IRVING, Texas (AP) — The NFL will consider expanding replay assist to include facemask penalties and other plays. Officials have missed several obvious facemask penalties this season, including two in a three-week span during Thursday night games.
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NFL will consider replay assist for facemask penalties and other plays
WASHINGTON – A congressional hearing on Secret Service lapses surrounding attempted assassinations of President-elect Donald Trump erupted into a screaming match Thursday between the agency’s acting director and U.S. Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas. Fallon, an outspoken critic of the Secret Service’s recent failures, is a member of the special House task force investigating where the agency has fallen short protecting Trump in two attempts on his life. Ronald Rowe Jr. took over after former director Kimberly Cheatle resigned in the face of intense criticism after the assassination attempt at a July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Trump was shot in the ear, a rally attendee was killed and two others critically injured. Rowe testified Thursday as the task force wrapped up its investigation and prepared to submit its final report. Rowe said the Butler attempt represented an “abject failure” by the agency that underscored critical problems. He said he has sought to implement reforms and be an “agent of change” to improve the agency’s performance. Fallon peppered Rowe with pointed questions before asking aides to display a photo of a Sept. 11 remembrance event in New York attended by President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump and other high-profile officials. Rowe was visible in the photo standing just behind the VIPs. Fallon asked Rowe if he was the special agent in charge, who would typically be closest to the president. Rowe quickly cut in to say the agent in charge was outside the picture’s frame and talked about the 3,000 people who died in the terror attacks. “I actually responded to ground zero. I was there going through the ashes of the World Trade Center. I was there at Fresh Kills...” “I’m not asking you that,” Fallon cut him off, his voice rising. “I’m asking you if you were, were you the special agent in charge? You were not!” “I was there to show respect for a Secret Service member that died on 9/11,” Rowe shouted back. “Oh, that’s a bunch of horse hockey,” Fallon interjected. “Do not invoke 9/11 for political purposes,” Rowe said as each of the men jabbed their fingers in the air and talked over one another. “Don’t try to bully me,” Fallon said. “I am an elected member of Congress and I am asking you a serious question and you are playing politics.” “I am a public servant who has served this nation and spent time on our country’s darkest day,” Rowe said. “Do not politicize it.” Fallon’s time was expiring and the task force chairman started banging his gavel to cut him off but the congressman kept after Rowe, saying he wanted answers to very simple, serious questions. In the cross talk, it sounded as if Rowe said his presence did not affect protective operations at the event. “Do you know why you were there? Because you wanted to be visible because you are auditioning for this job that you’re not going to get,” Fallon said. “You endangered President Biden’s life, Vice President Harris’ life, because you put those agents out of position.” Rowe told Fallon he was out of line. “You’re a bully,” Fallon shot back before the task force resumed its regularly scheduled questioning. Fallon also delivered a tongue-lashing to Cheatle when she testified shortly after the Butler attempt. In that hearing, Fallon recounted how he sought to recreate the conditions that faced the would-be assassin. And he mockingly referred to Cheatle’s previous job as senior director in global security at Pepsico, which manufactures snack foods, by telling her she should “go back to guarding Doritos.” -------- ©2024 The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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IRVING, Texas (AP) — The NFL will consider expanding replay assist to include facemask penalties and other plays. Officials have missed several obvious facemask penalties this season, including two in a three-week span during Thursday night games. “When we see it, because I see it like yourselves and the fans, I have an opportunity to see it from a different angle and see it from a slow-mo,” NFL executive Troy Vincent said Wednesday at the league’s winter meetings. “When you think about the position of where the officials are, things are happening so fast. Sometimes the facemask can be the same color as the gloves. There’s a lot happening. Concerning? Yes, because that’s a big miss. That’s a big foul. That’s why we would like to consider putting that for the membership to consider putting that foul category that we can see, putting that (penalty flag) on the field to help. There is a frustration, and we believe that is one category we can potentially get right." Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold was grabbed by his facemask and brought down in the end zone to end Minnesota’s comeback attempt against the Rams on Oct. 24. But there was no call. On Oct. 3, officials missed a facemask on Buccaneers running back Bucky Irving while he ran for 7 yards late in the fourth quarter. Tampa Bay instead was called for holding on the play, got forced out of field-goal range and Kirk Cousins rallied the Falcons to an overtime victory. “That is one this year, the facemask seems like it was the obvious one” Vincent said. “That keeps showing up.” Vincent also cited hits on a defenseless player, tripping, the fair catch, an illegal batted ball, an illegal double-team block, illegal formations on kickoffs and taunting as other areas that warrant consideration for replay assist. Current rules only allow replay assist to help officials pick