interviewed Feb. 23 to 25. Russia’s invasion began on Feb. 24.
“It’s a very significant shift,” said senior researcher Matti Pesu from the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. “We’ve had a situation in the past 25-30 years where Finns’ opinions on NATO have been very stable. It seems to now to have changed completely.”
While noting that it’s not possible to draw conclusions from a single poll, Pesu said no similar shift in public opinion occurred after Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia and the 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, “so this is an exception.”
In Sweden, a late February poll commissioned by public broadcaster SVT found 41% of Swedes supported NATO membership and 35% opposed it, marking the first time that those in favor exceeded those against.
The Nordic duo, important partners for NATO in the Baltic Sea area where Russia has substantially increased its military maneuvers in the past decade, has strongly stressed that it is up to them alone to decide whether to join the military alliance.
In his New Year’s speech, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto pointedly said that “Finland’s room to maneuver and freedom of choice also include the possibility of military alignment and of applying for NATO membership, should we ourselves so decide.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg noted last week that for Helsinki and Stockholm “this is a question of self-determination and the sovereign right to choose your own path and then potentially in the future, also to apply for NATO.”
There are no set criteria for joining NATO, but aspiring candidates must meet certain political and other considerations. Many observers believe Finland and Sweden would qualify for fast-track entry into NATO without lengthy negotiations within months.
Though not members, Finland and Sweden closely cooperate with NATO, allowing, among other things, the alliance’s troops to exercise on their soil. Helsinki and Stockholm have also substantially intensified their bilateral defense cooperation in the past years, and both have secured close military cooperation with the U.S., Britain and neighboring NATO member Norway.
Niinisto’s office said Thursday that he would meet U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House on Friday “to discuss Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the effects of the war on the European security order, and bilateral cooperation.”
The Finnish head of state is one of the few Western leaders who has kept a regular dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin ever since Niinisto took office in 2012. Niinisto has a seemingly good rapport also with Biden and two leaders have maintained close contact throughout the Ukraine crisis.
In December, Biden called Niinisto and said he was pleased with Finland’s decision to buy 64 Lockheed Martin F-35A stealth fighter jets to replace the country’s aging F-18 fighters. Biden said the move would pave the way for closer U.S.-Finnish military ties in future.
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said this week that her Social Democratic Party would discuss possible NATO membership with other parties but didn’t set a time frame. She said everyone agrees that the events of the past weeks have been a game-changer.
“Together we see that the security situation has changed remarkably since Russia attacked Ukraine. It is a fact that we have to acknowledge,” Marin said.
___ Associated Press writers Karl Ritter in Stockholm, and Lorne Cook in Brussels, contributed to this report.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the Ukraine crisis at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine