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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Greg McGarity had reason to be concerned. The Gator Bowl president kept a watchful eye on College Football Playoff scenarios all season and understood the fallout might affect his postseason matchup in Jacksonville. What if the Southeastern Conference got five teams into the expanded CFP? What if the Atlantic Coast Conference landed three spots? It was a math problem that was impossible to truly answer, even into late November. Four first-round playoff games, which will end with four good teams going home without a bowl game, had the potential to shake up the system. The good news for McGarity and other bowl organizers: Adding quality teams to power leagues — Oregon to the Big Ten, Texas to the SEC and SMU to the ACC — managed to ease much of the handwringing. McGarity and the Gator Bowl ended up with their highest-ranked team, No. 16 Ole Miss, in nearly two decades. "It really didn't lessen our pool much at all," McGarity said. "The SEC bowl pool strengthened with the addition of Texas and Oklahoma. You knew they were going to push traditional SEC teams up or down. Texas ended up pushing just about everyone down." The long waiting game was the latest twist for non-CFP bowls that have become adept at dealing with change. Efforts to match the top teams came and went in the 1990s and first decade of this century before the CFP became the first actual tournament in major college football. It was a four-team invitational — until this year, when the 12-team expanded format meant that four quality teams would not be in the mix for bowl games after they lose next week in the first round. "There's been a lot of things that we've kind of had to roll with," said Scott Ramsey, president of the Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tennessee. "I don't think the extra games changed our selection model to much degree. We used to look at the New York's Six before this, and that was 12 teams out of the bowl mix. The 12-team playoff is pretty much the same." Ramsey ended up with No. 23 Missouri against Iowa in his Dec. 30 bowl. A lot of so-called lesser bowl games do have high-profile teams — the ReliaQuest Bowl has No. 11 Alabama vs. Michigan (a rematch of last year's CFP semifinal), Texas A&M and USC will play in the Las Vegas Bowl while No. 14 South Carolina and No. 15 Miami, two CFP bubble teams, ended up in separate bowls in Orlando. "The stress of it is just the fact that the CFP takes that opening weekend," Las Vegas Bowl executive director John Saccenti said. "It kind of condenses the calendar a little bit." Bowl season opens Saturday with the Cricket Celebration Bowl. The first round of the CFP runs Dec. 20-21. It remains to be seen whether non-CFP bowls will see an impact from the new dynamic. They will know more by 2026, with a planned bowl reset looming. It could include CFP expansion from 12 to 14 teams and significant tweaks to the bowl system. More on-campus matchups? More diversity among cities selected to host semifinal and championship games? And would there be a trickle-down effect for everyone else? Demand for non-playoff bowls remains high, according to ESPN, despite increased focus on the expanded CFP and more players choosing to skip season finales to either enter the NCAA transfer portal or begin preparations for the NFL draft. "There's a natural appetite around the holidays for football and bowl games," Kurt Dargis, ESPN's senior director of programming and acquisitions, said at Sports Business Journal's Intercollegiate Athletics Forum last week in Las Vegas. "People still want to watch bowl games, regardless of what's going on with the playoff. ... It's obviously an unknown now with the expanded playoff, but we really feel like it's going to continue." The current bowl format runs through 2025. What lies ahead is anyone's guess. Could sponsors start paying athletes to play in bowl games? Could schools include hefty name, image and likeness incentives for players participating in bowls? Would conferences be willing to dump bowl tie-ins to provide a wider range of potential matchups? Are bowls ready to lean into more edginess like Pop-Tarts has done with its edible mascot? The path forward will be determined primarily by revenue, title sponsors, TV demand and ticket sales. "The one thing I have learned is we're going to serve our partners," Saccenti said. "We're going to be a part of the system that's there, and we're going to try to remain flexible and make sure that we're adjusting to what's going on in the world of postseason college football."
