- ‘Franklin’ Review: Michael Douglas Is a Flatulent Founding Father in Apple TV+’s Poorly Focused Drama Hollywood Reporter
- ‘Franklin’ star Michael Douglas says iconic Founding Father would be ‘highly disappointed’ in America today Fox News
- ITV Studios America Chief Philippe Maigret on ‘Franklin’s’ Journey to Canneseries Premiere Variety
- Franklin, Apple TV+ review — story of a polymath patriot who secured the future of America Financial Times
- Michael Douglas in ‘Franklin’ is the ‘handsomest’ Ben Franklin you’ll ever see. What you won’t see is any Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Inquirer
Tag Archives: poorly
Wisconsin shoots poorly, falls to Ohio State in Big Ten tournament – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
- Wisconsin shoots poorly, falls to Ohio State in Big Ten tournament Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
- Ohio State Dominates Early, Survives Late Against Wisconsin to Reach Second Round of Big Ten Tournament, 65-57 Eleven Warriors
- Instant analysis: A brutal first half likely will bounce Wisconsin men’s basketball to the NIT Madison.com
- Big Ten tournament is Purdue’s to lose — and don’t be surprised when that happens Chicago Sun-Times
- Big Ten Tournament Preview: Ohio State’s Season Likely on the Line in Every Game As the Buckeyes Try to Extend Eleven Warriors
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Why Lambert Airport scored poorly on a national survey
To be honest, the news was not much of a surprise.
On Wednesday, J.D. Power released its annual survey of travelers’ attitudes toward U.S. and Canadian airports. Most airports fared worse this year than last, but St. Louis Lambert International Airport did even worse than most.
Lambert landed 23rd on the list of 27 airports of its size — between 10 million and 32.9 million passengers a year.
The difference, according to Michael Taylor, an analyst at J.D. Power specializing in travel, hospitality and retail, is investment. Airports that have spent up to multiple billions of dollars on improvements tended to score well.
Lambert has not done so yet, but it does have a plan to make changes in the future.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, Lambert saw about 16 million passengers, according to an open house presentation held in May. By 2040, it expects to see 21 million passengers, give or take a million.
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So the problems with crowds — and waits, and lines, and parking — will only get worse unless the airport can expand.
A master plan for the airport currently proposes adding space onto what is now Terminal 1 to create a single, greatly expanded location for all flights, including at least 10 new gates. Other proposed changes include wider concourses, an improved security checkpoint, a less confusing system of roads into the airport and more.
At a presentation held in May to discuss this plan, representatives of the airport acknowledged problems with crowds — and waits, and lines, and parking. And they pointed out some unique logistical challenges in dealing with these issues.
Interstate 70 runs just in front of the airport, which makes expansion to the south impossible. And access could be improved by moving service roads, but any changes would have to be carefully planned to avoid adversely affecting nearby communities.
The airport has done enough of that in the past. Which is presumably why it is trying so hard not to do it again now.
The survey asked more than 26,000 travelers to rate the airports they had been to in the last 30 days. The six categories they were to make their ratings on, in descending order of importance, were terminal facilities, airport arrival and departure, baggage claim, security check, check-in and baggage check, and food, beverage and retail options.
Lambert scored in the bottom one-third or one-quarter in each of the categories.
Taylor said that travelers’ expectations for airports have changed. Airports used to be merely functional, places where people would go to get onto or off from an airplane.
But now, he said, they are more of a destination in themselves. With increased delays and longer waits to make connections, travelers are spending more time in airports and would like them to be more pleasant.
Airports that score well in satisfaction surveys tend to be open and airy, he said. They are more like a mall. They have a large selection of food and beverage choices, along with retail stores for varied interests.
Ideally, he said, airports should have a mix of popular national chain restaurants (Lambert has a Burger King, a California Pizza Kitchen and a Chili’s, but no McDonald’s or KFC) and local restaurants to give the airport a local identity.
That is where Lambert actually does well, I told him. Though the airport does not have as many places to eat as some others, most of the restaurants are local: The Pasta House, Mike Shannon’s Grill, Three Kings (and its Mexican offshoot, Tres Reyes), Schlafly, Urban Chestnut, several Anheuser-Busch places and more.
But to people who don’t live here, none of these speaks especially of St. Louis. You can get crab cakes in Baltimore and barbecue in Dallas. But only St. Louisans know what it means to get an order of toasted ravioli at the airport Pasta House.
Za’Darius Smith criticizes Green Bay Packers for treating him poorly after injury
As if there wasn’t enough juice to the season opener between the rival Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings, one player who has switched sides gave it a little extra.
Za’Darius Smith, who signed with the Vikings this offseason after three seasons with the Packers, criticized how his former team handled the back injury that kept him out for most of last season.
In an interview with GoLongTD.com that was published Wednesday, Smith said he was “treated bad” by the Packers during the process of trying to return from his injury and that the team seemed bothered that he had sought a second opinion.
“How I was here in the building,” Smith said in the interview, holding his hand high before tilting it down, “I came down to here. To a nobody. To everybody in building. I was like, ‘Damn, why am I being treated like this? I brought the culture. I helped change this s—. Why the f— am I the one being treated like that?’
“Walking past me not saying nothing. ‘Z, how’s your back doing?’ There was none of that. As you can see, that adds on to why I’m on the other side. So, I can go back. I get to go back two times a year.”