up a flag incorrectly thrown on the field, or in assisting proper enforcement of a foul called on the field. The NFL’s Competition Committee will review potential recommendations for owners to vote on for expanding replay assist. Vincent was emphatic about the league’s desire to eliminate low blocks that could lead to serious injuries. “The low block below the knee needs to be removed from the game,” Vincent said. “You look at high school, you look at college, too. Every block should be above the knee, but below the neck. All the work that we’ve done for the head and neck area, all the things that we’ve taken out of the game, this is the right time for us to remove the low block out of the game. Be consistent with high school. Be consistent with college. Every block should be above the knee and below the neck.” The league will consider changes to the onside kick after dramatically overhauling the kickoff rule on a one-year basis. “We need to look at that. That’s a dead play,” Vincent said of the onside kick’s low success rate. “That is a ceremonial play. Very low recovery rate. When we look at the kickoff and maybe where the touchback area should be during the offseason, we need to revisit the onside kick.” Options include giving the team an opportunity to run one play to gain a certain number of yards to keep possession. The Washington Commanders’ search for a new stadium site includes options in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, and work has escalated on one in particular. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and controlling owner Josh Harris met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill last week about the RFK Stadium site in Washington, which requires a bill getting through Congress to transfer the land to the District government before anything else can happen. “I think there’s a bipartisan support for this,” Goodell said, adding he’d like to see it get to a vote soon. “We hope that it will be addressed and approved so that it’s at least an alternative for the Commanders if we go forward. I grew up in Washington, and I know would be exciting for a lot of fans.” The NFL continues to discuss a potential 18-game season, but would need approval from the players’ union. “We are doing analysis I would say, but we are not finalizing any plans at this point,” Goodell said. “They’ll share that analysis with the players’ union, which would need to agree to any change.” AP Sports Writer Stephen Whyno contributed. AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nflWhile humans have been making their mark on the surfaces of this Earth for at least tens of thousands of years , it's difficult to pinpoint the exact moment our impulse to record what we saw tipped into what we would consider 'writing'. Now, a team from the University of Bologna in Italy has linked symbols on ancient Mesopotamian seals with an archaic visual communication system called proto-cuneiform ; an art form which would in time evolve into one of the world's first true writing systems. "The close relationship between anci ent sealing and the invention of writing in southwest Asia has long been recognized, but the relationship between specific seal images and sign shapes has hardly been explored," says philologist Silvia Ferrara from the University of Bologna. "This was our starting question: did seal imagery contribute significantly to the invention of signs in the first writing in the region?" Writing is a complex system of rules that tells us how to arrange and interpret symbols to convey all kinds of information, from literal descriptions to abstract thoughts. Long before those rules were invented, symbols representing basic concepts were etched, drawn – or in this case printed – onto a material to share simple ideas, which over time may have become standardized as a lexicon for grammarless 'proto-writing'. The researchers methodically compared the designs they found on ancient cylinder seals with known proto-cuneiform signs. The selection of cylinder seals they analyzed originated before writing emerged in ancient Mesopotamia, through to the proto-literate period. They argue that similarities in the way common artifacts were depicted visually on the cylinder seals – for instance, fringed textiles and netted vessels – share elements with their corresponding proto-cuneiform symbols. The proto-cuneiform signs associated with fringed material, for instance, have triangular forms with multiple vertical lines pointing downward from a piece of 'cloth'. Representations of people weaving on a cylinder seal from the Mesopotamian city of Susa bear a similar form, as do artifacts from the city of Uruk. Similar resemblances can be seen between what seem to be depictions of vessels enveloped in netting on the cylinders and a series of proto-cuneiform signs the researchers suspect carry the same meaning. "The conceptual leap from pre-writing symbolism to writing is a significant development in human cognitive technologies," Ferrara says . "The invention of writing marks the transition between prehistory and history, and the findings of this study bridge this divide by illustrating how some late prehistoric images were incorporated into one of the earliest invented writing systems." Proto-cuneiform is first seen in the archeological record as a means of accounting. It allowed people to track the production and trade of everyday items, especially agricultural and textile items. But before this literacy arose in Mesopotamia, cylinder seals fulfilled that same purpose, allowing people to record trade by 'printing' records into clay tablets. "Our findings demonstrate that the designs engraved on cylinder seals are directly connected to the development of proto-cuneiform in southern Iraq," Ferrara says . "They also show how the meaning originally associated with these designs was integrated into a writing system." This research was published in the journal Antiquity .