How Daniel Tay, former owner of Bakerzin, revived his father’s Seng Choong Confectionery brandThe season for giving is also the season of taking away by porch pirates who steal your packages
Governor vows to help promote educationBroncos get a big win and we all get the full Jameis Winston experience in DenverPrayagraj (UP), Nov 24 (PTI) Police on Sunday arrested five members of a gang who cheated an accountant of a company owned by Uttar Pradesh Minister Nand Gopal Gupta of Rs 2.08 crore and recovered 14 Android/Apple phones, 10 ATM cards and 10 SIM cards from their possession, an official said. Divyanshu of Bihar's Patna, Pulkit Dwivedi of Mau, Sanjeev Kumar, Surjeet Singh and Vijay Kumar (all residents of Bareilly) were arrested, said Cyber Police Station SHO Rajiv Kumar Tiwari. Also Read | Ajit Pawar To Replace Eknath Shinde As Next Maharashtra CM? NCP Leader Chhagan Bhujbal Replies. He said that on November 13, a message came on WhatsApp of Ritesh Srivastava, an accountant of the minister's company Icavo Agro Daily Private Limited. Abhishek Gupta's (minister's son) profile photo was on that number. The message said that this is a new number and necessary information was sought for the proposed necessary meeting, he added. Also Read | Parliament Winter Session 2024: Government Open To Discuss All Issues, Says Union Minister Kiren Rijiju. Assuming that it was the instructions of the company's director Abhishek Gupta, Ritesh shared the company's account information on that number. After which, while talking about finalizing a business deal, he was asked to immediately send Rs 68 lakh to the client, for which the account details were sent. After this, while mentioning the deal, he was asked to send Rs 65 lakh and Rs 75 lakh respectively to two different accounts. Following the instructions of the director, this amount was sent. In the evening, when the director (Abhishek Gupta) was talked to in this regard, it was found that he did not send any such message. Then the cyber fraud came to light, the SHO said. Tiwari said that during interrogation, the gang members said that they are connected to cyber thugs sitting in foreign countries through Telegram. They use the account in various types of cyber fraud and invest money in crypto currency. To avoid arrest and keep their identity confidential, they use techniques like VPN and IP bounce, he added. On the complaint of Srivastava, a case was registered on November 14 in the Cyber Police Station against unidentified individuals under sections 319 (2), 318 (4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and sections 66C and 66D of the Information Technology Act, police had earlier said. All the three bank accounts in which the money was transferred were frozen. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Aspiring pastry chefs typically head west for their baptism of fire — cultivating exacting precision to confect puff pastry with hundreds of buttery layers, and mind-bendingly realistic trompe l’oeil desserts in the guise of everyday objects. After decades of honing his ability in French pastry arts, which he channelled into now defunct patisserie-cafe chain Bakerzin, Singaporean chef Daniel Tay is due East. The 54-year-old, who sells traditional Chinese snacks such as ang ku kueh under his recently launched brand Madam Ang KK, will soon travel to Chaozhou, China, to fine-tune his soon kueh making skills. While some may regard the Teochew steamed dumplings filled with turnip and dried shrimps as provincial fare, Tay reveals that they’re fiendishly difficult to master. For one, perfecting the texture of the chewy rice and tapioca flour wrappers is a lesson in patience. Although Tay may count the likes of Pierre Herme and Frederic Bau as his inspirations, he avers that such European pastry chefs are vaunted by the press, at times to the detriment of local culinary heritage. “It might not look glamorous, but those are our traditions, which will be forgotten if nobody talks about them,” said the F&B entrepreneur, who also owns cheesecake brand Cat & the Fiddle plus local heritage bakery Old Seng Choong. Besides his main agenda, he has also got other side quests slated for his upcoming sojourn. Over coffee, he cheerfully mentions a pitstop at his ancestral village close to Fujian province, as well as plans to attend feng shui classes. He’d become a votary of the Chinese practice of geomancy after a particularly painful business failure early in his career. “You don’t always have to hit a brick wall, there are many things you can do to avoid different circumstances. I’ve travelled so much in the past few years that I’ve managed to avoid conflict with my wife,” he quipped. The son of a baker who owned the popular Seng Choong Confectionery at Marine Parade, Tay did not stoke ambitions to succeed the family business growing up — though he occasionally helped at the bakery. Instead, he hopscotched from one pursuit to the other, entertaining the notions of becoming a fashion designer and professional snooker player at different intervals. “All my siblings graduated from universities in the US, while I was this hopeless guy who didn’t study and slept till two in the afternoon,” he recounted, adding that his tendency at the time to space out led family members to suspect that he was using drugs. His paternal grandfather, however, had always pegged him for a budding entrepreneur who would surpass his siblings. So, he was hustled overseas to study baking science and technology at U.S. Wheat Associates in Bangkok. He proved to be a quick study, and soon found his metier as a pastry chef. “I realised