Said Packers coach Matt LaFleur on Wednesday: “I think we may have a different perspective of how things transpired.”
Smith said in the story that he injured his back while weightlifting heading into training camp last summer. He missed most of camp but played in the season opener before deciding to have surgery shortly thereafter. He missed the rest of the regular season but returned for the Packers’ playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
The Packers released Smith this past offseason in a move that saved them $15.75 million on their salary cap. Smith, who was named to the Pro Bowl in each of his first two seasons with the Packers (2019-2020), initially agreed to rejoin his original team, the Baltimore Ravens, before he backed out and signed with the Vikings instead.
“I put my all into it,” Smith said in the story. “That’s why I felt the way I did with Green Bay. I gave that s— my all. I put my blood, sweat … I put my back on the f—ing line. I put everything. And that Year 3, I was treated bad. That’s why I’m here now. So I can play them twice a year.”
A poorly matched flu shot could mean a bad flu season on top of a Covid surge
The current flu vaccines appear to be a bad match for the dominant strain so far this influenza season, new research suggests, leading experts to warn that the United States could be in for a bad flu season, on top of what’s already shaping up to be another devastating surge of Covid cases.
Before each flu season, scientists must predict which strains will be the most common, and design a flu shot to match these predictions. This year’s flu shot includes four strains.
But one, a version of the H3N2 strain of influenza, is turning out to be a bad match for the version of H3N2, called 2a2, that’s in wide circulation in the U.S., according to a study from Scott Hensley, a professor of microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania. Hensley’s study was posted Wednesday to a preprint server, meaning it has not yet been peer-reviewed.
So far this season, the H3N2 strain makes up for at least 99 percent of all flu cases in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though the agency does not specify how many of those cases are caused by the 2a2 version of the strain.
The presence of the 2a2 version means the vaccine may not protect as well against infection, because it’s not the version included in the vaccine, Hensley said.
The flu shot is never a perfect match for the influenza viruses that end up in wide circulation, but even so, the vaccine still reduces a person’s risk of severe illness from the flu.
“Influenza vaccination is the best protection against severe disease and illness,” he said. “Even in these years of mismatch, we see high effectiveness against hospitalizations and severe disease.”
Still, the mismatch Hensley has observed so far is striking. The last time there was a mismatch this significant was during the 2014-15 flu season, he said. Even so, the vaccine prevented nearly 40,000 hospitalizations and almost 4,000 deaths from the flu that season, the CDC estimates.
Flu experts have warned that the nation could be at risk for a severe flu season this year after flu cases reached an all-time low last year, when large swaths of the country were shut down because of the pandemic. And the mismatch could exacerbate the situation.
“Once this fire gets started, it may spread out of control,” Hensley said.
Health officials are already seeing flu outbreaks. In November, the CDC said it was investigating an outbreak of influenza at the University of Michigan, where at least 528 students have tested positive for the flu since Oct. 6.
Dr. Mark Roberts, director of the Public Health Dynamics Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh, said the data in the new preprint “is certainly consistent with what I know from the rest of the world right now.”
The potential, he said, for a “really large influenza season this year is real.”
“So much of the immunity that you get in a population comes from the people who had influenza the year before,” said Roberts, who was not involved with Hensley’s research. “There could be substantially bigger epidemics this year, especially if the strain that appears is different than the strains we’ve seen.”
Still, with the rise of the omicron variant, there’s still a chance the U.S. could have a modest flu season this year, he said. That’s because alarm over the variant could cause more of the public to go back to social distancing and mask wearing.
“That’s all better for the flu, too,” he said.
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PepsiCo and Beyond Meat launch poorly named joint venture for new plant-based food and drinks – TechCrunch
PepsiCo, the planetary purveyor of sugary drinks, greasy chips, and (weirdly) oatmeal, hummus, and gazpacho(?) is partnering with Beyond Meat, the publicly traded plant-based protein provider, on a poorly named joint venture to hawk new plant-based food and beverages to consumers.
The PLANeT Partnership (which was clearly branded by the same genius behind the comic sans font), will combine Beyond Meat’s skills with protein prestidigitation and PepsiCo’s marketing and manufacturing savvy to flood the global market with new snacks and drinks, the two companies said.
Neither company disclosed any financial terms and other pesky details around who, what, where, and when, except to say that the the joint venture operations will be managed through the newly created PLANeT Partnership.
(If the companies put as much effort into running the business as they did with naming and branding it, Impossible Foods shouldn’t have much to worry about…. The capitalization and branding of this thing is an affront to the English language is all I’m saying.)
“Plant-based proteins represent an exciting growth opportunity for us, a new frontier in our efforts to build a more sustainable food system and be a positive force for people and the planet, while meeting consumer demand for an expanded portfolio of more nutritious products,” said Ram Krishnan, PepsiCo Global Chief Commercial Officer, in a statement.
In the announcement touting the new JV, PepsiCo referred to its storied history of snack innovation including baked LAY’S chips, Sabra Snack Cups, Alvalle ready-to-drink gazpacho, Quaker Breakfast flats and Gatorade Juiced.
The company has also acquired BFY Brands, which makes PopCorners; SodaStream, which makes… well… SodaStreams… and BareSnacks, which makes baked fruit and vegetable chips.
The deal is the latest really really big partnership for Beyond Meat and follows an oddly botched announcement with McDonald’s that the two companies would be collaborating on new menu items.