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A Stanford University misinformation expert who was called out in a federal court case in Minnesota for submitting a sworn declaration that contained made-up information has blamed an artificial intelligence chatbot. And the bot generated more errors than the one highlighted by the plaintiffs in the case, professor Jeff Hancock wrote in an apologetic court filing, saying he did not intend to mislead the court or any lawyers. “I express my sincere regret for any confusion this may have caused,” Hancock wrote. Lawyers for a YouTuber and Minnesota state legislator suing to overturn a Minnesota law said in a court filing last month that Hancock’s expert-witness declaration contained a reference to a study, by authors Huang, Zhang, Wang, that did not exist. They believed Hancock had used a chatbot in preparing the 12-page document, and called for the submission to be thrown out because it might contain more, undiscovered AI fabrications. It did: After the lawyers called out Hancock, he found two other AI “hallucinations” in his declaration, according to his filing in Minnesota District Court. The professor, founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab, was brought into the case by Minnesota’s attorney general as an expert defense witness in a lawsuit by the state legislator and the satirist YouTuber. The lawmaker and the social-media influencer are seeking a court order declaring unconstitutional a state law criminalizing election-related, AI-generated “deepfake” photos, video and sound. Hancock’s legal imbroglio illustrates one of the most common problems with generative AI , a technology that has taken the world by storm since San Francisco’s OpenAI released its ChatGPT bot in November 2022. The AI chatbots and image generators often produce errors known as hallucinations, which in text can involve misinformation, and in images, absurdities like six-fingered hands. In his regretful filing with the court, Hancock — who studies AI’s effects on misinformation and trust — detailed how his use of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to produce his expert submission led to the errors. Hancock confessed that in addition to the fake study by Huang, Zhang, Wang, he had also included in his declaration “a nonexistent 2023 article by De keersmaecker & Roets,” plus four “incorrect” authors for another study. Seeking to bolster his credibility with “specifics” of his expertise, Hancock claimed in the filing that he co-wrote “the foundational piece” on communication mediated by AI. “I have published extensively on misinformation in particular, including the psychological dynamics of misinformation, its prevalence, and possible solutions and interventions,” Hancock wrote. He used ChatGPT 4.0 to help find and summarize articles for his submission, but the errors likely got in later when he was drafting the document, Hancock wrote in the filing. He had inserted the word “cite” into the text he gave the chatbot, to remind himself to add academic citations to points he was making, he wrote. “The response from GPT-4o, then, was to generate a citation, which is where I believe the hallucinated citations came from,” Hancock wrote, adding that he believed the chatbot also made up the four incorrect authors. Related Articles Education | Bay Area native’s online talk show interviews AI chatbots Education | Letters: Simitian farewell thank you | Growing footprint | SNAP reauthorization | DOGE ax | Democratic apathy | Shifting burden Education | Court declaration by Stanford AI fakery expert contained apparent AI fakery, lawyers claim Education | Apple readies more conversational Siri in bid to catch up in AI Education | Silicon Valley tech boom lifts California’s dreary budget view Hancock had declared under penalty of perjury that he “identified the academic, scientific, and other materials referenced” in his expert submission, the YouTuber and legislator said in their Nov. 16 filing. That filing also questioned Hancock’s reliability as an expert witness. Hancock, in apologizing to the court, asserted that the three errors, “do not impact any of the scientific evidence or opinions” he presented as an expert. The judge in the case has set a Dec. 17 hearing to determine whether Hancock’s expert declaration should be thrown out, and whether the Minnesota attorney general can file a corrected version of the submission. Stanford, where students can be suspended and ordered to do community service for using a chatbot to “ substantially complete an assignment or exam ” without permission from their instructor, did not immediately respond to questions about whether Hancock would face disciplinary measures. Hancock did not immediately respond to similar questions. Hancock is not the first to submit a court filing containing AI-generated nonsense. Last year, lawyers Steven A. Schwartz and Peter LoDuca were fined $5,000 each in federal court in New York for submitting a personal-injury lawsuit filing that contained fake past court cases invented by ChatGPT to back up their arguments. “I did not comprehend that ChatGPT could fabricate cases,” Schwartz told the judge.Priorities in India’s Indo-Pacific Order: Astute Realpolitik or Flexible Diplomacy?