that I may not love this, but I need to be in F&B. Years later, I discovered through astrology that it’s my calling to be a businessman,” he proclaimed. IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED... While he may have been slow off the mark, he returned to Singapore on a quest to stake his claim in the industry, starting with reimagining his father’s old school bakery. “I wanted to transform Old Seng Choong into something like Bread Talk — this was way before it existed,” he recalled. The unassuming heartland bakery got a facelift with startling cobalt blue flooring and display. For many longstanding customers, this was a dislocating contrast from the no-frills bakery that was established in 1965. “We were ahead of our time,” he said. As a result, his first venture flamed out, and his father had to sell the shop. “That was 30 years of his hard work gone in that one year I took over, so it was very tough for me,” he reflected. Friends began to shun his father, thinking that he’d gone into rack and ruin, though the elder Tay never held it against him. The pair chalked the failure up to a business misstep and drew a line under the episode. Then, in 1998, under the spectre of the Asian Financial Crisis, Tay took his opportunity to flip the script by launching Baker’s Inn (later renamed Bakerzin). This time, he found a sweet spot, with the bakery chain amassing an appreciative following for its premium yet accessible desserts. “There wasn’t really anyone doing it at the time. Starbucks’ coffee and cakes were horrible, and decent cakes could only be found in hotels, which were expensive,” said Tay, who claims partial credit for inspiring Singapore’s next wave of modern bistros. Bakerzin steadily became a household name, but like many F&B operators, grappled with rising costs including rental over time. Tay sold the business in 2007 to “a very rich Indonesian group” whose identity he wouldn’t disclose, but continued managing it till 2013. “The guy who bought it did not even meet me once, and all the information gets lost when you communicate via a go-between,” groused Tay. The subject apparently hits a raw nerve. “When you get some financial guy to oversee the business, he thinks it’s easy to make money and starts cutting costs. I decided that I still prefer to work for myself.” The founder ventured that he’d offered to buy back the business when he’d heard that it was going into liquidation in 2020, but his overture was rejected. “They didn’t want to sell to me, it would have been too much of an embarrassment.” Bravado aside, Tay isn’t one to flog a dead horse. In 2013, he’d launched food manufacturing company Foodgnostic Pte Ltd, which has five factories — in Singapore, Malaysia and China. They double up as production facilities for Cat & the Fiddle and Old Seng Choong, which were incepted in 2014 and 2016 respectively. The former brand has a franchise in Indonesia, and supplies cafes and restaurants in China. Tay says he’s achieved consistency by investing heavily in quality control. “Our factories in China are super clean and precise, down to workers sorting defective walnuts and raisins. There’s no chance of failure,” he crowed. It’s evident that these gleaming white facilities are his pride and joy, as he shows off videos depicting boxes of cakes streaking by on conveyer belts. For all his brashness, Tay betrays a rare moment of vulnerability when talking about Old Seng Choong, an ode to his father and a chance to preserve his legacy. He recalls being featured alongside his parents in an article about his rebranding of his father’s business, with his ailing dad in a wheelchair. “In tears, my dad told me how his friend called him saying, ‘Wow, you’re back’. He passed on four months later,” he recounted. “At least I did something right.” HOW TO AVERT A CRISIS The COVID-19 pandemic hobbled F&B players, with Singapore Department of Statistics reporting a 26 per cent year-on-year decline in sales in 2020. Tay, on the other hand, noted a bonanza. After implementing initial pay cuts at the start of the pandemic, he shored up the business by pivoting — he churned butter out of surfeit cream from other proprietors, and flogged products such as mushroom soup packs on Facebook Live. A session co-hosted by local food blogger Maureen Ow, who goes by the moniker of Miss Tam Chiak, drew brickbats from netizens who claimed they were flouting safe distancing restrictions. So, he hammed it up for audiences solo, and claims to have raked in five-figure sales nonetheless. Notably, he managed to maintain Old Seng Choong’s tenancy at Marina Bay Sands, in part by fulfilling corporate orders. “The worst thing to do in a crisis is stay still and wait to die. At the bottom of the valley, you just have to keep walking, and you’ll find your footing and way out eventually,” he mused. It’s easy to fathom why the father of three young adults didn’t have much time for his kids in their formative years, given the vicissitudes he’s faced. Beyond work, he’s a shutterbug — having trained his staff to do all their photography inhouse — and tea connoisseur. His most expensive tea purchase is a Pu Er from Banzhang, Yunnan, priced at approximately S$10,000 (US$7,354) per cake. For now, Tay is licking his lips on plans to evolve his businesses — the first Cat & the Fiddle outlet equipped with an in-store oven is in the pipeline for the first quarter of 2025. So what’s the secret to longevity in Singapore’s saturated F&B landscape? “Keep evolving. The life of an F&B entrepreneur is very tough with rising costs, so we have to find ways to work differently,” he concluded.
Wyoming Freedom Caucus and opponents won’t be singing ‘Kumbaya’NoneTHE Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ) has bemoaned the failure by the government to allocate funds in the recently announced 2025 National Budget towards improving the public transportation system in the country. In a statement, CCZ chief executive officer Rose Mpofu said the government should have considered suspending duty on public service buses. “Public transport remains a big challenge and consumers are always being taken advantage of, especially women because they are usually harassed by disrespectful touts. Also children and people with disabilities are always being taken advantage of,” she said. She said commuter omnibus operators disregard the fair pricing system, always finding ways of circumventing it through hiking fares when it rains, or in the evening when commuters are desperate to get home. Mpofu said the government should have considered allocating some funds towards resuscitating Zupco to enable it to grow its fleet and provide an affordable and efficient service. She said a reliable public transport system would assist in decongesting the roads as most people will use it instead of the private commuter omnibuses, commonly known as “kombis”, and pirate taxis, known as “mushikashika”. Jobs would also be created and the dignity that consumers get from using public transport would also be created. “Resuscitation of the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) is also very important and we are happy that it was given a huge chunk to try and upscale its operations,” Mpofu said. She welcomed the suspension of duty on inputs for producing motor vehicles saying this will promote value addition and create employment which will benefit consumers as more income is earned. On the issue of withholding tax on betting, Mpofu said it is a positive move as it would result in more people paying taxes and increased revenue generation for the government to fund social programmes. She also hailed the government for increasing the minimum tax threshold, but suggested that it should have been informed by the family basket of six. — New Ziana
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Two-time Pro Bowl linebacker Shaquil Barrett is rejoining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs signed the two-time Super Bowl champion on Saturday, while also announcing safety Jordan Whitehead was activated from injured reserve ahead of Sunday’s home game against the Carolina Panthers. Barrett spent five seasons with Tampa Bay from 2019 to 2023. He led the NFL with a franchise-record 19 1-2 sacks in his first year with the Bucs, then helped the team win its second Super Bowl title the following season. In all, Barrett started 70 games with Tampa Bay, amassing 45 sacks, 15 forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries and three interceptions. He was released last winter in a salary cap move, signed a one-year contract with the Miami Dolphins in free agency, then abruptly announced his retirement on social media before the start of training camp in July. Barrett, who also won a Super Bowl during a four-season stint with the Denver Broncos, decided to unretire last month. He signed with the Bucs after clearing waivers earlier in the week. Whitehead has missed the past four games with a pectoral injury. His return comes of the heels of the Bucs placing safety Christian Izien on IR with a pectoral injury. On Saturday, the Bucs also activated rookie wide receiver Kameron Johnson from IR and elevated punter Jack Browning to the active roster from the practice squad. NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nflUnretired two-time Pro Bowl LB Shaquil Barrett signs to resume career with Tampa Bay Buccaneers
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PISCATAWAY – The Princeton women’s basketball team is remaining confident that it’ll reach its goals, even though leading scorer Madison St. Rose is now on the bench with crutches. The Tigers had an inconsistent start to the new season, but those challenges deepened when St. Rose went down with a knee injury on Nov. 16 against Quinnipiac. The program announced Friday that St. Rose had torn her left ACL and will miss the rest of the season. St. Rose’s ACL tear came on a non-contact play. As she was driving into the paint, she tried to come to a stop and went down in immediate pain. Princeton coach Carla Berube told the Trentonian that St. Rose is doing “as best as she possibly can” in the wake of her injury. “It was heartbreaking news,” Berube said. “We kind of knew it when it happened and then found out (the final diagnosis) this past week. She’s just going to meet it head on, and she’s super tough and resilient and she’s already this leader on the bench that we really need, especially with all of our young players.” Berube