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Eight-time Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick , architect of one of the greatest sports dynasties of all time and renowned as one of the top leaders ever to coach the game, is the University of North Carolina's new head football coach. Belichick, the second-winningest coach in NFL history, agreed to a five-year deal pending approval by the University's Board of Trustees and Board of Governors. A news conference will be held at a time to be determined to formally introduce the Tar Heels' new coach. "This is an exciting day for Carolina football and our University,'' said chancellor Lee H. Roberts. "Carolina is committed to excellence and to creating an opportunity to succeed in everything we do, from the classroom to the field of competition. I know after speaking with Coach Belichick that he shares that commitment. His legacy speaks for itself, and we look forward to working together on the next chapter of Carolina football." Said Carolina director of athletics Bubba Cunningham: "We know that college athletics is changing, and those changes require new and innovative thinking. Bill Belichick is a football legend, and hiring him to lead our program represents a new approach that will ensure Carolina football can evolve, compete and win -- today and in the future. At Carolina, we believe in providing championship opportunities and the best experience possible for our student-athletes, and Coach Belichick shares that commitment. We are excited to welcome him to Chapel Hill." Belichick, who holds the NFL record for most Super Bowl wins (six with the New England Patriots as head coach and two more with the New York Giants as defensive coordinator), said: "I am excited for the opportunity at UNC-Chapel Hill. I grew up around college football with my Dad and treasured those times. I have always wanted to coach in college and now I look forward to building the football program in Chapel Hill." A three-time AP NFL Coach of the Year (2003, 2007, 2010), Belichick has an all-time NFL head coaching record of 333-178 (.652) and is only 14 NFL wins away from the overall wins record. He is a member of the NFL's All-Decade Team for the 2000s and the 2010s, and he also was a member of the NFL's 100th Anniversary All-Time Team and holds the record for most NFL Playoff victories (31). Belichick began his coaching career in 1975 as an assistant for the Baltimore Colts and became the defensive coordinator of the New York Giants in 1985, where he won two Super Bowls under Bill Parcells. He was named head coach of the Cleveland Browns in 1991 and was at the helm for five seasons. He also coached with the New England Patriots and New York Jets before becoming the head coach of the Patriots in 2000. In 24 seasons under Belichick as a head coach, New England won 17 AFC East titles, made 13 AFC Championship appearances, and nine Super Bowl appearances. Belichick also has ties to North Carolina. Belichick's father, Steve, was an assistant football coach for the Tar Heels from 1953-55 before going on to become assistant coach for more than three decades at the United States Naval Academy. There, Bill Belichick attended team meetings and film sessions with his father. He knew how to diagram complex plays before he became a teenager and credits his dad for teaching him the details of football at a young age. He graduated in 1975 from Wesleyan University, where he played football and lacrosse. He has three children: Amanda, Stephen and Brian. Chapel Bill 😎 pic.twitter.com/Z61LnVYGKe — Carolina Football (@UNCFootball) December 12, 2024 Excited is an understatement 🤩 #CarolinaFootball | #ChapelBill pic.twitter.com/aTCTO8fiea — Carolina Football (@UNCFootball) December 12, 2024 Welcome home, coach 🐏🩵 #CarolinaFootball | #ChapelBill pic.twitter.com/v4Z0Rp6j7K — Carolina Football (@UNCFootball) December 12, 2024USWNT goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher comes up big in her final game for the United States - The AthleticNone