said she expects St. Rose to be ready for the start of the 2025-26 season, since the injury happened so early in the campaign. All the Tigers have done in the time since is sweep New Jersey rivals Seton Hall and Rutgers for the third year running. On Sunday, Ashley Chea had career highs of 20 points and nine rebounds, Skye Belker scored 13 points and Fadima Tall posted her first career double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds in a 66-49 victory at Rutgers. The result pushed Princeton to 4-2. Tall said the team was “very, very emotional” when it found out about St. Rose’s fate. “But then we have her telling us like, yes, she’s out, yes, she’s a big scorer, but we all want to do this for her. We want to give her another ring for another Ivy League championship,” Tall said. “We all are banding together even more because now we know all we have is each other, and all we have is all we need. “And Maddie’s always right there with us. It’s like she’s not even gone, honestly.” Princeton’s season had gotten off to an uneven start. The Tigers entered Sunday with three wins over Big East opponents DePaul, Villanova and Seton Hall but a pair of losses to fellow mid-majors. The Tigers were outscored 20-4 in the fourth quarter of their season-opening loss at Duquesne, and they lost 74-66 at Quinnipiac after St. Rose exited in the fourth quarter. While Chea and Belker will share the bulk of the scoring load for the Tigers going forward, several individual players will likely take on new responsibility as well, primarily Tall, Olivia Hutcherson and Toby Nweke. As freshmen last year, Tall and Hutcherson combined to total 109 minutes and 49 points on the year. Nweke is in her first year at Princeton but is plenty familiar with the program as the younger sister of recent graduate Chet Nweke. Tall has been the Tigers’ starting four in every game this season and left her mark everywhere Sunday. On top of her double-double, she had four steals and helped centers Parker Hill and Tabitha Amanze bottle up Rutgers star Destiny Adams, who went 2-of-5 for four points after averaging 25.2 ppg through five games. A 6-footer from Maryland, Tall is ready to take the next step in her game to help Princeton compensate for St. Rose’s absence. “I think I definitely need to make myself more aggressive offensively and produce more a little bit, as well as making sure we have those rebounds secured over a single game because as we know, we lost a lot of rebounding last year with Ellie (Mitchell) gone,” Tall said. “So I think encouraging my teammates and myself to fill that gap in offensively and defensively the way Maddie did is going to be perfect for us.” Hutcherson has filled St. Rose’s place in the starting lineup and had a career-best eight points and nine boards against Rutgers. Notably, she grabbed four offensive rebounds and scored putbacks on all four. “She’s really hard to box out, especially coming from a guard position from the perimeter,” Berube said. “And yeah, to start the game, she was just all over the boards. And I think that set the tone on how, how we were going to attack them, you know, and not just settle for one shot. “Those are two sophomores (Hutcherson and Tall) that didn’t get a lot of playing time last year that are stepping up into really big roles.”In a statement on their social media pages, the Premier League club wrote: "West Ham United can confirm striker Michail Antonio has today been involved in a road traffic accident. "The thoughts and prayers of everyone at the Club are with Michail, his family and friends at this time. The Club will issue an update in due course." No details of the player's condition or further information about the incident have yet been given. Club Statement West Ham United can confirm striker Michail Antonio has today been involved in a road traffic accident. The thoughts and prayers of everyone at the Club are with Michail, his family and friends at this time. The Club will issue an update in due course. Several clubs including Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City have replied to West Ham's statement on X (formerly known as Twitter), sending their best wishes to Antonio, . The Premier League also replied adding the "thoughts and prayers" of everyone at the organisation are with "Antonio, his family, friends and all at West Ham". West Ham were not involved in a Premier League match today (Saturday, December 7) and are currently scheduled to host Wolverhampton Wanderers on Monday evening (December 9). Antonion, 34, joined the London club in 2015 and is West Ham's top scorer in the Premier League with 68 goals. He began his career with non-league Tooting and Mitcham, before moving into the professional ranks with Reading. After stints at Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest, he then made the move to West Ham.
